Para onde vai a vontade geral quando a sociedade degenera?

Abstract

This paper is a reconstruction and analysis of the establishment of the pact and of the general will in Rousseau's Social Contract, aiming to answer the question posed in the title. The Social Contract is analyzed, especially the concept of general will and the reasons for the institution of the pact, since the political body (the State) is perishable while the general will is indestructible, despite the inevitable degeneration of all things human. We hope to demonstrate, even when considering the paradoxical aspects of the general will, the success of a great idea: the autonomy of the self as free will, being the fundamental idea of modernity.