Which Emotions Should Kantians Cultivate (and Which Ones Should they Discipline)?

Abstract

Commentators disagree about Kant’s view on the proper treatment of emotions. In contrast to a tendency in this literature to treat them uniformly, I argue that, according to Kant, feelings (but not affects) require cultivation, and inclinations – although they can and perhaps may be cultivated – generally require discipline. The appropriate treatment for emotions depends on their susceptibility to rational constraint and on the threat they pose to rational deliberation. Although I read Kant as recommending that we cultivate certain emotions, I argue that my reading is not vulnerable to Thomason’s recent pertinent objections to such readings.

1. Introduction

It is widely agreed that Kant thinks we should cultivate our ‘moral endowments’, that is, those natural predispositions of the mind through which we affectively respond to concepts of duty. ¹ These endowments include moral feeling, conscience, love of human beings and respect (MM, 6: 399–404). There is less agreement, however, on whether Kant thinks we should cultivate other emotions. Commentators have argued that Kant prescribes the cultivation of natural compassionate feelings (Baron 1995: 211–17, Fahmy 2009: 37–40); of feelings, desires, attitudes and dispositions that facilitate moral action (Baxley 2010: ch. 2); of emotional sensitivity (Empfindsamkeit) (Sherman 1997: 168–9, Fahmy 2009: 40–2); and that he takes both moral feelings and the entirety of our sensuous desires as subject to cultivation (Papish 2007: 136). Others are sceptical that Kant recommends cultivating emotions. Thomason (2017) argues that, with the possible exception of the four ‘moral endowments’, Kant does not believe we should cultivate emotions, nor emotional sensitivity. And Borges (2004) grants that compassionate natural feelings and moral feelings should be cultivated; but she maintains that, on Kant’s view, the extirpation of the emotions is an ideal human beings should strive for, although they rarely achieve it (Borges 2008).

This disparity of interpretative positions, unusual even in the battlefield of Kant scholarship, suggests that commentators have different things in mind when speaking of ‘emotional cultivation’ in Kant. This impression is reinforced once we note that it is not obvious what ‘cultivation’ means in Kant; that he has no German umbrella-term equivalent to ‘emotions’ as used in contemporary philosophy; and that commentators use ‘emotions’ to refer to both feelings and desires, although Kant attributes these ‘emotions’ to separate mental faculties (that is, to the feeling of pleasure and displeasure and to the faculty of desire, respectively).

Rather than resolving the apparent disagreement by sorting out the different senses scholars assign to ‘emotions’ and ‘cultivation’, the present article aims at moving the discussion forward by sticking to Kant’s own vocabulary of emotions, as well as to his terms for their proper treatments. My clue for developing the pertinent terminology comes from a passage where Kant says that ‘The sensations of human beings require cultivation and the inclinations require discipline’ (LA, 25: 622). This suggests that contrary to the tendency to speak in a wholesale manner about the appropriate treatment of emotions (mostly among those who are sceptical that Kant approves of them), different emotions require different treatments. And I shall argue that this is Kant’s actual view: feelings (except affects) require cultivation, while inclinations – although they can and perhaps may be cultivated – generally require discipline.

I begin with some background on the discipline–cultivation distinction in Kant, arguing that discipline is constraint by rules, and cultivation is acquisition or improvement of a faculty or a skill for attaining rational but not necessarily moral ends. We morally discipline inclinations by scrutinizing our actions and performing our duty in the face of opposing inclinations. This process has the effect of cultivating moral feeling so that we are habituated into taking pleasure in the thought of morally good action (section 2). I proceed with evidence that Kant’s view is that feelings (except affects) are to be cultivated, while inclinations generally require discipline. And I propose that we are to cultivate compassionate feelings by seeking out and not avoiding occasions for having them, so that we may use them for performing morally required actions (section 3). Kant’s prescription makes sense, as the appropriate treatment of an emotion depends on its susceptibility to rational constraint and on the threat it poses to rational deliberation (section 4). Finally, although I read Kant as prescribing that we cultivate some emotions, I argue that my reading is not vulnerable to Thomason’s recent pertinent objections (section 5).

2. Discipline and Cultivation

Kant’s most elaborate account of cultivation and discipline appears in LP. ² There, they are understood as two of the three components of education. The first component, ‘care’, is ‘the precaution of the parents that children not make any harmful use of their powers’ (9: 441). The second component of education is discipline:

Discipline prevents the human being from deviating by means of his animal impulses from his destiny: humanity … Training is therefore merely negative, that is to say, it is the action by means of which man’s tendency to savagery is taken away … Savagery is independence from laws. Through discipline the human being is submitted to the laws of humanity and is first made to feel their constraint. (LP, 9: 442)

Kant appears to be using ‘discipline’ (Disciplin) interchangeably with ‘training’ (Zucht) here, as he does in other places (LP, 9: 441; MM, 6: 485; CPJ, 5: 432). Accordingly, I take what he says of training to apply also to educational discipline: educational discipline is a process that takes away the human being’s tendency to savagery. The tendency to savagery is a tendency to be independent of laws and to deviate from them on account of one’s animal impulses. Educational discipline takes away this tendency by subjecting the human being to the laws of humanity and making him feel their constraint (Zwang).

I call this sort of discipline ‘educational’ because Kant discusses it in the context of his theory of education, and it probably applies only to discipline of children by educational figures. But although the nature of its laws vary, ‘discipline’ is characterized in several places in terms of constraint by means of laws or rules, or constraint that takes away a tendency to stray from rules. In LA, Kant says that ‘Discipline is the constraint (Zwang) of inclination in accordance with rules’, and that ‘under “discipline” one understands the limitation of inclination through a certain rule’ (25: 651, 1530). Kant is saying in these passages that discipline is constraint or limitation of inclinations by means of rules. Such constraint, it seems, could be educational (if aimed at children’s inclinations) or non-educational ‘self-discipline’ (if an adult disciplines her own inclinations). Call this kind of discipline, which consists in constraint of inclinations by rules, ‘practical discipline’.

The idea that discipline involves constraint or compulsion appears also in the first Critique: ‘The compulsion (Zwang) through which the constant propensity to stray from certain rules is limited and finally eradicated is called discipline’ (A709/B738). The discipline Kant is talking about here is theoretical rather than practical, and so it targets a propensity to stray from theoretical rules. But the explanation of discipline as constraining a propensity (Hang) to stray from rules is similar to the one in LP (taking away a tendency to stray from laws). And so Kant appears to have a generic notion of discipline that includes practical and theoretical discipline. ‘Discipline’ in this generic sense is constraint by means of rules or laws that aims to take away a propensity to stray from them. And ‘practical discipline’ consists in constraining inclinations by means of practical rules. Kant also seems to introduce a distinction within practical discipline between moral and prudential discipline: the former is rational constraint of the propensity to violate moral laws, the latter is rational constraint of the propensity to violate rules of prudence (LE, 27: 360).

Cultivation (or ‘culture’, Cultur), the third component of education, is explained as ‘the procurement of skillfulness (Geschicklichkeit)’, which is ‘the possession of a faculty (Vermögen) which is sufficient for the carrying out of whatever purpose’ (LP, 9: 449). Educational cultivation is here understood as a process of acquiring a faculty that would enable us to perform certain actions and attain certain ends. Moreover, the characterization of cultivation as acquiring an ability is not limited to educational cultivation. In the first Critique, Kant gives a similar account, contrasting cultivation with discipline, and saying that the former ‘would merely produce a skill (Fertigkeit) without first cancelling out another one that is already present’ (A709/B737). In MM, he adds that natural perfection is a duty and consists in ‘the cultivation of any faculties [Vermögen] whatever for furthering ends set forth by reason’ (6: 391); and he adds that there is a law for maxims of actions that says ‘Cultivate your powers of mind and body so that they are fit to realize any ends you might encounter’ (6: 392). So Kant seems to have a generic notion of cultivation, understood as a process of acquiring or improving a faculty or skill for attaining rational ends, be they moral or non-moral. If certain emotions or the capacity for them are faculties for furthering rational (but not necessarily moral) ends, we ought to cultivate them.

There is, however, a broader sense of ‘cultivation’ in Kant. Cultivation in this sense is not opposed to discipline, but rather applies both to discipline and to cultivation in the narrow sense (acquiring a faculty for rational ends). This sense appears in CPJ, when Kant speaks of ‘cultivation of skill’ (Cultur der Geschicklichkeit), and contrasts it with a ‘cultivation of training (discipline)’ (Cultur der Zucht, Disciplin, 5: 431–2). Here, cultivation can be either positive, a ‘condition of aptitude for the promotion of ends in general’ (cultivation of skill), or negative, ‘liberation of the will from the despotism of desires’ (cultivation of training) (5: 432). So ‘cultivation’ seems to have a broad sense, which includes both discipline (‘cultivation of training’) and cultivation in the narrow sense (‘cultivation of skill’). In what follows, I shall be using ‘cultivation’ in the narrow sense, unless indicated otherwise.

This gives us some idea about what cultivation and discipline mean in Kant. But how do we discipline and cultivate ourselves and our emotions? A complete answer to this question will emerge in the coming sections. In a passage in LE, however, Kant gives us some important clues:

self-mastery rests on the strength of the moral feeling. We may have good command of ourselves if we weaken the opposing forces. But this we do when we divide them; hence we first have to discipline ourselves, i.e., to root out, in regard to ourselves, by repeated actions, the propensity [Hang] that arises from the sensuous incentive [sinnlichen Triebfeder]. He who would discipline himself morally must pay great attention to himself, and often give an account of his actions before the inner judge, since then, by long practice, he will have given strength to the moral motive [Bewegungsgrund], and acquired, by cultivation, a habit of displaying pleasure and displeasure [Lust order Unlust zu bezeigen] in regard to moral good or evil. By this the moral feeling will be cultivated, and then morality will have strength and motivation; by means of this incentive [durch diese Triebfeder], sensibility will be weakened and overcome, and in this way self-command will be achieved. Without disciplining his inclinations, man can attain to nothing … (LE, 27: 361).

Kant argues here that self-mastery requires weakening the forces opposed to it by ‘dividing’ them. As I understand this process, dividing these forces is done in two stages: we first discipline ourselves and our inclinations, then moral feeling is cultivated. We discipline ourselves by rooting out the propensity that arises from the sensuous incentive. Kant says that rooting out this propensity is done by ‘repeated actions’, which suggests that self-discipline requires repeatedly acting as morality demands in the face of opposing inclinations. Moreover, self-discipline involves paying attention to ourselves, so that we often put our actions to the test of our conscience (‘the inner judge’; cf. MM, 6: 400–1) and examine their moral standing. So self-discipline requires moral self-scrutiny of one’s actions and repeatedly performing one’s duty in the face of opposing inclination.

The second stage of dividing the forces opposed to self-mastery is cultivation of moral feeling. In opposition to self-discipline, which is a voluntary and reflective effort, cultivation seems to be a natural and involuntary consequence of self-discipline: we discipline ourselves and our inclinations by morally scrutinizing our actions and performing our duty. Then, ‘by long practice’, we ‘will have given strength to the moral motive’ and acquired a habit of displaying pleasure in the morally good and displeasure in moral evil, ³ which Kant appears to be equating with moral feeling. As I understand this process, if we reflectively discipline our inclinations long enough, moral feeling will in time be involuntarily cultivated, so that we are habituated into taking pleasure in representations of morally good actions and displeasure in representations of evil actions.

To recap, discipline in Kant’s generic sense is constraint by rules. Moral discipline consists in rationally constraining inclinations and the propensity to stray from moral laws on their account, and is done by morally scrutinizing our actions and repeatedly performing our duty (often in the face of opposing inclinations). Cultivation in Kant’s generic sense consists in acquiring or improving a faculty for attaining rational ends – be they moral or non-moral. Cultivation of moral feeling consists in acquiring a habit of taking pleasure in morally good actions and displeasure in evil actions, and appears to be a natural consequence of disciplining our inclinations. More will be said in the next sections about how we cultivate and discipline emotions. But if, as I have argued, Kant has this relatively stable discipline–cultivation distinction, a recommendation to discipline some emotions and cultivate others does not seem accidental. Indeed, I will argue that it is grounded in his understanding of that distinction.

3. Cultivate Feelings, Discipline Inclinations

The main textual evidence that Kant thinks feelings require cultivation while inclinations require discipline comes from a passage in the anthropology lectures of 1775–6, mentioned earlier:

(a) The sensations of human beings require cultivation and the inclinations require discipline. The sensations should be refined and the inclinations brought under control. He whose sensations have not received cultivation, is unrefined, and he whose sensations do not admit of cultivation, is crude. (LA, 25: 621–2)

Kant is contrasting here sensations (Empfindungen) with inclinations (Neigungen): sensations require cultivation (Cultur) and should be refined, while inclinations require discipline (Disciplin) and should be brought under control (gebändiget werden). And this contrast suggests that discipline is not appropriate for sensations, and cultivation is not appropriate for inclinations. Moreover, since he is contrasting ‘cultivation’ with ‘discipline’, I shall take Kant to be using ‘cultivation’ here in the narrow sense of acquiring or improving a faculty for rational ends (and not in the broad sense that includes discipline). Now one might worry that this passage, taken from early lecture notes, does not capture what Kant actually said, or does not reflect his mature view. I will return to these worries momentarily. First, we need to get clear on the nature of the objects that require cultivation and discipline according to this passage.

The object of discipline, inclination, is construed by Kant fairly consistently as a habitual sensuous desire (Anth, 7: 251; MM, 6: 212; LA, 25: 1334; and Rel, 6: 29, but ‘sensuous’ is omitted there). ⁴ By ‘sensuous’ (or sensible, sinnlich) Kant means here ‘depends on representations of sensibility’, the faculty of intuition (Anth, 7: 153). More specifically, inclinations are habitual desires that depend on sensations (G, 4: 413) or on feeling (CPrR, 5: 72–3). ⁵

The task of determining the object of cultivation is more intricate than that of determining the object of discipline, because Kant uses the term ‘sensation’ to designate two different things:

(1) A representation that refers to a modification in the subject and cannot provide material for cognition.

Sensation in this sense is equivalent to Kant’s generic ‘feeling’ (CPJ, 5: 189, 206). ⁶ Positive tokens of sensations in this ‘subjective’ sense are called ‘pleasures’, negative ones are called ‘displeasures’.

(2) A representation introduced through sense that refers to a modification in the subject, but can nonetheless provide material for cognition through its matter (MM, 6: 212n.; Anth, 7: 153).

There are several reasons to think that in (a), ‘sensations’ has sense (1). First, the examples Kant provides immediately after (a) are of refined feelings and sensitivities – not of sensations of the cognitive kind. The examples are a feeling of the duty of gratitude, being sensible to the indecency of harbouring feelings of resentment, and esteeming a past friendship even after it is broken. Although they may depend on cognition of objects, these sensations and sensitivities do not contribute to cognition. Second, a bit earlier in the lecture, Kant says that keeping the mind’s composure with respect to feelings and desires requires preventing sensation from becoming affect, and desire from becoming passion. Affect is said to be ‘That degree of sensation that makes us unable to estimate and compare the object with the sum total of all our sensation’ (LA, 25: 590; cf. Anth, 7: 254). Kant is therefore concerned with sensation as an influence on mental composure – not as a source of cognitive content. Finally, earlier in the lecture Kant says that affect is a kind of feeling (‘Affect is a feeling through which we lose our composure’, 25: 589), and so the fact that he also says it is a degree of sensation strongly suggests that he is using ‘sensations’ in (a) in the sense of ‘feelings’. I submit that, in (a), Kant is saying that the feelings of human beings require cultivation. ⁷

In the paragraph that follows (a), Kant speaks disapprovingly about ‘too great refinement of the sensations’. He argues that overly refined sensations in response to others’ needs in order to honour them can backfire and become a kind of flattery (LA, 25: 622). And he also praises an emotional sensitivity (Empfindsamkeit) that involves good judgement, and condemns an emotional susceptibility (Empfindlichkeit) of a bad sort, which arises from overly refined sensations (cf. Anth, 7: 236). But although he does not say in this paragraph that we should cultivate feelings or sensations, neither does he say we should not. So this paragraph is compatible with the recommendation in (a) to cultivate sensations. It might be objected that the fact that in this paragraph he speaks against overly refined sensations and gives praise to emotional sensitivity suggests that what Kant meant to say in (a) is that we should cultivate emotional sensitivity rather than particular sensations. ⁸ But Kant clearly distinguishes between the sensations that are overly cultivated (sensations in response to others’ needs) and the result of such exaggerated cultivation, i.e. emotional susceptibility. So there is no reason to think that the saying in (a) that sensations require cultivation does not represent Kant’s view. We had better take Kant at his word: cultivate and refine sensations, but don’t exaggerate, so that you do not become emotionally susceptible. Kant does use ‘feeling’ to refer both to tokens of pleasure and displeasure and to ‘The capacity for having pleasure and displeasure’ (MM, 6: 211). If ‘sensation’ is also ambiguous in this way, he may be saying in (a) that we are to cultivate the capacity for feelings (rather than feeling types or tokens). This, however, is not the same as recommending cultivation of emotional sensitivity.

So, in (a), Kant is saying that we are to cultivate feelings and discipline inclinations. But does this accurately capture what he said in the lecture? The fact that he is recorded as saying it again a bit later is evidence that it does:

(b) Just as cultivation aims at sensation, so discipline aims at the inclinations. He whose inclinations have not received any discipline is ill-mannered, however he whose inclinations do not admit of any discipline is wild. In regard to the inclinations, the human being must be brought under control (gebändigt), just as in regard to the sensations, he must be refined. (LA, 25: 623)

Kant uses slightly different language here, saying that cultivation aims at sensation and discipline aims at the inclinations (rather than saying as he does in (a) that sensations require cultivation and inclinations discipline). But he is explicit that the human being’s inclinations must be brought under control and that his sensations must be refined – the same treatments assigned to them in (a). And since cultivation aims at feelings and discipline at inclinations, it is reasonable to infer that Kant is making the same point as in (a), namely, that inclinations require discipline and feelings require cultivation (assuming ‘sensation’ means ‘feeling’).

Moreover, later in this lecture Kant argues that ‘Discipline is the constraint of inclination in accordance with rules’ (LA, 25: 651), which suggests that we cannot discipline anything but inclinations; and he says that people whose inclinations have received no discipline are wild, but those ‘whose natural aptitude (Naturell) does not admit of any discipline at all … are evil people’ (ibid.). This suggests that inclinations (and natural aptitude) require discipline. And although he does not say later in the lecture that we are to cultivate feelings, he does say that ‘The individual who has received no cultivation is unrefined, the one incapable of any cultivation is crude’ (ibid.). In light of (a) and (b), it is reasonable that cultivation here includes cultivation of feelings. If this is the case, Kant is saying that the individual whose feelings received no cultivation is unrefined and the one incapable of such cultivation is crude. So, (a) and (b) are probably accurate recordings of the view Kant presented in the lecture circa 1775–6: feelings require cultivation, inclinations require discipline.

Does the later Kant (of the 1780s and 1790s) think we should cultivate feelings and discipline inclinations? There is evidence in the lecture notes that Kant remained committed to the prescription to discipline inclinations. Earlier we saw that in the LE of 1784–5 Kant says that ‘Without disciplining his inclinations, man can attain to nothing’ (27: 361), and that he regards the discipline of inclinations as necessary for self-mastery. Since self-mastery is necessary for virtue, and disciplining inclinations is necessary for self-mastery, Kant must think we ought to discipline inclinations. In Busolt’s notes of 1788–9, Kant says that ‘under “discipline” one understands the limitation of inclination through a certain rule’ (LA, 25: 1530). This is roughly the same characterization of discipline given some thirteen years earlier (25: 651) and further evidence that we cannot discipline other emotions. This claim appears in a discussion about acquiring character, which suggests that Kant thinks disciplining one’s inclinations is a good and healthy process. Moreover, after presenting this conception of discipline, he says that ‘The human being assumes discipline when he himself denies it so far that he accommodates himself to others’ (25: 1530). Although this falls short of a recommendation to discipline inclinations, it is reasonable to read Kant as saying that, as we mature, we must assume discipline over ourselves such that we reject others’ discipline. And since discipline has just been defined as limitation of inclination through a rule, Kant is saying that, as we mature, we must assume responsibility for disciplining our inclinations.

There is also evidence from a published work of the 1790s that we should discipline natural inclinations. Commenting on the stoic conception of virtue as presupposing the presence of an enemy, Kant says: ‘those valiant men [the Stoics] mistook their enemy, who is not to be sought in the natural inclinations, which merely lack discipline’ (Rel, 6: 57). Kant is not saying here that we ought to discipline natural inclinations. But his point seems to be that, although natural inclinations are not the enemy of virtue, virtue nonetheless requires their discipline. The next paragraph strengthens this impression: ‘Considered in themselves, natural inclinations are good, i.e. not reprehensible, and to want to extirpate them would not only be futile but harmful and blameworthy as well; we must rather only curb them, so that they will not wear each other out but will instead be harmonized into a whole called happiness’ (6: 58).

Kant says here that we must curb (bezähmen) natural inclinations, and there are several reasons to think he means we must discipline them. (1) In (a), he glosses ‘discipline’ with ‘bringing under control’ (gebändiget), and bändigen is one of the meanings of ‘curb’(bezähmen). ⁹ Given the semantic proximity, ‘curb’ could mean ‘discipline’. (2) On the previous page (Rel, 6: 57), Kant suggests that virtue involves disciplined natural inclinations, so it makes sense for him to proceed to say we must discipline them. (3) In LP Kant says that discipline is ‘the curbing [Bezähmug] of savagery’ (9: 449), and at LA, 25: 651, he seems to be using ‘curbing’ and ‘disciplining’ synonymously. In light of this close connection between ‘curbing’ and ‘disciplining’, it is reasonable to read a prescription to curb natural inclinations as saying we must discipline them. The discipline in question here, however, appears to be prudential (by rules of prudence) rather than moral, as Kant says that we should discipline natural inclinations so that ‘they will not wear each other out but will instead be harmonized into a whole called happiness’.

Although I believe that Kant thinks we generally ought to discipline inclinations, there is also evidence that such discipline must not be exaggerated, and that we can cultivate inclinations, in the sense that it is within our power, and perhaps may do so, in the sense that it is morally permissible. In MM, Kant says we have a duty to provide for ourselves ‘to the extent necessary just to find enjoyment [Vergnügen] in living’; and he warns that it is opposed to this duty to deprive oneself ‘of enjoyment of the pleasures of life by exaggerated discipline of one’s natural inclinations’ (MM, 6: 452). So, we should not exaggerate in disciplining natural inclinations. Moreover, Kant thinks that there is a causal relation between sensuous desires and sensuous feelings (6: 212), and so cultivating sensuous feelings probably has the effect of cultivating the inclinations caused by them. And the impression that we can cultivate inclinations gains further support from passages where Kant speaks of refined inclinations (CPrR, 5: 39, 188; CPJ, 5: 297, 298). Since he sometimes uses ‘refined’ synonymously with ‘cultivated’ (CPrR, 5: 24, 39; LA, 25: 622), Kant’s talk of refined inclinations suggests that inclinations can be cultivated, i.e. that such cultivation is within our power.

Finally, there is a passage where Kant appears to be saying that we may cultivate inclinations. In a discussion of duties of benevolence, he says that moralists

must lay down principles, and commend and cultivate the benevolent life based on obligation; and once all obligation has been set forth both through nature and religion [alle Verbindlichkeit durch die Natur auch durch die Religion vorgelegt ist], then the inclination, too, may be cultivated, but only insofar as it has to be subject to principles, and then they can be presented as incentives [Triebfedern] to kindly actions from inclination. (LE, 27: 414–15)

Kant’s point here seems to be that the moralist must first cultivate a benevolent life based on moral principles. Once this has been done (and once obligation has been properly presented), we may cultivate benevolent inclinations, but only insofar as they are subject to principles, which I understand as ‘disciplined’. So the cultivation of the benevolent life based on obligation consists in disciplining benevolent inclinations (not in their cultivation). But once they are disciplined, we may also cultivate them. So cultivation of certain disciplined inclinations is permissible. This, however, is compatible with the recommendation that inclinations must – or at least must first – be disciplined.

Regarding Kant’s view in the 1780s and 1790s on cultivating feelings, the evidence is not as decisive. There is, however, evidence that we should: (1) not weaken some feelings even though they are not ‘moral endowments’; (2) increase the capacity for some pleasures (i.e. feelings that are not ‘moral endowments’); and (3) cultivate some feelings (which seem to be other than ‘moral endowments’). Starting with (1), in MM Kant argues that a propensity to wanton destruction of inanimate nature is opposed to a duty to oneself, because it weakens or uproots a feeling of love for inanimate things apart from an intention to use them (6: 443). So he holds that we should not weaken this feeling of love, which is not one of the ‘moral endowments’.

In Anth, there is evidence that we should increase the capacity for feelings that are not ‘moral endowments’:

One way of enjoying ourselves is also a way of cultivating ourselves; that is, increasing the capacity (Fähigkeit) for having more enjoyment of this kind, and this applies to the sciences and the fine arts. However, another way is overindulgence, which makes us increasingly less capable of further enjoyment. (7: 236–7)

Kant is saying here that enjoyment could be a way to cultivate ourselves, when we increase our capacity for having more enjoyments of a certain kind. Enjoyment (Vergnügen), however, is said a bit earlier to be pleasure introduced through sense (Anth, 7: 230), and later is explained as a conscious feeling that urges the subject to remain in his state (7: 254). So Kant’s point seems to be that by enjoying ourselves, that is, by having sensuous pleasures, we can cultivate ourselves and increase our capacity for having more of those pleasures. And since the capacity for pleasure is called ‘feeling’ (MM, 6: 211), and since enjoyment is a feeling (in a mental-state sense), Kant is saying that we can cultivate certain feelings. To use his examples, by enjoying scientific inquiry, I can increase my capacity for pleasure in science; and by enjoying a Rembrandt portrait, I can increase my capacity for pleasure in fine arts.

Right after the abovementioned passage, Kant warns about the dangers of overindulgence: ‘Young man! … get fond of work; deny yourself enjoyments, not to renounce them, but rather to keep them always in perspective as far as possible!’ (Anth, 7: 237; cf. 165). This warning against overindulgence and the injunction to deny oneself enjoyments might seem like a recommendation to discipline sensuous pleasures. But note that Kant prescribes growing fond of work. Given that he has just said that enjoying oneself is a way of increasing one’s capacity for enjoyment, it is reasonable to read him as prescribing increasing the capacity to enjoy work, i.e. a feeling as a capacity for pleasure. We do so, according to this passage, by denying ourselves sensuous pleasures when we are young, because overindulging in them might lead to desensitization and decrease our capacity for having them in the future. And given that in LE Kant is recorded as saying that ‘the greatest discipline is to accustom oneself to work’ (27: 396), it is reasonable that increasing enjoyment in work also involves disciplining ‘lazy’ inclinations. But the fact that Kant prescribes that young people deny themselves enjoyments need not mean that they should discipline their feelings; it rather suggests that increasing capacities for pleasures may involve denying ourselves pleasures.

There is also evidence from MM that certain feelings should be cultivated. First, Kant argues that gratitude is a duty, and consists in ‘honoring a person because of a benefit he has rendered us. The feeling connected with this judgment is respect for the benefactor’ (6: 454). He goes on to say that ‘Even mere heartfelt benevolence on another’s part, without physical results, deserves to be called a duty of virtue; and this is the basis for the distinction between active and merely affective gratitude’ (6: 455). The analogy between heartfelt benevolence and affective gratitude suggests that the latter too, in its guise as mere feeling without physical results, is a duty of virtue. And if this is the case, it is reasonable that we should cultivate this feeling (as suggested by Kant’s citing the feeling of the duty of gratitude after his recommendation to cultivate sensations in (a)). It might be objected that the feeling of gratitude is respect, and so it is one of the ‘moral endowments’. But respect as a moral endowment seems to be self-respect (6: 402–3), not respect to a benefactor.

Compassionate feelings also require cultivation, according to MM:

But while it is not in itself a duty to share the sufferings (as well the joys) of others, it is a duty to sympathize actively in their fate; and to this end it is therefore an indirect duty to cultivate the compassionate natural (aesthetic) feelings in us, and to make use of them as so many means to sympathy based on moral principles and the feeling appropriate to them. – It is therefore a duty not to avoid the places where the poor who lack the most basic necessities are to be found but rather to seek them out, and not to shun sickrooms or debtors’ prisons and so forth in order to avoid sharing painful feelings one may not be able to resist. For this is still one of the impulses that nature has implanted in us to do what the representation of duty alone might not accomplish. (MM, 6: 457)

Kant is saying here that we have an indirect duty to cultivate compassionate natural (aesthetic) feelings. What the duty to cultivate compassionate or sympathetic feelings involves is a matter of dispute. Thomason, for instance, argues that in saying that we should cultivate sympathetic feelings, ‘Kant might just be saying: do not try to get rid of them or see them as a burden’ (2017: 446). But even she grants that at 6: 457 Kant ‘explicitly states that it is our “indirect duty” to cultivate our natural feelings of sympathy’ (444). So Thomason concedes that in this passage Kant recommends cultivating feelings. Moreover, I believe that in saying we should cultivate sympathetic feelings, Kant cannot just be saying that we should not try to get rid of these feelings or see them as a burden. For he is explicit that we have a duty to: (a) not avoid the poor who lack the most basic necessities; (b) seek out these poor people; and (c) not shun sickrooms or debtors’ prisons. Thomason argues that we should seek out places where people who need help are found ‘because the people there need our help, but not because they are good places to practise sympathy’ (446). But Kant’s use of ‘therefore’ after the sentence about the duty to cultivate compassionate feelings makes clear that it is because we have this duty that we are obligated to (a)–(c). So, although the reason we have a duty to cultivate sympathetic feelings is that we should ‘sympathize actively in their fate’, the reason we ought to seek out the poor is that we ought to cultivate compassionate feelings.

The above passage therefore makes clear that we have a duty to cultivate compassionate feelings, and that this requires seeking out the poor. It is less clear, however, what Kant means when he says we have a duty to use those feelings as ‘means to sympathy based on moral principles and the feeling appropriate to them’. One way to understand this duty is that we ought to use compassionate feelings to motivate acts or expressions of sympathy. This is suggested by Kant’s saying that painful feelings in response to others’ suffering is ‘one of the impulses that nature has implanted in us to do what the representation of duty alone might not accomplish’. Kant might therefore be recommending that we use compassionate feelings to perform actions in conformity with duty, but not done from duty. Considerations regarding Kant’s theory of moral motivation might lead us to look for an alternative reading, on which compassionate feelings do not motivate the actions they are means for. ¹⁰ The non-motivational function of sympathetic feelings could be perceptual sensitivity to situations where we can help others (Baron 1995: 171), or expression of morally significant attitudes towards others (Baxley 2010: 165; Sherman 1997: 147). Kant’s saying that we are to use them as means for ‘sympathy based on moral principles and the feeling appropriate to them’ suggests that the acts which sympathetic feelings are means for are motivated not by these feelings but rather by moral feeling. But independently of our choice here, 6: 457 makes clear that we should cultivate certain feelings as means for sympathetic actions.

But are sympathetic feelings different from ‘moral endowments’? They do seem closely related to ‘love of human beings’. But Kant’s Latin term for love of human beings as an immediate pleasure in an object’s existence is amor complacentiae (MM 6: 402), while his Latin term for compassion is communio sentiendi illiberalis, servilis (6: 456–7). And this suggests that Kant’s prescription that we cultivate compassionate feeling is a prescription to cultivate a feeling other than the ‘moral endowments’. I therefore submit that, in the 1790s, Kant recommends increasing capacities for pleasures that are not moral endowments, and that he prescribes cultivating feelings that are probably not moral endowments.

On my reading, in passages (a) and (b) Kant says that we are to cultivate feelings. His considered view, however, is probably that, although they are feelings, affects should not be cultivated. Affects, according to Kant, are feelings that do not admit of reflection (Anth, 7: 251). They pose a serious threat to rational deliberation, making rational reflection difficult or impossible (ibid.; cf. MM, 6: 407). And although Kant admits that affects can be used for promoting rational ends, he also warns that, considered by itself alone, affect ‘makes itself incapable of pursuing its own end, and it is therefore unwise to allow it to come into being intentionally’ (7: 253). Cultivating affects, since it may involve seeking occasions to have them, may involve intentionally allowing them to come into being; and so their cultivation would be ‘unwise’ and involve actively undermining rational deliberation. Kant would therefore not recommend cultivating affects. ¹¹

Should affects be disciplined, then? In the Anth, Kant cites as a rule ‘for a tasteful feast’ that in a serious conflict that cannot be avoided, one must ‘maintain discipline over oneself and one’s affects [Affect], so that mutual respect and benevolence always shine forth’ (7: 281). But as mentioned earlier, his view seems to be that discipline is always of inclinations. I therefore propose that when he says that we are to maintain discipline over affects, Kant means that we should discipline the inclinations caused by them. And so, although in (a) and (b) he recommends cultivating feelings, Kant’s considered view is probably that we should cultivate feelings except for affects.

4. Why Different Treatments?

If what I have argued is correct, Kant’s view is that feelings (except affects) require cultivation and inclinations generally require discipline. One sceptical worry regarding this reading is that Kant could not recommend cultivation of any emotions, or the cultivation of any emotions other than ‘moral endowments’. I started dealing with this worry in the previous section, and I will revisit it in the next. Before I do that, however, there are two other sceptical worries that need to be addressed. The first is that a recommendation to cultivate feelings and discipline inclinations is implausible, because it entails that we are to cultivate feelings that are opposed to moral conduct, and discipline inclinations that are not opposed to it, or even facilitate it.

In response to this worry, it should be acknowledged that Kant does seem to think that certain emotions (such as beneficence, gratitude and sympathy; MM, 6: 452–8) are usually conducive to moral conduct, while others (envy, ingratitude, malice; 6: 458–62) are usually opposed to it. But it is doubtful that he thinks that any emotions (with the possible exception of ‘moral endowments’) are always or in principle conducive or detrimental to morality. For, as Sorensen points out, Kant’s view appears to be that inclinations are not reliable as a criterion for morality or as a motivation for it (Sorensen 2002: 111). Since inclinations are caused by feelings, this should be true of feelings as well. It therefore appears that on Kant’s view an emotion that is usually conducive to morality could urge us to act immorally (as when sympathy urges me to help a burglar); and an emotion that is usually opposed to morality could urge us to perform our duty (as when envy urges me to develop my talents). If this is correct, then although Kant’s recommendation might entail that we should cultivate feelings that are usually opposed to morality and discipline inclinations that are usually conducive to it, it does not entail that we should cultivate feelings that are always opposed to morality (and neither does it entail disciplining inclinations that are always conducive to it). And although it might be thought implausible that we should cultivate feelings that are usually opposed to morality, the recommendation makes sense if these feelings could be used to promote rational but not necessarily moral ends (as seems to be the case with envy, for instance).

The other worry is that it is implausible that Kant would assign different treatments to inclinations and feelings, because the difference between them is not significant enough to warrant different treatments. It might be thought that this worry gains support from the many qualifications I have introduced to Kant’s original recommendation (that inclinations can be cultivated and should not be overly disciplined, that affects should not be cultivated, etc.). In order to properly respond, it is necessary to show that there is some difference between feelings and inclinations that would warrant assigning different treatments to them. Here is my suggestion. Discipline, on my account, is constraint by means of rules or laws, and cultivation is acquiring or improving a faculty for attaining rational ends. Inclinations belong to the faculty of desire, and so they admit of constraint by means of rules; feelings, in contrast, do not admit of such constraint. We should therefore discipline inclinations because they admit of discipline; and we should cultivate feelings (except affects) because they do not admit of discipline, but can be used to attain rational ends and do not significantly undermine rational deliberation.

That we cannot be constrained or compelled to feel love is made clear when Kant says, in his discussion of the moral feeling of love of human beings, that ‘Love is a matter of sensation [Empfindung], not of willing, and I cannot love because I will to, still less because I ought to (I cannot be constrained to love); so a duty to love is an absurdity’ (MM, 6: 401). Kant is saying here is that is impossible to be constrained to love (zur Liebe genöthigt werden), i.e. to have a sensation of love; and although the verb he uses is derived from Nöthigung rather than Zwang, Kant uses these terms as synonyms (cf. 6: 379). So there is at least one feeling that we cannot be constrained to have, namely, love. Although this shows merely that love is not susceptible of constraint, Kant’s view appears to be that this is true of all feelings. For he associates feelings with sensibility (6: 212), the faculty which allows us to be affected by objects (A19/B33) and is usually contrasted with the understanding as the faculty of spontaneity. And so the fact that Kant assigns feelings to sensibility suggests that, although we might be able to shape and mould our felt responses to objects in various ways, the occurrence of a feeling is an involuntary response to an object. And this impression is reinforced by his association of involuntariness with sensibility (LM, 28: 237).

But if feelings do not admit of constraint, it would be impossible to discipline, i.e. to constrain our feelings, which explains why Kant seems to think that discipline is always directed at inclinations (LA, 25: 651, 1530). In order to account for Kant’s recommendation in (a), however, we must also show that his view is that we can constrain inclinations, i.e. habitual sensuous desires. Now, although Kant’s view appears to be that such desires are causally determined by repeated feelings of pleasure (MM, 6: 212), he also insists that the faculty of desire can determine itself independently of feelings and produce a sense-free or intellectual inclination (6: 213). So, although habitual sensuous desires arise independently of our choice, and although we cannot simply summon them at will, we can always desire to perform our duty independently of our feelings. In other words, we cannot constrain ourselves (or others) to have a habitual sensuous desire; but we can – and ought to – constrain ourselves by summoning a rational desire to perform our duty, independently of our feelings. The fact that the faculty of desire admits of summoning a rational desire, I propose, is the reason we can and ought to discipline and constrain our inclinations.

If what I have argued is correct, we cannot be constrained to have feelings but can be constrained to have rational desires. So feelings and inclinations differ in a way that would warrant assigning different treatments to them. But why can we not constrain feelings, but can constrain our desires? After all, if to constrain is to make someone do or experience some mental state, it seems that it should be possible with respect to both feelings and inclinations. For we can make ourselves and others have emotions of all kinds (by exposure to certain circumstances or by conditioning).

The reason that constraint is nonetheless possible only in the domain of desire, I propose, is that to constrain, according to Kant, is not merely to force or make someone do or experience something; it is rather to do so by means of reasons. We cannot constrain ourselves (or others) to feel because feelings are not responsive to reasons; desires, in contrast, are so responsive. According to Kant’s account in MM, ‘The very concept of duty is already the concept of a necessitation (Nöthigung) (constraint) (Zwang) of free choice through the law. This constraint may be an external constraint or a self-constraint’ (6: 379). Kant is saying here that duty involves necessitation or constraint of free choice through the law, and so moral constraint involves constraint through the law, i.e. by means of representing the law. So, when we are constrained to perform our moral duty, we force ourselves to do it by representing the law. In other words, constraint to perform one’s duty requires responsiveness to reasons, such that a principle’s or law’s representation is taken as a reason to perform one’s duty. If this is correct, constraint may require responsiveness to reasons and voluntary rational control. It is such constraint, I take it, that we can and ought to exercise with respect to our desires, but cannot exercise with respect to feelings. And so, because we cannot make ourselves have a feeling (or not have it) by considering a reason for or against it, we cannot discipline feelings. We can, however, make ourselves have a rational desire by considering a reason for it, and so we can (and must) discipline inclinations.

5. Defending the Cultivation of Feelings

In section 3, I adduced evidence that Kant thinks we should cultivate some emotions and increase the capacities for them. One might still worry, however, that some of the things Kant says preclude a recommendation to cultivate emotions. I now wish to deal with this worry by considering Thomason’s recent objections to the view that Kant could recommend emotional cultivation. Thomason distinguishes between three ways of understanding what cultivating emotions means in Kant: ‘refining’, ‘strengthening’ or ‘reflecting upon’. Of these, my understanding of cultivation is closest to ‘refining’, and so I will focus on her objections to this reading.

According to Thomason, the possibility that cultivation means ‘improve’ or ‘refine’ is suggested by Kant’s saying that the duty of self-perfection consists in part in cultivating one’s faculties or natural predispositions, which involves raising ourselves from the crude state of nature toward humanity (MM, 6: 387). And she adds that, on this reading, in section 35 of MM, Kant seems to suggest that our natural sympathetic feelings are ‘the raw material that we refine into active sympathy. Indeed, he claims that active sympathy is the “end” in the service of which we should “cultivate the compassionate natural (aesthetic) feelings in us” (MM, 6: 457)’ (Thomason 2017: 446). The problem Thomason sees for this reading is that natural compassionate feelings, according to Kant, belong to our receptivity, may be irresistible, are natural, pathological and unfree, and communicable like a contagious disease. If this is the case, it is unclear how such feelings can be refined into active sympathy, which is a free capacity or faculty (Vermögen).

Thomason is correct insofar as Kant takes the cultivation of natural compassionate feelings to be a means to active, rational sympathy. But Kant neither says nor suggests that such cultivation has the result of turning compassionate feelings into a free rational capacity. ¹² He rather says that these feelings can be used as ‘so many means to sympathy based on moral principles and the feeling appropriate to them’ (MM, 6: 457). Earlier I argued that it is unclear whether feelings used in this way play a motivational role in performing morally required actions. But either way, compassionate feelings do not turn into a free rational capacity or active sympathy: they either motivate morally required action (not principled active sympathy ‘from duty’) or help us perform acts of active sympathy without motivating them (by making us sensitive to others’ needs, or express morally significant attitudes).

The other major pertinent objection Thomason raises concerns the supposed incompatibility of a recommendation to cultivate emotions, with Kant’s warning of the dangers of moral enthusiasm. Thomason argues that Kant ‘specifically warns’ that cultivating a kindly disposition of spontaneously and gladly doing what is morally required without the need to constrain ourselves ‘risks locating “the incentive [of morality] pathologically (in sympathy or self-love)” (CPrR 5: 85, emphasis in original). We are tempted to imagine ourselves as so good-hearted that we do not need the “yoke” of duty (ibid.)’ (2017: 448). And she argues that if Kant thinks that the danger of believing we do not need to constrain ourselves to act morally is real, it would be odd of him to recommend that we intentionally expose ourselves to it. Anticipating a possible objection, she adds that it may be thought there is no such danger, because we can cultivate natural compassionate feelings and still act from duty and not from these feelings. And she responds that, although this may be possible, it seems unlikely that Kant would recommend engaging in behaviour that will blur the boundaries between the motive of duty and that of sympathy.

To assess this objection, it would be good to have the CPrR passage in view:

By exhortation (Aufmunterung) to actions as noble, sublime, and magnanimous, minds are attuned to nothing but moral enthusiasm and exaggerated self-conceit … For, when they imitate such deeds – namely, from such a principle … they produce in this way a frivolous, high-flown, fantastic cast of mind, flattering themselves with a spontaneous goodness of heart that needs neither spur nor bridle and for which not even a command is necessary and thereby forgetting their obligation, which they ought to think of rather than merit. (5: 84–5, emphasis mine)

Kant’s warning here is not about the dangers of cultivating our emotions. Rather, it is about the dangers of a certain way of teaching morality that aims to promote moral conduct by encouraging the performance and imitation of actions presented as noble and sublime. The actions presented in this way and imitated are done on a principle of merit. As Kant explains in MM, an action has merit when the agent does more than she could be constrained to by law (6: 227). There is of course no harm in acting on such a principle when an action is not morally obligatory and is in fulfilment of an imperfect duty. But Kant seems to think that if we emphasize the noble nature of these actions rather than focusing on morally required or prohibited actions, or if we try to imitate such actions, we will end up deceiving ourselves that we are beyond the need for self-constraint, such that nothing we do is morally required of us – it is all done out of the goodness of our heart. And this will in turn lead us to think that we no longer need to exercise self-constraint in order to act morally. ¹³

When I cultivate my feelings, however, I am not necessarily imitating actions done on a principle of merit, and I am also not necessarily encouraging anyone to perform such actions. Rather, such cultivation may involve not avoiding and seeking out opportunities to have feelings so that they can be used to pursue rational ends and perform our duty. Granted, cultivation of certain feelings, such as sympathy, may make us more vulnerable to moral enthusiasm. For if our feelings are naturally in tune with those of others, we might be tempted to think that we are beyond the need for self-constraint in performing our duties. But in the above passage Kant is not talking about this danger; and there is no reason to think it is serious enough to warrant a prohibition on cultivating feelings. ¹⁴

I submit that, despite attributing to Kant the view that we should cultivate some emotions, my reading is not vulnerable to Thomason’s pertinent objections. There may be philosophical worries about my suggested justification of Kant’s discriminating treatment of emotions, and in particular about the idea that inclinations are susceptible to rational constraint. I will not try to defend this idea here. But if what I have argued is correct, there is no simple ‘yes or no’ answer to the question ‘Should Kantians cultivate their emotions?’ The answer depends on which emotion we are talking about, on its impact on rational deliberation and on its susceptibility to rational constraint. ¹⁵