SOURCE: Betts, Christopher. “Constructing Utilitarianism: Montesquieu on Suttee in the Letters Persanes,” French Studies 51, 1 (January, 1997): 19-29.
In this essay, Betts casts a critical eye on Letter 125 of Montesquieu's Persian Letters, in which Montesquieu condemns the Hindu custom of sati, to demonstrate that the principles underlying his argument anticipate the Utilitarianism of a later era. Betts also raises the possibility that the coded message of the letter is not anti-Hindu but anti-Christian.
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