SOURCE: "The Case for a Political System in Sade," in Studies on Voltaire in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. LXXXVIII, 1972, pp. 493-512.

Fink published numerous articles on Sade during the 1970s. In the following excerpt, she examines the political content of Sade's work and argues that he should be taken seriously as a political thinker."

Suppose it is accepted that Sade's socio-political models abound in logical inconsistencies having serious consequences for their theoretical credibility. Does it follow that Sade is therefore disqualified for membership in the fraternity of respectable political philosophers?

There are several reasons for suggesting that the answer to this question is not obviously in the affirmative. Since models and utopias can be deployed by a political writer for various purposes wherein the issue of their internal logical consistency is neither important nor relevant, a broader, more sophisticated criterion must be used both for determining Sade's objectives...