Are there natural laws of amorous behavior ?

Admitting the existence of immutable natural laws governing human behavior is opposed to cultural relativism, which still permeates dominant thought quite deeply. Wikipedia gives the following definition:

Cultural relativism is a thesis according to which individual beliefs relate to the culture in which they are formulated. Cultural relativism is sometimes reduced to its component of moral relativism, the thesis according to which it is not possible to determine an absolute or universal morality but that morality emerges from social customs and other human institutions. This relativism sees moral values as applicable only within cultural boundaries.

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The idea that certain natural laws of behavior derive from our genetic data therefore seems to oppose cultural relativism. This would however be proof of a very reductive conception of genetic determinism. We recognize here the famous controversy between the innate and the acquired which marked the beginning of the 20th century. It has been known for a long time now that hereditary data and learning are inseparable, the former “providing” for learning as a means of development and adaptation to the environment, and learning being capable of modulating very widely. expression of genetically determined potentialities. Epigenetics and the theories of complex systems suggest greater adaptation capacities than the first geneticists thought and bring new arguments to relativists.

The point of view of metapsycanalysis is more nuanced: the observation of the behaviors of different individuals in different cultures shows that there are universal constants. For example the existence of sexual impulses linked to amorous impulses. The expression of these impulses can take different forms according to the cultures, but the existence of a common denominator makes it possible to postulate that the guidelines of these behaviors are innate. We can therefore draw a line between the forms of culture which allow the expression of these impulses, and those which repress them to the point of causing suffering.

It is therefore what I call “the heuristic of non-suffering” which allows here also to define a constructive position, which does not exclude any part of reality: cultural relativism is a certain thing, each individual being conditioned by the data of its culture; but these data can conform to instinctual requirements as they are genetically programmed, or on the contrary exceed certain limits of adaptability to the point that psychic disorders appear in the form of suffering or frustration. If it should be remembered, the heuristic of non-suffering is the principle according to which all suffering can reveal a transgression of natural laws. For example, the fact that the consumption of French fries induces cardiovascular disorders suggests that this consumption is contrary to the natural laws of food. The fact that sexual prohibitions induce neurotic disorders whose consequences are felt in the form of frustration or love suffering would also suggest that some of these prohibitions are contrary to the natural laws of human behavior.

There is nothing to exclude that certain sufferings, on the other hand, have natural causes, for example during bereavement, or during a fatal accident: this is why it is a question of heuristics and not of hypothesis. It is not a question of demonstrating that nature would be perfect and would not generate any suffering, but to use the observable sufferings in order to wonder about their causes and to discover possible transgressions of certain natural laws. This calls into question the very definition of a natural law: this determines the limits of behavior within which we empirically observe the absence of suffering and whose transgression is the cause of suffering. It is therefore by very definition that the transgression of a natural law is pathogenic. Conversely, the heuristic of non-suffering makes it possible to bring to light the natural laws of behavior, whenever some of them are obscured by culture.

Insofar as natural laws exist, it is possible to define a natural morality, or more exactly the set of possible natural morals: it is a question of delimiting the ranges of expression (the different forms) that behaviors can take. without generating suffering or structural disturbances, at the same time as the limits that the prohibitions cannot cross without harming the individual or the group.

This conception breaks down the opposition that certain philosophers or moralists intend to establish between on the one hand morality and on the other through instincts, the first being a conquest of civilization and the second the heavy heritage of our animal past against which we have to struggle to gain access to humanity. The dichotomy is resolved as if by magic as soon as we can demonstrate that morality is the immediate product of our natural instincts, provided that the latter are not misled by a culture too far removed from our instinctual potentialities, by wobbly psychosexual structures, in particular an oversized ego, or even by mental automatisms due for example to denatured food.

Human nature itself is responsible for organizing the implementation of a natural morality: when certain limits are transgressed, impulses appear to stigmatize the transgression. Observation shows that these drives, which can already be observed in children, are extremely complex and diverse. They appear in the form of more or less aggressive or suicidal simulacra. One can consider them as a coherent whole, which I baptized “excalibur impulses” because they bring into play, like the famous sword , a certain aggressiveness, but at the same time a deep, innate sense of justice and truth.

For example, the emotional reactions aroused by the discovery of an adulterous relationship, usually deciphered under the aegis of jealousy, can also be understood as aiming to denounce an error in behavior. It is then necessary to examine more closely what is the exact target of the impulses, that is to say where exactly the error lies: it can be either a stigmatization of any violation of marital fidelity, or of the denunciation of a more subtle error compromising the metapsychic function of love. An analysis of this type relating to all love situations that are sources of suffering makes it possible to define much more precisely what is either contrary or conforms to natural laws. The question of adultery leads for example to a revolutionary conception of the triangular constellation.

In summary, it is obvious that certain natural laws govern our amorous and sexual behaviors: they are defined simply by the limits that these behaviors must respect so as not to directly or indirectly induce suffering in the individual or in his partners. Another definition is to say that these laws are such that their transgression causes the failure of the metapsychic function of love and its sexual expression. However, it turns out that the limits defined by these two criteria coincide exactly: the behaviors which induce prolonged suffering are also those which inhibit the metasexual function.