Kant, emotion and autism: towards an inclusive approach to character education

ABSTRACT

Modern Kantians often address the conception of Kant as ‘cold hearted rationalist’ by arguing that there is a place, in Kantian moral theory, for the emotions. This theme of reconciling Kantianism with the emotions is concurrent with a recent interest, on the part of some Kantians, in issues pertaining to character education. This paper will argue that Kantianism has much to offer character education; in particular, inclusiveness of those who might have difficulty experiencing appropriate moral emotion. Nevertheless, I will argue that this inclusivity can only be maintained if Kantians refrain from over-emotionalising their accounts.

KEYWORDS:

• Kant
• emotion
• character education
• autism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Note, there is some discord on this. Some authors argue that those with HF-ASD may have impaired cognitive and affective empathy, while others believe it is only affective empathy that is affected. For my purposes, this does not matter. My argument will hold if both are affected. As such I have chosen to engage with those who believe affective empathy is present as it poses more of a challenge for my position.

2. This struggle is also the struggle at the heart of man’s unsocial sociability (Kant 2007, 44), or the tension between his inclination to live in society and his resistance to others. Interestingly, this struggle has the result of ameliorating the situation of man as a species, from barbarism to culture (Kant 2007, 44). Moreover, as mentioned in section 1, it is also the struggle associated with the Kantian conception of virtue. As Manfred Kuehn states in his introduction to the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, virtue is ‘something human, perhaps even all-too-human’(Kuehn 2013, xxv).