The Oracle Position and the Unconscious Ground of Free-Will Belief

Abstract

Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus explore opposing conceptions of free will and moral responsibility. The first posits that individuals sometimes possess the freedom to act otherwise, making them backward-looking morally responsible for their actions. The second argues that humans lack such freedom; thus, their behavior is theoretically predictable, rendering them only forward-looking morally responsible. This paper suggests that these two views create an interpsychic conflict between the drive to control—satisfied by the first view, which implies we control our actions to act otherwise—and the epistemophilic drive—satisfied by the second view, which offers determinants of our behavior that can be known. By examining clinical situations, two responses to this conflict are presented: Some subjects pursue knowledge of their inner necessities, thereby weakening persecutory guilt tied to backward-looking responsibility; others resist such knowledge to preserve their sense of control. This dynamic unfolds in the transference-countertransference relationship when the analyst’s position shifts from one of the triangular Oedipal roles to a fourth position—the oracle, who intimately knows one’s internal necessities.