Society & Culture
A growing number of philosophers are recognizing the value of psychoanalysis in enriching our understanding of rational psychic integration—a central task within the Platonic-Aristotelian ethical tradition. Here, I join their ranks by proposing that ancient Greek ethical concepts and Freudian psychoanalytic insights may be jointly applied to conceptualize the psychiatric illness anorexia nervosa as an ethical disorder, and to suggest a means of treating it as such. Drawing from the Stoic theory of the emotions, as well as Aristotelian virtue ethics, I identify the anorexic’s characteristic fear of gaining weight and pleasure at losing weight as symptoms of an excessively rigid understanding of virtue and vice—one constitutive of a false conception of eudaemonia. After describing strengths and weaknesses of this particular characterization of the disorder, I argue that Freudian psychodynamic theory enriches this psycho-ethical portrait by illuminating how unconscious wishes mediate communication between the rational and non-rational parts of the soul. These psychodynamic relations yield a disordered understanding of eudaemonia that is maintained, reinforced, and shielded from self-conscious criticism through a kind of ‘ersatz reason’, or a logical structure masquerading as reason. I conclude by suggesting psychoanalytic talk-therapy may function as a kind of Socratic dialogue that helps anorexics perceive and give voice to their true unconscious fears and basic desires—such as love, success, respect, and self-esteem. In so doing, psychoanalysis may help anorexics achieve a central task Aristotle attributes to ethical life: training the non-rational soul to ‘speak with the same voice’ as the rational soul.