Character Development and Duty
Kant: Character Development and Commitment to Duty
Foundational claims
- Humans are the only beings in need of an education.
- Concern for child development and learning through activities.
Kant’s famous line on education
Children ought to be educated, not for the present, but for a possibly improved condition of man in the future; that is, in a manner which is adapted to the idea of humanity and the whole destiny of man.
Commitment to duty
- Children grow up to be citizens of the world.
- They must learn a commitment to duty alongside acting from inclination.
- A child should understand the principle of an action and its relation to duty.
- A child can see duties as a child more easily than duties as a human being.
- Therefore commitment to duty must be instilled young.
Kant believed that education was the activity that separated humans from every other living being. Animals do not need education; they grow into adulthood by instinct. Humans do not. Children need to be taught to become the adults they could be, and the teaching has to aim much higher than today’s needs.
Only humans need education
Kant begins this section of his pedagogical thinking with a claim about human nature. Humans are the only beings in need of education.
The claim is sharper than it sounds. Other animals develop into adulthood through instinct. A wolf cub becomes a wolf without instruction. A bird hatchling becomes a bird without lessons. The instincts are pre-loaded and sufficient.
Humans are different. A human infant has fewer reliable instincts and far longer to wait before adulthood. The gap is filled by education. Without education, a human does not grow into a complete human; they grow into something less than what they could have been.
This puts a heavy responsibility on parents, teachers, and the wider community. The child in front of an adult is half-formed. The half that is missing is what education adds. A society that neglects education does not just hold its children back; it permits an incomplete species to walk around in adult bodies.
Other animals develop through instinct; humans need teaching
Other animals grow into adulthood through pre-loaded instincts. A wolf cub becomes a wolf without instruction. Humans have fewer reliable instincts and far longer to wait before adulthood. Without education, a human does not grow into a complete human.
Learning through activities
Kant also emphasises concern for child development and learning through activities. The phrase is short but important.
Concern for child development means the educator takes seriously where the child currently is, not where the curriculum says they should be. A six-year-old learns differently from a ten-year-old. The teacher who ignores the difference teaches badly.
Learning through activities means the child does not just listen. The child does. They play, they handle objects, they speak, they argue. The activity is the learning, not a separate practice after the learning. A child who has only listened has not yet learned in the way Kant means.
This is also where the Rousseau influence shows clearly. Rousseau’s Emile, his great work on education, made the case for activity-based learning. Kant absorbed the lesson and made it part of his own pedagogy.
The child does, not just listens
The activity is the learning, not a practice that follows it. A child who has only listened has not yet learned in the way Kant means. Concern for child development means meeting the child where they actually are, which differs by age and stage.
Educating for a possibly improved future
Kant’s most famous line in Kant on Pedagogy is a sentence about the time horizon of education.
Children ought to be educated, not for the present, but for a possibly improved condition of man in the future; that is, in a manner which is adapted to the idea of humanity and the whole destiny of man.
The line is doing a lot of work. Three points stand out.
First, education aims at the future, not the present. A child being educated today is being prepared for a world that does not yet exist. The world will change between when they are six and when they are thirty-six. The education has to anticipate, however imperfectly, the world they will actually inherit.
Second, the future is possibly improved. Kant is not predicting a better future. He is saying the education should aim at a better future as a regulative ideal. Whether the actual future turns out better or worse, the education should be designed for the better one.
Third, the education should be adapted to the idea of humanity and the whole destiny of man. The child is not just being prepared for their own life. They are being prepared to take their place in a long human story that has not finished. Education raises citizens of that story, not just employees of the present economy.
A possibly improved future, not the present
Education aims at the future a child will inherit, not the present they leave behind. The future is “possibly improved” as a regulative ideal: aim at the better future even if you cannot guarantee it. The student is being prepared to take a place in a long human story.
Commitment to duty
After the time horizon comes the substance of what should be taught. Kant gives it a single name: duty.
Children grow up to be citizens of the world. As citizens, they will face moments when their inclinations (what they want to do) and their duty (what they should do) pull in different directions. A citizen who acts only from inclination is undependable; the inclination changes from day to day. A citizen who has learned to act from duty is dependable, because duty does not move with mood.
Kant adds that duty and inclination are not always in conflict. Sometimes a person wants to do exactly what duty asks. The point is that the commitment to duty must be strong enough to carry the citizen through the cases where the two pull apart. Inclination alone is not sufficient.
He is specific about how this commitment should be taught. A child should always understand the principle of an action and its relation to the idea of duty. The child should not just be told “do this.” They should understand why. The “why” is the principle. The principle’s link to duty is what makes the act morally substantial.
Inclination shifts with mood; duty does not
Inclination is what a person wants to do, and it changes from day to day. Duty is what a person should do, and it stays constant. A citizen who acts only from inclination is undependable. A citizen who acts from duty is dependable, because duty does not move with mood.
Why duty must be learned young
Kant adds a practical observation about when the commitment to duty should be taught. A child can see that they have duties as a child fairly easily. Duties as a child are concrete: obey your parents, do your homework, be kind to your sibling.
A child can also see, but with more difficulty, that they have duties as a human being. Duties as a human being are abstract: tell the truth even when no one is watching, treat strangers with the same respect as friends, take responsibility for the wider world.
The second kind is harder. A young child does not yet grasp what “a human being in general” is. They live inside their concrete relationships. So commitment to duty must be instilled at a younger age. By the time the child is old enough to see the abstract duties, the habit of acting from duty is already in place. The habit carries the child across the gap from concrete duties to abstract ones.
A teacher who waits until adolescence to introduce duty has missed the window. The habits have been formed on a different basis, and the work of retraining is much harder than the work of training from the start.
Because abstract duty is harder to see than concrete duty
A child can see duties as a child (obey parents, be kind to siblings) more easily than duties as a human being (tell the truth always, treat strangers with respect). The habit of acting from duty must be in place before the child can see the abstract version, or the gap cannot be crossed.
How was this article?