The Problem of Sati: John Locke’s Moral Anthropology and the Foundations of Natural Law

Abstract John Locke’s philosophical engagement with the phenomenon of the ritual suicide of the sati—the Hindu wife who self-immolated following her husband’s death—has escaped attention from scholars despite substantial critical interest in early modern European reflection on this cultural and religious tradition by travelers and commentators. Locke cited the practice in early manuscripts in which he formulated his position on natural law and innateness. Against the view that general consent provided a foundation for natural law he drew attention to sati as evidence against self-preservation as a universally shared belief. He again referred to sati when he attacked the notion of innate moral principles in 1671. However, sati remained a problem for Locke, and this essay investigates why he dropped it from his repertoire of examples in his published work, especially An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690). I trace this decision to Locke’s need to preserve hedonism as a principle of motivation; his divergent anthropologies in the Essay and in the Two Treatises of Government; and finally to the influence of his reading of François Bernier and Abraham Roger, which led him to draw sati into an alternative anthropology of religious enthusiasm.