Kant with Sade: on the Relationship between the Moral Law and Jouissance in the Ethics of Psychoanalysis

Abstract

In this article we explore the relationship between moral law and jouissance in Seminar: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1959/60) as well as in Kant with Sade (1963). As we will show, this relationship is a consequence of a change of perspective brought about by these texts, in which the concept of the real is foregrounded. Moreover, this relationship is inherently connected to a change of perspective in the way Lacan understands the death drive and is compatible with the ever stronger insertion of the concept of real in his teaching.