The Freudian Wish and Its Place in Ethics

Book excerpt: "The problem of good conduct, both in practice and in ethical theory, ought to receive some clarification, one would suppose, from a science that studies the mind and the will in their actual operation. If in the past psychology has not materially contributed to this problem, it is possibly owing to the incompetence of psychology to tell us much that is either true or useful about the essential nature of mind or will, or of the soul. I believe that such has been the case, and that now for the first time, and largely owing to the insight of Dr. Sigmund Freud, a view of the will has been gained which can be of real service to ethics. In presenting this I shall disregard the current comments on Freud, which have become so familiar, for he deserves neither the furious dispraise nor the frantic worship which have been accorded him. He is a man of genius, simply, more sagacious and more perspicacious than his detractors and far more sane than many of his followers. Freud's contribution to science is notable, and in my opinion epoch-making, for a reason which has hardly ever been mentioned. And this reason is that he has given to the science of mind a 'causal category': or, to put it less academically, he has given us a key to the explanation of mind. This key to the mind, which Freud calls the 'wish, ' is the subject of the present volume. And we shall consider more particularly the bearing which this wish-psychology may have on ethics"--Preface, p. v.