Psychology as Ethics

The author argues that in Jung’s depth-psychological thinking Kantian deontology, Nietzschean perspectivism, Aristotelian virtue ethics and Christian morality all take part in shaping a moral and ethical character.

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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.