The Ethical Dimension of Psychoanalysis: A Dialogue

CHAPTER NINE Ethical Decision-Making and Self-Deception

CHAPTER NINE Ethical Decision-Making and Self-Deception Given the executive role of the will in generating and directing psychic and bodily action, the decision-making process, by which the subject determines upon and directs himself to a specific course of action, becomes central to any assessment of ethical reflection and calls for psychoanalytic conceptualization.1 While that process is probably best conceived as a function of the ego, acting as the substructure of the self dealing with assessment of reality and related functions of perception and judgment, this activity obviously does not take place in a vacuum, but is integrated with processes involving contributions from other psychic entities (superego and id, especially superego) reflecting the agency of the self-as-agent (Meissner 1993). The present chapter extends the previous argument on will and freedom , but the focus on decision-making and responsibility conveys a further sense of its consequences and implications. I will take Leo Rangell’s (1963b, 1969a,b,c,d, 1971, 1974, 1981, 1986, 1987, 1989) theory of the decision process as a function of ego-activity as point of departure for my reconstruction . He (1969a) argued that contemporary decision theorists emphasized the present stimulus situation as determining the decision process, leaving open the role of past experience and unconscious factors for analytic exploration. THE DECISION PROCESS In practical reason leading to decision and choice2 of a course of action, the logical process reaches conclusions regarding not only what to do but what I should do. As Anthony Kenny (1975) noted: “In practical reasoning as in theoretical we pass from premises to conclusion. The premises, perhaps, set out our desires or our duties; they set out also the facts of the case and the 177 possibilities open; the conclusions are actions or plans of action. But what are the rules by which we pass from premises to conclusion? What are the criteria for validity in practical inference?” (p. 70). Augusto Blasi (1980) further noted: “When moral action is considered to be necessarily mediated by moral judgment, the relations between judgment and action become problematic. How should these relations be conceptualized? How can the connections between the cognitive and the executive functions be explained? Equally important, how can the lack or the breakdown of functional relations be understood? These are the questions that a complete theory of moral functioning should address” (p. 4). Cognitive functions can include not only moral information about culturally endorsed norms of behavior and moral attitudes and values, but specific forms of moral reasoning and judgment leading to a conclusions justified by moral criteria. In his review of research in this area, Blasi commented: In principle, the study of the consistency between moral thinking and moral behavior should include not one but at least two sets of relations: those between specific hypothetical choices and actions and those between hypothetical choices and general structures of moral reasoning. Without information concerning the latter, the moral reasoning of the action for the individual remains unknown; without information relevant to the former, moral means would not offer an adequate basis for the study of the action-cognition consistency. . . . At present, however, it is not known how general structures of moral reasoning and general attitudes interact in the production of behavior. (p. 10) Rangell addressed this problem analytically in terms of the decision process. The process starts with a state of intrapsychic equilibrium being disturbed by a precipitating stimulus, either external or internal.3 Internal sources may be somatic or psychic, and if psychic can originate from any of the psychic structures (id, ego, or superego). Whatever the source, an instinctual “temptation” is aroused and confronts the ego under the critical assessment of the superego or other external judgmental sources. This tentative sample-impulse is passed in review by superego and other evaluative and judging functions of the ego, assessing the nature of the impulse and its acceptability (1969a,d). Based on this intersystemic evaluation, the self-asego allows a small controlled arousal of instinctual response, while testing the balance of gratification or superego criticism, which is immediate, automatic , and proportional to the minimal pleasure or displeasure encountered . This evaluation is effected by screening present partial gratification in the light of past experience, especially prior gratifying or traumatic memo178 Ethical Decision-Making and Self-Deception Ethical Decision-Making and Self-Deception 179 ries potentially related to the projected motive. Rangell (1969c,d) called this the “minor preliminary...