kant and sade 01

8/3/2019 Kant and Sade 01

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AH/HFrlazi

B: Springhero

Of all the couples in the history of modern thought (Freud and Lacan, Marx and Lenin...), Kant and Sade

is perhaps the most problematic: the statement "Kant is Sade" is the "infinite judgement" of modern

ethics, positing the sign of equation between the two radical opposites, i.e. asserting that the sublime

disinterested ethical attitude is somehow identical to, or overlaps with, the unrestrained indulgence in

pleasurable violence.

A.

infinite judgement

B.

, infinite judgement

A lot-everything, perhaps-is at stake here: is there a line from Kantian formalist ethics to the cold-blooded

Auschwitz killing machine? Are concentration camps and killing and genocides as a neutral business the

inherent outcome of the enlightened insistence on the autonomy of Reason?

A.

B.

as a neutral business

Is there at least a legitimate lineage from Sade to Fascist torturing, as is implied by Pasolini's film version

of Sal, which transposes it into the dark days of Mussolini's Sal republic?


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A. Sal

B. 120

Sal

This link between Sade and Kant was first developed by Adorno and Horkheimer ( A/H) in the

( deservedly ) famous Excursion II ( Juliette or Enlightenment and Morals) of the Dialectic of

enlightenment : A?Hs fundamental thesis is that the work of Marquis de Sade displays the

Reason which is not led by another agency , that is is to say, the bourgeois subject, liberated from

a state of not yet being mature.

A.

B:

Some fifteen years later, Lacan ( without knowing about A/Hs version ) also developed this link first in his

Seminar on The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1958-59), [1] and then in the crits "Kant with Sade" of 1963.

[2]

A. (1958-59) [1] 1963

[2]

B.

(1958-59) [1] 1963

[2]

II

How, then, does Lacan stand in regard to the A/ H version of Kant with Sade ( i.e. of Sade as the truth of

Kantian ethics)? For Lacan also, Sade consequently deployed the inherent potential of the Kantian

philosophical revolution, although Lacan gives to this a somewhat different twisthis point is that Sade

honestly externalized the Voice of Conscience. ( which, in Kant, attests the subject s full ethical

autonomy, i.e. is self-posited/ imposed by the subject ) in the Executioner who terrorizes/tortures the

victimThe first association here is, of course: what's all the fuss about?

A. Voice of Conscience

B.


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Voice of Conscience

Today, in our postidealist Freudian era, doesn't everybody know what the point of the "with" is : the truth

of Kant's ethical rigorism is the sadism of the Law, i.e. the Kantian Law is a superego agency that

sadistically enjoys the subject's deadlock, his inability to meet its inexorable demands, like the proverbial

teacher who tortures pupils with impossible tasks and secretly savors their failings?

A.

C.

the sadism of the Law

what the point of the "with" is "with" Kant with Sade

Rigorism

The moral teaching which holds that when there is a conflict of two

opinions, one in favor of the law, the other in favor of liberty, the

law must always be observed, even if the opinion in favor of liberty

is the more probable or very probable one as compared with its

opposite.

Lacan's point, however, is the exact opposite of this first association: it is not Kant who was a closet

sadist, it is Sade who is a closet Kantian. That is to say, what one should bear in mind is that the focus of


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Lacan is always Kant, not Sade: what he is interested in are the ultimate consequences and disavowed

premises of the Kantian ethical revolution.

A.

D.

;

This first association it is not Kant who was a closet sadist, it is Sade

who is a closet Kantian. this first association Closet to describe people who want to keep some fact about themselves secret

02

AH/HFrlazi

B: Springhero

In other words, Lacan does not try to make the usual "reductionist" point that every ethical act, as pureand disinterested as it may appear, is always grounded in some "pathological" motivation (the agent's

own long-term interest, the admiration of his peers, up to the "negative" satisfaction provided by the

suffering and extortion often demanded by ethical acts);

A.

B.

the focus of Lacan's interest rather resides in the paradoxical reversal by means of which desire itself (i.e.

acting upon one's desire, not compromising it) can no longer be grounded in any "pathological" interests

or motivations and thus meets the criteria of the Kantian ethical act, so that "following one's desire"

overlaps with "doing one's duty." Suffice it to recall Kant's own famous example from his Critique of

Practical Reason:


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E.

F.

the focus of Lacan's interest rather resides in the paradoxical reversal by means of

which desire itself (i.e. acting upon one's desire by means of which which

he paradoxical reversal A

reductionist

Suppose that someone says his lust is irresistible when the desired object and opportunity are

present. Ask him whether he would not control his passions if, in front of the house where he has this

opportunity, a gallows were erected on which he would be hanged immediately after gratifying hislust. We do not have to guess very long what his answer may be."3

A.

B.

Lacan's counterargument here is that we certainly do have to guess what his answer may be : what if we

encounter a subject (as we do regularly in psychoanalysis), who can only fully enjoy a night of passion if

some form of "gallows" is threatening him, i.e. if, by doing it, he is violating some prohibition? [3]

A.


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[3]

C.

[3]

There was an Italian film from the 60's, Casanova 70, starring Virna Lisi and Marcello Mastroianni that

hinged on this very point: the hero can only retain his sexual potency if doing "it" involves some kind of

danger.

A. 60 Virna LisiMarcello Mastroianni 70Casanova 70

B.60 Virna LisiMarcello Mastroianni 70Casanova 70,

,

At the film's end, when he is on the verge of marrying his beloved, he wants at least to violate the

prohibition of premarital sex by sleeping with her the night before the wedding-however, his bride

unknowingly spoils even this minimal pleasure by arranging with the priest for special permission for the

two of them to sleep together the night before, so that the act is deprived of its transgressive sting. What

can he do now?

A.

B. ,

,,


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In the last shot of the film, we see him crawling on the narrow porch on the outside of the high-rise

building, giving himself the difficult task of entering the girl's bedroom in the most dangerous way, in a

desperate attempt to link sexual gratification to mortal danger

A.

B.

So, Lacan's point is that if gratifying sexual passion involves the suspension of even the most elementary

"egotistic" interests, if this gratification is clearly located "beyond the pleasure principle," then, in spite ofall appearances to the contrary, we are dealing with an ethical act, then his "passion" is stricto sensu

ethical... [4]

A.

[4]

B.

[4]

Lacan's further point is that this covert Sadean dimension of an "ethical (sexual) passion" is not read into

Kant by our eccentric interpretation, but is inherent to the Kantian theoretical edifice. [5]

A. Sadean

()

B. Sadean

()

this covert Sadean dimension of an "ethical (sexual) passion" ethical passion

covert


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inherent to

the Kantian theoretical edifice

If we put aside the body of "circumstantial evidence" for it (isn't Kant's infamous definition of

marriage-"the contract between two adults of the opposite sex about the mutual use of each other's

sexual organs"-thoroughly Sadean, since it reduces the Other, the subject's sexual partner, to a partial

object, to his/her bodily organ which provides pleasure, ignoring him/her as the Whole of a human

Person?), the crucial clue that allows us to discern the contours of "Sade in Kant" is the way Kant

conceptualizes the relationship between sentiments (feelings) and the moral Law.

A.

/

the Other/partial object/

/

B.

/the Other/partial object

//

If we put aside the body of "circumstantial evidence" for it it ethicalsexualpassion

"circumstantial evidence"

.

Although Kant insists on the absolute gap between pathological sentiments and the pure form of moral

Law, there is one a priori sentiment that the subject necessarily experiences when confronted with the

injunction of the moral Law, the pain of humiliation (because of man's hurt pride, due to the "radical Evil"

of human nature);

A.


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B.

there is one a priori sentiment that the subject necessarily experiences when confronted with the

injunction of the moral Law, the pain of humiliation

that the subject necessarily experiences a priori sentiment

when the subject isconfronted with the injunction of the moral Law

the pain of humiliationa priori sentiment the injunction of the moral Law,

AB

because of man's hurt pride, due to the "radical Evil" of human nature);

because ofdue to and

mans hurt pride mans hurt pride

, the pain of humiliation

the "radical Evil" of human nature);

radical Evil

In Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Kant discusses the

concept of radical evil. The German word radikal derives from the Latin

word rdx, which means root (Wurzel), origin (Ursprung), and

source (Quelle) (Kluge 664). Therefore, when Kant explains the

nature of radical evil, he also tries to enquire into the origin of moral evil

(Religion 35). Kant observes that the source of evil . . . can lie only in a

rule made by the will for the use of its freedom, that is, in a maxim (17).

In Critique of Practical Reason, Kant makes a similar statement which

echoes this observation. He writes that the concept of good and evil

must not be determined before the moral law . . . but only . . . after it and

by means of it (54). Therefore, in order to grasp the concept of evil, one

has to understand the struggle in a pathologically affected human will,

namely, the conflict of maxims with the practical laws cognized by


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himself

for Lacan, this Kantian privileging of pain as the only a priori sentiment is strictly correlative to Sade's

notion of pain (torturing and humiliating the other, being tortured and humiliated by him) as the privileged

way of access to sexual jouissance (Sade's argument, of course, is that pain is to be given priority overpleasure on account of its greater longevity-pleasures are passing, while pain can last almost

indefinitely).

A. /

sexual jouissance

B.

/sexual jouissance

C.

the only a priori sentiment is

only

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