The Moral Perspective and The Psychoanalytic Quest

Despite a growing appreciation of the ethical implications of psychoanalysis (Wallwork, 1991), there is still uneasiness about how to accommodate the psychoanalytic and ethical perspectives. Outside analytic discourse, there is a prevalent view that psychoanalysis shrinks the realm of moral responsibility. It is alleged that the notions of conflictual and mixed motivations, of unconscious wishes, and of repression as motivated but not fully willful ignorance, complicate the notion of an agent and weaken—the practices of moral ascription that go with agency. From within analytic discourse, there is the tension between the professional demand of ethical neutrality and the moral perspectives an analyst takes outside the analytic setting, as she or he assumes other roles and stations. To put it somewhat tendentiously, there is the surface paradox that although morality is ubiquitous, the clinical hour boasts of a time and space that is morally neutral, safe from praise and blame, advice, or counsel.

However, I want to argue today that the very terms of the analytic project are situated squarely and uncompromisingly within the ethical perspective. In particular, the project of self-knowledge and character transformation conducted within a privileged relationship has important antecedents in major ethical traditions. Put simply, the analytic project is ultimately a chance to take responsibility for one's character, where the conception of what responsibility consists of has become expanded rather than diminished. The issue of responsibility for character is as central an issue in ethical inquiry as any, with clear roots in the ancient tradition, but also in the modern philosophy of Kant. None of this diminishes the revolution in ethics that Freud's project unleased. And I will come to that. But a salient feature of his work is character development, and even if his methods were revolutionary,