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Diderot Questions Christian Sexual Standards

Denis Diderot was one of the boldest thinkers of the Enlightenment. In his Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville, he constructed a dialogue between Orou, a Tahitian who symbolizes the wisdom of a philosophe, and a chaplain who defends Christian sexual mores. The dialogue gave Diderot the opportunity to criticize the practice of sexual chastity and monogamy.

Denis Diderot, Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville

[Orou, speaking to the Chaplain.] “You are young and healthy and you have just had a good supper. He who sleeps alone sleeps badly; at night a man needs a woman at his side. Here is my wife and here are my daughters. Choose whichever one pleases you most, but if you would like to do me a favor, you will give your preference to my youngest girl, who has not yet had any children….”

The chaplain replied that his religion, his holy orders, his moral standards and his sense of decency all prevented him from accepting Orou’s invitation.

Orou answered: “I don’t know what this thing is that you call religion, but I can only have a low opinion of it because it forbids you to partake of an innocent pleasure to which Nature, the sovereign mistress of us all, invites everybody. It seems to prevent you from bringing one of your fellow creatures into the world, from doing a favor asked of by a father, a mother and their children, from repaying the kindness of a host, and from enriching a nation by giving it an additional citizen…. Look at the distress you have caused to appear on the faces of these four women—they are afraid you have noticed some defect in them that arouses your distaste….”

The Chaplain: “You don’t understand—it’s not that. They are all four of them equally beautiful. But there is my religion! My holy orders! … [God] spoke to our ancestors and gave them laws; he prescribed to them the way in which he wishes to be honored; he ordained that certain actions are good and others he forbade them to do as being evil.”

Orou: “I see. And one of these evil actions which he has forbidden is that of a man who goes to bed with a woman or girl. But in that case, why did he make two sexes?”

The Chaplain: “In order that they might come together—but only when certain conditions are satisfied and only after certain initial ceremonies one man belongs to one woman and only to her; one woman belongs to one man and only to him.”

Orou: “For their whole lives?”

The Chaplain: “For their whole lives….”

Orou: “I find these strange precepts contrary to nature, and contrary to reason…. Furthermore, your laws seem to me to be contrary to the general order of things. For in truth is there anything so senseless as a precept that forbids us to heed the changing impulses that are inherent in our being, or commands that require a degree of constancy which is not possible, that violate the liberty of both male and female by chaining them perpetually to one another? … I don’t know what your great workman [God] is, but I am very happy that he never spoke to our forefathers, and I hope that he never speaks to our children, for if he does, he may tell them the same foolishness, and they may be foolish enough to believe it.”

What attack does Diderot make on Christian sexual standards? What does this passage say about enlightened conceptions of nature and the place of physical pleasure in healthy human life?

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That a science of man was possible was a strong belief of the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776). An important figure in the history of philosophy, Hume has also been called “a pioneering social scientist.” In his Treatise on Human Nature, which he subtitled “An Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects,” Hume argued that observation and reflection, grounded in “systematized common sense,” made conceivable a “science of man.” Careful examination of the experiences that constituted human life would lead to the knowledge of human nature that