The Discours sur le bonheur or the development of a hedonistic and materialist morality via two questions One on the apology of passions and studies and the other on the education of women

We propose reading Émilie Du Châtelet’s Discours sur le bonheur as the deployment of a hedonistic and materialist morality via two questions: one on the apology of passions and studies and the other on the education of women. She shows that women have only one way to acquire glory, their studies, all other paths being cut off to them. Ultimately, in her materialist and hedonistic morality, she is very close to La Mettrie, with whom she seems to be in dialogue.