A vontade geral : do século XVII à democracia digital

Abstract

The Modern Age provided the Philosophy with a wide number of influential thinkers, whose theories keep actual until nowadays. Among these notorious authors was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, remarkable by the volonté générale concept. Nevertheless, the expression was not created by him and has been used with diverse purposes since Samuel Pufendorf. Therefore, what the Citizen of Geneva in fact made was the appropriation of the expression and its secularization, attitude that revolutionized the political thinking by removing the power of the ruler and laying it amongst the citizens. Almost 240 years have passed since Rousseau’s death and both society and politics became more complex. With the arrival of the Internet and the strengthening of the network society, governance forms that employ digital platforms began to be discussed by theorists from distinct fields of knowledge. Amid the several political models thus emerged, the digital democracy arises with the promise of promoting an environment suitable for the citizen’s participation. Considering these facts, the present work sought to investigate the general will’s idea in two moments: first, since the concept’s genesis until Rousseau; second, how the constitutive elements of the volonté générale are found in John Rawls’ philosophy and in the digital democracy. Therefore, our intent is to understand how the concept could keep itself present until now, showing how the Citizen of Geneva’s theory still dialogues with us on the XXI century.