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Major works by Horney (1), Rosenfeld (2), Kohut (3), and Kernberg (4) have contributed to shaping the concept of the narcissistic personality disorder into its contemporary form, and making it a discrete independent nosological entity in the DSM-III (5). Even though generally detailed, the definition and diagnostic criteria of the DSM-III do not include some important clinical and phenomenological features of the narcissistic personality disorder.
One of these important but neglected features of pathological narcissism is narcissistic morality, a unique ethical “profile” of narcissistic personalities. For example, numerous aspects of ethical pathology within the narcissistic personality disorder are presented in the DSM-III only as an “attitude of entitlement” and “interpersonal exploitiveness.”
The main objective of this paper is to systematize clinical observations regarding the ethical characteristics of the narcissistic personality disorder. Since ethical deviations occur in various fields of psychopathology (especially within the group of character disorders), a systematized knowledge of the different “faces” of narcissistic ethics improves our clinical recognition of narcissistic personalities and our diagnostic approach to the narcissistic personality disorder as a whole.
A clinical approach to narcissistic ethics must rely on the following structural characteristics of the narcissistic personality disorder: first, the intrapsychic existence of a grandiose self, and second, a globally underdeveloped superego structure in the narcissistic personality. I will now briefly discuss both of these structural characteristics.
According to contemporary concepts, the nosological and clinical