The Letter issue 69, 2020; pp19-30
ARISTOTLE’S AND BENTHAM’S MORAL PHILOSOPHIES IN LACAN’S ETHICS SEMINAR
Donat Desmond
This paper interrogates Lacan’s juxtaposing of the ethics of Aristotle and Bentham and Freud in the manner of a Hegelian dialectical triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in order to develop his own ethical position.
Keywords: Aristotle; the good; Bentham; theory of fictions; Freud; pleasure principle; reality principle; ethics; psychoanalysis; Lacan
This brief investigation aims to explore an extract from Lacan’s Ethics of Psychoanalysis, Seminar VII where he asserts:
Bentham’s effort is located in the dialectic of the relationship of language to the real so as to situate the good - pleasure in this case, which as we will see he articulates in a manner that is very different from Aristotle - on the side of the real. And it is within this opposition between fiction and reality that is to be found the rocking motion of Freudian experience.[1]
What I propose to do is to explore this quote and interrogate it specifically with the following questions. Firstly, why does Lacan bring up Aristotle, a 5th Century BC ethicist, and contrast his ethics with Bentham, the 18th Century AD founder of Utilitarianism? Secondly, why doesn’t Lacan simply embark on a description of his theory of Freudian based ethics based on a supplementation and refinement of Freud?
コメント