Kant and Marquis de Sade: Comparing radical philosophy and morality

More Radical: Kant or Marquis de Sade?
With the question of who is more radical, Kant or Sade, one must examine what the two are saying and advocating and the extent to which they are breaking with the past ideas and culture that came before them. A radical is one who represents a fundamental change to the nature of things as they are—and so, of the two, the most radical (considering the nature of the times in which they lived) would have to be Sade. Sade advocated a totally self-centered pursuit of Egoism. Egoism is what underlined Sade’s philosophy towards life. Kant on the other hand promoted the idea of duty ethics—deontology—the notion that one’s morality is determined by whether or not one does the duty expected of him in his role or state in life. Kant’s ideas were not that much different from what had come before—they were simply expressed in a new way. Sade’s ideas were much more different and radical in the face of the Christian, Puritanical periods that had preceded them and were still present in the culture (though, indeed, they were being challenged by the revolutionary ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers). It is important, too, to recognize this difference because Kant’s philosophical approach to the Enlightenment was to emphasize the need for freedom with respect to the use of reason, which laid the groundwork for the system of duty ethics. Again and again in his 1784 essay “What is Enlightenment?” Kant insists that people must be free to think and use their reason to probe, ask questions, and argue. In Sade’s History of Juliette, one sees the call for a total inversion of morality: instead of a traditional Mass being celebrated in St. Peter’s by the Pope, Sade envisions a black Mass being celebrated by the Pontiff at Juliette’s bequest. Sade can thus be seen as laying the groundwork not for Reformation but rather for the complete abolishment of religion through what can only be described as Satanism (an anti-Christian expression of Egoism). Kant thus represents nothing really radical other than a call for liberation of the mind—i.e., the right to challenge intellectual propositions that were going unchallenged at the time. Sade represented nothing but radicalism—a total overthrow of the established moral order and the advocacy for pure, uninhibited license. And, yet, from an intellectual perspective, one could argue that Kant is the more radical of the two for he is directly challenging authority at the intellectual level in “What is Enlightenment?” This paper will, therefore, show how depending on the perspective one adopts, both Kant and Sade can be seen as more radical than the other.
Of course, Kant and Sade were both children of the Enlightenment—the difference between them was that Enlightenment meant something totally unique to them each. For Kant, Enlightenment meant freedom to use one’s reason—an exercise that, Kant saw, would naturally lead man to his higher moral self, conscious of the duty he owed to himself and to society. For Sade, Enlightenment meant the realization that one could pursue one’s “lower passions” without guilt for those passions were actually not “low” but rather grand and liberating—a delight to pursue and enjoy. Sade describe Juliette, for instance, in these terms: a mistress of Saint-Fond who “likes to masturbate as she contemplates her jewels and her riches: she reaches orgasm as she thinks over…this strange thought: I love crime, and see all the means of crime at my disposal” (Sade 118). For Sade, this type of thinking was “enlightened”—and it was pure, unadulterated Egoism—a radical departure from the fundamental philosophies and moral preponderances of the past and present at the time.
Both Kant and Sade objected to restraint and constriction—but they were, again, speaking with a different understanding or meaning of these terms. Kant objected to the officer restricting a person from thinking or using his reason as it was his natural right and duty to use. Sade objected to society and society’s “moral police” restricting an individual from doing—i.e., from masturbating if he or she wanted to. Kant stated clearly: “The public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men” (2). Sade argued for something complete different: “Horrors, atrocities, and the juices run deliciously when their flow gushes out from the midst of abomination. Frig me, Elvire, I must come” (121). Kant was arguing for reason, Sade for passion. Sade would be the forbearer of the Romantic Age and the later age of license of liberalism. Kant reached back to an earlier, more classical age—one of prudence and virtue, obtained through the right exercise of the mind and will in unison. Sade was for liberating the will from the clutches of society’s sense of morality, conscience, and propriety. Kant was for explaining why morality, conscience and propriety have to be pursued with an open respect for serious questions: “let every citizen, and especially the clergyman, in the role of scholar, make his comments freely and publicly, i.e. through writing, on the erroneous aspects of the present institution” (4). He was not at all advocating for the kind of license described by Sade in his works. Sade was the more radical: Sade sought to overthrow whatever established moral order existed at the time. He had in mind a new moral order, constructed from devotion to the pleasures afforded by carnality. Kant wanted simply liberation of the mind from the artificial constraints placed on it by authorities, who feared having their own doctrines and dogmas, systems and laws questioned by men with penetrating minds and the ability to reason with logic.
Kant thus follows in the footsteps of the ancients. He echoes Plato whose famous Allegory of the Cave talks about men liberating themselves from shadows, from the false belief that those shadows were real. Kant writes, “only one who is himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows” (5). Kant recognizes that one true enlightenment is the pursuit of truth up the mountain of philosophy through the application of reason. Kant makes no moral judgments in “What is Enlightenment?” beyond advocating for the freedom to use one’s mind to think and ask questions.
And yet if the discussion of who is more radical, Kant or Sade, is going to be presented in terms of morality, one could just as easily argue that Kant is the more radical of the two, as he asserts for the liberation of the mind, which is the guide of all action and thus is the ultimate cornerstone. Sade merely advocates for what would have been called “sin” in those days—lust, greed, sloth, avarice, idolatry and so on. Sade is not really revolutionary in terms of calling for sin: people have done that throughout all time. In every culture there has been those who celebrate what was known as “sinful” to Europe for a thousand years at least. Sade is simply repeating that same celebration in “the History of Juliette”—it is really nothing new or radical in this sense.
What Kant is arguing for in “What is Enlightenment?” could be called radical from an intellectual point of view, because it does not propose any constraints or parameters in terms of the use of reason. It assumes that reason in itself can do no harm and thus lays the foundation for the revolutionary idea that would hit Paris like a bomb—the worship of Reason (and later the Reign of Terror). Kant may not have been implying in his essay that such a course of action would be good or desirable in society, but he was implying that the free pursuit of reason is necessary in a free society—the reason being that truth is important to man and to his being. If he is not allowed to pursue it with his mind, through argument and debate in public, the very foundations of society and community will not withstand the chaos and pain that follows. Kant could thus be called the more radical of the two because he was not yielding up to the pessimism and skepticism of his times. He was insisting that man could know things, that man could use his mind to discern and to understand. He was insisting that men should be able to question the authorities and that if the authorities truly do have a leg to stand upon they will be able to answer—otherwise, what good are they anyway? In this manner, Kant is actually calling for a kind of intellectual revolution against the weak-in-the-mind authorities’ established order of the time. From this perspective, Kant can be seen as more radical than Sade, for all Sade is doing is reveling in “sin”—in fornication and so on. There is nothing in that that society would have been shocked by: his works were considered indecent and immoral, but people were certainly acquainted with the ideas and actions presented in works like “The History of Juliette.”
Thus, depending upon how one looks at that matter, both authors can be seen as more radical than the other. Kant from an intellectual perspective can be seen as more radical than Sade. Sade from a moral order perspective can be seen as more radical than Kant. Both were children of the Enlightenment and therefore embraced the notion of liberty—but each embraced it for different purposes. Kant wanted a liberation of the mind so that men could be free to pursue reason and ultimately truth. Sade wanted a liberation of the conscience so that people could be free to fornicate and celebrate abomination if they so desired. In their own ways they were radical, and depending upon what perspective one adopts, either one could be seen as more radical than the other.

Works Cited Kant, Immanuel. “What is Enlightenment?” Sade, Marquis de. “The History of Juliette.”