Ethics and the discovery of the unconscious
By: John Hanwell Riker.
Series: SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Albany
Language: eng
Number of pages: 254
Subjects: Ethics.; Psychology.; Moral development.; Social values -- Psychological aspects.
Description: This book shows why the discovery of the unconscious by Nietzsche and Freud requires a reconception of the concepts of moral agency and responsibility and even of morality itself. It explicates how contemporary psychology has taken over the traditional task of ethics in elucidating a theory of human well-being, but criticizes this psychology for being unable to generate adequate notions of either responsibility or moral agency.

Riker develops a new moral psychology in which the reality of unconscious functioning is included within a theory of responsibility, and the agent's primary ethic concern becomes knowing what her unconscious motivations are and integrating them into a morally and psychologically mature self.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-248) and index.