Sublimation and the Ethical Tradition

Is there a connection between the study of sublimation in psychoanalysis and the insights available in the ethical tradition? It is possible to present the problem of sublimation and the problem of ethics as if the two problems are diametrically opposed. Such a perspective would stress the fact that moral imperatives often demand renunciations and that the unconscious drives cannot accept such renunciations. A subject may then opt to conform to the moral demands of his culture while the unfulfilled drives try to achieve satisfaction wherever it is possible. Such attempted satisfactions can even be sought in character deformation or reaction formations (Freud, Thoughts for the times on war and death, Std. Ed., Vol. XIV, p. 284). Freud, however, calls this a hypocritical way of living (Freud, Thoughts for the times on war and death, Std. Ed., Vol. XIV, p. 284). Thus he writes: “Anyone thus compelled to act continually in accordance with precepts which are not the expression of his instinctual inclinations, is living, psychologically speaking, beyond his means, and may objectively be described as a hypocrite, whether he is clearly aware of the incongruity or not” (Freud, Thoughts for the times on war and death, Std. Ed., Vol. XIV, p. 284). Thus the demands of sublimation, i.e., the demand to transform “egoistic trends into altruistic and social ones” (Freud, Thoughts for the times on war and death, Std. Ed., Vol. XIV, p. 282) may lead to the morally negative valued situation of hypocrisy.

The perspective which sees psychoanalysis and philosophical ethics as contraries can then point to Kant's view of a moral act as an act done out of duty and not out of inclination. This Kantian view then goes so far as saying that the criterion for a moral act is the fact that there is a conflict between moral duty and inclination. If duty and inclination are not in conflict, but are cooperating, then Kant would agree that we do not know if we are in the presence of a moral act.

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