Abstract
Sade wrote at a transformative moment in the relationship between science and ethics, between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. In contrast with Gilles de Rais, who murdered hundreds of children for the enjoyment of it, Sade remains within the Enlightenment tradition, his perversion framed within a writing practice that outlined a philosophy of libertinage. Sade’s texts teach psychoanalysis about the radicality of jouissance , an insistent beyond of the pleasure principle. Sadean crime says something more ‘true’ about enjoyment than can dutiful obedience. He places the Law itself on trial, exposing the body of the Judge always covertly at work in legal judgements. If, in our times, law and criminology are moving toward a ‘bodyless’ science, rooted in genetics and neuroscience, are they becoming increasingly perverse as they do so?
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Notes
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Michels, A. (2017). What Does Sade Teach Us About the Body and the Law?. In: Caine, D., Wright, C. (eds) Perversion Now!. The Palgrave Lacan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47271-3_20
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