"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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