Depth Psychology of the Will to Punish: A Psychoanalytic Approach

• Main Authors: Yi-Yan Lin, 林奕延
• Other Authors: Mau-Sheng Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/327c69

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 法律學研究所 === 106 === ‘The Will to Punish’ might be one of the most ancient foundations of criminal law, but which is completely absent from comtemperary criminal discussion. Criminal law scholars tend to treat subject of law as ‘rational being’, althought the desire to serverely punish criminals remains as mystery. The theory of desire in psychoanalysis points out the spilting of the subject: the desire to punish must be the desire of the ‘Other’, which is inseparable from the civilized society supported by language. Nietzsche analyses the punishment through the conception of debt, tells that surplus pleasure must lie behind retributive justice, like the surplus value in Max’s economic theory, demonstrating the fantastic structure which supports the will to punish. Punishment always leads to possible exports guaranteed by civilization, such as the unity of the community or the symbolic gesture of "security", presenting a desire economy of neurosis. However, the will to punish is nothing more than a disguise, concealing the endless repetition of drive which lies behind the scene of desire. Freud found that aggressiveness and morality all derived from the same root, which evolved at different stages of the death drive; the requirement of acquiring morality to constrain the aggressiveness will inevitably lead to failure, because these two are homologous in essence. Kristeva''s conceptualization of Abject analyzes how death drive performes in different social cultures. To fight for subjectivity, infant must experience painful struggles before separating from mother and successfully establishing its own boundaries, as the mother''s tolerance and engulfing are only one line apart. She/he must expel the femininity that surround herself and provide total satisfaction, in order to stabilize the fragile narcissistic self. The abjection effect is fully embodied in the establishment of various ritual margins. The reason why the monsterous crime is abjection is that it reflects the fragility of the legal boundary and the fear of frontier violations of the subject itself. The will to punish is therefore related to the subject''s deepest need to establish itself, and there is no moral evaluation of good or evil. Moreover, the "new subject" which was born in the era of transforming Other(Autre), wuthout anchoring itself through the symbolic function of society, she/ he wander besides the obscure blink of narcissistic identifiaction. For establish its own fragile subjectivity, more intense abjection is required. At last, how should people deal with the will to punish others? Psychoanalysis found that whether it is to repress or to indulge in punitive fantasy, the sense of gulit is always inevitable. Although religious, scientific or artistic sublimation can find a reasonable export for desire, it cannot take us further on the road of desire. Psychoanalysis points out the impossibility of understanding others and ourselves, but it provides the possibility that the subject can pry into the core of one''s desires, although in the end the seemingly mysterious kernel is only a vacancy, highlighting the state of helplessness (Hilflösigkeit).