Most psychoanalytic writers have followed developmental psychologists such as Piaget and Kohlberg in viewing the acquisition of morality as requiring language skills and, consequently, originating after infancy. Even psychoanalytic theorists who emphasize the mother–infant dyad (such as Winnicott) and those whose focus is the therapeutic relationship (for example, Mitchell, Aron) hypothesize infancy as but a preparatory phase. By contrast, I claim that ethics originates in the deontic (versus epistemic) features of adult–infant communications. Specifically, the desiderative and instrumental functions of adult–infant messages (Laplanche) establish the rights and obligations of relationships. The early origins of ethics suggest why confusions and uncertainties are inevitable in adult relationships, accompanied more often by feelings of shame than guilt. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.