The Commonwealth as Agent

In this dissertation, I argue for a Rousseauvian vision of an ideal society: one in which the people constitute a group agent, unified under a collective will, willing action that constitutes the common good. Most have tended to believe that the contrasts between an individual agent and an entire people are stark, and so accounts of the commonwealth that appeal to group agency at all usually emphasize the differences between them. I will argue, however, that members of a society collectively constitute an agent that resembles an individual agent more closely than is normally supposed. Specifically, I will argue that a society is under normative pressure to engage in projects and activities that are good or worthwhile, that it may permissibly impose burdens on some members as it attempts to realize the common good, and that when properly constituted it possesses a collective will that has authority over its members.