Freud's impact on modern morality and our world view

Robert R. Holt

pp. 147-200

in: Arthur Caplan, Bruce Jennings (eds), Darwin, Marx and Freud, Berlin, Springer, 1984

Abstract

The world is in a moral crisis today, everyone agrees. It is little comfort that many people would have agreed with the preceding statement at just about any time in history. The older generation has worried about the decline in the moral fiber of the young at least since the time of the Greek philosophers, and we still have not quite succumbed. Such a general reassurance can hardly substitute for data, but it would be difficult indeed to conduct an empirical survey of the present moral state of the world, quite aside from the fact that comparable data from earlier times would be even more nearly impossible to obtain. In our huge and pluralistic world, there are many evidences of increased respect for life and for individual liberty, more social justice, and other moral desirables. It is very difficult to balance such trends against the many signs that monetary values override all others in many contexts, that unjustifiable exploitation and privilege are firmly entrenched, and that various types of crime are on the rise.

Cited authors

Freud Sigmund