Narcissism as a moral evil

Abstract

Narcissism is one of the most widely debated toxic and destructive personality structures today, however key aspects of narcissism remain blurred both to practitioners, to health policy decision makers, and to victims and survivors of narcissistic abuse. To address a part of this blurred phenomenology of narcissism from a philosophical point of view, yet one that is relevant to psychotherapy, this paper focuses on the diagnostic issues between narcissism as a personality structure and Narcissistic Personality Disorder as a diagnosis. This distinction reflects a number of key controversies in the medicalization of personality failures which are traditionally subject to moral qualification. An understanding of narcissism in moral terms, and an association of the concepts of moral evil with mental disorder, allows for a re-conceptualization of narcissism as an ethical and cultural challenge with clinical ramifications and opens up a new vista on how narcissism can be philosophically viewed and institutionally treated in order to prevent it from generating the ultimate damage on the organic relationships in which hundreds of thousands of narcissists are engaged.