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Abstract

This paper discusses the value and importance of examples in Kantian terms, and how students can cultivate their moral disposition through the use of examples in education. It is argued that students should not just copy or imitate examples automatically, nor appraise them unreflectively and uncritically. They should instead be enabled to think for themselves in the position of the other and consistently, through the use of examples. This paper also discusses the extent to which students in teacher education programmes in Sweden were enabled to cultivate a moral disposition through the use of literature which unveils a design of education in national, European and cosmopolitan terms. However, since it seems that they lacked such opportunities it is argued that they were not enabled to cultivate their moral disposition through the use of the above-mentioned literature.

Keywords

Immanuel Kant examples cosmopolitan education moral disposition

Introduction

What is the role of examples, current designs and ideas for a design of education in a cosmopolitan manner? It is argued, in the first and second parts of this paper, that students and others should cultivate their moral disposition and this they can do when they are the source of their own thinking, enlarge it, and maintain their freedom to do so using examples. In the third part it is argued that since most students in teacher training programmes in Sweden have had no literature that explicitly addresses and discusses ideas for a design of education in national, European, and cosmopolitan terms, they have not been able to appraise such designs through the use of literature which discloses the above-mentioned in relation to maxims of understanding. Lacking an opportunity to appraise the aforementioned designs, they have been unable to cultivate their moral disposition and to pursue the objects of morality, namely their freedom and the highest good through the use of such examples.

Maxims of understanding

Being the source of your own thinking

The first maxim – ‘to think for oneself' (Kant, 2000, 5: 294) – says that each of us should be the source of our own thinking about examples and that we ought to exercise our freedom to think for ourselves – ‘the maxim of a reason that is never passive' (Kant, 2000, 5: 294). We should therefore actively use our reason and not let others do the thinking for us. Nor should we let our thinking be informed unquestioningly and uncritically by habit, practice, tradition or specific beliefs, values and norms of action, whether at the workplace or in the design of education in a specific nation-state. Kant says, ‘The tendency toward … heteronomy of reason, is called prejudice' (Kant, 2000, 5: 294) and is informed by the principle that we ought not to act merely in the interest of specific desires, beliefs, values and norms of action and use others merely as a means to some further ends (see Kant, 1998c 6: 26–53 on the principle of self-love and human beings' propensity to subordinate morality to self-love and make it the determining ground of their will). To guard against prejudice and this propensity we actively use our reason. That is, we regulate our tendency ‘toward heteronomy of reason' by creating a reflective gap between our beliefs, values and norms of action and our attitude toward them – the ‘subjective private conditions of [our own] judgment' (Kant, 2000, 5: 295). Here we challenge and change these conditions and their impacts on ourselves and in our conversations: we think for ourselves.

Enlarging your thinking

The second maxim – ‘To think in the position of everyone else … sets [us, for Kant] apart from the subjective private conditions of the judgment, within which so many others are as if Bracketed, and reflects on [our] own judgment from a universal standpoint (which [we] can only determine by putting [ourselves] into the standpoint of others)' (Kant, 2000, 5: 295). It requires us to identify what affects our own thinking: beliefs, values, or a specific norm against which a specific object or person is appraised. We then inquire into the effect(s) these have on our thinking. Hence, the second maxim requires us to acknowledge and respond responsibly to whatever affects our own thinking. That is, it demands that we enlarge our own thinking, and this we do not do merely when we empathically orientate ourselves towards the other's perspective but also when we freely exercise our humanity, that is, our rational powers in practice; we then also liberate ourselves from the objects of our minds ‘in an attitude of disinterested contemplation, not by a practical concern of the object, but by the free and harmonious play of the cognitive faculties of imagination and understanding' (Guyer, 2000a: xvii). One difference between an emphatic orientation and the idea of adopting the other's perspective and the position which is favoured in this paper is that the first two seem to imply an interested attitude towards an object, while this paper's position also implies a disinterested attitude, one which arises ‘solely from the contemplation of their objects without regard to any purposes that can be fulfilled or interests that can be served by their existence' (Guyer, 2000a: xxviii). To cultivate one’s moral disposition does not, then, mean that we disrespect or reify the other, or merely use the other as a means to some further end. On the contrary, it suggests that we also take our responsibility to engage in the free and harmonious play between our understanding and imagination and allow the other to do the same; and that we express our respect and love for the other. Kant says:

The duty of love for one’s neighbour can, accordingly, also be expressed as the duty to make other’s ends my own (provided only that these are not immoral). The duty of respect for my neighbour is contained in the maxim not to degrade any other to a mere means to my ends (not to demand that another throw [him- or herself] away in order to slave for my end). (Kant, 1996b, 6: 450)

The second maxim therefore encourages us to acknowledge and respond to the limitations of our own thinking – and the other’s thinking too. It requires us also to enlarge our thinking so that we are open to the possibility of thinking differently, both from our own perspective and from the other’s; and we do so also in this free play between imagination and understanding, comparing our judgments with new judgments. This, in turn, requires a disinterested attitude on the behalf of the person making the judgment (Kant, 2000, §1–5, discusses such an attitude which characterizes our judgments of beauty). But if we limit our thinking by actual judgments, believing that judging to be correct only if in agreement with how others judge similar situations, then we do not liberate ourselves from ‘the limitations that contingently attach to our own judging' (Kant, 2000, 5: 294), nor do we then necessarily use our imagination or reason to expand the limitations of our own understanding and think anew: we then just copy or imitate others’ use of judgments, and this we cannot do without becoming bored with ourselves or, to use the words of Stanley Cavell, the ‘slaves of our slavishness' (Cavell, 1990: 47; see also Roth, 2014 for a discussion on this and similar issues, in particular what it requires to render ourselves efficacious and autonomous).

These maxims together suggest, for Kant, that we should consider whether we do think for ourselves, and how our thinking is influenced by certain habits, roles or functions and so on. We should also respond responsibly to them by using our reason publicly as well as privately. We use it privately when we are merely motivated by, and act in, accordance with a particular role or function or some other identity, in the present context in ethnic, gender and/or religious terms or in terms of a workplace or a design of education. We use it publicly, when we release ourselves from how we take ‘things to be a certain way' (Merritt, 2011: 234; see also Kant 1996a, 8: 35), and this we do when we acknowledge and problematize our beliefs, values, norms of action, roles and functions as well as our attitude toward them publicly; we can then come to think differently and constructively about how we think about the other, ourselves and the world. This mean that we do not automatically or mechanically submit ourselves to specific beliefs, values and the like; this would be to abandon ‘the freedom to think, and subject thinking, like other trades, to the country’s rules and regulations. And so freedom in thinking finally destroys itself if it tries to proceed in independence of the laws of reason' (Kant, 1996c, 8: 146). This paper takes Kant to mean that we cannot coherently reject the status of the principles of practical reason – the laws of reason, such as the principle of humanity, and the principle of autonomy (see below) – while at the same time thinking of ourselves as free agents in the public sphere. This is because the principles of practical reason are constitutive of our agency and serve as internal guides for us when we set ends, distance ourselves from them, reflect upon them, possibly challenge and change them at need (see Korsgaard 2008, 2009; Reath 2008, 2010 on the principles of practical reason in constitutive terms). Kant thinks, therefore, that the ‘use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among human beings' (Kant, 1996a, 8: 35). This also requires that our thinking is consistent.

Maintaining your freedom

The third maxim – the consistent way of thinking – is the most difficult one to achieve, and ‘can only be achieved through the combination of the first two and after frequent observance of them has made them automatic' (Kant, 2000, 5: 295). It is challenging and hard work, and requires us to cultivate our virtue – our moral strength – to fulfil our duty and enable ourselves (and others) to cultivate the moral strength to ‘use humanity, whether in [our] own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means' (Kant, 1998b, 4: 429). This principle of humanity suggests that we confer value both on the specific ends we set as worthy to achieve, and also on others and ourselves as rational, value-conferring beings (see Korsgaard, 1996 for an interpretation of this principle in terms of rational value-conferring beings). To view us in such terms is to understand us as rational beings capable of freely exercising our humanity – our rational powers in conversation. We are enjoined to do this not just occasionally but regularly to maintain our freedom. The principle of humanity suggests, moreover, that when we act in agreement with and are motivated by it, we frustrate our inclination to act more or less immediately upon our desires, expectations, beliefs, values and norms, and our tendency to refrain from examining any of them and their impact on others and ourselves. We then also respond responsibly to particular influences on our thinking, learning to regulate them and our responses. Thus we confer value both on the ends we set and on ourselves as rational beings capable of promoting and pursuing everyone’s morally permissible ends. The principle suggests, too, that we confer value on our capacity to distance ourselves from our personal ends, reflect upon them and possibly also challenge and change them at need. Further, since freedom of thought depends on the freedom to think ‘in community with others to whom we communicate our thoughts, and who communicate theirs with us' (Kant, 1996c, 8: 144), we maintain ‘the dignity of humanity' (Kant, 2007, 9: 488–489) when we maintain our freedom to set and pursue ends compatible to everyone else’s freedom to do the same. We cannot, therefore, enlarge our own thinking in isolation or in solitude, only in the social and public sphere; it is a life-shaping endeavour and hard work. Kant says:

The freedom to communicate one’s thoughts, judgments, [and] cognitions is certainly the only[,] most certain means to test one’s cognitions properly … and to verify them. And he who takes away this freedom is to be regarded as the worst enemy of the extension of human cognition, indeed, of men themselves. For just by this means he takes away from men the one true means they still possess for ever uncovering, becoming aware of, and correcting the frequent deception of their own understanding and its false steps … Men have, as it were, a calling to use their reason socially. (Kant, 1992: 118–119)

Hence we see that we ought to use our reason socially and publicly in education and elsewhere, and that one of our worst enemies is our propensity to hinder each other or ourselves from doing so freely. Additionally, we show ourselves to be capable of acting upon the idea of freedom when we comply with the principles of humanity and autonomy, namely ‘the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law' (Kant, 1998b, 4: 432). This we do when we freely use our rational powers to give universal law, which, for Kant, is an original right of human reason (despite the fallibility of human beings to comply with the above-mentioned principles). He says in a famous passage in his Critique of Pure Reason:

[T]he freedom to exhibit the thoughts and doubts which one cannot resolve oneself for public judgment without thereupon being decried as a malcontent and a dangerous citizen. This lies already in the original right of human reason, which recognizes no other judge than universal human reason itself, in which everyone has a voice; and since all improvement of which our condition is capable must come from this, such a right is holy, and must not be curtailed. (Kant, 1998a: A 752/B 780)

It is, however, not merely a question of struggling to avoid curtailing ‘the original right of human reason', and of cultivating our moral character so that we can set, select and pursue those ends that allow ‘each agent the same freedom to set and pursue [the morally permissible] ends [of all]' (Guyer, 2000b: 339). It is also a question of promoting ‘the conditions for the successful exercise of agency in both ourselves and others by developing capacities for the successful pursuit of all sorts of possible ends' (Guyer, 2000b: 341). This paper takes this to mean that we responsibly cultivate our technical, pragmatic and moral predispositions (see Kant, 2006: 321–333), namely, our capacities to use objects and each other for the fulfilment of certain ends, while at the same time respecting each other as ends in themselves and not merely as a means to some further end (see also below). It also involves our capacities to promote the conditions for ‘successful exercise’. Further, we should not let our will be determined more or less automatically by norms of action, practice, or tradition within specific cultures, workplaces, and designs of education. Another injunction is that we ought, acting responsibly, to have our will determined by the moral law, so that we ‘promote the actual fulfilment of the particular ends of ourselves and others by creating a condition in which, if the permissible ends of one person cannot be fulfilled by that person’s own capacities and efforts, they will be fulfilled by the efforts of others' (Guyer, 2000b: 341). We should therefore not just avoid hindering the other from setting and pursuing his or her morally permissible ends; we should also seek the conditions needed for us to preserve and promote the capacity for the pursuit of everyone’s morally permissible ends. In addition, when we take things to be a certain way, we do not merely disconnect, but also alienate ourselves from our freedom to employ our reason and imagination in conversations. Kant says: ‘now anyone who ceded himself, with all his powers, to the disposition of another, and thus voluntarily enslaved himself, would alienate this freedom; he would treat his person as a thing, and this he could not do' (Vigilantius, 1997, 27: 594). We cannot ‘cede’ ourselves, because if we did, we would just view others and ourselves merely as means to ends, and not as rational value-conferring beings capable of reflecting on, challenging and changing ends that restrict everyone’s freedom to pursue their own happiness in proportion to virtue. Here are meant those ends that are permissible within ‘the bounds set by moral law as a limiting condition' (Guyer, 2000b: 3). That is, we should reflect upon, challenge and change them at need, and not just merely submit to them if ever (such as current designs and practices, values, and norms of action) accepting them as the determining ground of our will; we should instead respond responsibly to others and ourselves by reminding us of the value of exercising the free use of our reason in practice.

To exercise our freedom and cultivate our moral disposition, then, we have to maintain the free use of our reason and imagination in education and elsewhere. We should, therefore, strive to regulate our inclinations as well as those of others when we set and pursue our (morally permissible) ends; and to cultivate our virtue to do so, continuously, in social intercourse. This means, for Kant, that we struggle with ourselves and against our tendency to comply with and be motivated by some function or practical identity, in ethnic and/or religious terms or in terms of gender, at a particular workplace or following a specific design of education; or, in short, that we merely submit ‘to the country’s rules and regulations'. Such an endeavour also requires that we act under the lawful constraints on ourselves, that is, moral law, and that we use real and not merely fictional and logical examples in, inter alia, our conversations in education and elsewhere. It is to this that this paper now turns.

Cultivating a moral disposition through the use of examples such as current designs and ideas for a cosmopolitan design of education

How, then, do we learn to comply with the principles of practical reason and ground a moral character? Kant thinks that we do so through the use of examples (e.g. Kant, 1998c, 6: 109). He thinks, too, that we learn not merely the logical and fictional possibility of virtue, but also the real possibility to comply with the principles of practical reason, through the use of real examples; and that teachers to ground a moral character [in students, have to enable them to learn] the duties that they have to fulfill as much as possible by examples (Kant, 2007, 9: 488). Kant, however, stresses the danger of using only fictional examples because these could too easily just encourage fantasy, which, in the words of Guyer, ‘could lead not merely to frustration but to actual neglect of our real moral duties' (Guyer, 2012: 135). Kant says:

But I do wish that educators would spare their pupils examples of so-called noble (supermeritorious) actions, with which our sentimental writings so abound, and would expose them all only to duty and to the worth that a human being can and must give himself in his own eyes by consciousness of not having transgressed it; for, whatever runs up into empty wishes and longings for inaccessible perfection produces mere heroes of romance who, while they pride themselves on their feeling for extravagant greatness, release themselves in return from the observance of common and everyday obligation, which then seems to them insignificant and petty. (Kant, 1997, 5: 155)

We see, then, that it is important for Kant that educators use real and not merely logical and fictional examples of human conduct. Such examples give us hope and inspiration about what human beings can achieve. They can serve as ‘proof that it is really possible to act in conformity with duty' (Kant, 1996b, 6: 480). Real examples do not, however, merely disclose what is humanly feasible and what morality requires of us; they also reveal what we really (ought to) care about, namely a kind of self-reflective consciousness and a willingness to place ourselves ‘under the normative authority of the principles of [practical] reason' (Korsgaard, 2006: 57). This is read here as meaning that the source of normativity is a willingness to render us both efficacious and autonomous through the use of examples in education and elsewhere. This involves literature that unveils whether and how far education discloses a national and European design and ideas for a cosmopolitan design of education (see below). Hence the necessity to place ourselves under the rational obligation to cultivate ourselves as moral beings able to pursue the morally permissible ends of all and not merely the personal ends of a few. We moralize ourselves in education and elsewhere when we acknowledge and respond to the limitations of our own thinking in conversations and when we can act responsibly as the source of our own thinking, enlarge it, maintain our freedom to do so, and think anew. Technically, this means, as we have seen, that we are capable of using objects in our environment to fulfil or pursue our ends or those of a specific workplace or a nation-state, in particular if these do not restrict or hinder free use of our reason. Pragmatically, this involves civilizing ourselves, that is, cultivating good manners, politeness, and required and relevant good behaviour, for example at our workplace or in a nation-state: ‘a certain prudence in virtue of which one is able to use all human beings for one’s own final purposes' (Kant, 2007, 9: 450). Kant continues:

One must also pay attention to moralization. The human being should not merely be skilled for all sorts of ends but should also acquire the disposition to choose nothing but good ends. Good ends are those which are necessarily approved by everyone and which can be the simultaneous ends of everyone. (Kant, 2007, 9: 450)

Moralization is, however, an open-ended process, with no final end (see Guyer, 2014, for a discussion on this in terms of perfectionism). It requires teachers to enable students to acquire a moral disposition (see Kant, 2007, 9: 499). This, for Kant, is distinguished from mere habit but involves an openness to the unknown, the not-yet-born self; teachers therefore have a moral obligation towards students as ends in themselves, regardless of their ethnicity, nationality, language, religion or any other substantive identity and/or function. All parts of education should therefore, for Kant, aim at the moralization of students, not merely enabling them to cultivate their technical and pragmatic dispositions within specific nation-states. The design of education must, then, ‘be made in a cosmopolitan manner' (Kant, 2007, 9: 448), that is, in a manner in which students are enabled to learn to recognize themselves and others as citizens of the world or rather a moral community – a realm of ends, ‘a systematic union of rational beings through common laws' (Kant, 1998b, 4: 433). That is a systematic union of rational value-conferring beings who comply with the principles of practical reason and hence adopt the free use of reason and imagination, not merely the customs or practices of a specific society, workplace or nation-state; or the current designs of education in national and European terms. Students must, therefore, learn to recognize, ‘the moral standing of all people around the world' (Louden, 2000: 55), not just of people with specific identities within the nation-state or the European Union (EU). They have to learn to recognize others and themselves as rational, value-conferring beings capable of choosing nothing but good ends. Hence, for teachers to enable students to cultivate a moral disposition,

… an interest in [the highest good in the world] must come to pass. One must make children familiar with this interest so that they may warm their souls with it. They must rejoice at the best for the world even if it is not to the advantage of their fatherland or to their own gain. (Kant, 2007, 9: 499)

We see, then, that Kant thinks that education should be directed not merely to vocational aims, even though such aims obviously are of importance. It should also enable students to cultivate their moral predisposition and pursue the highest good. This requires them to exercise their ‘autonomy, the collective realization of which would be the “final end” or “highest good” consisting of the maximal distribution of human happiness consistent with and indeed resulting from the maximal realization of human virtue' (Guyer, 2006: 6). It is believed that such an education would enable students to break out of the self-centred image of national education, or education within the EU, with its emphasis on vocational interests and the reinforcement of loyalty to the nation, or the EU itself (see Roth, 2012). It could give them the opportunity to think for themselves, in the position of everyone else and consistently through the use of literature that discloses not merely a design of education in, for example, a national and European context, but also a cosmopolitan manner. It can enable students to appraise not merely current designs but also ideas for a design of education in cosmopolitan terms in virtue of the principles of practical reason and in relation to the maxims of understanding discussed above.

How, then, can education enable students to cultivate their moral disposition through the use of such examples? To begin ‘[t]houghts without content are empty” (Kant, 1998a: A 51/B 75); students need examples to think about, in the position of everyone else and consistently, otherwise their thinking will have nothing to work with. But they should not just imitate or copy examples. Imitation has, for Kant, ‘no place at all in matters of morality' (Kant, 1998b, 4: 409). Examples ‘serve only for encouragement, that is, they put beyond doubt the practicability of what the law commands and make intuitive what the practical rule expresses more generally, but they can never justify setting aside their true original, which lies in reason, and guiding oneself by examples' (Kant, 1998b, 4: 409). This surely means that students should not just appraise any example in education in relation to current designs but also in relation to maxims of understanding; otherwise they will just appraise against a current design without also reflecting upon or challenging it. And they cannot reflect unless they want and dare to use their rational powers freely in their conversations. Kant says that students (as well as others) should have the ‘courage to make use of [their] own understanding [and reason] … without direction from another' (Kant, 1996a, 8: 35) to appraise examples, which ‘first [ought to] be judged by principles of morality' (Kant, 1998b, 4: 408). The goal is to help students moralize themselves and ‘feel the progress of [their] faculty of judgment' (Kant, 1997, 5: 154). This is taken to mean that they can cultivate their judgment by being exposed to literature that discloses not merely a design of education in national and European terms but also ideas for a design of education in a cosmopolitan manner. Such a design can, it is believed, enable students and others to acknowledge and respond responsibly to the fact that the ‘human condition has [according to Ulrich Beck] itself become cosmopolitan' (Beck, 2006: 2); it can also enable them to think for themselves, in the position of everyone else and consistently through literature that unveils a design of education in national, European, and cosmopolitan terms. In addition, by engaging in a ‘consistent way of thinking' about examples such as current designs and a cosmopolitan design, they do not just take things as they stand; they engage in the continuous development of their moral disposition, through the cultivation of their moral and aesthetic judgment.

Is a moral disposition being cultivated in teacher education in Sweden through the use of examples such as current designs and ideas for a cosmopolitan design of education?

We have seen that the power of judgment cannot, for Kant, be reduced to the ability to copy and imitate other persons’ uses of utterances in relevantly similar situations. It is also about the free play between our understanding and imagination, and creating new concepts and utterances. Yet we limit our freedom to think for ourselves when we restrict our capacity to judge or when we think in a more or less ordained quest to copy or imitate other persons’ applications of utterances; or when we merely appraise specific examples in relation to current designs, without also appraising them or the designs in relation to maxims of understanding. If we limit our power of judgment in this sense, we also restrict our capacity to match our judgments ‘not so much to the actual as to the … possible judgments of others [and ourselves]' (Kant, 2000, 5: 294). We then fail to enlarge our own thinking or maintain our freedom to use our reason socially and publicly, or to engage in the free and harmonious play between our imagination and understanding. In addition, the cultivation of our power of judgment in aesthetic and moral terms is, for Kant, a talent for which no determinate rule could be given (see Kant, 2000, §17–22, and §46–50 for discussions on whether and how far a rule or current standard can provide us with determinate concepts to cultivate our power of aesthetic judgment. Kant says that such an undertaking ‘is impossible and intrinsically self-contradictory' (Kant, 2000: 5: 232)). Our power of (aesthetic) judgment is ‘a special talent, which cannot be learned, but only practised' (Kant, 1998a: A133/B172). It can, for him, be cultivated through the use of examples. He says: ‘This is also the sole and great utility of examples: that they sharpen the power of judgment' (Kant, 1998a: A134/B173). The cultivation of our power of judgment (in aesthetic and moral terms) is therefore an open-ended and never-ending process, one that we need to cultivate unceasingly through the use of examples in education and elsewhere in relation to maxims of understanding (see also Kant, 1996b, 6: 390 for a discussion on ‘a playroom (latitudo) for free choice in following (complying with) the [moral] law'). Further, we have also seen that we restrict our freedom to think, for ourselves and from the perspectives of others, when we let our will be restricted by some determinate way of appraising an example. When, for example, we let a current design of education determine our will, then we just become concerned with practical issues and with how far we are achieving the ends in the current design. When this happens, we do not necessarily practise disinterested contemplation, comply with the principles of practical reason or appraise the current design in relation to maxims of understanding. We must do this, however, if we want to break out of our self-centred images of ourselves and others, affected by, in the present context, current designs of education within the nation and the EU (see Roth 2007a on education being ‘designed in relation to the growth of the nation-state' (ibid. Roth, 2007a: 10) and Roth 2012 on education being designed in relation to the growth of the EU; see also Roth 2006 and 2007b similarly).

Teacher education in Sweden

How far, then, do teacher education programmes in Sweden enable students to cultivate their moral disposition through literature, disclosing not merely a design of education in a national and European manner but also a cosmopolitan one? This paper has explored this question by seeing how far literature in the mandatory courses for all student teachers, regardless of their specialization for primary or secondary school, explicitly addresses ideas for the above-mentioned design in relation to a national and European education. Mandatory courses in the following seven major teacher education programmes in Sweden have been analysed (in alphabetical order): the University of Gothenburg; Linköping University; Malmö University; Stockholm University; Södertörn University; Umeå University; and Örebro University. The mandatory courses were included in the core of education science; they ‘may [according to the report entitled En hållbar lärarutbildning [A Sustainable Teacher Education Programme] be divided into the following eight areas' (SOU, 2008: 27): the organization of education and its conditions, foundations of democracy; curriculum theory and didactics; theory of science, research methods and statistics; development and learning; special needs education; social relations, conflict management and leadership; assessment and grading; and evaluation and development work. These courses are together worth 60 higher-education credits.

The study took place during spring 2012. Anni-Kaisa Kemppainen of the Unity of Early Childhood Education, University of Jyväskylä, collected all the material. Literature was sought that explicitly addresses and discusses ideas for a design of education in a cosmopolitan manner in relation to a national and European design. Discussions in books or chapters, or articles that explicitly addressed and discussed this problem were searched for. Also, titles of books, chapters in books and articles that used the words cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan or world citizen were looked for. No literature was however, found that explicitly addressed and discussed ideas for a design of education in a cosmopolitan manner in relation to a national and European design (however, one book chapter was found that used the word cosmopolitanism at Göteborg University (see Olsson, 2012); it was in the reading-lists in the following courses: ‘Styrsystem, organisation och bedömning för lärare åk F-3'; ‘Styrsystem, organisation och bedömning för lärare åk 4–6'; ‘Styrsystem, organisation och bedömning för lärare åk 7–9'; and ‘Styrsystem, organisation och bedömning för gymnasielärare'. Olsson (2012) considers the subject of tourism for teachers in upper-secondary education. He argues that it is organized around the nation-state and that it therefore does not enable students to see the subject in a cosmopolitan perspective. He does not, however, address or discuss ideas for a design of education – in general – in a cosmopolitan manner in relation to a national and European system).

Conclusions

The fact that most students had no literature that explicitly addressed and discussed ideas for a design of education in a cosmopolitan manner suggests that they were not enabled to view themselves as the source of their own thinking through such literature. Secondly, it suggests that they were not given the possibility to think in the position of everyone else and therefore not enabled to enlarge their own thinking, nor were they enabled to maintain their freedom to do so continuously through such literature. This suggests, in turn, that they were unable to cultivate their own judgment by thinking about how things stand in relation to a design of education not merely in a national and European manner, but also in a cosmopolitan manner. Hence they were not necessarily enabled to escape the self-centredness that was keeping them in thrall to the current designs of education in which the interests of the nation-state and/or the EU are at the forefront. Thirdly, the above suggests that students were not enabled to use their reason socially and publicly about the issues, problems and challenges we are facing in terms of a national and European design of education as compared to one designed in a cosmopolitan manner. Fourthly, students were not enabled to cultivate their freedom (negatively and positively construed), nor to engage in the free and harmonious play between their understanding and imagination and think anew through the above-mentioned literature. Fifthly, students were therefore not enabled to set and pursue the highest good, namely the realization of a systematic union of rational value-conferring beings, who under ideal conditions pursue happiness in proportion to virtue through such literature. Most if not all students were, therefore, not enabled to appraise current designs in relation to literature that disclosed ideas for a cosmopolitan education design. Consequently, they could not cultivate their moral disposition through literature that explicitly addressed and discussed a design of education both in a national and European manner and in a cosmopolitan one.

However, even though it seems that most students were not enabled responsibly to cultivate their moral dispositions using appropriate literature, this does not mean that they failed to moralize themselves, or that teachers did not enable them to do so. On the contrary, since ‘self-moralization' is in principle possible, teachers and students could have moralized themselves, in their conversations, without the suggested literature. But this ‘do-it-yourself’ approach is not what has been explored here. This paper has inquired into how far the core of education science has unveiled literature that discloses ideas for a design of education in a cosmopolitan manner in relation to a national and European design (and just one book chapter at one university was found). This suggests that most if not all students have not been enabled to cultivate their moral disposition, that is, ‘bring forth morality' (Kant, 2007, 9: 446) and ground a moral character, nor pursue the objects of morality, namely their freedom and the highest good through the use of examples such as current designs, and ideas for a cosmopolitan design of education.

Footnotes

Funding

This research has been carried out within the research project – Teaching students to become cosmopolitan citizens? Prospects and challenges for Swedish teacher education, and is financed by the Swedish Research Council. Professor Klas Roth is the scientific leader.

Klas Roth, is Professor in the Department of Education at Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. He has published a book on Kant and Education – Interpretations and Commentary together with Chris W. Surprenant (2011), and articles on topics related to Kant’s practical philosophy in Educational Philosophy and Theory (2011), Educational Theory (2011), Ethics and Education (2012), and Ethics and Global Politics (2012). He has also published a symposium on Stanley Cavell’s educational thought in Educational Theory (2010) and a special issue on Kant and Cavell in Journal of Aesthetic Education (2014) together with Martin Gustafsson and Viktor Johansson. Currently he is working on the moral and political philosophy of Immanuel Kant, his views on aesthetics and radical evil, and its implication for education.

References

Beck

(2006) Cosmopolitan Vision, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

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The role of examples,current designs and ideas for a cosmopolitan design of education

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Maxims of understanding

Being the source of your own thinking

Enlarging your thinking

Maintaining your freedom

Cultivating a moral disposition through the use of examples such as current designs and ideas for a cosmopolitan design of education

Is a moral disposition being cultivated in teacher education in Sweden through the use of examples such as current designs and ideas for a cosmopolitan design of education?

Teacher education in Sweden

Conclusions

Footnotes

Funding

References