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Freud's Theory of Moral Conscience1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

David H. Jones
David H. Jones
Affiliation:
The University of Kansas
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Extract

Freud is often assumed to have given an explanation of how human beings acquire a morality, especially as it is manifested in the phenomenon of moral conscience. Freud himself certainly lends credence to such an interpretation of his theory, as the following passage testifies.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 41 , Issue 155 , January 1966 , pp. 34 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1966

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References

page 34 note 2 Freud, Sigmund, The Ego and the Id (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., Inc. 1961), p. 51Google Scholar. For a similar passage see, The New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., Inc. 1933), p. 95Google Scholar. After the first reference to a work by Freud, I shall make all subsequent references to that work by citing in the text only the title and page numbers between parenthesis, e.g. ‘(The Ego and the Id, p. 51)’.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 Freud, , ‘Mourning and Melancholia’, Collected Papers, 5 vols., Trans. Riviere, Joan (London: Hogarth Press, 1949), IV, 157.Google Scholar

page 38 note 1 Freud, , Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton and Co.' Inc., 1962), p. 82.Google Scholar

page 40 note 1 Freud, , Beyond the Pleasure Principle (London: Hogarth Press, 1961).Google Scholar

page 41 note 1 It will become apparent that my choice of the expression ‘moral anxiety’ as the focus of attention is rather arbitrary, since Freud uses ‘tension between the ego and the super-ego’, ‘anxiety of conscience’, and ‘fear of the super-ego’ in such a way that they are interchangeable. Freud's translators render the German ‘Gewissensangst’ by both ‘moral anxiety’ and ‘normal anxiety’. See Freud, , Gesammelte Schriften (12 volumes), Vienna: 1924–1934.Google Scholar

page 43 note 1 Both ‘Schuldbewusstsein’ and ‘Schuldgefühl’ were used by Freud variously to refer to (a) the alleged affect of guilt, and (b) the unconscious feeling of guilt or ‘Unbehagen’ to which the title of Civilization and Its Discontent refers. See Freud, , Gesammelte Schriften.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 Freud, , General Introduction to Psycho-analysis (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1935), tr. Riviere, Joan, p. 343.Google Scholar

page 45 note 1 Freud's translators render both ‘Schuldbewusstsein’ and ‘Schuldegefühl’ by die English phrase ‘the sense of guilt’.

page 47 note 1 For example, in The Ego and the Id, Freud states, ‘In many criminals, especially youthful ones, it is possible to detect a very powerful sense of guilt which existed before the crime, and therefore is not its result but its motive. It is as if it was a relief to be able to fasten this unconscious sense of guilt on to something real and immediate’ (The Ego and the Id, p. 71)Google Scholar. This is not very plausible, but it is clear. The person who ‘suffers’ from an unconscious sense of guilt is being punished by his super-ego. Such a person needs an objective, real punishment from the external world in order to make his suffering comprehensible, in a way which his neurotic, unconsciously caused suffering is not. The relief is supposedly obtained by finding an objective reference for an already present anxiety.

page 48 note 1 Ryle, Gilbert, The Concept of Mind (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1949), p. 118Google Scholar. I shall adopt Ryle's distinction between disposition-feelings and occurrent-feelings for purposes of exposition.

page 50 note 1 Varieties of moral relationships which can give rise to some corresponding varieties of guilt-feelings have been carefully analysed by Rawls, John in his article ‘The Sense of Justice’, Philosophical Review, LXXII, 07, 1963, 281–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 52 note 1 See ‘“Civilised” Sexual Morality and Modern Nervousness’, C.P., II, 76–99Google Scholar; ‘Thoughts on War and Death’, C.P., IV, 288–317Google Scholar; ‘Why War’, C.P., V, 273–287Google Scholar; and Civilisation and Its Discontents.

page 56 note 1 There is a perfectly legitimate manner of speaking about an ‘unconscious’ sense of guilt which both ordinary language and psychiatric usage often employ. I have in mind the situation in which the person is said to be unable to face up to his guilt, or that he is ‘running away’ from his guilt. In such cases, the implication is that the person does actually believe that he has done something which is reprehensible, but that by rationalisation or self-deception, he has avoided acknowledging his genuine moral guilt. By hypothesis, such a person does not yet feel guilty (hence the need to speak of ‘unconscious’ or ‘unacknowledged’ guilt), but he would feel guilty if he were to admit the belief that he has done something morally wrong. Such ‘unacknowledged’ guilt must be distinguished from the phenomenon which Freud called the unconscious sense of guilt.