ES1202: Principles in Education

 

What is an Objective Principle?

(Lecture 1)

 

    Return to module outline.

Last updated 24.01.12.

   

 

Introduction

 

Our purpose in the first half of this module is not only to see what you might agree and disagree with in education, but also to begin to question how principles work in education and the problems associated with them. This will be of direct importance and relevance to your symposia which are coming up in weeks 4 and 5.

 

Imagine the following situation, which I have adapted from a paper by Tony Skillen (1991).

 

The snow falls, and you’re forced to drive slowly.  Your mind is on the meeting that you have to attend in just ten minutes.  Even in perfect conditions, you know you’d be at least five minutes late.  As you curse yourself for forgetting to set your alarm, you see in the hazy distance a car by the side of the road, steam rising from its engine. 

 

You look to the side of the car and see a person, unharmed but in some emotional distress.  The following thoughts pass through your mind:

 

Bad luck!  Wish I could help, but I’m running late.

 

I’m running late, but I’ll pull over and see if I can help – it’s just the right thing to do.

 

What a fool!  If they’d taken better care of their car they wouldn’t be in this position.  It’s their responsibility not mine.

 

Let someone else offer a hand.

 

What a hottie!  I think I’ll pull over and see if I can be of any help!

 

I’m in a rush and I don’t want to stop, but what if someone sees me driving by – what will they think of me!  And what if I’m caught on CCTV cameras and shamed on national TV! 

 

These thoughts represent differing motivations for action or inaction.  But are there any principles here?

 

Immanuel Kant offers us a way to distinguish principles from other types of reasons for acting or not acting.  In what follows, we consider the significant distinction Kant draws between subjective principles and objective principles.

 

Kant’s challenge: Distinguishing a subjective principle from an objective principle

 

Let us consider a wonderful scene from Jane Austin’s Sense and Sensibility, in which Elinor is concerned that her younger sister, Marianne, has acted with impropriety by spending the morning with the dashing Mr Willoughby without the company of a third party.  Marianne explains that the morning was the most pleasant of her life.   The dialogue continues:

 

‘I am afraid,’ replied Elinor, ‘that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.’

‘On the contrary, nothing can be a stronger proof of it, Elinor; for if there had been any real impropriety in what I did, I should have been sensible of it at the time, for we always know when we are acting wrong, and with such a conviction I could have had no pleasure.’  (Austen, 1811/1995: 66)

 

In Marianne and Elinor, Austen represents two quite distinct ways of thinking about principles.  Marianne takes her own feelings as the sole measure of the whether or not her reasons for acting are just; in contrast, Elinor looks beyond herself and thinks in terms of the general good when she judges her reasons for acting.  In other words, Marianne is concerned by the subjective or the particular, while Elinor is concerned by the objective or the universal.  

 

Kant explores the consequences of thinking in terms of the particular and subjective rather than the universal and objective when formulating principles.  His central distinction can be expressed thus:

 

A subjective principle rests upon the desires or interests of a particular person at a particular time, while an objective principle applies to all rational persons at all times.

 

When you engage in your symposia you will be asked to use Kant’s notion of a principle to argue that your form of education either is or is not in the universal interest.

 

If you are argue that your form of education is in the universal interest, then you must demonstrate that it is informed by an objective principle or law and not merely a subjective principle or maxim.   (Put simply, you must show that this form of education is good for everyone and not simply for a few.) 

 

If you are argue that your form of education is not in the universal interest, then you must demonstrate that it is informed by a subjective principle or maxim and not an objective principle or law.   (Put simply, you must show that this form of education is good only for a few and not for everyone.) 

 

Conditions of an objective principle

 

We turn now to consider three conditions of an objective principle.  For Kant, if a motion can be called an objective principle it must:

 

q apply to all rational persons at all times without contradiction;

 

q respect the dignity of persons as ends in themselves;

 

q guarantee the autonomy of all persons.

 

Objective principles apply to all rational persons at all times without contradiction

 

By way of clarifying what he means by an objective principle, Kant engages with three examples.  Of these, let’s consider his example of the dishonest borrower.  A man wants money, but he knows that if he borrows some there is no way he’ll be able to pay it back.  He knows, also, that if he doesn’t promise to pay the money back he’ll never get the much needed cash.  The man asks himself if he is acting justly, that is, if he is acting in accordance with his duty.  He decides to borrow the money, and thereby acts on a maxim that Kant expresses in the following way: ‘When I believe myself to be in need of money, I will borrow money and promise to reply it, although I know I shall never be able to do so’ (Kant, 1990: 39, 422).

 

This maxim or subjective principle is good for the man who makes the false promise, but is it, in and of itself, good?  Kant tells us that this question turns on whether or not this maxim or subjective ‘principle of self-love’ could ‘hold as a universal law of nature and be consistent with itself’ (Kant, 1990: 39, 422).  In other words, a maxim becomes an objective principle or ‘law’ when it applies to everyone without contradiction.  So what would occur if everyone were to make promises knowing they couldn’t keep them?  Kant reasons that all faith in promises would end, that no one would believe any person who made a promise, and therefore, no one would so much as entertain the notion of lending money.  In short, the maxim of the dishonest borrower ‘must necessarily contradict itself’ (Kant, 1990: 39, 422).

 

 

Objective principles respect the dignity of persons as ends in themselves

 

When we decide to act we are confronted with many ‘incentives’, which give rise to desires (such as the desire to appear moral).  Incentives are purely subjective, and as such are quite distinct from ‘objective purposes, which depend on motives valid for every rational being’ (Kant, 1990: 44, 427).   

 

When we act from ‘motives’ we follow what Kant calls the ‘categorical imperative’, which he expresses thus:

 

‘Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law’ (Kant, 1990: 38, 421).

 

But why should we move beyond the subjective and contradictory?  Why, that is, should we be concerned with principles that are not merely good for us as distinct individuals but which are, instead, good for all rational beings?

 

In formulating objective principles, we follow what Kant calls our ‘duty’ - we (like Austen’s Elinor) consider the good of the universal and not (like Austen’s Marianne) the good of the particular.

 

But still, there remains the question:  Why should I act from the motive of duty?  Kant’s tells us that objective principles, which are valid and good for all, arise out of ‘something’ that has ‘absolute worth, something which, as an end in itself, could be a ground of definite laws’ (Kant, 1990: 45, 428).   

 

But what is this ‘something’? 

 

Kant answers: ‘Now, I say, man and in general, every rational being exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will’ (Kant, 1990: 45, 428).    Kant distinguishes that which has ‘only relative worth as means, and are therefore called “things”’, from ‘rational beings,’ who ‘are designed “persons” because their nature indicates that they are ends in themselves’ (Kant, 1990: 45, 428).  It is reason, then, which distinguishes persons from things; Kant writes: ‘rational nature exists as an end in itself’ (Kant, 1990: 46, 429).  In other words, reason transcends the sphere of things, it makes us authors and not merely subjects of principles.  A thing, which can be substituted for other things, has a ‘price’, but a person, as an end, ‘is above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity’ (Kant, 1990: 51, 434). 

 

When we formulate and act on subjective principles we reduce persons to ‘things’, we treat them as if they were merely the subjects of our will and not as ends in themselves.  (So, in Kant’s example of the dishonest borrower, the money lender is reduced to a means to secure the borrower’s ends.)  An objective principle is a principle that every rational person should formulate and act on.  Hence, Kant describes the ‘practical imperative’ thus:

 

Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only. (Kant, 1990: 46, 429)

 

When we formulate and act on an objective principle, a rational person should say to us: ‘I would have formulated the same principle and acted in the same way if I were in your situation’.

 

Objective principles guarantee the autonomy of all persons.

 

For Kant, man, who is rational, can never simply be seen as the subject of values - he must always be the author of values.  Here it is important to consider Kant’s distinction between autonomy and heteronomy (see Kant, 1990: 50, 433).  Autonomy means deciding freely and actively to fulfil our duty.  Heteronomy means to live one’s life in fear or in unquestioning accordance with a set of social conventions; it is to degrade one’s life to that of a passive ‘thing’.   Thus Kant writes:

 

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.  Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without the guidance from another.  This immaturity is self-incurred when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without guidance from another.  The motto of enlightenment: Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!”  (original emphasis, Kant, 1991: 54)

 

So, why do so many of us fail to think for ourselves?  Why do will fail to live autonomous lives?  There is a great temptation to live one’s life passively, as a thing amongst things.  Hence Kant observes:

 

It is so easy to be immature!  If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual advisor to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all.  I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me.  (Kant, 1991: 54)

 

 

 

 

Questions from Kant

 

As you prepare for your symposia you will need to consider whether or not the form of education is in the interests of all.  Whether or not you believe your form of education is in the interests of all, you will need to show evidence (including quotations from Kant) of an engagement with the following questions:

 

Does the form of education apply to all rational persons at all times?

 

Does the form of education treat others as persons or things?  In other words, does it respect the dignity of persons as ends in themselves?

 

Does the form of education guarantee the autonomy of all persons?

 

Back to the snow

 

Reconsider the driver’s reasons for acting in light of Kant’s questions.

 

References

 

Austen, J. (1811/1995) Senses and sensibility (London: Penguin)

Kant, I. (1990) Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, (London, Macmillan)

Kant, I. (1991) Kant, Political Writings, (Ed.) Hans Reiss (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)

Kant, I. (1996) The Metaphysics of Morals, (Cambridge, Cmbridge University Press)

Skillen, A.  (1991) Kindness in the Cold, Philosophy Now, 2, 35-36.