If we had well-appointed schools everywhere where young people could be properly taught, within twenty years we would have a new world and would need no police or executioners. (J. B. Schupp, Ambassadeur Zipphusius aus dem Parnaß wegen des Schulwesens abgefertigt (1667; in Rutschky Reference Rutschky1997: 59)
Over the years, many commentators have drawn attention to Kant’s striking languageFootnote 1 in describing the kind of fundamental change that he believes is needed in schools: ‘They must be transformed (Sie müssen umgeschaffen werden) if something good is to come out of them because they are defective in their original organization. … Not a slow reform, but a swift revolution can bring this about’ (AP, 2: 449).Footnote 2 Kant’s demand that schools must be transformed echoes remarks made earlier by Johann Bernhard Basedow (1724–90) – an unsurprising fact, once we remind ourselves that Kant’s demand occurs within a 1777 fund-raising appeal he wrote in support of Basedow’s experimental school in Dessau, the Philanthropin. Basedow had long been on record as claiming that ‘a complete change in the whole state of education and instruction’ (Lang Reference Lang1891: 3) is necessary, and his own educational critique is itself one of the clearest illustrations of the transformative ambitions of Enlightenment thought. For as many have noted, ‘the Age of Enlightenment was also an age of pedagogy’; indeed, the very term ‘Enlightenment’ implies a process of education.Footnote 3 For instance, in Basedow’s 1768 work, Vorstellung an Menschenfreunde, one section is titled: ‘Proof, that the Improvement of Schools and Instruction is important, and cannot happen through small Change or mere Decree … Not through salves and plaster will wounds be healed, which because of all-consuming pus have a bottomless depth’ (Basedow Reference Basedow1965: 12). And in a later section title we even see the noun form of the same German verb umschaffen (to transform) that Kant uses: ‘Necessity and Method of the total Transformation (gänzlichen Umschaffung]) of Schools and Instruction’ (Basedow Reference Basedow1965: 28).
However, as Reinhard Brandt notes, this was all back in the mid-1770s, when Kant was suddenly
seized by an education euphoria: if the educational forms and institutions are improved, not slowly and partially, but suddenly and radically, then the condition of the world will change. The Philanthropin of Johann Bernhard Basedow in Dessau, for whose support Kant worked, shall be the nucleus of a revolution of humanity. … [But] in 1784 one finds no more trace of it, and in 1798 the idea is officially shelved. (Brandt Reference Brandt2007: 184–5)
Brandt singles out 1798 because, in The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant, in response to the question ‘in what order alone can progress toward the better be expected?’ writes: ‘to expect that this will eventually happen by means of education (durch Bildung) of youth in the home, then in schools on both the lowest and highest level … is a plan which is scarcely likely to achieve the desired success’ (SF, 7: 92).Footnote 4 In Brandt’s view, ‘Kant radically turned away from his education enthusiasm’ (Brandt Reference Brandt2007: 189) in his later years, replacing it with a new politics enthusiasm – specifically, the belief that human progress would be achieved not through transformed schools but rather through peace-loving republics aligned with each other in an international federation.
More recently, Manfred Kuehn, while agreeing with Brandt and others that education has much less significance in Kant’s later works, has defended a very different hypothesis to explain the alleged shift. In Kuehn’s view, the correct explanation is not that Kant came to see politics as a more effective method for transforming the human condition, but rather that he gradually moves from a naturalist to an anti-naturalist perspective on character and eventually embraces an ethics of autonomy:
early on Kant is a naturalist about character. … [W]hereas there is a very close connection between all aspects of character and education for Kant until 1781–82, his mature view seems to exclude such a close connection. … [T]he importance of education in ethics decreased between 1772 and 1798, just as the importance of autonomy in ethics increased. … (Kuehn Reference Kuehn2012: 59, 63)
In what follows I shall argue against both of these positions. Contra Brandt, Kant does not replace his early education enthusiasm with a later politics enthusiasm, his remark at Conflict, 7: 92 notwithstanding. Rather, he shifts his support from private education to public education – he argues for more public oversight of, and financial support for, education. Education itself is thus to be brought under the larger purview of government. Also, Kant’s faith in republicanism as a key vehicle for achieving human progress is not something he subscribes to only in his later years. We also find clear evidence of this commitment back in the mid-1770s, when he was supposedly seized by an obsessive enthusiasm for education. And contra Kuehn, while it is true that we find an increased emphasis on autonomy in Kant’s mature ethical theory, Kantian education is consistent with autonomy; indeed, at least in the case of human beings, autonomy requires education. For humans are not born as autonomous agents. Rather, they develop their moral reasoning capacities slowly over a number of years, and, particularly in the early stages of their development, they need an education toward autonomy (see Louden Reference Louden2009: especially 68, 79). In Kant’s view, a primary goal of educational institutions is to promote autonomy – ‘to develop more effectively the valuable ability to reflect rationally and reasonably about personal, social, and political decisions’ (Hill Reference Hill2013: 30).
After presenting my criticisms of Brandt’s and Kuehn’s positions, I shall conclude with a brief alternative account of how Kant – in his early as well as his late writings – views the fundamental role of education in human life. In my view, Kant’s philosophy of education is guided by his philosophy of biology, the main features of which are also clearly present in both his philosophy of history essays of the 1780s and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798). And this gives us yet another reason to doubt the ‘Kant gave up on education’ reading favoured by both Brandt and Kuehn. For if it is indeed true that Kant’s later writings are marked by an official shelving of the education idea, then we would also need to set aside these writings. But few readers are willing to take such a drastic step, for Kant’s philosophy of history and anthropology works constitute essential components of his corpus.
In short, Kant does not give up on education in his later years. Rather, throughout his career he holds to the conviction that ‘the human being can only become human through education’, and that it is by means of education that we can ‘make it happen that the human being reaches his destiny (Bestimmung)’ (Päd., 9: 443, 445).
1. Politics? (Contra Brandt)
As indicated earlier, Brandt holds that in his later years Kant turned away from education and towards politics as a more effective method for transforming the human condition. The key to Kant’s conversion was allegedly the French Revolution – ‘a historical sign’ (he notes in Conflict) that ‘will not be forgotten, because it has revealed a tendency and faculty in human nature for improvement (zum Besseren) such that no politician, affecting wisdom, might have conjured out of the course of things hitherto existing’ (SF, 7: 84, 88). Brandt contrasts two texts to support his interpretation. The first is from the Friedländer anthropology transcription (WS 1775–6), which is based on lectures that Kant finished shortly after he published his first ‘Essay Regarding the Philanthropin’ on 28 March 1776. In addressing the question of how to create a better civil society where human talents will develop appropriately, Kant asks,
What then serves to be able to produce such [a state]? One is still uncertain whether one should begin from the bottom, or from the top. Should such a [political] state first be established, so that every single individual could be made perfect, or should every single individual first thus be made perfect through education [?] … It seems as if the education of every single human being should constitute the beginning. (V-Anth/Fried, 25: 691; cf. Päd., 9: 448)
In Friedländer Kant appears to advocate a bottom-up strategy. Start by transforming the schools, in order that everyone (including future teachers and politicians) receives a good education. The perfection of the state depends on the perfection of its individual members.
But later in Conflict, in a passage that seems to echo the earlier Friedländer citation, the order appears to be reversed: now a top-down strategy is advocated. As we saw earlier, in addressing the question, ‘in what order alone can progress toward the better be expected?’ Kant writes: ‘to expect that this will happen by means of education … is a plan scarcely likely to achieve the desired success’ (SF, 7: 92). Rather, ‘The answer is: not by the movement of things from bottom to top, but from top to bottom’ (SF, 7: 92) – i.e. progress must come from government, not from education.
However, contrary to what Brandt and others have claimed, there are several reasons for doubting that Kant has ‘radically turned away from his education enthusiasm’. First, there is still ample room for education enthusiasm within the top-down strategy if education itself is brought under the purview of government – i.e. if one argues that the particular type of education needed is public rather than private. And second, a closer look at other relevant passages in Conflict strongly suggests that this in fact is what Kant is doing. For instance, in the sentence immediately following his alleged ‘don’t expect progress to be achieved via education’ remark (see SF, 7: 92), Kant writes: ‘For while the people feel that the costs for the education of their youth ought to be borne, not by them, but by the state, the state for its part has no money left (as Büsching complains)Footnote 5 … since it uses all the money for war’ (SF, 7: 92–3).
While Kant is not unequivocally asserting here that governments ought to bear the costs of education, there are several factors that support this interpretation. First, it has been well documented that during the second half of the eighteenth century the German government was gradually becoming much more involved in education, and Kant himself was certainly aware of this fundamental trend. As Friedrich Paulsen notes:
The principal innovation during this period was the taking over of the primary school from the Church by the State, the compulsory attendance of all children being recognized and enforced as a civic duty. Up to the sixteenth century primary school was little more than an annex of the Church. At the end of the eighteenth century it was, in all German countries, no longer an ecclesiastical but a political institution. (Paulsen Reference Paulsen1908: 136; cf. Bowen Reference Bowen1981: 161–9)
Second, Kant’s earlier frustration as a fund-raiser for Basedow’s school also strongly suggests that he had gradually become convinced of the need for greater government involvement in education. Insufficient financial support was an ongoing issue at the Philanthropin, and Kant’s repeated efforts at fund-raising seldom achieved their desired effect. In summer 1778, he finally found a way out of his uncomfortable fund-raising role by convincing clergyman William Crichton to take his place. In his letter to Crichton of 28 July 1778, Kant appeals to the preacher’s vanity by stating that while ‘I am heartily ready and willing’ to continue as fund-raiser, ‘it seems to me that the influence would be much greater if Your Reverence would be willing to espouse this cause and lend your name and pen to its furtherance’ (Br. 10: 218; see also Louden Reference Louden2012a: 48–9).
But even more important than the issue of government financing for education is that of public oversight. And Kant addresses this key point in the next sentence of Conflict: ‘the whole mechanism of this education has no coherence if it is not designed in agreement with a well-considered plan of the highest state power, put into play according to the purpose of this plan, and steadily maintained therein’ (SF, 7: 93). Here too, while Kant is not unequivocally asserting that education should be ‘designed in agreement with a well-considered plan of the highest state power’, his earlier experience with Basedow’s Philanthropin (as well as the previously noted general trend in Germany toward greater government involvement in education in the late eighteenth century) adds interpretative weight to the claim that this is now his considered view. For in addition to its ongoing financial problems, the school also floundered due to unsteady leadership. Between the school’s founding in 1774 and 1778, the directorship position changed hands four times (see Louden Reference Louden2012a: 42). Although Kant always maintained that ‘the set-up of the schools should depend entirely on the judgment of the most enlightened experts’ (Päd., 9: 449), between the mid-1770s and 1790s his position seems to have slowly evolved from the belief that education should depend ‘mainly on private efforts’ (Päd., 9: 448) to the conviction that it should depend mainly on public efforts.Footnote 6
As other commentators have noted, one of the main ways in which Kant’s educational theory differs from Rousseau’s is that ‘Kant endorses public education in schools over private and domestic education’Footnote 7 (home schooling). In Conflict Kant is advocating not just ‘state financial support of schools’ (Johnston Reference Johnston2013: 209) (which Basedow’s Philanthropin initially received through the patronage of Prince Friedrich Franz Leopold II of Anhalt-Dessau) but also some degree of public oversight and control of schools. Although he does not offer any specifics here (or, alas, elsewhere), his reference to a well-considered plan of the highest state power clearly implies much more than public financial support.
Although Kant does not explicitly and unequivocally advocate free public education in any of his own published writings, there are several Kant-inspired texts on this theme that deserve mention. In 1801, Johann Adam Bergk, an energetic popularizer of Kant’s philosophy who published two commentaries on the Metaphysics of Morals in addition to editing (under the pseudonym Friedrich Christian Starke) several of his lectures on anthropology and geography, published an essay titled ‘Ueber die Einschränkung der Freiheit zu Studieren durch den Staat’, in which he argues in defence of free higher education for all qualified applicants. It is the duty of the state to protect ‘the freedom of all according to the same laws’ (Bergk Reference Bergk1801: 7), and to exclude students from universities because of their social backgrounds or lack of financial resources is inconsistent with this fundamental obligation. ‘All right (Recht) rests on equality of action. What one citizen as such is allowed to do, all must be allowed to do’ (Bergk Reference Bergk1801: 7). ‘Money and class (Geld und Stand) are the most inappropriate and ignoble criteria that the state can choose for conferring permission to study’ (Bergk Reference Bergk1801: 10). As Bergk sees it, the argument for free university education is derivable from Kant’s ‘universal principle of right’ (which in turn is quite similar to the first formula of the Categorical Imperative): ‘Any action is right (recht) if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law’ (MS, 6: 230).
Similarly, Fichte, in his Reden an die deutsche Nation (first presented as public lectures in Berlin in 1807–8), argues that the state has an obligation to make ‘education universal throughout the length and breadth of its domain for every one of its future citizens without exception (für jeden seiner nachgebornen Bürger ohne alle Ausnahme)’ (Fichte n.Reference Fichted.: 185). Like Bergk, Fichte holds that any attempt to make access to education dependent on ‘the resources of well-disposed private persons’ (Fichte n.Reference Fichted.: 185) is inconsistent with a fundamental principle of justice. We cannot universally will a maxim of exclusive private education (i.e. in contexts where there are no public alternatives), for not everyone has the financial means to pay the costs for private education. For this simple but powerful reason, private education is thus at odds with Kantian moral and political philosophy.Footnote 8
But there are still further reasons for doubting Brandt’s claim that Kant officially shelves his education euphoria by 1798, once we look beyond the Conflict of the Faculties. First, there are other late Kantian texts that explicitly advocate the necessity and fundamental importance of education. The most obvious one is Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, published in 1798 – the same year that Conflict was published.Footnote 9 Toward the end of this text, Kant states: ‘The sum total of pragmatic anthropology, in respect to the destiny (Bestimmung) of the human being … is the following. The human being is destined by his reason to live in a society with human beings and in it to cultivate himself, to civilize himself, and to moralize himself by means of the arts and sciences’ (Anth., 7: 324). But to moralize oneself by means of the arts and sciences necessarily implies education, as Kant himself explicitly notes a few lines later when he writes: ‘the human being must therefore be educated to the good (muß also zum Guten erzogen)’ (Anth., 7: 325).
Second, when we turn to Kantian texts from the mid-1770s – when Kant was supposedly in the grip of education euphoria and did not consider alternative avenues of human improvement – we also see him stressing the importance of political reform. It was not the 1789 French Revolution – ‘historical sign’ though it was – that first stimulated Kant’s thinking in this area. For instance, towards the end of the Kaehler lecture on moral philosophy (1774–5), Kant states: ‘Saint-Pierre’s proposal for a general senate of nations would, if carried out, be the moment at which the human race would take a great step toward perfection’ (Kant Reference Kant2004: 366; cf. V-Mo/Collins, 27: 470). Granted, Saint-Pierre’s peace proposal – unlike Kant’s in Zum ewigen Frieden – does not include the proviso that all member states in the senate of nations be republics.Footnote 10 But other Kantian texts from this same time period show that Kant was already leaning in this direction. For instance, in the Pillau anthropology lecture (WS 1777–8) he asks:
On what does the attainment of the final destiny of human nature rest? The general foundation is the civil constitution; the uniting of human beings into a whole, which serves to achieve the cultivation (Ausbildung) of all talents, and also for one person’s giving the other the freedom for that cultivation – through this it happens that the predisposition to talents is developed; through this the human being is elevated out of his animality. (V-Anth/Pillau, 25: 843; cf. V-Anth/Mensch, 25: 1199, V-Anth/Mron, 25: 1427)Footnote 11
When Kant made the above remarks to students in his anthropology course, he was still working in an unofficial capacity as a fund-raiser for Basedow’s Philanthropin, and still very committed to the belief that ‘an entirely new order of human affairs’ (AP, 2: 447) would commence in this school – the only school with a curriculum that ‘is wisely derived from nature itself and not slavishly copied from old habit and inexperienced ages’ (AP, 2: 449). And given the multiple texts and arguments presented in this section, we should conclude neither that Kant pinned all his hopes for human progress on education in the mid-1770s, nor that he replaced his early education euphoria with a politics euphoria by the late-1790s.Footnote 12 The story is much more complicated than this.
2. Autonomy? (Contra Kuehn)
Again, like Brandt and others, Manfred Kuehn also claims that education plays a much smaller role in Kant’s mature writings. But unlike Brandt, Kuehn attributes this alleged shift not to Kant’s belief that politics is a more effective agent for human progress, but rather to the increasing importance of autonomy in Kant’s mature moral theory. As Owen Ware writes, in summarizing Kuehn’s position:
Kuehn argues that Kant’s anti-naturalist turn sheds light on his changing attitude toward education. … If coming to acquire character requires an act of spontaneity, in which one freely gives rational principles to oneself, then educative practices can only have an indirect role in moral life. Kuehn suggests that the increasing importance of autonomy in Kant’s ethics between 1772 and 1797 mirrors the decreasing importance of education … (Ware Reference Ware2012: 3)
One complication that should be noted in comparing Brandt’s hypothesis to Kuehn’s is that while Brandt is concerned with education in general, Kuehn’s primary concern is moral education. As Kuehn notes earlier in his essay: ‘it is the education in the service of morality that is most important for Kant. … Accordingly, I will concentrate on the necessity of human beings to “be educated toward the good” (Anth. 7: 325)’.Footnote 13 In what follows, I will try to show that even when we adopt Kuehn’s narrower focus on moral education, it is not the case that the late Kant views education as less important than the early Kant.
Working primarily with Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology,Footnote 14 Kuehn cites from several different lectures delivered after Friedländer (1775–6) but before Conflict (1798) in an attempt to show that Kant’s passion for education is gradually cooling. For instance, toward the end of Pillau (1777–8) Kant states: ‘If human society (menschliche Gesellschaft) becomes more perfect, then humanity will come along with it’ (V-Anth/Pillau, 25: 843). Here Kuehn finds Kant’s answer to the question of whether to seek human improvement through the bottom-up strategy of education or the top-down one of politics already ‘less definite’ (Kuehn Reference Kuehn2012: 65) than it was in Friedländer. But Kant’s allegedly less definite answer is in large part due to the ambiguity of ‘human society’. Does this term refer only to government, or to educational institutions as well? If educational institutions are included as part of human society, then the sentence by no means suggests that Kant’s faith in education is waning. Also, as argued earlier, if education is brought under the purview of government, then the top-down strategy for reform includes education. In Menschenkunde (1781–2) Kuehn finds Kant’s answer ‘more definite again’ (Kuehn Reference Kuehn2012: 65), for now Kant states that ‘cultivated (gebildete) subjects’ are necessary in order for ‘a perfect civil constitution’ to exist (V-Anth/Mensch, 25: 1201). However, this passage does not show that Kant’s passion for education is waning – quite the contrary. First of all, Kant’s phrase ‘gebildete subjects’ could also be rendered as ‘educated subjects’ (from Bildung), which clearly suggests the bottom-up strategy of beginning with the transformation of individuals. But second, Kant also notes on the next page that
whether a more perfect civil constitution will not some day with time come into being cannot be hoped for until human beings and their education (ihre Erziehung) have improved; however, this improvement does not appear to be able to happen until governments themselves become better. Which one will happen first cannot be guessed; perhaps both will meet each other, a point in time, however, that is still very far away. (V-Anth/Mensch, 25: 1202)
The phrase ‘until human beings and their education have improved’ clearly indicates that Kant continues to believe in the necessity of fundamental educational change in 1781–2. And the later phrase ‘this improvement does not appear to be able to happen until governments themselves become better’ strongly suggests, as I argued in the previous section, that Kant believes government must become more involved in education if meaningful change is to happen in this area. Finally, Kuehn also draws attention to the following passage from Mrongovius (1784–5): ‘Now what are the means of improving the civil society and constitution? 1. Education (Erziehung) 2. Legislation 3. Religion. However, all three must be public and in conformity with nature’ (V-Anth/Mron, 25: 1427; Kuehn Reference Kuehn2012: 65–6). But here as well, Kant is not de-emphasizing education’s role. Rather, he is asserting that education is a necessary but not sufficient means for achieving ‘the final destiny of humanity’ (V-Anth/Mron, 25: 1429). In sum, none of the anthropology texts Kuehn cites support his claim that education is of decreasing importance to Kant in his later years.
The most obvious textual point that speaks against Kuehn’s position is the fact that Kant continues to speak of the necessity and importance of moral education in a variety of texts published during the same time period in which he holds what Kuehn calls his ‘mature’ or ‘anti-naturalist’ view about character. Perhaps the most important example occurs towards the end of his last major work in moral philosophy, the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). At the beginning of a section titled ‘Teaching Ethics (Die ethische Didaktik)’, Kant argues that ‘virtue can and must be taught (gelehrt)’ (MS, 6: 477),Footnote 15 and later in this same section he offers a specific programme of moral education which he calls a ‘moral catechism’ – ‘the first and most essential instrument for teaching the doctrine of virtue’ (MS, 6: 478). Similarly, his defence of the necessity for ‘a purely moral catechism’ (KpV, 5: 154 – i.e. a non-religious catechism) in the second Critique (1788) is a second example of a text published during the critical period which shows that he still takes moral education very seriously. A third example is his discussion of aesthetic formation as a propaedeutic to moral education in the third Critique (1790). The cultivation of taste, Kant here argues, ‘makes possible the transition from sensible charm to habitual moral interest without too violent a leap by representing the imagination even in its freedom as purposively determinable for the understanding and teaching us to find a free satisfaction in the objects of the senses even without any sensible charm’ (KU, 5: 354). Last but not least, there is Kant’s terse assertion in the 1798 Anthropology – a text which Kuehn himself ironically cites in support of his own position (see n. 13) – that the human being ‘must be educated to the good’ (Anth., 7: 325). There thus exist multiple published texts from Kant’s mature period which clearly indicate that he remains committed to the belief that moral education is necessary and fundamentally important for human beings. This is a belief that he continues to hold ‘throughout his career’ (Moran Reference Moran2009: 480, see also Moran Reference Moran2012: 127–67) and not merely for a brief period in the mid-1770s.
Granted, autonomy involves giving the law to oneself (see GMS, 4: 440), and there is a sense in which education – as Kant himself notes at one point in his critique of earlier moral theories – seems to be ‘external’ (KpV, 5: 40) in a way that, at least on the surface, does not square with autonomy. Education is ‘external’ in the obvious sense that the teacher and the school are external to, or outside of, the student, whereas the act of giving the law to oneself is internal. At this surface level, the tension that Kuehn and othersFootnote 16 have pointed to between autonomy and education is real. And if ‘education’ refers to a kind of brainwashing, the goal of which is to make sure agents no longer will for themselves, then the tension between autonomy and education is irremediable. But Kantian education is not brainwashing. Rather, it aims to help the pupil ‘feel the progress of his power of judgment’ (KpV, 5: 154) – i.e. to aid students in the actualization of their own natural capacity to act according to reason and to appreciate the force of reason in one’s life by learning to take ‘an interest in morality’ (MS, 6: 484).
Kuehn’s claim that Kant’s anti-naturalism about character in his mature works leads him to view education as being less important than he did in his earlier writings is in fact a milder, developmental version of a fundamental objection raised by several earlier critics of Kant’s philosophy of education. If, as Kant sometimes seems to claim, acquiring moral character is ‘the result of an instantaneous rebirth or a decision to live only in accordance with self-imposed rational principles’ (Kuehn Reference Kuehn2012: 59) – a ‘revolution in the disposition (Gesinnung) of the human being’ rather than its ‘gradual reform’ (RGV, 6: 47) – where is there any room for moral education within his theory of moral character? As Johann Friedrich Herbart remarks, in his 1804 review of Kant’s Lectures on Pedagogy:
How did Kant imagine moral education? As an effect of transcendental freedom? Impossible, for the concept of the latter comes to an end, as soon as one thinks it is not entirely free from every causal nexus. Transcendental freedom does what it does by itself; one cannot hinder it through anything, one cannot help it through anything. It discovers maxims; what the teacher says to it is immaterial. … [O]ne cannot influence transcendental freedom. … In this way Kant and his followers describe transcendental freedom to us; – and in this way they destroy all pedagogy. (Herbart Reference Herbart1804: 261)
Lewis White Beck issues a version of the same criticism over a century and a half later when he claims that Kant’s ‘moral philosophy has, and can have, no place for moral education’ (Beck Reference Beck1978: 201). The reason why moral education is ‘impossible’ within a Kantian framework, Beck explains in another text, is that ‘morality is a product of a sudden inward revolution in the manner of willing, and each act must be regarded as if it were an entirely fresh beginning’.Footnote 17 What Kuehn adds to this well-known story is a developmental account of Kant’s ethical theory, the move from a pre-critical, naturalist ethics to a critical, anti-naturalist position. Kuehn’s supplement is correct, but it is also somewhat beside the point. For Herbart, Beck and others who endorse the ‘no room for moral education’ charge against Kant are referring to his mature ethical theory – not his pre-critical ethics.
3. The Role of Education in Kant’s Philosophy: A Primer
Thus far I have defended three interrelated claims: (1) Kant does not give up on education in his later years, his remark at Conflict, 7: 92 notwithstanding. Throughout his career, Kant holds that education is fundamentally important in human life. However, in his later years he does argue for more public oversight of, and financial support for, education. (2) Kant’s faith in republicanism as a key vehicle for achieving human progress is not something that he subscribes to only in his later years. We also find clear evidence of this commitment back in the mid-1770s, when he was supposedly seized by an obsessive enthusiasm for education. (3) Although Kant’s mature ethical theory does differ from his pre-critical ethics in several fundamental respects – one of which is the growing importance of autonomy in the later period – autonomy and Kantian education, correctly understood, are consistent with one another.
In this final section I wish to indicate briefly how Kant – in his early as well as his late writings – conceives the roles of both non-moral and moral education in human life, and why he thinks they are important. At bottom, Kant’s philosophy of education is guided by his philosophy of biology.Footnote 18 Two key aspects of the latter are teleology (all living organisms, humans included, are to be understood as having inherent purposes – see, for example, KU, 5: 376, 379) and what I will call quasi-innatism or innatism à la Leibniz – by which I mean the view that while certain fundamental human capacities are inherent and genetically inherited, ‘some labor’ is required in order to polish these capacities ‘into clarity’ (Leibniz Reference Leibniz1989: 294). The capacities themselves are innate, but education is needed in order for them to develop properly.
The teleological dimension of Kant’s educational theory is on display in his frequent use of the German term Bestimmung, translated variously as ‘destiny’, ‘vocation’ and ‘determination’. The human species has a Bestimmung,Footnote 19 and education is a necessary means towards the achievement of this fundamental goal. As he remarks in the opening pages of the Lectures on Pedagogy: ‘it is our business … to make it happen that the human being reaches his Bestimmung’ (Päd., 9: 445). What is the human being’s Bestimmung? In a word, ‘humanity (Menschheit)’ (Päd., 9: 442), by which Kant means the proper development of all fundamental human capacities. As he remarks in his 1798 Anthropology: ‘one can assume as a principle that nature wants every creature to reach its Bestimmung through the appropriate development of all predispositions (alle Anlagen) of its nature’ (Anth., 7: 329). Autonomy, as noted earlier, is itself one of these inherent human capacities, but humans require education in order to effectively exercise their autonomy. And this is why Kant claims – in what is probably the most famous sentence in his Lectures on Pedagogy – that ‘the human being can only become human through education (durch Erziehung)’ (Päd., 9: 443; cf. AP, 2: 449). Humans can only achieve their Bestimmung with the help of education.
The quasi-innatism in Kant’s philosophy of education is evident in his frequent use of the two German terms (which, at least in his education writings, he uses interchangeably)Footnote 20 Keime (seeds) and Anlagen (predispositions). Humans, like other biological organisms, have certain distinct Keime and Anlagen. Once we discover what they are, we will know the inherent potential of Homo sapiens as well as what aspects of human life need to be cultivated in order to realize this potential. As Kant remarks on the first page of the Pedagogy: ‘the human species is supposed to bring out (soll … herausbringen), little by little, humanity’s entire Naturanlage by means of its own effort’ (9: 441). And again, a few pages later: ‘Many Keime lie within humanity, and now it is our business to develop the Naturanlagen proportionately and to unfold humanity from its Keimen, and to make it happen that the human being reaches his Bestimmung’ (9: 445).
Keime and Anlagen thus both refer to inheritable tendencies within the species, and autonomy – ‘a capacity and disposition to make decisions with due reflection and independence of mind’ (Hill Reference Hill2013: 24) – is itself one of humanity’s inheritable tendencies. But in order to fully actualize this capacity, certain favourable environmental factors are necessary, one of which is education. However, Kant and Basedow both criticize the educational institutions of their day for failing to appropriately develop humans’ Keime and Anlagen. As a result, schools also do not adequately help humans achieve their Bestimmung. As Kant remarks in the Pedagogy: ‘the idea of an education which develops all Naturanlagen in the human being is certainly genuine. [But] with the present education the human being does not completely reach the end of his existence (Zweck seines Daseins)’ (Päd., 9: 445). A gradual reform of existing educational institutions is inappropriate, ‘because they are defective (fehlerhaft) in their original organization’ and ‘everything in them works against nature (Natur entgegen)’ (AP, 2: 449). Humans’ natural capacities (one of the most valuable of which is autonomy) are thus not appropriately developed in present-day schools. Instead, a ‘plan of education more suited to the human being’s purpose (einer zweckmäßigern Erziehung)’ (Päd., 9: 445) is called for, and for this, a total transformation of schools is necessary.
For those readers who are familiar with either Kant’s philosophy of history or his anthropology, the elementary points I have drawn attention to in his educational theory concerning humanity’s Bestimmung via the appropriate development of its Keime and Anlagen will sound familiar. These same core themes are repeatedly stressed in these other writings as well, for all three (i.e. anthropology, history, education) are part of what I have elsewhere called ‘interconnected … fields of impurity’ (Louden Reference Louden2000: 29) within Kant’s philosophy. They all deal with the empirical study of human nature. And this fact serves to further undergird my basic claim concerning the continuing importance of education throughout Kant’s career. If the claims of Brandt, Kuehn & Co. regarding Kant’s alleged sharply diminished enthusiasm for education in his mature writings were true, then we would have to also set aside the philosophy of history essays of the 1780s as well as the 1798 Anthropology. But most readers (including Brandt and Kuehn) are not willing to do this, for these writings constitute a substantial portion of Kant’s corpus.
But what about moral education? As noted earlier, Kant repeatedly asserts in late texts that moral education is necessary for human beings: ‘virtue can and must be taught’ (MS, 6: 477 [1797]), and the human being ‘must … be educated to the good’ (Anth., 7: 325 [1798]). At the same time, there are other late texts which, according to Beck and (to a lesser degree) Kuehn, imply that Kantian moral education is impossible. The most frequently cited example of the latter is in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793), where Kant asserts that one cannot expect to become morally good ‘through gradual reform’ but only via ‘a revolution in the Gesinnung’ – one needs a ‘change of heart’ rather than ‘a change of mores (Sitten)’ (RGV, 6: 47).Footnote 21
In closing, I wish to briefly defend two points on this matter. First, Kant by no means asserts or implies in the ‘change of heart’ passage that moral education is impossible; rather, he is specifying what form it must take and what it must focus on. As he states on the next page: ‘From this it follows that a human being’s moral education (moralische Bildung) must begin, not with an improvement of Sitten, but with the transformation of his way of thinking (Umwandlung der Denkungsart)Footnote 22 and the establishment of a character’ (RGV, 6: 48). Again, on Kant’s view, a correct moral education will focus not on habituation but rather on the development of autonomy (see Herman Reference Herman1998: 225–72). Similarly, in a related passage in a section of the Anthropology titled ‘On Character as the Denkungsart’, where Kant compares the acquisition of character to ‘a kind of rebirth’, ‘making a vow to oneself’, and ‘the beginning of a new epoch’, he states: ‘Education, examples, and teaching [Erziehung, Beispiele und Belehrung] generally cannot bring about this firmness and persistence in principles gradually, but only, as it were, by an explosion which happens one time as a result of weariness at the unstable condition of instinct’ (Anth., 7: 294). Here too, he is not asserting that moral education plays no role in the formation of character; rather, he is specifying how it should proceed. Educative strategies that seek to establish character gradually are generally unsuccessful. Rather, they must try to effect an ‘explosion’, a radical conversion experience. For instance (although his language here is not as dramatic), in one discussion of how ‘to form a character in children’ in the Pedagogy, Kant recommends that children give themselves rules of conduct which they must then promise to follow (Päd., 9: 481; cf. V-Anth/Fried, 25: 649, V-Anth/Mron, 25: 1385). In this manner, children learn to act in accordance with principles that come from their own reason.
Contra Aristotle, moral virtue is not ‘the result of habit’, and we do not become just simply ‘by doing just things’ (Aristotle 1890: 23, 24/II.1 1103a17, 1103b1). Rather, acquiring moral virtue is a process of ‘developing the student’s understanding not only of what principles are consistent with virtue, but also why those principles are consistent with virtue’ (Surprenant Reference Surprenant2012: 8). This is the central focus of Kant’s positive remarks about moral education in both the Metaphysics of Morals and the second Critique. The teacher tries to show the student that the principles of morality lie in the student’s own reason: ‘your own reason (deine eigene Vernunft) teaches you what you have to do and directly commands you to do it’ (MS, 6: 481). Through the discussion of concrete moral cases drawn in part from ‘the biographies of ancient and modern times’, the student (as noted earlier) learns to ‘feel the progress of his power of judgment’ (KpV, 5: 154) and to thereby acquire ‘an interest in morality’ (MS, 6: 484). Finally, because the depths of each human being’s heart ‘are to him inscrutable’ (RGV, 6: 51), it follows that no human being can ever know for sure whether he or she has successfully undergone the revolution in the Denkungsart that Kant holds is necessary (see RGV, 6: 47). The best we can do is to try to cultivate the moral strength needed to master those inclinations that oppose the law (‘he is a good human being only in incessant laboring and becoming’ – RGV, 6: 48), and for this too moral education is necessary.
Second, and more fundamentally, I wish also to challenge the dualism assumed by some of Kant’s critics between education in general and moral education specifically. On Kant’s view, all education – non-moral as well as moral – should be education towards autonomy. ‘Have courage to make use of your own understanding! is … the motto of enlightenment’ (WA, 8: 35), and, as noted earlier, enlightenment itself implies a process of education. As Kant remarks elsewhere, ‘it is not thoughts but thinking which the understanding ought to learn … so that in the future it will be capable of walking on its own, and doing so without stumbling’ (NEV, 2: 306). Learning to think for oneself (rather than merely memorizing facts or learning the thoughts of others) is intellectual autonomy as well as moral autonomy. Both aspects of autonomy are fundamentally important, and education, properly conceived, plays a necessary role in the development of each. Additionally, the proper cultivation of thinking implies not simply developing the capacity to grasp facts but also learning to love knowledge for its own sake rather than for its utility. For ‘truth (the essential and first condition of learning) is the main thing, whereas … utility … is merely of secondary importance’ (SF, 7: 28; cf. NEV, 2: 308). And once we remind ourselves how few human beings – not only in Basedow and Kant’s day but also in our own – have actually managed to cultivate thinking in this more fundamental sense, perhaps it is time to take a second look at their criticism of educational institutions: ‘they must be transformed if something good is to come out of them’.Footnote 23
