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A Truthful Way to Live? Objectivity, Ethics and Psychoanalysis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2019
Abstract
Is there a best way to live? If so, is this a form of ethical life? The answer, I believe, turns on what we can say about the nature and place of the passions – emotions and desires – in our lives, including in particular, our ability to be truthful about our passions and our relations with other people. I approach the question through the work of Bernard Williams. I consider first what it might be for a way of life to be ‘objectively’ best, before looking more closely at the psychological conditions of such a life, using ideas from psychoanalysis on the way we hide our true passions from ourselves and the effect this can have on our understanding of both ourselves and others. I end by considering whether we can say that a truthful life is the best life, and whether it places universal and material constraints on how best to live.
- Type
- Papers
- Information
- Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 85: Passions and the Emotions , July 2019 , pp. 175 - 193
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2019
References
1 Williams, Bernard, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontana, 1985)Google Scholar; hereafter ELP.
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4 See ELP, 29, Ch. 8 (esp. 152).
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