home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!auvm!UNC.BITNET!FRESCO
- Message-ID: <PSYCGRAD%92090822173945@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
- Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 22:16:00 EDT
- Sender: "Psychology Graduate Students Discussion Group List"
- <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
- From: "David M. Fresco" <FRESCO@UNC.BITNET>
- Subject: Morality
- Lines: 23
-
- Remo et al.,
- In what is considered the most dreaded class here at UNC (that being
- History and Systems) our instructor this evening gave us a brief review
- of Hobbes (Thomas not Calvin and...) and his work Leviathan. His
- intent was to paint Hobbes as an empiricist (much to my delight) and
- offered only minimal time to what I consider to be the more remarkable
- notions put forth by Hobbes. I'm thinking of Hobbes' notion of hedonsim
- which we as humans give up to the controls of society so that someone
- else's hedonism doesn't come along and murder us. (Said differently,
- humans gave up primal instincts, tendencies to the rules of society to
- keep ourselves safe etc.) My first reading of Hobbes was preceded by
- Locke's Second Treatise of Government (which is a painfully, dense story
- in its own right). More remarkable though, my reading of Hobbes was
- also preceded by Freud's Civilization and its Discontents which for me
- was an analogous formation of society's morals or as Freud termed it
- super-ego. This comparative notion has stayed with me for several years
- now and I brought it up in class tonight. My instructor said that the
- connection was interesting, but tenuous. I ask you now Remo, to offer
- your opinion on this matter. I hope you agree with the notion I put
- forth. I'd be more surprised to learn that this connection is novel
- rather than just plain wrong. Is any of this relevant to the research
- you recently plugged?
- David Fresco
-