Psychology as Ethics: Reading Jung with Kant, Nietzsche and Aristotle 9780367529215, 9780367529239, 9781003079828

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‘This is an immensely important book for understanding Jung’s thought and its connections to broader culture. Colacicchi argues compellingly that psychotherapy was for Jung inherently ethical, concerned with how we should live. He then clarifies in unprecedented detail the complex nature of that ethical thought, with its multiple and seemingly contradictory sources in Kant, Nietzsche, Aristotle, and Christianity. Lucid and perceptive, the book will facilitate philosophical engagement with Jung’s thought as well as provide a fertile ground for studying analytical psychology comparatively with other traditions of psychotherapy.’ – Roderick Main, Professor, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex ‘. . . Colacicchi’s volume will be the definitive discussion of Jung’s moral theory for some time to come. Deeply knowledgeable about both Jung and moral philosophy, it is a rich and ambitious synthesis that illuminates timeless questions concerning the place of morality in our lives and Jung’s unique understanding of them.’ – Michael Lacewing, University College London, Co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis ‘In 1926 Nicolai Hartmann argued that the task of ethics is to achieve a synthesis of Nietzsche and Kant, while in 1943 Jung admitted that psychotherapists should really be philosophers – or are, in fact, already so. But what would this mean in practice? Giovanni Colacicchi offers a fresh and in-depth analysis that shows how Jung reshapes Kantian and Nietzschean themes, recasting them in the language of analytical psychology . . . essential reading for academic critics and clinical practitioners alike.’ – Paul Bishop, William Jacks Chair of Modern Languages, University of Glasgow ‘This book is a welcome addition to the literature which sets out from the assumption that psychoanalytic writing – in this case, Jung’s – and the Western canon in moral philosophy, which includes Aristotle, Kant and Nietzsche, are all part of the same conversation. In so doing, it helps to make the assumption compelling.’ – Edward Harcourt, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford and Keble College, Oxford

Psychology as Ethics

Through his clinical work and extensive engagement with major figures of the philosophical tradition, Jung developed an original and pluralistic psycho-ethical model based on the cooperation of consciousness with the unconscious mind. By drawing on direct quotations from Jung’s collected works, The Red Book, and his interviews and seminars – as well as from seminal texts by Kant, Nietzsche, Aristotle and Augustine – Giovanni Colacicchi provides a philosophically grounded analysis of the ethical relevance of Jung’s analytical psychology and of the concept of individuation which is at its core. The author argues that Jung transforms Kant’s consciousness of duty into the duty to be conscious while also endorsing Nietzsche’s project of an individual ethics beyond collective morality. Colacicchi shows that Jung is concerned, like Aristotle, with the human need to acquire a balance between reason and emotions; and that Jung puts forward, with his understanding of the shadow, a moral psychology of the Christian notion of evil. Jung’s psycho-ethical paradigm is thus capable of integrating ethical theories which are often read as mutually exclusive. Psychology as Ethics will be of interest to researchers in the history of ideas and the philosophy of the unconscious, as well as to therapists and counsellors who wish to place their psychodynamic work in its philosophical context. It will also be a key reference for undergraduate and postgraduate courses and seminars in Jungian and Post-Jungian studies, philosophy, psychoanalytic studies, psychology, religious studies and the social sciences. Giovanni Colacicchi, PhD, is an Anglo-Italian philosopher, independent scholar and teacher in the humanities. He lives and works in Ferrara, Italy.

Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Book Series Jon Mills Series Editor

Philosophy & Psychoanalysis is dedicated to current developments and cutting-edge research in the philosophical sciences, phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism, logic, semiotics, cultural studies, social criticism, and the humanities that engage and enrich psychoanalytic thought through philosophical rigor. With the philosophical turn in psychoanalysis comes a new era of theoretical research that revisits past paradigms while invigorating new approaches to theoretical, historical, contemporary, and applied psychoanalysis. No subject or discipline is immune from psychoanalytic reflection within a philosophical context including psychology, sociology, anthropology, politics, the arts, religion, science, culture, physics, and the nature of morality. Philosophical approaches to psychoanalysis may stimulate new areas of knowledge that have conceptual and applied value beyond the consulting room reflective of greater society at large. In the spirit of pluralism, Philosophy & Psychoanalysis is open to any theoretical school in philosophy and psychoanalysis that offers novel, scholarly, and important insights in the way we come to understand our world. Titles in this series: Jung, Deleuze and the Problematic Whole Edited by Christian McMillan, Roderick Main and David Henderson Psychology as Ethics Reading Jung with Kant, Nietzsche and Aristotle Giovanni Colacicchi

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.rout ledge.com/Philosophy-and-Psychoanalysis/book-series/

Psychology as Ethics

Reading Jung with Kant, Nietzsche and Aristotle

Giovanni Colacicchi

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Giovanni Colacicchi The right of Giovanni Colacicchi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-52921-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-52923-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-07982-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Acknowledgementsviii Note on text referencesix Introduction

1

1 Morality, freedom and the ego: the Kantian legacy

15

2 Ethics, health and the Self: the Nietzschean legacy

38

3 Character, virtue and psycho-ethical types: Aristotle and Jung

66

4 Humility, evil and the shadow: the Christian legacy

87

5 Post-Jungians on Jung’s ethics

112

Conclusion

133

Reference list139 Index148

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Paul Bishop, Aldo Bondi, Oliver Burkeman, Tom Dine, Roderick Main, Christian McMillan, Dino Perroni, Daniele Rivoletti and Robert A. Segal for their help and inspiration; Mark Roberts for his comments on the manuscript; Susannah Frearson, Katie Horsfall and the staff at Routledge for their kindness and competence; and Ganesh Pawan Kumar Agoor, Caroline Lalley and Sasikala Shanmugam at Apex CoVantage for their patience and editorial expertise. A special thanks to my mentor and friend, Jon Mills, for believing in this book well before I did and for making it happen. ‘Grazie’ to my Florentine family, my parents Alta and Francesco, and my sister Lelia, for their continuous love and support; to my sister Anna and her family; to Silvia Vignoli and her family; to Giuseppe Martinico for his top-notch advice; to Cristina Borsato for her invaluable logistic help; to my friends Edoardo Canessa, Joshua Holmes, Edoardo Rialti and Luca Savorani for the good times; to Franco, Teresa and Katia Falchi, my Sardinian family, for their affection and generosity. This book is dedicated with love to my partner, Elisa, and to my son, Francesco, for putting up with (and making me) the luckiest Jungian scholar in the world.

Note on text references

Jung Quotations from Jung’s Collected Works are cited by original date of publication and paragraph. Quotations from writings by Jung not included in the Collected Works are cited by date and page number.

Kant Quotations from Kant’s works from the two collections of translations published by Cambridge University Press (Kant 1996, 1998) are cited by date of publication of the collection and page number, followed, in square brackets, by abbreviation of the German title, volume and page number in the German critical edition (Immanuel Kants Schriften. Ausgabe der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1902–). For example: Kant 1996: 94 [G 4:446].

Abbreviation of Kant’s works G: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785) [Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals] (in Kant 1996) KpV: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788) [Critique of practical reason] (in Kant 1996) KrV: Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781, 1787) [Critique of pure reason] (in Kant 1998) MS: Metaphysik der Sitten (1797–1798) [Metaphysics of morals] (in Kant 1996) WA: Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (1784) [An answer to the question: What is enlightenment?] (in Kant 1996)

Nietzsche Quotations from Nietzsche’s works are cited by date of publication (see reference list) and page number, followed, in square brackets, by abbreviation of the English title; and, when relevant, by part number, English title of chapter, and subchapter number, for example: Nietzsche 2003b: 210 [Z III ‘Of the Spirit of Gravity’, I]. When Jung discusses

x  Note on text references passages from Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, the quotations I provide are from R. J. Hollingdale’s classic translation of 1961 republished by Penguin (2003b).

Abbreviations of Nietzsche’s works AC: The Anti-Christ (Der Anti-Christ, 1888) BGE: Beyond Good and Evil (Jenseits von Gut und Böse, 1886) EH: Ecce Homo (Ecce Homo, 1888) GM: The Genealogy of Morals (Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887) GS: The Gay Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882) HA: Human, All Too Human (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, 1878) TI: Twilight of the Idols (Götzen-Dämmerung, 1888) Z: Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra, 1883–1885)

Aristotle Since I only quote from The Nicomachean Ethics (standardly abbreviated NE), I omit NE and cite book (in Roman numbers), chapter and Bekker number, for example: X.8.1178a9–10. To facilitate the reader, Bekker numbers are quoted referring to their position in David Ross’s translation (revised by Lesley Brown 2009), not to their position in the original Greek text. When relevant, I include my transliteration of the Greek (taken from Carlo Mazzarelli’s bilingual edition of 2011).

Bible If not otherwise specified, I quote from the Authorised (King James) Version. I provide references to the Jewish and Christian scriptures in the conventional format: book (abbreviated), chapter and verse (separated by a colon).

Introduction

I do not enjoy philosophical arguments that amuse by their own complications. (Jung 1938/1940: 68)

Doing ethics with the unconscious The eight-page “Foreword” that the 74-year-old Carl Gustav Jung (1875– 1961) wrote for the book by his pupil Erich Neumann titled Depth Psychology and a New Ethic reveals both Jung’s conviction of the necessity to reconsider the nature and scope of ethics as well as his unwillingness to set down ethical theories and see himself as a philosopher. Jung’s recurrent claim of being only an empiricist is used here as a disclaimer with regard to his approach to ethics: ‘It is only as an empiricist, and never as a philosopher, that I have been concerned with depth psychology, and cannot boast of ever having tried my hand at formulating ethical principles’ (Jung 1949: 1408). This does not stop him from laying down, in the following paragraphs, his very personal views on the matter. He writes that ‘[t]he analyst learns that ethical problems are always intensely individual’ and that ‘collective rules of conduct offer at most provisional solutions, but never lead to those crucial decisions which are the turning-points in a man’s life’ (1412). It is very difficult to formulate ethical rules, since ‘one can hardly think of a single rule that would not have to be reversed under certain conditions’ (1413).1 He proceeds to define Neumann’s expression ‘new ethic’ as ‘a development and differentiation within the old ethic, confined at present to those uncommon individuals who, driven by unavoidable conflicts of duty, endeavor to bring the conscious and the unconscious into responsible relationship’ (1416). To those unfamiliar with his psychology,

2 Introduction

he points out that the unconscious compensatory function consists in ‘an intelligent choice of means aiming not only at the restoration of the psychic equilibrium but at an advance towards wholeness’ (1418). If the ‘old ethic unconsciously imitates, or actually prefers, the procedure of an absolute monarchy or a tyrannical one-party system’, ‘[t]hrough the new ethic, the ego-consciousness is ousted from its central position in a psyche organized on the lines of a monarchy or totalitarian state, its place being taken by wholeness or the self, which is now recognized as central’ (1419). He concludes by affirming that ‘[t]he union of conscious and unconscious in the individuation process [is] the real core of the ethical problem’ (1420). The key elements of Jung’s ethical vision are all included in these paragraphs: (1) ethics is an individual task which (2) must be accomplished by integrating the unconscious into consciousness and which (3) is particularly necessary in the case of conflicts of duty, which reveal the limits of collective and consciousness-based systems of morality. This integration must take the form of a ‘responsible relationship’ (1416), where both consciousness and the unconscious play a part, since for Jung ‘unconscious compensation is only effective when it co-operates with an integral consciousness. Assimilation is never a question of “this or that,” but always of “this and that” ’ (Jung 1934b: 338). Consciousness-based systems of morality are described by Jung as ‘tyrannical’ and ‘one-sided’, whereas Jung’s new ethical conception, in which the unconscious also plays a part, is akin to parliamentary democracy, where a system of checks and balances allows progress, and all participants must be ‘heard’: [I]n coming to terms with the unconscious, not only is the standpoint of the ego justified, but the unconscious is granted the same authority. The ego takes the lead, but the unconscious must be allowed to have its say too – audiatur et altera pars (‘the other side must be listened to as well’). (Jung 1916[1958]: 185) The most typical example of a product of the unconscious, the dream, is defined by Jung as ‘a natural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and intellectual judgement go, is completely neutral’ (Jung 1934b: 239, my italics). In Jung’s conception, and I can already hear the sound of the philosopher’s footsteps leaving the room, the symbolic content of dreams must be integrated into consciousness, since dreams reveal ‘an

Introduction 3

intelligent choice of means aiming not only at the restoration of the psychic equilibrium but at an advance towards wholeness’ (Jung 1949: 1418). By telling us to include the unconscious into the equation of ethics, and to consider the Self the subject and object of ethics as much as the ego,2 Jung has in mind a considerable reshaping of what has traditionally been considered the field of ethics. The main difference with traditional notions of ethics is that if a consequentialist approach to ethics can ‘ask’ the agent to act in order to maximise the happiness of all those involved, and a deontological ethics can ask the agent to focus on doing their duty or to follow some rational principle of behaviour, a depth-psychological ethics such as Jung’s cannot, strictly speaking, ask the agent to do anything at all. This is because a significant part of the agent is unconscious, which entails two things: the unconscious cannot listen or follow any principle at least not until it is made conscious; and the unconscious also has something to ‘say’ (via symptoms and dreams). Like the scientists of the scientific revolution claimed was the case with nature, the only way to have some command over the unconscious is by obeying it. So if human freedom, will and rationality still play a role, unconscious determinism, creativity and irrationality are also players in the game. No wonder Jung is wary about ‘formulating ethical principles’ (1949: 1408): it is not so much that he does not want to; it is more that he is aware that it would be ineffective to do so. Different approaches and tools are required for a task so new, or perhaps old tools but used in new ways, and Jung – consciously and unconsciously – does precisely this: he utilises, in sketching out a new ethical landscape, a variety of ethical tools and traditions which had hitherto been considered, in many cases, mutually exclusive: Kant’s universalistic deontology; Nietzsche’s individualistic and perspectivist virtue-ethical approach; Aristotle’s balanced view of rationality and the emotions; and the Christian moral approach where both ethical humility and the belief in objective moral values play a part. Psychotherapists as philosophers? In “Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life”, written six years before the “Foreword” to Neumann’s work, Jung made the following remark, which is both an exhortation and a confession: I can hardly draw a veil over the fact that we psychotherapists ought really to be philosophers or philosophic doctors – or rather that we

4 Introduction

already are so, though we are unwilling to admit it because of the glaring contrast between our work and what passes for philosophy in the universities. (Jung 1943: 181) So here Jung is forced to admit that psychotherapists ‘are already [philosophers]’! In fact, in an earlier essay, Jung had compared analysis to the ‘Socratic method’3 although the former, he had added, ‘penetrates to far greater depths’ (Jung 1917/1926/1943: 26). However, if one sees ethics as involving the unconscious, this will generate the suspicion, if not the aversion, of the many philosophers who hold a ‘ratiocentric’ (Cottingham 1998, passim) and conscious-based view. To them the notion of the unconscious (not to mention the collective unconscious!) appears fuzzy, murky and quasi-religious, as it refers to aspects of our personality which are neither rational nor conscious. Furthermore, Jung claims to favour practice over theory, appears sceptical of philosophical generalisations and considers a ‘ratiocentric’ approach to the psyche to be one-sided. When Jung speaks of his ‘empiric[al]’ (Jung 1949: 1408) approach to ethical matters, he means essentially his (philosophically very questionable) intention of letting psychic facts ‘speak for themselves’, a phenomenological approach (see Brooke 1991), producing something akin to what Thomas Nagel calls an ‘inductive’ ethical theory (Nagel 1978: 196–205). This said, as I will argue in this book, there is much more philosophy and ethics in Jung’s psychology than is generally recognised at first sight, and this should be of interest to philosophers, even to those who make for the door when they hear the word psychoanalysis. In an article about ‘the place of psychoanalysis in the history of ethics’, the philosopher Edward Harcourt argues that psychoanalysis does indeed have a place in ‘the great tradition’4 of ethics concerned with investigating the relationship between ‘human nature, the good life for man, and human goodness’ (Harcourt 2013b: 3). Harcourt convincingly illustrates how both Freudian and ‘relational’ psychoanalysis tackle, in different ways, these ethical problems, so that they can be considered ‘a continuation of the “great tradition” under another name’ (Harcourt 2013b: 9). However, psychoanalysts do not want to be seen as moral philosophers because of the ‘long-standing aspiration of psychoanalysis to be “valuefree’’’ (Harcourt 2013b: 6), a ‘commitment to tolerance [. . .] based [. . .] not on the value of tolerance but on the supposedly shaky credentials of

Introduction 5

morality’ (Harcourt 2013b: 7). This aversion of psychoanalysts to be taken for moral philosophers is also explained by the fact that ‘morality tended for most of the twentieth century to be theorized as a set of prohibitions and commands’ (Harcourt 2013b: 6), while ‘if there is an ethical dimension to psychoanalysis, it more obviously concerns not the search for a criterion of right action or its meta-ethical standing but how one should live or the good life for man’ (Harcourt 2013b: 6). Harcourt finds that ‘Freud’s work is pervaded both by doubts about the credentials of morality and by a narrow construction of morality as a set of prohibitions and commands’ (Harcourt 2013b: 8). As we will see, Jung shares these doubts about the credentials of morality and frequently sees morality as a set of prohibitions and commands, even if his proposal of an individual ethics allows him to overcome this collectivistic conception and he does not discard everything about morality (even the unconscious, according to Jung, can be defined, under certain circumstances, as ‘moral’). Like Freud and relational psychoanalysis, Jung is eminently concerned with the search for ‘the good life’ and the flourishing which he calls individuation, so Jung too belongs to the great tradition of ethics. Jung’s psychology can be read, amongst other legitimate interpretations of his work, as embedding a consistent and complex ethical vision. I also argue that Jung was only partly aware of this fact. Jung was better at conquering new territories than at administrating the territories he had already conquered, so in my work I try to administer the land of Jungian psychology using not only the tools of depth psychology but also those of philosophy, without I hope stifling the poetic and allusive aspects of Jung’s prose (as I discuss in more detail at the beginning of Chapter 2). My contribution is aimed at Jungian scholars and Jungian analysts who are well disposed towards philosophical clarification and the contextualisation of Jungian psychology in the history of ideas; and to philosophers and ethicists who are open to a new conception of ethics which might be able to solve some philosophical riddles which philosophy alone is unable to tackle. Ethics: the cure of neurosis? In his memoir, we learn that Carl Gustav, at the age of 12, while waiting for a classmate who went home by the same route, was pushed to the ground by another boy and nearly lost consciousness. After that, he began having ‘fainting spells’ whenever it was time to go to school and stayed

6 Introduction

home for more than six months: ‘I was free, could dream for hours, be anywhere I liked, in the woods or by the water, and draw’ (Jung 1963: 30). However, as time went by, and doctors were consulted to no avail, he started feeling ‘pangs of conscience’ and ‘pitied [his] parents’ worries’ (Jung 1963: 31). One day, he overheard his father tell a friend: ‘What will become of the boy if he cannot earn his own living?’ (ibid.). This produced a positive shock in Carl Gustav, who thought, ‘Why, then, I must get to work!’, and returned to being a diligent schoolboy, overcoming the fainting fits in a short time, which he comments upon as follows: ‘The whole bag of tricks was over and done with!’ and ‘I myself had arranged the whole disgraceful situation’, since ‘[the boy who pushed me] had been put up to it, so to speak, and the whole affair was a diabolical plot on my part’ (Jung 1963: 32). Looking back at this crucial episode, Jung states: ‘That is when I learned what a neurosis is’ (ibid.). So his neurotic phase is interpreted by Jung as an immoral and semi-conscious self-deception which can be overcome by ‘conscientiousness’ (ibid.), working hard and not playing tricks on oneself. In Jung’s specific case, he became aware of the unconscious and ‘rather immoral penchant’ [see quotation (b)] for being ‘away from the whole human world’ (Jung 1963: 32). Many years of experience sitting opposite neurotics must have reinforced this conviction and generalised the idea that if escaping from one’s life’s task can generate a neurosis, facing it can overcome it. The following quotations, arranged in chronological order, are typical of Jung’s approach to the link of neurosis and ethics, and many similar statements can be found in Jung’s vast production: a He who does not possess this moral function, this loyalty to himself, will never get rid of his neurosis. [. . .] Neither the doctor nor the patient, therefore, should let himself slip into the belief that analysis by itself is sufficient to remove a neurosis. (Jung 1916b: 497)5 b Repression is a sort of half-conscious and half-hearted letting go of things, a dropping of hot cakes or a reviling of grapes which hang too high, or a looking the other way in order not to become conscious of one’s desires. [. . .] Suppression amounts to a conscious moral choice, but repression is a rather immoral ‘penchant’ for getting rid of disagreeable decisions. Suppression may cause worry, conflict and

Introduction 7

suffering, but it never causes a neurosis. Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering. (Jung 1938/1940: 129, my italics) c The chief causes of a neurosis are conflicts of conscience and difficult moral problems that require an answer. (Jung 1949: 1408) d The treatment of neurosis is not, in the last resort, a technical problem but a moral one. There are, admittedly, interim solutions that are technical, but they never result in the kind of ethical attitude that could be described as the real cure [. . .] the integration of the personality is unthinkable without the responsible, and that means moral, relation to the parts with one another. (Jung 1949: 1412) Here we see that ethics and morality play a fundamental role both in the inception [quotations (a) and (c)] and in the cure [quotations (b) and (d)] of a neurosis, so an understanding of Jung’s ethical position is crucial if we want to grasp his psychological and therapeutic paradigm as a whole. Furthermore, the passages exemplify how Jung is inconsistent in his use of the words ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’ (and other related terms), at least until a very late paper of 1958 (“A Psychological View of Conscience”), which was probably intended as a clarification of some inconsistencies in his previous writings. As the Jungian author John Beebe has written, [a]s a student of Jung, equipped with a conceptual language that includes notions of personal shadow, archetypal shadow, and absolute evil, as well as ego, Self, and conscience, I can be lulled into thinking I understand this ethical territory better than I do. (Beebe 1992: 22) Indeed, a superficial understanding of Jung’s psychological and ethical position, like any badly digested world view, can be misleading, and can prevent a genuine critique of his work. For example, Jung’s concept of individuation may become an excuse to focus exclusively on ourselves, perhaps manipulating others; or his insistence on the need to acknowledge

8 Introduction

one’s shadow could be read as an injunction to let go of all moral restraints. Other Jungians may on the other hand develop a moralistic approach towards life. Some of these problems can be avoided if we approach them systematically, trying to avoid one-sided readings of Jung’s work, clarifying Jung’s use of philosophical concepts and pointing out the philosophical sources of Jung’s conceptions. The repression of immorality, the repression of morality Jung defines neurosis as ‘the self-division of man’ (‘Neurose ist Entzweiung mit sich selbst’, Jung 1917/1926/1943: 18), after Nietzsche had defined morality as the self-division of man, so if both are right morality and neurosis would appear to be co-extensive. In fact Jung points out that [i]n most people the cause of the division is that the conscious mind wants to hang on to its moral ideal, while the unconscious strives after its – in the contemporary sense – unmoral ideal – which the conscious mind tries to deny. Men of this type want to be more respectable than they really are. (Jung 1917/1926/1943: 18) But for Jung immorality is also self-division and a form of neurosis: [t]he conflict can also easily be the other way about: there are men who are to all appearances very disreputable and do not put the least restraint upon themselves. This is at bottom only a pose of wickedness, for in the background they have their moral side which has fallen into the unconscious just as surely as the immoral side in the case of the moral man. (ibid.) How can both (excessive) morality and (extreme) immorality be characterised as neurotic self-division? Kant’s categorical imperative, during the Fourth ‘Zofingia Lecture’, is described as the irrepressible demand to do what we regard as good, and refrain from doing what we regard as morally evil. It gives us a feeling of

Introduction 9

pleasure to act in accordance with the requirements of the categorical imperative, just as the gratification of any instinct brings with it a certain quantity of pleasure. (Jung 1896–1899: 171, my italics) Apart from Jung’s incorrect interpretation of Kant’s ideas regarding the feeling of pleasure associated with fulfilling our duty (noted by Nagy [1991] and further discussed by Bishop [1995]), the key word, which reveals Jung’s point of view on these matters, is ‘irrepressible’, which must be read as meaning: ‘That should not be repressed’. This is the first occurrence of an idea which can be found in many of Jung’s writings, the idea that both our need to be part of society (morality) and our tendency towards separation and individualism (immorality) should not be repressed, disregarded or taken lightly. On the contrary, they should be accepted but overcome, if possible, and brought into the wider sphere of ethics. The first situation described by Jung, in which ‘immoral’ drives are incompatible with what lies above the surface, is close to Freud’s formulation of an amoral Id in contrast with the demands of the Superego. But the second scenario, which depicts Nietzschean immoralists such as Otto Gross,6 is not contemplated by Freud’s scheme: the unconscious appears to be ‘more moral’ than what is above the threshold of consciousness, which for Freud would have been anathema. Jung’s critique of Freud is made explicit a few paragraphs below the quotations on the two types of neurotics. First he writes, as if wanting to defend Freud, that ‘Freudian psychoanalysis has been accused of liberating man’s (fortunately) repressed animal instincts and thus causing incalculable harm’. To which he humorously adds: ‘This apprehension shows how little trust we place in the efficacy of our moral principles’ (Jung 1917/1926/1943: 28). But then he explains why he considers Freud’s picture to be incomplete: The Freudian theory of repression certainly does seem to say that there are, as it were, only hypermoral people who repress their unmoral, instinctive drives. Accordingly the unmoral man who lives a life of unrestrained instinct, should be immune to neurosis. This is obviously not the case, as experience shows. Such a man can be just as neurotic as any other. If we analyse him we simply find that his morality is repressed (Verdrangung). The neurotic immoralist presents, in

10 Introduction

Nietzsche’s striking phrase, the picture of the ‘pale felon’ who does not live up to his acts. (Jung 1917/1926/1943: 29) Jung’s picture of the good life includes acknowledging that to be healthy, healing neurotic splits and preventing them from arising, we need to both lower the demands of morality (as Freud had already noticed) and limit our individualistic tendencies. Kant and Nietzsche An important issue which arises when tackling Jung’s ethics is to determine who is ‘the agent’ he is addressing: is it the ego, the centre of consciousness, or is it the Self, our whole personality which includes the conscious ego but also a vast amount of unconsciousness? In my reading of Jung’s ethics, it would appear that the ego is the carrier of a moral or immoral vision of the world; and that the Self develops, thanks to the evolution and consolidation of ego-consciousness, from an amoral stance to an ethical one, which does not discard morality or immorality, but which transcends them. In Jungian terms, the union of consciousness and of the unconscious is the dialogue of one-sided morality (in which the collective absorbs the individual) or one-sided immorality (in which the individual disregards collective values) with unconscious amorality: this dialogue can result in overcoming positions which are ultimately against the development of one’s life and personality. We are reminded by Walter Kaufmann that Nicholai Hartmann’s Ethik (1926) had claimed that ‘the task of ethics today consists, at least to a considerable extent, in achieving a synthesis of Nietzsche and Kant’ (Kaufmann 1950: 111, note 14). Jung’s integration of Kant and Nietzsche – a picture of the good life in which both morality and immorality have a part to play – was carried out in the same years in which Hartmann had suggested the need for it and is particularly noteworthy because it comes from a psychologist and thinker who is not usually read by philosophers or considered to be one at all. In Living with Nietzsche, Robert C. Solomon writes: It is Kant who sets up the philosophical conditions for the Nietzschean reaction, not only by so clearly codifying the central theses to be

Introduction 11

attacked but also by conceptually undermining the traditional supports of morality. The Enlightenment attack on authority (‘heteronomy’) and the emphasis of ‘autonomy’ by Kant is a necessary precondition for Nietzsche’s moral moves. (Solomon 2003: 123) Likewise, in Jung’s model it is the position of the Kantian ego that ‘sets up’ the ‘conditions’ for the creative and compensatory ‘reaction’ of the Nietzschean unconscious. Furthermore, the philosopher Tom Bailey argues that Nietzsche’s flamboyant criticism of Kant’s ethics frequently ‘misrepresents’ Kant’s ideas and that Nietzsche’s notion of agency is in fact akin to Kant’s although Nietzsche ‘admit[s] different degrees of agency and therefore moral significance among agents and thus substantially modif[ies] the egalitarianism or universality standardly required by a Kantian moral judgement’ (Bailey 2013: 151). This difference between ‘degrees of agency’ can be found in Jung’s distinction between morality and ethics, since ethics, for Jung, is a task ‘confined at present to those uncommon individuals’ (Jung 1949: 1416, my italics) who are able to overcome conflicts of duty creatively and are capable of being alone with themselves (as Jung writes at the end of The Red Book). These individuals could be read as possessing a deeper sense of agency and possibly even a deeper understanding of reality.7 However Jung’s model is consistent with the possibility that everyone may reach the level of ethics which lies beyond morality, while Nietzsche does seem to exclude such a possibility. In Chapter 1, I explore Jung’s Kantian legacy and show how Jung derives his insistence on the moral duty to be conscious (and conscientious) from Kant’s moral philosophy. I then consider, from a Kantian angle, Jung’s famous statements about the ethical stance of the therapist, and assess other points of convergence – as well as some important divergences – between the two authors. In the final section of the chapter, I tackle an issue which is pivotal to understanding Jung’s ethical stance: conflicts of duty. To appreciate the originality of Jung’s contribution, I place my discussion within the broad framework of the contemporary discussion on moral dilemmas. In the second chapter, I ask if Jung’s ethical outlook can be considered Nietzschean. The answer to this question is ‘yes’ (in many important respects) and ‘no’ (in some important respects). The ‘yes’ and the ‘no’ do not cancel each other out, nor does one answer diminish the power of the

12 Introduction

other. Jung gives a strong ‘yes’ to Nietzsche’s proposal of a new ethical outlook based on the notions of health and life enhancement, and another strong ‘yes’ to Nietzsche’s stress on the need for an ethical outlook which stays true to the individual and irrational elements of each evolving personality, and which does not efface the role of joy, suffering and creativity in shaping a good life. However, he is critical of Nietzsche’s apparent suggestion that ethics must necessarily be taken ‘beyond good and evil’. Having explored Jung’s debt to Kant and Nietzsche, in Chapter 3 I take a fresh start, and compare Jung’s ethical position with Aristotle’s. The guiding question here is: ‘Given that both Jung and Aristotle are concerned with the development of an ethical character, how could a collaboration between the two authors be envisaged?’ Having sketched out the key concepts of Aristotle’s ethical theory, I seek a Jungian translation of these concepts. Where no translation or common ground is found, I fill in the missing spaces. In the last section, I look at some modern broadly speaking neo-Aristotelian thinkers, notably Anscombe and MacIntyre, and consider if and how virtue ethics and Jungian depth psychology could each provide the other with conceptual and indeed therapeutic tools to tackle some problematic areas in their respective fields. The fourth chapter looks at the Christian side of Jung’s ethics, and in particular at his understanding of the problem of evil, which I place within his psycho-ethical paradigm. Jung interprets ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as metaphysical principles as well as predicates of our (necessarily fallible) judgement: I show how this reading is both Christian and therapeutic. I then look at Jung’s rejection of Augustinian and post-Augustinian theodicy: ‘God’ is also evil, and evil is not diminished good, but possesses a substance of its own. I then read his “Answer to Job” as a symbolic depiction of his views on ethics. Finally, I discuss Jung’s notion of the shadow, his most original contribution to the moral psychology of evil. In the fifth chapter, I discuss the work that has been conducted on Jung’s ethics by Post-Jungians and consider the one-sidedness of most of these approaches, as well as their positive contributions. In this book I do not conduct a systematic comparison of Jung’s ethical position with Freud’s (a good step in this direction is to be found in Merkur 2017), which I consider the greatest (albeit somewhat inevitable) limitation of my research. In tackling Jung’s debt to Kant and Nietzsche, and Jung’s Aristotelian and Christian sides, I rarely discuss the ‘-isms’ of normative

Introduction 13

ethics (e.g. ‘consequentialism’, ‘deontology’), as to do so would have required a completely different methodology and a study of its own. Neither have I undertaken a detailed assessment of Jung’s place within the field of meta-ethics, although in Chapter 4 I mention the tension between Jung’s objectivist/realist stance on ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and his ethical humility and subjectivism/perspectivism. My interpretation of Jung’s ethical position is conducted mainly on the primary (albeit translated) work of Jung himself and on the primary (albeit translated) work of the authors who I consider to be the main sources of Jung’s ethical outlook. In the Conclusion, pulling together the various threads of my work, I recapitulate how individuation, Jung’s central concept, is an eminently ethical endeavour, and why Jung’s psycho-ethical model should command the interest of both psychologists and moral philosophers. I then suggest some future lines of research, including possible clinical applications of my theoretical findings, and argue that an understanding of Jung’s ethics can be a base for future dialogue between Jungians and other schools of psychology, psychotherapy and counselling. Notes 1 Jung makes the same point in a talk given ten years later on ‘good and evil in analytical psychology’ where he claims that ‘[c]onventional morality is exactly like classical physics: a statistical truth, a statistical wisdom. The modern physicist knows that causality is a statistical truth, but in practice he will always ask what law is valid in this particular case’ (Jung 1959: 871). 2 According to Jung, the Self, the ‘total psyche’, is what we objectively are and it includes both consciousness and the unconscious. As we become aware of parts of the Self, ego-consciousness (subjectivity) is born. 3 Here one could recall Alcibiades’s outburst in the Symposium, when he exclaims that Socrates is the only man who made him ashamed of himself. 4 As Harcourt points out, this tradition is ‘hard to pigeonhole – it overlaps “axiology” (the theory of the good) and moral psychology’ (ibid.), and aspects of what is usually classified as ‘virtue ethics’. According to Harcourt, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hume, Mill, Nietzsche and Bradley all belong to this same tradition. Harcourt adds the important disclaimer that ‘[t]o say that psychoanalysis has a place in the history of ethics’, and therefore ‘is ethics’, is not to say that it is ‘only philosophy, or even that that part of it which is philosophy is only moral philosophy: if psychoanalysis is in part philosophy at all, then some of it is surely philosophy of mind’ (Harcourt 2013b: 4). 5 Jung expresses a thought that can already be found in Freud: ‘I reproached Irma for not having accepted my solution. [. . .] It was my view at that time (though I have since recognized it is a wrong one) that my task was fulfilled when I had informed a patient of the hidden meaning of his symptoms: I considered that I was not responsible for whether he accepted the solution or not – though this was what success depended on. I owe it to this mistake, which I have now fortunately corrected’ (Freud 2001: 108).

14 Introduction 6 The great impact that the life and ideas of Otto Gross had on Jung’s life and ideas has been studied in depth by Gottfried M. Heuer (2004, 2017). This influence extended to Jung’s ethics (the motto and maxim of behaviour of Gross was ‘Nichts verdraengen!’ [‘repress nothing!’], quoted in Bair 2004: 136), but a discussion of this would require a study of its own. 7 I discuss this further in Chapter 5 in the section ‘On Jung, Kant and ethics’.

Chapter 1

Morality, freedom and the ego The Kantian legacy

[Scruple of conscience] Gladly I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure. Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person. [Ruling] Surely, your only resource is to try and despise them entirely, And then with aversion to do what your duty enjoins you. Friedrich Schiller (quoted in Uleman 2010: 6)

In this chapter I argue that Jung’s conception of the relative but decisive freedom of the ego from the Self derives from Immanuel Kant’s1 argument for the autonomy of practical reason. However, where Kant insists on the consciousness of duty, Jung on the other hand emphasises the duty to be conscious. First, I present Kant’s argument for the autonomy of practical reason and provide an account of Jung’s conception of the autonomy of the ego from the Self. Second, I comment on a passage in which Jung’s Kantian legacy is most evident. Third, I relate Jung’s insistence on the moral development of both patient and therapist to Kant’s insistence on moral independence and introduce the notion of ‘ethical transference’. Fourth, I consider Jung’s deployment of the ‘ought implies can’ argument and compare the two thinkers on the issue of the opacity of intentions. Finally, I discuss Jung’s contribution to the understanding of conflicts of duty – the existence of which were denied by Kant – a fundamental ingredient of Jung’s ethical vision. Kant on the autonomy of ethics The goal of Kant’s philosophy is to provide, no less, ‘a single theory of human experience’ (Guyer 2006: 539). For Kant, it must be understood

16  Morality, freedom and the ego

how scientific knowledge, moral actions and aesthetical as well as teleological judgements can, in different ways, all be part of the same picture: this is the ambitious aim of his critical philosophy.2 The scientific understanding of nature is made possible, according to Kant, by the fact that ‘reason has insight only into what it itself produces according to its own design’ (Kant 1998: 109 [KrV B xiii]). As Michael Rohlf (2018) succinctly puts it, Kant argues that ‘we use our categories [the most important being the category of causality] and forms of intuition [space and time] to construct a world of experience’. Relations of causality that we encounter ‘in nature’ are indeed, as Hume had pointed out, something put there by the human mind. But Kant’s reply is that that is precisely the reason why we can understand nature scientifically. The powers of reason are also at work in the moral domain, with the difference that if in nature our reason legislates, in the sphere of morality reason self-legislates. As Paul Guyer explains, for Kant ‘we are also free to look at the world from a standpoint in which we are rational agents whose actions are chosen and not merely predicted in accordance with deterministic laws of (as we would now say) biology, psychology, or sociology’ (Guyer 2006: 2). The fact that practical reason can provide its own laws, and hence break free from causal determinism, is indicated by the expression ‘autonomy of the will’3 (Kant 1996: 89 [G 4:440]). Kant criticises systems based on following pleasure or other principles which are external to our own reason (such as ‘God’s will’), and calls them ‘spurious’ (ibid.), because they are based on ‘hypothetical imperatives’ which tell me that ‘I ought to do something because I will something else’ (ibid., italics in the original). True morality only obeys the categorical imperative, in other words duty, which Kant defines as ‘the necessity of an action from respect for law’ (Kant 1996: 55 [G 4: 400], italics in the original). So morality is a self-consistent sphere of experience, the sphere of freedom. But how do we harmonise the sphere of morality with the sphere of knowledge? Kant’s approach is to look at these notions from different points of view: [We can] take a different standpoint when by means of freedom we think ourselves as causes efficient a priori than when we represent ourselves in terms of our actions as effects that we see before our eyes. (Kant 1996: 98 [G 4:450])

Morality, freedom and the ego 17

According to Kant: ‘we do not indeed comprehend the practical unconditional necessity of the moral imperative, but we nevertheless comprehend its incomprehensibility’ (Kant 1996: 108 [G 4:463], italics in the original). What Kant means, as Allen Wood explains, is that ‘we can [n]ever prove theoretically that we are free’ (Wood 2010: 263–264, italics in the original).4 In the context of a highly speculative discussion, Kant’s example is refreshingly simple: If (for example) I am now entirely free, and get up from my chair without the necessarily determining influence of natural causes, then in this occurrence, along with its natural consequences to infinity, there begins an absolute new series, even though as far as time is concerned this occurrence is only the continuation of a previous series. (Kant 1998: 487 [KrV A451/B479]) So is the basis of morality the fact that I can get up from my chair if I so decide? This seems to be Kant’s conviction. The duty to be conscious ‘Kant is my philosopher!’ (C. G. Jung to a student of the C. G. Jung Institute in the 1950s, quoted in Shamdasani 2003: 168)

Jung defines the ego as ‘merely one complex among other complexes’ (Jung 1921: 706), ‘the subject of my consciousness’ but not ‘the subject of my total psyche’, which for Jung is the Self (ibid.). So how can the ego be free to act, and be responsible and accountable, given that it is part of the Self? Jung’s concept of inflation, which describes two cases in which the ego loses its freedom, helps us understand how a relative dependence on the Self is seen by Jung as a condition for its freedom. At times the Self, sensing the weakness of the ego, may be tempted to eliminate the ego altogether,5 in which case the ego becomes incapable of action or at least its capacity to act is more or less severely impaired by an inundation of unconscious contents. At other times, the ego will try to usurp the Self’s position,6 and attempt to master the unconscious entirely, thus hoping to be able to enjoy a condition of greater freedom and stop feeling ‘the subtle

18  Morality, freedom and the ego

tyranny of the Self’, to use Mario Trevi’s evocative expression. In this second case, as in the first, the ego becomes incapable of directed action and of expressing the power of the Self adequately.7 Hence, the effects derived from an excessively ‘confident’ ego are the same as those produced by an ego which abdicates, and that is why both psychic scenarios are covered, in Jung’s work, by the term ‘inflation’ (1951a: 47). Inflation may provide a sense of temporary joy, but it undermines moral freedom. Jung claims that ‘[i]t must be reckoned a psychic catastrophe when the ego is assimilated by the self’ (Jung 1951a: 45, italics in the original). To avoid this, Jung recommends that ‘consciousness should be reinforced by a very precise adaptation’. He adds that ‘certain virtues, like attention, conscientiousness, patience etc., are of great importance on the moral side, just as accurate observation of the symptomatology of the unconscious and objective self-criticism are valuable on the intellectual side’ (Jung 1951a: 46, my italics). When on the other hand the ‘the self [. . .] becomes assimilated to the ego’ (1951a: 47), Jung suggests that ‘[i]t is not a question, as one might think, of relaxing morality itself but of making a moral effort in a different direction’, in order to make room for the unconscious ‘at the expense of the world of consciousness’ (ibid.). Jung sees ego-consciousness as invested with the fundamental role of understanding at what distance from the power of the Self it should place itself. The key to safeguard the freedom of the ego seems to be in the maintenance of ‘the right distance’ and the ‘living connection’ (Edinger 1992: 264) between ego and Self, and only the ego can take care of establishing this correct distance, and needs to be strong in order to be able to do so effectively. In the passages I have quoted, Jung uses the words ‘moral’, ‘morality’ and ‘virtues’ (and of these he mentions ‘conscientiousness’ and ‘patience’, as well as ‘attention’ and ‘effort’) in relation to the ego. Of these words, ‘virtue’ is quite appropriate in this context, since virtue can be considered a synonym of strength of character.8 But where Jung speaks of ‘relaxing morality’, one could perhaps use instead the expression ‘weakness of the ego’. So, according to Jung, if we want to be free, both free from the constraints of the Self and free to act effectively, we have the duty to be conscious and to develop and maintain a strong ego-consciousness. Kant’s philosophy shows that this freedom is possible.

Morality, freedom and the ego 19

‘A feeling of freedom’ In Transformation Symbolism in the Mass Jung writes: The self, [. . .] is an a priori existent out of which the ego evolves. It is, so to speak, an unconscious prefiguration of the ego. [. . .] [But] if man were merely a creature that came into being as a result of something already existing unconsciously, he would have no freedom and there would be no point in consciousness. Psychology must reckon with the fact that despite the causal nexus man does enjoy a feeling of freedom, which is identical with autonomy of consciousness. [. . .] An absolutely preformed consciousness and a totally dependent ego would be a pointless farce, since everything would proceed just as well or even better unconsciously. The existence of ego consciousness has meaning only if it is free and autonomous. By stating these facts we have, it is true, established an antinomy, but we have at the same time given a picture of things as they are. There are temporal, local, and individual differences in the degree of dependence and freedom. In reality both are always present: the supremacy of the self and the hybris of consciousness. (Jung 1942/1954: 391, my italics except in ‘a priori’)9 The words I have italicised, ‘causal nexus’, ‘autonomy’ (which occurs twice, once as a substantive and once in its adjectival form) and ‘antinomy’ (not to mention the ‘a priori’ at the beginning of the quotation; and the word ‘freedom’, which occurs four times in the passage), are all distinctively Kantian and indeed what Jung is stating here could hardly be more Kantian: consciousness is free and it is not. For Kant, as we have seen, it is free if we consider it from the point of view of morality, but it is determined if we look at it from a scientific-causal standpoint. If we recall the aforementioned quotation from Kant: [We can] take a different standpoint when by means of freedom we think ourselves as causes efficient a priori than when we represent ourselves in terms of our actions as effects that we see before our eyes. (Kant 1996: 98 [G 4:450]) The first point of view described by Kant can be considered the point of view of the ego, which experiences itself as moral freedom, while the

20  Morality, freedom and the ego

second point of view can be considered the ‘point of view from nowhere’ of the Self, which is always a causal agent, but never a moral subject. When the ego is not inflated, the Self simply provides the psychic material (inclinations, desires, hopes and fears) which the ego decides to utilise in its actions.10 Perhaps it is no surprise to have found that the ego is autonomous from the Self, capable of autonomous self-legislating freedom: is not the ego, after all, the central ‘autonomous complex’?11 On moral autonomy and ethical transference Jung saw analysis as a ‘dialectical process’ (Jung 1951b: 239), in which analyst and patient were to be conceived as morally ‘equal’ (Jung 1921/1928: 289). The analyst, for Jung, was involved in the analytical relationship as much as the patient (Jung 1951b: 239) and this involvement was the key to analytic success, since the personality of the (previously) analysed analyst was the key therapeutic factor (an excessively detached analyst, for Jung, was always an analyst who was trying to hide non-analysed or not sufficiently analysed parts of him or herself). In fact, for Jung an analyst could never claim to be completely analysed (ibid.), and the mark of a good analyst was precisely to use analysis as an occasion for further personal evolution (ibid.). Difficult patients and difficult analytic moments were to be taken as opportunities for growth, revealing ‘unconscious assumptions that have never before been constellated’ (ibid.). As Samuels (1985: 174) notes, at the time in which Jung discussed these ideas, such a vision of analysis was very advanced (and in stark contrast to Freud’s asymmetrical notion of analysis and of transference). The great open-mindedness and humility (paired with knowledge, empathy and competence) that Jung expects from each analyst is counterbalanced by the equally great expectation that Jung has towards patients, who he claims should (gradually) find the courage to face life’s problems and think their life-views through and to their consequences, challenging the therapist when necessary. This approach echoes Kant’s advice to ‘have courage to make use of your own understanding’ expounded in his “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” (1784): It is because of laziness and cowardice that so great a part of humankind [. . .] gladly remains minors for life, and that it becomes so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so comfortable

Morality, freedom and the ego 21

to be a minor! If I have a book that understands for me, a spiritual advisor who has conscience for me, a doctor who decides upon a regimen for me, and so forth, I need not trouble myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay; others will readily undertake the irksome business for me. (Kant 1996: 17 [WA 8: 35]) Jung was deeply aware that a psychotherapist is in a very favourable position to become our moral substitute:12 The philosophical discussion is a task which psychotherapy necessarily sets itself, though not every patient will come down to basic principles. The question of the measuring rod with which to measure, of the ethical criteria which are to determine our actions, must be answered somehow, for the patient may quite possibly expect us to account for our judgments and decisions. Not all patients allow themselves to be condemned to infantile inferiority because of our refusal to render such an account, quite apart from the fact that a therapeutic blunder of this kind would be sawing off the branch on which we sit. (Jung 1943: 179) Here the reference to ‘infantile inferiority’ echoes Kant’s disparaging remarks (quoted earlier) towards those who decide to remain morally ‘minors’. Furthermore, with this reference to the ‘philosophical discussion’ which tackles ‘basic principles’ and ‘ethical criteria’, one finds an anticipation of the practice of philosophical counselling.13 Jung continues: In other words the art of psychotherapy requires that the therapist be in possession of avowable, credible, and defensible convictions which have proved their viability either by having resolved any neurotic dissociations of his own or by preventing them from arising. A therapist with a neurosis is a contradiction in terms. One cannot help any patient advance further than one has advanced oneself. (Jung 1943: 179) The ‘avowable, credible, and defensible convictions’ mentioned by Jung are powerful life-guiding principles, embodied philosophical and ethical conceptions which have ‘resolved neurotic dissociations’ or ‘prevented

22  Morality, freedom and the ego

them from arising’. Jung believes in the power of ideas and in a philosophy of life that becomes an everyday self-healing practice. The final sentence about the chances of a patient’s advancement, echoes Jung’s own letter to Freud (of 3 March 1912, in McGuire 1974: 491) in which he had (critically) quoted Nietzsche’s aphorism: ‘One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil’ (Nietzsche 2003b: 103 [Z I ‘Of the Bestowing Virtue’, III]). But what happens when a pupil or patient actually does go beyond the therapist’s philosophical and moral vision? Whose task will it be to praise him? In a letter to Dr. R. Loÿ of 28 January 1913 Jung mentions another complex issue, the ‘assimilation of the analyst’s personality’: Because I know that, despite all rational safeguards, the patient does attempt to assimilate the analyst’s personality, I have laid it down as a requirement [. . .] that the psychoanalyst should first submit himself to the analytical process, as his personality is one of the main factors in the cure. Patients read the analyst’s character intuitively, and they should find in him a man with failings, admittedly, but also a man who strives at every point to fulfil his human duties in the fullest sense. Many times I have had the opportunity of seeing that the analyst is successful with his treatment just so far as he has succeeded in his own moral development. (Jung 1914: 586–587) Here Jung claims two things: the first point is that the therapist’s ethical position (‘moral development’, ‘character’ and ‘personality’) must be highly developed (he will return to this point in 1951b: 239). The second idea is that patients are cured through the therapist’s ethical position, which they understand intuitively and try to assimilate. While the 1943 quotation discussed earlier puts more emphasis on the ‘dialogical’ and ‘explicit’ nature of the ethical dialogues which can occur in the setting (and which the therapist must have the competence to take part in), the 1914 quotation, written just after Jung’s break with from Freud, highlights the role of transference. However, Freud’s notion of transference is given a markedly ethical twist: what is at stake is not so much feelings, but guiding moral values. Furthermore, the predominantly projective nature of Freud’s conception of transference is contrasted by highlighting

Morality, freedom and the ego 23

the essentially introjective nature of what could be called ‘ethical transference’. In Freud’s conception, the patient sees, in the analyst, more than what is there (essentially attempting to repeat previous attachment patterns) and the transference neurosis, for Freud, is where the original neurosis reveals itself and can be successfully tackled. For Jung, on the other hand, due to the ‘ethical transference’, the patient can see what is actually there: the analyst’s ethical position which, as we have seen, cannot be (successfully) faked and must be embodied in the therapist’s life and thoughts. It is this ethical position that the patient can successfully use to evolve, at least temporarily, before developing his or her own personal one.14 Ought and can “Good advice” is often a doubtful remedy, but generally not dangerous because it has so little effect. (Jung 1946: 359, Note 20)

Kant uses the ‘ought implies can’ argument in various writings, for example in the Metaphysics of Morals he writes: Impulses of nature, accordingly, involve obstacles within the human being’s mind to his fulfilment of duty and (sometimes powerful) forces opposing it, which he must judge that he is capable of resisting and conquering by reason not at some time in the future but at once (the moment he thinks of duty): he must judge that he can do what the law tells him unconditionally that he ought to. (Kant 1996: 513 [MS 6: 380]) When Jung states that the ego ought to enter progressively in (conscious) relation with the Self and progressively integrate its potential (I discuss this notion further in Chapter 2, in the section ‘A feeling of moral resentment’), he uses the Kantian ‘ought implies can’15 argument, according to which the categorical imperative can only oblige us to do what is possible: ‘Whenever a sense of moral inferiority appears, it indicates not only a need to assimilate an unconscious component, but also the possibility of such assimilation’ (Jung 1928: 218).

24  Morality, freedom and the ego

If Kant was inflexible about the possibility of obeying the moral law, he was also famously critical of moral enthusiasm derived from the exhortations of others: By exhortation to actions as noble, sublime, and magnanimous, minds are attuned to nothing but moral enthusiasm and exaggerated selfconceit; by such exhortations they are led into the delusion that it is not duty [. . .] which constitutes the determining ground of their actions [. . .] but as if those actions were expected from them [. . .] as bare merit. (Kant 1996: 208–209 [KpV 5: 85–86]) Jung is close to Kant’s ideas and language when he writes: Having learnt by long and often painful experience the relative ineffectiveness of trying to inculcate moral precepts, he [the therapist] has to abandon all admonitions and exhortations that begin with ‘ought’ and ‘must’. (Jung 1949: 1408, my italics) However Jung is not so much concerned with the fact that by following others we stop doing our duty for duty’s sake: he is simply stressing the ‘ineffectiveness’ of heteronomous inculcating of ‘moral precepts’, presumably because he is aware that even if our conscious personality were to follow these precepts, it is not at all sure that our unconscious would be easily led along. If for Kant the only ‘ought’ we should follow is the autonomous rational moral law we give ourselves, for Jung the only ‘ought’ which is really binding stems from the depths of one’s conscious and unconscious Self (see for example Jung 1928: 218, 1934a: 300, 1958: 841).16 However, as I discussed earlier, Jung does not overlook the usefulness of temporarily introjecting the ethical stance of one’s therapist. Kant and Jung seem to be involved in the same paradox: both believe that an ethical and moral outlook ought to be discovered autonomously, but they cannot refrain from telling their readers that the discovery of this moral and ethical outlook is precisely what they ought to do. Moreover, our authors do not just say: ‘Set off and discover for yourself!’; they also suggest where one should look for ethics and morality. Kant

Morality, freedom and the ego 25

argues they should be found in reason alone; Jung, in consciousness, in the unconscious, and in the union of the two. To make the paradox even greater, Kant provides various formulations of the categorical imperative17 and Jung, throughout his whole career, describes in great detail what is involved in individuation, the ethical task par excellence, which includes: strengthening of consciousness (which I have discussed in this chapter), integration of personal and collective unconscious elements into consciousness (cf. Chapter 2), non-identification with collective norms and avoidance of an individualistic stance (cf. Chapter 2), modification of one’s ethical outlook through time (cf. Chapter 2), endurance of conflicts of duties (see below), recognition of one’s evil side and integration of one’s shadow (cf. Chapter 4) and development of moral character traits (cf. Chapter 3). If this is what is needed to be ethical, according to Jung, following ‘moral precepts’ would appear to be, in comparison, a relatively straightforward task! The shadow of duty Kant’s famous opening statement in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals claims that ‘[i]t is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will’ (Kant 1996: 49 [G 4: 393], bold in the original). But perhaps it is less well known that Kant is also fully aware of the difficulties in discovering one’s own motives: It is indeed sometimes the case that with the keenest self-examination we find nothing besides the moral ground of duty that could have been powerful enough to move us to this or that good action and to so great a sacrifice; but from this it cannot be inferred with certainty that no covert impulse of self-love, under the mere pretence of that idea was not actually the real determining cause of the will; for we like to flatter ourselves by falsely attributing to ourselves a nobler motive, whereas we can never, even by the most strenuous self-examination, get entirely behind our covert incentives, since, when moral worth is at issue, what counts is not actions, which one sees, but those inner principles of actions that one does not see. (Kant 1996: 61–62 [G 4:407], my italics)

26  Morality, freedom and the ego

In the following passage, Jung discusses the same difficulty (apparently unaware of the fact that Kant himself had acknowledged it): Kant rightly requires the individual and society to advance from an ‘ethic of action’ to an ‘ethic of conviction’. But to see into the ultimate depths of the conviction behind the action is possible only to God. (Jung 1959: 871, my italics)18 If we consider that this statement comes from a depth psychologist, it could be read as almost self-defeating: should depth psychology not be able to penetrate these depths, thus providing us with more solid ground upon which to build our ethical life?19 My interpretation of Jung’s work leads me to believe that he did in fact think that his method of psychology could penetrate these depths when he insists on the necessity of integrating the unconscious with consciousness. However, with the reference to God20 and to the impossibility of penetrating the ultimate depths of the unconscious, Jung’s words express the limits of any psychological understanding (a dimension of Jung’s ethics which I discuss further in Chapter 4).21 With this awareness, depth psychology should not be aimed at moral perfectionism (or rigorism, as Kant’s moral philosophy is sometimes described), but instead attuned to the notion of completeness.22 Put in simple terms, I take for granted that some of the motives behind my actions will certainly be less noble than I would like them to be (and I may only realise this later), but this awareness does not subtract from my attempts to develop an ethical, integrated and healthy character and bring about more good than evil into the world. According to Kant, ‘[th]e most perfect, complete state of affairs that could exist in the world [. . .] would be one in which human beings could be happy to the degree that they deserve to be’ (Arrington 1998: 290). This is Kant’s notion of the summum bonum, the state of happiness that God ‘must’ grant the morally virtuous, but that the morally virtuous, by definition, do not seek (to many commentators, this is the weakest aspect of Kant’s moral philosophy, since it brings back from the window what had been put out at the door, namely a ‘heterodox’ conception of morality). From a depth-psychological point of view, if each time one was happy one had to investigate if the happiness one was feeling was deserved, the reflection would quickly poison the happiness. Following Jung’s integration of ethical positions, Nietzsche’s focus on mostly irrational (and often

Morality, freedom and the ego 27

undeserved) joy can be read as counterbalancing (but not necessarily contrasting) the Kantian notion of happiness. I will now contextualise Jung’s approach to the problem of conflicts of duty, placing Jung and Kant’s positions within the broader philosophical debate on this topic, and I will explain where Jung’s conception of conflict of duties fits within his psychological model. I will begin by reviewing the two main positions within the philosophical debate on moral dilemmas, and proceed by elucidating Jung’s personal answer to the question: ‘Do irresolvable moral dilemmas exist?’, showing in what respect he belongs to the party of those who believe that irresolvable dilemmas do exist and in what respect he belongs to the party that denies this. In what follows, if not otherwise specified, I will consider the expressions ‘moral dilemma’, ‘conflict of duty’, ‘conflict of duties’ and ‘moral conflict’ as synonyms; the difference between ‘duty’ and ‘obligation’ will not be taken into consideration. The problem of conflicts of duty In discussing moral conflicts, the distinction between the epistemic level (related to what someone believes the obligations or duties involved are) and the ontological level (related to what the obligations or duties involved actually are) is made clear by McConnell: The former involves conflicts between two (or more) moral requirements and the agent does not know which of the conflicting requirements takes precedence in her situation. [. . .] The latter are conflicts between two (or more) moral requirements, and neither is overridden [. . .] not simply because the agent does not know which requirement is stronger; neither is. Genuine moral dilemmas, if there are any, are ontological. (McConnell 2018, italics in the original) As Christopher Gowans observes, ‘[T]hat there are cases of apparent moral dilemma can hardly be denied’ (1987: 3, italics in the original). An (at least) apparent (or epistemic) conflict of duty occurs when someone believes that it would be her duty to do both A and B but cannot do both ‘either because B is just non-doing-A or because some contingent features of the world prevent doing both’ (Gowans 1987: 3).23 The main question

28  Morality, freedom and the ego

which informs the debate on moral dilemmas is: ‘Do real (ontological, irreducible, irresolvable in principle, tragic) conflicts of duty exist?’ As Richard McCarty explains, Kant denies this possibility: Since Kant holds the cognitivist view [according to which there are moral properties and facts and moral statements express beliefs, see van Roojen 2018] that obligations arise out of practical reason, in which consistency is an absolute value, he has no choice but to deny the possibility of conflicts of obligation. If practical reason permitted such conflicts, it would generate unresolvable antinomies and would be a fractured foundation for morality. (McCarty 1991: 67) However Kant softened his position by distinguishing ‘[p]erfect (or narrow) duties [that] prescribe or prohibit all instances of specific kinds of actions’ from ‘imperfect (or wide) duties’ where one duty can be limited by another (Gowans 1987: 7). William David Ross concedes that, prima facie, different duties24 do not appear reducible to one another (1930: 24), but then claims that through ‘intuition’ (which he conceives as similar to Aristotle’s ‘perception’) it is possible to determine which duty has precedence. From the opposite camp, Bernard Williams (1987) argues that irreducible conflicts of duties do exist, and that their existence can be inferred from the feeling of regret we experience after we have chosen one course of action knowing we have chosen the best. In the contemporary philosophical debate this is discussed as the ‘moral residue’ or ‘moral remainder’ problem. From the field of virtue ethics, Rosalind Hursthouse reaches a similar conclusion: An action is right iff [if and only if] it is what a virtuous agent would, characteristically, do in the circumstances, except for tragic dilemmas, in which a decision is right iff it is what such an agent would decide, but the action decided upon may be too terrible to be called ‘right’ or ‘good’. (And a tragic dilemma is one from which a virtuous agent cannot emerge with her life unmarred.) (Hursthouse 2002: 79–80) The philosopher Edward John Lemmon contributes to the discussion on conflicts of duty by noting that ‘[i]t does not seem to have been much observed

Morality, freedom and the ego 29

by ethical philosophers [sic] that, speaking psychologically, the adoption of a new morality by an agent is frequently associated with the confrontation of a moral dilemma’ (Lemmon 1987: 111, in Gowans 1987). Lemmon adds that ‘th[e] change in fundamental attitudes is neither fully rational nor fully irrational’ (ibid.) and resembles the change in style of an artist who cannot motivate his change if not with ‘a desire to be (whatever this means) true to himself’ (Lemmon 1987: 113, italics in the original, in Gowans 1987). Jung’s understanding of conflicts of duties Jung’s answer to the question ‘do irreducible conflicts of duty exist?’ is ‘yes and no, depending on the conceptual tools and framework of reference one employs when observing the conflict’. He distinguishes between two types of moral conflicts, those of neurotics and those of ‘normal people’, where ‘the conflicting opposites are both conscious’ (Jung 1978: 436). With reference to neurotic conflicts, the question that arises is: how does it occur that one side of a conflict is or becomes unconscious? When discussing conflicts of duty Jung does not spell this out explicitly, but arguably one side of a conflict may have become unconscious due to the mechanism of repression, which Jung defines as ‘a rather immoral “penchant” for getting rid of disagreeable decisions’ (Jung 1938/1940: 129). Or it may have been unconscious in the first place (recall that for Jung the unconscious is not just the product of repression, as in Freud, but it is also the state in which psychic contents are before they become conscious – if they do). In any case, since one side of the dilemma is relegated to the unconscious, there is no way that a solution can be found. These types of moral conflict are ‘irresolvable’ and neurosis, in Jungian terms, could thus be defined as the ‘non-solution’ to an irresolvable conflict of duties which should instead become a conscious and so resolvable condition. On the other hand the moral conflicts of ‘normal people’ are, as I mentioned, when both sides of the dilemma are conscious. Can they be solved? Here Jung’s answer is: yes. How can they be solved? Jung considers two possible ways of solving them, one being the most common, the second being attempted by ‘sufficiently conscientious’ (Jung 1958: 856) individuals. In the former case, one side of the dilemma is ‘consciously and deliberately disposed of’ (Jung 1938/1940: 129) through the mechanism of suppression: ‘Conflicts of duty are solved very often [. . .] by suppressing one of the opposites’ (Jung 1958: 856). Perhaps – if it is true that irreducible conflicts of duty do not exist – we may have been unable (or not

30  Morality, freedom and the ego

wanted?) to find out which horn of the dilemma had priority. Or perhaps we may have found it too difficult to endure the conflict. Whatever the underlying reason, a horn of the dilemma was ‘disposed of’ and so we acted according to the remaining duty. The second type of solution envisaged by Jung is more complicated, so it will be helpful to provide a longer quotation: If one is sufficiently conscientious the conflict is endured to the end, and a creative solution emerges which is produced by the constellated archetype and possesses that compelling authority not unjustly characterized as the voice of God. The nature of the solution is in accord with the deepest foundations of the personality as well as with its wholeness; it embraces conscious [sic] and unconscious and therefore transcends the ego. (Jung 1958: 856) The solution, according to Jung, can only ‘emerge’ from the unconscious if one has endured the conflict, which, as I mentioned, must have been (made) conscious in the first place. Key factors in the solution are time, patience and resistance. This second type of solution to a moral conflict is ‘a special instance of [. . .] the transcendent function’ (Jung 1958: 855), the function that allows a cooperation of consciousness and the unconscious. What I think is worth pointing out, and that I have not found discussed elsewhere, is that in this third scenario the unconscious can intervene presumably because it is not part of the conflict. In other words, when both sides of the dilemma are conscious, the unconscious can provide a more impartial and creative contribution to the psychic system.25 For clarity I will summarise Jung’s multi-faceted answer. Unconscious dilemmas, in other words dilemmas in which one horn of the dilemma is unconscious, cannot be solved, and need to be made conscious in order to try and solve them. Conscious dilemmas can be solved in two ways. In the first, a horn is simply suppressed. Jung calls this the ‘moral’ solution (Jung 1958: 855–857). In the second case, the conscious conflict is endured, and eventually a third point of view is found, thanks to the cooperation of the irrational side of our psyche. Jung calls this the ‘ethical’ solution (Jung 1958: 855–857). As I anticipated in the Introduction, it is only with this 1958 paper (“A Psychological View of Conscience”) that Jung clearly distinguishes morality from ethics. But as I will discuss in the following chapter, this distinction is already present, in nuce, in the 1916 discussion

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of ‘life-lines’ which are ‘never general principles’; this is clarified further in 1928 when Jung articulates the notion of ‘moral [sic] resentment’ (which comes ‘not [. . .] from a collision with the generally accepted and, in a sense, arbitrary moral law, but from the conflict with one’s own self’, 218); and it is subsequently developed in his Zarathustra Seminar, where he claims that in some cases what is vital must be preferred to what is moral (Jung 1934–1939: 569). The 1949 “Foreword” to Neumann’s book, as we have seen in the Introduction, also makes the distinction between an ‘old ethic’ and a ‘new ethic’, a distinction which is equivalent to that between morality and ethics made in 1958. To return to moral dilemmas, Jung agrees with Kant that if we remain entirely within the framework of morality a conflict of duty is actually not solvable, but this agreement is partly clouded by Jung’s sometimes inconsistent – and not always Kantian – use of the words ‘morality’ and ‘moral’, as I discuss later. Jung shares with Ross the idea of a solution to a moral conflict which is not entirely rational, which Ross calls ‘intuition’ and Jung ‘transcendent function’. But in fact Jung could also have deployed the word ‘intuition’, as he conceives of it in his own psychology: an irrational26 function which tells us where something is going.27 Hence, it is a good candidate to help us overcome a moral conflict. Jung also shows an intuitive appreciation, some 20 years in advance, of Williams’s ‘remainder problem’ and of Hursthouse’s conviction that tragic moral dilemmas do exist. Jung writes: One comforts oneself with the excuse that it was done in a good cause and was therefore moral. But anyone who has insight will know that on the one hand he [the doctor who lied to a patient] was too cowardly to precipitate a catastrophe, and on the other hand that he has lied shamelessly. He has done evil but at the same time good. (Jung 1949: 1417) Whereas Kant claims that even when an assassin knocks at our door we should say the truth to him, because duty requires us to say the truth even in extreme cases, Jung’s view is that: I may, for instance, get into a situation where, in order to keep a professional secret, I have to lie. It would be futile to shrink from this with the excuse that I am a ‘moral’ man. To the devil with such self-respect! (Jung 1959: 870)

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Or, as he puts it even more succinctly in his last major work, Mysterium Coniunctionis, ‘life itself is guilt’ (Jung 1955–1956: 206). There is a strong critical convergence between the views of Lemmon and those of Jung in that Lemmon shares the view that confronting and – in one way or another – emerging from a conflict of duty can be a changing point in one’s life.28 Lemmon speaks of ‘being true to oneself’, while Jung sees the ‘solution [. . .] in accord with the deepest foundations of the personality as well as with its wholeness’ (Jung 1958: 856). Walter Kaufmann summarises Jung’s view (in noting its similarities with Nietzsche’s ideas) that ‘the normal and healthy way of dealing with psychical problems is “overgrowing” them [. . .] and thus achieving an elevation of the level of consciousness’ (Kaufmann 1950: 82, note 10). Jung’s discussion of conflicts of duty is chronologically anterior to the resurgence of interest in this topic which has occurred in the last 50 years. Hence it would be unfair to criticise him for not having grasped aspects of the problem that were understood mostly after his death. However, I would like to briefly consider two more approaches to conflicts of duty which do not involve a recourse to the irrational. Foot (1987) distinguishes between a first level order in which the word ‘ought’ applies to both horns of a dilemma and a second level order in which the word ‘ought’ refers to ‘what is best’ (in Gowans 1987: 26). Gowans, on the other hand, suggests that priority principles can be put into place when facing a dilemma, such as ‘when P1 and P2 conflict, and F is present, follow P1’ (Gowans 1987: 28). When Jung claims that the choice of lying or not to a patient would be ‘a catastrophe’ whichever side one chooses (Jung 1949: 1417; quoted earlier), a priority principle such as the one suggested by Gowans could be put into place to guide the agent in her decision, such as ‘if the patient is severely psychotic or very young, it is sometimes preferable to lie’.29 Before we define a conflict as irresolvable, and wait for a symbol to transcend the opposites, careful moral reasoning might be fruitfully employed. One problem with Jung’s mistrust of moral and ethical reasoning, is that he frequently conflates his Kantian notion of morality (as freedom and autonomy from nature) with a conformist notion of morality, where morality is a synonym for adherence to customary and collective codes of conduct (1958: 856), such as the penal or religious systems of rules (1959: 870), which is at odds with Kant’s notion of autonomous morality. Freedom from nature does not automatically entail a passive adherence to collective morality (which then requires an unconscious solution to

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solve the standstill). Freedom from nature can also determine an immoralistindividualistic stance (Jung himself is aware of this in other parts of his work), as well as other approaches to life which are somewhere in-between morality and immorality. Jung’s expression ‘conscious scrutiny’ (1958: 855), on the other hand, refers to the process of holding something in consciousness and attending closely to it, and shows a deeper trust in the power of rationality than he sometimes displays in his work. Conscious scrutiny is an important stage, which should not be overlooked, since it has a role in making the unconscious conscious, and in turning an unconscious conflict into a conscious one. But he still claims that this will rarely be sufficient in overcoming a conflict: the ethical problems that cannot be solved in the light of collective morality [Jung’s conformist conception of morality] or the ‘old ethic’ are [irreducible, ontological] conflicts of duty, otherwise they would not be ethical. (Jung 1949: 1414) Here he manifestly begs the question and presupposes that only a partly irrational (i.e. ‘ethical’) solution will be able to overcome a conflict of duty. Another problem with Jung’s conception of ‘the ethical solution’ (to conflicts of duty) is his belief in the intervention of ‘the constellated archetype’. The archetype appears like a deus ex-machina which always (?) pulls the enduring ‘hero’ out of the moral conflict. But how many ‘heroes’ do not make it for trivial reasons? And who guarantees that the (right) archetype will intervene in a crisis? Both freedom and chance seem slightly undermined. What Jung seems to be telling us is that true freedom is the acceptance of necessity and that, in one way or another, all will end well: this appears slightly too optimistic. The more convincing side of Jung’s approach to moral dilemmas lies in his distinction between conscious-moral conflicts of duty (which can be solved) and unconsciousneurotic ones (which cannot be solved while they remain unconscious). The implication of this distinction is that if we are not experiencing a conflict of duty, we may either be in the middle of an unconscious one (which should then be made conscious) or we may have (recently) overcome one, and could be living, even if precariously, an ethical life, which would be a pleasant discovery.

34  Morality, freedom and the ego

Concluding reflections In this chapter I have explored Jung’s Kantian legacy with reference to Jung’s ethical position. Jung learns from Kant that our actions can be conceived as causally determined but also as morally free. Similarly, in Jung’s paradigm, our ego is determined by our Self, but can (and must) be emancipated from it. This freedom also involves our relationship with others: Jung embraces Kant’s ideal of autonomy, according to which we should be free from the (moral) influence of others. The problem, with Jung’s conception of the psyche, is that patients inevitably introject the ethical position of their therapist, so therapists should always have a strong ethical stance (in the sense that I will make clear throughout my analysis) and be aware of it at all times. Jung’s conviction that it is our duty to integrate our unconscious also rests on Kant’s ‘ought implies can’. Jung however differs from Kant in his belief that one should also follow one’s inclinations (which stem from the unconscious Self). Discussing conflicts of duty, we have also seen how Jung’s approach goes beyond Kant’s stance. For Jung there are two types of conflicts of duty, neurotic and ‘normal’. In the second one, both ‘horns’ of the conflict are conscious: and the person experiencing the conflict has a choice between suppressing one side of the conflict or waiting for a creative solution to emerge from the unconscious. As I have shown, Kant provides Jung (and all other depth-psychological schools) with a philosophical justification of the idea that the ego can be relatively free from unconscious determinism and that a moral subject is an autonomous subject. (Ignoring moral philosophy can make it more difficult for therapists to answer questions such as: ‘Am I being patronising?’, ‘Am I expecting too much from my patient?’, ‘Should I give my patient the advice she is asking for?’) But Jung is not entirely (and not only) Kantian, and his depth-psychological and therapeutic approach reveals some of the limits of (Kantian) morality. If duty is a key word in Kant’s philosophy and a very important word in Jung’s psycho-ethical paradigm, Jung’s belief in different types of genuine conflicts of duty takes him beyond the ego-based and rationality-based Kantian framework, towards an integration of the perspective of the unconscious. Consciousness must stand firm, but it cannot stand still. We can now turn to Jung’s second great ethical father, Nietzsche. The discussion of Nietzsche’s legacy to Jung will help us broaden the scope

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of what Jung considers should fall under the name of ‘ethics’: not only a matter of concern for the ego, but also a dangerous terrain of experience for the whole Self. Notes 1 An historical-bibliographical note I take from Bishop 2000: Jung possessed copies of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason and Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics that will be able to present itself as Science (bound together in a single volume, with Jung’s ex libris dated 1897); Dreams of a Spirit-Seer elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics (with Jung’s ex libris dated 1893); Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (bound together with the aforementioned Dreams and Kant’s Universal Natural History, with Jung’s signature on the front flyleaf dated 1898); Critique of Judgement and On the Power of the Mind to master Morbid Feelings by Mere Resolution.   In the Zoofingia Lectures, Kant and terms related to Kantian philosophy are quoted (at least) 43 times. In the Collected Works, Kant and related terms are quoted (at least) 84 times. 2 Jung notes that one of the ways he achieves this is by showing ‘that the mechanistic and the teleological viewpoints are not constituent (objective) principles – as it were, qualities of the object – but that they are purely regulative (subjective) principles of thought, and, as such, not mutually inconsistent’ (Jung 1917: 688). Kant’s authority allows Jung to propose a teleological understanding of libido and a teleological reading of dreams without discarding the complementary causal standpoint. 3 Allen Wood discusses a tension within Kant’s notion of autonomy: ‘it is also easy to regard Kant’s conception of autonomy as either incoherent or fraudulent. To make my own will the author of my obligations seems to leave both their content and their bindingness at my discretion, which contradicts the idea that I am obligated by them. If we reply to this objection by emphasising the rationality of these laws as what binds me, then we seem to be transferring the source of obligation from my will to the canons of rationality. The notion of self-legislation becomes a deception or at best a euphemism’ (Wood 1999: 156). On Kant’s notion of autonomy, see also Wood 2008: 106–122; Shell 2009: 122. 4 Kant’s notion of moral freedom is further clarified by Rohlf (2018): ‘[Kant’s conviction] that human beings experience only appearances not things in themselves [. . .] is the only way to make sense of the kind of freedom that morality requires. For transcendental idealism allows that the cause of my action may be a thing in itself outside of time: namely, my noumenal self, which is free because it is not part of nature. No matter what kind of character I have developed or what external influences act on me, on Kant’s view all of my intentional, voluntary actions are immediate effects of my noumenal self, which is causally undetermined [and] not subject to the deterministic laws of nature in accordance with which our understanding constructs experience’. 5 Yahweh trying to crush Job is a symbolic representation of this scenario (see Jung 1952a). 6 I am here personifying the ego. 7 Cf. Chapter 2. 8 Cf. Chapter 3. 9 Proulx comments this same quotation as follows: ‘Since human beings believe they are free, and since, without this belief, consciousness would be a pointless farce, then human beings are free. This is as spurious an argument as can be’ (Proulx 1994: 114).

36  Morality, freedom and the ego I agree that the form in which Jung couches the argument is begging the question and the specific passage Proulx comments subtracts from Jung’s argument, which could have been made stronger by simply appealing to Kant’s autonomy of practical reason. 10 When, instead, due to the effects of inflation, we ‘act out’, the ego is quite right to feel ‘it is not me’. The ego sees, ‘before its eyes’, the effects – but not the causes, which are unknown to it – of the actions of the Self. When we act out, the ‘agent’ (I use inverted commas because responsibility and accountability are undermined) is the Self, a Self not mediated by an ego. 11 The expression ‘autonomous complex’, sometimes in its abstract variant ‘autonomy of complexes’, occurs at least 47 times in Jung’s CW. 12 ‘It is characteristic of the moral phenomenon that the person acting must himself know and decide, and he cannot let anything take this responsibility from him. Thus it is essential that philosophical ethics have the right approach, so that it does not usurp the place of moral consciousness and yet does not seek a purely theoretical and “historical” knowledge either but, by outlining phenomena, helps moral consciousness to attain clarity concerning itself. [. . .] This asks a lot of the person who is to receive the help, namely the person listening to Aristotle’s lecture. He must be mature enough not to ask that his instruction provide anything other than it can and may give’ (Gadamer 1993: 313). 13 See Madera 2007. 14 My considerations are clearly not intended to cover the whole range of ideas on transference discussed by Jung and Freud. 15 ‘[T]he idea that, no matter how dire one’s circumstances, one is aware through one’s consciousness of standing under the moral law that one can do what duty requires, simply because one ought to do so’ (Allison 2006: 391, italics in the original). See also Stern 2004. 16 ‘The fact that many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing to one who has a vocation. He must obey his own law’ (Jung 1934a: 300, italics in the original); ‘Conscience [. . .] commands the individual to obey his inner voice even at the risk of going astray’ (Jung 1958: 841). I discuss Jung 1928: 218 in the section ‘A feeling of moral resentment’ in the following chapter. 17 See Johnson and Cureton 2019. 18 In a passage from his “Foreword” to Neumann’s work Jung elaborates further on the impact that depth psychology has for deontology: ‘In so far as ethics represents a system of moral demands, it follows that any innovations within or outside this system would also possess a “deontological” character. But the psychic situation to which the new admonition “you ought” would be applicable is so complicated, delicate and difficult that one wonders who would be in a position to make such a demand’ (Jung 1949: 1417). 19 John Beebe, discussing Jung’s notion of the shadow, seems optimistic about the endeavour of penetrating one’s real intentions: ‘We are contemplating a course of action, have gone so far as to invest in a certain way of proceeding, and find a strange, nagging unease somewhere at the core of our will. Upon the most meticulous self-examination, we conclude that the course we have embarked upon is not founded, after all, on the motive we had supposed. We stop to examine the real motive. However unattractive the ground we uncover through this inquiry, finding the truth brings relief. Only then do we feel secure in figuring out what we must do’ (Beebe 1992: 21, my italics). 20 Which here can be taken as referring to an ideal omniscient entity as in a philosophical thought experiment: the point Jung is making strikes home even if we don’t actually believe that this entity exists. (‘God knows!’ can be uttered by non-believers as much as by believers.) 21 In the section ‘ “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology”: psychological, religious and ethical humility’.

Morality, freedom and the ego 37 22 In “Answer to Job”, written at the end of Jung’s life, we read: ‘For, just as completeness is always imperfect, so perfection is always incomplete, and therefore represents a final state which is hopelessly sterile. “Ex perfecto nihil fit,” say the old masters, whereas the imperfectum carries within it the seeds of its own improvement. Perfectionism always ends in a blind alley, while completeness by itself lacks selective values’ (Jung 1952a: 620). 23 An example in which B is non-doing-A is the case: ‘Should I return the weapon I borrowed from a friend who told me he wants to use it to harm someone?’ Here the (at least) apparent conflict is between ‘respecting a promise’ and ‘preventing harm’ [by not respecting it]. As noted by some commentators, the agent could choose to return the weapon when the friend is in a less agitated state of mind. Another example: I have promised ‘to be best man at A’s wedding and also at B’s. By bad luck A and B fix their weddings for the same day and I can’t attend both. So one of my promises must be broken’ (Foot 1987: 254). In this second case, it is a contingent feature of the world, namely the fact that both weddings have been arranged on the same day, which determines the (at least) apparent conflict between what appear to be two instances of the same duty: the duty to respect a promise. 24 McNaughton, drawing from the work of Ross, distinguishes between: 1 Duties resting on a previous act of my own. These in turn divide into two main categories: (a) Duties of fidelity; these result from my having made a promise or something like a promise. (b) Duties of reparation; these stem from my having done something wrong so that I am now required to make amends. 2 Duties resting on previous acts of others; these are duties of gratitude, which I owe to those who have helped me. 3 Duties to prevent (or overturn) a distribution of benefits and burdens which is not in accordance with the merit of the person concerned; these are duties of justice. 4 Duties which rest on the fact that there are other people in the world whose condition could be better; these are duties of beneficence. 5 Duties which rest on the fact that I could better myself; these are duties of self-improvement. 6 Duties of not injuring others; these are duties of non-maleficence. (McNaughton 1996: 762–763, italics in the original) 25 Contemporary psychological research seems to back Jung’s intuition, see Boas 2008. 26 Intuition is irrational because, like its opposite function ‘sensation’, it is not based on judgement (unlike thinking and feeling, which are two forms of judgement), being as it is a special type of ‘perception’. 27 ‘The essential function of sensation is to establish that something exists, thinking tells us what it means, feeling what its value is, and intuition surmises whence it comes and wither it goes’ (Jung 1936: 983). 28 The Greek verb ‘to decide’, krino, is the root of the word ‘crisis’. 29 When Jung claims that ‘I have [. . .] made it a rule to take the “old ethic” as binding only so long as there is no evidence of its injurious effects’ (Jung 1949: 1413), he actually does seem to be proposing a ranking of duties or a priority principle. The quotation could be paraphrased as follows: ‘Common morality has precedence over individual solutions except in the presence of neurosis’. In his Zarathustra Seminar Jung declares, but significantly to an invited audience, that his psychology is based on ‘selfishness’ (not to be confused with individualism or egocentrism): McNaughton’s duty towards ‘self-improvement’ seems to be, for Jung, the most important duty.

Chapter 2

Ethics, health and the Self The Nietzschean legacy

In the previous chapter I have looked at Jung’s Kantian emphasis on morality, but I have also anticipated that Jung does not see morality as the final goal of individuation. In this chapter I argue that Jung derives from Nietzsche the distinction between the collective scope of morality and the individual sphere of ethics: where the former stands, in both Nietzsche and Jung, for collective and rational values, the latter takes into account, in both Nietzsche and Jung, the irrational, unconscious and unique side of each individual Self. Here I will compare Jung and Nietzsche on moral resentment, ‘unconscious virtue’ and the Dionysian approach to life. I will also provide an account of Jung’s Nietzschean understanding of the Self and of his disagreement with Nietzsche on the notion of adaptation. Finally I will examine where Jung diverges from Nietzsche with regard to the idea of ‘beyond good and evil’. Before I begin my actual discussion of the Nietzsche/Jung interface, in what follows I will briefly discuss some similarities between the style of Nietzsche and Jung, provide a succinct overview of Nietzsche’s ethical position and highlight some difficulties in approaching Jung’s reception of Nietzsche. On the style of Jung and Nietzsche Most of Nietzsche’s books are collections of aphorisms and paragraphs more or less clearly connected to each other. His stylistic choice allows him to showcase what many consider the most beautiful German after that of Goethe, but it is also functional to his substantive critiques of systematic moral philosophies (such as that of Kant, dubbed by Nietzsche

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‘the catastrophic spider’) and one-shaded systems of morality. Nietzsche goes as far as to claim that ‘[t]he will to a system is a lack of integrity’ (Nietzsche 2009: 159 [TI I 26]). The style one chooses to philosophise is integral to what one wants to say. So just like every Nietzschean aphorism is in some way unique, as well as ambiguous, every human being, in Nietzsche’s view, is unique and in some way ambiguous. By the very act of reading Nietzsche, we are subtly introduced to his ethical and indeed ontological claims about the fragmentation of truth and of ethical standpoints. These reflections could equally be applied to Jung, who notoriously never wrote a ‘system’ of his psychology (except, perhaps, in Psychological Types, which can be read as such an attempt) and was generally disappointed with those who attempted to systematise his work (having first encouraged them to try!). Jung sometimes leaves a thought unfinished, perhaps out of laziness or perhaps because he wants to stimulate the reader to think for herself. This method may be derived from clinical practice, where the patient is supposed to develop his own world view. Jung frequently hides aphorisms within his paragraphs and writes in a paradoxical style. With a Nietzschean gesture against ‘weakness’, he claims that uniformity of meaning is a sign of weakness [. . .] only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life. Nonambiguity and non-contradiction are one-sided and thus unsuited to express the incomprehensible. (Jung 1944: 18)1 Various problems may arise when approaching thinkers such as Jung and Nietzsche, who frequently write without the support of clear argumentation, as if possessed by sudden intuitions.2 When we are confronted with two (or more) statements which appear to be in contradiction, we must be careful to distinguish whether the contradiction is real or apparent. The aforementioned Jungian quotation (Jung 1944: 18) should perhaps be taken as a methodological indication: some contradictions in his thought may be understood more profitably as paradoxes. Usually a paradoxical statement is signalled in one way or another (with an exclamation mark, for example), such as in the following passage from Nietzsche: ‘In this book faith in morality is withdrawn – but why? Out of morality!’ (D 4, quoted in Leiter 2013). Nietzsche here produces surprise and estrangement in the reader (as the Greek para-doxa, i.e. ‘against common opinions’, originally signified)

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and his words are there to make one think. But we must guard ourselves against the risk of using the possibility of paradoxical reading as an excuse whenever we encounter a contradiction which resists all our attempts to resolve it philologically and critically or to understand it as a thoughtprovoking and deliberate paradox. A contradiction, after all our efforts to be ‘charitable’ (Davidson’s hermeneutic principle), must be pointed out and described as such, in the want of any better available explanation. I have insisted on these stylistic and methodological issues because in looking at Jung’s reception of Nietzsche’s ideas there is often the risk of an exponential multiplication of hermeneutic difficulties. Nietzsche’s ethics: an overview Nietzsche’s famous genealogical inquiry into the origin of morality is well summarised by William Schroeder: Nietzsche suggests that ‘master moralities’ are those in which flourishing human beings bestow value on the traits that make their flourishing possible. Everything that produces delight, joy, power – everything that affirms this life – is sanctified with the appellation ‘good’. For such moralities ‘bad’ is almost an afterthought – indicating simply a lack of good traits; the bad person is less condemned than unfortunate. However, those who are more impoverished, less advantaged, and less talented resent and hate the success of those who flourish. [. . .] To avenge themselves, they create the category of ‘evil’. They substitute for the opposition ‘good/bad’ the more vituperative opposition of ‘good/evil’, and they invert what counts as good. [. . .] How else could meekness, self-effacement, and poverty have become virtues? Thus, for slave moralities ‘evil’ becomes whatever master moralities have called good – whatever has made human flourishing possible. And ‘good’ becomes whatever was previously merely bad – characteristics indicating misfortune, weakness, disability, self-denial, and life-denial. (Schroeder 2000: 382, my italics) Schroeder highlights ‘flourishing’ (a virtue-ethical notion) and ‘lifeaffirmation’ as key components of Nietzsche’s positive ethical outlook. Other scholars, in seeking the cornerstone of Nietzsche’s ethical proposal,

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have focused instead on the concepts of ‘will to power’ (Kaufmann 1950), ‘power’ (Schacht 1983; Richardson 2001), ‘life’ (Geuss 1987), ‘self-creation’ (Nehamas 1985), ‘creativity’ [in Z] and ‘knowing’ [in BGE] (Berkowitz 1995), ‘the nature of one’s ‘type’’ (Leiter 2013) and ‘self-legislation’ (Bennett 2012). All these notions are central components of Nietzsche’s ethical vision and it is very difficult (and not necessarily meaningful) to try to establish which one of them is the most fundamental. In seeking which of Nietzsche’s ethical ideas have most influenced Jung, it seems to me that three fundamental concepts stand out, and ironically they are so pervasive in Nietzsche’s thought that it is possible to overlook them. It could be argued that these ethical ideas are not only the ones that have most influenced Jung, but that they are also Nietzsche’s three single most important ethical ideas. The first two are precisely ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ (which can be used as synonyms for ‘master’ and ‘slave’ morality respectively). Nietzsche’s career-long obsession was that the extremely noble search for a good life has been left for too long in the hands of morality, and should be brought back, as it was in Homeric Greece, into a higher sphere, the sphere of ethics. The third key ethical concept is health: Nietzsche’s fundamental argument is that morality is harmful to the development of higher individuals; in other words it is unhealthy, and the mark of the ‘higher type’ or ‘free spirit’, the type that embodies Nietzsche’s ethical vision, is health. In The Gay Science Nietzsche writes: Being new, nameless, hard to understand, we premature births of an as yet unproven future need for a new goal also a new means – namely, a new health, stronger, more seasoned, tougher, more audacious, and gayer than any previous health. (Nietzsche 1974: 346 [GS 382], my italics) In Nietzsche health stands not just for an absence of symptoms, as one can have no symptoms of ill-health and still be weak. It has to do with the strength to endure, overcome and recover from illness (as from misfortune); it is a certain powerful vitality and resilience. Morality, on the other hand, is for Nietzsche first and foremost an expression of weakness and decadence. The refusal of morality, in the ‘higher type’, will coincide both with ethics and with health. (So, for the sake of completeness, one could add ‘sickness’ or ‘weakness’ as Nietzsche’s fourth key ethical concept.)

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In this chapter, when discussing Nietzsche, I will use ‘morality’ as shorthand for what Nietzsche disparagingly calls ‘slave morality’ and ‘herd morality’ and for what has become known, in the secondary literature on Nietzsche, as ‘Morality in the Pejorative Sense’ (Leiter 2013: 1).3 It is a sufficiently good approximation to say that for Nietzsche morality is always slave morality and something to be avoided. Likewise, what Nietzsche calls ‘master morality’ or ‘higher type’ morality, or the moral stance of ‘free spirits’, can quite neatly be dubbed ‘ethics’. So my suggestion is that what Nietzsche attacks is morality, and what he endorses is ethics. I derive this contrastive use of the words ethical/ethics and moral/ morality from Jung. The pupil (Jung) helps clarify a distinction which the master (Nietzsche) already had in mind. But the idea that ethics is an individual task to be differentiated from adherence to collective morality is Nietzsche’s – and Jung learns it from him.4 Jung’s ambivalent discussion of Nietzsche’s philosophy and psychology It would be too ambitious a task to give you a detailed account of the influence of Nietzsche’s thoughts on my own development. [. . .] I could not help being deeply impressed by his [Nietzsche’s] indubitable inspiration. He was sincere, which cannot be said of so many academic teachers to whom career and vanity mean more than the truth. (C. G. Jung to Rev. Arthur W. Rudolph, 5 January 1961, in Jung 1951–1961: 621–622)

It is an established fact that Nietzsche had a great influence on Jung’s philosophical and psychological conceptions. Both are indeed moral psychologists and ‘psychologists of morality’ who see morality as in need of psychological understanding, even psychological ‘treatment’! It is Nietzsche who teaches Jung to see every philosophy and psychology as a subjective confession of its author. And with little gratitude towards such a master, Jung saw both Nietzsche and his ideas as both being in need of psychological treatment.5 Jung conducts a critique which is both ad hominem and Adlerian of Nietzsche’s ideas, claiming that Nietzsche attempted to compensate for his sense of inferiority by producing grandiose ideas. He also used what could be called an ad ideam critique of the

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man, claiming that Nietzsche’s ideas were intrinsically inflation-inducing, and that that was part of the reason why Nietzsche went mad. For both Jung and Nietzsche health is the battlefield where different psychological, philosophical and ethical ideas fight for supremacy.6 In the Collected Works Jung usually mentions Nietzsche in a rather negative light, and this, given the influence that Nietzsche had on his ideas, seems ungrateful as well as suspicious. There may be more than one reason why Jung does not fully acknowledge the Nietzschean influence on his work, and one reason does not exclude another: intellectual pride, an unawareness of the extent of this influence or instead the very pervasiveness of this influence (see quotation at the beginning of this section). It must also be noted that, in the years of Jung’s intellectual formation, Nietzsche’s name was wrongly associated with a radical critique of any type of ethical outlook and his figure was an emblem of the lonely and eccentric philosopher;7 so any mention of Nietzsche in a positive light in a scientific work could have alienated Jung from the sympathies of his non-Nietzschean readers (whom he may have considered to be the majority): if this was indeed the case Jung can be accused of intellectual dishonesty or cowardice. For example, in “On the Psychology of the Unconscious” (1917/1926/1943), there is an entire chapter devoted to Nietzsche’s philosophical position which Jung critiques on the grounds that ‘[h]is life does not convince us of his teaching’ (37). For Jung, Nietzsche denied the animal instinct (the Eros principle) in favour of a one-sided emphasis on individualistic Will to Power. According to Jung, every man ‘desires wife and offspring, standing and esteem among the herd, innumerable commonplace realities’ (37) which are connected to Eros and, he surmises, Nietzsche tried to convince himself that he could live without them (with bad results). He also points out ‘the dangers that lurk in [Nietzsche’s] leap beyond Christianity’ since ‘he who seriously criticizes the basic attitudes of Christianity also forfeits the protection which these bestow upon him. He delivers himself up unresistingly to the animal psyche’ (40). In “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious”, Jung is no less disparaging: ‘With Nietzsche man stands alone, as he himself did, neurotic, financially dependent, godless and worldless. This is no ideal for a real man who has a family to support and taxes to pay’ (Jung 1928: 397). On the other hand, in The Red Book and when discussing Nietzsche more informally and to a close circle of listeners, in his unique interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra contained in his 1935–1939 Seminar (not

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intended for publication, but published from the notes of those present),8 Jung’s judgement appears more nuanced and overall more positive. In The Red Book, from which I quote in other sections of this chapter, there are some important Nietzschean themes, since Jung passionately advocates – as he will continue to do throughout his entire life and work – an individual ethics based on the unique truth of each Self (351) and a conception of love which is seen as an encounter of ‘Nietzschean’ free spirits who give out of fulness, not out of longing (438), and who are capable of being alone with themselves (458). The Red Book also contains a brief but significant and explicit discussion of Nietzsche’s philosophy and psychology (and of their effect on readers). Jung’s ‘character’ finds himself ‘in a large library’, requests The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis and then ends up discussing with the librarian9 the value of Christianity for their contemporaries. The librarian claims that Nietzsche ‘has written a more than veritable book of prayer’ (330) – clearly referring to the Zarathurstra – and that his writing ‘confers a precious feeling of superiority’ (330) to some people. Jung’s ‘character’ agrees, but adds that ‘I know men who need inferiority, not superiority’ (anticipating the objection that Nietzsche’s thought is a ‘royal road’ to psychological inflation). Jung’s ‘character’ also describes Nietzsche as ‘too agitated’ (a psychological, not theoretical objection) and ‘too oppositional [towards Christianity]’. These observations are more fully articulated by Jung in his later work, but it is significant that Nietzsche is the only philosopher who is explicitly discussed in The Red Book. This is surely due to the fact that in his quest for a renewed conception of God and a re-encounter with his lost soul, Jung feels that tackling Nietzsche’s thought and legacy is unavoidable. In terms of volume, Jung’s Seminar on Zarathustra is the only lengthy discussion that Jung ever dedicated to a single philosopher. The Seminar contains a good deal of psychoanalytic arrogance (well documented in Huskinson 2004; Parkes 1999), as well as brilliance, and one finds frequent acknowledgments of Nietzsche’s greatness. When Jung translates Nietzsche’s ideas into his own language, this at once reveals the influence of Nietzsche on his own conceptions. There will be further and frequent references to this Seminar throughout this chapter. It was only in his memoir (Memories, Dreams, Reflections), written at the end of his life in collaboration with Aniela Jaffé, that Jung acknowledged the psychological influence that Nietzsche’s life and philosophy had had on him (so that readers of Jung’s Collected Works would have been

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unaware of this until its publication). In his memoir he claimed that the figure of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra was a personification of his (Jung’s) ‘No. 2 [personality]’ (Jung 1963: 102), the one in contact with the unconscious. In his student days Jung feared No. 2 would take control of his life (Jung 1963: 102–103) and possibly drive him mad. But, writing his memoir as an old man, he claims: The play and counterplay between personalities No. 1 and No. 2, which has run through my whole life, has nothing to do with a ‘split’ or dissociation in the ordinary medical sense. On the contrary, it is played out in every individual. (Jung 1963: 45) Still, Jung’s early fear of resembling Nietzsche and of becoming ill like him (‘morbid’, Jung 1963: 102) must have provided him with a strong stimulus to study him very carefully; if indeed they were similar, this may account for both Jung’s great insight into Nietzsche’s work, a kind of participation mystique between scholar and object of study, as well as for the occasional blunders and short-sightedness of Jung’s interpretation of Nietzsche his exegesis.10 ‘A feeling of moral resentment’ In On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche writes: While the aristocratic man lives confidently and is open to himself [. . .] the man of resentment, on the other hand, is not sincere or naive, neither honest nor candid with himself. His soul squints; his mind loves dark corners, secret passages and hidden doors, everything covert appeals to him as his world, his security, his comfort. (Nietzsche 2013: 27 [GM, III], italics in the original) The man of resentment values ‘pity, the kind and helping hand, the warm heart, patience, industriousness, humility, friendliness’ (Nietzsche 2003a: 197 [BGE 260]) because it is the only way he can oppose the strength of higher, more noble, healthier individuals.11 In “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious” (1928), Jung develops the Nietzschean notion of moral resentment and provides a clear picture of his conception of the

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mind, of analysis and of the role of ethics in allowing an expansion of one’s personality: [We] have to distinguish in the unconscious a layer which we may call the personal unconscious. [. . .] It can readily be understood that incompatible psychological elements are liable to repression and therefore become unconscious. But on the other hand this implies the possibility of making and keeping the repressed contents conscious once they have been recognized. We recognize them as personal contents because their effects, or their partial manifestations, or their source can be discovered in our personal past. They are integral components of the personality, they belong to its inventory, and their loss to consciousness produces an inferiority in one respect or another – an inferiority, moreover, that has the psychological character not so much of an organic lesion or an inborn defect as of a lack which gives rise to a feeling of moral resentment. The sense of moral inferiority always indicates that the missing element is something which, to judge by this feeling about it, really ought not be missing, or which could be made conscious if only one took sufficient trouble. The moral inferiority does not come from a collision with the generally accepted and, in a sense, arbitrary moral law, but from the conflict with one’s own self which, for reasons of psychic equilibrium, demands that the deficit be redressed. Whenever a sense of moral inferiority appears, it indicates not only a need to assimilate an unconscious component, but also the possibility of such assimilation. In the last resort it is a man’s moral qualities which force him, either through direct recognition of the need or indirectly through a painful neurosis, to assimilate his unconscious self and to keep himself fully conscious. Whoever progresses along this road of self-realization must inevitably bring into consciousness the contents of the personal unconscious, thus enlarging the scope of his personality. I should add at once that this enlargement has to do primarily with one’s moral consciousness, one’s knowledge of oneself, for the unconscious contents that are released and brought into consciousness by analysis are usually unpleasant – which is precisely why these wishes, memories, tendencies, plans, etc. were repressed. These are the contents that are brought to light in much the same way by thorough confession, though to a much more limited extent. The rest comes out as a rule in dream analysis. (Jung 1928: 218, my italics)

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In Nietzsche slave morality and master morality are the products of two different psychologies: a reactive, fearful psychology and an active, creative psychology. Only few, higher individuals possess the ability to create lifeaffirming and life-enhancing values, and are capable of self-legislation, to create and obey their own laws. In Jung’s Nietzschean expression ‘a feeling of moral resentment’ it is as if the higher and the lower types were united in one person. Jung explains that to contrast this feeling of inferiority positively one must ‘enlarg[e] one’s moral consciousness’ (the idea of a ‘duty to be conscious’ is restated here) through ‘knowledge of oneself’ (in Jungian terms, knowledge of one’s Self), which can be obtained primarily through ‘a thorough confession’ and especially through ‘dream analysis’. The repressed wishes, memories and tendencies mentioned by Jung are all ‘given’ and ‘natural’ elements of one’s personality. Jung also mentions repressed ‘plans’, which are conscious creations.12 But the crucial point in this long passage from Jung is that this individual sense of guilt is not determined by the feeling of having transgressed a ‘generally accepted and, in a sense, arbitrary moral law’ but by a ‘conflict with one’s own self’. (Here Jung clearly distinguishes between collective morality and individual ethics, even if he does not use the word ‘ethics’ for the latter and prefers the expression ‘moral resentment’. In his 1958 paper on conscience, which I discussed in the previous chapter, the terminological distinction is instead made clear.) Furthermore, Jung believes that this conflict can13 be addressed and overcome through the knowledge of one’s Self brought out by analysis, and that these contents must then be ‘kept conscious’ so that new patterns of feeling and action can develop.14 The ego must expand, and make the unconscious conscious, but it will never be able to bring to the surface the whole of the Self. A reservoir of unconscious potentiality will always remain, functioning as a necessary counter-balance to egoconsciousness. But how can the ego express the Self more fully? In his Seminar on Zarathustra Jung tackles this problem. On unconscious virtue The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it. (Nietzsche 1996: 182 [HA 515])

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche claims that ‘the decisive value of an action resides in precisely that which is not intentional in it’ (Nietzsche

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2003a: 63 [BGE 32]). And in his Zarathustra Nietzsche exhorts: ‘That your Self be in the action, as the mother is in the child: let that be your maxim of virtue!’ (Nietzsche 2003b: 120 [Z II ‘Of the Virtuous’] italics in the original). Jung comments on this passage as follows: our action is virtuous inasmuch as the wider circle [in Nietzsche, ‘the mother’, which Jung sees here as an image of the Self] can be expressed within or by means of the smaller circle [in Nietzsche, ‘the child’, which Jung sees here as an image of the ego]: namely, inasmuch as the hypothetical invisible self manifests in our actions. In other words, inasmuch as we can allow the unconscious to flow in us, so that whatever we do always contains a certain amount of unconscious. [. . .] But it must be clear, if the unconscious flows in with our action and with our behaviour, that we assume responsibility. Otherwise it would not be expressed, but would simply be an event that occurred, and it would occur just as well to fishes or plants. It would have no merit; it only becomes ethical inasmuch as we know. If you know that a certain amount of unconsciousness, which means a certain amount of risk, comes in, and you stand for it, you assume responsibility: insofar is your action virtuous or ethical. (Jung 1934–1939: 1052–1053, italics in the original) This dense and important passage is an endorsement of Nietzsche’s position. According to Plato’s Socrates, if we really know what is good we will do what is good: ignorance is the source of moral error.15 With Aristotle’s discussion of the moral case of akrasia (which I discuss in Chapter 3), the situation is altered by the fact that our will can go in a divergent direction from that prescribed by our intellect: knowing what is good may not be enough. Jung agrees with Nietzsche that there is a vast area of ourselves that cannot be known, but he does not renounce the Socratic quest of attempting to know as much as we can about ourselves. In depthpsychological terms, Socrates’s ‘I am conscious of not knowing’, assumes a vaster significance: we really are, to a large extent, unknown to ourselves. Still, according to Jung, depth psychology should attempt to clarify what can be made clear, as well as accepting that a lot of what we are – including our motives and intentions – will always remain unclear (this marks a significant difference with Freud’s positivistic ideal). To accept that we do not know many of our real motives and intentions is a form

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of knowledge, and our action ‘becomes ethical inasmuch as we know’. Nietzsche stresses the individual and to a great extent unknowable character of an ethical action. Jung adds that once we admit the existence of our irrational and unconscious side we must take responsibility for it. Dionysus: creativity, joy, suffering At present I am sitting so precariously on the fence between the Dionysian and the Apollinian. (C. G. Jung to S. Freud, 11 February 1910)

In the Seminar on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, Jung claims that ‘to get drunk with the figures of the unconscious is Dionysian’ (Jung 1934–1939: 143). The Dionysian, in Nietzsche, stands for instinctual and unconscious love for life, identification with the instant which destroys itself, craving for experiences which tear us apart and that, by doing so, allow us to reconstruct our identity into new more dynamic configurations. The Dionysian is what allows us to find a form of pagan redemption through a joyful abandonment of the ego, through an ecstatic and immediate relationship with the world, Levi-Bruhl’s ‘participation mystique’ (often quoted by Jung). The Dionysian is dancing with a thousand masks16 and discarding them while we dance (as in Goethe’s powerful allegory of nature). The Dionysian is the spirit of wine, lust and abandonment. Of these inseparable aspects of the Nietzschean Dionysian, the ones that most influence Jung’s ethics are arguably ‘creativity’, ‘joy’ and ‘suffering’. I will begin by looking at the ‘joy’ and ‘suffering’. As Leiter explains, ‘an agent has a Dionysian attitude toward life insofar as that agent affirms his life unconditionally, in particular, insofar as he affirms it notwithstanding the “suffering” or other hardships involved’ (Leiter 2001). Or, to use Nietzsche’s own words: ‘The discipline of suffering, of great suffering – do you not know that it is this discipline alone which has created every elevation of mankind hitherto?’ (Nietzsche 2003a: 155 [BGE 225]). Interestingly, Nietzsche speaks of a ‘discipline of suffering’ – one could even speak of the duty to suffer – as a necessary condition for an enhancement of humankind. Jung holds a similar view, when he writes that [L]ife demands for its completion and fulfilment a balance between joy and sorrow [. . .] happiness is itself poisoned if the measure of

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suffering has not been fulfilled. Behind a neurosis there is so often concealed all the natural and necessary suffering the patient has been unwilling to bear. (Jung 1943: 185) In this quotation Jung speaks not only of suffering, but also of joy, the Dionysian counter-pole of suffering, since the word happiness usually defines a more intermediate condition. He emphasises the necessity of finding a ‘balance’ between these two states or conditions, and in fact (moderate) happiness could be a good word to describe this balance. What characterises joy and suffering, though, is not only that one can indeed seek them, but that they occur to us often unexpectedly and against our will. Jung seems to place greater emphasis on this aspect – accepting these conditions when they occur, not resisting them, since to do so would lead to neurosis – while Nietzsche claims that we should have an active role in seeking suffering and joy. In the earlier quotation Jung speaks of the importance of not resisting suffering, while in The Red Book we find an interesting reflection on accepting joy: ‘It is always a risky thing to accept joy, but it leads us to life and its disappointment, from which the wholeness of our life becomes’ (Jung 1913–1930: 219). And again: ‘The part that you take over from the devil – joy, that is – leads you into adventure’ (Jung 1913– 1930: 225). Jung’s attitude towards suffering and joy seems closer to the Oriental frame of mind, of openness to whatever the Self and the world have to offer, in an attempt to maintain the aforementioned balance, while Nietzsche shows a more Western power-based and ego-based approach. I will only briefly discuss the third aforementioned aspect of the Dionysian side of Jung’s psychology, creativity. It will suffice here to note that Jung’s unconscious has been characterised as an essentially creative unconscious (Gaillard 2009) and that the Dionysian could be seen as another word for the creative principle which brings health: a casting away of unnecessary rigidity and formality, the liberation from convention and boundaries, the shadow of morality which anticipates new ethical visions (see Chapter 4).17 But excess, alone, is not healthy. Humans also strive for Apollonian ‘form’, which is also necessary for life and happiness: The ‘mysterious union of Apollo and Dionysus’ stems from their intrinsic deficiencies; they are necessarily interdependent and ‘inwardly

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related’ (BT 4). Apart, the Apollinian and Dionysian drives both prove incomplete and incapable of attaining satisfaction. (Berkowitz 1995: 52) Jung was aware of this complementarity and of the need to find a union of these opposites. Adaptation and individuation When Nietzsche writes, ‘[M]adness is something rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule’ (Nietzsche 2003a: 103 [BGE: 156]), he is implying that (psychic) health is to be found not in groups, or in group-minded individuals, but in unique and superior human beings, who have the courage to be themselves. Adaptation, for Nietzsche, is only a goal for the ‘herd’: Today it seems to do everyone good when they hear that society is on the way to adapting the individual to general requirements, and that the happiness and at the same time the sacrifice of the individual lies in feeling himself to be a useful member and instrument of the whole. (D II 132, my italics) Jung agrees with Nietzsche that an excess of adaptation will lead to unethical behaviour; however, for Jung, adaptation to society is extremely important, and although it is not the same as individuation, it is a pre-condition of any successful individuation. In Psychological Types (1921) Jung defines individuation as (1) the ‘development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology’ (Jung 1921: 757, italics in the original). He adds that individuation is (2) ‘a natural necessity inasmuch as its prevention by a levelling down to collective standards is injurious to the vital activity of the individual’ (Jung 1921: 758, my italics). He states that (3) ‘the more a man’s life is shaped by the collective norm, the greater is his individual immorality’ (Jung 1921: 761). He also claims that individuation is (4) ‘the development of consciousness out of the original state of identity’ (Jung 1921: 449, my italics),18 specifying that (5) ‘[i]ndividuality can hardly be said to pertain to the psychic elements themselves, but only to their peculiar grouping and combination’ (Jung

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1921: 756). In “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious” (1928), Jung stresses that (6) ‘adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more conducive to a better social performance than when the peculiarity is neglected or suppressed’ (Jung 1928: 267, my italics). And again, in his 1928 work, he clarifies, as he had already done in 1921 (paragraph 761), the difference between individuation and individualism: (7) ‘Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity rather than to collective considerations and obligations’ (Jung 1928: 267, my italics). In mass-mindedness, adherence to collective standards is suffocating, and no space is left for the individual, who becomes ‘immoral’19 (Statement 3): autonomous reflection is not allowed (by the structure who detains power and/or by a self-imposed limitation of reflexivity) and the irrational elements of the individual psyche are not taken into account. In the case of individualism, on the other hand, we find a systematic neglect of the collective (Statement 7). Jung implies that individualism is also a norm (it is, after all, an -ism), the norm according to which we only pursue what we think is original about ourselves. Individuation, on the other hand, is seen as a middle ground between originality and adaptation, but not a compromise, because in one individual there are already collective elements which allow for adaptation (Statement 5), and our uniqueness is a more valuable resource for society than we usually allow (Statement 6). The ‘individuated person’ – although nobody, of course, is entirely individuated – is an asset to society, perhaps inasmuch as he or she adds a peculiar blend of values and points of view which had not previously been part of that specific culture or social group. So individuation appears to be the ethical and healthy tertium between mass-mindedness and individualism: ethical and healthy because it allows both individuals and the society in which they live in to flourish. Not only is the individuated subject capable of a better social performance: for Jung, he or she must produce something in favour of society. In a series of notes on the relationship between individuation, adaptation and the collective, Jung writes ‘the individuated personality must produce something equivalent in favour of society [. . .] individuation remains a pose so long as no positive values are created’ (Jung 1916a: 1098, my italics). Here Jung speaks, in a Nietzschean manner, of the creation of values. These values, if we keep in mind Jung’s ideas on conflicts of duties, could be seen as the ethical and creative tertium which the ‘hero’, having endured many conflicts of duties during his journey of individuation, is capable of ‘producing’,

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and decides to share with mankind. This tertium may actually be the hero’s qualities in themselves, and not necessarily a specific cultural object or achievement. Unfortunately Jung did not comment on the final fourth part of Nietzsche’s masterpiece in which Zarathustra returns to humankind to teach his ideal of the eternal recurrence (Jung’s Seminar ends with the discussion of the subchapter XIII of ‘Of Old and New Law-Tables’, in Part III of Z). In “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious”, Jung employs the Nietzschean expression ‘higher type’ to refer to the people for whom adaptation is not enough: There are vast masses of the population who, despite their notorious unconsciousness, never get anywhere near a neurosis. The few who are smitten by such a fate are really persons of the ‘higher’ type who, for one reason or another, have remained too long on a primitive level. Their nature does not in the long run tolerate persistence in what is for them an unnatural torpor. (Jung 1928: 291) Here Jung seems to be endorsing an ‘elitist’ position, where individuation (often set off by a neurosis) and ethics (as opposed to morality) are only for ‘the few’. However, in 1949, Jung will write that the ‘new ethic’ is ‘confined at present’ (my italics) to ‘uncommon individuals’, leaving the door open for a future individuation of the ‘masses’ (Jung 1928: 291). A situation which, in 1952, he will describe as a ‘Christification of many’ or ‘era of the Holy Ghost’ (I return to this notion in Chapter 4). Selfish ethics To unlearn all distinctions, save that concerning direction, is part of your salvation. (Jung 1913–1930: 360)

Jung is in debt to Nietzsche for the idea that there are many forces (or drives) within our Self which should all be taken into account and integrated in a unitary but not synthetic picture (Pieri 2005: 679), avoiding the repression of one force at the expense of another. The more we take into

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account these different forces, according to Jung, the more our action will be ethical, in other words not one-sided: it will be the action of a whole individual. Nietzsche writes: One thing is needful – To ‘give style’ to one’s character – a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye. Here a large mass of second nature has been added; there a piece of original nature has been removed – both times through long practice and daily work at it. (Nietzsche 1974: 232 [GS: 290], italics in the original) Here Nietzsche’s emphasis is on the active making of the Self, an idea that Jung embraces when he speaks of individuation as an opus contra naturam (Jung 1939a: 256). Elsewhere Nietzsche insists instead on the fact that the Self comes into being thanks to unconscious forces, which must be allowed to run their own course: Becoming what you are presupposes that you do not have the slightest idea what you are. [. . .] The whole surface of consciousness – consciousness is a surface – has to be kept free from all imperatives. Be careful even of great words, great attitudes. They pose the threat that instinct will ‘understand itself’ too early. – In the meantime, the organizing, governing ‘idea’ keeps growing deep inside, – it starts commanding, it slowly leads back from out of the side roads and wrong turns, it gets the individual qualities and virtues ready, since at some point these will prove indispensable as a means to the whole, – one by one, it develops all the servile faculties before giving any clue as to the domineering task, the ‘goal’, the ‘purpose’, the ‘meaning’. (Nietzsche 2009: 97 [EH ‘Why I am so clever’ 9], italics in the original) Jung often quoted Nietzsche’s ‘become what you are’ and believed that one should not only await the development of one’s personality, but also strive for this development to occur. Both Jung and Nietzsche claim that the Self is something given (or found) as much as it is something made.20

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When Jung calls the ‘vice’ which informs his psychology of individuation, ‘rank selfishness’ (Jung 1934–1939: 1451),21 he does not mean – as discussed earlier – ‘individualism’ (Jung 1921: 761), the attitude that shows indifference and contempt towards norms. The idea that selfishness, or ‘self-love’ (a word with a much less negative connotation), is a positive thing is taken straight from Nietzsche In ‘Of the Spirit of Gravity’ Nietzsche writes: ‘One must learn to love oneself with a sound and healthy love, so that one may endure it with oneself and not go roaming about’ (Nietzsche 2003b: 211 [Z III], discussed in Jung 1934–39: 1475).22 Furthermore, Jung’s comments on Nietzsche’s sarcastic chapter ‘Of Love of One’s Neighbour’ are extremely positive, with a whole-hearted endorsement of Nietzsche’s views. I will provide just two examples: We can forgive the early Christian when he speaks of the love for the neighbor, because he was quite aware that he did not hate himself. He was taught that he loved himself and he knew it very well. He was aware of the primitive egotism and therefore he was aware of the fact that it was a merit to love the neighbor; he made a merit of it in order to compensate his absolutely naïve selfishness, the naïve love for himself. Then later on, it was discovered what a cunning loophole that love for the neighbor could be; when things are getting hot for yourself, disagreeable, then you simply love the neighbor and forget all about yourself. (Jung 1934–1939: 700) And when commenting on Nietzsche’s ‘I do not exhort you to love of your neighbour: I exhort you to love of the most distant’ (Nietzsche 2003b: 88 [Z I]), Jung notes: If those you love are far away, you have the greatest chance of being alone with yourself in the meantime; you have an incomparable opportunity to become acquainted with yourself and then you make discoveries. (Jung 1934–1939: 702) It is arguably not a matter of geographic distance from those one loves (although this might help!), but of being capable of creating an internal

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space in which self-love is always consciously put in the forefront, and this clearly is not ‘selfish’ (in the negative sense): would one really want to be loved by someone who could not stand himself? What value would there be in such a love, if not a vampire-like attempt, as Nietzsche cynically remarked, to steal the good qualities of the ‘beloved’? In The Red Book too Jung opposes positively selfish love to ‘needy’ love when talking to Salome: ‘But give to me out of your fullness, not your longing’ (Jung 1913–1930: 438). Nietzsche’s ‘higher type’, as we have seen, cultivates loneliness. The last words of The Red Book are: ‘The touchstone is being alone with oneself. This is the way’ (Jung 1913–1930: 458). In both thinkers self-love is the ‘cauldron’ out of which one’s healthy love towards others may be born. ‘A new morality’ Although Jung has reservations about Nietzsche’s overall project, as I will discuss in the following section, in the Seminar on Zarathustra (which as mentioned earlier was not intended for publication) Jung explicitly endorses the idea that new values based on life and health should be promoted. In commenting on Nietzsche’s ‘Let your love towards life be love towards your highest hope’ (2003b: 75 [Z I ‘Of War and Warriors’], Jung produces a powerful exegesis, on which I have not found comments: ‘Nietzsche says something here which is really a foundation of a new morality’ (Jung 1934–1939: 568). Jung, even if in a whisper, but a very convinced whisper, endorses Nietzsche’s point that life, and what is vital,23 in other words what is healthy for the individual, can count as a new moral standard. Jung’s comments, since the matter is so delicate, are extremely nuanced: on the one hand he claims that ‘whatever is vital is of moral importance’ (Jung 1934–1939: 569, Seminar of 19 June 1935).24 Here it is clearly the clinician speaking: the idea of vitality, as we have seen, was also used by Jung when describing individuation as the ‘vital’ activity of the individual (Jung 1921: 758), which analysis seeks to enhance. But on the other hand, Jung is careful to add: Of course one would refrain from using the word good there because it has acquired a particular quality in the history of morality; you know very well that the vital thing is not just good as we understand that word. But you cannot deny it is vital. [. . .] Perhaps you would say that

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to decide in such and such a way would be good and moral, but then you see that it is not vital to decide in that way; so a more vital solution should be sought, allowing life to be lived. [. . .] The only question is: ‘Is it vital? Does it help life?’ (Jung 1934–1939: 569, italics in the original) And in line with Nietzsche’s critique of morality he concludes: We have plenty of moral ideas which impoverish life, and we think it is even good to do so, but then we discover that we do it not for any moral reasons but out of sheer cowardice – just cowardice and pretext; we hide our cowardice behind moral laws.25 (ibid.) In commenting on Nietzsche’s views, Jung is also presenting his own (to an important extent) Nietzschean depth-psychological approach, in which health is more important than morality. In the Seminar on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra Jung provides the following depth-psychological definition of virtue: ‘[T]o be able to submit to the strength which is in us, that is virtue’ (Jung 1934–1939: 1053). This idea of virtue as strength is integral to Jung’s health-based ethics according to which we must follow what is most vital. But how do we know what is the ‘vital’ and indeed ethical course of action to take in the circumstances of life? To put it more succinctly: how do we know what to do? We have already seen that enduring a conflict of duties is a good starting point, since it may allow the unconscious to intervene. In a text written shortly after Jung’s break from psychoanalysis, Jung claims that it is thanks to the analysis of the symbols of the unconscious that ‘life-lines’ can be discerned (Jung 1916b: 501).26 Jung explains, ‘[T]he moment we begin to map out the lines of advance that are symbolically indicated, the patient himself must proceed along them’ (Jung 1916b: 497–499; 502). Before pointing out how these life-lines are different from Adler’s ‘guiding fictions’, Jung quotes (significantly) Nietzsche’s dictum ‘All truth is crooked’ and adds: These life-lines [. . .] are never general principles or universally accepted ideals, but points of view and attitudes that have a provisional value. [. . .] [An individual must] take the way of the individual life-line he has recognized as his own, and continue along it until such

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time as an unmistakable reaction from the unconscious tells him he is on the wrong track. (Jung 1916b: 497, my italics) Jung is clear about the fact that following ‘general principles’ or ‘universally accepted ideals’ is not going to foster our development, so we can further understand his reluctance, discussed in the Introduction, to define ethical principles (Jung 1949: 1408). In The Red Book, inspired by Christ’s famous ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’, Jung writes: The way, or whatever it might be, on which people go, is our way, the right way. There are no paved ways into the future. We say that it is this way, and it is. We build roads by going on. Our life is the truth that we seek. Only my life is the truth, the truth above all. We create the truth by living it. (Jung 1913–1930: 351) He repeats this concept again 40 years later, in Mysterium Coniuctionis, his last great work: ‘Yet the real carrier of life is the individual. He alone feels happiness, he alone has virtue and responsibility and any ethics whatsoever’ (Jung 1955–56: 194). For Nietzsche and Jung ethics is an individual task. Beyond good and evil? As we have seen, Jung’s reception of Nietzsche’s suggestion to go ‘beyond good and evil’ and collective morality is at least partly positive. Nevertheless, Jung is frequently preoccupied to distance himself from the risk of being considered at worst an immoral thinker or at best an amoral one (as Nietzsche himself was frequently considered, when the positive and ethical dimension of his thinking was ignored). Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, he seems worried that readers of Nietzsche may end up being as inflated as (Jung thought) he was, so some of Jung’s comments could be read, metaphorically, as attempts to defuse a psychological bomb. Moreover, it must not be overlooked that a key difference in perspective between Nietzsche on the one hand and Jung (and his readers) on the other is that Nietzsche had not witnessed two World Wars, Stalin, Hitler, the Holocaust and Hiroshima (to name just some of the most infamous horrors of the

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twentieth century), so whatever Nietzsche has to say about evil will inevitably sound dangerously naïve to us as well as to Jung. Nietzsche’s expression ‘beyond good and evil’ can be interpreted as follows. The distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ was invented by herdminded people. They were jealous of the strength, power and nobility of stronger, freer individuals, and called them ‘evil’ and themselves ‘good’. We should abandon this moral distinction, which should be replaced by the ethical distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (which is roughly equivalent to healthy and unhealthy). As Swanton writes, presumably in an attempt to amend some of Nietzsche’s excesses: To express one’s strength or vitality or ‘will to power’ well [. . .] involves finding an equilibrium between the ‘coming close’ of (self-) love, and the ‘keeping distance’ of respect for self and other. Where there is failure or defects in self-love a proper equilibrium is missed. There may be, for example, mastery over others involving loss of respect for others, or clinging dependency or servility involving loss of respect for self. (Swanton 2003: 144, italics in the original) The problem with the idea of going ‘beyond good and evil’ into the extramoral territory of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is precisely that expressing one’s strength could involve ‘mastery over others’ or ‘servility’ (towards those who exert strength on us). If the ‘[right] distance’ and an ‘equilibrium’ are to be sought, where should they be sought? It appears that for Nietzsche the (ethical) self can set his own limits and standards (Bennett [2012] discusses Nietzsche’s psychology of self-legislation). For Jung, instead, it is incumbent on the (moral) ego to re-adjust the equilibrium (cf. Chapter 1), keeping the right distance from the Self and from others. Perhaps Nietzsche’s philosophy does include an element of violence over others and Jung would be right in signalling this risk. The following is Jung’s most explicit and heart-felt response to Nietzsche: Even on the highest peak we shall never be ‘beyond good and evil’, and the more we experience of their inextricable entanglement the more uncertain and confused will our moral judgment be. In this conflict, it will not help in the least to throw the moral criterion in the rubbish heap and to set up new tables after known patterns; for, as in

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the past, so in the future the wrong we have done, thought or intended will wreak its vengeance on our souls, no matter whether we turn the world upside down or not. Our knowledge of good and evil has dwindled with our mounting knowledge and experience, and will dwindle still more in the future, without our being able to escape the demands of ethics. (Jung [1940]/1942/1948: 267, my italics)27 Jung does not mention that Nietzsche follows his injunction to go ‘beyond good and evil’ with the suggestion to take into consideration the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Nor does Jung consider Nietzsche’s claim that ‘that which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil’ (Nietzsche 2003a: 103 [BGE 153], my italics), in other words that we can go beyond the moral law if love guides us, which is a surprisingly Christian conception (for St Paul, ‘while the law is in itself good [. . .] Christ is the only answer to human sin’, McDougall 2011: 473). The emotional tone of Jung’s words seems to reveal the need to make some sort of retraction for views previously held or for actions committed. “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity”, from which this quotation is taken, is the elaboration of an Eranos lecture delivered in 1940, then published in 1942 and subsequently republished in 1948. Jung claims that ‘the lecture needed improving’ (Jung [1940]/1942/1948: 169) and that he felt under a kind of ‘moral obligation’ (ibid.) to return to it, so, as the editors tell us, he ‘revised and expanded it’ (Note 1, Page 109, CW vol. 11). I have been unable to ascertain – due to the present lack of a critical edition of Jung’s collected works – if the ‘Even on the highest peak’ quotation was added or modified after the Second World War. If this is the case, Jung’s critique of those who feel entitled to commit harm by the fact that they feel (and perhaps even are) self-transformed can be read as a critique of Nazism and of those who failed to oppose it with sufficient strength. Jung’s famous ‘I slipped up’, with reference to Nazism, was said to Rabbi Leo Baeck some time before 1947, so during the time in which this conference was re-elaborated. Leaving aside the very complex issue of Jung’s possibly not sufficiently strong opposition, ‘in words and deeds’, to Nazism, his ‘Even on the highest peak’ passage could be interpreted not so much as a critique of Nietzsche but as a self-critique or at least as a clarification of his own ‘dangerous’ thoughts: had Jung himself not claimed (even if to an invited

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audience, the audience of his Seminar) ‘to decide in such and such a way would be good and moral, but then you see that it is not vital to decide in that way; so a more vital solution should be sought, allowing life to be lived’ (Jung 1934–1939: 569)? Jung is eminently concerned about those who discard morality because they feel transformed and elated (‘on the highest peak’) and perhaps are in fact thus transformed (and he could be speaking about himself as much as about Nietzsche). He claims that our ‘soul’ will suffer for the harm we have done, thought or intended, even if our experience of the entanglement of good and evil has become more refined. The first point presupposes that some actions, thoughts and intentions are objectively evil28 (and Jung mentions ‘harm’ as a key component of evil):29 to perform them will make us feel guilty. The second point (that we will feel guilty even if our experience of the entanglement of good and evil has become more refined) is more complex and deserves further analysis. Why should we assume that those who feel themselves ‘beyond good and evil’ should also have ‘experience of the necessary entanglement’ of good and evil? In The Red Book Jung writes: We suspect and understand that growth needs both [good and evil], and hence we keep good and evil close together. Because we know that too far into the good means the same as too far into evil, we keep them both together. (Jung 1913–1930: 406) This passage helps clarify the link between entanglement (of good and evil) and going beyond (good and evil). In effect, to feel beyond good and evil could be read as meaning we are beyond the rigid opposition of these two concepts, and if one does not see these two concepts as opposed, one realises they are entangled. From this one could conclude that because good and evil are entangled, it makes no sense to distinguish moral from immoral actions: let us forget about morality all together! Jung seems to be warning against this identification (of entanglement and overcoming): it is correct to realise that good and evil are often mixed, but one should not then conclude that nothing is evil, and that no course of action will ever be immoral. Our feeling of guilt reminds us, claims Jung, that human beings are psychologically and ethically predisposed to feel at home within a

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moral order. When reaching out into a more healthy ethical approach, avoiding for example the imposition of impossible demands or standards on ourselves, we should not discard the morality and social norms which helped us reach our individuated stance. As Jung writes, ‘The superman is beyond good and evil but the superman is the self’ (Jung 1934–1939: 568). To identify with the Self is not a desirable state of affairs, and not all that the Self sees, the ego should do.30 Concluding reflections We should never forget that what today seems to us a moral commandment will tomorrow be cast into the melting-pot and transformed, so that in the near or distant future it may serve as a basis for new ethical transformation. This much we ought to have learnt from the history of civilization, that the forms of morality belong to the category of transitory things. (Jung 1914: 667)

We have seen that Jung’s ethics is Nietzschean in many important respects. In addition to the divergences we have already discussed, the overall difference in tone between Jung’s and Nietzsche’s stances can be further appreciated by comparing two deceptively similar passages. Nietzsche has Zarathustra say (to his disciples): ‘O my brothers, am I then cruel? But I say: That which is falling should also be pushed!’ (Nietzsche 2003b: 226 [Z III ‘On Old and New Tables’, XX]). In The Red Book Jung writes (mainly to himself) ‘let fall what wants to fall; if you stop it, it will sweep you away’ (Jung 1913–1930: 170). To let something that wants to fall, fall, in other words, is not only the best way to preserve one’s Self: this action also displays more respect towards what is ending. If on the other hand we follow what Nietzsche suggests, by taking part in the ending of something, not only do we exert violence towards the object, but by the very act of pushing the object that is falling, we may lose balance, and fall with it. Jung believes in healthy transformation and that the ego should be open to symbols of the new emerging from the Self. Nietzsche writes, ‘If a shrine is to be built, a shrine must be destroyed: that is the law! – show me an instance where it has not been so!’ (Nietzsche 2013: 81 [GM II, 24], italics in the original). As a matter of fact, there are some known instances of pagan temples which were turned into churches without being destroyed, such as the Pantheon in Rome; or by integrating parts of the original structure into the new edifice, as in the case of the Cathedral of Syracuse. Furthermore, human beings, I would suggest, are

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not geometrically perfect buildings: they are more like irregular houses, with central rooms and less fundamental ones, and houses allow interior refurbishments (which are usually carried out without intervening on the sustaining walls), as well as exterior extensions – the image of Jung’s Tower in Bollingen, with its multiple additions, comes strikingly to mind – even underground bunkers may be added if needed! If the work is well done the house will still stand in place. One may expand and transform and even deepen one’s moral and ethical awareness without necessarily discarding one’s previously held values. This is Jung’s general stance towards Nietzsche: ‘a new morality’ stemming from one’s individual and creative Self can be best developed if it is based on a strong, conscientious and autonomous ego. We are reminded by Paul Bishop that Jung concluded his third talk at the Zofingia Club (1897/1898) with the ‘humorous but significant’ (Bishop 1995: 28) reference to Nietzsche: ‘We should always do our duty. For, Nietzsche notwithstanding, there is something to morality after all’ (Jung 1896–1899: 161). Here Jung is using Kant against Nietzsche. But Jung could have also said that, Kant notwithstanding, there is something to immorality after all, using Nietzsche against Kant. Jung’s double ethical allegiance to Kant and to Nietzsche seems to reflect the double nature of Jung’s psyche and psychology, where a Personality No. 1 and a Personality No. 2 coexist in dynamic harmony and this coexistence (integration) impedes the formation of psychic splits. A compromise between Kant and Nietzsche, or between Apollo and Dionysus, would produce no movement forward: stagnation and (unconscious) conflict instead of psychic transformation fuelled by the tension of opposites. Nevertheless, Jung’s double allegiance (to Kant and to Nietzsche) may leave us wondering: can one really be both Kantian and Nietzschean? The realistic, typologically and developmentally oriented approach to ethics which belongs to what could be termed Jung’s Aristotelian side, to which I now turn, can help soften the universalistic pull of Kantian morality and bring down to earth the individualistic abstractions of Nietzsche’s ethics. Notes 1 In a letter to R. J. Zwi Werblowsky of 17 June 1952, he insists on the same point, and his words sound like an act of defiance (‘unequivocalness [. . .] would be at the cost of truth’) towards any supposedly accurate and clear scientific or academic language: ‘Our language is a faithful reflection of the psychic phenomenon with its dual aspect “perceptual” and “imaginary”. [. . .] The language I speak must be ambiguous, must have two meanings, in order to do justice to the dual aspect of our psychic nature.

64  Ethics, health and the Self I strive quite consciously and deliberately for ambiguity of expression, because it is superior to unequivocalness and reflects the nature of life. My whole temperament inclines me to be very unequivocal indeed. That is not difficult, but it would be at the cost of truth. I purposely allow all the overtones and undertones to be heard, partly because they are there anyway, and partly because they give a fuller picture of reality’ (Jung 1951–1961: 70). 2 Jung saw Nietzsche as an intuitive type – with sensation as his inferior function – and in the Zarathustra Seminar he describes him through the following metaphors: ‘Intuition goes in leaps and bounds. It settles down and bounces off in the next moment. Therefore intuitives never reap their crops; they plant their fields and then leave them behind before they are ready for the harvest’ (Jung 1934–1939: 1391). The same can be said, to a certain extent, of Jung’s writing. 3 This issue (‘Is Nietzsche against all types of morality or only against a specific type of morality?’) is discussed in the Nietzschean literature as the ‘scope problem’ (see e.g. Gemes and Schuringa 2012: 220). 4 Bernard Williams notes that etymologically ‘[t]he Latin term [mos, “custom”, the origin of the words “morality” and “moral”] emphasises rather more the sense of social expectation, while the Greek [ethos, “habit”, the origin of the words “ethics” and “ethical”] favors that of individual character’ (2006: 6). 5 Huskinson (2004) and Parkes (1999) discuss Jung’s diagnosis of Nietzsche in some detail. 6 Shamdasani (2003) neatly summarises how the early history of psychoanalysis was as much an exchange of diagnoses as it was an exchange of ideas. 7 Cf. Ellenberger 1970: 272; Aschheim 1992. 8 Interestingly, Jung claimed that even Nietzsche’s Zarathustra should not have been published, since the ideas contained in it were too dangerous: again, an ‘ad ideam’ perspective. 9 If we read The Red Book as a dream to be interpreted ‘at the level of the subject’, the librarian is a figure of Jung’s interiority just as much as the character of Jung himself. 10 On the hypothesis that Jung may have projected parts of himself on Nietzsche, see Huskinson 2004. 11 Since Nietzsche, from most accounts, appears to have been a kind and decent man, perhaps too kind and too fragile, Jung must have also had in mind passages such as this one when he mentions individuals who put on a ‘pose of wickedness’ (Jung 1917/1926/1943: 18). 12 On the distinction between ‘given’ and ‘made’, see later in this chapter, ‘Selfish ethics. 13 As I discussed in Chapter 1, in the section ‘Ought and can’. 14 See Chapter 3 on the cognitive side of Jung’s ethics. 15 ‘In the Meno (78a-b), Socrates argues that no one knowingly desires what is bad (to kakon). His argument shows that by “bad” he means things that are harmful to the subject, i.e. the one who would desire these things. In the Protagoras (358c–d) he makes a similar point when he says that it is not in human nature for someone to wish to go after what he thinks is bad in place of the good’ (Parry 2014). 16 In Jung, these Dionysian masks are also the ‘personae’, the segments of collective consciousness which we need to wear in order to adapt but which we should not identify with. 17 Ideas that the peaceful revolution of ’68 embodied with great strength. Jung died in 1961, so his interest in the Dionysian, as well as in the power of women and of the feminine principle (it should be remembered that Dionysos is sexually ambivalent and primarily the god of women), can be said to anticipate those movements, although perhaps no one could have imagined the extent of the ‘liberation’ waves of the ’60s and ’70s. 18 This theme is amplified in Neumann’s The Origin and History of Consciousness (1954). The ethical aspect of this development out of identity is described by Jung in “Answer to Job” (1952a) (see Chapter 4).

Ethics, health and the Self 65 19 This use of ‘immoral’ to describe unethical conformist individuals is different from Jung’s use of ‘immoral’ to describe individualists (see Introduction, in the section ‘The repression of immorality, the repression of morality’). 20 See Zinkin 2008. 21 Under this vice Jung subsumes Freud’s ‘voluptuousness’ and Adler’s ‘passion for power’: ‘voluptuousness and passion for power are only two aspects of selfishness’ (Jung 1934–1939: 1451). 22 The philosopher Christine Swanton describes Nietzsche’s account of self-love as ‘a crucial depth-psychological component of virtue’ (Swanton 2003: 11, my italics). 23 Gunter discusses the parallels between Jung’s libido and Bergson’s élan vital (Gunter 1982: 638–639). 24 One cannot fail to note a chilling resonance of Jung’s ‘whatever is vital’ (he was speaking in June 1935) and of Hitler’s ‘vital space’. The idea of Lebensraum has its origin in biological theories, but it can be found discussed by Hitler in the context of Germany’s political situation in his Mein Kampf of 1925. Hitler’s manifesto was published ten years before Jung’s Zarathustra Seminars, and four years after Jung’s Psychological Types in which ‘the vital activity of the individual’ is mentioned. 25 It is perhaps striking that Jung made these comments on morality as opposed to vitality in front of both his wife, Emma Jung, and Toni Wolff, who had long been his lover, as one can infer from their questions and comments which are also published in Jung 1934–39. 26 The ideas of ‘life’ and of ‘vital’ appear here for the first time in the context of ethics; they are also found, as we have seen earlier, in 1921 and again in the Seminar on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra of 1934–1939. In The Red Book, too, Jung had written: ‘To unlearn all distinctions save that concerning direction is part of your salvation’ (Jung 1913–1930: 360). Here the word ‘direction’ can be read as analogous to ‘vital’ and ‘life-line’. Victor White reminds us that for Jung libido can take four paths: introversion or extraversion; regression or progression (White 1953: 153, my italics). 27 Another critique of Nietzsche’s ‘beyond good and evil’ is found in the following passage: ‘Nietzsche undoubtedly felt the Christian denial of animal nature very deeply indeed, and therefore he sought a higher human wholeness beyond good and evil. But he who seriously criticizes the basic attitudes of Christianity also forfeits the protection which these bestow upon him. He delivers himself up unresistingly to the animal psyche. That is the moment of Dionysian frenzy, the overwhelming manifestation of the “blond beast,” which seizes the unsuspecting soul with nameless shudderings. The seizure transforms him into a hero or into a godlike being, a super-human entity. He rightly feels himself “six thousand feet beyond good and evil” ’ (Jung 1917/1926/1943: 40). 28 I discuss Jung’s belief in the objectivity of good and evil in Chapter 4. 29 The notion that evil includes the component of ‘harm’ is a noticeable exception to Jung’s reluctance to define good and evil in precise terms. 30 For example our shadow-side could be expressed in fantasy without harming others. (This point emerged in a discussion I had with Paul Bishop.)

Chapter 3

Character, virtue and psycho-ethical types Aristotle and Jung

Both Aristotle and Jung assume a strong continuity between ethics and psychology and are concerned with the human need to acquire a balance between reason and emotions in order to develop a moral character and lead a fulfilling life. In this chapter, I argue that Aristotle, the master of conceptual clarification of the apparently obvious, can help elucidate and even give order to Jung’s sometimes sketchy remarks about character, virtue and wisdom. On the other hand, Jung’s depth of vision can provide a new way of looking at Aristotle’s ethical classifications. First, having briefly presented the main tenets of Aristotle’s ethical theory, I seek for equivalents of Aristotle’s ideas in Jung’s psychology. Eudaimonia (flourishing) is critically compared to individuation; ‘state of character’ is related to the depth-psychological notion of attitude; and the role of courage, phronesis (practical wisdom) and habituation is explored within Jung’s paradigm. The difficulties in finding exact ‘translations’ of these notions, given the different assumptions and methods of the two thinkers, are discussed throughout this section. Second, I put forward a revised depth-psychological version of Aristotle’s typology, where the ‘vicious’, the ‘akratic’, the ‘enkratic’ and the ‘virtuous’ are read as depicting different stages and degrees of neurotic and healthy behaviour.1 Finally, I consider the work of the neo-Aristotelian thinkers Anscombe (1958) and MacIntyre (1981), in particular Anscombe’s approach to moral vocabulary and MacIntyre’s preoccupation with our fragmented moral landscape, as it can usefully complement and clarify Jung’s ethical approach. Aristotle’s ethical theory: a brief sketch Aristotle notes that everybody agrees that ‘the highest of all goods achievable by action’ (I. 4. 1095a16) is happiness (eudaimonia), but that there is

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disagreement about what happiness is. Aristotle defines happiness as ‘an activity of soul exhibiting virtue’ (I.7.1098a16–17), not as a product or state of mind which follows action (the distinction is drawn in I.1.1094a1–5). A moral virtue (ethike arête) is a state of character (hexis, II.5.1106a12) which is acquired through habituation; for example we become brave by performing brave actions. Vice (kakia) belongs to the same category as virtue (it is a state of character), and it is acquired by repetition of vicious actions. For each virtue there are two vices; for example an excess of courage is rashness and a lack of courage is cowardice: Aristotle’s ‘doctrine of the mean’. Virtues can be either moral (ethike arête) or intellectual (dianoetike arête): moral virtues are acquired through habituation, and intellectual virtues are learnt (II.1.1103a14–17). Moral virtues are what make us wish (in Greek, bouleō) to perform virtuous actions; for example if we possess the virtue of courage we will wish to perform courageous acts. The most important intellectual virtue with regard to ethics is phronesis, practical wisdom. Phronesis is what allows the choice of the right means to accomplish the virtuous action we wish to perform. Each time we exercise a virtue, according to Aristotle, we are happy, but the virtuous activity of theoretical reason is the most noble for man. In addition to the ethical types of the virtuous and of the vicious person, Aristotle adds the ethe of akrasia and of enkrateia, which can be translated, respectively, as ‘weakness of will’ and ‘strength of will’. The akratic individual is less blameworthy than the vicious, because he aims at doing good actions, but his will is too weak – and the impulse towards pleasure too strong – so he fails to do what he sees would be the best course of action. The enkratic individual is in a better position than the akratic one, because she is capable of performing good actions, although she accomplishes this through an effort of the will: her character has not been habituated towards the good, as is the case with the virtuous person. Having briefly presented Aristotle’s ethical theory, I will now look at some of its main concepts in more detail and seek for equivalent concepts in Jung’s psychology. Aristotle and Jung: a comparison of key concepts Aristotle sees human excellence as harmony between rational and nonrational parts of the soul (Broadie 1991: 267). Jung advocates the development of both the thinking and the feeling function. The first function provides an answer to the Socratic question about ‘what’ something is.

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The second tells us ‘the value’ of something. These functions work in conjunction with sensation (which assesses the existence of something) and intuition (which tells us where something is headed). Even if in each of us one function is naturally more developed than the others, an excessive unbalance will be a hindrance to individuation. Both Aristotle and Jung highlight the importance of acquiring a balance between reason and the passions and consider personality not just a given, but a task to be accomplished. So there is a narrow enough confluence of scope to allow a comparison of Aristotelian and Jungian formulations. Eudaimonia (flourishing, happiness) Michael Horne (2002) argues that Aristotle’s theory of being can be read as a theory of individuation in Jung’s sense of the word, but he does not relate Jung’s central concept to Aristotle’s notion of eudaimonia, as if individuation were to be read as an exclusively ontological concept. In my view, on the other hand, individuation shares various features with eudaimonia. First, like eudaimonia, individuation is more a process than a product. We have seen that for Aristotle eudaimonia is an activity, something which is felt while performing a virtuous action and not a product separated from the activity (I.1.1094a1–5). Similarly, for Jung, individuation is the ‘coming to Selfhood’ (Jung 1928: 266), it is a more and more refined experience of the Self, and something which is always in motion. Second, like eudaimonia, individuation is an ‘urge’ (‘towards self-realization’, Jung 1928: 291): Jung could paraphrase Aristotle by claiming that everybody desires to individuate (although, as we have discussed in the first two chapters, individuation is not a simple matter). Third, just as eudaimonia is experienced thanks to the possession of virtues which are acquired as a second nature, but which are not in themselves natural,2 so individuation is defined by Jung as an opus contra naturam. These points of convergence may allow therapists to propose a keener ‘eudaimonistic’ interpretation of individuation. To a patient it may be said that the (in part ‘unnatural’) effort needed to individuate will bring with it, intrinsically, a deeper sense of wellbeing. Furthermore, it may be pointed out that individuation, like eudaimonia, is not an end result, but a continuous process: etymologically, living in harmony with one’s ‘good’ daimon, following what makes one tick.

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States of character (hexeis) In Aristotle’s map of the soul (psyche), three different things can be found: capacities (dynameis), emotions (pathe, also translated as passions or feelings) and states of character (hexeis). Aristotle notes that while capacities and emotions are not chosen by us, are not praised or blamed, and are determined by nature; habitual states are instead chosen by us, are praised and blamed, and are not determined by nature. Aristotle recognises, using the argument from common consent, that brave people are praised for their virtue, so virtues must be states of character.3 Jung’s discussion of the psychological notion of ‘attitude’ in Psychological Types (1921) seems close to Aristotle’s idea of hexis (‘state of character’ or ‘habitual state’). Jung writes: To have an attitude means to be ready for something definite, even though this something is unconscious; for having an attitude is synonymous with an a priori orientation to a definite thing, no matter whether this be represented in consciousness or not. The state of readiness, which I conceive attitude to be, consists in the presence of a certain subjective constellation. [. . .] Whether the point of reference is conscious or unconscious does not affect the selectivity of the attitude, since the selection is implicit in the attitude and takes place automatically. It is useful, however, to distinguish between the two, because the presence of two attitudes is extremely frequent, one conscious and the other unconscious. This means that consciousness has a constellation of contents different from that of the unconscious, a duality particularly evident in neurosis. (Jung 1921: 687) Jung’s notion of an ‘unconscious attitude’ may be seen as a key difference from Aristotle’s notion of hexis, but it must be observed that vice, which is also a habitual state, is described by Aristotle as being ‘unconscious of itself’ (as I discuss later). So it appears that Aristotle also entertains the idea of an unconscious hexis. But how can something unconscious be praised or blamed? Aristotle’s argument is that a vicious person should be blamed because she could have chosen not to perform the vicious actions which made her become vicious or to perform the virtuous actions which could have made her virtuous. In discussing vice, he writes: ‘When you

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have let a stone go it is too late to recover it. But yet it was in your power to throw it, since the moving principle was in you’ (III.5.1114a17–19). In this sense, and in this sense only, a neurotic individual can also be blamed (recall: ‘Repression is a sort of half-conscious and half-hearted letting go of things, a dropping of hot cakes or a reviling of grapes which hang too high, or a looking the other way in order not to become conscious of one’s desires’, Jung 1938/1940: 129). Indeed some of Jung’s most famous clinical examples4 are provided to show that the subject’s moral responsibility extends down to the unconscious and the therapist’s role is to point this out. Furthermore, the ‘extremely frequent’ case in which a conscious and an unconscious attitude are in conflict (see Jung 1921: 687, quoted earlier) could be read as the matrix in which a specific ‘neurotic conflict of duties’5 takes place. Moral virtues: courage In “The Theory of Psychoanalysis” (1913), Jung describes the ‘failure of adaptation’ which occurs when libido regresses and is not used to overcome difficulties. This leads to ‘disunion’ and ‘internal conflict’ (381). He gives the example of a mountain climber who convinces himself that a mountain is insurmountable, although he actually knows that it is not. In the space of two paragraphs (380–381), Jung uses the word ‘courage’ (a fundamental virtue for Aristotle, discussed in EN, Book III, Chapters 6–9) three times and the word ‘cowardice’ four times. Jung’s description is particularly vivid and is summarised by the following words: ‘At bottom the man knows perfectly well that it would be physically possible to overcome the difficulty, and that he is simply morally incapable of doing so’ (381, my italics). Jung’s argument, used frequently in his work,6 is that neurosis is the result of some kind of moral failure. I believe this argument is problematic not so much because it risks a moralisation of neurosis (which I consider, in the Aristotelian sense discussed earlier, legitimate), but because Jung does not provide a way out of the situation he describes. Can one just say, to a neurotic person: ‘Don’t be a coward’? This might be a starting point, but will it have any real effect? As we have seen Jung acknowledged the general inefficacy of good advice. To say ‘be brave’ or ‘don’t be a coward’, even if it provides some emotional encouragement, might simply not be enough. We need to understand what being brave means and what it

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entails. Aristotle’s account of courage as a mean between rashness and cowardice is more helpful than Jung’s mere stigmatisation of cowardice. The philosophical analysis of specific moral virtues can usefully integrate Jung’s depth-psychological interpretation of neurosis as partly derived from a failure to develop morally. What we can learn from Aristotle is the need for a correct assessment, by means of practical wisdom, of concrete situations where courage is demanded, and, most importantly, the need for the practice of courageous actions themselves. A therapist may hence encourage a neurotic patient to exercise his or her courage, pointing out how this exercise – coupled with a more refined understanding of the task at hand (via phronesis) – may be the best way to develop courageous traits. Hence a philosophical and ‘cognitive-behavioural’ approach can usefully complement a focus on unconscious dynamics that considers the personal complexes activated by a demanding situation. Phronesis, ethical wisdom Where wisdom reigns there is no conflict between thinking and feeling. (Jung 1955–1956, quoted in Qualls-Corbett 1988: 143)

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle states that the degree of precision we should expect in ethics is inferior to the one we may expect in scientific matters (I. 3. 1094b12–14). The differentia of virtue is ‘a disposition to choose the intermediate [or “the mean”]’ (Brown 2009: xxxviii).7 Phronesis, in Aristotle, is the capacity to understand the ethical situation and ‘finding the mean [. . .] requires a full and detailed acquaintance with the circumstances’ (Kraut 2012: 7). Aristotle writes that ‘such things depend on particular facts, and the decision rests with perception’ (1109b22–23). As Heather Battaly explains, The person with phronesis knows which actions are conducive to the good life. She deliberates well, judges well and perceives the world as she should. She recognizes opportunities for courage, temperance, and so on. She also knows how to hit the mean. For example, she knows when and what she should face, and when and from what she should flee. (Battaly 2014: 180)

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The mean, for example courage, is not just a matter of the right action to be performed, it is (even more) a matter of the right degree of emotion (or feeling) to be felt in the situation: the courageous person is he who feels the right amount of fear. In contrast to the Stoic ideal of apatheia, the absence of emotions reached by correct understanding of emotions, Aristotle advocates metropatheia, the obtainment of the right degree of emotion. And, with a good degree of psychological wisdom, he adds that to find the intermediate state we must consider the things towards which we ourselves are easily carried away; for some of us tend to one thing, some to another, and this will be recognizable from the pleasure and the pain we feel. We must drag ourselves away to the contrary extreme; for we shall get into the intermediate state by drawing well away from error. (II.9.1109b4–6) In The Red Book we find a strikingly similar, albeit more succinct, statement of the same idea: ‘You achieve balance, however, only if you nurture your opposite’ (Jung 1913–1930: 226). He then mentions ‘the mean’, too, but in a keenly Shakespearian vein: ‘What lies in the middle is the truth. It has many faces; one is certainly comical, another sad, a third evil, a fourth tragic, a fifth funny, a sixth is a grimace, and so forth’.8 The idea that ‘what lies in the middle is the truth’, sounds Aristotelian, although there is a difference: for Jung, our various personalities (and complexes) have to be integrated, by which he does not mean that a compromise should be sought: they can coexist and one must learn to accept the contradictions involved. Aristotle, on the other hand, does seek for a ‘medium point’ although phronesis is admittedly not as exact as mathematics: anyone can get angry – that is easy – [. . .]; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble. (II.9.1109a: 27–29) Aristotle’s mean is a concrete intermediate between two extremes, although it is not to be confused with mediocrity;9 Jung’s ‘mean’ is the ideal point

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between the many aspects of our Self, including the extremes, which are all to be kept in a state of vital tension or dynamic equilibrium. When Jung claims that with a very unconscious patient, ‘something must grow from inside her’, while with a more conscious patient, one should provide ‘orientation’ and ‘make [one’s] attitude clear’ (Jung 1959: 880), he is advocating the use of phronesis in understanding which therapeutic approach is the right one to use.10 Jung also appeals to phronesis when he writes that ‘[t]he modern physicist knows that causality is a statistical truth, but in practice he will always ask what law is valid in that particular case. So it is in the realm of morality’ (Jung 1959: 871, my italics) and that with each patient ‘[t]he right thing must be said at the right time and in the right place’ (Jung 1959: 880). His approach is in line with Aristotle’s point that ethical reflection is only valid for those who have already reached a certain level of emotional maturity and that in ethics the kairos11 is of vital importance (as in psychotherapy): a lesson on ethics will have no effect whatsoever on the ‘vicious’ (in Jung’s model, the very neurotic person, as I discuss later), and good advice will be ineffective if given to a very angry or agitated person. Habituation ‘Socrates’ mistake, according to Aristotle, is to have entirely neglected the preparatory training, which is to a large extent affective, that precedes the philosophical examination’ of virtue (Kraut 2012: 540). Virtues are acquired through habituation, and it is very important that this habituation begins at an early stage. Aristotle compares the acquisition of virtues to the arts: ‘[M]en become builders by building, and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts’ (II.1.1103a30–1103b2). Jung writes: It is of the greatest importance for the young person, who is still unadapted and has yet achieved nothing, to shape his conscious ego. [. . .] He must feel himself a man of will, and may safely depreciate everything else in him and deem it subject to his will, for without this illusion he could not succeed in adapting himself socially. (Jung 1929b: 109, my italics)

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Jung’s psychological perspective focuses especially on the need, for the young man who must adapt, to ‘centre’ his ego and concentrate his will, since this will result in the ‘feeling of freedom’ (Jung 1942/1954: 391, discussed in Chapter 1). Both thinkers share the belief in the importance of early character-building. Even if early education and experience are of crucial importance, Jung claims that analysis on the one hand, and practice on the other, can produce a ‘retarded maturation of the personality’ (Jung 1928: 291). The following rather Aristotelian passage explains in some detail Jung’s frequent stress on the fact that ‘analysis is not enough’: It is obviously not enough for [the patient] to know how his illness arose and whence it came, for we seldom get rid of an evil merely by understanding its causes. Nor should it be forgotten that the crooked paths of a neurosis lead to as many obstinate habits, and that for all our insight these do not disappear until replaced by other habits. But habits are won only by exercise, and appropriate education is the sole means to this end. The patient can only be drawn out of himself into other paths, which is the true meaning of ‘education’, and this can only be achieved by an educative will. (Jung 1929a: 152) In Symbols and Transformations of the Libido, Jung writes that ‘rhythm is a classic device for impressing certain ideas or activities on the mind, and what has to be impressed and firmly organized is the canalization of libido into a new form of activity’ (Jung 1911–1912/1952: 219). These reflections could be read as a depth-psychological understanding of habit. In what follows I will first present Aristotle’s typology of ethical characters and then compare it with Jung’s views on neurosis and psychic health. Aristotle’s typology: enkrateia versus virtue As we have seen, the virtuous person acquires, through habituation, an impulse towards what is good, and her phronesis helps her determine the right course of action, so the virtuous feels in the right way and acts in the right way in a given circumstance. Virtues also possess a self-replicating power: ‘[V]irtues tend, and by their own nature, to the doing of the acts by which they are produced’ (III.5.1114b28–29). In Burnyeat’s description of the virtuous man,

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nothing will tempt or lure him so much as the temperate or brave action itself. Nothing else will seem as pleasurable. That is how Aristotle can assert (VII.10. 1152a6–8) that the fully formed man of virtue and practical wisdom cannot be akratic. Quite simply, he no longer [here Burnyeat seems to conceive akrasia as a stage of development, see discussion to follow] has reason to be. (Burnyeat 1980: 88) Where the virtuous has acquired, through habituation, the impulse to do what is good, and possesses phronesis, moral wisdom, the enkratic has not received sufficient habituation and his moral wisdom is lacking. Nevertheless, the enkratic has been taught what is good and is able to perform good acts through strength of will. Aristotle actually praises enkrasia as an ‘excellent disposition’ (spoudaia hexis, VII.8.1151a27–28, Gould 1994: 174). Indeed, it could be said that ‘[v]irtue [. . .] represents a victory in a long, arduous battle, whereas enkrateia brings a long series of small victories’ (Gould 1994: 176). Gould also adds: One might think enkrateia not so much a settled disposition as a developmental stage on the way to virtue. [. . .] [But] Aristotle is clearly concerned with enkrateia as an ingrained state of character. He begins Book 7 by speaking of three moral characters (ethe) to be avoided: akrasia, vice and bestiality. [. . .] If akrasia is an ethos, then so is its contrary, enkrateia. (Gould 1994: 176) As Gould points out, it is not entirely clear why, for Aristotle, enkratic people do not develop into virtuous people: Aristotle prescribes habituation for engendering moral virtue so that if a person is to develop [temperance], he must act as if he had it. This will eventually lead the agent to feel, as well as to act, in accordance with the mean. The enkrates does behave as if he had [temperance] – he behaves just as the [temperate] would. Why, then, does the enkrates not develop the emotions and desires proper to the [temperate]? (Gould 1994: 184) The only solution to this logical difficulty is to see enkrateia as an ‘evolutionary stage’, but Gould argues that Aristotle would not admit this

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solution, since he sees enkrateia as a hexis, an ingrained state (Gould 1994: 184). Aristotle’s typology: akrasia versus vice I have mentioned Aristotle’s pessimism about vicious people: it seems that for Aristotle there is not much that can be done once one has become vicious through habituation. Aristotle writes that ‘it is irrational to suppose that a man who acts unjustly does not wish to be unjust or a man who acts self-indulgently to be self-indulgent’ (III.5.1114a11–13). The impulse of the vicious is directed towards vicious actions; for example he may have an impulse to act in a rash or cowardly way. The akratic, too, ‘acts emotionally and fails to deliberate not just once or twice but with some frequency’ (Kraut 2009). But, in contrast to the vicious, the akratic has been taught what is good, and aims at doing what is good. Still, her impulse has not been habituated towards performing good acts, therefore she fails to perform them.12 To my mind, Aristotle’s notion of akrasia (weakness of will) could be conceived as providing an attenuation to his/the view that there is nothing to be done about vice. By ‘inventing’ the akratic, Aristotle seems to be telling us that we actually do have a second chance: perhaps we are not irredeemably vicious after all. Akrasia could be interpreted as an antidote to moral desperation, although for Aristotle, it is a ‘chronic condition’ (Kraut 2009).13 In contrast to Socrates’s view that knowledge will be enough to make our will do the right thing, Aristotle’s realism is both more pessimistic and, in a sense, more optimistic: knowledge is not enough, akrasia shows this very clearly. ‘To have the right “prescription” without the habits to carry it out in action is, Aristotle suggests, a situation especially vulnerable to akrasia’ (Burger 2008: 134). But perhaps knowing that knowledge is not enough (and that early education is fundamental) might – counter-intuitively – provide a stronger incentive to do better. In describing the difference between akrasia and vice, Aristotle provides a list of five points which distinguish the two types of conditions: 1 The vicious (Aristotle uses the self-indulgent as an example, but his remarks apply equally well to any type of vice) has no regrets (ou metamēletikos), while the incontinent is subject to regrets (VII.8.1150b29–30).

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2 The vicious is incurable, while the incontinent is not (VII.8.1150b32–33). 3 ‘Vice is unconscious of itself, incontinence is not’ (VII.8.1150b36). Ross uses the adjective ‘unconscious’ to translate the verb form ‘lanthanei’.14 4 Vice is ‘in accordance with choice’ (kata ten proairesin), incontinence is ‘contrary to choice’ (para proairesin) (VII.8.1151a6–7). 5 The vicious is not ‘easily persuaded to change his mind’, while the akratic can be so persuaded (VII.8.1151a13–14). I will now suggest Jungian equivalents to Aristotle’s fourfold15 division of ethical types. Psycho-ethical typology: the vicious Aristotle’s vicious individual could be compared, looking at things from a depth-psychological perspective, to the highly neurotic person who is not (yet) aware of being neurotic, or at least does not entertain the possibility that his behaviour may be in need of improvement: he is what he is. Like Aristotle’s vicious type, the highly neurotic’s character is ‘incurable’ (point 2); his actions are ‘in accordance with choice’ (point 4); he has no regrets (point 1), except perhaps unconscious ones. Jung would say that his morality is repressed (Jung 1917/1926/1943: 18, discussed in the Introduction). Furthermore, like the vicious type, the neurotic person cannot be easily persuaded to change his mind (5); for example he refuses the possibility that he might benefit from analysis.16 Finally, and most importantly, his ‘vice’ (neurosis) is unconscious of itself (3). In terms of the shadow, the neurotic/vicious ignores his shadow and projects it on others. When describing vice, Aristotle makes a comparison with illness and claims that when we are making ourselves ill through our lifestyle we are free to wish not to be ill, but once we are ill, we cannot wish ourselves out of the illness (III.5.1114a16–17). This seems to be a very apt description of Jung’s conception of neurosis, too. Psycho-ethical typology: the akratic The akratic could instead be compared to the neurotic individual who has begun a path of self-knowledge, but who still needs to rely heavily on the ‘ethical transference’ (cf. Chapter 1) to gain moral strength. Perhaps she

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has not yet begun analysis, or perhaps she is in the first stages of analysis. The conflict within herself, in one way or another, has reached consciousness. In depth-psychological terms the akratic is someone who has begun recognition and integration of the shadow, thus she is curable (see point 2), even if she is quite often unable to come to terms with her unconscious. When effects of her unacknowledged shadow are pointed out to her she ‘has regrets’ (see point 1): not just in a moral sense, but in an epistemic sense (‘I could have known better, been more careful’). Finally, the neurotic who has begun analysis can easily be persuaded to change her mind: in fact, she will quite often be confused by the interplay of conscious and unconscious dynamics within her, and will appreciate some guidance. As John Beebe writes: The decision to approach the shadow involves anxiety, doubt, shame, and a desire to repair the relationship with another whose needs I have somehow missed. My recognition of the need to look at shadow starts with a painfulness, a stoppage, an absence of the sense of well-being, and an agitation from within to feel okay again. Or I can be feeling too good, and suddenly realize that I am secretly afraid. (Beebe 1992: 22) The type of suffering experienced by the akratic individual could be defined, in Jungian terms, as ‘neurotic suffering’ (Jung 1938/1940: 129). Psycho-ethical typology: the enkratic The enkratic can be likened to the person who has been in analysis for a sufficient amount of time and who is capable of confronting his or her shortcomings even without the help of the analyst. The enkratic could be compared to the adapted, moral individual in Jung’s paradigm who has a strong will and who is capable of integrating unconscious contents without letting himself be engulfed by them. He has doubts, but the doubts do not impair his ability to act. He is strong and can withstand the tension of opposites. The type of suffering experienced by the enkratic individual could be defined, in Jungian terms, as suffering which is ‘natural, necessary’ (Jung 1928: 185) and ‘legitimate’ (Jung 1938/1940).

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Psycho-ethical typology: the virtuous It is easy to find an equivalent, in Jung, of Aristotle’s virtuous individual, who has the habit of performing good actions, the impulse of performing good actions, and finds pleasure in doing so. She is the individuated and ethical person. However, from Jung’s point of view, Aristotle’s virtuous individual is at risk of inflation, because she denies the shadow-side of her personality: ‘The living form needs deep shadow if it is to appear plastic. Without shadow it remains a two-dimensional phantom, a more or less well brought-up child’ (Jung 1928: 400). What Aristotle’s virtuous individual and Jung’s individuated person have most in common is that both achieve excellence on a personal and social level: their intrinsic value is recognised in and by the outer world. Jung after Aristotle What can be derived from this attempt at a comparison? In a sense, we have found what was expected: Aristotle believes that a harmonious relationship between emotions and reason, in a society with shared values, can be achieved. Jung, who writes more than 2,000 years later, in a society where a multitude of values face each other,17 and after the discovery of the unconscious, is more sceptical. In Jung’s world the distance between nature and culture, conscious and unconscious, moral imperatives and ethical demands, has considerably widened. On the other hand, as we have seen, the gaps between the vicious and the akratic, and between the akratic and the enkratic, have diminished. The power of depth psychology (and its intrinsic optimism) claims not only to be able to make our will stronger, but also to uncover what is ‘unconscious of itself’ in us, and that by being so determines suffering for ourselves and for the community we live in. Neurosis, according to Jung, provokes the need, which can be fulfilled by analysis, of a ‘retarded maturation of the personality’ (Jung 1928: 291), something which Aristotle, as we have seen, claims to be difficult to achieve, because of the grip of (im)moral habituation. If both vice and virtue seem to risk one-sidedness, should we suppose that for Jung the happy-enough individual possesses a blend of the akratic and of the enkratic character? Or should we enlarge the picture even further, at this stage definitively going against Aristotle’s intentions, and claim that for Jung the happy-enough individual possesses character traits

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of all four main ethical types? At times, Personality No. 1, the virtuous individual, will be at the forefront, dutifully performing his daily tasks. Other times, Personality No. 2 will appear on stage, bringing dangerous inflation but also lively enthusiasm. Many other times, Kant’s victory over Nietzsche will be felt as temporary and narrowly won, and the happy individual will be in the state of mind of the enkratic, doing his duty but wanting to do something else; or Dionysian enthusiasm will be undermined by the feeling of guilt that the akratic individual knows all too well. The greatest point of convergence between Aristotle and Jung is arguably the idea that ‘to know what is good is not enough’, which is Aristotle’s critique of Plato and Socrates, and which is embedded in Aristotle’s notion of akrasia. This mirrors Jung’s oft-repeated criticism of those who naively believe that in order to get better it is enough to undergo analysis. Both Aristotle and Jung believe there is an intermediate term between knowledge and action, which is ‘will’ in Aristotle (weak will or strong will) and the ‘moral function’ in Jung: He who does not possess this moral function, this loyalty to himself, will never get rid of his neurosis. [. . .] Neither the doctor nor the patient, therefore, should let himself slip into the belief that analysis by itself is sufficient to remove a neurosis. (Jung 1916b: 497, my italics) This same insight is expressed by Aristotle where he writes that ‘intellect alone moves nothing’ and ‘to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit’. Again Jung mirrors this when he states: ‘Nothing influences our conduct less than do intellectual ideas’. Burnyeat claims that Aristotle’s ethics ‘is addressing someone who already wants and enjoys virtuous action and needs to see this aspect of his life in a deeper perspective’ (Burnyeat 1980: 81).18 Aristotle speaks to the well brought-up young man, who desires clarification in ethical matters. Jung’s psychology, on the other hand, is intended to address ‘vicious’ and ‘virtuous’ individuals alike, as well as those who are ‘enkratic’ and ‘akratic’. Jung reproached Freud for having taken into account only highly neurotic individuals, claiming that a third of his (Jung’s) own patients were non-neurotic people who suffered from some kind of existential, spiritual or moral difficulty. If depth psychology, and Jungian psychology in particular, is a form of ethical enquiry, it cannot but speak to all.

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Modern virtue ethics and Jung To look at some proponents of modern virtue ethics is not just a way of completing our survey of the Aristotelian tradition. The point I wish to make here is that some ideas discussed in the field of modern virtue ethics, such as MacIntyre’s concept of a fragmented moral order, describe a sense of ethical confusion which may well be felt, today, by those who undergo analysis. It is worth asking Jung (and Jungians) if and how they would address these issues; and if and how modern virtue ethics could help tackle, with different tools, some problems that Jung was not able to solve. As Pence points out: On theories of duty or principle, it is theoretically possible that a person could, robot-like, obey every moral rule and lead the perfect moral life. [. . .] In contrast, in virtue theory, we need to know much more than the outer shell of behaviour to make such judgements, i.e. we need to know what kind of person is involved, how the person thinks of other people, how he or she thinks of his own character, how the person feels about past actions, and also how the person feels about actions not done. (Pence 1995: 256, my italics) The concerns of virtue theory highlighted in this passage are all of interest for depth psychology: they involve the typological, cognitive and emotional dimension of our personality. As we have already noticed when discussing the Aristotle/Jung interface, depth psychology and virtue theory have a lot of ground in common. Anscombe and moral language Anscombe’s ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, unanimously considered the beginning of modern virtue ethics, was published in 1958, the same year in which Jung discussed the distinction between morality and ethics in his paper on ‘A Psychological View of Conscience’. Anscombe argues that the concepts of obligation, and duty – moral obligation and moral duty – and of what is morally right and wrong, and of the moral sense of ‘ought,’ ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible;

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because they are survivals, or derivatives from survivals, from an earlier conception of ethics which no longer generally survives, and are only harmful without it. (Anscombe 1958: 1, my italics) The ‘earlier conception of ethics’ mentioned by Anscombe is close to Jung’s notion of collective morality, but Jung, as we have seen, still maintains the use of the ‘old’ moral vocabulary with words such as ‘duty’ and ‘morality’, because he considers this to be helpful in distinguishing morality from ethics. Perhaps, when discussing what he calls ethics, he could have embraced a more articulated virtue-ethical vocabulary, which takes into account ‘all the colours’19 of our moral spectrum, in opposition to the usually ‘black’ and ‘white’ distinctions of collective morality: A person is not black or white, but iridescent with all the colours of the rainbow; he is better than most in one respect, about level with the average in another respect, and a bit, perhaps a big bit, deficient in a third respect. (Ryle 2009, quoted in Harcourt 2013a) Jung’s notion of the shadow (to which I will return in the following chapter), can be read as an attempt to mitigate the rigid moral dichotomy between good and evil, moral and immoral. Anscombe’s paper was published when Jung’s ethical position had already reached maturation. Both papers, Jung’s and Anscombe’s, are useful reminders for therapists to avoid a moral vocabulary when discussing the ethical dimension of life. To put it in Rieff’s words, ‘if psychology was to be the philosophy of the future, as Nietzsche anticipated, it would have to avoid the verbal mannerism of older moral speculations’ (Rieff 1960). But Nietzsche, as we have seen, is one of the reasons why Jung decided not to abandon a moral vocabulary altogether. MacIntyre’s fragmented moral order and the link of virtues with practices As J. L. A. Garcia has argued, MacIntyre’s approach to ethics is not so different from Anscombe’s, since they both recognise a ‘messy’ moral landscape. What is relevant to my discussion, is that Garcia employs the

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Jungian metaphor of the mind as a house (found in Jung 1928), although he does not discuss Jung’s ethical conceptions, which I believe can also be compared to a house (cf. Chapter 2, in the section ‘Concluding reflections’). Garcia writes: As with the house’s parts, the disparate provenance of the different components may not be obvious and may have been forgotten. It is also likely that over time the fissures become deeper and the structure less stable, even if the joints are hidden to all but the trained eye. Thus, like Anscombe, MacIntyre has long complained that, in our moral discourse, we freely shift from concepts of natural law to natural rights, from obligation to virtue, from self-interest to sacrificial charity, from consideration only on overall consequences to compassion for immediate victims to interest in one’s own higher interest and long-term self-improvement, without noticing the very different histories and, he thinks, incompatible bases and presuppositions from which these concepts and vocabularies emerge. (Garcia 2003: 97) MacIntyre’s answer to the fragmentation of the modern moral landscape was a return to the horizon of Aristotle and St Thomas – having rejected the option of returning to Nietzsche (see Fuller 1998: 22)20. He defines virtue as an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods. (MacIntyre 1981: 191) If we conceive virtues as linked to ‘practices’, Robert Solomon asks how is integrity possible in a society without an ethos or, in more positive terms, in a ‘pluralist’ society with many ethe, some of them admittedly dubious? Does it make sense in such a society to still speak of ‘excellence,’ or should we just award ‘achievement’ and recognize limited accomplishments in cautiously defined sub-groups and professions? (Solomon 1998: 334–335)

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Jung’s notion of individuation, which is based on integration more than on ‘integrity’, and takes place in ‘a “pluralist” society with many ethe’, could be read as a positive answer to this interrogative. Concluding reflections In this chapter, through the discussion of the Aristotelian side of Jung’s approach to ethics, I have sketched out a plan for a possible collaboration between Jung’s depth-psychological method and a philosophical approach to mental suffering. The importance of Jung’s Aristotelian legacy can be made clear by reviewing Jung’s Kantian and Nietzschean ethical dimensions. A Jungian therapist who is aware of Jung’s keen Kantian stance will never overlook the importance of making the unconscious conscious, since freedom, as we have seen, can only be the expression of a strong ego which has integrated unconscious drives and tendencies. On the other hand, an analytical psychologist who is also faithful to Jung’s Nietzschean legacy will be aware that an action may be deemed ethical only if a significant amount of what informs it is irrational and unconscious. To avoid being stuck between these two apparently incompatible positions (something often found in the Jungian literature on ethics), Jung’s Aristotelian stance can come to the rescue, stressing the need for a dynamic balance between reason (Kant) and the passions (Nietzsche), and of a more nuanced and graded approach to psychological and ethical development, in which Kantian and Nietzschean elements coexist, at different times and in different degrees. The discussion of ethical types that has been conducted here can be a helpful reminder that there is more than one way to be ethical: the akratic, the enkratic and the virtuous are all, in different ways, to be praised, since they all strive to improve their ethical position. It is just that the starting point of the akratic is lower down the scale, and the virtuous is at risk of inflation and of ending up like his opposite, the vicious, who is engulfed by the unconscious. We have seen how Jung’s attempts to disentangle ethics from morality can be enhanced by a careful scrutiny of the language of moral philosophy, such as that conducted by Anscombe, and we have also seen how Jung’s pluralist approach to ethics has various points of convergence with MacIntyre’s stress on a variety of ethical practices. Various modern authors from the fields of philosophy and sociology, such as the Robert C. Solomon (1992) and Richard Sennett (2009), open avenues of research (in the

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field of business ethics and into the practice of craftsmanship) in which the cooperation of a depth-psychological angle could prove very fruitful. Notes 1 See Chapter 5, in the section ‘On Jung, Aristotle and ethics’, where I discuss the work of John Cottingham. 2 ‘Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit’ (II. 1. 1103a24–25). 3 To be an habitual state is virtue’s genus (Brown 2009: xxxviii). Aristotle defines an object/concept by establishing the genus (broad category) it belongs to and by highlighting its differentia (the feature that separates it from the other members of the same category). For virtue’s differentia, ‘a disposition to choose the intermediate’, see the section ‘Phronesis’ later in this chapter. 4 The mother who let her toddler die by drinking from a sponge; the young intellectual who spent his holidays in St. Moritz using the money given to him by a rich woman who was in love with him (the latter case is recounted in Jung 1935: 282–284). 5 In which one horn of the dilemma is conscious and the other unconscious. 6 ‘The chief causes of a neurosis are conflicts of conscience and difficult moral problems that require an answer’ (Jung 1949: 1408), quoted in the Introduction. See also other quotations in the introductory section ‘Ethics: the cure of neurosis?’. 7 The genus of virtue, as we mentioned earlier, is to be a habitual state. 8 He also adds: ‘It is a murderous task to write the wisdom of real life, particularly if one has committed years to serious scientific research’ (Jung 1913–1930: 306, note 135). 9 ‘The “mean” is relative to the person acting and to the situation she is in. Some situations do call for highly intense responses. Great danger calls for high courage. Great challenges call for extreme effort and so on’ (van Hooft 2006: 59). 10 I discuss this quotation in Chapter 4. 11 See Hinton 2019. 12 In Aristotle’s account of akrasia, the notion of pleasure plays an important part. Various scholars (see, for example, Rorty 1980) have sought to understand the akratic puzzle: ‘Why is appetite victorious in the akratic, and not reason?’ Aristotle provides a much debated answer in VII.3., in which ‘practical syllogisms’ are involved. 13 See my discussion of akrasia as neurosis later. 14 Lanthano means ‘to be hidden or concealed’ and ‘to escape notice’ (https://stephanus. tlg.uci.edu). Freud’s ‘latent content’ of dreams has the same root. 15 Aristotle does also consider ‘bestiality’ as a state below vice and ‘heroic excellence’ as a state above virtue, but both states are admittedly very rare. 16 Here perhaps a distinction should be drawn between ego-syntonic and ego-dystonic neuroses, a distinction made after Jung’s time, or between ‘character disorder’ and ‘neurosis’ (terms I presume are now old fashioned), which the best-selling book for the general public by M. Scott Peck The Road Less Travelled summarises as follows: ‘Most people who come to see a psychiatrist [sic] are suffering from what is called either a neurosis or a character disorder. Put most simply, these two conditions are disorders of responsibility, and as such they are opposite styles of relating to the world and its problems. The neurotic assumes too much responsibility; the person with a character disorder not enough. When neurotics are in conflict with the world they automatically assume that they are at fault. When those with character disorders are in conflict with the world they automatically assume that the world is at fault’ (M. Scott Peck 1990: 35, my italics). In the context of my discussion, the person with an ‘ego-syntonic’ neurosis or a ‘character disorder’ would fit better into Aristotle’s vicious type.

86  Character, virtue and psycho-ethical types 17 See discussion on modern virtue ethics later. 18 He adds that the secret of the akratic’s failure is to be found ‘in the man’s earlier history. We must account for his present conflict in terms of stages of development of his character which he has not yet completely left behind’ (Burnyeat 1980: 85, my italics). 19 Ryle defines ‘good’ and ‘evil’ with the expression ‘single generic Sunday attribute[s]’ (Ryle 2009, quoted in Harcourt 2013a). 20 Solomon 2003 considers MacIntyre’s ‘Aristotle or Nietzsche’ disjunction misleading since Nietzsche can be read as a peculiar virtue-ethical thinker in his own right; Swanton 2003 also reads Nietzsche as a virtue-ethical thinker.

Chapter 4

Humility, evil and the shadow The Christian legacy

Jung was one of the great psychologists of religion of the twentieth century, and his work in this field has been scrutinised by many scholars, including Paul Bishop, Roderick Main, Michael Palmer, Robert A. Segal and Murray Stein.1 In trying to define the specific quality of Jung’s ethics, it can be difficult to determine if his ethical position can and should be separated from the religious dimension of his thought.2 The convergence of the ethical and the religious is most evident in Jung’s discussion of the concept of evil, a notion which has always posed a challenge to both philosophy and theology (see Ricoeur 2007) as it encapsulates diverse phenomena such as suffering, sin and human limits, as well as ‘carry[ing] with it questionable metaphysical commitments to Satan, dark forces or the supernatural, which are [today] not made explicit, or are concealed’ (Calder 2013: 178). In this chapter I look at the Christian side of Jung’s ethics, and in particular at his understanding of the problem of evil, which I put in relation to the other dimensions of his ethical thought that we have explored so far. I argue that Jung interprets ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as objective principles as well as predicates of our (necessarily fallible) judgement and that this reading is both Christian and therapeutic. Some contemporary philosophers argue that ‘evil’ does not simply mean ‘very wrong’: there is a qualitative difference that the word embodies (Calder 2013: 177–178, passim). Todd Calder has in fact put forth a theory of evil according to which evil acts have at least two essential components: 1 Significant harm, and 2 What I call an e-motivation. By an e-motivation I mean an inexcusable intention to bring about, allow, or witness, the significant harm of (1) for an unworthy goal. (Calder 2013: 188)

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This theory brings together insights from consequentialist, effect-based, theories (the ‘significant harm’) and deontological, intention-based, theories (the ‘e-motivation’), demonstrating that evil actions possess a ‘quid’ which neither approach is able to capture. From a psychiatric angle, Simon Baron-Cohen’s study of psychopath, borderline and narcissist types suggests that evil should be understood as ‘empathy-erosion’, and defines extreme evil as a ‘zero degree of empathy’ (Baron-Cohen 2011). Whereas Baron-Cohen suggests evil acts are the result of an absence of feelings in the evildoer who reduces people to objects, Calder on the other hand sees evil acts as motivated by the desire to make others suffer. It is unfortunate that Jung never defines evil in such clear ways and a philosophically minded person will surely be disappointed by Jung’s frequent use of the words ‘good’ and ‘evil’ without a definition attached to them. However, in “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology” (1959), Jung provides various reason why it is ill-advised to set down ethical rules and principles, so the first section of this chapter is devoted to analysing this paper and discussing the Christian and psychological interpretation of good and evil that Jung provides. Second, I look at Jung’s bold rejection (which is found in various letters and works, most notably in Aion, 1951a) of Augustinian and post-Augustinian theodicy through the establishment of a logical and indeed ontological equivalence between good and evil. Third, I trace Jung’s symbolic depiction of a path of ethical growth as delineated in his “Answer to Job” (1952a). In the final section, I discuss Jung’s notion of the shadow, which has its origin in the Biblical parable of the mote and the beam, and represents Jung’s most original contribution to the moral psychology of evil, but is not a theory of evil as such. “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology”: psychological, religious and ethical humility Jung’s ‘extemporaneous address to the Stuttgarter Gemeinschaft “Arzt und Seelsorger” ’ (CW 11, p. 456, note 1), “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology” is particularly useful for understanding Jung’s informal approach to moral issues (not that Jung’s published work generally suffers from an excess of scholarly schematism!). The paper is at times conceptually confused, but it is also a fundamental document in understanding Jung’s psychological and religious attitude towards ethics. The main theses put forward by Jung in this paper can be grouped as ‘Christian’,

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‘Therapeutic’ and ‘both Christian and Therapeutic’.3 The following are the ‘Christian’ ideas: 1 (a) Good and evil are metaphysical ‘principles’ (Jung 1959: 859) and ‘the ultimate principle we can conceive of is God’ (ibid.: 864), so good and evil are seen as two aspects of God (a point which Jung had already made in “Answer to Job” in 1952, where God is seen as both good and evil);4 and (b) there are things that are objectively good or evil (‘Because I take an empirical attitude it does not mean that I relativize good and evil as such’, 1959: 866, italics in the original). Here we find the notion of an objective moral order which belongs to the Christian ‘Natural Law’ tradition (I return to this notion later). Jung seems to adhere to it with some force. This can be seen as problematic, since it is difficult to reconcile with Jung’s stress on individual ethics. However, in discussing Jung’s critique of Nietzsche’s ‘beyond good and evil’ we have already seen that for Jung evil is something to be avoided; and in his critique to privatio boni Jung stresses the ‘substance’ of evil. 2 These ‘principles’ ‘take possession’ (Jung 1959: 883) of our judgement. This is a Jungian way of saying that when we claim that a certain action is good or evil we are performing an act of judgement and use ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as predicates in our judgement. Jung seems to be implying that there is an element of pride every time we pass judgement. This is a very Christian point of view, since pride is the capital sin of Christianity (‘Sin is pride [Latin superbia]: a form of selfexaltation in which human beings place their will above that of God’s and, in so doing, assume God’s place as ultimate judge’, McDougall 2011: 473). The Christian idea that to judge is a sin is also present in Jung’s answer to a listener’s question after his talk: ‘You are tempting me to lay down a rule’ (Jung 1959: 880, my italics). 3 It is often necessary to ‘pass judgement’ on an action performed by someone as to whether it is good/right or evil/wrong (often Jung uses the word evil here when ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ would have been enough). It is not clear why this is the case for Jung. Can we not abstain from judgement? 4 [But] ‘our judgement [. . .] as to what is good and evil in practice will have to be very cautious and modest’ (Jung 1959: 871). Why?

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5 Because there are situations in which ‘he alone [the person acting] and the Omniscient have seen the situation as it were from inside, whereas the judges and condemners see it only from the outside’ (Jung 1959: 869). That only God knows, and only God should know, what is good and evil is a thoroughly Christian idea, in which ethical humility is favourably contrasted to ethical pride. The idea clearly echoes the story of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, who ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and were punished for this.5 This Biblical story may seem, at first sight, the description of a jealous God who does not seem willing to promote the moral evolution of his creatures, but it might also have the function of telling readers not to be too full of pride when judging others (the two readings do not necessarily exclude each other). And in his 1959 talk, Jung appears to endorse this second reading fully. Except that for Jung, and this is perhaps less Christian, the person who makes the ethical decision may in fact be considered to know what is good and evil (‘he alone [the person acting] and the Omniscient have seen the situation as it were from inside’, my italics). In fact, just before making point (5) Jung had described the ‘critical situations’ where ‘a man can do nothing but stand his ground’ and ‘react as a whole man’ (Jung 1959: 896). These are the situations in which ‘it may turn out that he can no longer keep to the letter of the moral law [. . .] where his most personal ethics begin’ (ibid., my italics). The notion that one should not follow the letter of the moral law is clearly derived from St Paul, thus yet another Christian reference; however I have not included this point in the list since it restates the Jungian notion of individual ethics as separate from collective morality, which I have already discussed in Chapters 1 and 2. The ‘therapeutic’ points Jung makes about good and evil are:6 6 ‘For a particular person in a particular situation at this particular stage of development [evil] may be good. Contrariwise, good at the wrong moment in the wrong place may be the worst thing possible’ (Jung 1959: 866). 7 [What should the psychotherapist do? Should he give the patient a hint of how to deal with evil, or should he urge the patient to find out for himself?] ‘[I]n each case listen to what the concrete situation

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demands. [. . .] For instance, a patient is still so unconscious that you simply cannot take up an attitude towards his problems. [. . .] Another patient has reached a certain level of consciousness and expects orientation from you’ (Jung 1959: 880, italics in the original). Point (6) is an articulation of the view that ethics is an individual task closely connected with psychic health. What is healthy for one may be unhealthy for another. Point (7) deals with the problem of moral guidance we have discussed in Chapter 1. Here Jung notes that in some cases it is not so much ‘wrong’ to offer some direction, as it is ‘ineffective’ (see the Jung stress on ‘cannot’). As for individual choices, the choices made by therapists cannot be prescribed by a set of rules, even though Jung does appear to adhere to what could be called a ‘pragmatic’ or even ‘consequentialist’ approach to good and evil: do what works (for that patient at that specific time), do what produces the best effects. If ‘what works’, for the patient’s individuative needs, also goes against an objective moral order (in which Jung, however, claims to believe), too bad for the objective moral order! It is as if Jung were saying: ‘They pay me to make patients healthy, to make them whole, so I must see what can be done to reach that goal. I am not being paid to make them good. That is their decision’.7 The ‘therapeutic’ and ‘Christian’ point Jung makes shows how he shifts seamlessly from the therapeutic to the philosophical to the religious: 8 ‘It is presumptuous to think we can always say what is good or bad for the patient. Perhaps he knows something is really bad and does it anyway and then gets a bad conscience. From the therapeutic, that is to say the empirical, point of view, this may be very good indeed for him. Perhaps he has to experience the power of evil and suffer accordingly, because only in that way can he give up his Pharisaic attitude to other people’ (Jung 1959: 867). In other words, sometimes one does what one knows to be bad (and is objectively bad), but this is useful because one ‘gives up’ a ‘Pharisaic8 attitude’, which presumably involved, for Jung, a certain degree of shadow projection. This same point is made, more emphatically, when Jung writes, ‘If he [the patient] had dared nothing, if he had not risked his life [. . .] he would never have gained it’ (Jung 1959: 866). This echoes various Biblical

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passages, including John 12:24: ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit’. Finally, in the context of this chapter it should be noted that Jung’s understanding of the psychological phenomenon of conscience as embracing both consciousness and the unconscious (which I discussed in Chapter 1, in the section ‘Jung’s answer to the problem of conflicts of duties’) appears close to contemporary accounts of conscience: The NATURAL LAW tradition that [. . .] developed from Paul and other ancient sources affirms the existence of an objective moral order that is consonant with human flourishing, such that obedience to the moral law promotes the human good [while] contemporary accounts of conscience often recognize its subjective and objective dimensions. Subjectively, conscience designates the interior ‘space’ in which we experience ourselves standing before or in dialogue with God. Objectively, conscience designates our awareness of particular moral values and principles as obliging us to act or refraining from acting. [. . .] Taken together, these dimensions rule out both a moral subjectivism that would reduce morality to individual opinion and deny the reality of an objective moral order, and a blind obedience to moral authority that would lack the person’s free, reasoned, and responsible appropriation of moral teaching. (Weaver 2011: 112, my italics) In Jung these two dimensions are both present: the ‘interior space’ in which we are in dialogue with God (in Jung, the ‘ethical’ dimension of conscience) and the ‘awareness of particular moral values’ (in Jung, the ‘moral’ dimension of conscience). However, where contemporary Christian accounts of conscience seem to put equal weight on these two dimensions, Jung sees the ethical dimension of conscience as the decisive factor for individuation (see e.g. Jung 1928: 218). Jung’s 1959 speech, his lasts words on the problem of ‘good and evil in analytical psychology’, shows how his attitude towards this problem is both informed by a Christian conception of ethical humility and eminently concerned with the therapeutic goal of health and wholeness; very far from a philosophical attempt to define good and evil actions in abstract and universal terms. However, as I will now

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discuss, in his earlier works he had tackled the metaphysical notions of good and evil (in Aion, 1951a) and provided a model of ethical growth (in “Answer to Job”, 1952a). Against privatio boni: the substance of evil Why should we fear and avoid what has no being? (Augustine, Confessions, VII)

Augustine’s philosophical dialogue On the Free Choice of the Will, written between 387 and 395, opens with ‘Evodius’ asking ‘Augustine’: ‘Please tell me whether God is not the author of evil’ (Augustine 2010: 3). This is the problem of theodicy,9 the philosophical attempt to justify the coexistence of a benevolent and omnipotent God and evil. In formal terms: 1 There is a benevolent and omnipotent God. 2 Evil exists. How can (1) and (2) both be true? Augustine, the most original thinker in the history of theodicy,10 suggests that the apparent inconsistency can be solved by providing a conception of evil which can be accommodated with (1), so he concentrates on re-elaborating (2). Jung debunks this attempt, argues for ‘the evilness of evil’, and attacks (1): as we will see, Jung’s ‘God’ is also evil. Therefore his ideas do not, strictly speaking, belong to the tradition of theodicy (etymologically ‘justification of God’), nor should they be termed ‘psychotheodicy’ (see Bishop 2002: 68), unless we specify that Jung’s theodicy is an ‘anti-theodicy’: his goal is to save evil from theories that diminish its power and nature, rather than to justify God. Jung refutes a traditional notion of God and defends an ontologically strong notion of evil against any attempts to soften it. Jung’s interest in the dark side of God and on the problem of evil had been very strong ever since his childhood and had been heightened by the unsatisfactory answers that his father, a Lutheran pastor, had given him. His long-resisted but finally accepted vision of God’s turd smashing the shiny roof of the Cathedral of Basel (Jung 1963: 39) was a defining moment of his existence and Jung was able to allow himself to ‘let

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the thought come’ (ibid.) after having reflected upon the doctrine of Original Sin: They were perfect creatures of God, for He creates only perfection, and yet they committed the first sin by doing what God did not want them to do. How was that possible? They could not have done it if God had not placed in them the possibility of doing it. That was clear, too, from the serpent, whom God had created before them, obviously so that it could induce Adam and Eve to sin. God in His omniscience had arranged everything so that the first parents would have to sin. Therefore it was God’s intention that they should sin. (Jung 1963: 38, italics in the original) However, in the “Forward to White’s ‘God and the Unconscious’ ” he justifies his ‘intrusion’ into the theological doctrine of privatio boni (Jung 1952b: 456) by mentioning that a patient of his, ‘a scholarly man with an academic training’ (Jung 1952b: 457), used the doctrine to justify his own misdemeanours: it was, Jung writes, a ‘welcome sedative to his uneasy conscience’, so Jung had ‘felt compelled to contest the validity of the privatio boni so far as the empirical realm is concerned’. Interestingly, Jung does not acknowledge Augustine’s theodicical argument about moral evil (neither physical nor metaphysical evil) put forth in On the Free Choice of the Will, which Peter King, in his Introduction to this work, reconstructs as follows: 1 Every case of genuine moral evil in the world stems from the voluntary choices of free agents. 2 Since God bestowed free choice of the will on human beings unconditionally, He ought not, and hence He does not, interfere with its exercise. 3 It is better for there to be a world in which there are beings with free choice of the will, even at the cost of genuine moral evil, than a world in which there is neither. (Augustine 2010: xx) This argument is in fact very close to Jung’s own ideas about Original Sin, except for the fact that Jung actually states, ‘It was God’s intention that they should sin’ and Augustine merely that God does not interfere with his beings’

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free will, but the bottom line is pretty much the same. I do not know if Jung was aware of such an illustrious precedent to his own ideas, but it seems unlikely that he would not be. The existence of such an argument in the Christian theological corpus shows that the privatio boni is only one strategy which has been used by some Christians to explain the existence of evil. The privatio boni argument has its origin in Augustine’s Confessions (VII, xii). Here I follow in part the reconstruction given by Prusak (2009: 73–74) of this argument: a God is good and omnipotent. b God creates only good things. But c Evil things exist. Therefore d Evil things must be defined as ‘diminished goods’. Augustine explains (d), the notion of evil as ‘privatio boni’, using the following argument: d1 Things liable to corruption are good. d2 Things not liable to corruption are either supreme goods or things with no good in them. d3 Things that are corrupted suffer privation or diminishment of some good. d4 Good things can suffer privation or diminishment of good. d5 Evil things are good things that have suffered privation or diminishment of good. The pivotal notion in this argument is actually the notion of corruption, not that of privation. Corruption is a one-directional version of privation, because it is by definition a process from good to less good (bad),11 whilst a ‘privation’ can also be conceived ‘from bad to less bad (good)’. But Augustine does not concede this possibility, since he insists on (b): God creates only good things, so originally there were no evil things.

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Jung calls the doctrine of privatio boni a petitio principi (Jung 1951a: 94), i.e. an argument where the conclusion is already stated in the premise, presumably because he sees (d1) as already containing the idea of evil as privatio boni. If we look at Augustine’s argument in detail, we can see that Jung’s confutation is justified: to say (d1) [things liable to corruption are good] is basically providing a definition of the notion of corruption. It is like saying: ‘Corruption is when a good thing becomes bad’. Augustine’s conception has entered tradition as privatio boni, and not as corruptio boni, perhaps in order to hide the ‘petitio principii’ contained in the argument: the idea of ‘privatio’ appears more neutral, hence more convincing, but in fact the argument is based on a combination of (1) the idea of corruption and of (2) the claim that God, being good, only created good things. The two ideas mutually reinforce each other. After the privatio boni argument Augustine adds that ‘in the separate parts of your creation there are some things which we think of as evil because they are at variance with other things’ (VII, xiii, my italics), but concludes: ‘I ha[ve] come to see that though the higher things are better than the lower, the sum of all creation is better than the higher things alone’, which anticipates Leibniz’s notion of our world being the best of all possible worlds. Thomas Aquinas continues the Augustinian tradition by claiming that ‘Evil as such is nonbeing’ (Aquinas 2003: 104). Jung’s heartfelt response to Augustine and his followers can be found in Aion: Obviously evil can be represented as a diminution of good, but with this kind of logic one could just as well say: The temperature of the Arctic winter, which freezes our noses and ears, is relatively speaking only a little below the heat prevailing at the equator. (Jung 1951a: 94) One could hardly call the things that have happened, and still happen, in the concentration camps of the dictator states an ‘accidental lack of perfection’ – it would sound like mockery. (Jung 1951a: 96) white and black, light and dark, good and bad, are equivalent opposites which always predicate one another. (Jung 1951a: 98)

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So good and evil are logically and ontologically equivalent. In “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology” (1959), Jung writes: good and evil are [. . .] principles. The word ‘principle’ comes from ‘prius’, that which is ‘first’ or ‘in the beginning’. [. . .] Good and evil are principles of our ethical judgement, but, reduced to their ontological roots, they are ‘beginnings’, aspects of God, names for God. (Jung 1959: 864) So they are also, for Jung, chronologically equivalent, whilst for Augustine ‘evil’ comes after good. Concerning the idea of evil as a product of corruption, the cornerstone of Augustine’s doctrine, Jung, in a letter to Victor White, claims, ‘The possibility of corruption means nothing less than a tendency inherent in the Good to decay and to change into Evil’ (quoted in Segal 1992: 112, my italics). Rebutting White’s naturalistic analogy (‘I call an egg “bad” because it lacks what I think an egg ought to have’ [letter from White to Jung of 20 April 1952, quoted in Segal 1992: 111, italics in the original]), Jung writes: A bad egg is not characterized by a mere decrease of goodness however, since it produces qualities of its own that did not belong to the good egg. It develops among other things H2S which is a particularly unpleasant substance in its own right. It derives very definitely from the very complex albumen of the good egg and thus forms a most obvious evidence for the thesis: Evil derives from Good. (quoted in Segal 1992: 111) So Jung sees the idea of corruption in the sense of (qualitative) change rather than of (quantitative) ‘diminishment’. In the aforementioned letter to White of 1952, Jung exposes the psychological risks of the doctrine: On the practical level the privatio boni doctrine is morally dangerous, because it belittles and irrealizes Evil and thereby weakens the Good, because it deprives it of its necessary opposite. (quoted in Segal 1992: 113)12

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The Christian attempt to diminish evil has produced a diminishment of goodness too: ‘If your evil is in fact only an unreal shadow of your good, then your so-called good is nothing but an unreal shadow of your real evil’ (Jung 1952a: 457). This idea – that evil must be real so that goodness can be real too – is close to Aquinas’s view that evil was created to test humanity’s resolve: which shows that for Jung not everything that has been said by Christians about evil (first and foremost that somehow it does exist!) is to be discarded. To refute the doctrine of privatio boni in its entirety, including its theodicical purpose, one must also attack the idea that God is wholly benevolent, as stated in the doctrine of omne bonum a deo, omne malum ab homine (Jung 1951a: 458) and in the idea of God as Summum Bonum (which are also Augustinian conceptions). This is arguably why Jung, having published his critique of the privatio boni in Aion (1951a), felt the need to write “Answer to Job” (1952a), where he attacks the idea of God being wholly good. The doctrine of privatio boni, the notion of God as Summum Bonum and the belief omne bonum a Deo, omne malum ab homine are all connected attempts to deny the reality of evil and defend God’s goodness. These arguments stand – and fall – together. The path from amorality to ethics: “Answer to Job” In “Answer to Job” (1952a) Jung describes his psycho-ethical in a symbolic form. As we mentioned earlier, Jung does not only apply his psychological understanding of the psyche to religion, he also seeks psychological truths in religion. These psychological truths are also ethical truths. The main characters of the ‘divine drama’ are instantiations of Jung’s views on ethics and the way the various characters relate to one another, and evolve into one another, is used by Jung to delineate a path of psychological and ethical growth. Indeed, as White remarks, ‘[i]f ever there were grist for the Jungian mill it was, one might suppose, the Book of Job’ (White 1955: 52). Yahweh is ‘amoral’ (Jung 1952a: 560) because he is unconscious; in fact he is a perfect representation of how Jung sees the unconscious: [In Yahweh i]nsight existed along with obtuseness, loving-kindness along with cruelty, creative power along with destructiveness. Everything was there, and none of these qualities was an obstacle to the

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other. Such a condition is only conceivable [. . .] when no reflecting consciousness is present at all. (ibid.) When Job confronts Yahweh about the suffering he is enduring, [h]e clearly sees that God is at odds with himself so totally at odds that he, Job, is quite certain of finding in God a helper and an ‘advocate’ against God. As certain as he is of the evil in Yahweh, he is equally certain of the good. (Jung 1952a: 567) To translate this awareness into psychological terms, Jung seems to be telling us that there is something good to be found in the unconscious, even and especially when our unconsciousness makes us suffer, a conviction that Jung held all his life. But to bring this goodness out of Yahweh, one must first make him conscious of His evil side. Satan was able to convince Yahweh to torture Job because Satan is a part of Yahweh, and Job, like Pinocchio’s Cricket, is a fastidious presence. Satan is an Iago who is able to plant doubts into Yahweh’s short-sighted and distorted narcissism: Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. (Job 1:10–11) Job functions as Yaheweh’s therapist, who shows Yahweh his moral failings: ‘Job stands morally higher than Yahweh’ (Jung 1952a: 640). However, Jung also hints that Job is partially responsible for what had happened to him: his one-sided morality had prompted, in an enantiodromia, Satan’s intervention, like when our best intentions slip over our shadow. In fact, following Jung, I would argue that the products of the unconscious appear immoral – even Satanic – when consciousness is too closely identified with morality, so Satan could be interpreted as a projection of Job’s shadow (and Yahweh as a projection of Job’s Self).

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White makes explicit what is somewhat implicit in Jung’s analysis: Anybody can be ‘good’ in such narrow, sheltered confines as these; but he can hardly be a grown-up man let alone a hero, a prototype of the way of salvation through crucifixion and resurrection. Any psychologist should know he is heading for a crash. Any theologian should know that such easy and complacent virtue cannot continue long in this post-lapsarian world. (White 1955: 52) Nevertheless, Jung is fully aware of Job’s pivotal role in allowing Yahweh (his unconscious) to move towards conscious morality, and I would argue that Job represents the Kantian stage of Jung’s psychological ethics, namely the idea that we must do our duty whatever suffering it may involve, our primary duty being to ‘make the unconscious conscious’: which is precisely what Job does, since he functions like a mirror in which Yahweh is forced to see reflected his own contradictory powers. The event that follows the Job/Yahweh confrontation is Christ’s incarnation: The life of Christ is a symbolum, a bringing together of heterogeneous natures, rather as if Job and Yahweh were combined in a single personality. Yahweh’s intention to become man, which resulted from his collision with Job, is fulfilled in Christ’s life and suffering. (Jung 1952a: 648) Christ is God’s answer to Job, as powerful as Yahweh and as moral as Job. But He is also a bit less powerful (He suffers and dies on the cross) and a little less one-sidedly moral. Christ is an evolution of Job because he has integrated the unconscious more successfully, and an evolution of Yahweh because he has integrated consciousness more successfully. In ‘A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of Trinity’ Jung describes the ‘Christ stage’ as ‘a conflict situation par excellence, as the choice of possible ways is menaced by just as many possibilities of error: “Freedom from the law” brings a sharpening of opposites, in particular of the moral opposites’ (1942/1948: 272). Nevertheless, Christ begins to redeem humanity by bringing the ‘light’ of love (as opposed to the morality of law) and is an

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ally in humankind’s fight against darkness and sin, which includes – paradoxically – the dark side of God.13 In psychological terms, the Christian era represents the individuative phase in which we are capable of successfully contrasting the negative influence of our shadow and therefore of strengthening our ego. Jesus ‘sav[es] the threatened religious community’ (Jung 1952a: 688) as well as, in personal terms, the risk of letting one’s ego be overcome by unconscious amorality. The human and the divine suffering set up a relationship of complementarity with compensating effects. Through the Christ-symbol, man can get to know the real meaning of his suffering: he is on the way towards realizing his wholeness. As a result of the integration of conscious and unconscious, his ego enters the ‘divine’ realm, where it participates in ‘God’s suffering.’ The cause of the suffering is in both cases the same, namely ‘incarnation,’ which on the human level appears as ‘individuation.’ (Jung 1942–1948: 233) It is quite evident that the suffering mentioned here is not of the neuroticunconscious type derived from repression, but is derived from the fact that Christ bravely suppresses the dark side (after he has realised its existence), something which for Jung must at times be done, especially when one is strengthening one’s ego (but Jung also mentions suppression as the moral solution to conflicts of duty, see Chapter 1). But Christ, for Jung, is still a model of perfectionism, not of completeness: he is more divine than human and that is why he is able to suppress his shadow completely. In a letter to White, Jung explains this paradox: ‘When Christ withstood Satan’s temptation, that was the fatal moment when the shadow was cut off. Yet it had to be cut off in order to enable man to become morally conscious’ (letter to White, 10 April 1954, quoted in Stein 1995: 76). In “Answer to Job” Jung claims that the ‘precautions’ put in place before the birth of Christ (Immaculate Conception of Mary in primis) mean that Christ is less able to redeem humanity and identify with its sufferings. A more complete redemption and ‘continuing incarnation’ can only occur in the ‘era of the Holy Ghost’, where God incarnates in the ‘empirical man’ (Jung 1952a: 755), ‘the natural man who is tainted with original sin’. According to Jung, ‘the guilty man is eminently suitable [. . .], not the guiltless one who holds aloof from the world and refuses to pay his tribute

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to life, for in him the dark God would find no room’ (Jung 1952a: 746). In the final paragraph of “Answer to Job” Jung writes that: the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the third Divine Person, in man, brings about a Christification of many, and the question then arises whether these many are all complete God-men. Such a transformation would lead to insufferable collisions between them, to say nothing of the unavoidable inflation to which the ordinary mortal, who is not freed from original sin, would instantly succumb. (Jung 1952a: 758) In the ‘era of the Holy Ghost’ humankind risks an identification with the divine, a falling apart of boundaries between ego and Self, which is why Jung recommends keeping hold of the Christ symbol until one is able to do without it. This idea should be related to Jung’s previously expressed belief that the ‘the new ethic’ [ethics] is ‘a development and differentiation within the old ethic [morality], confined at present to those uncommon individuals who, driven by unavoidable conflicts of duty, endeavor to bring the conscious and the unconscious into responsible relationship’ (Jung 1949: 1416; see Chapter 2, ‘Adaptation and individuation’). Here Jung’s fear of being read as suggesting a ‘leap’ into the ‘era of the Holy Ghost’ (which he nevertheless indicates as the goal of humankind) resonates with his worries about Nietzsche’s encouragement to go beyond good and evil. In “Answer to Job” Jung writes that [t]he only thing that really matters now is whether man can climb up to a higher moral level, to a higher plane of consciousness, in order to be equal to the superhuman powers which the fallen angels have played into his hands (Jung 1952a: 746) with a clear reference to the nuclear era in which he and his readers were living. The two World Wars which Jung had witnessed, and are the background against which “Answer to Job” had been written, represented a clear and devastating transgression of the Christian virtues of love, humility and compassion, and were the obvious reminder of the risks of going beyond the Christian search for moral perfection without having developed

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a strong psychological constitution, capable of transcending the opposites without becoming inflated. To recapitulate, Jung’s Yahweh is a religious symbol of the amoral Self in which creative tendencies coexist alongside destructive ones, in which ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are not yet differentiated. Satan is Yahweh’s shadow. Job is the first development and differentiation of a moral ego. Christ is a human-divine attempt to continue the individuative path of both Yahweh and Job, and represents a one-sided strengthening of a moral stance based on love. However, every moral stance, is the result, for Jung, of the repression of immoral tendencies, so Christ is not yet a model of complete integration. (The Antichrist, on the other hand, represents the one-sided strengthening of an immoral stance based on power, where morality is obviously repressed.) Finally, the Holy Ghost is for Jung an image of a truly ethical standpoint, since the creative and destructive opposites within the unconscious Self are reunited at a conscious level, with all the risks that this entails. The shadow: moral psychology of evil Following is a chronological list of notable statements by Jung on the shadow: 1 Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected, and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of unawareness. At all events, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions. (Jung 1938/1940: 131) 2 If it comes to a neurosis, we invariably have to deal with a considerably intensified shadow. And if such a person wants to be cured it is necessary to find a way in which his conscious personality and his shadow can live together. (Jung 1938/1940: 132)

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3 [T]he shadow is merely something inferior, primitive, unadapted, and awkward; not wholly bad. It even contains childish or primitive qualities which would in a way vitalise and embellish human existence. (Jung 1938/1940: 134) 4 We are convinced that certain people have all the bad qualities we do not know in ourselves or that they practise all those vices which could, of course, never be our own. We must still be exceedingly careful not to project our own shadows too shamelessly; we are still swamped with projected illusions. (Jung 1938/1940: 140) 5 Nobody who finds himself on the road to wholeness can escape that characteristic suspension which is the meaning of crucifixion. For he will infallibly run into things that thwart and ‘cross’ him: first, the thing he has no wish to be (the shadow); second, the thing he is not (the ‘other,’ the individual reality of the ‘You’); and third, his psychic non-ego (the collective unconscious). (Jung 1945: 172) 6 The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. (Jung 1951a: 14) 7 It is quite within the bounds of possibility for man to recognize the relative evil of his own nature, but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of absolute evil. (Jung 1951a: 19) 8 If it has been believed hitherto that the human shadow was the source of all evil, it can now be ascertained on closer investigation that the unconscious man, that is, his shadow, does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc. On this level of understanding, evil appears more

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as a distortion, a deformation, a misinterpretation and misapplication of facts that in themselves are natural. (Jung 1951a: 423) 9 To know where the other person makes a mistake is of little value. It only becomes interesting when you know where you make the mistake, for then you can do something about it. (Jung 1951a: 424) We can isolate various aspects of the shadow from these definitions, namely: A B C D

What the shadow is. What determines it. What it does to us. What we can do about it.

(A) The shadow is something inferior, primitive, childish, unadapted, awkward, not wholly bad (3); we all have it (1); it is the thing we have no wish to be (5); it is a moral problem (6); it is relative evil (7); it includes normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses (8). Jung’s point is that what individuals and cultures consider to be bad and even evil is often not so bad and not so evil. The notion that ‘we all have a shadow’ is akin, as many commentators have noticed, to the Christian idea that ‘we are all sinners’. (B) What determines the shadow? The shadow is an archetype, i.e. a psychic structure or form that for Jung belongs to mankind in general, so ultimately ‘God’ or bio-chemical chance is the source of the shadow, and it is also a complex, i.e. a collection of ideas and images that form a relatively independent part of the individual psyche and are characterised by a common emotional tone (Samuels et al. 2010: 33–34). The central complex, for Jung, is the ego, the complex of which we are most aware and which allows adaptation to the outside world. (The ego corresponds for Jung to the archetype of the Hero, as the Self corresponds to the archetype of God.) Sometimes Jung describes the shadow as the ‘opposite’ of the Ego and at other times as the ‘opposite’ of the Persona (the ‘outer’ and ‘collective’ face of the individual), but the main point is that wherever

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there is an ego and a Persona, which hold on to and show certain values and qualities to the outside world (to the point of identification with them), there will also be a shadow, which includes all the qualities that have been excluded and repressed, so the shadow is the result of this repression and corresponds to Freud’s unconscious. (Narratively, the shadow is the AlterEgo or Anti-Hero.) Clearly most people like to appear moral and ‘nice’, so the shadow will generally embody the immoral and ‘ugly’ side of an individual (or culture). If we like to appear immoral, on the other hand, and put on the ‘pose of wickedness’ as I discussed in Chapter 2, the shadow will embody the unconscious moral side of an individual, which will also be unadapted, childish and primitive, since we will be used to being wicked, but not to being nice. (C) What the shadow does to us is it determines a split in our personality, and an intensified shadow will produce a neurosis (2), where we (unconsciously)14 project on the outside world what we are unconscious about ourselves (4); in a neurosis, the shadow will burst forth and thwart our most well-meant intentions (1), like in Freud’s ‘return of the repressed’. (D) What we can do about our shadow is to recognise it as present and real (6), make it conscious (1), recognise the projection, become aware of our own mistakes (9) and of our inferior, unadapted, awkward, childish and primitive side. By doing so, we will no longer live in a world which is ‘the replica of [our] own unknown face’ (Jung 1951a: 17), we will have a real relationship with the world, and our existence will be vitalised and embellished (3). In terms of the analogy of shadow and sin, Jung’s optimism towards the possibility of integrating our shadow (which I already discussed in Chapter 3 in terms of Jung’s approach to integrating ‘unconscious vice’), is closer to a Catholic approach to sin, where reason and good deeds are seen to mitigate our fallible nature, and further away from the Pauline-Augustinian and Protestant approach to sin. Jung was aware that Protestantism, with its more direct relationship with God/the unconscious, was both a risk and an opportunity (Jung 1938/1940: 85), and most of his patients were Protestant. His notion of integrating the shadow/sin – with the help of a mediator, the analyst – can be seen as an injection of Catholic optimism, embodied by a Catholic confessor-like figure, the analyst, into a darker Protestant soul. Here it is perhaps interesting to note that one of the most acute interpreters of Jung’s psychology was a Catholic priest, Father Victor White.

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It is now necessary to answer three more questions: (E) is the shadow the same as evil? (F) Is projecting the shadow evil? (G) Is projecting our shadow the origin of most of our moral judgements (of good and evil) and immoral behaviour? The answer to the first question is ‘no’, since Jung distinguishes between ‘the relative evil of our own nature’ (which as we have seen is actually not always evil but more often just inferior and underdeveloped), and ‘absolute evil’, which is the ‘ontological, metaphysical evil’ which Jung discusses in Aion, Answer to Job and ‘Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology’ (7). In some cases, the shadow qualities may indeed be evil (for example an extremely generous and kind man may dream of criminals that embody his violent and selfish shadow), but in other cases the qualities of the shadow may be good, and in many, many cases, as Jung stresses, the shadow will merely be the instantiation of the ‘childish, primitive, instinctual’ side of man, neither good nor bad. This notion of a ‘grey’ or ‘rainbow’ shadow, which Jung frequently refers to, is an anticipation, in its anti-moralistic features, of the re-evaluation of spontaneity, sexuality and anti-conventional behaviour of the ’60s. In fact, when speaking of the shadow, Jung seems to be making a point which is complementary to his critique of privatio boni. There his argument was that evil should not be belittled, since it is something of equal weight as goodness: it really is evil! Here, speaking of the shadow, Jung is telling us that what we think of as evil (about ourselves and other people) is actually not evil, but merely ‘different’ from conventional values. The general tone of Jung’s remarks about the shadow is typical of a middle-class white culture of the 1940s and 1950s.15 So in terms of his approach to the cultural shadow his message (‘We should not be so moralistic! Being spontaneous, a bit Dionysiac, is actually ok!’), if repeated today, will be outdated, since after the 1960s the notion of what is moral and immoral, normal and not normal, has radically changed. On the other hand, his re-evaluation of the shadow-side of our (Western) culture can be read as an anticipation of changes that were about to take place. In terms of the personal shadow, a lot of what Jung affirms may still be very relevant, and dreams of gypsies and prostitutes, dark men and dwarfs, monkeys and wolves, are probably as common as they used to be. (F) To project the shadow is not evil, since projections, as we have seen, ‘happen’, and one cannot be blamed for them; however it is ‘evil’ not to make an attempt to recognise these projections and withdraw them from our friends, family, neighbours and fellow-humans in general, since the

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answer to the final question (G) is that projecting our shadow is the origin of most of our moral judgements (of good and evil) and immoral behaviour. Here it should be noted that the notion of shadow projection can be traced back to Christ’s parable of the mote and the beam: ‘Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye’ (Mt. 7:5). Jung buys this notion in its entirety, especially the emphatic ‘and then’, which clearly signals the moral and epistemological necessity that the judgement of one’s neighbour must be preceded by self-examination. But one could say that Jung takes this idea even a step further, since for Jung, in some cases, there may actually be no mote at all in one’s brother’s eye: the mote was just a projection of our shadow (but in all fairness the Biblical passage already seems to hint at this possibility). As we know, moral psychology studies ‘the way humans think about morality, make moral decisions, and behave in moral situations’ (Nadelhoffer 2010: 1, my italics). The shadow is Jung’s most notable contribution to moral psychology since the way I think about morality and behave in moral situations is strongly influenced, according to Jung, by my shadow. An individual who sees himself as very moral and good will have unconscious immoral and cruel tendencies, but because he is unaware of them, he will project them onto others: he will think that his brother is evil, never himself, and will develop a feeling of self-righteousness and in some cases the notion that it is permissible, to him, to mistreat others to set things right (see Calder 2013: 178). A very immoral and evil man, on the other hand, will have unconscious moral and good tendencies, but again he will project them onto others: he will think that being good is ‘not his thing’, since he is identified with his ‘pose of wickedness’ (Jung 1917/1926/1943: 18), but in fact morality and goodness are also his ‘thing’. The third intermediate case of the conventional man or woman who represses his or her desire to behave in a non-conventional way and who has a ‘grey’ or ‘rainbow’ shadow, will be complaining about the decline of public morality and taste, while harbouring unconscious desires to travel the world in a tent or behave extravagantly: again, shadow projection. Question G – and the answer to this question – refers both to moral judgements and immoral behaviour since a key point that Jung is making (via his notion of the shadow) is precisely that the more we are unaware of our dark side, which causes pain in others (‘bursts forth [. . .] thwarting our most well-meant intentions’ [1]) the darker others will appear to us;

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and conversely, the darker others will appear to us, the more we will be unaware of our dark side and cause pain to others, in a vicious cycle that only psychological self-examination and moral courage can break: which is why, for Jung, ‘the shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality’ (6). Concluding reflections To summarise the main conclusions of this chapter, for Jung we should, with Christian humility, refrain from judging others as much as possible, and consider the specific life-path of each individual as unique and to a large extent inscrutable, even if actions which are objectively ‘evil’ can be said to exist; furthermore, the notion of a metaphysical evil (ultimately traceable back to the Persian-Christian conception of a Lord of Evil) is tenable and should be conceived as the logical, ontological and chronological opposite of goodness, whereas the idea of evil as a diminishment or privation of goodness is both logically flawed and therapeutically dangerous; historically, the Judaic notion of God, a symbolic representation of the Self, contains both Evil and Good aspects, and the story of Job’s confrontation with Yahweh shows a path of moral progress from unconscious amorality to conscious ethical awareness and wholeness/completeness, which leads to an enlightened but still dangerous state that for this reason should be kept in dynamic tension with the ideal of moral perfection represented by the figure of Christ; finally, Jung’s notion of the shadow, which helps understand the phenomenon of hypocritical moral judgements as well as immoral behaviour, is to be considered Jung’s most personal contribution to moral psychology, and his anticipation of a more nuanced understanding of what is right and wrong which began in the ’60s; however, it does not entail a precise definition of evil as such, possibly to avoid the risk of ethical pride. Jung’s multi-faceted argument in favour of the objective existence of good and evil stands rather awkwardly within Jung’s overall understanding of ethics, yet it has at least two important functions. On the one hand, it softens Jung’s Nietzschean stance: expressing our Self in the world should be done, as far as possible, without harming others, so a positive notion of goodness counter-balances Jung’s claim that ‘Selfishness is good’; on the other hand, Jung’s belief in the existence of evil works as a safeguard against excessive optimism in the power of morality and consciousness to

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overcome the limits and darkness of human nature.16 Discarding the Christian side of Jung’s ethics would be comparable to the error of discarding his Kantian or Nietzschean side, and indeed of overlooking his Aristotelian approach, in the sense I have discussed. But how can we follow both the ‘vital’ and the good, given that these two principles are quite often in conflict? This is both an unresolved tension and a dynamic factor of Jung’s thought. Notes 1 See Bishop 2002 for a commentary of Answer to Job; Main 2006 for a logical and chronological overview of Jung’s approach to religion; Palmer 1997 for a comparison of Jung and Freud on religion; Segal 1992 on the Gnostic dimension of Jung’s psychology and Segal 2019 on Jung and myth; and Stein 1986 on Jung as therapist of Christianity. 2 Marco Heleno Barreto writes that ‘these two dimensions – the ethical and the religious – although distinct in themselves, form one unity in the notion of Self; and [. . .] individuation is simultaneously an ethical and a religious experience’ (Barreto 2013: 227). 3 “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology” also contains an ‘Eastern’ reflection on ‘Good and Evil’: ‘Observing the opposites teaches the Easterner the character of Maya. It gives reality the glint of illusion. Behind the opposites and in the opposites is true reality, which sees and comprehends the whole. The Indian calls this Atman. Reflecting on ourselves we can say, “I am he who speaks good and evil”, or better, “I am he through whom good and evil are spoken. The one who is in me, who voices the principles, uses me as a means of expression. He speaks through me” ’ (Jung 1959: 873). 4 This is clearly not a Christian view of God. 5 ‘And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die’ (Gen 2:16–17). When the serpent asks Eve: ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ (Gen 3:1), Eve replies: ‘But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil’ (Gen 3:3–5). God instructs them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as by doing so ‘thou shalt surely die’ (which is effectively what happens, since Adam and Eve, after their transgression, will have to leave the garden of Eden, no longer gain sustenance from the Tree of Life and face mortality); whereas the serpent’s words equate the knowledge of good and evil with a divine status. For the serpent, this divine status is something to be desired. For the Christian tradition, which Jung’s 1959 talk seems to follow, it is not to be desired, as it generates pride, which, in Jungian words, is a state of unbearable inflation, where the ego (man) and the Self (God) are not distinct. 6 Both points have been discussed in Chapter 3 with reference to Aristotle’s phronesis. The possibility of reading, in these same reflections, a Kantian warning against moral exhortation and a Nietzschean stress on individual health confirms the richness of Jung’s ethical and therapeutic approach.

Humility, evil and the shadow 111 7 ‘We Catholics ask of psychotherapy, not to make us good, nor to tell us what to do or not to do in order to be good, nor even to make us “normal” in accord with any given norm, however estimable; but only to help us to achieve a greater freedom through a better knowledge of our necessity compulsions. We must decline to be “made” anything by psychotherapy; we want to be helped to be able to make or mar ourselves’ (White 1953: 150). This point surely applies not just to Catholics, who believe in God and free will, but to non-believers who believe in free will and not God. 8 A Christian turn of phrase which refers to the Orthodox Jews. 9 Recent accounts of theodicy can be found in Geddes 2013; Peterson 2010; Oppy 2010; van Inwagen 2005. 10 Although the word is first used by Leibniz, Augustine’s work moves within the framework of this theodicy. 11 A gangster of course may say, of a traitor, that he was corrupted by the encounter with a kind woman, but he is clearly not using the word in a conventional manner. For a gangster, honour as loyalty to the gang is the purest value, so he uses the word appropriately. But this does not change what we usually mean by ‘corruption’. 12 Jung adds that if evil is considered non-being, then to call God the Lord over Evil, means he is ‘Lord over nothing’ (quoted in Segal 1992: 112). 13 Jung refers to the request in the Lord’s Prayer ‘Lead us not into temptation’ as proof of the fact that God is the source of both good and evil. Interestingly enough this phrase has recently been amended for the Italian-speaking world. 14 ‘As we know, it is not the conscious subject but the unconscious which does the projecting. Hence one meets projections, one does not make them’ (Jung 1951a: 17). 15 ‘The educated public, the flower of our present civilization, has detached itself from its roots, and is about to lose its connection with the earth as well’ (Jung 1938/1940: 134). 16 ‘Freud halted the process at the reduction of the inferior half of the personality and tended to overlook the daemonic dangerousness of the dark side, which by no means consists only of harmless infantilism. Man is neither so reasonable nor so good that he can cope eo ipso with evil’ (Jung 1955–1956: 346).

Chapter 5

Post-Jungians on Jung’s ethics

In this chapter I begin by looking at work which has been conducted on Freud’s ethical position, which has provided a term of comparison for my own research, because it raises issues which have also been central to my work. I then discuss various authors who have considered the topic of Jung and ethics from different angles, as well as specific studies on Jung’s Kantian ideas, his Nietzschean stance, his Aristotelian side and the Christian dimension of his ethics. These readings, while often insightful, also appear one-sided, as they fail to capture the derivation of Jung’s psycho-ethical model from a variety of sources. Finally, I look at three Jungian authors, David Tacey, James Hillman and Marie-Louise von Franz, who exemplify, respectively, the Kantian, the Nietzschean and the Christian Jungian. On Freudian psychoanalysis and ethics: Rieff, Abel, Lambertino and Wallwork One of the guiding intuitions of my work has been that Jung is capable of capturing both the mutual influence of psychic health and ethics and the tension between them. The mutual influence consists in the fact that psychic health is necessary for the full development of a mature ethical position and that the development of a strong ethical stance is an important factor of our psychic health. In Jung psychic integration and ethical integrity go hand in hand, or at least they should attempt to do so. The tension lies in the possibility that, as Jung acknowledges, we may be more healthy than ethical, or more ethical than healthy. Philip Rieff1 writes that for Freudian psychoanalysis we ‘can be made healthier without being made better – rather, morally worse. Not the good life but better living is

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the therapeutic standard’ (Rieff 1966: 58). In fact, Freud frequently points out that our morality can develop at the expense of our psychic health.2 According to Rieff, Freud’s answer to this state of affairs is: ‘[S]urvive, resign yourself to living within your moral means, suffer no gratuitous failures in a gratuitous search for ethical heights that no longer exist – if they ever did’ (Rieff 1966: 58). Jung’s answer, in my interpretation of his work, is that ‘ethical heights’ do exist and can be sought without damaging our psychic health, if we maintain a relationship between consciousness and the unconscious, and if we let both morality and ethics play their part. Overall, Jung has an optimistic vision of life and of its possibilities, but he also points out that the crucial moments in which our moral vision must expand are not easy and can include a great deal of suffering. On ‘Freud and ethics’ looked at from the camp of philosophy, Donald Abel argues that ‘Freud’s final instinct classification schema [. . .] leads to no clear-cut moral theory’ but that ‘the general tone implied by this schema remains one of individualistic hedonism’ (Abel 1989: 88).3 It would be difficult to define ‘the general tone’ of Jung’s model – if not, perhaps, as possessing an optimistic outlook – since it is characterised by a complex depth-psychological integration of Kantian, Nietzschean, Aristotelian and Christian themes. An ethical assessment of Freud’s psychology and meta-psychology can also be found in Antonio Lambertino’s Psicoanalisi e Morale in Freud [‘Psychoanalysis and Morality in Freud’, 1987]. Lambertino’s book considers Freud’s philosophical sources and tries to tease out a coherent moral theory from the Freudian corpus, suggesting that Freud’s stance could be defined as a ‘morality of the ego’ (Lambertino 1987: 365), which seems a fair assessment of his position. So Jung’s insistence that ethics cannot be based on the ego alone can be read as a direct answer to Freud (see Merkur 2017; Beebe 2018). In Psychoanalysis and Ethics (1994), the psychoanalyst and scholar Ernest Wallwork discusses why a (depth) psychological theory is ‘relevant ethically’ (Wallwork 1994: 5). He gives as some of these reasons: 1 [A depth-psychological theory may] ‘bring into question the very possibility of being moral – for example by undermining moral responsibility with a doctrine of determinism’. 2 ‘[E]ven if morality as such is not undermined, psychological findings may indicate the impossibility – or extreme difficulty – of following

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some specific moral requirement, thereby negating its reasonableness as a guide to action on “ought implies can” grounds’. 3 It may ‘reveal hidden unconscious consequences of attempting to follow traditional principles or rules. For example, it may be shown that trying to act on the basis of a generally accepted rule or principle is ultimately self-defeating or exceptionally costly in terms of other moral principles, like non-injury to self or others’. 4 It may ‘help to expand our understanding of the nature of moral decisionmaking’ and ‘may thus be helpful in devising practical strategies for avoiding [. . .] irrational distortions and the disjunctions that sometimes occur between intentions and actions’. (all quotations from Wallwork 1994: 5) I have tackled points (1) and (2) in the Introduction, when discussing the new scope of Jung’s ethics, and in Chapter 1, where I touched upon the debate between free will and determinism by teasing out Jung’s Kantian legacy. I have discussed point (3) throughout my work, especially in Chapter 2, where I highlight the tension between morality and health in Jung’s thought. The fourth issue mentioned by Wallwork is also pertinent to my work; for example in Chapter 2 I have considered the notion of virtuous unintentional actions and in Chapters 3 and 4 I have discussed Jung’s moral psychology (relating it to the phenomenon of akrasia and to the notion of the shadow). A Freudian’s reading of Jung’s ethics The work which has been done on the topic of ‘Jung and ethics’ appears less extensive and thorough than analogous research conducted in the Freudian camp, which is perhaps partly due to the non-systematic nature of most of Jung’s writing. Furthermore, many have studied the topic of Jung and religion, and this may have shadowed his specific contribution to ethics. Still, the relative lack of specific studies on Jung’s ethical position is quite surprising, given the pervasiveness of ethical themes throughout Jung’s Collected Works. As a notable exception, the recent work by Merkur, Jung’s Ethics: Moral Psychology and his Cure of Souls (2017),4 has the great merit of bridging the (at times merely semantic) gap between the psychologies of Freud and

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Jung using ethics as the main field of discussion and showing how Jung anticipated many future developments of psychoanalysis. Merkur elucidates Jung’s depth-psychological model and therapeutic technique and places them in comparison and contrast with those of various schools of classical psychoanalysis, taking Jung’s ideas on ethics (and on psychology and psychotherapy in general) very seriously, often showing genuine surprise by how insightful and advanced they appear to him. Amongst the many aspects of Jung’s paradigm which are analysed in the book, Merkur focuses on the phenomenon of ‘neurotic denial of guilt’ (which I have described, in the Introduction, as the ‘immoralist’ stance) and the metaethical thesis of the inborn foundations of morality. Furthermore, as John Beebe notes, Merkur ‘recogniz[es] Jung’s priority at countering Freud’s position that the unconscious cannot think about the ethical conflicts that are experienced by the ego’ (Beebe 2018: 143). My discussion of conflicts of duties in Chapter 1 should help confirm that for Jung the unconscious can indeed ‘think’ (in the symbolic and not logical way which is pertinent to the unconscious) about such conflicts and provide a way forward. Merkur does not discuss secondary literature in the field of Jungian studies and he does not refer to Jung’s philosophical sources if not in passing. My engagement with (broadly speaking) Freudian psychoanalysis, by contrast, is much less extensive; so my study and Merkur’s complement each other. Two first-generation Jungians on Jung’s ethics Erich Neumann’s (1905–1960) aforementioned Depth Psychology and a New Ethic is a personal re-elaboration of Jung’s ideas in an attempt to provide a coherent picture of Jungian ethics. Neumann’s book was written nine years before Jung’s paper of 1958 on conscience and conflicts of duty (which I analyse in Chapter 1), the only paper in which Jung explicitly tackles the theme of ethics as such, so it cannot be considered an assessment of Jung’s position as a whole. In this book Neumann correctly highlights the link between Jung’s ethics and health, the origins of which I trace in Jung’s Nietzschean legacy: ‘The principal requirement of the new ethic is not that the individual should be “good”, but that he should be psychologically autonomous – that is to say, healthy and productive, and yet at the same time not psychologically infectious’ (Neumann 1969: 102,

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my italics). However Neumann makes a claim that is at odds with Jung’s ideas. This is when he writes that [e]vil done by anybody in a conscious way (and that always also implies full awareness of his own responsibility), evil, in fact, from which the agent does not try to escape – is ethically ‘good’. (Neumann 1969: 114) This is in contrast with Jung’s claim that knowing that what we are doing or intend to do is evil does not make it less evil (Jung 1942/1948: 267, 1959: 868). Neumann could not have been aware of Jung’s remarks on the subject made in his 1959 talk, but he could have read what Jung had written in 1942/1948.5 Jung’s introduction to Neumann’s work does not mention a disagreement on this issue. Another prominent first-generation Jungian Edward F. Edinger (1922– 1998) does not include ethics in his discussion of the ego-Self axis (Edinger 1992), but I would argue that the ‘alignment’ (to use a spatial metaphor) or ‘agreement’ (a personification) or ‘living connection’ (Edinger 1992: 264, here the metaphor is biological) between ego and Self, could be described not only as ‘an ideal theoretical limit’ (Edinger 1992: 261), but also as an ideal ethical limit. In this scenario, each and every action of the ego is in accord (a musical metaphor) with one’s truest and deepest personality (the Self). The ego-Self could be conceived as both the ‘subject’ (agent) and the ‘object’ (product) of ethics; and this should not be surprising since for Jung the ego is the subjective psyche and the Self is the objective psyche, so their relationship is indeed ‘a paradox’, to quote the title of Edinger’s paper. Ethical actions stem from the ‘living connection’ between ego and Self, and striving to be ethical produces this ‘living connection’. Jung’s ethics in companions to Jung The main guides to Jung’s thought in English, The Cambridge Companion to Jung (2010, edited by Young-Eisendrath and Dawson) and The Handbook of Jungian Psychology (2006b, edited by Papadopoulos), do not have specific sections devoted to Jung’s ethical position. However, the Handbook, in the section on Jung’s epistemology and methodology, mentions Jung’s Kantian emphasis on morality throughout the Zofingia lectures (Papadopoulos 2006a: 17, referring to Jung 1896–1899).

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An older handbook to the practice of Jungian psychotherapy, Jungian Analysis (1997, edited by Stein), has a brief chapter on ‘Ethics’ by Beverley D. Zabriskie where the author points out how Jung’s bias against the ‘formulaic, and the prescriptive’ may have ‘slowed the attempt to achieve a consensus about the ethics of the opus’ (Zabriskie 1997: 407) but also adds that a comprehensive study of Jung’s ethical position is not a simple thing, ‘given the scope and size of the mandate’ (ibid.). She also mentions the ethical relevance of Jung’s stress on enduring the tension of opposites (Zabriskie 1997: 410, quoting Jung 1958) and, contra Neumann, rightly highlights the fact that, for Jung, ‘consciousness of what one is doing [does not] give excuse’ to exit the moral order (Zabriskie 1997: 411, my italics) although she does not mention that for Jung it is nevertheless sometimes necessary to do so, as I discussed in Chapter 2. Contemporary Jungians on Jung’s ethics John Beebe’s (br. 1939) work, Integrity in Depth, explores the concept of ‘integrity’, which is closely related to Jung’s notion of wholeness (or completeness): Of the qualities we seek in ourselves and in each other, surely integrity is among the most important. One measure of our need for it may be that we rarely allow ourselves an examination of the concept itself. To do so would be to betray an unspoken philosophic, poetic, and psychological rule of our culture: not to disturb the mystery of what we desire most. Clarification would threaten integrity, a word we have used like a magic spell to protect what is purest in us from danger. (Beebe 1992: 7) Here Beebe touches upon the ineffability (and even numinous dimension) of ethics, which may be one of the reasons why Jung, at least until 1958, did not provide clear-cut definitions of what he meant by ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’. Beebe’s work also discusses the interplay of Logos-centred and Eroscentred ethical approaches (Beebe 1992: 39–52) and explores the notion of integrity typologically (Beebe 1992: 56, passim). In Jung and the Post-Jungians (1985), Andrew Samuels (br. 1949), discussing Jung’s stress on the personality of the analyst as being an important healing factor, writes that ‘if personal integrity underpins analytical

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efficacy, and if strongly held convictions are part of personal integrity, it follows that possession of a theory is necessary for analytical efficacy’ (Samuels 1985: 267). I agree and, as I suggest in Chapter 1, I believe this theory should include an ethical theory, which is why Jungian analysts should consider the complexity of Jung’s ethical position. In the Conclusion, I return to this issue. Samuels also discusses Jung’s statements found in “On the Psychology of the Unconscious” (1917/1926/1943: 30) where Jung claims that morality is innate. Morality is not imposed from outside; we have it in ourselves from the start – not the law, but our moral nature without which the collective life of human society would be impossible. This ‘moral nature’, in my interpretation of Jung’s thought, is the potentiality to develop moral consciousness from an amoral unconscious, while Samuels sees it as ‘original morality’, an inborn ‘inflexible moral principle’ (Samuels 2000: 3), placed on one side of the spectrum which he calls ‘moral process’ (ibid.). On the other side of the spectrum he finds ‘moral imagination’. Samuels claims that they are both ‘archetypal’ (Samuels 1989: 195) and describes the former as ‘fundamental, ineluctable’ (ibid.) and ‘inflexible’ (Samuels 2000: 4) and the latter as ‘generat[ing] tolerance, forgiveness, openness, and an ingenious approach to problems’ (Samuels 1989: 194).6 Samuels’s opposition between original morality and moral imagination is a dyadic model. In many cases Jung appears to be a dyadic thinker, masterfully revealing the opposite of any given position, always careful to avoid one-sidedness. Hence a dyadic re-reading of Jung’s ethics is certainly legitimate and has a markedly destabilising power, because it does not state what will stem from the opposition between original morality and moral imagination (the only thing they have in common, for Samuels, is being part of the ‘moral process’ mentioned earlier). However, I would point out that Jung, in his mature work (1958), saw ethics as a tertium which transcended the opposition of conscious morality and unconscious amorality (Jung 1958: 855). The psychotherapist Robert Aziz investigates Jung’s ethical model (Aziz 1990, 2007) and proposes a radical revision of it. His characterisation of Jung’s ethics is close to my own assessment. Having pointed out that in Jung’s model ‘compensatory responses take place under the direction of the self’, he adds that ‘it is incumbent on the ego, not the self, to determine

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and maintain moral standards’ (Aziz 2007: 77). I agree. He then claims that ‘the self is regarded by Jung to be of questionable moral character’. I disagree. Jung’s Self is amoral, not immoral. Aziz then proceeds to critique the Jungian Paradigm claiming that ‘in spite of all stated ambitions to the contrary, [it] is merely a vehicle of aesthetic, rather than ethical, engagement with unfolding Reality’ (Aziz 2007: 81). Again, I disagree: for example, Jung’s 1921 definition of individuation makes it clear that for Jung the individuated subject is an active member of society. Furthermore, to avoid what he sees as the pitfalls of an ‘inner-world orientation’ (ibid.), Aziz argues that personal integration via the ‘encounter with nature’s compensatory dynamics’ (Aziz 2007: 79) should be sought not ‘intrapsychically’, as in Jung’s model, but ‘in nature in its entirety’ (ibid.), since nature is ‘intrisic[ally] moral’ (Aziz 2007: 77). The notion of seeking harmony in ‘nature in its entirety’, and not just within ourselves, is a valid suggestion, especially in this day and age. But I find it difficult to see how one could define nature as ‘intrinsically moral’.7 Italian Jungians on Jung’s ethics The scholar and analyst Mario Trevi (1924–2011) tackles different aspects of Jung’s (broadly conceived) ethical stance and in particular considers the topic of ‘ethics of truth’ in Jungian psychotherapy. Trevi analyses the double meaning of psychology as ‘discourse on the psyche’ and as ‘discourse of the psyche’ (Trevi 1986, passim), arguing that analysts should not be conceived as possessing the exclusive monopoly of the discourse on the psyche. Every analytic interpretation offered by a therapist is also a subjective confession: an utterance of the psyche of the therapist (which is why Jung suggested that analysts should be aware of their complexes by undergoing analysis themselves).8 Patients can also put forward interpretations of the psyche (theirs and that of their analyst) which should be considered in principle as valid as their analyst’s interpretations. An awareness of this fact can defuse the risks of ‘charismatic projections’ (Trevi 2006: 66). I have discussed the ethical dimension of the analyst/ patient relationship in Chapter 1 and shown how Kant can back Trevi’s – and Jung’s – call for autonomous thought and feeling.9 Luigi Zoja (br. 1943), in his talks on Ethics and Analysis (2007), summarises Jung’s ethical stance by saying that for Jung ‘deep psychotherapeutic healing is an ethical act, and that every ethical act is indirectly therapeutic’

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(Zoja 2007: 4). In the same book he briefly mentions Aristotle and refers to Kant’s categorical imperative as informing the analytic attitude. Nietzsche is not mentioned. The book is eminently dedicated to discussing interesting clinical cases of violation of ethical boundaries, but it is in line with the majority of publications by Jungians where the words ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’ are mentioned rather carelessly, with little effort into explaining in what sense they are used. Giuseppe Maffei, the contributor to the section ‘Le nevrosi’ [‘Neuroses’] in the Trattato di Psicologia Analitica [Treatise of Analytical Psychology, 1992], reviews Jung’s linking of neurosis and ethics. He mentions that in many of Jung’s clinical examples one can find a ‘call to an ethical order’ (Maffei 1992: 392, my translation). Rieff ’s critique of Jung’s ethics I have already mentioned Rieff’s endorsement of Freudian psychoanalysis. Towards Jung his position is instead very critical. Rieff calls Jung’s psychology a ‘language of faith’ (Rieff 1966: 108) and his form of psychotherapy a ‘commitment therap[y]’ (Rieff 1966: 76). Rieff claims that commitment therapies tend to take on a sacramental symbolism. [. . .] It is the function of the sacralist to help both an individual and an entire community carry out their pledges to some communal purpose. In this sense the sacralist manages the artifacts that symbolize the cultural super-ego. [. . .] The sacralist cures, therefore, by recalling the individual to some principle of legitimacy, by reinforcing, through sacramental action, the cultural super-ego, and by re-enacting its internalization [. . .] he speaks for the individual buried alive, as it were, in the culture. (Rieff 1966: 76–77) As a description of Jung’s psychological model and therapeutic stance, Rieff’s characterisation seems only partially accurate. It is true that Jung, like any psychotherapist worth his salt, tries to help the neurotic individual return on his feet to serve ‘some communal purpose’, but Jung sees the community as constantly modified by (talented) individuals, so the idea of ‘reinforcing [. . .] the cultural super-ego’ sounds alien to the subversive nature of Jung’s psycho-ethical model.

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Philosophers on Jung’s ethics To my knowledge, the only philosophers who have looked at Jung’s ethical position as a whole10 are Carole Proulx (1994) and José Osvaldo de Meira Penna (1985).11 In her paper “On Jung’s Theory of Ethics”, Proulx discusses the place of ethics in Jung’s model, what she considers to be Jung’s ethical subjectivism, and Jung’s distinction between morality and ethics. Proulx rightly points out how Jung’s call for a new approach to ethics has remained, with the exclusion of Neumann’s work, largely ignored.12 She also makes the valid point that for Jung only the individuated person is allowed, so to speak, to hold a subjectivist stance (Proulx 1994: 106). For those who ‘find their place within a Church’, a subjectivist stance ‘would be catastrophic’ (ibid.). Proulx here is interpreting Jung as a ‘hard’ Nietzschean who endorses a strong divide between herd morality and master morality. To my mind, as I discussed in Chapter 2, Jung should on the other hand be characterised as a ‘soft’ Nietzschean, because there is no clear indication that for Jung the process of individuation, in which a ‘subjectivist’ creation of values may take place, is barred to certain types of people, although this may be the case. In her paper Proulx also claims that, for Jung, ‘[t]he moral [sic] judgement stems not from individuals, but from the unconscious’, which seems to me inaccurate, since an ethical judgement or outlook is seen by Jung as the result of the cooperation of consciousness with the unconscious. Proulx points out how morality is usually taken to mean the ‘socially accepted set of rules or values’ (Proulx 1994: 109) (a usage that Jung follows), while ethics can mean two things: ‘the specialist’s theoretical reflection on morality’ and ‘the individual’s capacity to question the accepted morality from the standpoint of what has been known as one’s personal conscience’ (ibid.). Jung normally uses ethics in the second sense and his notion of conscience is grounded in the unconscious. On Jung, Kant and ethics There is a general agreement among scholars (de Voogd 1991; Nagy 1991; Bishop 2000) that Jung’s epistemological appeals to Kant are far from consistent. I provide just a few examples. In the second of his Zofingia lectures, he claims that ‘if Kant were alive today, he would undoubtedly be a spiritualist’ (1896–1899: 105), and in this he seems to be abusing Kant in

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order to back-up his own positive views on spiritualism. But he also disclaims his use of Kant by adding: ‘Up to this point we have been treading on the consecrated ground of Kantian philosophy. But who will accompany us further if we choose to burst open the gates that bar our entrance into the “realm of darkness”?’ (1896–1899: 100). In his 1912–1913 series of lectures on the theory of psychoanalysis, the years of his break with Freud, he defines the unconscious as a ‘ “negative borderline concept”, like Kant’s Ding an sich’ (Jung 1913: 317), here using a more appropriate reference to Kant’s critical philosophy. Then, in his mature work, he claims that the distinction between archetypal image and archetype ‘an sich’ (Jung 1942/1948: 222), the latter being unknowable, is based on Kant’s epistemological distinction between phenomenon and noumenon. Trevi (1987: 57) and Palmer (1997: 166–196) discuss various problems of this allegedly Kantian position. In the final years of his career, with his work on synchronicity and the unus mundus, Jung’s alleged Kantianism seems in even greater danger, as Wolfgang Giegerich points out: ‘Kant would show him that he has no right to posit a psychoid archetypal level in which the subject–object dichotomy would be overcome’ (Giegerich 1987: 111, quoted in Main 2004: 48). These considerations do not subtract from my argument that Kant provides Jung with the philosophical foundation of the (relative) freedom of ego-consciousness. The only three authors who have considered the ethical aspect of Jung’s Kantian legacy are Marilyn Nagy (1991), Paul Bishop (2000) and Romano Madera (2007). Madera, who has also looked at how Jung could be considered a precursor of philosophical counselling, claims that ‘Kant’s ethics is not Jung’s ethics’ (Madera 2007: 47, my translation, here and in the following quotation), arguing that Kant’s categorical imperative is incompatible with Jung’s focus on ‘natural inclinations’ (ibid.). Madera is right in pointing out the hiatus between the impersonal nature of the categorical imperative and Jung’s psychologically realistic ethical stance. My proposed reading of Kant’s categorical imperative as including the Jungian injunction to ‘make the unconscious conscious’ is an attempt to bridge that gap. Nagy’s book looks at Jung’s early reception of Kant in his 1896–1899 lectures and explores the presence of Kantian themes in Jung’s esse in anima argument (Jung 1921: 66). Nagy shows how in Jung’s Zofingia Lectures one finds ‘Kant’s conviction that through our experience of innate moral knowledge we come as close as is humanly possible to knowledge of reality in itself’ (Nagy 1991: 19). Nagy discusses how Jung uses Kant’s

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moral philosophy to strengthen his (Jung’s) esse in anima13 argument. Jung’s esse in anima argument becomes, through his stretching of Kant’s thought, what I suggest could be called an esse in anima morale argument. In Kant’s model, ethics provides access to noumenal reality; for Jung, the withdrawal of projections and integration of the shadow allows us to see the world as it is for the first time (Jung 1951a: 17) and to act ethically. On a different note from Nagy’s work, Bishop’s monograph (2000) highlights the contrast between Jung and Kant on the difference between knowledge and belief:14 in his introduction to the Second Edition of Kritik der reiner Vernunft (1787), Kant had claimed that he had found it necessary to annul knowledge in order to make room for belief [. . .] but Jung revers[es] Kant’s formula [. . .] ‘I think belief should be replaced by understanding; then we would keep the beauty of the symbol, but still remain free from the depressing results of submission to belief. This would be the psychoanalytic cure for belief and disbelief’ (Jung 1911–12/1952: 356). (Bishop 2000: 148–149) Bishop also speaks of a ‘potentially devastating moral deficit at the centre of analytical psychology’, given that the psyche is a ‘self-regulating system [. . .] regulated only by the automatic constellation in the Unconscious of Ideas or Images [. . .] which have no moral implications’ (Bishop 2000: 163). I agree that in themselves unconscious ideas or images are seen by Jung as ethically neutral or amoral (see Jung 1934b: 239). But for Jung these ideas and images are the result of ‘an intelligent choice of means aiming not only at the restoration of the psychic equilibrium but at an advance towards wholeness’ (Jung 1949: 1418) and can become, if integrated into consciousness, a fundamental ingredient of our ethical position. On Jung, Nietzsche and ethics Graham Parkes (1999), Christopher Hauke (2000) and Sonu Shamdasani (2003) have all tackled Jung’s reception of Nietzsche. The latter, in his study on the historical genesis of analytical psychology, writes that [f]or Jung, Nietzsche had correctly recognized the general significance of the drives. [. . .] His failure was not recognizing the ‘animal life

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drive.’ Nietzsche had faithfully followed the drive for self-preservation (ego-drive), which he called the will to power, and neglected the drive of the preservation of the species (sexual drive). Due recognition needed to be given to each. (Shamdasani 2003: 251) In my work I have not looked into Jung’s critique of Nietzsche’s one-sided emphasis on self-preservation at the expense of the sexual drive which preserves the species. I have concentrated mainly on Jung’s critique of Nietzsche’s exclusive emphasis on ethics at the expense of morality. But in fact these two points reinforce each other, since morality is about overcoming – through empathy, love, a sense of duty, sympathy, the sexual drive that allows the preservation of the species – an exclusive focus on the Self. The most extensive work on Jung’s Nietzschean side has been conducted by Bishop and Lucy Huskinson. In his 1995 book, The Dionysian Self: C. G. Jung’s Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche, Bishop argues that Jung’s assimilation of Nietzsche’s notion of the Dionysian is key to understanding Jung’s separation from Freud (Bishop 1995: 91, 364, passim) and, paraphrasing Nietzsche, who called Kant ‘a cunning Christian’, describes Jung as ‘a cunning Dionysian’. As Bishop points out, ‘Jung came to see that Nietzsche’s spectacular failure to negotiate with Dionysus pointed the way to his, Jung’s, more successful accommodation with the Dionysian Unconscious’ (Bishop 1995: 193). In his study, Bishop remarks that ‘[m]uch of analytical psychology [. . .] can be read as a response to the religious crisis inaugurated by Nietzsche’s claim that “God is dead” ’ (Bishop 1995: 224). Jung’s inclusion of Kantian, Christian and virtue-ethical elements in his world-view can partly explain why he was able to avoid being engulfed by the Dionysian (unconscious), both theoretically and personally. Huskinson, in Nietzsche and Jung: The Whole Self in the Union of Opposites (2004), considers in detail the analogies and differences between Nietzsche’s and Jung’s model. In her work Nietzsche’s dyadic model, in which the tension of opposites can generate wholeness but there is no unifying third symbol produced by the tension, is compared and contrasted with Jung’s triadic model, in which a third symbol is produced by the tension of opposites. This also translates into Jung’s ethical model, since for Jung ethics is a tertium which can be produced as follows: amoral unconscious + immoral

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consciousness => ethical symbol; or: amoral unconscious + moral consciousness => ethical symbol. On Jung, Aristotle and ethics John Cottingham’s study, Philosophy and the Good Life: Reason and Passions in Greek, Cartesian and Psychoanalytic Ethics, is an important contribution to the understanding of the ‘challenge to ratiocentric ethics posed by psychoanalytic theory’ (Cottingham 1998: 141). Quite surprisingly for a book written by a philosopher, Cottingham dedicates various pages to Jung’s psychotherapeutic method, elucidating the strong moral and ethical dimension of Jungian analysis. He describes the confrontation with the shadow15 as ‘the beginning of true morality, a morality which is free from sentimentality and illusion [. . .], and which is founded on a sense of acceptance’ (Cottingham 1998: 148). He defines Jung’s third stage of analysis, education, as ‘moral reconstruction’ and highlights Jung’s emphasis on ‘education of the will’, but points out that ‘the stress [. . .] is not so much on “will” as on “education” ’. This is where the points of convergence with Aristotle’s model are more evident, since, in contrast to ‘the model of traditional fortitudo moralis, austerely directing us along the iron road of duty’, which is also Kant’s approach, he describes Jung’s approach as akin to the ‘more humane Aristotelian model of carefully developed habits of feeling and action’ (ibid.). Cottingham’s work is particularly significant, to my mind, because it highlights the generally overlooked, and indeed by Jung only briefly sketched, ‘cognitivist’ and ‘behavioural’ side of analytical psychology. For Jung, ‘confronting the shadow’ and ‘confronting the anima’ are not primarily inwardly-oriented struggles: they are new patterns of feeling and thinking that are difficult to form. They involve, respectively, facing what we hate being and doing, and recognising and pursuing what we love. These new patterns of feeling and thinking can develop into patterns of action which form eudaimonia (Jung’s overall optimistic stance which I have mentioned throughout this book). Cottingham also notes that ‘Jung does not apply his results to the traditional problem of akrasia’ and imagines a fictitious case where the akratic struggles of an individual are related to both Aristotle’s categories and to Jung’s own concepts (Cottingham 1998: 153–162). I have proposed my own Jungian interpretation of the akratic and of other ‘ethical types’ in Chapter 3.

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A recent book chapter by the psychologist Ladson Hinton (2019) links some aspects of Jung’s ethics to the Aristotelian notions of phronesis and kairos. In discussing the interplay of the temporal and the timeless in Jung’s thought, he writes that in Jung the ‘archetype’ is behind the scenes at all times, seemingly directing the action. It is ‘eternal,’ that is, timeless, not ‘generated’ from experience, but on a different plane from temporality and the everyday. It does not seem too much of a leap to imply [. . .] that ‘the archetype did it.’ This would seem to reflect and even encourage an abdication of personal responsibility. [. . .] The everyday world of temporality, in its messy fascination, its wars, its loves and hates, is not the true scene of action. This negates the ethical point of view. (Hinton 2019: 256–257, my italics) If Hinton is correct in highlighting the risk of ‘an abdication of personal responsibility’ to the archetypal dimension of life,16 Hinton’s discussion of some poignant letters by Jung written at different times of his life counterbalances this reading of Jung’s ethics, revealing a man who is aware that an ethical standpoint, as Aristotle knew, is never absolute, and that wisdom is reached through action and reflection through time. It is possible, but not necessary, to abdicate to the archetypal dimension of life. On Jung, evil, the shadow and Christian ethics The topics of ‘Jung and evil’ and of ‘Jung and the shadow’ have been tackled by various Jungian scholars; fewer authors have analysed the relationship between these two difficult concepts; even fewer have looked at how Jung’s understanding of evil and the shadow fits into his overall ethical position. This may be partly due to the fact that evil is an ‘eccentric’ ethical concept, perhaps the most problematic ethical (and ontological) concept of all. The shadow, on the other hand, is an eminently psychological concept, based on a metaphor, so it is difficult to pin down. Extensive work on Jung’s notion of evil has been done by José Osvaldo de Meira Penna (1985), Robert A. Segal (1992), Murray Stein (1986, 1995), Michael Palmer (1997) and Bishop (2002). I will only discuss the views of Stein and de Meira Penna, as they are the most relevant to my own work.

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Stein’s interpretation of the relationships between evil and the shadow conflates these two concepts, possibly due to a Christian bias about the non-reality of evil: [E]vil comes into being only when someone makes the judgement that some act or thought is evil [. . .] when this category of conscious discrimination is applied to the self, it creates a psychological entity that Jung names the ‘shadow’. The shadow is a portion of the natural whole self that the ego calls bad, or evil, for reasons of shame, social pressure, family and societal attitudes about certain aspects of human nature. (Stein 1995: 7–9) While this depth-psychological interpretation is of course legitimate, I do not believe it corresponds to Jung’s thought. It is true that Jung, too, sometimes conflates these two concepts (e.g. in Jung 1955–1956: 346), but as I have discussed he generally maintains that evil is an irreducible notion, with an ontological weight of its own (e.g. Jung 1951a: 84, passim; Jung 1952a, passim). De Meira Penna is on the other hand drawn to Jung’s concept of the ‘transcendental [sic] ethical function’ (de Meira Penna 1985: 190), which he considers ‘fully independent of any possible naturalistic or empirical explanation’ (de Meira Penna 1985: 187) and connects it to ‘Kant’s categorical imperative of practical reason’. I agree that Jung is indebted to Kant when he argues that it is possible for the ego to transcend the natural, empirical and amoral dimension of the Self (as I have argued in Chapter 1). But it is not clear why de Meira Penna uses the Kantian expression ‘transcendental’ here, since in Kant ‘transcendental’ means ‘a precondition of any possible experience’. Jung’s ethics is based on the transcendent function, which overcomes the one-sided immorality and morality of the ego and the Self’s amorality. Segal’s engaging discussion of Merkur’s book on Jung’s ethics (Merkur 2017) points out the problematic fact that Jung tends to reduce religion to psychology: For Merkur, Jung is supposedly psychologizing religion without collapsing religion into psychology. I do not see how that can be done unless one characterizes psychology as religious, as indeed Merkur seems to be doing. But if psychology as religious – whatever that

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means – still never gets beyond humans to God, it remains psychology and not religion. (Segal 2018: 154) This correctly points to an ambiguity: is Jung suggesting we open our ego to the Self, to God or to both? In my reading of Jung’s ethical discourse as a whole, the fundamental task is to open the ego to the Self, but Jung does ‘slip in’ God in ways that can be confusing, generating the risk of reading Jung’s ethics as a ‘divine-command’ ethical theory, where the unconscious becomes a substitute of God, an entity we must always obey. I would argue that in Jung’s model the Self is not the only king of the castle. There is another king which is the ego. In this respect too, as I mentioned in Chapter 4 when discussing Jung’s approach to ‘sin’, Jung can be read as closer to the ‘Catholic’ view of ‘grace as perfecting nature’ (gratia naturam perficit), where human reason goes alongside faith in God (as in St Thomas Aquinas), and further away from the ‘Protestant’ notion of surrendering completely to God’s will. In fact as Stein notes, the model of religious life we derive from Jung’s writings carries certain Protestant principles – complete freedom from the controlling influence of traditional images of holiness; a radical sense of the individual’s personal relation and access to God; a doctrine of conscience as the final arbiter in ethical matters – to such a point of extremity, admitting such a great amount of diversity in symbol, interpretation and religious practice, that it is hard to conceive of the Christian tradition being able to allow for it. (Stein 1986: 192, my italics) The inclusion of many Nietzschean elements in Jung’s ethical model leads him far away from an orthodox (Protestant or Catholic) Christian conception of life. Both Jung and Nietzsche were imbued with a Lutheran culture, but they reacted in different ways to this religious and ethical worldview: in Nietzsche, the ego (man) and the Self (God) converge in the notion of the Overman, while in Jung they are kept distinct. Kantian Jungians, Nietzschean Jungians, Christian Jungians Drawing upon the results of my research, disagreements and incomprehension between Jungians could be clarified by seeing them as deriving

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from the different place which their work occupies on Jung’s ethical spectrum. In Jung and the New Age, Tacey claims that Hillman ‘ignored moral problems and ethical dilemmas’ (Tacey 2001: 120). As I discussed in Chapter 1, ethical dilemmas are actually very important for Jung, as they are a gateway to the ethical dimension of life. Hillman, according to Tacey, undermines the importance of the ego and encourages a ‘celebration of the archetypes’ (Tacey 2001: 118), to the exclusion of those that ‘seem [. . .] to champion the logos, spirit or father, such as Christ, Yahweh, Herakles or Zeus’ (ibid.). Tacey argues that ‘Jung has the old-fashioned view that we have to extend moral responses toward the images we encounter. Hillman finds this antiquated, intrusive and moralistic’ (Tacey 2001: 119). Tacey quotes Hillman who claims that to respond morally to the archetypes is to ‘commit the sin of satanic selfhood, the ego who owns what is archetypal’ (Tacey 2001: 122). Tacey comments that ‘the logic is seductive, but again this is not true. The reverse is true: if we refuse to have moral dealings with archetypes, we leave ourselves open to possession and unconscious identification’ (Tacey 2001: 122). Tacey’s critique of Hillman could be understood as a disagreement between a ‘Kantian’ Jungian and a ‘Nietzschean’ Jungian. An example of a ‘Christian’ Jungian may on the other hand be found in von Franz where she writes: [E]ach individual has his own ethical level and form of reaction. There are, for example, thick-skinned people who can afford a lot of what we would call sins. Other people cannot afford anything; as soon as they sidestep a bit from their own inner law, they get the most awful dreams and inner reactions. [. . .] People in analysis sometimes do the most incredible things, and you think that now it is possible to catch them on their shadow. But naturally, as an analyst, one has to wait until they themselves have a dream. Then they have no dream! The unconscious has pardoned them. (Franz 1974: 144, my italics) Her conclusion is that there are ‘ethically and the not-ethically gifted people’ (Franz 1974: 145), which can mean many things: that some people are evil, that some people are incapable of ethical reflection, or that some ‘uncommon individuals’ (Jung 1949: 1416) can go – at times – beyond collective morality into the sphere of individual ethics. Her perplexity (‘They have no dream!’) is in fact answered by von Franz herself, when she mentions that

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each person possesses an individual ‘inner law’ and ‘ethical level and form of reaction’: if the inner law is different for each individual, why should one be surprised if certain people (evil people?) can get away (psychologically) with a lot more than others? But von Franz slips in the Christian notions of ‘pardon’ and ‘sin’, revealing that for her the unconscious is in fact a (collective) entity akin to God, which pardons (saves) some and condemns others, a depth-psychological version of the doctrine of predestination. So she appears to embrace the Christian side of Jung’s psycho-ethical approach, in which a belief in an objective moral order is central, without considering the Nietzschean side of Jung’s position, where individual ethics and health go beyond collective morality. My purpose here is not so much to offer a critique of von Franz, who has the merit of being very straightforward about her perplexities vis-à-vis certain patients (and theoretical problems), as to point out that each and every Jungian (and indeed every psychotherapist) must somehow decide where they stand in terms of the difficult tension between (collective, possibly objective) morality and (individual) ethics. Jung has left this problem for us to work out. Concluding reflections A re-classification of Post-Jungian authors according to the value they place on the various dimensions of Jung’s ethics is beyond the scope of my work. However, I believe I have shown, in this chapter, that the greatest Jungian is still Jung himself and that Jung’s ethical richness cannot be reduced to a single one of his main ideas on the subject. The complexity of his ethical vision has not yet been fully developed by any Jungian author, and I believe one of the main reasons for this is that Jungian authors have not been sufficiently aware of his philosophical sources, nor have they been able to provide a satisfying understanding of how he integrates them into his psychology. It is clearly necessary to further develop Jung’s ideas in general and ethical position in particular, but this cannot be done unless his vision is first correctly articulated, including the unresolved tensions in his thought. Notes 1 Rieff, as Edward Harcourt puts it, is mainly interested in Freud’s ‘ethic of honesty’, which he discusses in Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1960) and in The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966). Rieff describes the difficulties in committing to the ‘analytic attitude’ (Rieff 1966: 29) advocated by Freud and points out how ‘[it] demands a rare

Post-Jungians on Jung’s ethics 131 skill: to entertain multiple perspectives upon oneself, and even upon beloved others’ (Rieff 1966: 51). If one is capable of such a ‘fluidity of commitment’, one may be said to have acquired ‘psychological manhood’ (ibid.) and to possess a ‘new science of moral management’. Rieff’s endorsement of what he sees as the scientific neutrality of Freudian psychoanalysis is followed, in his 1966 book, by his critique of Jung’s version of depth psychology, which I discuss later. 2 I discuss this issue in more detail in Colacicchi 2019, pointing out points of convergence between the positive conceptions of morality of Jung and of Freud. 3 The author adds that ‘the notion of communitarian Eros has certain nonindividualistic and nonhedonistic implications, and the death instinct is nonhedonistic’ (Abel 1989: 88). Jung would probably agree with Abel’s characterisation of Freud’s ethical stance as mainly hedonistic: Jung sees Freud’s ethics as an ethics of eros, so complementary to Adler’s ethics of power (Jung 1917/1926/1943). 4 See Beebe 2018; Mills 2018; Segal 2018; Colacicchi 2019 for reviews of this book. 5 ‘Even on the highest peak we shall never be “beyond good and evil,” and the more we experience of their inextricable entanglement the more uncertain and confused will our moral judgment be. In this conflict, it will not help us in the least to throw the moral criterion on the rubbish heap and to set up new tablets after known patterns; for, as in the past, so in the future the wrong we have done, thought, or intended will wreak its vengeance on our souls, no matter whether we turn the world upside down or not’ (Jung 1942/1948: 267). I have discussed this quotation in Chapter 2. 6 It is possible to discern, behind the first, a Paternal principle, behind the second a Feminine principle, covering what today goes under the name of ‘ethics of care’ (sometimes seen as a branch of virtue ethics, since its focus is the virtue of love). 7 In a letter to Mrs N. of 20 May 1940, Jung wrote that ‘[n]ature is an incomparable guide if you know how to follow her. She is like the needle of the compass pointing to the North, which is most useful when you have a good man-made ship and when you know how to navigate. [. . .] The unconscious is useless without the human mind (Jung 1906–1950: 283, italics in the original).   An example of how experimental psychology can show the validity of some of Jung’s insights is provided in a paper by Marten W. Boas (2008) where the author shows examples of how unconscious thought processes enhance performances only when the performance is consciously directed. 8 Trevi also tackles the paradoxes of analytic supervision in ‘Contradditorietà della didattica junghiana’ (‘The contradictions of Jungian supervision’, 2006). 9 Trevi characterises Jung’s ethics as close to Weber’s ‘ethics of responsibility’ (Trevi 2006: 39). 10 John Cottingham concentrates mainly on Jung’s therapeutic method and the implications of this method for ‘ratiocentric’ moral philosophy. 11 De Meira Penna’s work is discussed in the section ‘On Jung, evil, the shadow and Christian ethics’ later in this chapter. 12 ‘M.-L. von Franz’s books on evil and shadow, or Eleanor Bertine’s numerous papers on good and evil [. . .] consisted in illustrating Jung’s theories. They examined fairy tales and myths within the framework of Jung’s theory, as if they were looking at them through a pair of Jungian glasses, thus showing how much therapeutic benefit and understanding could result by using such a device. This work did a lot to bring content and popularity to Jung’s notion of the shadow, but it did little to show that some Copernican revolution had fallen upon the ethical realm, and that there was a new and better way to look at the ethical problem’ (Proulx 1994: 102–103, my italics). 13 In Psychological Types Jung claims – boldly entering into the Medieval ontological debate between nominalists and realists – that ‘Between intellectus and res there is still anima, and this esse in anima makes the whole ontological argument superfluous’ (Jung 1921: 66, quoted in Nagy 1991: 77).

132  Post-Jungians on Jung’s ethics 14 On the relationship between belief and understanding in Kant, see Beiser 2006: 607–610. 15 Jung’s second phase of analysis, ‘elucidation’, the first being termed ‘confession’ (see Jung 1929a: 122–174). 16 I discuss the problematic ‘intervention’ of the archetype in Chapter 1, in the section ‘Jung’s understanding of the problem of conflicts of duties’.

Conclusion

I have argued that we can acquire a deeper understanding of Jung’s psychological model if we interpret it as a psycho-ethical model. Jung does not only attempt to describe how our psyche works and how to cure it when it does not work, but he also provides an answer to ‘the ethical problem’ (Jung 1949: 1419): what ought I to do? For Jung, the answer to this question, is: individuate, become ‘a psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology’ (Jung 1921: 757, discussed in Chapter 2, in the section ‘Adaptation and individuation’), as well as from the personal and collective unconscious. One does not individuate despite society, but in society, just as one does not develop despite the unconscious, but by integrating its power. For Jung, an individuated person transcends and overcomes both the one-sidedness of conscious morality or immorality and the amoral pull of the unconscious. Individuation involves relying on a strong and free ego (see Chapter 1) which is capable of confronting one’s daily duties (see Jung’s autobiographical account discussed in the Introduction). Jung’s individuation is not individualistic, since he recognises that cultural norms are needed in order to develop as an effective member of society, but it also involves a critical distancing from collective norms to avoid unethical mass-mindedness (see Chapter 2, in the section ‘Adaptation and individuation’). In fact individuation allows morality to evolve in unique ways (becoming what Jung calls ‘ethics’), when individuals confront conflicts of duties and let in the creativity of their unconscious to create new values (see Chapter 1 on ‘conflicts of duties’ and Chapter 2, passim). Individuation requires virtues such as honesty (with oneself and others), courage (to face the unconscious within us; to act upon what one has learnt about oneself, avoiding akrasia; to go

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beyond a collectivistic and conformist ethical horizon) and the refinement of a flexible and non-moralistic Christian phronesis, which admits the uniqueness of each situation in which one must act as well as the need to limit one’s desire to judge others without knowing their psychological and historical background (see Chapter 3 for a discussion of courage, akrasia and phronesis; and Chapter 4 for a discussion of ethical humility). Individuation comprises the recognition of the potential for evil (and for goodness) which is present in each of us, as well as the understanding that what we think is evil is often just the result of a projected and non-integrated shadow (see Chapter 4). ‘Becoming what one is’ is not only the cure of the neurosis of the individual, but of society as a whole: the healthier each individual becomes, the healthier society will be, and the repressed morality in the individual can be brought to the surface with beneficial effects for all; conversely, an excessively moral individual, by integrating his repressed immorality, will bring about a more flexible and tolerant society.1 Individuation has an intrinsic democratic and tolerance-enhancing quality: not only can democracy be a metaphor or model for Jung’s ‘new ethic’ in which there is a balance of power between consciousness and the unconscious, but more concretely the withdrawal of projections which individuation involves will determine a heightened sense of one’s equality with one’s neighbour. Finally, by involving the development of one’s excellence, individuation will produce benefits for society as a whole: the music that a great pianist can perform is a joy that all of society can share. Individuation, the central concern of Jung’s psychology, is also the answer to the ethical problem. As I mentioned in the Introduction, Jung is however ambivalent about the ethical enterprise which he has undertaken, and is keen to underplay the philosophical intentions and implications of his work. At least as far as ethics is concerned, I believe this was not just dictated by some form of poorly disguised immodesty.2 His conception of ethics as stemming from a dialogue between consciousness and the unconscious is so radically different from ‘ratiocentric’ (Cottingham 1998, passim) ethical systems, that what, in Jung, goes under the name of ethics is really no longer ethics, at least not in the sense in which a long tradition of thought has been used to considering this word. Jung is therefore right to be cautious in claiming that his work can provide ethical principles. Furthermore, to my mind, Jung did not fully realise to what extent ethics is embedded in the structure and core concepts of his psychology. As we have seen, ethics is indeed so

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pervasive in his work that readers of Jung, and even the author himself, may easily forget its presence. As with many thinkers and writers, Jung’s greatness sometimes went beyond his conscious intentions, and at times even against them. When Jung critically and eclectically selects Kantian and Nietzschean themes, he reshapes them, and sometimes absorbs them into his new psychological language, so for example Kant’s ‘consciousness of duty’ becomes ‘the duty to be conscious’, and Nietzsche’s Dionysian approach to existence is read as an injunction to express one’s unconscious Self. It is often difficult to establish if Jung finds, in these authors, an answer to his ethical (and psychological) questions, or if their ideas are merely a corroboration of his intuitions. And of course Jung’s inquiries are already partly shaped by the cultural atmosphere in which he grew up. His approach to religious, scientific and philosophical ideas is always that of the conqueror, who exploits what is useful and discards what is not. He is not always philologically accurate and whatever topic he addresses it is already, so to speak, very Jungian. Jung ceaselessly interprets, as indeed one would expect from a therapist. But this can easily lead his interpreters astray. Jung is not a cautious thinker, so it is incumbent on us to be cautious with him. Jung’s approach to ethics, which is based on an interplay of consciousness and of the unconscious, allows an integration of ethical approaches which Jung’s psychological point of view reveals as complementary parts of a meaningful ‘whole’. In fact, from my exploration of Jung’s psycho-ethical model, and of the conceptual tools that he derives from a diversity of ethical traditions, we can see that he succeeds in providing bridges between some of the most important ethical models of the Western tradition, which are usually considered to be incompatible, especially when looked at as opposing ‘-isms’ (e.g. ‘Kant’s universalism versus Nietzsche’s perspectivism’). No great ethical thinker is entirely ‘virtue ethical’, or ‘deontologist’, or ‘consequentialist’3 and Jung’s psychological perspective, in which both consciousness and the unconscious have a crucial function, allows us to realise that perhaps these models are not incompatible after all: Kant’s moral stance, if applied to one’s consciousness, can coexist with Nietzsche’s amorality, since this may be seen as describing the contribution to an ethical life provided by the unconscious dimension of our psyche. Aristotle’s balanced and realistic approach towards the passions, on the other hand, could be read, in Jungian terms, as an integrating

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device between excessive one-sidedness. Finally, Jung’s Christian ethical humility and his belief in objectively good and evil actions may counterbalance Kantian and Nietzschean gestures towards inflation (respectively of ego-rationality and of the amorality of the Self). It is generally accepted that introverted and extraverted individuals can work well together, and that nobody is exclusively inwardly or outwardly oriented. It could therefore be fruitful to take a closer look at how Jung’s typology and archetypal theory can function as conceptual devices which are capable of connecting divergent ethical positions. After all, it is the psyche which is asked to be ethical, and the ethical needs of a ‘plural psyche’ (Samuels 1989) may be adequately met only by a plurality of ethical approaches. Jung’s psychology, and in particular his distinction between introversion and extraversion, could suggest that the answer to the question of ‘eliminativism’ (‘Can one ethical approach do all the work of ethics?’) is ‘no’. Deontology and virtue ethics, with their focus on intentions and individual character, could both be classified as ‘introverted’ ethical theories, while consequentialism, with its focus on the effects of one’s actions, might be classified as ‘extraverted’. This distinction could help us to understand the continuing debates between these schools of ethics, which appear to be separated by a different view of the world: these different approaches to ethics could on the other hand be seen as complementary. It is surely high time for philosophers to take Jung’s ideas more seriously, especially today when many of the artificial boundaries between the ethical and philosophical camps are in the process of elimination. Although his thought is sometimes erratic and at other times has a mystical dimension which may only be grasped by those who feel naturally attuned to it, this should not overshadow the power and overall coherence of Jung’s ethical vision. As we have seen, Jung’s psycho-ethical model leaves some unresolved issues: is a Jungian analyst, in a very specific sense, a teacher of ethics? If this is the case, do patients of a Jungian analyst have to follow a Jungian ethical vision in order to be cured? (See Chapter 1, in the section ‘On moral autonomy and ethical transference’.) Is it really the case that by enduring a conflict of duty a tertium will always emerge? (See Chapter 1, in the section ‘Jung’s understanding of the problem of conflicts of duties’.) If Jung is right, following Nietzsche, that one should learn to express one’s whole and evolving personality, how can this be done without harming others? (See Chapter 2, in the sections ‘Beyond good and evil?’ and ‘On

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unconscious virtue’.) Is individuation really a task for all or will it inevitably only be the goal of ‘higher types’, as Nietzsche suggested? (See Chapter 2, ‘Adaptation and individuation’.) How could the moral language used by therapists be effectively improved to include a wider and more refined understanding of ethics? (See Chapter 3, passim.) Is the belief in an objective moral order really compatible with a psychological approach to ethics, as Jung seems to suggest, and can Jung’s ethics really be disentangled – if it should be – from his psychology of religion? (See Chapter 4, passim.) A detailed study of Jung’s (normative) ethical and meta-ethical position should also be conducted, since scholars, when confronted with some of the problems I have mentioned, tend to resolve them by accusing Jung of being an immoralist, a moralist or an amoral thinker (see Chapter 5, passim), overlooking the complexities of his ethical and meta-ethical vision. A historical and biographical discussion of the reciprocal influence of Jung’s ethical theory and of his famously unconventional life – and of some of his controversial stances (on minorities, on women, on politics and religion) – could also shed some light on both aspects. I have explored only a few of the clinical implications which could be derived from a deeper understanding of Jung’s ethics. I believe my findings could be usefully compared to the ‘ethical codes of conduct’ which (Jungian and non-Jungian) therapists are asked to follow in their work, since these may too often turn out to be examples of prescriptive and ratiocentric ‘old ethic’. In this respect, the notion of ‘ethical transference’, which I put forward in Chapter 1, deserves further study. My proposal, derived from Jung’s own clinical experience with akratic patients, of an Aristotelian classification of the various stages of analysis, from ‘vice’ to ‘virtue’, may also prove viable in practice. A related set of implications to be derived from my findings might involve looking at conflicts between analysts and patients as conflicts between different ethical and meta-ethical positions. Various studies suggest that the personality of the therapist is a stronger healing factor than ‘the theory’ held by the therapist, but can one really envisage the patient of a Jungian analyst being effectively cured while still holding on to an immoralist, moralist or amoral outlook, and without having accessed what Jung saw as ‘the level of reality’ disclosed by an ethical world view? My tentative answer is ‘no’. If I am right, are Jungian (and non-Jungian) analysts aware of how much ethics is embedded in their practice? Or of how much ethics they need to be able to handle in order to get their psychological work right? Are they just trying to make

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patients healthier? Or do they also want to make them (and society) better? These are all open and long-standing questions which need further reflection. If ethics does indeed play a central role in Jungian psychology, my guess – based on an argument from analogy – is that this is true for every depth-psychological and therapeutic school. Thus a critical dialogue within the field of depth psychology and psychotherapy could be renewed by taking ethics as a point of departure. Notes 1 ‘Neurosis is intimately bound up with the problem of our time and really represents an unsuccessful attempt on the part of the individual to solve the general problem in his own person’ (Jung 1917/1926/1943: 18). 2 When he writes about the difference between the philosophy that goes on in an analytic setting and academic philosophy (Jung 1943: 181, which I discuss in the Introduction, in the section ‘Psychotherapists as philosophers?’) one senses a tongue-in-cheek superiority in the tone of his remarks; as when he dismisses the ‘complications’ which ‘amuse’ philosophers (Jung 1938/1940: 68; opening quotation). 3 Cf. Harcourt’s notion of the ‘great tradition’ of ethics (Harcourt 2013b) discussed in the Introduction.

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Index

Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes. Abel, D. 113 absolute evil 104, 107 actions 16, 24 – 26, 28, 47 – 48, 54, 67, 71, 79, 89 Adam and Eve, story of 90, 110n5 adaptation: failure of 70; individuation and 51 – 53 ad hominem 42 ad ideam 42 agency, degrees of 11 agent 3, 10, 11, 27 – 29, 32, 49, 116 Aion 88, 93, 96, 98, 107 akrasia see weakness of will/akrasia/ akratic Alter-Ego 106 amorality (unconscious) 10, 98, 101, 118 analyst/therapist, ethical position 20 – 23 Anscombe, G. E. M. 66; and moral language 81 – 82 “Answer to Job” (Jung) 37n22, 88 – 89, 98 – 103 Antichrist 103 antinomy 19 apatheia 72 Aquinas, T. 96, 128 archetype 33, 122, 126, 129 arête see virtue (arête)/virtuous Aristotle 3, 12, 48; ethical theory 66 – 67, 80; Jung and/after 67 – 68, 79 – 80, 125 – 126; Nicomachean Ethics 71; on phronesis 71 – 73; typology 74 – 79 assimilation 2, 22 Atman 110n3 attitude 69

Augustine 93 – 97 autonomous complex 20, 36n11 autonomy 11; Jung on 19; Kant on 15 – 17, 32, 34, 35n3, 35 – 36n9; moral 20 – 23 Aziz, R. 118 – 119 Baeck, R. L. 60 Bailey, T. 11 Baron-Cohen, S. 88 Barreto, M. H. 110n2 Battaly, H. 71 Beebe, J. 7, 36n19, 78, 115, 117 belief 6, 35 – 36n9, 123, 132n14 Bertine, E. 131n12 bestiality 75, 85n15 Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche) 47 – 48, 58 – 62, 65n27, 89 Bishop, P. 63, 87, 122, 123, 124, 126 Boas, M. W. 131n7 Burnyeat, M. F. 74 – 75, 80 Calder, T. 87 – 88 Cambridge Companion to Jung, The (Young-Eisendrath and Dawson) 116 capacities (dynameis) 69 Catholic 106, 128 character 22, 44, 85n16 Christ 100 – 101, 103, 109 Christianity 43, 44, 65n27 collective, the 10, 38, 51, 52, 118 collective morality 32 – 33, 42, 47, 58, 82, 129, 130 collective unconscious 4, 25, 104, 133 community 120

Index 149 compensatory 2, 11, 118 – 119 complementarity 51, 101, 107; of eros and power 131n3 completeness see wholeness (completeness) complex 17, 72, 105, 119; autonomous 20, 36n11; personal 71 conflicts of duty 2, 11, 27 – 33, 70, 133; conscious 29 – 30, 33, 34; unconscious 29 – 30, 32 – 33, 34 conscience 92, 121 consciousness 2, 6, 18, 19, 33, 34, 35n9, 54, 69, 99, 117; strengthening of 25; and unconscious 2, 10, 135 consciousness of duty 15, 135 conscious scrutiny 33 consequentialism/consequentialist 3, 13, 88, 91, 135, 136 corruption 95 – 97, 111n11 Cottingham, J. 125, 131n10 courage 20, 66, 67, 70 – 71, 133 cowardice 20, 43, 57, 67, 71 creativity 3, 50 cultural super-ego 120 culture 52, 79, 107 de Meira Penna, J. O. 121, 126, 127, 131n11 deontology/deontologist 3, 13, 36n18, 135, 136 depth psychology 1, 5, 12, 26, 36n18, 48, 79, 80, 81, 113 Depth Psychology and a New Ethic (Neumann) 1, 115 dianoetike arête see intellectual virtues (dianoetike arête) differentiation 1, 102, 103 Dionysian Self, The: C. G. Jung’s Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche (Bishop) 124 Dionysus/Dionysian 49 – 51, 80, 124, 135 dreams 2 – 3; analysis of 46 – 47 duty(ies) 28; of beneficence 37n24; conflicts of 2, 11, 27 – 33, 70, 133; consciousness of 15, 135; of fidelity 37n24; of gratitude 37n24; of justice 37n24; of non-maleficence 37n24; of reparation 37n24; of self-improvement 37n24; shadow of 25 – 27 duty to be conscious 15, 17 – 18, 47, 135 Edinger, E. F. 116 education 125

ego: defined 17; and Self 3, 10, 17 – 18, 19 – 20, 23, 34, 36n10, 47, 62, 102, 116, 127 – 128; and shadow 105 ego-consciousness 2, 10, 18, 19, 47 ego-personality 104, 109 ego-Self axis, Edinger’s concept of 116 eliminativism 136 emotion (pathe) 69, 72, 79 e-motivation, Calder’s concept of 87 empathy 88 empirical 4, 89, 91, 94, 101, 127 enkrateia see strength of will/enkrateia/ enkratic Enlightenment 11, 20 esse in anima 122 – 123 ethical humility 13, 36n21, 88 – 93, 134 ethical transference 23, 77 ethical wisdom (phronesis) 71 – 73, 126, 134 ethics: amorality to 98 – 103; autonomy of 15 – 17; as individual task 2, 42, 91; morality and 7, 24, 121, 130; neurosis and 5 – 8, 70, 85n6; psychic health and 112 – 113; unconscious and 1 – 3; virtue 12, 13n4, 28, 81, 136 Ethics and Analysis (Zoja) 119 Ethik (Hartmann) 10 ethike arête see moral virtues (ethike arête) eudaimonia see flourishing/happiness (eudaimonia) Eve, story of Adam and 90, 110n5 ‘even on the highest peak’ passage 60 – 61 evil 65n29; components 87; as empathyerosion 88; good and 59 – 61, 82, 86n19, 88 – 93; metaphysical 107, 109; moral 94; moral psychology of 103 – 109; physical 94; relative/absolute 104, 107; shadow and 107, 126 – 127; substance of 89, 93 – 98; theory of 87 – 88; see also good and evil extraversion/extraverted 65n26, 136 ‘feeling of freedom’ 19 – 20, 74 flourishing/happiness (eudaimonia) 40, 66, 68, 125 Foot, P. 32 “Foreword to Neumann’s ‘Depth Psychology and a New Ethic’ ” (Jung) 1, 3, 31, 33, 53, 102 fragmentation of modern moral landscape, MacIntyre’s 82 – 84 Franz, M.-L. von 129 – 130, 131n12

150 Index freedom 16 – 18, 35n4; of egoconsciousness 122; feeling of 19 – 20, 74; from the law 100; from nature 32 – 33 free spirits 41, 42, 44 free will 95, 111n7, 114 Freud, S.: notion of transference 22 – 23; psychoanalysis and ethics 112 – 114; theory of repression 9 Freudian psychoanalysis 112 – 114, 120, 131 Garcia, J. L. A. 82 – 83 Gay Science, The (Nietzsche) 41 Giegerich, W. 122 God 12, 26, 44, 90, 94 – 95, 99, 109, 128, 130; as also evil 89, 93, 98; as Summum Bonum 26, 98 good and evil 59 – 61, 82, 86n19; Christian and psychological interpretation of 88 – 93; ontological equivalence between 97 “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology” (Jung) 88 – 93 good will 25 Gould, C. S. 75 – 76 Gowans, C. 27, 32 Gross, O. 9, 14n6 guilt 32, 61, 80, 115 Guyer, P. 16 habitual state 69, 85n3 habituation 66, 67, 73 – 74 Handbook of Jungian Psychology, The (Papadopoulos) 116 happiness (eudaimonia) 26 – 27, 49 – 50, 66 – 67, 68 Harcourt, E. 4 – 5, 13n4 harm 9, 37n23, 60, 61, 65n29, 87 – 88 Hartmann, N. 10 Hauke, C. 123 health/healthy 10, 32, 41, 50, 52, 55 – 56, 57, 59, 66, 91, 112 – 113, 115 herd (slave) morality see slave (herd) morality vs. master (higher type) morality Heuer, G. M. 14n6 hexis see state of character (hexis) higher type morality see slave (herd) morality vs. master (higher type) morality Hillman, J. 129 Hinton, L. 126

Holy Ghost 101 – 103 Horne, M. 68 Hume, D. 16 humility 20, 87 – 110; see also ethical humility Huskinson, L. 64n5, 64n10, 124 ignorance 48 Imitation of Christ, The (à Kempis) 44 immoralist 9, 115, 137 immorality 10 – 11, 33, 63, 127; conscious 10, 11, 33, 127, 131; individual 10, 51; repression of 8 – 10, 65n19, 134 individualism 9, 52 individuals 11; enkratic vs. akratic 67, 78, 80; virtuous 79, 80 individuation: adaptation and 51 – 53; concept of 5, 7, 13, 25, 68, 84, 110n2, 119, 133 – 134; as opus contra naturam 54, 68 infantile inferiority 21 inferiority 46, 103 inflation 17 – 18, 79 – 80 inner law 129 – 130 integration: of different ethical approaches 113, 135; and integrity 84, 112; of joy and happiness 26 – 27; of Kant and Nietzsche 10; in nature 119; of Personalities No. 1 and No. 2 63; of the personality 7; of the shadow 25, 78, 123; of the unconscious 2, 25, 34, 101 integrity 39, 83 – 84, 117 – 118 Integrity in Depth (Beebe) 117 intellectual virtues (dianoetike arête) 67 introversion/introverted 65n26, 136 intuitions 31, 37n26, 39, 64n2, 68 irrationality 3, 47 Jaffé, A. 44 Job 99 – 100, 103 joy 27, 49 – 50 judgement 89 Jung and the New Age (Tacey) 129 Jung and the Post-Jungians (Samuels) 117 Jung, C. G.: on adaptation and individuation 51 – 53; Aion (1951) 88, 93, 96, 98, 107; Anscombe and 81 – 82; “Answer to Job” (1952a), as symbolic depiction of his views on ethics 37n22, 88 – 89, 98 – 103; Aristotle and 67 – 68, 79 – 80, 125 – 126; attitude towards suffering and joy 50; autonomy of ego from the Self 17 – 18; Christian

Index 151 side of his ethics 87 – 111; concept of individuation 5, 7, 25, 68; concept of inflation 17; Dionysian approach to life 49 – 51; discussion of attitude 69; discussion of conflicts of duty 2, 11, 27 – 33; discussion of doctrine of Original Sin 94; discussion of Nietzsche’s philosophy and psychology 42 – 45; distinction between introversion and extraversion 136; duty to be conscious 15, 17 – 18, 47; ego, defined 17; esse in anima argument 122 – 123; ethical outlook 11 – 12; ethical vision 2, 7, 15, 136; ethics 10, 114 – 128, 135; “Foreword to Neumann’s ‘Depth Psychology and a New Ethic’ ” (Jung) 1, 3, 31, 33, 53, 102; “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology” (1959) 88 – 93; idea of ‘beyond good and evil’ 47 – 48, 58 – 62, 65n27, 89; idea of evil as privatio boni 93 – 98; integration of Kant and Nietzsche 10 – 13; Kantian legacy 15 – 37, 122; Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963) 5 – 6, 44 – 45, 93, 94; modern virtue ethics and 81; on moral autonomy and ethical transference 20 – 23; on moral resentment 31, 38, 45 – 47; Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955–1956) 32, 58; on neurosis 6 – 7, 8, 70, 79, 85n6; new ethical conception 2, 53; on new morality 56 – 58; Nietzsche and 38 – 40, 123 – 125; “On the Psychology of the Unconscious” (1917/1926/1943) 43, 118; on phronesis 73; picture of good life 10; post-Jungians on his ethics 112 – 130; on problem of evil 93; problem with moral/ethical reasoning and ethical solution 32 – 33; “A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity” ([1940]/1942/1948) 60, 100; Psychological Types (1921) 51, 69, 131n13; “A Psychological View of Conscience” (1958) 7, 30, 81; psychology 5; “Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life” (1943) 3; The Red Book: Liber Novus (1913–1930) 43 – 44, 50, 56, 58, 61, 62, 64n9, 65n26, 72; “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious” (1928) 43, 45, 52, 53; Selfish ethics 53 – 56; Seminar on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra (1934–1939) 31, 43 – 45, 48, 49, 57, 65n26; on

the shadow 103 – 109; Symbols of Transformation (1911–12/1952) 74; “The Theory of Psychoanalysis” (1913) 70; “Transformation Symbolism in the Mass” (1942/1954) 19; on unconscious virtue 47 – 49; Zofingia Lectures 8 – 9, 116, 121, 122 Jungian Analysis (Stein) 117 Jungian psychology see analytical psychology (Jungian psychology) Jung’s Ethics: Moral Psychology and His Cure of Souls (Merkur) 114 – 115 kakia see vice (kakia)/vicious kairos 73, 126 Kant, I.: on autonomy of ethics 15 – 17; on autonomy of practical reason 16 – 17, 36n9; categorical imperative 8, 16, 25, 122; consciousness of duty 15, 135; and ethics 121 – 123; and Nietzsche 10 – 13; notion of summum bonum 26; ‘ought implies can’ argument 23 – 25 Kaufmann, W. 10, 32 Kempis, Thomas à 44 knowledge: Aristotle on 76, 80; and belief 123; Catholicism and 111n7; of good and evil 60, 90, 110n5; Jung on 80, 123; Kant on 123; and morality 16, 36n12; of self 46 – 47, 48 – 49, 77; Socrates on 76 Lambertino, A. 113 lanthano 77, 85n14 Leiter, B. 49 Lemmon, E. J. 28 – 29, 32 letter (of the law) 90 life: Dionysian approach to 49 – 51; and happiness 50; and truth 58 life-affirmation 40, 47 life-lines 31, 57 Living with Nietzsche (Solomon) 10 – 11 love 44, 55 – 56 Loÿ, R. 22 MacIntyre, A. 66; concept of fragmented moral order 82 – 84 Madera, R. 122 Maffei, G.120 Main, R. 87 master (higher type) moralities see slave (herd) morality vs. master (higher type) morality McCarty, R. 28 McConnell, T. 27

152 Index McNaughton, R. 37n24 mean, the 71 – 72, 85n9 Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Jung) 5 – 6, 44 – 45, 93, 94 Merkur, D. 114 – 115, 127 meta-ethics 13, 137 Metaphysics of Morals (Kant) 23, 25 metropatheia 72 Mills, J. 131n4 Modern Moral Philosophy (Anscombe) 81 modern virtue ethics and Jung 81 moral conflicts, types of 29 – 30 moral development, of patient and therapist 20 – 23 moral dilemmas see conflicts of duty moral duty 11, 81 moral enthusiasm 24 moral evil 94 moral freedom 17, 18, 19, 35n4 moral function 80 moral imagination, original morality and 118 moralist 137 morality 16, 32; collective 32 – 33, 42, 47, 58, 82, 129, 130; conscious 10, 100, 118, 133; consciousness-based systems of 2; conventional 13n1; credentials of 5; ethics and 7, 24, 121, 130; goodness and 108; neurosis and 8; new 56 – 58; Nietzsche on 40, 42; original 118; psychic health and 113; relaxing 18; repression of 8 – 10; shadow of 50; slave vs. master 40, 42, 47, 121; true 16 moral judgements and immoral behaviour 108 moral precepts 24 moral psychology 12, 13n4, 88, 103 – 109, 114 moral resentment 31, 38, 45 – 47 ‘moral residue’ problem 28 moral values 22, 92 moral virtues (ethike arête) 67, 70 – 71 moral vocabulary, Anscombe’s approach to 66, 81 – 82 Nagel, T. 4 Nagy, M. 122 – 123 Natural Law 92 nature 16, 22 – 23, 32 – 33, 53n4, 68, 69, 128; animal, denial of 65n27; vs. culture 79; evil of 104, 107; Goethe’s allegory of 49; human 4, 64n15, 110, 127; moral 114, 118 – 119; of one’s ‘type’ 41, 53;

psychic 63 – 64n1; of self 54; of virtue 74, 85 Nazism 60 Neumann, E. 1, 115 – 116 neurosis 134, 138n1; defined 8; egodystonic and syntonic 85n16; ethics and 5 – 8, 70, 85n6; Jung on 6 – 7, 8, 70, 79, 85n6; morality and 8 neurotic conflicts 29 neurotics, types of 9 neurotic suffering 78 New Age 129 ‘new ethic’ 1 – 2, 53, 102 ‘new morality’ 56 – 58 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle) 71 Nietzsche and Jung: The Whole Self in the Union of Opposites (Huskinson) 124 Nietzsche, F. 22, 26 – 27, 34; on adaptation and individuation 51 – 53; ‘beyond good and evil’ expression 47 – 48, 58 – 62, 65n27, 89; Dionysian approach to life 49 – 51; ethics 40 – 42, 123 – 125; on health 41, 57; Jung’s discussion of his philosophy and psychology 42 – 45; Kant and 10 – 13; on new morality 56 – 58; Selfish ethics 53 – 56; style of Jung and 38 – 40 Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934 – 1939 by C. G. Jung (Jung) 31, 43 – 45, 48, 49, 57, 65n26 objective moral order 89, 91, 92, 130, 137 obligations 28, 81 ‘old ethic’ 31, 33 On the Free Choice of the Will (Augustine) 93, 94 On the Genealogy of Morals (Nietzsche) 45 “On the Psychology of the Unconscious” (Jung) 43, 118 opus contra naturam 54, 68 original morality and moral imagination, Samuels’ distinction between 118 ‘ought implies can’ 23 – 25 overgrowing 32 Palmer, M. 87, 122, 126 pardons 130 Parkes, G. 123 participation mystique 45, 49 patient and therapist, moral development of 20 – 23

Index 153 Peck, M. S. 85n16 Pence, G. 81 perfectionism 37n22, 101 personality 22, 45, 46, 52, 80, 81, 117 perspectivism 13, 135 philosophers 1, 43, 44, 56; see also names of specific philosophers philosophy 13n4; Freud 113; Jung 42, 44, 87, 138n2; Kant 15 – 16, 18, 26, 34, 35n1, 122 – 123; moral 26, 34, 84, 122 – 123, 131n10; Nietzsche 42, 44, 59, 82 Philosophy and the Good Life: Reason and Passions in Greek, Cartesian and Psychoanalytic Ethics (Cottingham) 125 phronesis see wisdom (phronesis) post-Jungians on Jung’s ethics 112 – 130 practical reason, argument for 16 – 17 practical wisdom (phronesis) 66, 67, 71 – 73, 126, 134 pride 89 privatio boni 89, 93 – 98 problem of conflicts of duty 27 – 29 projection 91, 99, 106 – 108 Protestant 106, 128 Proulx, C. 35 – 36n9 121 provisional value 57 Prusak, B. G. 95 psychic health and ethics 51, 74, 91, 112 – 113 psychoanalysis 4 – 5, 64n6; Freudian 112 – 114, 120, 131; Jung on 57, 70, 122 Psychoanalysis and Ethics (Wallwork) 113 Psychoanalysis and Morality in Freud (Lambertino) 113 psycho-ethical typology: akratic 77 – 78; enkratic 78; vicious 77; virtuous 79 “Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity, A” (Jung) 60, 100 Psychological Types (Jung) 51, 69, 131n13 “Psychological View of Conscience, A” (Jung) 7, 30, 81 psychopaths 88 psychotherapists 3 – 5, 21, 90, 118, 120 psychotherapy 21; Catholics and 111; Jungian 117, 119, 120 “Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life” (Jung) 3 rashness and cowardice 67, 71 ratiocentric 4, 134 reason: emotions and 66, 79; passions and 68, 84; powers of 16

Red Book, The: Liber Novus (Jung) 43 – 44, 50, 56, 58, 61, 62, 64n9, 65n26, 72 “Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious, The” (Jung) 43, 45, 52, 53 relative evil 104, 107 relaxing morality 18 religion 98, 127 – 128 repression: defined 6 – 7, 29, 70; of immorality/morality 8 – 10; mechanism of 29; and suppression 6 – 7, 29 ressentiment see moral resentment Rieff, P. 82; critique of Jung’s ethics 120; on Freudian psychoanalysis and ethics 112 – 113, 130 – 131n1 risk 40, 58, 126 Road Less Travelled, The (Peck) 85n16 Rohlf, M. 16, 35n4 Ross, W. D. 28, 31, 37n24, 77 Samuels, A. 20, 117 – 118 Satan 99, 103 Schiller, F. 15 Schroeder, W. 40 Segal, R. A. 87, 126, 127 Self 13n2, 68, 119; and ego 3, 10, 17 – 18, 19 – 20, 23, 34, 36n10, 62, 102, 116, 127 – 128; as given 47, 54, 64n12; as made 54, 64n12 self-improvement, duties of 37n24, 37n29 selfish 56, 107 Selfish ethics 53 – 56, 64n12 selfishness 55, 65n21, 109 self-legislation 16, 35n3 self-love 55 – 56, 65n22 self-preservation 124 Seminar on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra (Jung) 31, 43 – 45, 48, 49, 57, 65n26 Sennett, R. 84 sensation 37n27, 64n2, 68 shadow 7, 12, 125; of duty 25 – 27; and evil 107, 126 – 127; of morality 50; moral psychology of evil 103 – 109 Shamdasani, S. 123 Sin (Original) 89, 94, 101, 129 slave (herd) morality vs. master (higher type) morality 40, 42, 47, 121 society: individual and 26; individuation in 51 – 52, 119, 133 – 134; morality and 9, 63, 118, 134; pluralist 83 – 84; values of 79 Socrates 48, 64n15 Socratic method 4, 13n3 Solomon, R. 10 – 11, 83, 84, 86n20

154 Index soul (psyche) 69 state of character (hexis) 66, 67, 69 – 70, 76 Stein, M. 87, 126 – 128 strength of will/enkrateia/enkratic 67, 80; psycho-ethical typology 78; vs. virtue 74 – 76 style: of character 54; of Nietzsche and Jung 38 – 40 subjectivism 13, 92, 121 suffering 7, 49 – 50, 78, 99, 101, 113 summum bonum 26 super-ego 120 suppression 6 – 7, 29 Swanton, C. 59, 65n22 Symbols of Transformation (Jung) 74 Tacey, D. 129 theodicy 93 “Theory of Psychoanalysis, The” (Jung) 70 therapist, ethical position 20 – 23 transcendent function 30, 31, 127 transference, conception of 22 – 23 “Transformation Symbolism in the Mass” (Jung) 19 Trevi, M. 18, 122; on Jung’s ethics 119, 131n8, 131n9 typology: akrasia vs. vice 76 – 77; enkrateia vs. virtue 74 – 76; psychoethical 77 – 79 unconscious: amoral 10, 98, 101, 118; attitude 69; collective 4, 25, 104, 133; compensation 2; conflicts and 29, 30; creative 50; dilemmas 30; ethics and

1 – 3; as negative borderline concept 122; personal 46; thought processes 131n7 unconscious virtue 47 – 49 vice (kakia)/vicious 55, 67, 69, 79, 137; akrasia vs. 76 – 77; psycho-ethical typology 77 virtue (arête)/virtuous 18, 57, 79, 137; defined 83; differentia of 71; enkrateia vs. 74 – 76; ethics 12, 13n4, 28, 81, 136; habituation and 73; as linked to practices 83; moral/intellectual 67, 70 – 71; psycho-ethical typology 79; states of character 69; theory 81; unconscious 47 – 49 vital 56 – 57, 65nn24 – 26 Wallwork, E. 113 – 114 weakness 39, 41 weakness of will/akrasia/akratic 48, 67, 80, 85n12; psycho-ethical typology 77 – 78; vs. vice 76 – 77 Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi 63n1 White, V. 97, 98, 100, 101, 106 wholeness (completeness) 2, 3, 26, 37n22, 101, 109, 117 Williams, B. 28, 64n4 will to power 43, 59, 124 wisdom (phronesis) 66, 67, 71 – 73, 126, 134 Wood, A. 35n3 Yahweh 98 – 100, 103 Zabriskie, B. D. 117 Zofingia Lectures (Jung) 8 – 9, 116, 121, 122 Zoja, L. 119 – 120