A topography of the empiricist theories of law

Abstract

In the Introduction, Kant’s idealistic interpretation of moral consciousness was countered with Freud’s empiricist explanation. For Kant, moral consciousness forms the supersensible higher part of the human personality, which links man to a rational, absolute world, not bound by the contingencies of time and space. This higher world sets a standard by which the world of the senses — the world of natural phenomena — can be measured. It is the intervention of the moral consciousness which enables man to gain some knowledge of this standard. Freud also takes as his starting-point the fact that human beings possess an awareness of norms which present themselves forcefully as the only correct standard of behaviour. But he does not have such a great respect for this consciousness as Kant. For Freud certainly does not regard it as a higher supersensible part of man, but rather as a natural component of his psychic condition. This can be empirically explained as such by the science of psychology. Nor does our moral consciousness help us to know which mode of behaviour is absolutely correct, according to Freud. Moral judgements do not refer to ideal truth: they are neither true nor untrue, but are abstractions of irrational impulses. In Freud’s explanation, every child is so dependent on those who bring him up, that he internalizes their norms, which are themselves socially determined. These then become a separate element of the personality which has a critical and imperative function in relation to the rest of the personality. From then on, the child spontaneously imposes these norms on himself. Since this normative consciousness is in opposition to the rest of the personality, and adults are not even aware of its origin, it is perceived by man as the manifestation of an objective order of unconditionally valid norms. But Freud maintains that the objective existence of such norms is based on an illusion, since it is in fact only the prejudices of the parents and the social environment which are being manifested.