Critique du rapport d´obéissance à la norme : vers une image réfléchie du plein pouvoir

Abstract

Critique of the Relation to Legal Obedience: Towards a Reflected Image of Full Authority

This paper reflects on the relation between the conditions that enable subject obedience to the norm. Such an approach considers Freud and Kelsen’s prior fundamental contentions about the issue from both psychoanalytical and law theories, respectively. In his work Group psychology and analysis of the Ego, for instance, Freud sets the question of the cause that serves as an explanation for the cohesion of society in terms of a ¨common object of affection¨. On the other hand, Kelsen’s earlier work postulates “legal order” as a decisive factor that might embrace multiplicity (as a State). Regarding this logical continuum, Freud criticizes that line of reflection and attempts to conceive the norm within the frame of the second topic, namely, as the instance of the “Superego”. Nonetheless, such an image or representation of the norm does not fully consider the specificity of the Self as a founding act, nor implies the constitutive lack of any Self that shall always pursue its own reflective relation with the norm. Subsequently, Fichte’s latest work will be taken into consideration.

Keywords: Freud, Kelsen, Fichte, law, obedience, crowd psychology, psychoanalytical theory of norm, legal order