“In the writings of such once popular writers as Erich Fromm, Philip Rieff, Herbert Marcuse, and Erik Erikson, one looks in vain for clarity as to the precise issues in ethics that psychoanalysis is capable of illuminating. [….] [P]hilosophical ethicists have not been particularly interested in psychoanalysis by and large. Those few philosophers who have studied psychoanalysis sympathetically and in depth (e.g., [Paul] Ricoeur, Jürgen Habermas, [Richard] Wollheim) have been concerned only incidentally with its ethical import. To be sure, Richard Rorty has recently drawn out what he takes to be the ethical implications of psychoanalysis, but his views are based more on an impressionistic reading of how Freud supports his own post-modernist moral pragmatism than on careful study of what Freud actually holds. In the writing of most ethicists, Freud, if he is mentioned at all, is treated as the chief modern enemy of morality, whose work is best ignored or flatly condemned in the process of getting on with the task of doing traditional moral philosophy, unimpeded by the sort of depth-psychological considerations that have transformed everyday morality outside the academy.” — Ernest Wallwork, Psychoanalysis and Ethics (Yale University Press, 1991)
Although written thirty years ago, Wallwork’s remarks remain, unfortunately, largely true, but with some notable exceptions having since surfaced. First, however, permit me to point out that Wollheim published a couple of works after this was written which suggest that he was more than “incidentally” concerned with the ethical significance of psychoanalysis. As for the exceptions, and while they are not, strictly speaking and apart from Michael Stocker, from the pens of prominent ethicists or moral philosophers, such philosophers as Ilham Dilman, J. David Velleman, John Deigh, Michael Stocker, John Cottingham, Jonathan Lear, and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty have delved deeply into the ethical ramifications and implications of psychoanalysis, each in their own inimitable fashion and thus all worth your attention should this subject interest you. Until the rise of “virtue” and “care” ethics (and the resuscitation of Scottish Enlightenment philosophers), contemporary philosophers specializing in ethics and moral philosophy virtually ignored moral psychology and so it should not be surprising that “depth-psychological considerations” were neglected as well. This specific neglect of psychoanalysis might have warranted an entire chapter in Stephen Gaukroger’s The Failures of Philosophy: An Historical Essay (Princeton University Press, 2020).
Should you want a fairly short argument on behalf of the need to integrate psychoanalytic theory and therapy into (philosophical) ethics, I recommend John Cottingham’s treatment of the principal issues in the section, “Psychoanalysis and the Ethical Domain,” from his book, Philosophy and the Good Life: Reason and the Passions in Greek, Cartesian and Psychoanalytic Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 1998): 131-166. As Cottingham says,
“In its initial challenge to reason, and in the hope it offers for a new kind of self-understanding, the psychoanalytic approach has inevitable implications for the traditional enterprise of philosophical ethics. Ever since Socrates, the [Western] philosophical enterprise has been seen as involving some element of self-examination [this was an early component of philosophies in Asia as well], and there is a sense in which psychoanalytic theory simply carries that process forward, albeit in a more radically introspective fashion. Ultimately, I believe, it is a mistake to think there is a fundamental discontinuity between psychoanalytic and philosophical modes of searching for the good life [to be sure, however, the aims of the former are often far more modest and limited than those of the latter mode].”
All of this is perfectly compatible with Dilman’s conclusion that “Freud’s whole idea of morality is crude and riddled with philosophical confusion,” as it is not Freud’s specific conception of morality that defines the values and practices of psychoanalysis relevant to ethics as Dilman himself and several of the philosophers listed above attest. Yet we would be remiss should we fail to neglect the fact that, in Wallwork’s words, psychoanalysts has failed generally “to appreciate the rigorous analytic and logical work of contemporary ethicists,” … [thus] not avail[ing] themselves of important intellectual resources for assessing the adequacy of their own high controversial assumptions about the nature and grounding of morality.” Here our focus is on what contemporary ethics might and should learn from psychoanalytic theorizing that falls under the heading of that subdivision within philosophy termed “philosophy of mind,” this entails psychoanalytic therapy’s contribution to philosophical ethics as well as a person’s ability to get her bearings in daily life from a moral and ethical compass. With regard to psychoanalytic therapy (the contribution of which to ethics can be distinguished from psychoanalytic theory proper), for example, the patient or analysand is offered
“… something new; that is, he learns something new about himself from the relationship [with the analyst] and this involves learning new attitudes and new values. The values in question may not be new to him at all, but he learns what it means to keep faith with them and the difficulties this involves. In the process he develops a regard for them he did not have before. One of these values is [variously termed] independence, self-reliance, freedom or autonomy. He learns to establish himself in his relationships with others on a more equal footing. He gives up his false attitudes towards them, exaggerated attitudes of false modesty and of false pride. He learns to consider and respect others without fearing to displease them. He learns to be open with them, to listen to them, without fearing to think for himself and be what he is. Above all, he learns to be close to the people for whom he cares without seeking to merge his identity with theirs or to incorporate theirs into his. This, at the same time is coming to value individual autonomy [which is rooted in moral psychological autonomy].
Certainly, in psychoanalysis the patient learns self-respect and the courage to be himself. But he also learns to respect others, to be giving in his relationships, and to value generosity. Winnicott’s notion of ‘mature dependence’ captures well the balance between these two values which can come into conflict with each other. Put it like this: on the one hand the patient comes to learn the value of independence and of relationships in which others recognize his separateness and respect him as an individual, while on the other hand he learns to acknowledge the value of a life of contact and give and take with others, enriched by affection, humour, concern, and sustained by loyalty.
Analysis, when it works, enables him to grow out of infantile and selfish orientations, particularly in his most intimate relationships. Many of the feelings and attitudes in question, such as greed, envy and jealousy, are such as to keep him in bondage and curtail his autonomy. With luck, what he discovers in himself and the support he finds in the analytic relationship help him to ‘grow out’ of such attitudes and develop a different orientation. This liberates him from cravings that thrust the self to the centre of the stage, cravings of an ego that has remained weak, hungry, and infantile. It also enables him to realize what he values for itself.
Authenticity, honesty or being truthful with oneself and others; autonomy or the freedom to be oneself, to think for oneself and act on one’s own behalf; respect and concern for others, the ability to establish relationships of affection, loyalty, and friendship; creativity, however modest, in the pursuit of one’s interests, and all the attendant capacities such as initiative, trust and generosity are the central qualities which are valued in the kind of orientation implicit in a psychoanalytic approach and promoted by psychoanalytic therapy [emphasis added]. Such qualities of characters as manipulativeness, domineeringness, vanity, cruelty, servility, meanness, egocentricity, possessiveness, mere conformity, all attitudes that are false or compulsive, such as certain forms of submissiveness or overbearingness, and such traits as signal a failure to attain certain standards of character, such as irresponsibility, fickleness and cowardice, are viewed with disfavour in the light of these values. The ‘authoritarian’ attitude, to which both Fromm and Money-Kyrle refer, is seen as violating some of these values, particularly those of individual autonomy, criticism, and independence of thought.” From Ilham Dilman’s Freud: Insight and Change (Basil Blackwell, 1988)
Further Reading
Please see my short article on “Freudian and Post-Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory and Therapy: An Incipient ‘Science of Subjectivity’ and Therapeutic Model,” and this bibliography for secondary literature on “Psychoanalytic Psychology and Therapy.”
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