TO READ THE PROJECT UNDER AN ETHICS PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This article discusses some considerations to guide the reading of the Project for a psychology from an ethical perspective. The starting point is Lacan's interpretation in The Seminar, book VII, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, where he structures his analysis on the opposition between the principles of pleasure and reality and on the understanding of das Ding. Unlike the Lacanian reading, centered on the concept of desire, we firstly emphasize the relevance of the notions of pleasure and displeasure as fundamental. Secondly, we argue that in the Project, Freud sets as the foundations of morality, beyond the couple's displeasure-pleasure, the experiences of helplessness and debt before the next-helper and not the object of incestuous desire, or the object merely formal, as suggested by Lacan.