Abstract
The UK’s 2016 decision to exit the European Union and the discussion surrounding it indicate that public understanding of British identity has important consequences, one way or another. Defining British identity will be an important task in the years to come. The UK government not long ago provided some guidance on the matter of British identity in their requirement that schools actively promote fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and respect of those with different faiths and beliefs. These values are not British in the parochial sense: they are forward-looking, conciliatory, cosmopolitan values. They are meant to structure and guide any commitments to more particular features of what British identity might include. Because they are rational and somewhat abstract, it is not easy to see how they might be cultivated in children (who are not fully rational) or how they might fit together with the non-rational aspects of the human person. Kant’s account of education is seen to face similar challenges and is seen by some as unsuccessful in dealing with them. I argue this is not the case and that his idea of education contains a viable and philosophically interesting account of how values like these may be integrated into a theory of education that takes seriously the whole person, rational and non-rational aspects alike. I begin by outlining Kant’s conception of rational action before examining three further features in his account: habit, shame, and desire (including pleasure). I conclude by looking briefly at some of Kant’s work that reveals how education is oriented toward the formation of a cosmopolitan society with citizens whose duties and sympathies extend beyond the immediate horizon of their local community. I argue that Kantian ethics therefore provides a helpful philosophical roadmap, as it were, for the successful cultivation of cosmopolitan, British values.
Introduction
The UK’s 2016 decision to exit the European Union and discussion surrounding it indicate that public understanding of British identity has important consequences, one way or another. Following the decision for so-called Brexit, there is concern that a negative form of identity politics is gaining strength in the UK (for example, see Reeves, 2016). Defining British identity will be an important task in the months and years to come. As the UK prepares to withdraw from the European Union, it will be beneficial to reflect on what it is that constitutes British identity, including the core values that define Britons and the sort of society the UK hopes to be. UK government policy has previously given some guidance on this matter. In November 2014, the UK government issued a statement requiring that all schools, both independent and state-maintained, actively promote fundamental British values. This is an extension of the requirement that maintained schools “promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development of their pupils” as per section 78 of the 2002 Education Act (UK Government, 2002). What they call fundamental British values include most prominently “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs” (UK Government, 2014). They are essentially cosmopolitan values as understood, for example, by the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant: they respect the dignity and autonomy of all persons and are to be implemented in a gradual process of reform with the purpose of creating a just and peaceful society. 1 As such, these values are British not in the parochial sense, but insofar as British society endorses them. They serve to remind us that British identity is in an important sense cosmopolitan, and they provide a structure within which more particular features of what Britishness might entail are to take shape.
Given that these values might come across as abstract and are rational in nature, there is a question about how they might be integrated with a theory of education that takes seriously the formation of the non-rational features of a person’s character. As Graham Haydon points out, rationalistic accounts of moral education are often criticized for having naïve expectations of human behavior and concomitant deliberative processes, as well as for saying very little about the role of feeling and motivation therein (Haydon, 2005: 325). One way to address this question of integration is to look for allies in the project of cultivating cosmopolitan values and see whether they have successfully been able to integrate these values into a theory of education that takes seriously the whole person, rational and non-rational aspects alike. I believe Kant is such an ally.
Kant has been understood by some as a stern advocate of a duty or rule-based moral system, one in which the commands of cold reason trump the counsel of warmer human sentiments. Nel Noddings, for example, says, “in Kant’s ethic, the individual – as the general mechanism of practical reasoning – became central, but the individual – as actual, embodied person – became irrelevant. The individual as a richly complex, social being was reduced to a reasoning machine” (Noddings, 2012: 178). Noddings thus rejects an ethic of principles as ambiguous and unstable (Noddings, 2013: 5). Michael Stocker similarly claims that modern deontological ethics lack an adequate account of the person and the things that persons value, including affection, fellow feeling, and community (Stocker, 1976: 459). Bernard Williams says Kant posits a crude and ultimately false view of the emotions (Williams, 1973: 226−228). But this is not the whole story, nor is it correct. There is an often-neglected empirical side to Kant’s ethics, which he marks out in his early work but does not treat in detail until later on. 2 In his discussion of this empirical side of ethics, he offers an account of how we may form and regulate the non-rational aspects of our life and character for the purposes of morality. The Lectures on Pedagogy (LP) are a significant part of this discussion; here he attempts to answer the question of how we might effectively prepare (or educate) human beings that are not yet fully rational (children) for a life of virtue, autonomy, and enjoyment. This work was not directly published by Kant but assembled from his lecture notes by his former student Theodor Rink; nevertheless, we can be confident that the original material was written by Kant and that it reveals character formation in education as something Kant consistently thought about and was able to integrate with the rest of his moral system. Moreover, Kant’s other work shows that his account of character education is further oriented toward the formation of a cosmopolitan society with citizens whose duties and sympathies extend beyond the immediate horizon of their local community and those to whom they are similar. Like the UK government, he is aiming to create and sustain a society characterized by freedom, respect, and tolerance of difference in faith and belief (provided these beliefs respect persons and their freedom). Because they embody moral norms integral to such a society and necessary for its healthy formation, these values may be understood as cosmopolitan values. Commentary on this aspect of Kant’s work has been developed in detail by Klas Roth, among other scholars. In a recent paper in this journal Roth argues for the Kantian idea that students use moral examples to learn to think for themselves, in the position of the other, and consistently, rather than imitate these examples uncritically; for only the former and not the latter will enable them to cultivate a cosmopolitan moral disposition (Roth, 2015: 763−774). Paul Guyer has also argued that Kant does not preclude the role for examples in moral education, since he believes they can be useful for helping the child to see and feel new possibilities for moral action (Guyer, 2012: 127). In what follows, I will outline and explain how Kant believes the non-rational aspects of an individual encourage and support this cognitive capacity. That is, I will provide an interpretation of his account of character education with special attention to the non-rational aspects of human character and life. I will begin by outlining Kant’s conception of rational action before I examine three such features in his account: habit, shame, and desire (and pleasure). For Kant, of course, a kind of reason is the common thread.
The idea that emerges from his account of education is of these non-rational features of human life and character as open to rational justification and steering, so to speak, with the purpose of encouraging morally guided and autonomous agency in the child. With regards to the education of children, knowledge of the rational governance of these non-rational features is gradually acquired as the capacity to understand them increases; the important point is that at all times their use must be rationally transparent; that is, a rational justification of their use and the action toward which they are directed must be available. This should not be a particularly controversial thesis, but it does shed light on the relation between rules and the non-rational (or duty and emotion) in Kant’s ethics. Thus it shows how emotions, for example, may guide action alongside reasons on a committedly rational model of moral deliberation such as Kant’s. I will conclude by examining the link between character formation and the ideal of a cosmopolitan community, explaining how for Kant the latter provides an end for the former. In this way, I hope to outline one version of a philosophical road map toward the creation of a cosmopolitan society. As the UK government has indicated, such a society is an ideal that in various forms remains with us today.
Rational thought and action in Kantian ethics
Rational thought
It is apparent early on in the LP that thinking is of primary importance for Kant in the education of character. By thinking, he generally means the independent or internal capacity of a human being to understand what is distinct about human nature, including what ends it is capable of achieving, and to plan to order its conduct accordingly. This is evident when he says that the human being “needs his own intelligence” because he has no “foreign intelligence [that] has already taken care of everything” for him, as does the animal for which instinct governs action (Kant, 2007: 9: 441, emphasis mine). 3 In other words, when considered alongside her fellow animals, the human being has a unique capacity to consciously direct her action toward a particular, often complex, set of goals. To understand the goals Kant has in mind it is necessary to understand the relation between the several formulations of the categorical imperative first articulated in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (GR). As we will see, the first formulation (of universal law), which specifies acting from duty rather than inclination, must be supplemented by the other formulations. Knowledge of each of these formulations is only available to rational beings. Altogether they include the formulas of universal law, humanity, autonomy, and the kingdom of ends. In short, the formula of universal law highlights the capacity to act from duty or as though your maxim (reason for action) were a universal law of nature, the formula of humanity asserts the dignity and worth of every rational being, the formula of autonomy asserts that the individual who acts morally also acts autonomously, and the formula of the kingdom of ends puts forward the idea of an ideal community of rational beings that live in harmony with one another (Kant, 1996a: 4: 221, 229, 440, and 433). In this way, Kant conceives of humanity, in one sense, as something that every (rational) human being has and, in another sense, as a project that every human being should aim to achieve. The capacity to think marks one out as both a member of humanity in the first sense, and one to whom the project of humanity belongs in the second sense.
The project of humanity is a large-scale task and is wedded to Kant’s ideal of a cosmopolitan society. The sort of development he envisions is extremely thorough, “[m]any germs lie within humanity, and it is our business to develop the natural predispositions proportionally and to unfold humanity from its germs and to make it happen that the human being reaches his vocation” (Kant, 2007: 9: 445). The magnitude of this task extends to all of humanity and future generations; it is a task to be carried out “not only with regard to the present but rather for a better condition of the human species that might be possible in the future” (Kant, 2007: 9: 447). These are bold ambitions but they remain present in many ways today, though in their best forms free of the more pernicious influences of imperialism, colonialism, and the like. 4 As I’ve suggested, these ambitions are intrinsic to the requirement recently introduced into UK education policy, that schools actively promote the values of “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs” (UK Government, 2014). It is therefore worthwhile to take a closer look at how Kant believes we might achieve these ambitions through the process of education. And for Kant, the goal of bettering humanity cannot be achieved without training individuals to think. 5
Thinking is crucial because it enables us to transcend the world immediately given in our particular location in space and time, and it opens possibilities that may not otherwise be discernable. This includes possibilities for moral action. In her essay “Thinking and Moral Considerations” Hannah Arendt describes thinking as something that goes beyond knowing mere facts and something by which we move outside the world of appearances, even if our thoughts deal with “ordinary sense-given objects and not with such invisibles as concepts or ideas, the old domain of metaphysical thought” (Arendt, 1971: 424). As an extreme example of what can go wrong when individuals do not think, she describes the infamous Adolf Eichmann as someone with an authentic inability to think. He functioned in the role of prominent war criminal as well as he had under the Nazi regime; he had not the slightest difficulty in accepting an entirely different set of rules. He knew that what he had once considered his duty was now called a crime, and he accepted this new code of judgment as though it were nothing but another language rule. To his rather limited supply of stock phrases he had added a few new ones, and he was utterly helpless only when he was confronted with a situation to which none of them would apply, as in the most grotesque instance when he had to make a speech under the gallows and was forced to rely on clichés used in funeral oratory which were inapplicable in his case because he was not the survivor. Considering what his last words should be in case of a death sentence, which he had expected all along, this simple fact had not occurred to him, just as inconsistencies and flagrant contradictions in examination and cross-examinations during the trial had not bothered him. Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention which all events and facts arouse by virtue of their existence (Arendt, 1971: 417−418).
Rational motivation
The first feature says that reason is capable of motivating action, which means that people are capable of acting on the basis of reasons in the absence of favorable inclinations or in the presence of unfavorable ones. Here I follow Christine Korsgaard’s defense of reasons internalism in her “Skepticism About Practical Reason” where she argues that such rational motivation does not require that we always be motivated by good reasons, only that we be motivated by good reasons insofar as we are rational (Korsgaard, 1986: 15). 8 The point of this position is not that we are always motivated by reasons, nor is it necessarily that we must be motivated by reasons in order to perform morally praiseworthy deeds (that is another matter). Rather, the point of this position is that it is possible for reasons to play a motivational role in action. If an agent is in a sufficiently rational state of mind and, for example, realizes she has a good reason to do something, an additional motivation to do that thing is not necessary, as a good reason to do it is sufficient to motivate her to do it. In other words, the reason itself is motivating. By contrast, on the generally received Humean picture, reason cannot have this motivational role because Hume believes reason deals exclusively with judgments of cause and effect as well as abstract ideas and the relations between them (as in mathematics): on this picture reason is inert with respect to motivating action – only “passions” may perform this role (Hume, 2011: 2.3.3). This is relevant to the LP because Kant believes one of the principle goals of education is to guide the pupil in the attainment and use of her freedom, as his remark on personality makes clear, “[p]ractical education is education towards personality, the education of a freely acting being who can support itself and be a member of society, but who can have an inner value for itself” (Kant, 2007: 9: 455). Further, personality, and specifically moral personality, is defined by the ability to think and act freely in accordance with moral laws, which are grounded in reason. 9 So, for Kant, the ability to act freely entails the ability to act on the basis of (be motivated by) reasons and this is something the pupil ought to be enabled to do. This connects thinking to action, giving it, as it were, traction in the practical world.
Rational justification
The second feature says that reason must provide the standard that justifies action. A rational form of practical justification is part of cosmopolitan morality on the Kantian picture because it is meant to govern the laws and moral relationships between people in a cosmopolitan society. That is, it is meant to provide a normative backbone to support cosmopolitan practices such as tolerance and harmony between those of different cultural or religious traditions, an important practice outlined in UK government statements about the promotion of British values (UK Government, 2002). A cosmopolitan society would allow for the peaceful coexistence and exchange between people with a variety of beliefs and social practices. According to Kant, the practices and actions that follow from these beliefs must pass a rational standard of justification; in this way, moral cosmopolitanism places a limit on political cosmopolitanism by excluding practices and actions that violate this standard. This is a separate point from the first one about motivation because in many ordinary cases it will happen that reason does not motivate action but nevertheless may serve as the standard of justification for it. For example, if an office worker were to spill her coffee on her desk and in angry response to this throw her (empty) cup at the nearest passerby, this action would not be motivated by reason while the standard by which it should be evaluated may be rational. Such an act could be motivated by anger and not justified by reason because, for example, throwing the cup would bring about nothing worthwhile and only harm the passerby (and damage the cup). This illustrates how motivation and justification may come apart and so are best treated separately. In examining Kant’s account of what rational justification is, we attain a better idea as to the kinds of reasons that can motivate our action.
Kant’s account of what rational justification is consists in the capacity of the categorical imperative to reveal to the agent the permissibility or impermissibility of a given action. As mentioned above, the categorical imperative has several formulations. The first and perhaps best known of these is the formula for universal law, which requires that one act with a coherent set of maxims (a maxim is a reason for performing an action). The locus classicus for this discussion may be found in section II of the GR, where Kant reviews four cases in which a moral question is posed and the categorical imperative is employed to provide an answer (Kant, 1996a: 4: 421-423). 10 One such example concerns a man who borrows money and promises to repay it without intending to fulfill that promise. This man would be acting on the maxim, “when I believe myself to be in need of money I shall borrow money and promise to repay it, even though I know that this will never happen” (Kant, 1996a: 4: 422). Kant argues that if this man were to ask himself what would happen if his maxim were to become a universal law, he would discover he is willing an incoherent set of maxims. For he would simultaneously be willing that a lender lend him money on the condition that he pay him back, and also that he (in reality) not pay him back. This incoherence reveals that the man is being deceitful and unfair and thus making an exception of himself, for there is a disparity between how others are expected to act and how he expects himself to act. 11 As Korsgaard helpfully points out, intuitively speaking universalizing one’s maxims identifies such cases of unfairness, deception, and cheating (Korsgaard, 1996: 92). A good question to ask is why we should care about these things: why should it matter if we make an exception of ourselves in this way?
Kant provides an answer to this in the second formulation of the categorical imperative often referred to as the humanity formulation. It holds that one ought to act in such a way that one always treats humanity as an end and never as a mere means (Kant, 1996a: 4: 429). It adds content to the previous universal law formulation by identifying the proper objects of moral attention or respect, namely rational or we might say human beings. The idea is that each being endowed with even the most basic capacity of choice is capable of understanding its choices (or the ends for which it acts) as good, and so can recognize itself as a kind of authority on what is good in general. This recognition entails esteem for oneself in virtue of this capability. From this it follows that any being with such a capability deserves similar esteem. 12 Such beings are said to have dignity and stand on equal footing with one another, which is why Kant believes making an exception of oneself (as in cases of unfairness, deception, and cheating) is wrong. It violates the formula of humanity. The formula of humanity represents one way of grounding respect for persons in a normative framework. Respect for persons is a core ingredient in what have been referred to as British values, since it would seem to underwrite many of these values such as tolerance, self-esteem, and respect for democracy (in addition to the obvious value of respect for other people) (UK Government, 2002). Because these two formulas provide the primary standard that justifies action, and both rely on rational principles of coherence and the ability to choose ends, Kant’s standard of moral justification is a rational one.
This contrasts with the general Humean picture on which reason cannot play a justificatory role except in cases of means-end reasoning. Hume states his position in hyperbolic fashion when he says, “‘[t]is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger” (Hume, 2011: 2.3.3). His point is simply that reason has nothing to say when it comes to determining the ends for which an agent acts and whether those ends are right or wrong, good or bad, and so forth. Once we have determined an end, reason may help us to work out the best way to achieve it but it cannot determine what that end will be and whether it is good or bad, right or wrong. Such ends are instead determined by feelings of pain or pleasure and the aversion or propensity that we feel toward, for example, an object or course of action associated with those feelings (Hume, 2011: 2.3.3). An assertion that something is good or right amounts to an expression of feelings of pain or pleasure toward that thing and cannot contain any rational content over and above that (or at all). “The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason” (Hume, 2011: 2.3.3). This is relevant to the LP because knowledge of the above process of rational justification and an ability to carry it out is a condition on Kant’s concept of moral agency and worth. In combination with the possibility of free action, it is also a condition for moral responsibility; together these things imply that an individual can be responsible for deviations from the moral law, as Kant points out in Religion Within the Bounds of Mere Reason (Kant, 1998: 6: 35). As discussed above, to enable moral agency or personality – the ability to think and act freely in accordance with moral laws – is one of the principle goals of education and it seems to provide the psychological capacity necessary for the attainment of a society in which cosmopolitan, and British, values are respected.
Character and the non-rational: habit, shame, and desire
Habit and aptitude
I now turn to the first of the three non-rational features of character I will discuss from the LP. Kant’s tendency is to define habit in negative terms. His discussion in the LP is no exception. Habit is an enjoyment or action which has become a necessity through frequent repetition of the same pleasure or action. … The more habits one has, the less he is free and independent. It is the same with the human being as with all the other animals: they always retain a certain propensity for that to which they were accustomed early. The child must therefore be prevented from getting accustomed to anything; he must not be allowed to develop any habits. (Kant, 2007: 9: 463)
The inability of habit to express one’s inner character is why Kant uses the word “aptitude” in contrast to habit, to express the aspect of character he has in mind as an analog to or substitute for the Aristotelian idea.
14
His fullest definition of aptitude is found in the Metaphysics of Morals (ME), where he also happens to discuss habit in negative terms and using the same German expression, Angewohnheit. An aptitude (habitus) is a facility in acting and a subjective perfection of choice. – But not every such facility is a free aptitude (habitus libertatis); for if it is a habit (assuetudo), that is, a uniformity in action that has become a necessity through frequent repetition, it is not one that proceeds from freedom, and therefore not a moral aptitude. (Kant, 1996b: 6: 407) [t]he first effort in moral education is the grounding of character. Character consists in the aptitude of acting according to maxims. In the beginning these are school maxims and later maxims of humanity. In the beginning the child obeys laws. Maxims too are laws, but subjective ones; they originate from the human being’s own understanding. (Kant, 2007: 9: 481)
Because it is cultivated and requires cognitive facility, the acquisition of aptitude must be gradual. 16 This is part of the reason for why Kant emphasizes the presence of rules. He says that rules “must be found in everything that is to cultivate the understanding” and “it is very important to draw [the pupil’s] attention to a certain plan in all things” (Kant, 2007: 9: 474−475 and 481, respectively). This emphasis on rules might incline one to believe that Kant’s approach to character formation is legalistic or even oppressive, but his point is precisely to the contrary. The rules that Kant has in mind are those that admit of rational justification, and this justification is something that must be accessible to any (presumably normally functioning) human agent. Therefore, the justification for a given action or practice based on rules of this sort must be within the rational grasp of the child once she reaches a requisite stage of cognitive maturity. This is why rules are crucial to moral formation: with an education structured in this way, as the pupil’s cognitive capacities mature the normative world progressively revealed to her is one of increasing transparency as it explains features of practical life with reasons in continuity with her own. It is also a world that invites her contribution, in Kant’s language, as a member of the Kingdom of Ends. For, as she becomes capable of evaluating and either rejecting or assenting to the reasons she sees, she becomes capable of making them her own. Requiring that the educator have and make available to the pupil a justifying reason for a given action or practice in the form of a rule, helps to ensure that this is the case. In this way, the giving of reasons by a teacher to a pupil is meant to contribute to democratic society. Concerning the promotion of British, cosmopolitan, values this might involve explaining the content of these values in a way the pupil can understand.
To encourage this active cognitive capacity, Kant recommends a combination of what he calls “physical” and “moral” education. Physical education is passive and includes the kind of discipline that can only bring about habit, but he believes that it is important in strengthening the child’s “powers of mind” and preparing her to perform actions of genuine, inner moral worth (Kant, 2007: 9: 475). A contemporary example might include the value of handwriting over typing in developing the ability to synthesize material and apply concepts in novel situations. 17 Such work supports, but does not constitute, moral education. Moral education, on the other hand, is active and aims to have the pupil act “from his own maxims, not from habit, that he not only does the good, but that he does it because it is good” (Kant, 2007: 9: 475). Its aim is to bring about moral personality, the ability to act freely and consciously in accordance with moral laws. This is why in moral education the pupil “must at all times comprehend the ground of the action and its derivation from the concepts of duty” (Kant, 2007: 9: 475). For the goal is to understand and be motivated by reasons. Moral education is a kind of deep cognitive exercise that trains the pupil to think independently and explicitly about the varying degrees of moral value in different courses of action. 18 Though not sufficient to attain moral character, physical education remains an important stage in the formation of character because it prepares the child to make the transition into moral education and the attainment of moral personality. An acquired aptitude or proficiency in thinking and acting according to moral rules is the hallmark of mature moral agency.
Shame
Shame, Kant says, is something given to the human being by nature “so that he betrays himself as soon as he lies” (Kant, 2007: 9: 478). He points to three features of the use of shame in education. The first feature is the condition that it is never to be used with young children and only to be introduced in the years of adolescence. His explicit reason for this is that “it can only occur when the concept of honor has already taken root” (Kant, 2007: 9: 484). Shame is the feeling of one’s lowered esteem in the eyes of others, so it requires that one is capable of a healthy understanding and appreciation of the esteem of others in the first place. He says elsewhere in the LP that a child has “nothing to be ashamed of and should not feel ashamed” (Kant, 2007: 9: 465). It seems he believes that to do something wrong and be responsible for it requires (a) that there be a reason available in support of the judgment that some action is right or wrong and (b) that the agent in question have a capacity to understand that reason, which requires a minimal cognitive capacity on the part of that agent. It is sensible to hold that a child of a certain age does not have this capacity, at least not to a degree sufficient for full responsibility. A further reason in support of this condition is that, without the requisite cognitive capacity to understand the reason for shame, the child would only become embarrassed and shy as a result of experiencing the gestures and attitudes that accompany shame. This would be harmful for a variety of reasons, one being that it could inhibit the gradual expression of her individual and moral personality. This transitions into Kant’s own second, cautionary, point concerning shame.
This second point is that shame can have a destructive effect on a child’s personality, including her moral personality (in Kant’s sense of the term). If parents cause children or adolescents to feel shame often and for reasons other than lying, Kant believes “this establishes a shyness which continues to stick to them irrevocably” (Kant, 2007: 9: 478). “As a result reserve and a disadvantageous concealment develop. No longer does the child dare to ask for anything […] it conceals its disposition and always appears different from what it is, instead of being allowed to say everything frankly” (Kant, 2007: 9: 465). As mentioned above concerning aptitude, the acquisition of moral personality can be understood to happen gradually: it requires that a pupil grasp and articulate reasons for action until she attains a proficiency in acting independently in accord with rational maxims. Because reasons for action are not externally observable, this learning process requires the pupil to share her reasons with her teacher honestly, or progress toward mature moral agency will not be made. 19 For Kant believes that human beings require help from one another to reach their capacity as human beings. 20 This is likely why Kant emphasizes the value of frankness in speech (Kant, 2007: 9: 445).
The final feature of Kant’s understanding of shame is that it should last the duration of one’s life with respect to lying: he says parents should only use shame when a child is lying because this will allow the child to keep this “blush of shame with respect to lying” for her entire life (Kant, 2007: 9: 478). The child should also be told that if she lies, no one will believe what she says later in life (Kant, 2007: 9: 480). Obviously, this would be advice to follow very cautiously if at all; nevertheless, it is of greatest interest for what it reveals about Kant’s take on the relation between reason and non-rational attitudes. It may seem odd that he places such emphasis on honesty or the avoidance of lying, but this is likely the case because the idea of coherence, based on the principle of non-contradiction, is crucial to his notion of justification for action. The sharp incoherence between a lying agent’s outer communication and her inner maxim reveals either a marked misunderstanding or outright violation of the logical or rational structure of practical justification, whereas the mature moral agent must be capable of understanding the rational structure of justification and, in a sense, construct her character accordingly. Kant even goes so far as to say that “a human being who lies has no character at all, and if he has anything good in him, this is merely due to his temperament” (Kant, 2007: 9: 484). He believes that a willingness to sharply disregard this coherence constraint and thus make an exception of oneself contravenes the possibility of moral personality. It also inhibits the agent’s active participation in something resembling the Kingdom of Ends, which relies on personal integrity and the transparent communication of reasons between agents.
Shame may not be the ideal way to communicate moral norms, but careful use of it is not incompatible with the cultivation of moral character, nor is it inconsistent with the promotion of British values. Kant’s discussion of it evinces that for him it must remain open to the guidance of reason and may only be employed in ways that enable the development of a child’s rationality and autonomy. It is not an entirely intransigent feature of human life, nor is it an independent source of practical justification.
Desire and pleasure
Desire, and not its absence, is also a feature of the moral life on the Kantian picture, though its role is circumscribed. In the LP he draws a distinction between formal and material desires. Formal desires are directed toward the attainment of freedom and the stable capacity required to act freely. Material desires are directed toward what Kant refers to as delusions (ambition, lust for power, and greed) and indulgence 21 (lust, luxury, and entertainment), (Kant, 2007: 9: 492). The difference between formal and material desire may be clarified by Kant’s discussion of “pathological” and “moral” pleasures in the ME: “[p]leasure that must precede one’s observance of the law in order for one to act in conformity with the law is pathological and one’s conduct follows the order of nature; but pleasure that must be preceded by the law in order to be felt is in the moral order” (Kant, 1996b: 6: 378). 22 In the passage from the LP the German “Begierden” stands behind what is translated as desire, and in the passage from the ME “Lust” stands behind pleasure. Each term has a wide enough semantic range to allow elements of both pleasure and desire. So, it appears that Kant’s morally mature individual in fact desires and takes pleasure in doing what is good; desire has not been expunged from her character but rather the right kind of desire is felt, and has been cultivated. Kant says, the “upright” person “is one who takes pleasure [Lust] in willing” (Kant, 2007: 9: 486). What distinguishes this person’s desire or pleasure is that it is preceded by the moral law and remains subordinate to it. Such a person desires to act freely in accordance with the moral law – she desires what on Kant’s account is good. Kant thus outlines a kind of desire and pleasure that coheres with his account of morally meritorious action and rational agency.
A type of pleasure is also involved in his discussion of sociability, a key feature in the character of a child. He advises that the child build friendships and prepare herself “for the sweetest enjoyment of life” (Kant, 2007: 9: 484−485). He says children “must be openhearted too, and as cheerful as the sun in their expressions. The cheerful heart alone is capable of rejoicing in the good” (Kant, 2007: 9: 485). Plainly, he believes the good is something to take pleasure in. He adds that a “religion which makes the human heart gloomy is false” for the child must do her duty “with a cheerful heart and not out of constraint” (Kant, 2007: 9: 485). Cheerfulness appears to be a sign that the child is en route to achieving moral personality, as it indicates that she takes pleasure in willing the good. Robert Louden adds that the sense of cheerfulness Kant is invoking here is “a strong one, and it is clearly more than emotional window-dressing” (Louden, 2000: 52). 23 Kant discusses cheerfulness in the ME as well, stating “what is not done with pleasure [Lust] but merely as compulsory service has no inner worth for one who attends to his duty in this way” (Kant, 1996b: 6: 484). 24 Cheerfulness is thus integral to Kant’s definition of morally valuable action, as one who has achieved moral personality will take pleasure in the performance of her duty.
In this way, pleasure may prepare a child to achieve the sort of (moral) personality that recognizes the dignity of others and chooses to act for the sake of the good. One formed in this way may likewise be prepared to recognize and act for the sake of the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs, since these values involve the recognition of dignity in others and oneself. Similarly, the careful use of shame can communicate the moral status of actions to a child prior to a complete understanding of the values behind those actions, thus preparing her to understand and appreciate those values in due course. Finally, Kant’s account of moral habit as an aptitude for thinking and acting on the basis of moral rules demonstrates there is a viable account of the way in which rational and somewhat abstract values, such as those outlined in the UK government’s statement, may be integrated with a theory of education that takes seriously the formation of the non-rational features of a person’s character.
Conclusion: Character and the cosmopolitan ideal
For Kant, the formation of one’s character is ultimately directed toward the establishment of a cosmopolitan society, a greater community of rational beings whose interactions and goals are governed by reason. The formula of a kingdom of ends – “a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws” – conceptualizes this ideal community as something toward which we ought to strive, a long-term project for humanity (Kant, 1996a: 4: 433). In such a community, the authority that makes laws and norms binding would be derived from rational standards that are accessible to all its members and accord with their dignity. As outlined above, the formula of universal law and the formula of humanity provide the framework for those standards. For Kant, these cosmopolitan values provide the normative framework necessary for a form of political cosmopolitanism – a cosmopolitan community (these are the kind of values and community the UK government seeks to promote). The formula of the kingdom of ends then serves as a link to the more concrete political concept of a cosmopolitan community that Kant develops in other work. One example of this is found in his essay Toward Perpetual Peace (TP), where he develops a kind of blueprint for a league of nations. Here he suggests the idea of a “cosmopolitan right” to hospitality, a right to visit a foreign land and to not be treated with hostility or violence while there (Kant, 1996c: 8: 357−358). “In this way distant parts of the world can enter peaceably into relations with one another, which can eventually become publicly lawful and so finally bring the human race ever closer to a cosmopolitan constitution” (Kant, 1996c: 8: 358). It bears emphasizing that this cosmopolitan constitution is not to be achieved at any cost: as per this cosmopolitan right and the prior categorical imperative, human dignity must be respected throughout. Though the child has yet to mature as a moral agent, she possesses dignity in virtue of the possession of even very basic rational capacity and so cannot be treated as a mere means. Moreover, the social good of a cosmopolitan community envisioned by Kant would include children among its members: for that reason, it does not make sense to say that pursuit of the creation of a cosmopolitan society as an overarching goal treats the child as a mere means. 25
For another example of a limit that Kant believes must be respected in pursuit of the ideal of a cosmopolitan society, he holds that it cannot be achieved by a violent or oppressive means, as in many cases of colonialism. Kant condemns the “horrifying” tendency of occupying peoples to count local inhabitants as “nothing”: In the East Indies (Hindustan), they brought in foreign soldiers under the pretext of merely proposing to set up trading posts, but with them oppression of the inhabitants, incitement of the various Indian states to widespread wars, famine, rebellions, treachery, and the whole litany of troubles that oppress the human race”. (Kant, 1996c: 8: 358−359)
Kant’s LP finds its place within an ambitious project, for here and elsewhere he sets his sights no lower than the perfection of the human species, both present and future. But integral to this utopian ideal is the more readily achievable goal of educating the individual – training the child to perceive and eventually participate in a rational order of human society. In policy statements about the promotion of what they refer to as British values, the UK government recognizes that an ideal, cosmopolitan society is made up of such individuals. The formula of humanity dictates that such an ideal society would respect the dignity of individuals and that that dignity must be respected in the process of advancing toward it. The violent subjugation of persons, whether physical or otherwise, en route to achieving this ideal is forbidden on the Kantian picture. This ideal may be something we move toward in a piecemeal or progressive fashion, and every step toward it marks an improvement over the previous state. It does not matter whether or not we are materially capable of achieving it; Kant says at one point that the idea of a cosmopolitan society is unattainable. Nevertheless, he goes on to say that it is crucial in guiding or regulating our conduct. In this way, it is a “regulative principle”, and it is our vocation as human beings to pursue it (Kant, 2006: 7: 331). As he says, human beings are a species of rational being that strives to overcome evil in constant progress towards the good, and to make such progress requires a certain organization of the earth’s citizens over and above individual effort (Kant, 2006: 7: 333). So according to Kant, attainment of this moral ideal requires a kind of political organization. In this way, the ideal of a cosmopolitan society orients the work of character formation.
Likewise, Kant’s account of character formation shows us that rational and seemingly abstract cosmopolitan values can be integrated into a theory of education that takes seriously the whole person, including both rational and non-rational aspects alike. As we have also seen, the cosmopolitan political ideal requires a cosmopolitan moral framework. The character and well being of individual human beings is central to both of these things. Instrumental to and constitutive of these cosmopolitan ideals is the formation and governance of the non-rational features of human life and character. Among other things, throughout a child’s education, a rational justification for important actions and practices she participates in should be available to her. For an ability to understand these things encourages the ability to think and act freely in accordance with moral laws. This ability, on a large scale – ideally on a global scale – constitutes the final human end that Kant has in mind. In reflecting upon British identity in a post-Brexit UK, it will be beneficial to be mindful that the UK is committed to this tradition. If policy statements like this are on the mark, British identity has an ineliminably cosmopolitan character, one that is meant to structure and guide any commitments to more particular features of what British identity might include.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: this work has been supported by a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: award number 752-2014-0496.