Nature, Desire, and the Law: On Libertinism and Early Modern Legal Theory

Abstract

A central concept in early modern political thought, especially in England, is the notion of the "state of nature." Thomas Hobbes and, one generation later, John Locke, use it as the "clean slate" or "ground zero" for contractualist theories on political sovereignty. More than just a condition in which everyone fights against everyone for survival, "state of nature" denotes the maximal complexity of a society without a central authority. Contractualist thinkers such as Hobbes and Locke close the door of governmental anomy by developing a strong regime or a strict rule of law, but libertinism profits from the gap between the real and the legal society by imagining the rule of lust. The nature of these "libidinal politics" is most potently represented by the poems and performances of John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, courtier of King Charles II. By means of a thought experiment, the possible impact of libertinism on Restoration governmentality is compared to the most radical libertine doctrine: the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade. One century later and in a very different historical regime, Sade's extremism nevertheless sheds a light on the discontinuous development of political secularism in England.