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A Truthful Way to Live? Objectivity, Ethics and Psychoanalysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2019

Michael Lacewing
Michael Lacewing*
Affiliation:
University College, London
*
m.lacewing@ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

Is there a best way to live? If so, is this a form of ethical life? The answer, I believe, turns on what we can say about the nature and place of the passions – emotions and desires – in our lives, including in particular, our ability to be truthful about our passions and our relations with other people. I approach the question through the work of Bernard Williams. I consider first what it might be for a way of life to be ‘objectively’ best, before looking more closely at the psychological conditions of such a life, using ideas from psychoanalysis on the way we hide our true passions from ourselves and the effect this can have on our understanding of both ourselves and others. I end by considering whether we can say that a truthful life is the best life, and whether it places universal and material constraints on how best to live.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 85: Passions and the Emotions , July 2019 , pp. 175 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2019 

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References

1 Williams, Bernard, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontana, 1985)Google Scholar; hereafter ELP.

2 Williams, Bernard, Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; hereafter TT.

3 ELP, 7, 12.

4 See ELP, 29, Ch. 8 (esp. 152).

5 ELP, 29.

6 ELP, Ch. 8–9.

7 ELP, 146–7.

8 See Lacewing, Michael, ‘Emotion, Perception and the Self in Moral Epistemology’, Dialectica 69 (2015), 335–355CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 ELP, 153.

10 ELP, 154.

11 ELP, 40.

12 ELP, 48.

13 ELP, 40.

14 ELP, 40.

15 Republic, Book II, 359d.

16 Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Sec. 9, Pt. 2.

17 Railton, Peter, ‘Moral Realism’, Philosophical Review 95 (1986), 163–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Somewhat ironically, and presumably unknown to Railton at the time, the basis for the example is false – milk is an excellent beverage for rehydration, at least on one measure, better than many clear fluids (Maughan, R. J., Watson, P., Cordery, P.A., et al. , ‘A randomized trial to assess the potential of different beverages to affect hydration status: development of a beverage hydration index’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 103 (2016), 717–23CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed). We may say, tongue-in-cheek, that while Railton wanted to use this example, it was in his real interests to use a factually correct one!

19 ELP, 41.

20 These constraints are, of course, closely related to Williams’ famous discussion in ‘Internal and External Reasons’, in Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 101–13Google Scholar.

21 ELP, 42–3; my italics.

22 ELP, 45; my numbering.

23 See, e.g., Layard, Richard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, 2nd ed. (London: Penguin, 2011)Google Scholar; Haidt, Jonathan, The Happiness Hypothesis (London: Heinamann, 2006)Google Scholar; Fredrickson, B.L., ‘Positive emotions broaden and build’, in Devine, P. and Plant, A. (eds) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 47 (2013), 1–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baer, R.A. and Lykins, E.L.M., ‘Mindfulness and Positive Psychological Functioning’, in Sheldon, K.M., Kashdan, T.B., and Steger, M.F. (eds) Designing Positive Psychology: Taking Stock and Moving Forward (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011), 335–348CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 ELP, 45.

25 I am not here concerned to defend the epistemic credentials of the psychodynamic model, having done so at length in previous publications. I refer the interested reader to overviews in ‘Could psychoanalysis be a science?’, in Fulford, W., et al. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1103–1127CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘The Science of Psychoanalysis’, Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology 25 (2018), 95–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The very interested reader may follow up more detailed discussions in ‘Inferring motives in psychology and psychoanalysis’, Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology 19 (2012), 197–212Google Scholar; ‘The Problem of Suggestion: An Analysis and Solution’, Philosophical Psychology 26 (2013), 718–743CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Insight and Therapeutic Action’, Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 21 (2014), 156–173Google Scholar.

26 I adapt this list of vices from Hursthouse, Rosalind, ‘Virtue Theory and Abortion’, Philosophy & Public Affairs 20 (1991), 223–246; 235Google ScholarPubMed.

27 Lemma, Alessandra, ‘The Many Faces of Lying’, International Journal of Psychoanalysis 86 (2005), 737–753CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Quotations are from page 738.

28 Freud, Anna, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (London: The Hogarth Press, 1936)Google Scholar.

29 Freud, Sigmund, ‘Observations on Transference Love (Further recommendations on the technique of psycho-analysis. III)’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XII (London: Hogarth Press; original publication 1915), 159–173; 164Google Scholar.

30 TT, 83.

31 TT, 198.

32 TT, 83.

33 TT, 198.

34 For a partial defence of this claim and further references, see Lacewing, Michael, ‘The Psychology of Evil’, in Tabensky, P. (ed.) The Positive Function of Evil (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 112–126CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Lacewing, Michael, ‘Emotions and the virtues of self-understanding’, in Roeser, S. & Todd, C. (eds.), Emotion and Value (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 199–211Google Scholar.

36 See Snow, N., Virtue as Social Intelligence (New York and London: Routledge, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a review of the empirical evidence related to the link between self–other representations and the ethical life.

37 ELP, 46.

38 Swanton, C., Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), Ch. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, §2.

39 ELP, 46.

40 There is some evidence in psychology that we are happier when we distort the truth about ourselves and others. Taylor and Brown famously argue that people who harbour positive illusions about themselves and others do better than those who do not (see Taylor, S. and Brown, J., ‘Illusion and Well-Being: A Social Psychological Perspective on Mental Health’, Psychological Bulletin 103 (1988), 193–210CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Taylor, S. and Brown, J., ‘Positive Illusions and Well-Being Revisited: Separating Fact from Fiction’, Psychological Bulletin 116 (1994), 21–27CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed). However, Badhwar has demonstrated the uncertainty of their conclusion (Badhwar, Neera, ‘Is realism really bad for you? A realistic response’, The Journal of Philosophy 105 (2008), 85–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Even if Taylor and Brown are correct, it is very important that the illusion is mild, as people whose estimations either of themselves or others are more seriously inaccurate do less well. It is also not established whether those holding positive illusions do so from ignorance, a cultivated mild self-deception, or choice – each of which have quite different implications for the place of truthfulness in a good life.

41 TT, 198.

42 See Armstrong, D. and Rustin, M. J. (eds), Social Defences against Anxiety (London: Karnac, 2015)Google Scholar.

43 On the Genealogy of Morals.

44 ELP, 71.

45 ELP, 52.

46 ELP, 153.

47 ELP, 170.