Conscience and Other Virtues: From Bonaventure to MacIntyre

6. Freud and Ryle on Conscience

s i x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FREUD and RYLE ON CONSCIENCE Freud’s View of Conscience One of the major developments of the twentieth century is the theory of psychoanalysis. Although many have criticized the theory, it has become a fixed feature of the present intellectual landscape. The theory itself is the creation of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), but it has undergone continual revision. Psychoanalytic theory as it is practiced today is more of a synthetic product than simply an application of Freud’s views. Yet it is still important to look at Freud’s own thoughts, if only to understand a major source for present theory. The historical background for Freud’s views is often neglected. This seems particularly true of his views about conscience. Once one examines his statements about it, it is clear that his view of conscience bears some striking similarities to views presented in Part I. Because Freud’s understanding of 88 . . . . . . . Contemporary Dismissal of Conscience conscience has molded the way it is viewed by twentieth-century philosophers and theologians, it is necessary to look at some basic components of Freud’s psychoanalytical theory as it is presented in his Outline of Psychoanalysis . According to Freud, there are three parts to the psychic apparatus of human beings: the id, the ego, and the superego. He claims that the postulation of these is based on extensive studies of many human beings. The id is present at birth and contains the instincts.1 The ego develops from the id in a physiological manner: “Under the influence of the real external world around us, one portion of the id has undergone a special development. From what was originally a cortical layer, equipped with the organs for receiving stimuli and with arrangements for acting as a protective shield against stimuli, a special organization has arisen which henceforth acts as an intermediary between the id and the external world. To this region of our mind we have given the name of ego” (145). This description of the ego makes it clear that it develops from the id. This development is closely linked to the presence of the organs of sense. It is as if the physiological impact of stimuli on the brain causes the physical development of a part of the brain that becomes the ego. Once the ego is formed, the superego can develop: “The long period of childhood, during which the growing human being lives in dependence on his parents, leaves behind it as a precipitate the formation in his ego of a special agency in which this parental influence is prolonged. It has received the name of superego. In so far as this superego is differentiated from the ego or is opposed to it, it constitutes a third power which the ego must take into account” (146). Freud’s notion of parental influence is much wider than the term implies. It includes “the family, racial and national traditions handed on through them, as well as the demands of the social milieu” and also “teachers and models in public life of admired social ideas” (146). The superego thus is not a static replication of one’s parents’ demands and behaviors. Rather it is something like a repository of authority that has been internalized. To be sure, the authority of one’s actual parents provides the core of the superego, but this content changes over time through the influence of other authorities or even psy1 . An Outline of Psycho-Analysis, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 23 (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1964), 145: “To the oldest of these psychical provinces or agencies we give the name of id. It contains everything that is inherited, that is present at birth, that is laid down in the constitution—above all, therefore, the instincts, which originate from the somatic organization and which finds a first psychical expression here [in the id] in forms unknown to us.” Freud and Ryle on Conscience . . . . . . . 89 chotherapy.2 The agent modifies the content of the superego and modifies or rejects the injunctions of past parental influences. It is, of course, unclear how much change in the superego is possible in Freud’s eyes. But it is at least clear that change does occur. Freud clearly links, but does not identify, the conscience with the superego : “We call this agency the superego and are aware of it in its...