Psycho-Analysis and Ethics.

This article discusses the contribution of psychoanalysis to ethics. The contribution of psychoanalysis may be considered from three points of view. In the first place, what light analytic theory throws on the natural history of morals, that is the ways in which moral rules and moral sentiments are formed and developed in the individual and the group. There is also a question whether psychoanalysis can, from its own resources, provide the basis for an ethical theory or a set of standards or principles in the light of which existing moral codes can be criticized or evaluated. Finally, there is the question how far the insight into human nature acquired through the exploration of the unconscious elements in the human mind can help us in releasing the energies of man and removing the obstacles that hinder the realization of his ideals, whatever may be their ultimate source. The problems raised in the first two questions are not always clearly distinguished by psychoanalytic writers and some would deny that there is such a thing as ethical theory other than the psychology of morals. Sigmund Freud himself tells us that it is not the object of his investigations to provide an ethic, still less a Weltanschauung. Such activities, he says, may be left to philosophers who avowedly find it impossible to make their journey through life without a Baedeker of that kind to tell them about everything.