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Individualisms of various kinds are pervasive in the social sciences and in moral, social and political theory. Thus some social theorists maintain that individual human beings exist but that there is nothing distinctively social in their interactions that we must countenance ontologically (metaphysical individualism). Others argue that ‘social facts,’ whatever their ontological status, should be explained by facts about individuals (methodological individualism). And virtually all philosophers assume that the point of departure for addressing normative questions about social and political arrangements should be individuals and their interests. These are, of course, distinct claims. But they are sustained by similar intuitions. I believe that in general these intuitions are sound, but that the full-blown doctrines they suggest are importantly mistaken. In what follows, I shall focus on one aspect of this very general claim. I shall dispute the form of individualism that nowadays pervades (normative) political theory while endorsing the individualist intuitions that motivate it.
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1 Very generally, utilitarians construe individuals’ interests in utility terms and then propose that utility be maximized; contractarians respect individuals’ interests by determining what individuals, insofar as they are rational, could reasonably accept (or not reject) given the interests they have; and rights theorists hold that certain interests (specified in rights claims) take precedence over other considerations, including utilitarian calculations or hypothetical agreements.
2 See, for example, Hillel Ruben, DavidThe Metaphysics of the Social World (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1985)Google Scholar, ch. 1-3.
3 The claims advanced in this paragraph and the two that follow it are defended in Erik Olin Wright, Andrew Levine, and Elliott Sober, Reconstructing Marxism (London: Verso 1992), ch. 6. If, pragmatic considerations apart, the best explanations of social facts actually do make exclusive reference to individuals, it will not be for methodological reasons, but because the world turns out to have such a causal structure. In other words, the viability of methodological individualism is something to be discovered, not stipulated.
4 The Social Contract, Book I, ch. 6
5 In attempting to make sense of Rousseau’s idea, Kant recognized the importance of what has come to be called ‘the moral equality of persons’ for implementing a genuine ‘republic of ends.’ Following Kant, we can say that persons must be equal as moral agents. But equality in this sense is unlikely to be realized in real world situations unless there is considerable equality of status and condition among the deliberating parties. Thus the distinction between private and general willing, despite Rousseau’s insistence to the contrary, is not exhaustive. There can be deliberations that are not private will deliberations, that are also not general will deliberations in Rousseau’s sense. Parents, for example, can privilege the interests of the family of which they are an integral part over their own well-being and even over the well-being of their children without deliberating in accord with the Rousseauean model, because of the inequalities of status and condition that the parent-child relationship entails.
6 Cf. Sen, Amartya K. ‘Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory,’ in Mansbridge, Jane J. ed., Beyond Self-interest (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1990)Google Scholar.
7 Cf. Brandt, Richard B. ‘Two Concepts of Utility,’ in Miller, Harlan B. and Williams, William H. eds., The Limits of Utilitarianism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1982)Google Scholar.
8 I assume that with respect to the nature of (non-welfarist) interests nothing of consequence hinges on how large communities are or on how they are individuated. Thus, for the present purpose, I consider the couple John-Mary a ‘whole community’ in just the way that Rousseau’s de jure state is.
9 See, for example, The Social Contract, Book II, ch. 3 and Book IV, ch. 2.
10 Ecologiste are more likely to invoke rights than interests but their ideas would seem to lend themselves more naturally to the idiom just proposed.
11 Cf. Levine, AndrewThe End of the State (London: Verso 1987)Google Scholar, passim.
12 In this case, it is not even plain that only the interests of John and Mary and John-Mary bear on their choice of domicile. If their place of residence appropriately affects the interests, however construed, of individuals other than John and Mary, these other persons ought presumably to have a role in the decision too. Arguably, even the judgments of individuals not directly affected may also be relevant.
13 Thus in the Leviathan (see especially ch. 13), Hobbes depicts individuals as ‘diffident,’ ‘vainglorious’ and ‘competitive’ and therefore inclined to seek security, domination of others, and untrammeled acquisition of resources. It is these aspects of human nature, not the fact that individuals’ wills are radically independent of one another, that motivate Hobbes’s claims about the nature of individuals’ wants.
14 Rousseau’s social contract is not a negotiated outcome in which parties advance their own ends as much as possible, subject to the constraint that others are trying to advance their own ends as well. The social contract, as Rousseau conceived it, is the outcome desired most by each contracting party. It is, as it were, each individual’s initial bargaining position.
15 See The Social Contract, Book II, ch. 5.
16 See Oilman, BerteliAlienation: Marx’s Conception of Man in Capitalist Society (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 1971)Google Scholar.
17 Cf. Althusser, LouisFor Marx (London: Allen Lane 1969)Google Scholar; Althusser, Louis and Balibar, EtienneReading Capital (London: New Left Books 1970)Google Scholar.
18 I have, however, argued implicitly for the applicability of the Rousseauean idea in The End of the State, and I pursue this claim and also issues pertaining to the desirability of general will coordination in The General Will (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993).