Reaction to The Letters of Abelard and Heloise

Jason Carr

While reading this text, I was interested in the possible influence that the letters
and writings of Abelard and Heloise may have had on later moral philosophy.  In
particular, I was interested in Heloise's themes carried on into the moral
philosophy of Kant and Nietzsche, and the lonely theology of Kierkegaard.
      My understanding of the modern philosophical systems and of the original
twelfth century writings is flawed at best, but this is intended as a reaction,
rather than a scholarly piece on intellectual history.  
      KIERKEGAARD:  Heloise's insistence on the importance of internal dedication
foreshadows the later Jansenist heresy of post-counterReformation France.  Both
saw the flawed nature of the current society: for Heloise it was a judgmental
society, for the Jansenists it was the morally degraded society.  Ironically, the
Jansenists wanted to be left alone in their monasteries, while Heloise, for a time
at least, wanted to be rescued from her convent and left alone with her husband. 
Kierkegaard's painfully individual and personal approach to God (NOT religion)
seems to be the  direct heir of the Jansenists, and the emotional offspring of
Heloise.  Kierkegaard was tortured and hyperaware of his immediate relation to
God:  Heloise was tortured by the hypocrisy that a prioress had inwardly no
access to God because of her exclusive devotion to an earthly lord.
      Her insistence that "it is not the deed but the  intention of the doer which
makes the crime, and justice should weigh not what was done but the spirit in
which it is done" finds later expression notably in the deontological moral
philosophy of Kant.  Kant refers to the ascendancy of the intention over the 
ends, noting that the original intention would, even in the midst of tragic
results, project like a bright and shining jewel.  
      Heloise's tragic devotion to Abelard, and her denial of the sinful nature of
their love brings to mind a phrase which sounded radical some 700 years later: 
Nietzsche's declaration that whatever is done out of love occurs beyond good and
evil.  I do not claim that Heloise's moral personal philosophy singlehandedly
dictated to these thinkers, but it is likely that Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche
were not unfamiliar with these early letters.
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