Sadean Maxim as Universal Law
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Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English · Jacques Lacan · p.665
Guiding Remarks for a Convention on Female Sexuality > Kant with Sade
Theoretical move: Lacan argues that Sade's *Philosophy in the Bedroom* completes and reveals the truth of Kant's *Critique of Practical Reason*: both the Kantian moral law and the Sadean maxim of universal jouissance share the same deep structure—the split between the enunciating subject and the subject of the statement—showing that the moral imperative always requisitions us as Other, and that Sade's formulation is more honest precisely because it makes this split visible rather than covering it with the fiction of an inner voice.
The crux of the diatribe is, let us say, found in the maxim that proposes a rule for jouissance, which is odd in that it defers to Kant's mode in being laid down as a universal rule.