JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 1 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 7B875968 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY Melissa McBay Merritt abstract: For Kant, the ideal of enlightenment is most fundamentally expressed as a self-developed soundness of judgment. But what does this mean when the judgment at issue is practical, that is, concerns the good to be brought about through action? I argue that the moral context places special demands on the ideal of enlightenment. This is revealed through an interpretation of Kant's prescription for moral pedagogy in the Critique of Practical Reason. The goal of the pedagogy is to cultivate the moral disposition, and the method consists of training in judgment. Unfortunately, Kant seems to wind up somewhere short of this goal, leaving the young person with only an idle wish for a properly cultivated moral disposition. In this paper, I argue that when we address the special issues that arise when the enlightenment ideal is brought to bear on practical judgment-issues that stem from the intrinsic connection between practical judgment and agency-we will see that there is no lacuna in Kant's account. The imitator (in moral matters) is without character; for character consists precisely in originality in the way of thinking [Denkungsart]. He who has character derives his conduct from a source that he has opened by himself.-Kant, Anthropology1 Melissa Merritt is Lecturer in the School of History and Philosophy at the University of New South Wales. She has recently published articles on Kant in European Journal of Philosophy and Kantian Review and is currently working on a book manuscript on Kant's conception of enlightenment. 1 Kant, Anthropology, 7: 293. References to Kant's works, with the exception of the Critique of Pure Reason, follow the volume and page of the German Academy of Sciences edition. References to the Critique of Pure Reason follow the pagination of the first (1781) and second (1787) editions, abbreviated A/B. Quotations are drawn from the translations in the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (14 vols., ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press]), whenever possible, although the translations have been modified on occasion. The following abbreviations are used for frequently cited works: Anth Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View G Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals JL Jäsche Logic KpV Critique of Practical Reason KU Critique of Judgment MS Metaphysics of Morals The Southern Journal of Philosophy Volume 49, Issue 3 September 2011 The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 49, Issue 3 (2011), 227–53. ISSN 0038-4283, online ISSN 2041-6962. DOI: 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2011.00072.x 227 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 2 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 57039EAD /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 1. INTRODUCTION Eighteenth-century discussion about the meaning of "enlightenment" arguably has its roots in Locke's remark that it is no "small power" that one man has over another if he is granted "Authority to be the Dictator of Principles, and Teacher of unquestionable Truths." Whatever we take on faith from an appointed teacher is but so much "borrowed Wealth, like Fairy-money, though it were Gold in the hand from which [we] received it, will be but Leaves and Dust when it comes to use." Even if we have been fed true principles, we remain impoverished unless we are able to recognize their relevance to our own "unprejudiced Experience."2 It naturally fell to Locke, and others who invoked such a conception of enlightenment, to reconsider the methods and aims of education, so that it might be adequate to this ideal of cognitive autonomy. It is striking how much of Locke's conception of enlightenment remains alive for Kant, who almost a century later reminds us that what is imparted through instruction is "borrowed from the insight of others," and thus only truly comes to belong to the individual who develops "the capacity to make use of these rules correctly" (A133/B172). Enlightenment is not achieved through the acquisition of information; rather, it shows up as a certain self-developed soundness of judgment. And so it falls to Kant, as well, to consider the methods and aims of education so that it might promote rather than hinder this autonomy of mind. My aim here is to work out how the Kantian conception of enlightenment takes shape in the moral sphere, where practical judgment is at issue.3 Kant's prescription for enlightened moral pedagogy in the Critique of Practical Reasonprovides a good opportunity to do so, since the method Kant R Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason P Lectures on Pedagogy WIE "Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" 2 See John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), bk. I, ch. iv, secs. 23–25. 3 Since Kant supposes that there is moral knowledge, or cognition, it follows that the ideal of enlightenment-as a standard of cognitive health-should figure in the moral sphere as well. In contrast, Moses Mendelssohn takes "enlightenment" to be restricted to the domain of theoretical cognition and denominates "culture" as the counterpart for "the practical dimension" ("On the Question: What Does 'To Enlighten' Mean?" in Moses Mendelssohn, Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 313; Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 6 [Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1981], 115). More starkly in a 1784 letter, Mendelssohn says: "Aufklärung [enlightenment] is concerned only with the theoretical, with knowledge, with the elimination of prejudices; Kultur [culture] is concerned with morality, sociality, art, with things done and not done" (Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 13, 234); the reference is from James Schmidt, What is Enlightenment?: Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 57. 228 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 3 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 5C91208B /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 outlines consists of training in practical judgment.4 As I will suggest, the moral context places special demands on the ideal of enlightenment-demands that stem from the intrinsic connection between practical judgment and agency. On the face of it, though, it is not clear why moral pedagogy should consist of training in judgment at all. Kant announces that the true end of moral pedagogy is to produce "morality of dispositions," rather than merely to instruct with regard to the "legality of actions" (KpV, 5: 151). Legality concerns the conformity of given actions to prescribed moral duties, whereas morality concerns the motive to act simply from one's recognition of what duty requires.5 But as we will see, this end can be met only if the student develops a capacity for independent-or, as I shall say, original-practical judgment. Although Kant often associates originality with genius-and so with something unteachable6-it by no means follows that originality is uniquely attributable to genius or that it is incompatible with education. For as Kant says in our epigraph, moral character consists of originality of thought: so presumably originality of thought must be a possibility for anyone.7 And if Kant can intelligibly say that the aim of a moral education is to produce the moral disposition, then originality of thought must also be compatible with education. The project, then, is to understand how Kant tries to promote originality of thought-or, in effect, the enlightenment ideal-through moral pedagogy. This will not only allow us to draw out the implications of the enlightenment ideal for practical judgment, but it will also (bearing our epigraph in mind) shed light on the importance of moral character for Kant. But there is a difficulty here. Kant's method begins with training in judgments of appraisal. Although this training sharpens a student's grasp of moral principles, it does not directly contribute to the end of cultivating sound moral disposition. It cannot do this because it allows the student to view the good as 4 Kant devotes the Doctrine of Method to the topic of moral pedagogy (KpV, 5: 151–61). He also discusses it at length at MS, 6: 475–91; in Anth, R, and P, passim; and more briefly at G, 4: 408–09, 411n. Though I draw on these other texts, I focus on the KpV account for the special attention it gives to the cultivation of the capacity for practical judgment. 5 Earlier, Kant says that the "true end of all moral education [moralische Bildung]" is simply "that actions be done not merely in conformity with duty . . . but from duty" (KpV, 5: 117; see also P, 9: 475). Here Kant points to the cultivation of the moral motive-rather than the moral disposition-as the goal of moral pedagogy. However, as I will suggest, the interest we take in acting well is dependent on the interest we take in cultivating the moral disposition in ourselves. 6 On this point, see Kant's account of artistic genius at KU, 5: 307–20; for a less restricted account of genius as originality of thinking, see Anth, 7: 138, 220, 224. 7 Originality need not be anything extraordinary; in the sense at issue here, it is a certain independence of judgment. Such independence, as I explain elsewhere, is a normative requirement on cognitive activity and must be supposed to admit of degree (see my "Reflection, Enlightenment, and the Significance of Spontaneity in Kant," British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17 [2009]: 981–1010). KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 229 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 4 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 5ABC0C17 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 just another external fact about the world, one the determination of which stands in no intrinsic relation to the student's conception of himself as an agent or cause of the represented good. Kant then sets out to account for the requisite transition from spectatorship to agency. He explains how a young person might be led first to approve, then to admire, and finally to venerate a person who conceivably manifests a steady disposition to act from duty: the young person is left with the "lively wish that he himself could be such a man" (KpV, 5: 156). But 'wish' is a technical term that Kant pointedly distinguishes from 'choice'. It indicates that the young person remains unaware of his capacity to bring about what he desires-namely, the cultivation of the moral disposition in himself. So he does not choose this end, and the crucial issue of agency remains unaddressed. Perhaps this is to be expected, for Kant is quite clear that no one can be made to adopt any end (MS, 6: 381), and so the pedagogy could do no more than prepare someone for a final step that he must take himself. Still, we need an explanation of why training in judgment should provide the appropriate preparation. The method, as I will explain, is to cultivate original practical judgment: without this, it can produce only moral spectators. As the student develops this capacity, he comes to see that the good he approves in others must also be the good that he makes his own end. Thus, when we consider the special issues that arise when the enlightenment ideal is brought to bear on practical judgment, we will see that there is no lacuna in Kant's account of moral education.8 8 Kant's pedagogical writings have been approached from other angles, though they have received relatively little attention in Anglophone secondary literature. Lewis White Beck provides a largely biographical account in "Kant on Education" (in Education in the Eighteenth Century, ed. J. D. Browning [New York: Garland, 1979], 10–24), though he suggests a connection between Kant's philosophy of history and philosophy of education-a suggestion Barbara Herman takes up, with regard to moral education in particular, in "Training to Autonomy" (in Philosophers on Education, ed. A. O. Rorty [London: Routledge, 1998], 255–72; reprinted in Barbara Herman, Moral Literacy [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007], 130–52). Robert Louden examines pedagogy in the context of interpreting Kant's account of empirically conditioned practical reason; see Kant's Impure Ethics ([New York: Oxford University Press, 2000], 33–61), and "Go-carts of Judgment: Exemplars in Kantian Moral Education" (Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 74 [1992]: 303–22). Kate Moran suggests a connection between moral pedagogy and the highest good in "Can Kant Have an Account of Moral Education?" (Journal of Philosophy of Education 43 [2009]: 471–84). G. Felicitas Munzel argues for the broader pedagogical import of Kant's critical philosophy in "Kant on Moral Education" (Review of Metaphysics 57 [2003]: 43–73); see also her Kant's Conception of Moral Character ([Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999], ch. 5). Recent commentaries on the Critique of Practical Reason's Doctrine of Method-the text principally at issue here-include Munzel's " 'Doctrine of Method' and 'Closing' " (in Immanuel Kant: Kritik der prakitschen Vernunft, ed. Otfried Höffe [Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002], 203–17), and Stefano Bacin's "The Meaning of the Critique of Practical Reason for Moral Beings: The Doctrine of Method of Pure Practical Reason" (in Kant's Critique of Practical Reason: A Critical Guide, ed. Andrews Reath and Jens Timmermann [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010], 197–215). 230 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 5 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 496AF2F5 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 I begin by explaining what originality means by locating it in Kant's general conception of enlightenment (section 2). Then, after reconstructing Kant's assessment of the failure of existing practices in moral education (section 3), I draw out the implications of his conception of enlightenment for practical judgment through an examination of the moral pedagogy (sections 4–7). 2. ENLIGHTENMENT Kant, like many of his predecessors and contemporaries, understands enlightenment to be a rejection of external sources of cognitive authority. Enlightenment is thereby understood in terms of the requirement that one think for oneself. Thus, when Kant identifies enlightenment with "the maxim of always thinking for oneself" ("What is Orientation in Thinking?" 8: 146n), or takes its "motto" to be "have courage to make use of your own understanding!" (WIE, 8: 35), he aligns himself with a dominant view of enlightenment in the modern era. At the same time, Kant undeniably adds something new when he identifies enlightenment with a maxim or invokes its motto in the imperative mood. Enlightenment is in turn conceived less as a determinate state of affairs and more as an ideal toward which we ought to strive. Although Kant identifies enlightenment with the maxim of thinking for oneself, he typically presents this maxim along with two others: "to think in the position of everyone else" and "to think always consistently, or in agreement, with oneself" (KU, 5: 294; JL, 9: 57; Anth, 7: 228). Although Kant refers to the three maxims in a variety of different ways, he consistently suggests that the three maxims point to an ideal of sound cognitive disposition. Indeed, as I will argue, the Kantian ideal of enlightenment comes into view only when the maxims are interpreted as a unified package.9 In this regard, my approach contrasts with recent interpretations of Kant's conception of enlightenment, which tend to emphasize one maxim to the exclusion of others. Allen Wood, for example, treats the first maxim as his sole text for uncovering Kant's conception of enlightenment.10 Alternatively, although Onora O'Neill discusses all three maxims, she gives special emphasis to the point about publicity expressed in the second maxim; she introduces this emphasis, it seems, as a corrective to a common view of enlightenment as 9 This approach accords with Kant's designation of the complete set as maxims of the "enlightened" and "broadminded way of thinking" in Reflexion 1486 (15: 715). They are maxims of "sound human understanding" (KU, 5: 293; translation modified), of "wisdom" (Anth, 7: 200, 228), and of "the avoidance of error" (JL, 9: 57). 10 See Allen Wood, Unsettling Obligations: Essays on Reason, Reality, and the Ethics of Belief (Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2002), 103 and also 81. Wood relies on Kant's remark (quoted at the outset of this section) in "What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?" (8: 146n); however, there the maxim is mentioned only in passing, without the other two. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 231 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 6 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 5164D639 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 tantamount to a delusional denial of cultural and intellectual tradition.11 Although this corrective is sorely needed, it is a distortion of emphasis all the same-at least if, as I shall argue, the ideal of enlightenment emerges only when the maxims are read as a complete package. In his popular essay, "What Is Enlightenment?" (8: 33–42), Kant gives us good reason to doubt that the meaning of enlightenment should rest on the first maxim alone. For while he begins by invoking this maxim, he in fact devotes most of the essay to the point about publicity that is, in other writing, expressed as the second maxim. The strategy is unsurprising for a popular essay: Kant begins with a common understanding of his subject matter (the long-celebrated call to think for oneself) and sets out to refine this received view by showing that it must be understood in relation to a relatively neglected point about thinking in community with others. In the popular essay, Kant does not isolate each maxim (indeed he does not call them "maxims" in that context at all), and he does not explicitly address their relation to one another. His discussion there is more casual than that, and so we should not be surprised that the point of the third maxim does not come up in the popular essay at all. But since Kant consistently presents the three maxims as a unified and interdependent package in other writings, we should expect that a more complete answer to the eponymous question of Kant's popular essay must rely on other texts. With this in mind, it may help first to set aside some preconceptions that can arise from taking the popular essay as our sole text for interpreting Kant's views on enlightenment. The broader concerns of that essay are political: his topic is how a state can support the cognitive autonomy of its people (particularly in matters of religion), and why it should. This does not mean, however, that Kant takes enlightenment to be primarily a political problem or that enlightenment must be primarily a collective rather than an individual endeavor. Plenty of room remains for a related discussion about how education can promote the cognitive autonomy of individuals.12 Second, the 11 This assumption about the enlightenment ideal is made vivid in Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). O'Neill interprets the enlightenment ideal through the three maxims in Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant's Practical Philosophy ([Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], chs. 1 and 2); on MacIntyre, see ch. 8 and p. 70n4. See also Katerina Deligiorgi, "Universalisability, Publicity, and Communication: Kant's Conception of Reason" (European Journal of Philosophy 10 [2002]: 143–59). 12 Indeed, when we draw our interpretation of enlightenment from the three maxims, individual and collective enlightenment cannot be neatly separated: see the penultimate paragraph of this section. Moreover, Kant clearly takes enlightenment to be an issue both for the public at large and for individuals; while he suggests in the popular essay that individual enlightenment is more difficult to achieve than collective enlightenment (WIE, 8: 36), in the Critique of Judgment he suggests just the opposite (see KU, 5: 294n)-thus he accords no clear priority to the one over the other. 232 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 7 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 5772BA08 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 essay'sfocus on religion may give the impression that enlightenment is an issue only for certain subject matter, or perhaps certain modes of judgment (e.g., practical but not theoretical). But the focus on religion must also be attributed to the essay's broader political aims, since, as Kant explains, "our rulers have no interest in playing guardian over their subjects with respect to the arts and sciences" (WIE, 8: 41). Far from saying that enlightenment matters only when matters of religion are at stake, this remark instead suggests that it may be equally important in the arts and sciences-it simply presents less of a political problem there.13 When we set aside the political concerns of the popular essay, we can see that Kant takes enlightenment to be a general standard of cognitive health.14 This is why we will first consider Kant's general conception of enlightenment through the three maxims, before drawing out its specific implications for practical judgment later on. Kant says that the maxims address the "way of thinking" (Denkungsart) that is required "to make a purposive use" of one's cognitive capacity (KU, 5: 295).15 In other words, the maxims concern our conduct inasmuch as we aim at cognition. Bearing this in mind, we should be able to see that Kant's conception of enlightenment must be articulated through the unified battery of all three maxims-and not through the officially designated maxim of enlightenment alone. Indeed, if this maxim were to stand on its own, it would make no sense to call it the maxim of enlightenment at all. Let us begin with this point. The first maxim concerns originality, for it in effect says, "I shall be the source of my thoughts." But it would allow for arbitrary originality of thought 13 Moreover, Kant often alludes to his views on enlightenment when he has theoretical judgment in view. In Anthropology, he refers to enlightenment as a "revolution from within the human being": "Before this revolution he let others think for him and merely imitated others or allowed them to guide him by leading-strings. Now he ventures to advance, though still shakily, with his own feet on the ground of experience" (Anth, 7: 229). Here Kant points to theoretical judgment, where experience is the ultimate testing ground of one's claims. Consider also Kant's discussion of sound judgment from the Critique of Pure Reason (A132–34/B171–73), where the capacity to think for oneself shows up as a sharp appreciation of the relevance of given rules without prompting from without; in this passage, Kant points to examples of both theoretical and practical judgment. 14 We can come to the same point by considering also Kant's endorsement of another common conception of enlightenment as freedom from prejudice (e.g., at KU, 5: 294), paired with his broad view of prejudice as something that we are liable to be saddled with no matter what our subject matter. This other route to Kant's conception of enlightenment can be traced via his remarks on reflection as the antidote to prejudice (see, e.g., JL, 9: 76). Although I touch on the topic of prejudice below, I do not take up the trickier topic of reflection in this paper; I discuss the connection between reflection and enlightenment in "Reflection, Enlightenment, and the Significance of Spontaneity in Kant." 15 By making a "purposive use" of the cognitive capacity, Kant means using it in a way that is aimed at knowledge (rather than employing it toward some other, nonintrinsic, end-e.g., to come up with witty remarks). KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 233 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 8 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4B85DBC1 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 if it stood alone. As Kant explains, if we were to adopt the first maxim without the second, we would in turn ignore a fundamental "touchstone of the correctness of our judgments": For we are thereby robbed, not of the only, but still of the greatest and most useful means of correcting our own thoughts, which happens due to the fact that we advance them in public in order to see whether they also agree with the understanding of others; for otherwise something merely subjective (for instance, habit or inclination) would easily be taken for something objective. This is precisely what the illusion consists in that is said to deceive us, or rather the means by which we are misled to deceive ourselves, in the application of a rule. (Anth, 7: 219) The upshot of this passage is that the first maxim cannot be a rule for making "purposive use" of one's cognitive capacity all on its own. For if one were indifferent to what is required in order to correct one's own thoughts, then one could not be said to aim at knowledge at all. Whatever can be known- any object of cognition-must be accessible in principle to any judging subject. The second maxim requires that one take an interest in distinguishing the merely private influences on one's taking things to be a certain way (e.g., "habit or inclination") from what is public or available in principle to any judging subject. That is, the second maxim requires one to identify the "subjective private conditions of judgment"-what depends on the accidents of a particular individual's physical disposition and trajectory through the world-so that one might assess one's "own judgment from a universal standpoint" (KU, 5: 295). These "subjective private conditions of judgment" are what Kant elsewhere understands as prejudice. And since Kant endorses a common conception of enlightenment as "liberation from prejudices in general" (5: 294), we must consider his views on prejudice in order to understand both how the maxims relate to one another and how they together articulate the ideal of enlightenment. Kant consistently identifies three sources of prejudice: habit, inclination, and imitation.16 Yet in taking enlightenment to be freedom from prejudice, Kant does not mean that we must try to rid ourselves entirely of habit, inclination, and imitation. We could no more do away with them than we could alter human nature, for we are simply set up so that they tend to get the first word, as it were.17 However, we need to be reflective about the influence they have on our taking things to be a certain way. In the quoted passage, Kant explains that failure to acknowledge the requirement of publicity (the second maxim) leaves us prone to confuse "something merely subjective (for 16 See JL, 9: 76, Logik Phillipi 24: 426, Logik Pölitz 24: 548; cf. Reflexion 2519, 16: 403. The sources of prejudice are also mentioned obliquely at A53/B77 and A260–61/B316. 17 Inclination always gets the "first word" in representations dependent on the faculty of desire (KpV, 5: 147). 234 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 9 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 51838CD5 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 instance, habit or inclination) . . . for something objective." This confusion is an illusion that stems from our default propensity to treat the regularity of some habit or inclination as if it were law, that is, as necessary and universally valid.18 Thus, the first maxim on its own leaves us open to the prejudices stemming from habit and inclination-but not, presumably, imitation. The second maxim addresses the avoidance of such prejudices, so that we might not succumb so readily to the illusion just described. Therefore, the first maxim cannot be a rule for making good use of one's cognitive capacity all on its own: it must be considered in conjunction with the second maxim if it is to be understood as having this role. Likewise, the second maxim on its own would leave us open to the prejudices of imitation: if one should care only to think from the position of everyone else, one would be without thoughts of one's own. Thus, the two maxims are interdependent, inasmuch as both are to figure as rules for making "purposive use" of our cognitive capacity. Together they encourage the reflective attitude by which one would remain on guard against prejudice. Since Kant endorses the idea that enlightenment is freedom from prejudice in general, it would follow that the ideal of enlightenment cannot be expressed through the first maxim alone: it must at least require the first two maxims together. What then of the third maxim, "to think always consistently with oneself"? It, too, could not be a maxim of enlightenment if taken on its own, for one could very well make it one's end to think always consistently with oneself and through this effort produce only perfect systems of superstition.19 As we should now be able to see, the first two maxims admit of "combination" only inasmuch as one at least implicitly grasps them as rules for making a "purposive use" of one's cognitive capacity: their interdependency shows up only against the background of this end. Kant says that the third maxim "can only be achieved through the combination of the first two and after they have become fluent through frequent observance of them" (KU, 5: 295).20 Although Kant does not explain exactly how the third maxim arises, with this 18 Inclination is "habitual desire" (MS, 6: 212). Habit (Gewohnheit) is simply the idea of "subjective necessity" that belongs to the Humean conception of custom: it is our unreflective tendency to expect that the future must resemble the past (B5, B20, B127, A760/B788, A765/B793; Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics 4: 258, 272; KpV, 5: 12–13, 51; MS, 6: 340; Anth, 7: 147). 19 This is Kant's point, at least obliquely, at KpV, 5: 162–63. 20 The German reads: "Die dritte Maxime . . . kann auch nur durch die Verbindung beider ersten und nach einer zur Fertigkeit gewordenen öfteren Befolgung derselben erreicht werden." The Cambridge Edition has: "until frequent observation of them has made them automatic" (KU, 5: 295; emphasis added). I am compelled to alter the translation: 'automatic' is an unfortunate choice inasmuch as it implies an unreflective attitude. This cuts against the grain of the conception of enlightenment at issue in the three maxims, which is my concern here. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 235 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 10 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4D70CABD /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 he does indicate that they are combined through practice.21 Since Kant also conceives of enlightenment as cognitive maturity,22 we can understand this combination in the following way. The first maxim makes a point about originality, while the second makes a point about publicity: these are the two elements of the Kantian conception of enlightenment. The first two maxims are unfused in an immature mind, so that originality seems to compromise publicity, or the universal communicability of one's claims, and the other way around. Coming into cognitive maturity requires appreciating that these imperatives are not really at odds with one another. This appreciation is typically only tacit, something developed through the practice of judging in community with others. Even though the third maxim is supposed to arise from the combination of the first two, it still makes a distinct contribution.23 The third maxim makes the subject's self-conception a matter of immediate concern. This is a direct inference from the requirement of coherence: if I am unmoved by inconsistency in my thinking, then I must either be unaware of the inconsistency, or else must not care to acknowledge all of my thoughts as fully my own (perhaps I allow myself to be impressionable). So the imperative is that I should take an interest in being the coherent source of my own thoughts-however much of what I think may have been given to me, in the first instance, through testimony, tradition, and instruction. The upshot is that one's self-conception, in the relevant sense, is not neatly separable from the activity of judging in community with others. What one conceives of when one conceives of oneself is, accordingly, a constitution comprised of the rules and principles of a shared practice of judgment. Thus, the fusing of the first two maxims, to produce the third, is a matter of taking an interest in one's own cognitive constitution. And this entails taking a critical attitude toward these rules. One tests the mettle of the rules that one has been taught, that one simply finds oneself with, through one's independent appreciation of their relevance in various cognitive contexts. The reflective person can then admit them as principles, as genuine sources of cognition-and likewise as elements of her cognitive constitution. 21 That is, Kant's point about the third maxim's arising from the combination of the first two is not (or not merely) a point about their theoretical exposition, but rather concerns their natural development in an actual human being. 22 This is emphasized throughout "What is Enlightenment?" (8: 35); see also Reflexionen 1508–09 (c.1780–84), where the maxims are presented as maxims of "mature [reife]" and "healthy [gesunde] reason" (15: 820–23). 23 Kant's presentation of the third maxim echoes his earlier remark about "synthetic unity" in the Introduction (KU, 5: 197), so that even though it arises from the combination of the first two maxims, it still says something new. See also B110–11. 236 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 11 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 489D8960 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 Both the first and the third maxim make thematic the idea that one ought to be the source of one's own thoughts. In this regard, both make a point about originality. But the first maxim does not require having a unified selfconception: I could make it my maxim to think for myself and remain untroubled by the inconsistency of my thoughts from one minute to the next. The conception of originality expressed in the first maxim is, rather, made complete through the conception of publicity-or universal communicability-that is expressed in the second maxim. It is made complete when the end of cognition is brought into view. Hence, the real significance of the third maxim does not concern mere consistency of thought. Rather, the third maxim concerns the interest one ought to take in being a coherent cognitive agent. This is the complete conception of originality that is fundamental to the Kantian conception of enlightenment. 3. IMITATION My main goal in this paper is to see how this conception of enlightenment takes shape when the judgments at issue are practical-that is, when they concern the good to be brought about through action. Since that account will be drawn from Kant's positive prescription for moral pedagogy, let us first consider his target: the pedagogically dangerous practice of encouraging the young to imitate models of virtue. Kant does not deny that imitation plays a role in education. To suggest that a person ought to render himself fully formed without ever looking to another's example would grossly pervert the ideal of enlightenment. Quite forcefully, Kant maintains that "learning is nothing but imitation" (KU, 5: 308), and he notes that "the mechanism of instruction [Unterweisung] always requires the student to imitate" (Anth, 7: 225)-though here it is important to note that such learning and instruction do not comprise the whole of an education.24 So the issue at hand must be to consider what sort of imitation belongs to enlightened pedagogy, for it cannot be forgotten that Kant takes imitation to be a source of prejudice and takes enlightenment to be freedom from prejudice. Kant helps us by consistently maintaining a distinction between two modes of imitation-or, at any rate, two things that tend to be indiscriminately rendered as 'imitation' in English translations: Nachahmung 24 Instruction is but one aspect of Bildung, which is the sense of education at issue in this paper. The most general sense of education that Kant invokes is Erziehung, or "upbringing," which includes both "care" (Versorgung) and "formation" (Bildung). As Louden points out, Kant's terminology for the various stages of education is not always consistent; see Louden's Kant's Impure Ethics (38–44) for details on the various terms used. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 237 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 12 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4E368015 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 and Nachfolge. I will explain the difference between the two in this section; as we will see, only Nachfolge has a proper place in an enlightened moral pedagogy.25 Kant singles out for special attention the practice of exhorting young people to perform actions that are represented as "noble, sublime, and magnanimous" (KpV, 5: 84–85; see also 5: 155–57). Examples of such actions may be pedagogically sound, in Kant's view, only if they are presented with "traces suggesting that they were done wholly from respect for duty, and not from ebullitions of feeling" (5: 85). If an action is presented as noble or sublime, but without such "traces," then the student confronts something that is incomprehensible to him: an extraordinary act has been performed at great personal sacrifice-but for what reason? If there are no grounds to suppose that the agent acted out of respect for duty, and there are also no grounds to suppose that the agent acted for personal gain, then by Kant's lights the action is rendered incomprehensible. The spectator can only imagine that the agent was moved by some great feeling, which stands in for the incomprehensible motive. Hence, there would be no understanding of the agent's frame of mind, of what it would be to choose to do such a thing. This is why Kant says that the student's aspiration to the example would rest on "empty wishes for an inaccessible perfection" (5: 155): the wishes are empty because the ideal in question is not comprehensible from his position.26 And if the student manages to sustain some kind of mimicry of the agent in the example, he comes to pride himself on his "feeling for extravagant greatnesses," which-most worrisome of all-leaves him feeling released from "the observance of common and everyday obligation" (5: 155; see also 5: 157). Since the represented good stands in no connection to workaday honesty, attempting to imitate it makes the student ever less reflective about what morality requires of him. This is the mode of imitation that consistently falls under Nachahmung in Kant's usage: it is mimicry in a merely sensible register, an attempt to replicate the imagined feelings of someone who is presented as noble and great.27 25 It is Nachahmung that is listed as a principal source of prejudice at JL, 9: 76, and related passages. In the moral context, it courts "moralische Schwärmerei"; see Kant's usage at KpV, 5: 84–85. 26 How then would exhortation to such a deed take effect? Presumably by presenting it, in a fully regaled voice of authority, as something great. Improperly handled, such examples encourage the "prejudices of prestige," where imitation is reinforced by our "desire to imitate what is described to us as great" (JL, 9: 78). 27 See also Kant's handwritten remark: "Moral taste is inclined to imitation [Nachahmung]; moral principles rise above this" (20: 51). Presumably Kant's point is that moral taste leads to imitation precisely because it is unreflective in the sense that it does not draw attention to principles of thought. (N.B.: The remark does not accord with Kant's mature view of taste.) 238 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 13 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4F4868D4 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 Still, we can learn from another's example-and even in a sense imitate it-without this devolving into Nachahmung. Kant even concedes that no general rule of conduct can ever "accomplish as much as an example of virtue or holiness" as long as the example does not render dispensable the need to draw "the autonomy of virtue out of one's own original idea of morality . . . or transform this into a mechanism of imitation [Nachahmung]" (KU, 5: 283). Examples have pedagogical value precisely to the extent to which they provide an opportunity to reflect on practical principles. They may then be admitted as examples for imitation-Nachfolge-since the student who understands what he imitates may eventually come to aim at it of his own accord.28 Nachfolge is a reflective mode of imitation, where one's relation to the example is mediated by one's continually strengthening attention to the principle that is made manifest in the example. Indeed, it is in just these terms that Kant distinguishes apish imitation in the arts (Nachahmung) from that imitation (Nachfolge) through which one is guided by the example of one's predecessor to "create from the same sources from which the latter created" (KU, 5: 283).29 And it is Nachahmung that "has no place in matters of morality" (G, 4: 409) because it is an aping of an example-an attempt to follow its sensible outlines rather than to assess and internalize its animating principle of thought. But it is Nachfolge, again, that refers to the proper emulation of a figure such as Jesus Christ, who, on Kant's interpretation, taught his followers to be reflective about the principle by which he is to be held up as worthy of imitation at all (4: 408).30 In this qualified way, Kant endorses the traditional idea that moral education might involve contemplation of models of virtue. Imitation has a place in moral pedagogy to the extent that it is based in reflection on rational principles (i.e., as Nachfolge). This helps us to understand the role of examples in Kantian moral pedagogy. As we will see, Kant has his young person consider an example of someone who chooses to be honest even on pain of death: perhaps it looks just like the sort of "noble" or "sublime" example that Kant warns about. However, Kant introduces this example only in the latter half of the process, after the student's judgment has been sharpened through exercises of moral 28 See Kant's usage at KpV, 5: 85. 29 This context allows for the distinction to be marked in English: Nachahmung is left as 'imitation', while Nachfolge is rendered as 'succession', in the Cambridge Edition translation of the Critique of Judgment. 30 See also Kant's usage of Nachfolge at R, 6: 64. But see where Kant says that the student is to learn by imitating the "good example" of the teacher: "for a still undeveloped human being imitation [Nachahmung] is the first determination of his will to accept maxims that he afterwards makes for himself" (MS, 6: 479). Here Kant seems to suggest that imitation in the sense of Nachahmung would, over time, become Nachfolge. This passage seems to place the two types of imitation on a continuum, whereas every other passage that I have found suggests a radical difference in kind. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 239 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 14 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 47BB3433 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 appraisal. Owing to that preparation, the student is ready to consider the example for its animating principle of thought-and hence to understand what it is to make such a choice. With this in mind, let us turn now to Kant's positive prescription for moral pedagogy. 4. THE FIRST STAGE OF PEDAGOGY: SPECTATORSHIP Kant's method for moral pedagogy accords with his general views on education, the basic principle of which is that any education must continually develop the student's consciousness of rules.31 Hence, an education properly begins with instruction, or the "communication of rules": at the outset, the student is simply given some rules or precepts (Anth, 7: 199; P, 9: 452).32 The rules are taught by referring to examples for the given rule and then by encouraging the student to work in the opposite direction to discern the general rule when given a particular case. Likewise, the moral education that Kant outlines begins with instruction in various duties. The student considers carefully chosen examples from historical biographies (KpV, 5: 154) to determine whether a given action "objectively conforms with the moral law, and with which law" (5: 159; emphasis added). This remark is curious, if only because Kant is famous for arguing that there is but one law on which all determinations about the good depend-namely, the principle of duty expressed as the categorical imperative. But it tells us something about the initial phase of instruction, for if the student is to determine with which law a given action conforms, it follows that he is initially given only an aggregated table of duties. He is not, in other words, provided with any instruction regarding the concept of duty as such, nor is he provided with a formulation of the moral law. Kant seems to want to provide the student with an opportunity to cotton onto general principle for himself. But so far the method has not yet provided any particular occasion, or prompting, to consider the general principle of duty. Kant means to address this next, through a modification in the exercise of appraisal. Now attention is to be given to the motives of the agents in the examples: "whether the action was also done (subjectively) for the sake of the moral law" (KpV, 5: 159). The exercise of appraisal thereby turns into "a game of judgment in which children can compete with one another" to offer the most compelling interpretation of the motives and character of the agent in a given example (5: 154; emphasis added). In order to play this game well, the player must not simply stipulate 31 See P, 9: 474–75. 32 Contrast Rousseau, who remarks that a child's governor "ought to give no precepts at all; he ought to make them be discovered" (Emile, or, On Education, trans. Allan Bloom [New York: Basic Books, 1979], 52). 240 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 15 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4EBE3542 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 that the agent did, or did not, act for the sake of the moral law. One must instead provide an account, an explanation. Any such account must draw on a view of the general character of the agent as an explanatory principle: for such an individual, this or that (here one points to salient details in the example) would be a reason for acting. In this way, the game encourages its players to consider the agent as a coherent source of the action and, hence, directs attention to the possibility that respect for duty may in turn be a general principle of character.33 We can see how certain aspects of the ideal of enlightenment inform the prescription for pedagogy up to this point. First, the students are not called on to imitate putative examples of virtue at all but, rather, to appraise given examples according to principles. Hence, the first maxim-"think for yourself"-informs the pedagogy from the very beginning, at least once the aggregated list of duties has been provided. Furthermore, the ensuing game of judgment encourages the publicity that is emphasized in the second maxim, "think in the position of everyone else." Moreover, this game exercises a student's capacity for judgment in a special way. Once the appraisals turn from legality to morality, the question at hand no longer admits of a determinate answer: an agent's motives cannot be ascertained.34 The game requires speculation-speculation that is reasoned, and argued, but speculation all the same. Since the game encourages playful and creative dispute, it helps the students to become ever more attentive to the principles at hand. But this exercise creates its own problem. As a student becomes aware of the growing subtlety and skill by which he develops his interpretations, he naturally comes to take a certain pleasure in contemplating the figures of virtue on which he has cut his interpretive teeth: "we finally come to like something the contemplation of which lets us feel a more extended use of our cognitive powers" (KpV, 5: 160). Since the aim is to cultivate a dispositional readiness to act from the moral motive, the game of judgment leaves the crucial issue unaddressed: it "merely brings someone to like to entertain himself with such an appraisal, and gives to virtue . . . a form of beauty, which 33 See Reflexion 1113 (c. 1769–78): "To character belongs . . . the unity of a principle" (15: 496). 34 Kant often remarks that it cannot even be ascertained by the agent himself whether his action was performed from the motive of duty; see, e.g., G, 4: 407; KpV, 5: 28–30; R, 6: 21–22, 31, 41. To suppose that we could ascertain the morality (as opposed to mere legality) of our actions would be to presume to have insight into noumenal causality. Kant is less clear about our ability to have insight into our motives for actions that are merely permissible or even contrary to duty; but inasmuch as such motives are dependent on sensible inclination, the possibility cannot be ruled out on the same grounds. Here, though, we are talking about a spectator's insight into someone else's motives-and surely this is inherently a matter of interpretation. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 241 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 16 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4667B708 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 is admired but not yet on that account sought" (5: 160; emphasis added).35 Here Kant anticipates his mature account of the judgment of taste, which he would publish a couple of years later in the Critique of Judgment. The figures of virtue in the pedagogical game of judgment are like beautiful objects in that they continually elude our cognitive grasp-not in a way that is frustrating but, rather, in a way that sustains our regard because it is playful and endlessly suggestive. We enjoy the beautiful with disinterested pleasure, since we take delight in it without having any interest in its real existence. Likewise, we can become connoisseurs of virtue without developing any motivation to be more (or less) like the figures we contemplate. Hence, the true end of moral pedagogy remains unaddressed by the exercise of appraisal. The shortcoming of the first stage of the moral pedagogy can be understood more clearly if we consider what the ideal of enlightenment comes to when specifically practical judgment is at issue. This is my task in the next section. It will prepare us to understand how the problem of motivation is addressed in the second stage of the pedagogy: as we will see, the answer turns on the third maxim, "to think always consistently with oneself." 5. PRACTICAL JUDGMENT When someone represents given actions as conforming to duty-as the student is trained to do in the initial phase of appraisal-this amounts, Kant remarks, to "a merely theoretical cognition of a possible determination of choice, that is, of practical rules" (MS, 6: 218). Although the content of the claim concerns the good, the mode of judgment is not genuinely practical. Something similar can even be said about the students' game of judgment- though as we will see, this case is a bit more ambiguous. At any rate, we will see that the exercise of appraisal fails to develop practical judgment in the right way. Thus, we must examine Kant's distinction between theoretical and practical judgment in order to understand how the pedagogical method proceeds. Kant speaks more often of theoretical and practical cognition than he does of theoretical and practical judgment, so let us begin with that. This distinction can be drawn in rough-and-ready fashion as follows: theoretical cognition concerns what is the case in the domain of nature, whereas practical cognition 35 Kant's distinction between admiration and respect (KpV, 5: 76–78) suggests that if I "admire" these examples of virtue, then I see them as setting a standard of comparison, but not one that I take to bear upon myself. This point comes up obliquely in sec. 6 below, but I explain it further in "The Moral Source of the Kantian Sublime" (in The Sublime: From Antiquity to Present, ed. Timothy Costelloe [Cambridge University Press, forthcoming]). 242 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 17 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 54E9A395 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 concerns what ought to be the case in the community of rational wills.36 This distinction is rough, because it fails to acknowledge that the two modes of cognition relate in distinct ways to their objects. As Kant explains at the outset of the Critique of Pure Reason, theoretical cognition relates to its object by "merely determining it," where the object in question is one that must be "given from elsewhere" (Bx). Thus, the object of theoretical cognition enjoys a certain independence, as far as its existence is concerned, from our cognition of it. Practical cognition, on the other hand, relates to its object not merely by determining it but "also by making the object actual" (Bx). This implies that the determination of the object of practical reason is bound up with its being brought into being.37 We can clarify this difficult point by taking up the notion of practical judgment. Judgment is an actualization of the cognitive capacity; the cognitive capacity-taken generically-is conceived as a faculty of rules or principles.38 When the cognitive capacity is actualized in the determination of an object, a particular is determined under a rule.39 Now, if we were to take this point as our sole guide, we might then suppose that theoretical and practical judgments are to be distinguished simply with regard to the type of principle in play-one set of principles yielding theoretical determinations, the other yielding practical determinations. But this cannot be an accurate account of the distinction. For if it were, moral pedagogy could consist entirely of training in judgments of appraisal. What more could we want, on such a view of practical judgment, but that individuals become skilled in the application of practical principles? As it turns out, practical judgment is not happily conceived as the application of practical principles at all. Such a gloss implies that the object of practical judgment is something given, to which these principles may then be applied. When Kant says that practical cognition does not merely determine its object 36 See A633/B661, where Kant notes the inadequacy of this gloss. 37 Kant makes the same point when he explains that the moral law is not a principle of theoretical knowledge: "[T]he moral law is not concerned with cognition of the constitution of objects that may be given to reason from elsewhere but rather with a cognition insofar as it can itself become the ground of the existence of objects and insofar as reason, by this cognition, has causality in a rational being" (KpV, 5: 56). 38 Kant points to three aspects of the "higher cognitive faculty": reason, understanding, and judgment. The higher cognitive faculty as such is sometimes designated "understanding in general" (A131/B169) and sometimes reason (A835/B863). Reason in its specificity is the "faculty of principles" (A299/B356); understanding the "faculty of rules" or "concepts"; judgment is the "faculty of subsuming under rules" (A132/B171; see also KU, 5: 179, and First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, 20: 201). For the purposes of this paper, what matters is the distinction between the cognitive capacity as a faculty of rules or principles, and the cognitive capacity as it is employed in judgment. 39 I am referring here to "determining" judgment, not "reflecting" judgment. Kant introduces that distinction at KU, 5: 179. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 243 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 18 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4F45C001 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 but also makes it actual, he instead implies that the object of practical cognition is not given. Indeed, he explicitly makes the converse point, when he says that the object of theoretical cognition "must be given from elsewhere"-that is, from outside of the cognition of reason. While the object of theoretical reason is some particular that can be given in sensible experience, the object of practical reason, Kant explains, is "the representation of an object as an effect possible through freedom" (KpV, 5: 57). Practical judgment, then, does not determine a given object: to determine that there is no longer any tea in my cup is not to make a practical judgment. Rather, practical judgment minimally involves representing something as an effect of the causality of freedom: perhaps an example would be the determination to make more tea. Practical judgment concerns the good to be brought about through action.40 The mode of judgment exercised during the first stage of the pedagogy is difficult to pin down. On the one hand, there are grounds for supposing that it is simply theoretical judgment. This is clearest when the students are making determinations about the legality of particular deeds drawn from the annals of history. The students are applying rules to given particulars: so the table of duties that they have been given figures for them as a battery of practical principles in name only. Moreover, it does not seem that things fundamentally change when the students enter into debate about the morality of these actions. For even though an agent's motive is not a given particular-it cannot be determined in theoretical judgment-still each student endeavors to provide an interpretive account of the agent's motive from salient facts about the situation as it is represented. On the other hand, the students are called on to assess whether an agent acted as he ought to have acted; and so in some sense the determination at issue is practical. Moreover, Kant implies as much when he remarks on the suitability of the game even for people who otherwise have no patience for anything "subtle and refined in theoretical questions"-for even "women" and "business people" will take a lively interest when the speculation concerns practical questions, like an agent's motives and character (KpV, 5: 153–54; cf. R, 6: 48). Yet the fact remains that the student in the first stage of the pedagogy regards the good as if it were just another fact about the world. Though he determines some good, this determination remains unbound to any repre40 If the realization of the object is to be avoided, then the object of this knowledge is the evil (KpV, 5: 58). The example that I have given here ("I will make more tea") is probably an example only of practical thought, not practical judgment. Practical judgment has cognitive implications that practical thought lacks. Thus, it would only be practical judgment if the good thereby determined (a replenished cup of tea) were recognizable as such by any judging subject. This seems a stretch. Stephen Engstrom draws the distinction between practical thought and practical judgment in The Form of Practical Knowledge: A Study of the Categorical Imperative ([Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009], 35, 43, 50). 244 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 19 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4D2C1764 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 sentation of his own agency, to any conception of himself as a possible source of the represented good. So we might simply say that the judgments at issue in the first stage of the pedagogy are practical in content, since they concern the good; but they lack the form of practical judgment, since they fail to relate to this object in the way that is distinctive of such judgment.41 However, this point can be clarified. In practical judgment, the subject's representation of his own agency-his self-conception-is not something merely contemplative: it is not as if one merely notionally links oneself in thought to the represented good. Practical judgment expresses itself as a determination of the will, according to Kant. Hence, the self-conception at issue must show up as the motivation to bring about the represented good. Since the issue of motivation remains unresolved in the first stage of the pedagogy, it follows that the judgment involved cannot be genuinely practical. It is not quite enough, then, to say that practical judgment concerns the good to be brought about through action. This gloss, at any rate, accommodates the contemplative way of judging about the good that is encouraged in the first stage of the pedagogy, where the action in question is regarded indifferently as one that might be performed by anyone. According to my account, the student still needs to develop originality of practical judgment; this can be understood, in a preliminary way at least, in terms of his thinking for himself about what he ought to do. Thus, my account has the perhaps curious implication that practical judgment is inherently original, since the student's judgment becomes genuinely practical only when the enlightenment ideal comes into full view. To avoid misunderstanding this point, we must underscore that enlightenment- and originality in the relevant sense-is an ideal of judgment. We should not be surprised that the transition to genuine practical judgment, and so to agency, must be understood under the guidance of this normative ideal. In sum, the student in the first stage of the pedagogy is not yet-or not fully-thinking for himself about what ought to be done. He is presented with a table of duties, and as long as he allows himself to be taught, he in turn accepts them as principles for determining what ought to be done. However, the student is immediately encouraged to grasp the unifying principle-that is, the principle of duty as such-when the appraisals turn to motives. The game of judgment, as we saw, encourages its players to consider the agent as a coherent source of action and, thereby, directs attention to the possibility that respect for duty may be the general principle of character. This exercise might then help the student to consider the rationale for the duties in his list. But the student must consider whether the principles that he has been given 41 I have been helped here by Engstrom's remarks on the derivative status of judgments of appraisal (The Form of Practical Knowledge, 56). KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 245 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 20 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 50F9106E /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 are worth accepting: he must consider whether they are genuine, or spurious, sources for determining the good. This, according to Kant's conception of enlightenment, is tantamount to accepting or rejecting the given precepts as elements of one's own cognitive constitution. While the game of judgment might help one to appreciate the rationale for each of the duties on the list, it does not yet make an issue of accepting these precepts as one's own. To make these precepts one's own is to incorporate them into a general way of thinking or choice about one's own moral character.42 The second stage of the pedagogy takes up this issue and allows us to see how the enlightenment ideal informs practical judgment. 6. THE SECOND STAGE OF PEDAGOGY: AGENCY The pedagogy must now effect a transition from moral spectatorship (first stage) to moral agency (second stage).43 Kant tells a story about how a young person might be "raised step by step" to recognize that the good that he approves as a spectator ought to be the good that he makes his own end. In the first stage of the pedagogy, the student made appraisals of the moral worth of given actions and so came to approve of those actions that were thought to have arisen from the moral disposition. Hence, the good at issue in these judgments of appraisal was the moral disposition itself, or the character of the agent. And if this is the good that the student learns to applaud as a spectator, then this is the good that the student must make his own end. The second stage of the pedagogy is most clearly presented through a vignette in which a young boy is told the story of an unfortunate man whom politically powerful people try to coerce into testifying falsely against "an innocent but otherwise powerless person."44 Since Kant suggests that the powerless person in question is someone like Anne Boleyn, I shall refer to this as "the Boleyn example" and to the protagonist as "the Boleyn man." 42 I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this journal for suggesting this way of putting things and for guidance in clarifying this discussion of practical judgment. 43 Munzel remarks on Kant's familiarity with Georg Friedrich Meier's Vernunftlehre, a text in the spirit of Arnauld's Port-Royal Logic, as l'art de penser. As Munzel notes, Meier's work "begins with a similar reminder that while human beings may at first approach the world as spectator (zuschauend, theoretice), 'they must also become capable of acting' (handlungsfähig, practice)" ("Kant on Moral Education," 49). The two stages of Kantian moral pedagogy, as articulated in the Doctrine of Method, correspond to these two concerns. 44 Kant explicitly outlines the two stages of the pedagogy at KpV, 5: 159–61, with the first stage covered at 159, followed by the risk of moral connoisseurship at 160, and then the second stage covered from the bottom third of 160 to the end of the main text of the Doctrine of Method. I find an earlier treatment of the first stage of the pedagogy at KpV, 5: 154, and an earlier (and in many ways more complete) treatment of the second stage in the Boleyn example presented at KpV, 5: 155–56. 246 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 21 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4A25F127 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 The Boleyn man is first offered honors and gifts for his cooperation. He turns these down, and our young listener reacts with "mere approval and applause" (KpV, 5: 155). This suggests a neutral accord, as if the boy were to say: "I would do the same; I, too, would not falsely malign someone else for my own personal gain." From this starting point, the example is worked up in stages, so that the Boleyn man's situation becomes ever more dire. No longer does he simply refuse to profit from dishonesty, he refuses to be protected from unjust loss. First, he will lose the protection of his influential friends; then he will be disinherited by his presumably frightened relatives; next, he will be shown that there is no way to escape the reach of these powerful people; and, finally, the prince will threaten him with imprisonment and then death. Along the way, his family pleads with him to give in and cooperate, so that he will not bring suffering upon them all. But while he is not insensible to their or to his own suffering, still he "remains firm in his resolution to be truthful, without wavering or even doubting" (5: 156). The stages of the example are tracked in the student's reaction as follows: [M]y young listener will be raised step by step from mere approval to admiration [Bewunderung], from that to amazement [Erstaunen], and finally to the greatest veneration and a lively wish that he himself could be such a man (though certainly not in such circumstances). (KpV, 5: 156)45 Notice that the vignette ends with the student's wish to "be such a man." The good that he first approves, and then admires, and finally venerates is not a particular deed but, rather, what we would quite naturally refer to as a certain state of character. But the vignette also concludes somewhere short of the student's making it his end to be such a man. It concludes with the student's wishing to be such a man, which Kant pointedly distinguishes from willing or choosing to make it so. According to Kant, when the "faculty of desire" is determined according to concepts-that is, when we want something in a way that is responsive to reasons-then either (a) it is "joined with one's consciousness of the ability to bring about its object," in which case "it is called choice" or (b) it is not so joined, and it is "called a wish" (MS, 6: 213).46 Therefore, the student is unsure whether he has the capacity to be such a man, even though he has the man's character in view as something desirable. Unfortunately, this would seem to leave us where we were at the end of the first stage of the pedagogy: if the young listener merely wishes to be "such a 45 Kant suggests something similar in the Groundwork: "[I]f we represent an action of integrity done with steadfast soul . . . it elevates the soul and awakens a wish to be able to act in like manner oneself" (4: 441n). 46 On wish, see also G, 4: 394, and MS, 6: 430, 441. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 247 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 22 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 514687B6 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 man," then he would seem to have been brought no closer to cultivating the moral disposition in himself. Although he is now oriented toward this good, he still does not seem to appreciate what it would be to choose it. Hence, his determination of this good remains unbound to any representation of his own agency or conception of himself as a possible cause of the represented good. The second stage of the pedagogy looks to be as ineffectual as the first. Why does the Boleyn example seem to come up short? Why does the vignette end with the student's mere wish, rather than his choice, to be such a man? First, we must remember that a pedagogy can only prepare a student for a final step that only he can take for himself. So we must consider this preparation more carefully. As we have seen so far, the method consists of training in judgment; if my argument throughout has been correct, this final step must involve the complete conception of originality at issue in the ideal of enlightenment. Since the judgment at issue is practical, this originality must express itself as the student's choice to cultivate the moral disposition in himself. In order for Kant's method to be effective, it must not only make this choice intelligible to the student (by revealing his capacity to be like the Boleyn man in the relevant respect), but it must also encourage the student to make this choice. So let us take a closer look at how the Boleyn example is supposed to work. The example is meant to illustrate moral character. To see this, note that the most prominent structural feature of the example is permanence and flux. The constancy of the Boleyn man's maxim (presumably, to be honest, come what may) shows up against the background of the alterations in his circumstances. Thus, he exhibits what Kant from the outset refers to as "character": "a consistent practical way of thinking [praktische konsequente Denkungsart] in accordance with unchangeable maxims" (KpV, 5: 152).47 Character is the moral idea of substance, or that which persists through change. But it is not a natural endowment: we acquire it only through effort, to the extent that we have it at all (Anth, 7: 294). It is what we make of ourselves, our selfconstitution.48 47 Translation of Denkungsart is altered from 'cast of mind' to reveal consistency across Kant's texts. See also notes 48 and 49 below. 48 Kant maintains that moral character can strictly "only be one, or nothing at all" (Anth, 7: 285). It is the disposition of a will that is governed-unified and made whole-by the moral law. Kant distinguishes this sense from "physical" character, which is a dominant characteristic of temperament (Anth, 7: 292, 285). The one is character in the mode of thought (Denkungsart), the other of the "mode of sense" (Sinnesart). Christine Korsgaard's recent work addresses the significance of moral character, though she refers to it as "self-constitution" and does not make direct reference to these texts; see Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), and "Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant," in The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 100–26. 248 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 23 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4EA0C07F /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 We can notice a similarity between this conception of character and the third maxim, "to think always in agreement with oneself," which is glossed the "maxim of the consistent way of thinking [konsequente Denkungsart]" (KU, 5: 294, 295; also Anth, 7: 228, and JL, 9: 57). The third maxim expresses the complete conception of originality at issue in the Kantian ideal of enlightenment: it makes an issue of one's self-conception, since it requires that one aim to be a coherent, cognitive agent. Character is just this idea of originality in the moral context, where practical cognition is at issue.49 So if the Boleyn man illustrates character, then he must also provide an example of originality of practical judgment. But how does the student learn from this? For surely the mere consideration of his example will not ipso facto allow the boy to find such a capacity in himself. The Boleyn example works by putting pressure on the student's selfconception. The student's first response, when the Boleyn man simply refuses to accept gifts in return for his false testimony, is "mere approval." With this approval, the student tacitly supposes that he himself would act no differently. But as the story progresses, and the man's circumstances become ever more dire, the student loses confidence that he would act in the same way.50 Thus, the exercise encourages the student to be reflective about his self-conception. Moreover, the ideal of enlightenment requires that he respond by aiming to think always in agreement with himself. Since he began with approval and, hence, by taking himself to share the maxim of the agent in the example, he is bound to consider what it would mean for that maxim to be law-as practical knowledge requires. The principle of his approval (and presumably also condemnation) of another person must also be the principle by which he constitutes himself.51 7. FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS We can reinforce this account of how the Boleyn example works by approaching it from another angle, namely, by considering the role of 49 Both originality as it is expressed in the third maxim and character are konsequente Denkungsarten. See also Reflexion 1220 (c.1776–78): "A person without character has no distinct [bestimmt] judgment, is not in agreement with himself" (15: 534). The connection between originality and character is made explicit in the passage that serves as the epigraph for this paper (Anth, 7: 293). 50 A similar issue arises in the famous "gallows" example (KpV, 5: 30). 51 There is of course a more obvious interpretation of the point in the Boleyn example: it is supposed to illustrate the pure moral motive (KpV, 5: 155). Given the price the man must pay for his honesty, there surely could be no other motive. Yet at the outset Kant points to the pure moral motive as the "only one that can ground a character" (5: 152). Hence, the Boleyn example is meant to address precisely this issue-the grounding of character-and the interpretation I have offered here is simply the more complete one. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 249 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 24 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4C192F47 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 feeling in moral pedagogy. In particular, I wish to suggest that the pressure the Boleyn example puts on the student's self-conception is felt as a particular sort of humiliation-namely, what Kant refers to as "humiliation by the moral law."52 Since this humiliation is disagreeable, it provides an incentive for further activity.53 There are two possible responses to this discomfort, which track two possible responses to the pressure that the Boleyn example places on the student's self-conception. Let us, then, look briefly into this account, which will provide us with a clearer view of how Kant's method prepares the student to make the choice to cultivate the moral disposition in himself. Afterward, I will account for the emphasis that I have given to the cultivation of judgment through the enlightenment ideal in Kant's moral pedagogy. Kant often suggests that the proper function of examples is to demonstrate the practicability of the moral law.54 This, he suggests, is how examples can be used to cultivate moral feeling. Earlier in the Critique of Practical Reason he imagines a scenario (in the first person) in which he is faced with a "humble common man" who exhibits "uprightness of character in a higher degree" than he is aware of in himself (KpV, 5: 77). Let us fill in Kant's sketch a bit, by imagining that this person demonstrates the practicability of the duty of beneficence in relatively difficult circumstances. This suggests an unflattering comparison: it makes a mockery of Kant's attempt to excuse himself from the requirements of this duty on the grounds of his circumstances, which have been shown to be comparatively favorable. This is humiliating. Although social convention is preserved-Kant imagines himself holding his head "ever so high"-nevertheless, he says, "my spirit bows, whether I want it or whether I do not. . . . Why is this? His example holds before me a law that strikes down my self-conceit when I compare it with my conduct, and I see observance of that law and hence its practicability proved before me in fact" (5: 77). Kant traces this feeling of humiliation to certain facts about human nature. In his view, someone who has come into the use of her reason cannot help but have some consciousness of the moral law and, hence, to conceive of herself (however dimly) as an agent. Yet the feeling of humiliation also depends on a default claim issued by one's sensible, rather than rational, nature: namely, that whatever promises to secure one's comfort in the world is good and, thus, ought to be pursued. In this default condition, "we find our pathologically determinable self . . . striving to make its claims primary and originally valid, 52 I wish to acknowledge an anonymous referee for this journal, who suggested this point. 53 On the disagreeableness of this humiliation, see KpV, 5: 73, 75, 77. On pain as a general incentive to activity, see Anth, 7: 231. 54 See, e.g., KpV, 5: 76–77, 81; MS, 6: 480; G, 4: 401n. 250 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 25 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4B28D513 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 just as if it constituted our entire self" (KpV, 5: 74; emphasis added). The problem, Kant explains, does not lie with the default claim to act in the interest of one's own well-being but, rather, with the propensity to give this claim priority over all others. To act on this propensity, as Kant suggests here, is to act under a certain self-conception. Kant says that "the moral law unavoidably humiliates every human being when he compares it with the sensible propensity of his nature" (KpV, 5: 74). A moral pedagogy can therefore bring about this feeling of humiliation as long as it encourages the relevant comparison. Indeed, this is precisely why the Boleyn example is worked up in stages. For while the stepwise treatment allows the student to represent the Boleyn man as an exemplification of the ideal of character that is thought through the moral law, it also allows the student to find his initial identification with the Boleyn man being called into question: handled in this way, the Boleyn example invites the comparison that brings on the feeling of humiliation. However, for Kant's method to be effective, it must not simply bring about this feeling of humiliation; it must also encourage a particular response to it. Since humiliation is disagreeable, people are liable to reject the comparison that gives rise to it. This, Kant explains, is why someone might turn to fault-finding when faced with someone like the "humble common man" (KpV, 5: 77), namely, in an attempt to deny that such a man exemplifies a standard of conduct that holds for himself. But to reject the comparison in this way is to act under a certain self-conception: it is to accept the claim of one's "pathologically determinable self" to be one's "entire self." Another response is possible, which begins with accepting the soundness of the humiliating comparison, so that its disagreeableness might provide an incentive for activity of another kind. This response is to choose to keep the standard of comparison continually in view in order to bring oneself gradually closer to it.55 However, this comparison must be satisfying in some way if it is to be sustained. It is satisfying under a different self-conception, one that Kant points to in remarks that stand as bookends to his account of moral pedagogy. At the outset, he says that his task is to explain how "one can provide the laws of pure practical reason with access [Eingang] to the human mind" (5: 151), and at the end he suggests that this "access" is found "through the respect for ourselves in the consciousness of our freedom" (5: 161). As I explained in section 5, the subject of practical judgment represents the object (the good) in connection with his own agency as the possible source of the represented good. This 55 In this response, the feeling of humiliation is converted into-or, in effect, made stable as-the attitude of humility that Kant points to at the very end of his moral pedagogy (KpV, 5: 161; see also KpV, 5: 86, and KU, 5: 264). There is more to be said about humility, but this is not my topic here. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 251 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 26 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 4CF1A49E /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 representation of the subject is not notional or contemplative but must, rather, show up as motivation to bring about the represented good. Thus, the relevant self-conception would be made manifest as the student's motivation to cultivate the moral disposition in himself, which (in Kant's terms) is for him to respect his rational nature. How, then, does Kant's method encourage the second response to the feeling of humiliation? Why, in other words, should Kant's student respond to the Boleyn example by making it his end to "be such a man," when he could much more easily respond by discounting or qualifying his initial approval? The full response to this question would lead us to Kant's view that only a will governed by the moral law can be consistent with itself-that is, only the moral law can provide the unifying principle of character.56 We can, however, address the issue from within the more limited scope of our investigation, namely, by accounting for the emphasis that has been placed on the cultivation of practical judgment according to the enlightenment ideal. I have argued that the Boleyn example works by putting pressure on the student's self-conception. This pressure is felt as humiliation by the moral law. But it is understood through the recognition of a possible choice to allow this law-the one the Boleyn man exemplifies as an ideal of character-to be the principle by which he constitutes himself. This is why the method consists of training in judgment: for it first encourages the student to relate to the example by grasping its animating principle of thought, which in turn renders the relevant choice intelligible. But it must also encourage the student to make this choice. The training in judgment is designed to sensitize one to the demands of cognition; since the knowledge in question is practical, it properly manifests itself in choice. Thus, the final step of Kant's pedagogy is not left to chance, precisely because the method sharpens one's view of what it is to aim at knowledge of the relevant sort. From one angle, then, the moral pedagogy looks to be very much a sentimental education-an upbringing from admiration of examples of virtue to respect for the humanity within ourselves. But the sentimental education that Kant alludes to is one that depends on the health of one's capacity for judgment.57 This is why Kant remarks that any principle of action "must be 56 On this, compare the "revolution in the disposition of the human being" (R, 6: 47), by which one adopts the moral law as the fundamental governing principle of one's will, with the "revolution from within the human being," by which one no longer imitates others and comes to think for oneself (Anth, 7: 229). 57 There is much more to be said about this sentimental education. The issues are complex, and concern more than just the relation of humiliation and respect. For example, Kant's views on the feelings of admiration, amazement and veneration (which come up in the Boleyn example) are more precise than is often recognized, and the issues to be addressed include problems about how these feelings can impede reflection on rational principles. There is also 252 MELISSA McBAY MERRITT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 27 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 2D1D5318 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 built on concepts": otherwise, he says "there can only be seizures, which can give a person no moral worth and not even confidence in himself" (KpV, 5: 157). Such confidence, I maintain, begins with the interest one properly takes to be the source of one's own cognitive determinations.58 more to be said about the pedagogical value of the sublime, particularly in connection to the famous "starry heavens" passage that appears just after the account of moral pedagogy concludes. However, these are all issues about the development of the receptivity of the human being to the moral good; I have focused here on the development of judgment in this regard. While we are morally obligated to cultivate this receptivity (MS, 6: 399–400), still such cultivation depends on the preparation of "an intellectual ground" (KpV, 5: 73). It is to this preparation that I have directed my attention here. This is perhaps the place to acknowledge that I have not explicitly addressed whether there is an important conceptual distinction to be drawn between character (Charakter) and virtue (Tugend). My account here suggests that, for Kant, character is the "intellectual ground" of virtue; an account of virtue would accordingly require that the emotional life of a human being is brought more into view. I have focused on character as the manifestation of the enlightenment ideal when practical judgment is at issue, and have not examined the fuller notion of virtue. 58 I wish to thank Markos Valaris and two anonymous referees for this journal for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. KANT ON ENLIGHTENED MORAL PEDAGOGY 253 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 28 SESS: 18 OUTPUT: Thu Jun 30 19:26:19 2011 SUM: 0671C4D8 /v2503/blackwell/journals/sjp_v49_i3/002sjp_72 Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited Journal Code: SJP Proofreader: Elsie Article No: 72 Delivery date: 30 June 2011 Page Extent: