Notes CHAPTER 1. FREUDIAN AND POSTFREUDIAN ETHICS 1. I will utilize some of the conclusions of Wallwork’s (1991) important study of the interaction between psychoanalysis and ethics. I will make explicit page references only for direct citations. 2. The complexity of these issues is compounded by efforts to relate psychoanalytic concepts to biological assumptions regarding the relation between mind and brain. While the freudian perspective would not deny these connections and their implications, many current hermeneutical , semiotic, personalist, intersubjective, relational, or existential approaches to analytic phenomena would. See my discussion of the relation of self and body (Meissner 1997, 1998a,b,c). 3. Ricoeur (1981) later concluded that the purposefulness and intentionality of psychic life was basically incompatible with the energic paradigm , so that any consistent thematization “would require a conceptual framework different from that of its topography and economics ” (p. 259). 4. Letter to Putnam, 8 July 1915; cited in Hale (1971, p. 189). 5. Letter to Pfister, 24 February 1928; in Meng and Freud (1963, p. 123). 6. Letter to Putnam, 8 July 1915; cited in Hale (1971, p. 189). 7. See also Freud (1937, pp. 228–229). 8. Letter to Putnam, 7 June 1915; cited in Hale (1971, p. 188). 9. Letter to Putnam, 4 May 1911; cited in Hale (1971, pp. 121–122). 10. Letter to Putnam, 30 March 1914; cited in Hale (1971, p. 171). 11. The view that ethics automatically involves an evaluative weltanschauung probably reflects residues of nineteenth century views of moral philosophy, embracing far more than we would regard as the proper province of ethics. Large-scale imaginative or utopian visions impervious to logic and evidence are alien to contemporary ethics. But Hart299 mann (1960) was also cautious of extending analysis beyond its natural preserve—“One should be able to say when and in what respect such ‘uses’ of analysis make sense and where sense becomes nonsense” (pp. 11–12). 12. This interpretation of Freud’s views can be challenged. The issue hinges on the role of superego and its integration with ego with respect to ethical judgment and behavior. See chapter 12. 13. King (1986) offered a counterpoise to this reading of Freud’s ethical perspective, addressing the issue of private versus public morality. If Rieff’s “psychological man” keeps the claims of the larger community at arm’s length, this would neglect Freud’s view of man as basically social. This same issue extends into contemporary discussions of oneperson versus two-person psychologies. 14. Rorty (1986) endorsed this aspect of Rieff’s reading of Freud and the lack of prescriptions for public morality. But King (1986), e contra, argued that “Rorty confuses the dominant thrust of Freud’s therapeutic and theoretical intentions, his relative indifference to social and political arrangements, with the implications of Freud’s work as they have been developed by others and with the ‘social foundationism’ implicit in Freud’s own work” (pp. 38–39). 15. Wallwork (1991) challenged this reading. Freud did not abandon happiness as that toward which man strives; characterizing him as opposed to hedonism in the sense of seeking pleasure is not accurate. 16. Rieff failed to utilize Freud’s metapsychology in explaining moral responsibility and determinism (Wallwork 1991). CHAPTER 2. PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ETHICAL SYSTEMS 1. King (1986) noted Kant’s neglect of other ethical values besides duty and responsibility, for instance, courage, friendship, and the common good, themes found in Aristotle and elsewhere in ethical thought. 2. Fromm (1947) noted that this idealized status of the individual did not include valuing of self-love, since the quest for personal happiness was a natural striving without positive ethical value. The only happiness that counted was the happiness of others. 3. Tillich (1955) distinguished unconditional-categorical imperatives from conditional moralisms—the former are absolute and universal, the latter valid only conditionally and within limits. Thus the relative moralisms studied by psychologists and anthropologists do not challenge moral imperatives. 300 Note to Chapter Two [184.73.56.98] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:08 GMT) Notes to Chapter Three 301 4. Although Freud respected Enlightenment rationalism, he decried excessive reliance on reason because of the irrationality of emotional life. This also made him less than sympathetic to German idealism. 5. Lacan (1992) noted the inherent tension between utilitarian and psychoanalytic ethical perspectives : “It is a fact of experience that what I want is the good of others in the image of my own” (p. 187). 6. See my discussion of aspects of psychic...