Ethics

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Ethics concerns human moral attitudes in general and, more specifically, rules of behavior and their justifications.

Lacan asserts that ethical thought "is at the center of our work as analysts.[1]

Lacan devotes a whole year of his seminar to a dicussion of ethics and psychoanalysis.[2]

Lacan continues to locate ethical questions at the heart of psychoanalytic theory.

{ethical problems converge in psychoanalytic treatment from two sides: the side of the analysand and the side of the analyst.}

The Analysand

On the side of the analysand is the problem of guilt and the pathogenic nature of civilised morality.

Freud posited a basic conflict between the demands of "civilized morality" and the essentially amoral sexual drives of the subject.

(When morality gains the upper hand in this conflict, and the drives are too strong to be sublimated, sexuality is either expressed in perverse forms or repressed, the latter leading to neurosis.)

For Freud, "civilized morality" is at the root of nervous illness.[3]

Freud further developed his ideas on the pathogenic nature of morality in his theory of an unconscious sense of guilt,

superego, an interior moral agency which becomes more cruel to the extent that the ego submits to its demands (Freud, 1923b).

whenever the analysand feels guilty it is because he has, at some point, given way on his desire.

'From an analytic point of view, the only thing of which one can be guilty is of having given ground relative to one's desire' (S7, 319).

The analysand presents the analyst with a sense of guilt.

The Analyst

(On the side of the analyst is the problem of how to deal with the pathogenic morality and unconscious guilt of the analysand, and also with the whole range of ethical problems that may arise in psychoanalytic treatment.)

(Certainly not by telling the analysand that he is not really guilty, or by attempting 'to soften, blunt or attenuate' his sense of guilt (S7, 3), or by analysing it away as a neurotic illusion. Lacan argues that the analyst must take the analysand's sense of guilt seriously.)

How is the analyst to respond to the analysand's sense of guilt?

The analyst's task is to discover where the analysand has given way on his desire.

Secondly, how is the analyst to respond to the pathogenic morality which acts via the superego?

the analyst simply has to help the analysand free himself from moral constraints.

Psychoanalysis, then, is not simply a libertine ethos.

pessimistic Freud of Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud, 1930a) and stating categorically that 'Freud was in no way a progressive."[4]

This seems to present the analyst with a moral dilemma.

On the one hand, he cannot simply align himself with civilised morality, since this morality is pathogenic.

On the other hand, nor can he simply adopt an opposing libertine approach, since this too remains within the field of morality.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag

Traditional Ethics

(This system of rules attributes values to behaviors by judging them to be good or bad according to their intrinsic moral qualities or their concrete social consequences. )

Lacan rejects the "traditional ethics]] of Aristotle, Kant and other moral philosophers.

Traditional ethics revolves around the concept of the Good. Traditional ethics is concerned with the Sovereign Good.

The psychoanalytic ethic sees the Good is an obstacle in the path of desire.

In psychoanalysis, "'a radical repudiation of a certain ideal of the good is necessary."Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content

The psychoanalytic ethic rejects all ideals (of "happiness" and "health").[5]

The desire of the analyst cannot therefore be the desire to 'do good' or 'to cure'.[6]

Pleasure

Traditional ethics tends to link the good to pleasure.

Moral thought has "developed along the paths of an essentially hedonistic problematic."[7]

The psychoanalytic ethic, however, cannot take such an approach because psychoanalytic experience has revealed the duplicity of pleasure; there is a limit to pleasure and, when this is transgressed, pleasure becomes pain

The Service of Goods

Traditional ethics revolves around "the service of goods."[8]

Traditional ethics puts work and a safe, ordered existence before questions of desire; it tells people to make their desires wait.[9]

The psychoanalytic ethic forces the subject to confront the relation between his actions and his desire in immediacy of the present.

The Ethics of Psychoanalysis

An ethical position is implicit in every way of directing psychoanalytic treatment.

The ethical position of the analyst is most clearly revealed by the way that he formulates the goal of the treatment.[10]

For example the formulations of ego-psychology about the adaptation of the ego to reality imply a normative ethics.[11]

It is in opposition to this ethical position that Lacan sets out to formulate his own analytic ethic.

The analytic ethic that Lacan formulates is an ethic which relates action to desire.


More

He interprets the soll in Freud's famous phrase Wo es war, soll Ich werden ('Where id was, there ego shall be', Freud, 1933a: SE XXII, 80) as an ethical duty (E, 128), and argues that the status of the unconscious is not ontological but ethical (Sll, 33).

See Also

References

  1. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.38
  2. <slides12> name=Seminar hideAll=true fontsize=100% hideFooter=false showButtons=true hideMenu=false hideHeading=false

    I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII Index

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  3. Freud, 1908d
  4. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.183
  5. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.219
  6. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.218
  7. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.221
  8. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.314
  9. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.315
  10. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.207
  11. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.302
  • 124-6, 162-4, and politics, 162-6, utilitarian, 132, Conversations