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Rousseau and Kant on Envy Ronald L. Weed
ABSTRACT: One can learn a great deal about
the relative priorities in any moral theory by understanding how these
priorities are conveyed in the perpetually vexing challenge of moral
education. Rousseau and Kant are two thinkers whose distinctly modern
retrieval of classical virtue was animated by overlapping yet diverging
grievances with classical philosophy. One common enemy of Rousseauian and
Kantian virtue found in classical thought is the moral vice of envy. This
essay argues that whereas Rousseau chastises the vice of envy, replacing it
with the central virtue of pity, Kant redirects the vice of envy towards the
more salutary virtue of magnanimity during adolescence and beneficence in the
adult. The consideration of sympathy in its full moral and educational
context in Kant-over and against Rousseau’s emphasis on pity as the central
corrective to the vice of envy-underscores the extent of the differences
between Rousseau and Kant on this issue. The common criticism of Rousseau and
Kant on the problem of envy is animated by some common concerns, but their
understandings of it as a problem require responses that are deceptively
different in their substance. |
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"It follows from this that we are attached to our fellows less by
the sentiment of their pleasures than by the sentiment of their pains, for we
see for better in the later, the identity of our natures with theirs and the
guarantees of their attachment to us. If our common needs unite us by
interest, our common miseries unite us by affection. The sight of a happy man
inspires in others less love than envy. They would gladly accuse him of
usurping a right he can not have in giving himself an exclusive happiness;
and amour-propre suffers, too in making us feel that this man has no need of
us. But who does not pity the unhappy man whom he sees suffering? Who would
not want to deliver him from his ills if it only cost a wish for that?
Imagination puts us in the place of the miserable man rather than in that of
the happy man. We feel that one of these conditions touches us more closely
than the other. Pity is sweet because in putting ourselves in the place of
one who suffers, we nevertheless feel the pleasure of not suffering as he
does. Envy is bitter because the sight a happy man, far from putting the
envious man in his place, makes the envious man regret not being there. It
seems that the one exempts us from the ills he suffers, and the other takes
from us the good he enjoys. Do you wish, then, to excite and nourish in the
heart of a young man the first movements of nascent sensibility and turn his
character towards beneficence and goodness? Do not put the seeds of pride
vanity, and envy in him by the deceptive image of the happiness of men"
(Rousseau, Emile). "But this last is envy. We then only seek to impute faults to
others, in order that we may compare favorably with them. Thus the spirit of
emulation, wrongly applied arouses envy. Emulation may occasionally be used
to a good purpose, as when we tell a child, in order to convince him of the
possibility of performing a certain task, that other could easily do it. We
must on no account allow one child to humiliate another. We must seek to
avoid every form of pride which is founded upon the superiority of fortune.
At the same time we must seek to cultivate frankness in the child. This is an
unassuming confidence in himself, the possession of which places him in a position
to exhibit his talents in a becoming manner. This self confidence is to be
distinguished from insolence, which is really indifference to the judgment of
others" (Kant, Education). In order to understand
moral education in Kant’s Education this work can be compared with
other important selections on moral education from the ‘Doctrine of the
Method of Pure Practical Reason’ in part two of the Critique of Practical
Reason as well as the ‘Doctrine of the Method of Ethics’ and ‘Doctrine
of the Elements of Ethics’ (II) from the Metaphysics of Morals. The
later selections, where the discussion of the vice of envy contrasts with the
virtue of beneficence and the related virtues of gratitude and sympathy is a
departure from the Education; there the vice of envy is contrasted
with the virtue of magnanimity and the related virtues of benevolence and
self command. The discrepancy between these two accounts of envy and its
corresponding virtues is a problem that reveals something about the purpose
and context of moral education in its final stages. This discrepancy shows
that a version of beneficence supported by gratitude and sympathy in the
morally responsible adult must itself be supported by a corresponding version
of beneficence that more appropriately falls under the name of magnanimity in
the final stages of moral education.(*) Kant’s treatment of the more adult virtue of beneficence would demand
a corresponding virtue of magnanimity in the later stages of moral education,
and therefore fall under the name of magnanimity instead of beneficence. This
emphasizes both the confident and bold character of self assertion that
supports moral autonomy. It also emphasizes the necessary vigor that the
supporting virtues of self command and benevolence provide in the corresponding
birth of gratitude and sympathy, as adult virtues that support the adult
virtue of beneficence. This essay argues that whereas Rousseau chastises the
vice of envy, replacing it with the central virtue of pity, Kant redirects
the vice of envy towards what he considers the more salutary adolescent
virtue of magnanimity during adolescence, and redirects the vice of envy
toward what he considers the more salutary adult virtue of beneficence in the
adult. The consideration of
sympathy in its full moral and educational context in Kant, over and against
Rousseau’s emphasis on pity as the central corrective to the vice of
envy, underscores the extent of the differences between Rousseau and Kant on
this issue. The common criticism of Rousseau and Kant on the problem of envy
is animated by some common concerns, but their understandings of it as a
problem require responses that are deceptively different in their substance. Rousseau, Pity, and
the Solitary Self The puzzling problem of
human connectedness in Rousseau’s thought is the problem of a divided self.
The self that is divided in civil society is the same self whose solitude in
the state of nature preserves its goodness. And what preserves the goodness
of man in the state of nature cannot protect even the most anonymous person
in civil society, since any form of peaceful solitude is only possible
because society provides it. So somewhere between the pristine goodness of a
self long forgotten and the dividedness of a self poisoned by the very
existence of society lies the self Rousseau describes in his writings. It is
this intractable problem of a self that is always in some way alienated that
energizes his particular discussion of pity and envy. The centrality of envy as
a social malady that only pity can correct must first be understood by
considering the core tenets of his social diagnosis. First of all, what is it
about amour soi (self love) in the state of nature that is able to persist
and be extended into civil society, but in a way that can only usher in its
corruption into amour propre (self love misunderstood)? The natural love for
one’s self that the individual in the state of nature possessed is always
good and in conformity with order. But the harmony that self love in the
state of nature generously supplies is only salutary there because our needs
there are so limited; and consequently so easy to satisfy there. A self that
is so undeveloped, solitary, and primitive is easy to love. The fundamental
expression of self love in this state is the passion of self preservation.
This is the most fundamental expression of self love because it is what
sustains the only kind of love a solitary man can possess in the state of
nature. The fashioning of nature preserves the goodness of self love by
maintaining its conformity with order. Nature, consequently, directs the
preservation we owe to ourselves with that love. Nature is such a generous
provider of goodness, prior to society, because the needs of the self we love
there are so limited, that our self preservation is never a threat to our
goodness. The needs of a self that is solitary, primitive, and content hardly
demand us to look beyond what is already to familiar to us. For this reason,
we love those things, that like the self we love so much, help preserve us.
Rousseau argues that "The love of oneself is always good and always in
conformity with order. Since each man is specially entrusted with his own
preservation, the first and most important of his cares is and ought to be to
watch over it constantly. And how could he watch over it if he did not take
the greatest interest in it? Therefore, we have to love ourselves to preserve
ourselves; and it follows immediately from the same sentiment that we love
what preserves us".(1) It isn’t difficult for a self with few needs to preserve himself
without harm to himself or the rest of the world. But more importantly, it is
easy for the individual to love himself when he can imagine that everything
around him also loves him. This is easier to imagine when one’s needs are
limited and localized because, then, there are few impediments to their
satisfaction. What little the external world may do to either help or (more
likely) not thwart the simple needs of the solitary self can only remind him
of his own self love, and how well that external world fosters it. Nature
seems to actively lavish so much goodness upon us prior to society because it
passively with holds those needs born in society. The limits of the
individual’s needs prior to society guarantee the abundance of a self love,
whose active preservation brings nothing bad into the world. It also
guarantees an abundance of self love that imagines the external world that
loves us too much to harm us. It is the proliferation
of these needs that distorts the natural equilibrium between self love and
goodness, giving rise to "amour-propre" or self love misunderstood.
But what gives birth to amour-propre from an innocent state of simple
solitary need? It is the comparisons from the extension of our relations as a
self to other individuals that brings, not new needs, but false needs; not to
mention the duties which their realization would demand. Rousseau argues that
A child is therefore naturally inclined to benevolence, because he
sees that everything approaching him is inclined to assist him; and from this
observation he gets the habit of a sentiment favorable to his species. But as
he extends his relations, his needs, and his active or passive dependencies,
the sentiment of his connections with others is awakened and produces the
sentiments of duties and preferences. Then the child becomes imperious,
jealous, deceitful, and vindictive. If he is bent to obedience, he does not
see the utility of what he is ordered, and he attributes it to caprice, to
the intention of tormenting him; and he revolts. If he is obeyed, as such as
something resists him, he sees in it a rebellion, an intention to resist him.
He beats the chair and table for having disobeyed him.(2) The solitude of the state
of nature is not only a separation from other selves that limits and
localizes the needs of the self. It is a separation from the awareness of
other selves that have wills to compare with our own will. It is precisely
these comparisons, nomatter how sharp or dull they may be, that transform our
self love from a state of contented, albeit sheltered, benevolence to a state
of divided love – amour-propre. When we try to think of ourselves we can only
think of others. When we try to think of others we can only think of
ourselves. This is due to the latent problem of organizing a community of
individuals, whose fundamental principle of self love cannot accommodate the
love of other selves. But nevertheless, this kind of community demands a
level of connectedness that can only bring comparisons between those
individuals. More specifically, what it is about self love that cannot
accommodate the love of other individuals is the exclusive character of our
self love. The self we love prior to society demands as much love as the
individual can give himself. There is no other self in the state of nature to
compete with the love we exclusively owe to ourselves. But when our awareness
is such that we can make comparisons, the self that has been spoiled by the
vigorous exclusivity of its own love, demands the same exclusivity from
others. But any other individual cannot love another self as much as that
other self, without betraying that individual’s own demand for love, from, at
very least, himself. The departure of the individual from the state of
nature, and the kind of self love which that state can so generously supply,
brings with it a demand of self love that no other self can equally supply.
Rousseau summarizes: Self love, which regards only ourselves, is contented when our true
needs are satisfied. But amour-propre, which makes comparisons, is never
content and never could be, because this sentiment, preferring ourselves to
others, also demands others to prefer us to themselves, which is impossible.
This is how the gentle and affectionate passions are born of self love, and
how the hateful and irascible passions are born of amour-propre. Thus, what
makes man essentially good is to have few needs and to compare himself little
to others; what makes him essentially wicked is to have many needs and to
depend very much upon opinion".(3) The inevitable
comparisons between individuals modifies the natural passion of self love in
such a way that multiplies our needs, while frustrating their satisfaction.
That is to say, that comparisons among individuals unleash so many needs
because those comparisons energize an imagination that sparks so many false
needs. It is those false needs, driven by the imagination, that inspire the
prejudices of society according to Rousseau. The benign needs in the state of
nature protect the individual from qualities like vanity, envy, greed, pride,
bitterness, and hatred because the self, there, only desires what is
familiar. The imagination enables the self to extend its desires well beyond
its immediate range of experience, thereby sensitizing it to desires that may
be difficult to realize. More importantly, the imagination enables us to
compare ourselves to others so far removed from our experience, needs, and
capabilities that it sparks needs whose origins are the judgments of others –
false needs. The power of the imagination to remove us from our immediate
needs can, for that reason, sensitize us to the genuine needs of others as
well as new (false) needs in ourselves. Whatever the case may be, this
quality of the imagination is particularly powerful yet ambiguous in the case
of love. The inevitable comparisons, which the imagination gives us speedier
access to, intensifies the range of comparisons that love, particularly
erotic love, gives us access to. Rousseau describes the psychology of
comparisons brought by love for another: As soon as man has need of a companion, he is no longer an isolated
being. His heart is no longer alone. All his relations with his species, all
the affections of his soul are born with this one…The inclination of instinct
is indeterminate. One sex is attracted to the other; that is the moment of
nature. Choice, preferences, and personal attachments are the work of
enlightenment, prejudice, and habit. Time and knowledge are required to make
us capable of love. One loves only after having judged; one prefers only
after having compared. These judgments are made without one’s being aware of
it, but they are nonetheless real…One wants to obtain the preference that one
grants. Love must be reciprocal. To be loved, one has to make oneself more
lovable than another, more lovable than every other, at least in the eyes of
the beloved object. This is the source of the first comparisons wit them;
this is the source of emulation, rivalries, and jealousy. A heart full of an
overflowing sentiment likes to open itself. From the need of the mistress is
soon born the need for a friend. He who senses how sweet it is to be loved
would want to be loved by everyone; and all could not want preference without
there being many malcontents. With love and friendship are born dissension,
enmity, and hate".(4) Love for another always
makes us subject to the opinions of others, including our beloved, even
though our most passionate love – our love of self – demands that others be
subject to it. Erotic love brings the deepest dependency of the individual to
society. This is because our self love demands exclusive preference from a
whole society of individuals bonded by opinion of others, in order to merely
love the other. Our necessary proximity to the beloved, in the case of erotic
love, unleashes these social passions more directly than any other human
attachment. The imagination helps attach us to those objects which our
nascent longings would never find. The transports of the imagination can more
intensely deepen the dependence on society that erotic love already
engenders. This is because the whole range of experiences in society under
which love makes us subject, may or may not be actually held. The imagination
can induce the individual into thinking that he has access to the opinions of
others, including their opinions of us, in a way that reality could never
induce. Therefore, the range of perceived opinions under which any individual
may become subject are dangerously multiplied for Rousseau, when the
unwitting collaboration of love and prejudices of society unleashes the
imagination. The rough importance of
the imagination and burgeoning awareness of love in the formation of the
critical social virtue of pity cannot be underestimated. It is no accident in
Rousseau’s discussion of pity that it directly follows his discussion of
puberty. This is because a moral education in pity is fundamentally an
education of the imagination. It is the premature drawings of love that
deform the imagination and ultimately one’s own self love. But a more
carefully controlled moral education would cultivate the bond of friendship
which attaches us to our fellows in a more salutary way. This kind of
education attempts to preserve the goodness that the state of nature so
easily provides by vindicating the imagination in civil society. Rousseau
identifies what it is in the imagination that should and shouldn’t be
vindicated as follows: The first sentiment of which a carefully raised young man is capable
is not love; it is friendship. The first act of his nascent imagination is to
teach him that he has fellows; and the species affects him before the female
sex. Here is another advantage of prolonged innocence – that of profiting
from nascent sensibility to sow in the young adolescent’s heart the first
seeds of humanity. This advantage is all the more precious since now is the
only time of life when the same attentions can have a true success. I have
always seen that young people who are corrupted early and given over to women
and debauchery are inhuman and cruel. The heat of their temperaments made
them impatient, vindictive, and wild. Their imaginations, filled by a single
object, rejected all the rest. They knew neither pity nor mercy. They would
have sacrificed fathers, mothers, and the whole universe to the least of
their pleasures. On the contrary, a young man raised in a happy simplicity is
drawn by the first movements of nature toward the tender and affectionate
passions. His compassionate heart is moved by sufferings of his
fellows".(5) The imagination can
attach us to those things beyond our immediate needs, either for good or ill.
In the state of nature the imagination is innocuous because it is simple and
modest. But there it has an ambiguous potential that can foster socially
positive virtues like pity or socially destructive vices like such as pride,
vanity, and envy. It would go without saying for Rousseau that the fact that
these are social virtues or vices means that they are thereby artificial and
subjugating ones. But that isn’t to say that our state of social dependence
cannot be made less afflicting or more consistent with natural goodness and
freedom. It is this latent prescription for social virtue or vice, already
built into the human heart in the state of nature, that can minimize the
impact of the society; a society no one can live without. It is the
plasticity of the imagination not our inevitably artificial connectedness to
others that powerfully extends our self love to those others, for better or
for worse. The imagination serves us
for the better when it helps us pity others. But when the imagination helps
us envy others it helps no one. The imagination can help us pity others
without deepening our dependence on society because it also helps us to love
ourselves. The sufficiency of our self love in the state of nature required
neither envy or pity. We had no one to envy because we only knew ourselves.
And we had no one to pity, including ourselves, because our solitude denied
us the knowledge of what is pitiable. But since the nature of self love for
Rousseau is such that it can’t retain its absolute sufficiency in civil
society, the functional basis of our social attachments are similarly
modified. It is our weakness that is our social bond now that we have left
the sufficiency of the state of nature; that sufficiency having been our
strength. Rousseau says that "it is man’s weakness which makes him
sociable; it is our common miseries which turn our hearts to humanity".(6) Now that our weakness is our bond
in society we must depend on others in society and the prejudices bred there.
But our common weakness doesn’t make us forget the demands of self love that
nature gave us and which society can never extinguish. Pity can gratify that
self love in one without subduing it in another. The weakness we share
demands that we care for one another. But one aspect of that weakness is our
self love itself. Pity, therefore, provides for the weakness we share, while
also gratifying the self love we can never share. Rousseau elaborates: It follows from this that we are attached to our fellows less by the
sentiment of their pleasures than by the sentiment of their pains, for we see
for better in the later, the identity of our natures with theirs and the
guarantees of their attachment to us. If our common needs unite us by
interest, our common miseries unite us by affection. The sight of a happy man
inspires in others less love than envy. They would gladly accuse him of
usurping a right he can not have in giving himself an exclusive happiness;
and amour-propre suffers, too in making us feel that this man has no need of
us. But who does not pity the unhappy man whom he sees suffering? Who would
not want to deliver him from his ills if it only cost a wish for that?
Imagination puts us in the place of the miserable man rather than in that of
the happy man. We feel that one of these conditions touches us more closely
than the other. Pity is sweet because in putting ourselves in the place of
one who suffers, we nevertheless feel the pleasure of not suffering as he
does. Envy is bitter because the sight a happy man, far from putting the
envious man in his place, makes the envious man regret not being there. It
seems that the one exempts us from the ills he suffers, and the other takes
from us the good he enjoys. Do you wish, then, to excite and nourish in the
heart of a young man the first movements of nascent sensibility and turn his
character towards beneficence and goodness? Do not put the seeds of pride
vanity, and envy in him by the deceptive image of the happiness of men".(7) The respective virtues
and vices of pity and envy stem from their sensitivity to the self. When we
envy it reminds us of what we have – less than the other – and what we don’t
have – everything that the other person has. When we pity it reminds us of
what we don’t have – whatever it is that is pitiable – and what we do have;
and, no matter how little that may be, it is always better then the best
things or status in life when suffering is attached to it. Since both pity
and envy build on self love, their respective virtues and vices are not that
they build on self love, but how they build on self love. And the kind
of self love that envy sensitizes deepens our dependence on society through
comparisons our self love cannot bear. Pity sensitizes our self love in a way
that is also dependent on society and comparisons. But the comparisons that
pity breeds emphasize a kind of dependence that flatters our self love,
without obscuring our common weakness. With some of these principles for
moral education Rousseau undertakes an education concerned with suffering
– a suffering that every one with an imagination can benefit from. Kant on the Social
Stages of Education, and the Context of Education Kant writes on education
in the Critique of Practical Reason, and his Metaphysics of
Morals as extensions of his wider discussions of morality, ethics, and
reason. But the work where he exclusively discusses education is his book,
Education. This work discusses education in the context of a child’s
gradual transition through childhood, into adolescence, and then culminating
in adulthood where moral responsibility has a chance to flower. The virtues
and vices addressed in this work are framed in terms of the specific
exigencies of each stage in the pupil’s development and education. The
virtues and vices discussed in Kant’s other writings are more clearly
directed towards a general discussion of virtue and vice. Where they agree
with the Education they tend to follow the pedagogical concerns of
the Education, for example the ‘Doctrine of the Method of Ethics’.
Where they don’t so clearly agree in the ‘Doctrine of the Method of Pure
Practical Reason’ and the "Doctrine of the Elements of Ethics’ in the Metaphysics
of Morals their discussion isn’t so closely tailored to the distinct
stages in a student’s development. The context of Kant’s writings on
education bring shape to their apparent discrepancies. What is clear in
Kant’s writings on education, whatever the context, is that they underscore
the importance of a few virtues, over and against other vices. One of the
important vices Kant addresses in his varying contexts on moral education is
envy. But addressing this problem, as uniform as his criticisms of it may be,
involves an understanding of his less uniform but concerted effort to
emphasize a set of closely corresponding virtues at odds with envy. His
relative emphasis of these virtues, to whatever extent they may diverge from
one text of Kant to the next, cohere more when the context of the Education
is clarified. Education, according to
Kant, involves the home and the state, but is undertaken neither strictly
speaking in the home (to the exclusion of the state) nor by the state without
the collaboration of the home. Public education always involves parental
guidance in the home because ultimately this education culminates in the
moral education lived out in the home. The "object" of public
education, says Kant, is the "improvement of home education".(8) But if education in the home
didn’t require some kind of direction and guidance itself, then the public
quality of the education wouldn’t be emphasized so profoundly. Kant maintains
that "Home education fosters family failings, and continues those
failings into the next generation".(9) No education could flourish without the
harmonious collaboration of parents and the state. But since the driving
concerns of parents and the state do not, in their collaboration, bring about
a universal concern for goodness, their role together must be carefully
structured. Kant says that " Parents care for the home, rulers for the
state. Neither aim for universal good and the perfection of which man is
destined".(10) Education
must direct man, including potential parents and political leaders, towards
the universal good in a public spirited way without being absorbed into the
specific function of the home or the state. Education must also be
much more private than the home and much more public than the state to
accommodate the aims Kant envisions for education. Education must be quite
private since it rests or falls on how well every individual succeeds at
eventually making good moral choices, not to mention those pre-moral actions
their education demands. Education must also be quite public since it must be
organized for people across generations. The civic spiritedness it demands
must be harnessed not merely for the universal good it does in one
generation, but for the universal good only possible with the collaboration
of several generations. The following Education text captures this
emphasis: No individual man, no matter what degree of culture may be reached by
his pupils, can insure their attaining their destiny. To succeed in this, not
the work of a few individuals, only is necessary but the whole human race.
Each generation is provided with the knowledge of the foregoing one is able
more and more to bring about an education which shall develop man’s natural
gifts in their due proportion and in relation to their end. Providence has willed,
that man shall bring forth for himself the good that lies hidden in his
nature, and has spoken, as it were, thus to man: ‘Go forth into the world! I
have equipped thee with every tendency towards the good. Thy part let it be
to develop those tendencies…The question arises, should we in the education
of the individual imitate the course followed by the education of the human
race through its successive generations.(11) The accumulated insights
of many generations can facilitate good education. But can it guarantee
goodness? Only the individual can achieve goodness. Yet an endless supply of
good willed deeds from generations of individuals will never reach its
educational potential without the organized efforts between those
generations. The urgency of an
education that already stretches the horizon of the public and private in
this way is all the more impending for Kant when our goodness as humans
depend on such an education. Kant identifies that dependence as follows:
"it is through good education that all good arises in the
world…rudiments of evil are not to be found in the disposition of man. Evil
is the result of nature not being brought under control.(12) Unlike Rousseau, where education
can protect us from the evil that society brings, Kant envisions an education
whose virtues tame the unruliness that leads to evil in society. Education is
also indispensable to humanity because of the permanence of the chaos that
flourishes in the absence of an education with teeth. As Kant says, "if
a man be allowed to follow his own will in youth, without opposition, a
certain lawlessness will cling to him throughout his life".(13) The impact of an education that
doesn’t take root is irreversible, according to Kant. So much more pressing,
then, is the only activity that during a few short years can most easily
direct the youth towards goodness – a good education. A good education is
something that parents, students, citizens, and the state can’t flourish
without. But the range of elements which a good education must harmoniously
embrace – the concerns of the state and parents, the attention of
individuals, and the cooperation of generations – must be successfully
embraced. The public and private
elements in this education are themselves elements in the larger history
towards universal good. Education engenders human progress towards that
universal good in discrete historical phases. It is no surprise then that the
individual progress of each student occurs in distinct phases. In each of
these phases the educational aims differ based on the students’ stage of
development. According to Kant " there are many germs undeveloped in
man, and those natural gifts must be developed in due proportion to see that
he fulfills his destiny.(14) The first phase is when the student is most subject to discipline.
The crucial aim during this period is that the individual learn to restrain
his animal nature from undermining his manhood.(15) Secondly, the education should teach the
student about culture. Through information and instruction culture draws out
his abilities in the world. More importantly this phase of the education
develops abilities adaptable to different ends.(16) When the first two phases of education have
been realized in the life of the student, there is a turn towards the
specific education of morality. While the third phase isn’t a moral phase, it
leads directly into the moral phase. In this phase of education the student’s
relation to others in society becomes crucial. The art of discretion enables
the student to conduct himself in society by being liked and gaining
influence.(17) While
this stage doesn’t foster deception it does attempt to foster reserve, and
ultimately civility. For the ability to conduct oneself well around others
involves knowing how to understand the unspoken subtleties in society. The
discipline and culture established in the first two phases anticipates the
kind of refinement taught in this third phase. But all three phases
anticipate the fourth stage of education where moral training flourishes. This
is the period before adulthood and the full moral responsibility that
adulthood brings. According to Kant "man can’t be fitted for any end,
the disposition must be trained to choose none but good ends".(18) The aim of this period is that
the student as an individual choose ends that are good. This phase is
distinct from discipline or culture where training builds the humanity of
students by their taming of unruliness, and their preparation for many ends.
Moral training prepares the student for the moral autonomy that generations
of public and private cooperation can support, but which only the individual
can realize. Kant on Virtue and
Vice: Strenth, Self Overcoming, and the Adolescent All Too Adolescent The discrete stages of
education elaborated here are filled out more thoroughly in his discussion on
‘Practical Education’ where he says they most explicitly culminate in an
education for morality. Kant develops the complexion of the virtues and vices
which moral education should treat in this chapter. The components in the
practical education which Kant identifies there are components whose
development lead into a deliberate discussion of moral virtue and vice. The
introduction to the ‘Practical Education’ anticipates the following summary
of virtue and vice close to the end of that section: All the cravings of men are either formal (relating to freedom and
power), or material (set upon an object) – that is to say, either cravings of
imagination or enjoyment – or, finally cravings for the continuation of these
two things as elements of happiness. Cravings of the first kind are the lust
of honor (ambition), the lust of power, and the lust of possession…Vices are
either those of malice, baseness, or narrow-mindedness. To the first belong,
envy, ingratitude, and joy at the misfortune of others…Virtues are either
virtues of merit or merely of obligation or of innocence. To the first belong
magnanimity (shown in self conquest in times of anger or when tempted to ease
and the lust of possession), benevolence, and self command. (19) It is no accident that
Kant introduces a configuration of virtues and vices related to freedom in a
work concerned with moral education. It is hard to understand the extent to
which this configuration of virtue and vice, inculcated in the way Kant
describes, is consistent with the kind of morality and freedom Kant explains
in his other writings. Even harder to understand is why this particular
configuration of virtue and vice establishes the kind of morality which Kant
describes in this and other works. But if one takes the view that this is an
education concerned with morality, in preparation for morality, but not
identical with morality, this discussion seems more coherent. In this sense,
the vice of envy corresponds to the virtue of magnanimity because an
education concerned with the craving of honor must encourage or discourage
good and poor examples of honor. In this sense education may foster
expressions of magnanimity as pure virtue or merely as outgrowths of the
craving for honor under the name of virtue. The educator’s discouragement of
envy may be a discouragement that draws from the students craving for honor,
and thereby induce an honor driven repulsion for envy. But the educator’s
discouragement of envy may also be a discouragement that lends itself to a
purer dislike of envy. The vice of ingratitude similarly finds its
counterpart in virtue as benevolence. Along the same lines, joy at the
misfortune of others is a vice whose virtue is self command. Whatever the
configuration of the virtues and vices may be, and whatever the degree of
moral freedom that configuration may enable or not enable in the student,
this practical education is a moral education for morality without being
identical with it. Before considering the
configuration of those virtues and vices and their relationship to Kant’s
other writings on morality and education more should be said about Kant’s
discussion on ‘Practical Education’ as it develops into the summary of the
virtues and vices just quoted. Just prior to moral education a child must be
taught discretion. Since the stage of education where discretion is
emphasized is just prior to moral education, Kant’s discussion of it may
underline what moral education, proper, does and doesn’t add to the earlier stages
in moral education generally speaking. Kant introduces his discussion of
discretion as follows: Practical education includes (1) skill, (2) discretion, and (3)
morality…As regards discretion, it consists in the art of turning our skill
to account; that is, of using our fellow man for our own ends…For this end a
kind of dissembling is necessary; that is to say, we have to hide our faults
and keep up that outward appearance. This is not necessarily deceit, and is
sometimes allowable, although it does border closely on insincerity.
Dissimulation, however, is but a desperate expedient. To be prudent it is
necessary that we should not lose our temper; on the other hand, we should
not be too apathetic. A man should be brave without being violent – two qualities
which are quite distinct. A brave man is one who is desirous of exercising
his will. This desire necessitates control of the passions. Discretion is a
matter of temperament.(20) In this selection Kant
maintains that the student must cultivate discretion by learning how to both
disguise his feelings and at the same time learn how to read the character of
others. The kind of reservation that can successfully disguise one’s own
feelings, yet also allow one to read someone else’s character, requires
prudence. The apathy of not being concerned with someone else’s character nor
what others think of our own character (the appearance of which might be
shaped by the visibility of our apathetically unrestrained feelings) must be
avoided. The boldness of a temper too concerned with someone else’s
character, to the exclusion of one’s own apparent character, or a temper too
concerned with our own feelings (instead of their restraint), to the
exclusion of someone else’s character, must also be moderated. Prudence balances
the tepidness of indifference and the boldness of temper. The drives which
prudence balances are all involved in the self concealment and reading of
others which Kant calls discretion. But in this context prudence is more like
courage. Apathy must be balanced by courageous self assertion and boldness of
temper moderated by courageous restraint. The courageous quality of prudence
is important in the stage of education prior to moral education strictly
speaking, yet it carries on into moral education proper. Education prepares the
student for morality the way that courageous prudence prepares the
temperament of a person with good character. Kant emphasizes the role that
endurance and renunciation play in the forming of this character as follows: Sustine et abstine [Endure and abstain], such is the preparation for a
wise moderation. The first step towards the formation of good character is to
put our passions on one side. We must take care that our desires and
inclinations do not become passions, by learning to go without those things
that are denied to us. Sustine implies endure and accustom thyself to endure.
Courage and a certain bent of mind towards it are necessary for renunciation.
We ought to accustom ourselves to opposition, the refusal of our requests and
so on.(21) Unlike Rousseau who seeks
to elevate those natural passions and subdue those passions society
catalyses, Kant seeks to chasten those desires and inclinations that would
become passions by their unharnessed growth. The endurance of continued self
overcoming and the renunciation of new kinds of self overcoming require
courage. A temperament prepared in this way in the person with good character
is a temperament well prepared for morality. One striking example of the
preparation of the person’s temperament is Kant’s negative example of
sympathy: Sympathy is a matter of temperament. Children, however, ought to be
prevented from contracting the habit of a sentimental maudlin sympathy.
‘Sympathy’ is really sensitiveness, and belongs only to characters of
delicate feeling. It is distinct from compassion, and it is an evil,
consisting as it does merely in lamenting over a thing. It is a good thing to
give children some pocket-money of their own, that they may help the needy;
and in this way we should see if they are really compassionate or not. But if
they are only charitable with their parents’ money, we have no such test…Our
ultimate aim is the formation of character. Character consists in the firm
purpose to accomplish something, and then also in the actual accomplishing of
it…Those things which are contrary to morality must be excluded from such
resolutions. The character of a wicked man is evil; but then, in this case,
we do not call it ‘character’ any longer, but obstinacy; and yet there is still
a certain satisfaction to find such a man holding fast to his resolutions and
carrying them out, though it would be much better if he showed the same
persistency in good things.(22) In this example sympathy
is a temperament that can be fostered or subdued in the formation of
character. Unlike a temperament towards a bold temper, it doesn’t lead to the
active aims of accomplishment either as the persistence of good character, or
as the obstinacy of poor character; but instead, the passive obstinacy of poor
character. In this sense, it is sympathetic temperament that is more like
apathy in its tendency to be at odds with the aim of character formation, as
stated above. Perhaps it is in this sense that Kant considers sympathy an
evil. Whatever the sense may be in which sympathy is an evil for Kant, it is
a temperament that weakens that formation of character in moral education.
The fact that Kant emphasizes courageous prudence in the discussion just
preceding this one may explain why one’s temperament in general is so crucial
to a character formation grounded in action. A sympathetic temperament need
not require much endurance, nor much renunciation, since the very core of
this temperament is in the immediacy of fellow feeling. Unlike discretion,
which is also a temperament Kant discusses, sympathy does not generally
require the exercise of affective restraint (lest it be inauthentic, and then
not full sympathy) or endurance (lest it be insincere). The negative example
of sympathy sheds light on what is similar between the stage of moral
education where the student acquires discretion and the stage of moral
education where the student is most directly prepared for morality. The
common thread of courageously minded prudence explains what unifies the last
stages of character formation, as well as the fabric of those temperaments
fostering the formation of that character. The virtues and vices
Kant then proceeds to highlight in ‘Practical Education’ should be understood
in light of the preceding account of character formation. The kind of
character which moral education should form is one that is magnanimous not
envious. All of Kant’s texts agree on the reasons that envy is a likely vice
in moral education, but disagree on the kind of virtue that should replace
it. The section on ‘Practical Education’ maintains that envy is a vice
created by the tendency for students to compare themselves with one another
instead of their reason. A moral education always involves the students
proximity to other students (particularly in the final phase), visible adult
role models, heroes and villains of their time, as well as memorable and
infamous people from past generations. That the scale of a good education
demands many collaborators – individuals who will inevitably provide material
for comparisons – does not mean that those collaborators should be objects of
emulation. Kant underscores this tendency for the vice of envy to be bred by
comparisons: We only excite envy in a child by telling him to compare his own worth
with the worth of others. He ought rather to compare himself with a concept
of reason…’See how such and such a child behaves himself!’ An exclamation of
this kind produces only a very ignoble mode of thinking; for if a man
estimates his own worth by the worth of others , he either tries to elevate
himself above others, or to detract from another’s worth. But this last is
envy. We then only seek to impute faults to others, in order that we may
compare favorably with them. Thus the spirit of emulation, wrongly applied only
arouses envy.(23) The reason that the
inevitable conditions for comparison may lead to the wrong kind of emulation
is consistently and similarly elaborated in other works of Kant. Comparisons
lead to envy because of the tendency to evaluate ourselves based on the
performance of others, whether the performance of others has any direct
connection to our actual or perceived status or not. Kant defines envy in the
‘Doctrine of the Elements of Ethics’ in the Metaphysics of Morals as
follows: Envy is a propensity to view the well-being of others with distress,
even though it does not detract from one’s own. When it breaks forth into
action (to diminish their well being) it is called envy proper; otherwise it
is merely jealousy (invidentia). Yet envy is only an indirectly malevolent
disposition, namely a reluctance to see our own well-being overshadowed by
another’s because the standard we use to see how well off we are is not the
intrinsic worth of our own well-being but how it compares with that of
others.(24) The misconstrued opinion
of others and ourselves that comparisons can bring is a vice because this
misconstrued view of ourself, in particular, short circuits the process of
developing maxims of virtue. That is, an estimation of others so wrought with
excess and malice, that one’s own estimation is thereby distorted,
compromises the integrity of maxims our character will tend to form. Kant
discusses this in the ‘Doctrine of the Method of Ethics in the Metaphysics
of Morals. As for the power of examples (good or bad) that can be held up to the
propensity for imitation or warning, what others give us can establish no
maxim of virtue. For a maxim of virtue consists precisely in the subjective
autonomy of each human being’s practical reason and so implies that the law
itself, not the conduct of other human beings, must serve as our incentive.
Accordingly, a teacher will not tell his naughty pupil: take an example from
that good (orderly diligent) boy! For this would only cause him to hate that
boy, who should not serve as a model but only as a proof that it is really
possible to act in conformity with duty. So it is not comparison with any
other human being whatsoever (as he is), but with the idea (of humanity), as
he ought to be, and so comparison with the law, that must serve as the
constant standard of a teacher’s instruction.(25) Wherever the varying
contexts of Kant’s discussion may diverge in their precise diagnoses of envy,
and consequently their exact responses to it, all of those contexts agree
that the unavoidable comparisons in moral education can lead to the vice of
envy. Ambiguities in the
Birth of Adult Virtue: Sociable Comparisons or Strong Benevolence? Kant’s diagnosis in the
‘Practical Education’ of why the spirit of emulation may lead to envy is not
as consistent with other selections on this topic. In ‘Practical Education’
he suggest that there is a way to encourage emulation without necessarily
inspiring envy. There Kant argues that the educator can encourage the student
to emulate a certain virtue whose realization in some students demonstrate
how accessible that virtue is to others. This emulation would have to show
how far removed those other students are from themselves realizing that
virtue. In this sense, the student can compare himself with "a concept
of his reason" and still emulate a certain action, consistent with his
reason, but realized in another student. The student properly emulates this
action because it’s demonstration in the other student(s) conveys how
accessible the comparisons of reason can be. Kant says that " Emulation
may occasionally be used to good purpose, as when we tell a child , in order
to convince him of the possibility of performing a certain task, that another
could easily do it. We must on no account allow one child to humiliate the
another. We must seek to avoid every form of pride which is founded upon the
superiority of fortune".(26) According to the Kant in the ‘Practical Education’ its our concept of
reason that fruitfully humbles us not the success of others.(27) By comparing ourselves with our
reason we know how much we should be and how far we fall from that standard.
When the human tendency to make comparisons is harnessed in this way then the
student’s personal understanding of his deficiencies can enable him to
emulate actions in others that are accessible to him. Kant underscores the
salutary effect that reason supplies when it humbles the individual. "
We only excite envy in a child by telling him to compare his own worth with
the worth of others. He ought rather to compare himself with a concept of his
reason. For humility is really nothing else than the comparing of our own
worth with the standard of moral perfection.(28) Thus, for instance, the Christian religion
makes people humble, not by preaching humility, but by teaching them to
compare themselves with the highest pattern of perfection". The
discussion of comparisons in the ‘Doctrine of Method of Pure Practical
Reason’ in the Critique of Practical Reason emphasizes the value of
comparisons between individuals because those comparisons, even the most
vigorous comparisons, vindicate the integrity of the standard of morality
reason preserves. Kant elaborates that: In these appraisals one can often see revealed the character of the
person himself who judges others: some, in exercising their judicial office
especially upon the dead, seem inclined chiefly to defend the goodness that
is related of this or that deed against all injurious charges of impurity and
ultimately to defend the whole moral worth of the person against the reproach
of dissimulation and secret wickedness; others, on the contrary, are more
prone to contest this worth by accusations and fault finding. One cannot
always, however, attribute to the latter the intention of arguing away all
virtue from examples of human beings in order to make it an empty name: often
it is, instead, only well-meant strictness in determining genuine moral
import in accordance with an uncompromising law, comparison with which,
instead of with examples, greatly lowers self-conceit in moral matters, and
humility is not only taught but felt by anyone when he examines himself
strictly. Nevertheless, one can for the most part see in those who defend the
purity of intention in given examples, that where there is a presumption of
uprightness they would like to remove even the least spot from the
determining ground lest, if the truthfulness of all examples were disputed
and the purity of all human virtue denied, human virtue might in the end be
held a mere phantom, and so all striving toward it would be deprecated as
vain affectation and delusive self-conceit.(29) The moral scrutiny that
comparisons between individuals can engender, according to this analysis,
only confirms the loftiness of virtue that reason supports. And one of the
reasons that virtue is so impervious to such comparisons is because reason is
such a powerful representative of virtue. Kant continues in the Critique
of Practical Reason: We will therefore show, by observations anyone can make, that this
property of our minds, this receptivity to a pure moral interest and hence
the moving force of the pure representation of virtue, when it is duly
brought to bear on the human heart is the most powerful incentive to the good
and the only one when an enduring and meticulous observance of moral maxims
is in question. It must, however, be remembered that if these observations
show only the reality of such a feeling but not any moral improvement brought
about by it, this takes nothing away from the only method there is for making
the objectively practical laws of pure reason subjectively practical merely
through the pure representation of duty, as if it were an empty fantasy.(30) Like Kant’s account of
comparisons in ‘Practical Education’ his account in the Critique of Practical
Reason emphasizes the importance of the role reason plays in making
morally salutary comparisons. But in the later account, comparisons between
individuals (particularly individuals that history has deemed laudable) do
not help to cultivate virtue by complementing reason’s guidance through the
visible and accessible models of virtue. The moral comparisons that Kant
highlights here are one’s that, by the vigor of their scrutiny, sharpen the
guidance of reason in making pure uncompromised comparisons. The ‘Doctrine of
the Method of Ethics’ in Metaphysics of Morals also concerns itself
with the importance of reason’s role in shaping morally salutary comparisons.
But unlike the ‘Practical Education’ and (even less like) the Critique of
Practical Reason, this selection more positively endorses the benefit of
comparisons in the cultivation of virtue. Kant argues that: Virtue is the product of pure practical reason insofar as it gains
ascendancy over such inclinations with consciousness of its supremacy (based
on freedom). That virtue can and must be taught already follows from it’s not
being innate; a doctrine of virtue is therefore something that can be taught.
But since one does not acquire the power to put the rules of virtue into
practice merely by being taught how one ought to behave in order to conform
with the concept of virtue, the Stoics meant only that virtue cannot be
taught merely by concepts or duty or by exhortation (by paranethesis), but
must instead be exercised and cultivated by efforts to combat the inner enemy
within the human being (asceticism); for one cannot straightway do all that
one wants to do without having tried out and exercised one’s power.(31) Kant continues along this
line as follows: The experimental (technical) means for cultivating virtue is good
example on the part of the teacher (his exemplary conduct) and cautionary
example in others, since, for a still undeveloped human being, imitation is
the first determination of his will to accept maxims that he afterwards makes
for himself. To form a habit is to establish a lasting inclination apart from
any maxim, through frequently repeated gratification’s of that inclination ;
it is a mechanism of sense rather than a principle of thought (and one that
is easier to acquire than to get rid of afterwards).(32) To whatever extent an
education employing moral examples may trigger envy, Kant argues with various
shades of emphasis, that moral examples can still be positively employed in
moral education. The virtue Kant
emphasizes in the Education in response to the vice of envy is
magnanimity. The magnanimity Kant stresses there is the outgrowth of a moral
education where action is central to character formation. As argued earlier,
the kind of temperament that a courageous prudence supports will build action
laden character. This position is consistent with his careful presentation of
moral examples and positive emulation in the ‘Practical Education’. The
encouragement of actions accessible to each student is not morally harmful to
those students lacking the virtues those actions require. This is because
reason teaches the student what he is lacking. Kant says that "A man
will only reproach himself if he has the idea of mankind before his eyes. In
this idea he finds an original, with which he compares himself".(33) Any comparison with another
student is simply an invitation to perform an action easily performed,
instead of a reminder of what that student lacks. In this section, moral
action as the basis of character formation is more important than any other
of his educational writings. But moral examples are only feeble enticements
to perform the actions to which reason more powerfully attaches us. So the
actions in this kind of character formation rely on reason as a more salutary
motivator than envy. The courageous prudence of not relying on the estimation
of others supports the mild version of moral emulation that Kant espouses
here. This is because that courageous reliance on reason as the standard for
comparisons dilutes what envy moral emulation entices. And since envy is an
active and outward outgrowth of jealousy (a mere disposition), according to
Kant, a moral formation concerned with action would emphasize a
correspondingly active and outward virtue. The kind of actions this outward and
active virtue attaches to not only relies on courageous prudence, to avoid
undue reliance on the estimation of others, but to rely on the estimation of
others. Like the social skill of discretion, courageous prudence draws the
individual out of himself and his indifference to the views of others, since
his indifference only avoids envy by dissolving the attachments that can
arouse envy. Magnanimity then is the outward and active virtue that is the
mean between insolence and envy. But what goes under the name of magnanimity
is more like self confidence and self possession than what Aristotle might
mean by the term. Kant situates the virtue as follows: But this last is envy. We then only seek to impute faults to others,
in order that we may compare favorably with them. Thus the spirit of
emulation, wrongly applied arouses envy. Emulation may occasionally be used
to a good purpose, as when we tell a child, in order to convince him of the
possibility of performing a certain task, that other could easily do it. We
must on no account allow one child to humiliate another. We must seek to
avoid every form of pride which is founded upon the superiority of fortune.
At the same time we must seek to cultivate frankness in the child. This is an
unassuming confidence in himself, the possession of which places him in a
position to exhibit his talents in a becoming manner. This self confidence is
to be distinguished from insolence, which is really indifference to the
judgment of others.(34) The virtue that Kant
describes here is the virtue that Kant places under the name of magnanimity
in the terse paragraph on virtue and vice which follows this one. That self
confidence, frankness, and self possession would fall under the name of
magnanimity brings context to the kind of character formation Kant intends in
this discussion. This is a formation of character more based on action than
other sections in his educational writings, yet a moral education as critical
of moral examples as most of those other educational writings. In this sense,
a magnanimity built upon frankness and self confidence fits the demands of
action and outwardness and the restrictions of an education wary of moral
emulation. The two virtues and vices
related to envy and magnanimity in the Education are the virtues of
benevolence and self command and their respective vices, ingratitude and joy
at the misfortune of others. Self Command is a virtue that is similar to
magnanimity understood as frankness and self confidence, because they both
draw upon self restraint and control in similar ways. But what is it about
the vices of envy and joy at the misfortune of others that requires the
action centered virtues of self restraint? Both vices are related to the same
problem Kant observes, an immoderate concern for the estimation of others.
The pre-moral skill of discretion, or the balance between self restraint and
the reading of other’s character, devolves into a malicious reading of
other’s character due to that absence of restraint. In the case of envy, the
restraint that the ever humbling comparisons with reason supplied to the
individual becomes an unrestrained concern, that the others we compare to
ourselves will overshadow us. In the case of joy at the misfortune of others,
the unrestrained attention towards those that may overshadow us leads to joy
at the failings of others. Our lack of restraint enables our consequent
malicious preoccupation with others to produce sadness in us when others
succeed and joy in us when they fail. Whether it will be the vice of envy or
joy at the misfortune of others only depends on the actions of those around
us. Magnanimity and self command, by contrast, are virtues built upon the
directed and controlled actions in cooperation with others, without the
infectious comparisons with those others. The related vice of
ingratitude corresponds to the virtue of benevolence or satisfaction in the
happiness of others. Ingratitude, according to Kant, is an unwillingness to
appreciate others because that appreciation may involve attachments that
would put us under obligation to them.(35) The appreciation of others which might make
us subject to others is more specifically described as a satisfaction in the
happiness of others, that we can equally direct towards others; also
described as benevolence.(36) The function of ingratitude, negatively speaking, and benevolence,
positively speaking, is to be the layer of moral education that shapes the
kind of attachment shared between the student and others. The other two
layers of virtue and vice shape the configuration of that attachment to
society, for good or ill. But without some kind of virtue and vice related to
control that basic social attachment itself, there is nothing for envy and
magnanimity, on the one hand, or joy at the misfortune of others and self
command, on the other hand, to configure. In this sense, the equal concern
for the happiness in others ties the student to others in a way that supports
the virtue of self command. For without an equal, albeit undifferentiated,
attachment for others the virtue of self command would be much easier, since
the self one commands may be the only self one is concerned with. Self
command supports the virtue of magnanimity insofar as the frank self
confidence that drives it requires enough self possession to be more or less
frank, or more or less confident in our actions. This relationship of the
virtues and vices in the Education is different from the
relationship of the virtues and vices Kant elaborates in the Metaphysics
of Morals where the vices of envy and joy at the misfortune of others
correspond respectively to the virtues of beneficence and sympathy.(37) What isn’t different is the
virtue that attaches the individual to others – gratitude or benevolence. The
attachment benevolence supports in the Education enables self
command and magnanimity to function, whereas benevolence in the Metaphysics
of Morals enables sympathy and beneficence to function. Magnanimity and
beneficence are both outworking of benevolence, if one understands it as the
virtue that attaches the individual to others by equal concern for them. Kant
explains how beneficence is the concrete outworking of benevolence: In wishing I can be equally benevolent to everyone, whereas in acting
I can, without violating the universality of the maxim, vary the degree
greatly in accordance with the different objects of my love (one of whom
concerns me more closely than another)…But beyond benevolence in our wishes
for others (which costs us nothing) how can it be required as a duty that
this should also be practical, that is, that everyone who has the means to do
so should be beneficent to those in need?—Benevolence is satisfaction in the
happiness (well being) of others; but beneficence is the maxim of making
others’ happiness ones’ end, and the duty to it consists in the subject’s
being constrained by his reason to adopt this maxim as a universal law.(38) The bond that benevolent
concern affords the individual is not with a society whose happiness he can
make his own end, at least on an equal basis; after all, beneficent actions
are always finite actions. So in the case of the Metaphysics of Morals,
the benevolence it shares with the Education and the Metaphysics
of Morals treats the active vice of envy with virtues that are equally
active, but nevertheless different kinds of active virtues. Beneficence
concerns making the happiness of others one’s own end, whereas magnanimity is
a frank self confidence. Rousseau and Kant on
Sympathy: Malicious Sentimentality or Active Beneficence? The most telling difference
between these two alternative configurations of virtue and vice is the role
that sympathy plays in the Metaphysics of Morals in contrast to the Education.
In the ‘Practical Education’ section of the Education Kant refers to
sympathy as an ‘evil’ that amounts to idle lamentation and rarely translates
into compassion. Kant also says that "children ought not to be full of
feeling, but full of the idea of duty. Many people, indeed become
hardhearted, where once they were pitiful, because they have so often been
deceived".(39) In other
words, a moral education interested in character that is formed by action
must emphasize those virtues grounded in action. To the extent that the
cultivation of sympathetic feelings distracts the student from the virtues that
would transform those feelings into actions, they soon become feelings of
hard heartedness. While the Critique of Practical Reason describes a
different relationship of moral comparisons to moral education than the Education,
it does agree with this criticism of sympathy in moral education. And while
in the Critique of Practical Reason Kant points to over lofty moral
examples and magnanimity in the Aristotelian sense of it, as the source of
ungrounded affections, he describes the immoderate character of those
sentiments similarly. He argues that: I do not know why educators of young people…have not, after first
laying the foundation in a purely moral catechism, searched throughout the
biographies of ancient and modern times in order to have at hand instances
for the duties presented, in which, especially by comparison of similar
actions under different circumstances, they could well activate their pupil’s
appraisal in marking the lesser or greater moral import of such actions; they
would find that even someone very young, who is not yet ready for speculation
, would soon become very acute and thereby not a little interested, since he
would feel the progress of his faculty of judgment…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 longing 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.(40) An education that
emphasizes character formation of this kind must develop temperaments where
courageous prudence moderates the wrong kind of attachments to others. In
this sense, sympathy is like envy and joy at the misfortune of others. While
the absence of self restraint fuels the petty malice of envy and joy at the
misfortune of others, the unruly non-restraint of sympathetic feelings can
only fuel feeble and fleeting benevolence. The courageous prudence of self
restraint, which the moral education of the Education hopes to
foster, aims for virtues like frank self confidence and the self command that
supports it. These are the configurations of virtue and vice that prepare the
adolescent for morality. The positive endorsements
of sympathy in the Metaphysics of Morals are endorsements more for sympathy’s
conversion into beneficence. More importantly, the beneficence that
benevolence and sympathy support is an active virtue like magnanimity. But
the kind of active virtue suited for the development of a child and
adolescent may not be the kind of active virtue suited for an adult. The self
directedeness of Kant’s magnanimity develops strengths in the student without
developing disaffected strengths in the student. This is the kind of moral
preparation that may cultivate a more stable version of beneficence than
childhood can according to Kant. And that the moral responsibility adulthood
entails would require distinct phases of preparation is the most consistent
claim of the Education. The problem of envy is a
profound problem for Rousseau and Kant. While both thinkers differ in their
estimation of the role society plays in the sowing of envy, both agree that
the individual tends to be divided in society. Kant similarly identifies
something like Rousseau’s "amour-propre" in moral examples and
comparisons in society. The very worth of the individual can be deformed by
his immoderate, unrestrained dependence on the judgments of others. But since
society isn’t to be blamed for this tendency, society may be able to support
positive forms of emulation. How that can be fostered and what it’s moral
value might be is harder to understand in Kant. Rousseau’s assignment of so
much blame on the institutional and informal prejudices of society offers
only radical and illusive hopes to vindicate this condition in society.
Kant’s more moderate assessment of the moral harm in society allows more
tangible hope in the progress history prepares. Whatever common ground
Rousseau and Kant share in their assessment of the factors that inspire envy
becomes more pronouncedly stressed in their responses to those factors. On
educational terms their differences are starkly at odds in their approach to
sympathy. Whether the aim in Kant is beneficence or magnanimity, benevolence
similarly attaches individuals to others. This fundamental bond is fostered
not by vain comparisons but by the humbling function of our reason, which
thereby supports this bond. In Rousseau it is the fundamental passion of self
love that ties humans together. But unlike Kant, it is the transports of the
imagination that preserves self love in the inevitable dependencies society
brings. By imagining what is to be pitied in others, instead of what is to be
envied in others, the individual can preserve his natural self worth. By
embracing the unavoidable fact of comparisons and orchestrating only
favorable comparisons the student can be cautiously socialized. Kant treats
as a vice precisely what Rousseau treats as a virtue, the joy in the
suffering of others. This joy is only an indirect joy for Rousseau since
those sufferings are sufferings the observer is glad to not have.
Nevertheless, the virtuous sweetness of pity in Rousseau is quite similar to
the vice of finding joy in the failings of others in Kant. Where the
imagination can multiply beneficial comparisons in Rousseau, reason can
distill these comparisons into one daunting comparison – that of perfection.
In this way, reason more graciously supports benevolence by humbling the
individual and supplying a more stable basis for compassion as an adult. In
short, Rousseau and Kant consider the problem of envy with common concerns,
but their precise assessment of those problems and, even more, their diverging
responses to those problems reveal how deceptively different their
educational philosophies can be.
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NOTES (*) This paper will
consider the difference between "pity" and "sympathy" by
considering their philosophical context. When comparing their uses to one
another, insofar as their meaning corresponds to similar phenomonoa, they
will be used interchangeably. (1) J.J. Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom (Basic Books, 1979) 211. (2) J.J. Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom ( Basic Books, 1979) 213. (3) J.J. Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom ( Basic Books, 1979) 214. (4) J.J. Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom ( Basic Books, 1979) 215. (5) J.J. Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom ( Basic Books, 1979) 220. (6) J.J. Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom ( Basic Books, 1979) 221. (7) J.J. Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom ( Basic Books, 1979) 221. (8) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Anette Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 14-15. (9) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 24-25. (10) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 25. (11) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 11. (12) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 15. (13) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 15. (14) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 9. (15) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 18. (16) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 19. (17) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 19. (18) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 20. (19) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 108. A
full discussion of virtues and vices in the education would include not only
the formal cravings in their tripartite division of lusts (honor, power, and
ambition), as well as the corresponding divisions of vices (magnanimity,
benevolence, and self command) and virtues (envy, ingratitude, joy at the
misfortune of others), but the material cravings of sexual indulgence,
enjoyment of good things, and social intercourse, and the division of vices
(injustice, unfaithfulness, and dissoluteness) and virtues (honesty,
propriety, and peaceableness) which respectively correspond to those
cravings. The third division of cravings, a combination of the formal and
material cravings according to Kant, the love of life, health, and ease
similarly find vices (unkindness, niggardliness, and idleness) and virtues
(honorableness, modesty, and contentment) which respectively correspond to
those cravings. This can be seen in the following diagram:
(20) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 95-96. (21) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 96-97. (22) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 99-100. (23) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annette Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 106. (24) Immaneul Kant, Metaphysics
of Morals, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1996) 576. (25) Immaneul Kant, Metaphysics
of Morals, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1996) 593. (26) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annette Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 106. (27) Immanuel Kant, Religion
Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore Greene, and Hoyt H.
Hudson ( New York: Harper and Row, 1960) 22-23. (28) Immaneul Kant, Education, trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1960) 105. (29) Immaneul Kant, Critique
of Practical Reason, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) 263. (30) Immaneul Kant, Critique
of Practical Reason, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) 262. (31) Immaneul Kant,
Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) 591. (32) Immaneul Kant,
Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) 593. (33) Immaneul Kant, Education, trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1960) 103. (34) Immaneul Kant, Education, trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1960) 105-106. (35) Immaneul Kant,
Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) 577. (36) Immaneul Kant,
Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) 570-571. (37) The following
illustration lists the relationship of virtue and vice in both texts. Configuration of Virtue
and Vice in the Education versus Metaphysics of Morals:
(38) Immaneul Kant,
Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) 570-57. (39) Immanuel Kant, Education,
trans. Annete Churton (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) 104. (40) Immaneul Kant,
Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) 263-264. Works
Cited: (1) Kant, Immanuel, Critique
of Practical Reason. Trans. Mary J. Gregor. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1996. (2) Kant, Immanuel, Education. Trans.
Annette Churton. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960. (3) Kant, Immanuel, Metaphysics
of Morals. Trans. Mary J. Gregor. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1996. (4) Kant, Immanuel, Religion
Within the Limits of Reason Alone. Trans. Mary J. Gregor. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1996. (5) Rousseau, J.J., Emile. Trans. Allan Bloom. Basic Books, 1979.
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