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Held in the fine hall of Regent's College, this event consisted of three short papers and a discussion chaired by Julian Lousada. We enjoyed a feast of thought-provoking ideas, swaying from pessimism to optimism, and back again.
Edward Harcourt, Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Keble College, Oxford, gave an analysis of Freud's ethical thinking, linked back to Plato and Aristotle, and forwards to object relations theory. He is clearly well read in psychoanalysis, and his paper was dense and intriguing. He directs a research project in Oxford in collaboration with the Mental Health Foundation on the concept of co-production in the treatment of mental illness, and co-convenes a seminar at the Tavistock Clinic on Meaning and Mindedness.
I cannot do more than highlight a few of the ideas he discussed. According to Plato and Aristotle, to possess virtue is to be healthy, which seems to assert that doing the right thing is a necessary part of health; the two are not at odds. On the other hand, according to Harcourt, contemporary ethics among professional philosophers is much concerned with whether we can resolve the seeming conflict between morality and self-interest. He sees much of psychoanalysis as actually being moral philosophy, reflecting a long tradition of ideas about this apparent duality. The question is whether self-interest is so narrow that it is at odds with morality, and Harcourt sees Freud as shifting between pessimism and optimism in exploring the conflict between our natural endowments (instinct), and civilisation and morality. He argues that post-Freudian psychoanalytic theory offers a more optimistic view, because it adds an interpersonal, social dimension to what our “self-interest” seeks. We need other people.
There was a lot more; about the theory that instinct seeks pleasure, which involves extinguishing the painful state of wanting, and whether this means it is entropic, leading to inertia and decay; about the theory of sublimation, suggesting that