ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis is equally awe-inspiring in making it possible to describe aspects of the psyche. When Kant was thinking about the sense of awe with which we meet the sublime, he offered, as examples, the starry heavens above, and the moral law within. This is a very fruitful pairing, partly because it claims the moral law within as a natural phenomenon, not, as many wish to claim, a purely cultural one. Kant’s account of moral law is rather cerebral and emotionally unsatisfying. But there is a tradition, dating at least from Plato and Aristotle, which tries to describe, and thus to expand the sense of, what it means to live a good life: in terms of what are known as the cardinal virtues—justice, temperance, courage, and practical wisdom. Courage and practical wisdom haven’t been examined nearly so thoroughly in psychoanalytic circles: though Dr Meltzer has long spoken of the importance of introducing our patients to the notion of courage.
