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SELMA FRAIBERG
Hartmann demonstrates very clearly that moral imperatives
which are themselves the most stable class of values, constituting
the earliest and most powerful voice of conscience, cannot be sub–
jected to objective tests; their validity as a guide to moral behavior
is beyond proof and beyond rationalization. A man who cannot
bring himself to murder does not ask himself, like Raskolnikov,
"After all, why not?" He cannot. The "thou shalt not" requires no
verification.
Hartmann criticizes the tendency today to substitute health–
values for moral values, sometimes formulated as "there are not
moral or immoral people, there are only healthy and sick people."
There are many neurotics, he points out, who are "highly moral"
and often socially useful, while there are many "healthy" people
who are neither. Since health valuations do not have the psycho–
logical character of moral imperatives, Hartmann argues, there is
a psychological error in the implication that they can substitute for
"genuine moral valuations"-and by "genuine" he means integrated
into character.
Hartmann notes that people who have undergone analysis cer–
tainly do not have a uniform hierarchy of moral values or similar
moral codes. (This is a strong argument against the belief that
psychoanalysis indoctrinates or that a system of health values can
be derived from the theory or therapy psychoanalysis.) This is not
to say that psychoanalysis cannot have an influence on moral life,
but that it does not provide standards of conduct based on health
ethics. Hartmann quotes Freud: "Why should analyzed people
be
altogether better than others? Analysis makes for unity but not
necessarily for goodness." Hartmann expands these remarks:
"If
moral inadequacy is due to neurotic causes, successful analysis can
remedy it. The more successful integration psychoanalysis promotes
may have an effect also on moral conduct.... The broadening of
self-awareness, which is, of course, a regular result of analysis, can
influence the degree of consistency of the "moral system," etc.
Has psychoanalysis contributed to the devaluation of moral
values by the unmasking of moral pretense? One must realize, writes
Hartmann,
"that in addition to moral pretenses there are moral
motivations which have the full dynamic significance of independent
forces in the mental economy. The discovery by psychoanalysis that
