Ethica More Psychoanalytico. About Normativity and Desire

Abstract

The article explains how the psychoanalytic idea of normativity of desire allows us to ground a procedural ethics that avoids the harshness of Kantian ethics while integrating the Aristotelian theory of action. To this end, it clarifies the psychoanalytic significance of the act of desire—and, specifically, of moral sublimation—as an action that creates particular norms, as well as the distinction between procedural and material ethics. The Freudian superego in its pacifying aspect —the “Law” in the Lacanian sense— is construed as a principle of validity of the rules of desire, and Lacan’s criticism of the categorical imperative does not affect its character of principle of normative validity. From there on, the transition between morality and the Law is explained, and a psychoanalytic foundation is proposed for a republican theory of politics. The psychoanalytic concepts necessary for reading the article are briefly summarized.