Key Arguments

• Freud summarizes the moral valences of the three agencies: "From the point of view of instinct constraint, of morality, we can say: The Id is quite amoral, the Ego is eager to be moral, the Superego can become hyper-moral and then as cruel as only the Id can be," explicitly assigning contrasting moral roles.
• He calls attention to a paradoxical relation between external aggression and inner morality: "It is curious that man, the more he constrains his outward aggression, the more harsh—aggressive—he becomes in his Ego Ideal. The customary view seems the reverse, seeing in the stipulation of the Ego Ideal the motive for the suppression of aggression," challenging common moral conceptions.
• Despite folk belief, "The fact remains, however, as we have expressed: The more a person masters his aggression, the more the inclination to aggression of his Ideal towards his Ego increases. It is like a shift, a turn against one’s own Ego," describing the intrapsychic redirection of aggression from others to the self.
• He notes that "Even common, normal morality has a hard-restricting, cruelly forbidding character. Hence arises the concept of the relentlessly punishing higher being," linking everyday moral experience and religious imagery of a punishing God to the internalized superego.
• Freud then roots this cruel 'higher being' in superego formation: "The Superego is caused by an identification with the father role model," and, through the instinctual separation that accompanies desexualization, "the Ideal would even obtain the hard, cruel trait of the imperious 'Ought,'" explaining why moral injunctions feel absolutely compelling and severe.

Source Quotes

How is that, in melancholia, the Superego can become a kind of collection point for the death instincts? From the point of view of instinct constraint, of morality, we can say: The Id is quite amoral, the Ego is eager to be moral, the Superego can become hyper-moral and then as cruel as only the Id can be. It is curious that man, the more he constrains his outward aggression, the more harsh—aggressive—he becomes in his Ego Ideal.

From the point of view of instinct constraint, of morality, we can say: The Id is quite amoral, the Ego is eager to be moral, the Superego can become hyper-moral and then as cruel as only the Id can be. It is curious that man, the more he constrains his outward aggression, the more harsh—aggressive—he becomes in his Ego Ideal. The customary view seems the reverse, seeing in the stipulation of the Ego Ideal the motive for the suppression of aggression.

The customary view seems the reverse, seeing in the stipulation of the Ego Ideal the motive for the suppression of aggression. The fact remains, however, as we have expressed: The more a person masters his aggression, the more the inclination to aggression of his Ideal towards his Ego increases. It is like a shift, a turn against one’s own Ego. Even common, normal morality has a hard-restricting, cruelly forbidding character.

It is like a shift, a turn against one’s own Ego. Even common, normal morality has a hard-restricting, cruelly forbidding character. Hence arises the concept of the relentlessly punishing higher being. I cannot explain these circumstances any further without introducing a new conjecture.

I cannot explain these circumstances any further without introducing a new conjecture. The Superego is caused by an identification with the father role model. Every such identification has the character of a desexualization or even sublimation.

The erotic component no longer has, after sublimation, the power to bind all the added destruction, and this becomes free as an inclination to aggression and destruction. From this separation, the Ideal would even obtain the hard, cruel trait of the imperious “Ought.” Let’s linger again on obsessional neurosis.

Key Concepts

• From the point of view of instinct constraint, of morality, we can say: The Id is quite amoral, the Ego is eager to be moral, the Superego can become hyper-moral and then as cruel as only the Id can be.
• It is curious that man, the more he constrains his outward aggression, the more harsh—aggressive—he becomes in his Ego Ideal.
• The fact remains, however, as we have expressed: The more a person masters his aggression, the more the inclination to aggression of his Ideal towards his Ego increases. It is like a shift, a turn against one’s own Ego.
• Even common, normal morality has a hard-restricting, cruelly forbidding character. Hence arises the concept of the relentlessly punishing higher being.
• The Superego is caused by an identification with the father role model.
• From this separation, the Ideal would even obtain the hard, cruel trait of the imperious “Ought.”

Context

Embedded in the same section that analyzes melancholia and obsessional neurosis, Freud distills a general thesis about the moral character of id, ego, and superego, and connects internalized aggression to ordinary morality and religious conceptions.