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The Immorality of Morality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Extract
The traditional morality of conscience, according to Freud, is based for the most part on the suppression of the instincts. His psychoanalytic theory provides a genetic and functional account of how and why this is so. Genetically, the theory purports to explain the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of the traditional morality of conscience. Functionally it attempts to explain the failure of this morality and propose an alternative theory which will work out better in practice. Each part of his theory can be discussed separately, but neither can be divorced completely from the other. Freud's theory is not only an explanation of what morality in fact is from a descriptive scientific point of view, but also what morality ought and ought not to be from the normative standpoint of psychoanalysis. Thus, each part of the theory is integrally related to the other.
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- Copyright © 1969 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1 Sigmund Freud, "Civilization and Its Discontents," The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey et al. (London, 1953-), XXI, 126. Cited hereafter as S.E.
2 Freud, "The Future of an Illusion," S.E., XXI, 40-42. Cited hereafter as " FI."
3 Freud, New Introductory Lectures (New York, 1933), pp. 110-111. Cited hereafter as NI.
4 Freud, The Ego and the Id (New York, 1960), pp. 50-52.
5 Freud, "FI," S.E., XXI, 11.
6 Freud, "The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex," S.E., XXI, 176-177.
7 Freud, "The Ego and the Id," S.E., XXI, 34. Cited hereafter as "EI."
8 Freud, "Civilization and its Discontents," S.E., XXI, 125. Cited hereafter as " CD."
9 Freud, " CD," S.E., XXI, 127-128.
10 Freud, NI, p. 109.
11 Freud, NI, pp. 233-234.
12 Freud, NI, p. 109.
13 Freud, "The Question of Lay Analysis," S.E., 223. In the above quotation Freud seems to equate mental health with being moral. This may be so but in fact as I shall show later in this paper the more important concern for Freud is, at least in regard to morality, the attitude of being impersonal. Hence I shall avoid discussing here the obvious incommensurability of mental health and morality.
14 Freud, "EI," S.E., XIX, 56-57.
15 Freud, "EI," S.E., XIX, 54.
16 Freud, "Why War," Collected Papers (London, 1950), V, 286-287. Cited hereafter as CP.
17 Freud, "Beyond the Pleasure Principle," S.E., XVIII, 21-23.
18 Edward Glover, Freud or Jung? (London, 1950), pp. 55-56.
19 For the quotations cited in this part of the paper, see Freud, "CD," S.E., XXI, 131-132.
20 Freud, "EI," S.E., XIX, 57.
21 Freud, "Dostoevski and Parricide," CP, V, 237.
22 Freud, "EI," S.E., XIX, 52.
23 Freud, "The Subtleties of a Faculty Action," S.E., XXII, 234.
24 Freud, NI, pp. 200-201.
25 Freud, "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego," S.E., XVIII, 75.
26 Freud, "CD," S.E., XXI, 145.
27 For the above quotations, see Freud, "Appendix: A Letter from Theodore Reik," S.E., XXI, 196.
28 Freud, NI, pp. 149-151.
29 Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (New York, 1949), passim. Cf. also Freud "Analysis Terminable and Interminable," CP, V, 316-357.
30 Freud, "CD," S.E., XXI, 109-111.