MAD ABOUT IDEALS? EDUCATING CHILDREN TO BECOME REASONABLY PASSIONATE

MAD ABOUT IDEALS? EDUCATING CHILDREN TO BECOMEREASONABLY PASSIONATE

Stijn M.A. Sieckelinck and Doret J. de Ruyter

Department of Theory and Research in Education

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

ABSTRACT. The current public concern about radicalization and extremism challenges philosophers andparticularly philosophers of education to explore questions such as ‘‘Why do adolescents with strongideas transgress?’’ and ‘‘What can we do about it?’’ The first question can be addressed by examining therole of their passionate commitment to their ideals as well as how this passion manifests in their pursuitof these ideals. The second question refers to the role of education in orienting and directing young peo-ple’s passionate attachment to and pursuit of ideals. In this essay, Stijn M.A. Sieckelinck and Doret J. deRuyter argue that educating children to become reasonably passionate about ideals is a justifiable, and infact an important, educational aim. This educational aim rests upon the notion that people take a rational,moral, and prudent stance toward their ideals and that they pursue their ideals in a way limited (yet alsoenabled) by rational, moral, and prudent considerations. While extremism is not likely to be defeated byeducational efforts only, democratic citizenship demands urgent educational attention to young people’spassion for ideals.

INTRODUCTION

‘‘We felt that doing nothing in a period of repressive violence is itself a form of violence.’’1

There is a general concern these days about a group of Muslim youth who are

too passionate about their ideals. They make headlines and are the source of back-

ground stories on a regular basis in most Western countries. These young people act

upon religious ideals, more specifically Islamic ideals, but it is important to remem-

ber that throughout history we can find various examples of young people who have

been willing to destroy every obstacle (including themselves) that stands in the way

of realizing their religious or political ideals. Consider, for instance, the Weather

Underground in the United States or the Baader-Meinhof Group in Germany. While

young radical activists are a small group and therefore cannot in any sense be

regarded as representative of all young activists or believers, their actions have enor-

mous impact.2 As a result governments of various countries have called for the

development of educational programs to be implemented at all primary and secon-

dary schools.3 This new phenomenon in the battle against radicalization and terror-

ism is possibly related to the idea that radicalized adolescents were recruited at a

1. Naomi Jaffe, quoted in The Weather Underground, DVD, directed by Bill Siegel and Sam Green (New Vid-eo Group, 2004). Jaffe continues, ‘‘That’s really the part that I think is the hardest for people to understand. Ifyou sit in your house, live your white life and go to your white job, and allow the country that you live in tomurder people and to commit genocide, and you sit there and you don’t do anything about it, that’s violence.’’

2. It should be noted that a large number of young people seems to lack any sort of commitment. Thismarks as persistent a problem and challenge for educators as radicalization does. Therefore we want tosafeguard the important role ideals can play in the lives of young people.

3. See Polly Curtis, ‘‘Minister Urges Action on Campus Extremism,’’ Guardian, July 20, 2005; NationaalCoordinator Terrorismebestrijding, ‘‘Debat met jongeren over radicalisering’’ [Talking with Youth AboutRadicalization], November 21, 2007; and Associated Press, ‘‘Bosatlas met kaart terreurdreiging’’ [Bosatlaswith Map of Terror Threat] NRC-Handelsblad, April 3, 2007.

EDUCATIONAL THEORY j Volume 59 j Number 2 j 2009� 2009 Board of Trustees j University of Illinois

181

relatively young age and this phenomenon may be countered by an apposite educa-

tional program. We agree with this intuition; the main question we want to raise

here is what may be a good educational approach in diminishing the possibility of

idealism going astray.

Empirical research by psychologists and sociologists has provided three clusters of

reasons or sources for the move of young people toward extremism, namely, their per-

sonality, the environment or circumstances, and the ideology to which these young

people adhere.4 In this article, we focus on the third cluster. A description and evalua-

tion of young people’s ideals can focus on two key points: the ideals themselves and the

way in which they are held and pursued. The first option seems the most pressing one

to investigate, for what people aspire toward has implications for us all, does it not?

Although this is certainly true, it is also apparent that one may hold and pursue good or

moral ideals in ways that are not good for the person him- or herself or for others.

As Dorothy Emmett has eloquently described, when an ideal is perceived as a

blueprint instead of a regulative ideal, people may aspire to achieve it against all

costs and therefore use every means to realize the ideal.5 Of course, one could

argue that this distinction refers to different types of ideal, that they are different

entities altogether. For instance, one might claim that a relatively abstract or some-

what vague idea about the best society that one believes can never be realized is a

different kind of ideal than a concrete utopia that one believes to be an attainable

situation. But we do not think such a delineation is correct. We side with Emmett

and also with Karl Popper, whose distinction between utopian engineering and

piecemeal engineering does not assume a different ideal, but a different way of pur-

suing the ideal. As Popper states, ‘‘The politician who adopts this method may or

may not have a blueprint of society before his mind, he may or may not hope that

mankind will one day realize an ideal state, and achieve happiness and perfection on

earth. But he will be aware that perfection, if at all attainable, is far distant.’’6 Thus,

STIJN M.A. SIECKELINCK is a Doctoral Student in Philosophy of Education at Vrije Universiteit, Facul-teit Psychologie en Pedagogiek, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BTAmsterdam, The Netherlands; e-mail\[email protected][. His primary areas of scholarship are ideals, citizenship education, and radi-calization.

DORET J. DE RUYTER is Professor of Philosophy and History of Education at Vrije Universiteit, Facul-teit Psychologie en Pedagogiek, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BTAmsterdam, The Netherlands; e-mail\[email protected][. Her primary areas of scholarship are children’s rights, parental duties andrights, human flourishing, and ideals.

4. See, for example, Roy Baumeister, Evil: Inside Human Cruelty and Violence (New York: W.H. Freeman,1996); Jean M. Twenge, Roy F. Baumeister, Dianne M. Tice, and Tanja Stucke, ‘‘If You Can’t Join Them,Beat Them: Effects of Social Exclusion on Aggressive Behavior,’’ Journal of Personality and Social Psy-chology 81, no. 6 (2001): 1058–1069; and Albert Bandura, ‘‘The Role of Selective Moral Disengagement inTerrorism and Counterterrorism,’’ in Understanding Terrorism: Psychosocial Roots, Consequences, andInterventions, eds. Fathali M. Moghaddam and Anthony J. Marsella (Washington, D.C.: American Psy-chological Association, 2004).

5. Dorothy Emmet, The Role of the Unrealizable: A Study in Regulative Ideals (New York: St. Martin’sPress, 1994), 17.

6. Karl Popper, The Spell of Plato, vol. 1 of The Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Routledge, 2005),167.

E D U C A T I O N A L T H E O R Y VOLUME 59 j NUMBER 2 j 2009182

because ideals that are in themselves good may lead to evil practice, it is not enough

to teach children ‘‘good ideals.’’

The fact that good ideals are in themselves not sufficient to diminish the

threat of radicalization is one reason for maintaining that an inquiry into the way

in which individuals are dedicated to their ideals furthers our insights into how

educators can contribute to the prevention of extremism. Another reason is that

recent research has shown that patterns of radicalization are very similar, even

among ideologically opposite groups.7 This seems to indicate that the process of

radicalization is relatively independent from the content of the ideals held. The

third reason is that an important ground for calling ideals evil is that their realiza-

tion requires evil methods: the way in which they have to be pursued makes them

bad. For instance, the Nazi ideal of an Aryan society is immoral, because it

requires the destruction of those who do not have the required characteristics. Our

final reason is educational. A discussion about the ideals of students may have two

problems that a debate about the way in which they are attached to them or pursue

them does not seem to have. First, teachers are expected not to influence students’

conception of the good and therefore may not try to change their students’ ideals.

This does not apply to the way in which ideals are held and pursued, for which the

criteria do not (necessarily) belong to a conception of the good life. Second, a debate

on ideals is much more personal than one on the manner in which they are held

and pursued, because of the high value attached to ideals (see the next section for

more on this). This means that there is a higher risk that students feel personally

attacked or hurt when (their) ideals are being criticized. Not only is this something

that teachers want to prevent from happening, it might also make them more sus-

ceptible to radicalization.8 In order to gain insight into the role of educators, we

need to have a clear idea of what might be a good manner of holding and pursuing

one’s ideals. A large part of this article is therefore dedicated to clarifying what this

may imply.

The next section first elucidates the concept of ideals. Then it provides several

reasons why ideals are important to people, a line of discussion that demonstrates

the significance of our undertaking: if it is important for human beings to have

ideals, it is not an option to try to counter radicalization by means of discouraging

or preventing them from being passionate about ideals; what is required, rather, is

awareness of and guidance regarding the manner in which individuals dedicate

themselves to their ideals. In addressing this issue, we introduce the notion of

‘‘being reasonably passionate.’’ In the third section we explore this notion in rela-

tion to the way in which individuals are committed to their ideals, and in the

fourth we elucidate what it means to pursue ideals in a reasonably passionate way.

The article ends with the educational implications of our analysis of ‘‘being

7. Amy-Jane Gielen, Radicalisering en identiteit. Radicale rechtse en moslimjongeren vergeleken [AComparison Between Radical Right and Radical Islamist Youth] (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008).

8. We acknowledge that these educational reasons may not work out as neatly in practice as they do intheory, for a discussion about the proper pursuit of ideals will also touch upon the content of ideals (espe-cially in cases where those ideals cannot be pursued reasonably).

SIECKELINCK AND DE RUYTER Mad About Ideals? 183

reasonably passionate.’’ This final section offers several examples of ways in which

young people can be educated toward a passionate attachment to and pursuit of

ideals that are good for others as well as themselves.

IDEALS AND OUR RELATION TO THEM

You don’t know me, brother. I love life. It does not bore me. I have taken part in the revolutionbecause I love life.9

Before we can explore the notion of being passionate about one’s ideals, as well

as the possible dangers attached, we first need to define ‘‘ideals.’’ Although defini-

tions differ, some elements can be found in the characterization of most authors.

First, ideals are ideas, images, or representations of a certain situation or quality;

ideals are models or ‘‘visions.’’10 Since ideals are still part of a person’s ideas or

dreams, they do not have to meet the criterion of being realistic or realizable; they

can be as wonderful or whimsical (or both) as the person wants them to be. This

brings us to the second characteristic: ideals are ideas, beliefs, or images represent-

ing what one deems to be the best, most perfect, or most excellent. Third, ideals

have a strong hold on the actions of the subject because ideals are not only ideas

about what is best, but they are also highly valued. These three characteristics

explain why ideals have an intrinsically motivating, or ‘‘guide posting,’’ character:

having an ideal inspires the person trying to realize the idea to which he or she

attaches such high value. Thus, we can say that a person has an ideal if he or she

has an idea or vision about something in an excellent or more perfect state that he

or she values highly and therefore aspires to actualize.

Both the high value individuals attribute to their ideals as well as the wish to

actualize them implies that people are attached to their ideals. This attachment

may have different levels of intensity, but it has to be quite strong to be able to say

that a person has an ideal. One cannot be half-heartedly enthusiastic about an ideal

or pursue it only intermittently or casually; if that is the case, one does not really

have that ideal. For instance, if Samantha says that her ideal is to be an honest per-

son, but resorts to a white lie every time she is afraid of losing face, we will ques-

tion how important this value is to her and therefore if it is indeed her ideal. Thus,

the attitude of individuals toward their ideals may be summed up as being enthusi-

astic, dedicated, committed, and persistent with regard to acting in light of them,

although we accept that humans are not flawless and at times less determinate

than they aim to be. For this attitude we use the term ‘‘passionate’’ and thus indi-

cate that persons have strong positive emotions about their ideals: they value

them highly and therefore would like to see them realized. Using the term ‘‘pas-

sionate’’ has a risk, for it seems to be reserved for very strong emotions and at

9. These are the words from the character Kaliayev in Albert Camus, Les Justes. Piece en cinq actes(Paris: Gallimard, 1950), 41. In the original French, the line reads, ‘‘Tu ne me connais pas, frere. J’aime lavie. Je ne m’ennuie pas. Je suis entre dans la revolution parce que j’aime la vie.’’

10. See, for instance, Nicholas Rescher, Ethical Idealism: An Inquiry into the Nature and Function ofIdeals (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); and Connie S. Rosati, ‘‘Ideals,’’ in ConciseRoutledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig (London: Routledge, 2000).


times nonrational attitudes. For instance, one of the definitions of ‘‘passion’’ pro-

vided in the Oxford English Dictionary is ‘‘any kind of feeling by which the mind

is powerfully affected or moved; a vehement, commanding or overpowering emo-

tion.’’ However, with regard to the notion of ‘‘passionate,’’ which we use as an

adjective or adverb, it seems possible to discern different levels of intensity. When

individuals are too attached to their ideals or too dedicated in their pursuit, we are

inclined to call this ‘‘being too passionate.’’ The possibility of discerning levels of

intensity also allows us to stipulate that there is a mean, or intermediate level, in

being passionate. We call this being reasonably passionate and will develop this

notion in the remainder of this article.11

But before we do so, we first want to provide several reasons for the impor-

tance of young people having ideals, since the central role ideals play in our lives

clearly demonstrates the significance of the question of how passionate one should

be. It is not only in order to prevent extremism that educators need to address the

intensity of the attachment to and pursuit of ideals, but it is a general educational

imperative that comes with the educational responsibility of showing children and

adolescents the importance of ideals in their lives.

One reason ideals are important is related to the increased range of options in

contemporary society that seems to make it more difficult for young people to

choose the life they really want and be satisfied with their choice.12 Ideals restrict

the options of individuals, which enables them to make choices, to take action,

and to be content. Harry Frankfurt makes a strong case for this argument, partic-

ularly in his latest work where he maintains that a person’s life is only meaningful

if it is devoted to ultimate ends the person deeply cares about, that is, ideals.13 In

Frankfurt’s view it is our love for ideals that makes the valuable activity of caring

about something possible. Ultimate ends are thereby not only intrinsically val-

uable but also instrumentally valuable: they provide the reasons for one’s actions

and, therefore, the meaning of one’s actions and one’s life. Additionally, they help

to define meaningful options: ‘‘Unless a person makes choices within restrictions

from which he cannot escape by merely choosing to do so, the notion of self-

direction, of autonomy, cannot find a grip.’’14

Another reason that Frankfurt offers for the importance of ideals is also related

to their restricting characteristics, namely, that they define the essential nature of

11. ‘‘Reasonable’’ as it is used here should be understood as a human invention and achievement, onethat is hardly arbitrary since it has arisen in similar forms under many different circumstances and con-straints, and one that grows out of communicative interactions in which the full play of human thought,feeling, and motivation operates. See Nicholas C. Burbules, ‘‘Rethinking Rationality: On Learning to BeReasonable,’’ in Philosophy of Education 1993, ed. Audrey Thompson (Urbana, Illinois: Philosophy ofEducation Society, 1993), 340–349.

12. See, for example, Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Mod-ern Age (Cambridge: Polity, 1991).

13. Harry G. Frankfurt, Necessity, Volition and Love (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999),85–86. See also Irving Singer, The Creation of Value, vol. 1 of Meaning in Life (Baltimore, Maryland:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 92.

14. Frankfurt, Necessity, Volition and Love, 110.


persons. Without ideals people have no identity and there is nothing that they can

‘‘be said essentially to be.’’15 Ideals are thereby existentially necessary for individu-

als. Charles Taylor puts forward a similar but more fully developed argument,

claiming that ‘‘we are only our selves insofar as we move in a certain space of ques-

tions, as we seek and find an orientation to the good.’’16 Our self-definition requires

a framework of ideals, which he calls hypergoods:

Even those who are not committed in [so] single-minded a way recognize higher goods. Thatis, we acknowledge second-order qualitative distinctions which define higher goods, on thebasis of which we discriminate among other goods, attribute differential worth or importanceto them, or determine when and if to follow them.goods which not only are incomparablymore important than others but provide the standpoint from which these must be weighed,judged, decided about.17

According to Taylor, ideals enable us to orient ourselves in the moral space so we

can stand for something.

We agree with the ideas of Frankfurt and Taylor, though in a normative and

not in a conceptual or empirical sense: becoming a person depends on developing

an identity and for this one needs to discover which ideals or ultimate values of

one’s community and society are ideals for oneself. Of course, people can develop

an identity on nonexcellent bases and may live a meaningful life without caring

for or standing for certain ideals. This does not mean, however, that this is desir-

able. We believe that John Kekes is right in claiming that ‘‘good lives then, com-

bine personal satisfactions, derived from engagement in projects in a manner that

reflects one’s ideals of personal excellence, and moral acceptability.’’18

Finally, we want to introduce and explain the distinction between having and

pursuing ideals. We presume that if a person highly values something that is not

yet realized, he or she will try to actualize what he or she values. The fact that this

person is passionate about his or her ideal will, other things being equal, have an

impact on his or her will to act passionately in pursuing this ideal. However,

although having an ideal and pursuing an ideal are interrelated, the way in which

people are attached to their ideals does not necessarily determine the way in which

they pursue them. For example, a pious young man who firmly believes in a just

world and hopes that heaven will be established on earth before too long will not

act with a zealous passion if he believes that the new world can only be realized by

God.19 In other words, he may be thought to have a radical dedication to his ideas,

and this may, but does not by definition, imply that he is fanatical in pursuing the

realization of his ideals.

15. Ibid., 115.

16. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge, Massachusetts:Harvard University Press, 1989), 34.

17. Ibid., 63.

18. John Kekes, The Art of Life (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2002), 5.

19. See, for example, Claude Moniquet, The Radicalization of Muslim Youth in Europe: The Reality andthe Scale of Threat (United States House of Representatives, 2005).


The questions we are faced with, then, are what may count as a good way to

have ideals and what can be called a good pursuit of ideals. Our answer begins with

the idea that there are three dangers related to being passionate: individuals may

become irrational, immoral, or imprudent. Furthermore, we suggest that if these

three considerations are defined positively (that is, as rationality, morality, and

prudence), they may contribute to the likelihood that a person’s passionate attach-

ment and pursuit are beneficial to the ideal cause and to the person him- or

herself.

BEING PASSIONATE ABOUT ONE’S IDEALS

The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity20

We distinguish among three dimensions of being reasonably passionate about

ideals. First, a reasonably passionate person is rational in embodying fidelity to rea-

soning. Second, a reasonably passionate person is prudent: such a person is pas-

sionate but not at his or her own expense; he or she is able to take into account

other interests as well. Finally, a reasonably passionate person is at least a mini-

mally moral person, for being reasonable involves that one is able to take into

account the interests of the other and weigh these against one’s own interests.

The first aspect of being reasonably passionate is being rational. Being passion-

ate about one’s ideals or caring deeply about them does not necessarily mean that

one is irrational with regard to one’s ideals; one does not have to be overwhelmed,

naively enthusiastic, or obsessed. Along similar lines, Frankfurt argues that ‘‘by its

very nature, caring manifests and depends upon our distinctive capacity to have

thoughts, desires, and attitudes that are about our own attitudes, desires, and

thoughts. In other words, it depends upon the fact that the human mind is reflex-

ive.’’21 Being reasonably passionate about an ideal entails that one is able to reflect

upon one’s ideals and to discover possible problems or flaws. We believe there are

two criteria for saying that a person is rational with respect to his or her ideals: (1)

the person is able to give good reasons for having an ideal, to think critically about

his or her ideal, and (2) the person is able to revise or abandon the ideal if there are

good reasons for doing so. It seems awkward to propose that people be critical

about their ideals, for ideals are characterized by excellence or perfection, are they

not? This is true, but individuals have their own interpretation of what is excellent

or perfect, and this interpretation may turn out to be false. Thus, it is important

that people reflect on their ideals in order to discover possible flaws in their con-

ception of the best.22

20. William B. Yeats, Selected Poems of William Butler Yeats, ed. Macha L. Rosenthal (New York:Macmillan, 1962).

21. Harry G. Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,2004), 17.

22. This also makes clear that the distinction between having and pursuing ideals, on the one hand, andthe content of ideals, on the other, is not clear cut; being critical about one’s ideals of course implies thatone examines the goodness of the content of the ideals.


It is possible that reflecting on one’s ideals reduces one’s passionate attach-

ment, for critical reflection implies that one distance oneself from the object and

doing so might lead one to see downsides or dark sides as well. However, extend-

ing one’s knowledge can equally increase passionate attachment because people

normally want to know as much as they can about the ideal itself and about ways

in which the ideal might be realized (we will return to this point in the next section).

Thus, critical reflection may decrease or enhance the passionate attachment to one’s

ideal. What we can be more certain of, however, is that it reduces the likelihood of

being obsessed. It is important to distinguish being passionate from being obsessed.

As Robert Solomon has observed, ‘‘passionate love is devoted, obsessive love is com-

pelled.’’23 Someone who is obsessed is, in our terms, too passionate or can be called a

fanatical believer.24 The distance required for thinking about one’s ideals precludes

the possibility of being obsessed and thereby of becoming fanatical.

The second dimension of reasonably passionate attachment is prudence. It

could be argued that being passionate about an ideal is imprudent because a pas-

sionate person is held captive by his or her own ideals which overshadow all other

interests. In order to evaluate this claim, we need to take into account the kind of

interest that is neglected. Following Joel Feinberg, we make the distinction

between welfare interests and ulterior interests (which we will call preference

interests).25 Welfare interests refer to what is in our interest, whether or not we like

it. A preference interest is what we are interested in. With respect to the welfare

interests, or basic interests or what John Rawls called primary goods,26 it can be

argued that a person is indeed imprudent if his or her focus on an ideal leads the

person to undermine his or her welfare interests. This does not mean that people

cannot put their ideals before their welfare interests for a short period of time — for

instance, preferring to starve rather than giving up what they highly value — although

if doing so would lead to their death, their faithfulness to their ideals would be

imprudent. While we may admire them for their consistency and determinacy, at

the same time we must question whether or not the ideals should have carried

more importance than their lives. Regarding preference interests, to which ideals

belong as well, we are inclined to take a different position: a person can be prudent

in giving up a preference interest, such as the pursuit of a career to which he or she

had aspired. Such a decision can be called prudent if the person believes that

another ideal serves his or her well-being better than the interest he or she does not

23. Robert Solomon, Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life (New York: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 2002), 32.

24. Jay Newman, Fanatics and Hypocrites (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus, 1986). Newman exploresthe ways in which excessive commitment can be identified in terms of three characteristics: the belief towhich one is committed, the emotional attachment to the belief, and, finally, the value given to thebelief. The excessive believer is a person who is obsessed with his or her ideal and cannot think of any-thing else. The too emotionally intense fanatic takes the ideal so seriously that he or she overreacts toothers’ objections or becomes blind to them. The third kind of fanatic overvalues the importance of hisor her ideal at the expense of other ideals or the interests of others. Fanatics are often fanatical in allthese ways.

25. Joel Feinberg, Harm to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

26. John Rawls, ATheory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).


pursue. However, it is possible to draw a limit here as well. Following Nicholas

Rescher’s view, we might argue that giving up other preference interests is prudent

only if it is ‘‘a matter not of one-dimensional maximization, but of the structurally

diversified optimization that calls for harmonizing a complex profile of diversified

goods and goals.’’27 Thus, a person who is reasonably passionate about an ideal will

see to it that his or her welfare interests are not endangered and that he or she does

not monomaniacally focus on a particular ideal.

Reasonably passionate attachment does more than merely counter the idea of

imprudence, however; we have already alluded to the fact that it is prudent to be

reasonably passionate about ideals because this is a constitutive condition of the

identity of a person. This argument draws upon a different conception of prudence.

According to this conception, individuals can be called prudent if there is conver-

gence between who they are or what they do and who they would like to be; more

specifically, if there is coherence between their ideals and the way in which they

act.28 The questions one asks oneself are: With what do I identify myself? Who

would I like to be? Do my actions and choices cohere with my ideals? We return to

Frankfurt and Taylor. According to Frankfurt, people continually ask themselves the

question with which kind of desires they want to identify.29 In a similar way, Taylor

argues that our identity is ‘‘defined by certain evaluations which are inseparable

from ourselves as agents. Shorn of these we would cease to be ourselves.’’30 In his

view, a meaningful life requires a personal commitment to what one deems to be the

highest goods. Thus Frankfurt and Taylor take the position that it is prudent to have

ideals since caring about and standing for ideals is the essence of being a person.

Third, being reasonably passionate requires that one is passionate about ideals

in a way that, at the very least, is not detrimental to the interests of others. There

are two ways in which being passionate about ideals may be damaging to the inter-

ests of others. First, as previously mentioned, a particular ideal can become an

obsession. It may blind an individual to other people’s interests, which increases

the risk of neglect. The stories of children of idealists or career-driven individuals

who prioritized their ideals over looking after their children may serve as a good

illustration of this. Second, a person can be passionate about ideals that we call

immoral because their realization would endanger the well-being of other human

beings. As we indicated in the introduction, this article will not deal with ques-

tions regarding the substance of ideals people have, and therefore in discussing this

dimension of reasonably passionate attachment we focus on the first issue. The

immoral pursuit is dealt with in the next section.

27. Rescher, Ethical Idealism, 55.

28. See also Doret J. de Ruyter and Jim Conroy, ‘‘The Formation of Identity: The Importance of Ideals,’’Oxford Review of Education 28, no. 4 (2002): 509–522, who quote Amelie Oksenberg Rorty and DavidWong on this matter.

29. Harry G. Frankfurt, ‘‘I. Taking Ourselves Seriously. II. Getting It Right,’’ The Tanner Lectures onHuman Values, 2004, http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/volume25/frankfurt_2005.pdf.

30. Charles Taylor, cited in Ruth Abbey, Charles Taylor (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UniversityPress, 2000), 24.


David Hume’s critique of ‘‘enthusiasm’’ characterizes any strong emotional

commitment as dangerous, ‘‘a threat to the social stability and political order that

allow for mental cultivation, artistic achievement, and what we might call moral

grace — the virtues of a gentleman and scholar.’’31 A conceptual distinction

between the ideals one has and the pursuit thereof enables us to disagree with

Hume. We do not see any compelling evidence that strongly believing in an idea or

enthusiastically defending an ideal is in itself a peril to society. Thus, except in

the case of the obsessed person, it seems as if moral considerations do not play

a principal role in being reasonably passionately attached to ideals. This is so

because being passionately attached to an ideal does not bear a causal relation to

a particular kind of action, and it does not necessarily affect other people neg-

atively in their lives. It may, however, be expected that the moral aspect of being

reasonably passionate will play a more important role in shaping how one pursues

one’s ideals.

PASSIONATE PURSUIT

In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.32

Now that we have described the notion of being reasonably passionate about

ideals, we turn to the dangers of pursuing ideals. These seem to be more urgent,

because every example of someone who fanatically pursues his or her ideals, per-

haps even in ways that endanger the interests of others or of oneself, may be a suf-

ficient reason for claiming that people should not have ideals. Although we expect

that people who are reasonably passionate about their ideals will also pursue them

reasonably passionately, we explore the notion of passionate pursuit separately,

for, as we have already mentioned, there is not a necessary relation between the

two. Additionally, it is the manner in which ideals are pursued that seems to draw

most criticism against having ideals. In our exploration of reasonably passionate

pursuit, we again distinguish the aforementioned dimensions of rationality, mor-

ality, and prudence.

Pursuing ideals seems to require that the person is rational. For if one has

particular aims or ends one wishes to achieve, one needs to be able to think in

terms of means and ends. To be rational in a descriptive sense is to operate with

concepts, to formulate plans and strategies, and to be able to deal with novel situa-

tions. As such, we can judge a person’s behavior to be irrational if the means that

he or she applies are not appropriate for realizing the ideal. However, being reason-

ably passionate requires more than this — what we may call a minimal level of

rationality. It also encompasses the evaluative ability to reflect on appropriate

ways to pursue one’s ideals, what could be called the evaluative or normative

sense of rationality. Of course, there may be diverse ideas about appropriate means

for pursuing an ideal, but the person in question must have an idea as to which

means he or she has chosen and be able to explain to others why this means of

31. Michael Walzer, ‘‘Passion and Politics,’’ Philosophy and Social Criticism 28, no. 6 (2002): 621.

32. Eric Hoffer, The Eric Hoffer Resource, http://www.erichoffer.net/quotes.html.


pursuit is rational.33 As Solomon has it, we use our rationality to try to reach the

ends that we consider most important in our lives.34 Take, for example, Oskar

Schindler. He believed that the only way to succeed in his plan to save the majority

of his employees was to pretend alliance with the Nazis. He successfully put his

emotions under control and started negotiations with the directors of the genocide.

In hindsight this proved to be an intelligent strategy and can therefore be offered as

an example of effective reasonable pursuit of his ideal.35

The most pressing questions concerning the pursuit of ideals are moral ones.

The main argument against passionate pursuit is that it turns people into fanatics

who ruthlessly try to achieve their ideals. Such people are obsessed in their

attempts to realize the excellence they envisage. Their ideals are not necessarily

morally indifferent; indeed, it is possible to be fanatical in one’s pursuit to realize

moral ideals. Isaiah Berlin, who vehemently argues against the pursuit of one supe-

rior ideal, offers as an example of this situations in which people pursue moral

ideals, such as justice, freedom, or equality, in ways that are detrimental to

others.36 While we do not want to deny that the pursuit of ideals presupposes that

people will be persistent, courageous, and able to tolerate frustration as they work

toward their goals, we do not believe that this implies that these people will also be

ruthless toward others. There is a danger that some group of people will attempt to

impose the ideals that they believe to be best for society through whatever means

necessary. In our view, however, while this is a possible or even plausible psycho-

logical correlation, it is not a necessary one.

The criterion of morality in the reasonably passionate pursuit of ideals does

not mean that one has to please everyone or even that one has to ensure that

everyone’s point of view is respected.37 Pursuing an ideal should not infringe

upon others’ rights to pursue their ideals, unless these are immoral or the pursuit

thereof clearly has immoral characteristics. We side with Aldous Huxley who

argued that bad means can lead to something that might even look like the ideal,

but that it can never be the ideal.38 Precisely because moral ideals might give peo-

ple the idea that they hold the moral high ground and are therefore excused from

taking into account moral considerations in pursuing these ideals, it is important

to mention the moral dimension of the pursuit of the ideal. Although it might be

utterly frustrating for those who believe that they are right to acknowledge that

not all side with them immediately, they will have to show patience and not be

33. See also Robert Solomon, Not Passion’s Slave: Emotions and Choice (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2003).

34. Solomon, Spirituality for the Skeptic, 61.

35. We accept that this example is based on Schindler’s own version of his life and motives; it is impos-sible to rule out the possibility that Schindler had less superior motives as well.

36. Isaiah Berlin, ‘‘On the Pursuit of the Ideal,’’ in The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in theHistory of Ideas, ed. Henry Hardy (London: John Murray, 1990).

37. For instance, one should be excepted from respecting views that are immoral or intolerant.

38. Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means: An Enquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the MethodsEmployed for Their Realization (London: Chatto and Windus, 1937).


tempted to use immoral means, such as oppression or destruction, in trying to

achieve their ideals.

The aspect of prudence is less often debated in relation to the pursuit of ideals,

an oversight that we believe is unfortunate. Although it is understandable that

destructive actions performed by persons who fanatically pursue ideals are judged

according to their immoral intentions and consequences, they should also be

judged on the basis of their imprudent aspects, particularly with respect to the det-

rimental influence they may have on a person’s welfare interests. In the case of a

suicide bomber, it is quite obvious that a person’s welfare interests are being

infringed; however, there are also examples of less extreme cases in which the pur-

suit of ideals endangers the welfare or basic interests of the person. For instance,

the current beauty ideal has led to an increase in anorexia among teenage girls. Of

course, pursuing ideals implies that one has to invest a substantial amount of time

and energy and be able to deal with disappointments, but that does not mean that

one should act imprudently. Being frustrated or being desperate at times does not

affect one’s welfare interests; it would be a mistake to equate prudence with pleas-

ure or psychological satisfaction. Only if negative emotions overtake a person, or if

an ideal so consumes a person that he or she loses a sense of self, would we be

inclined to say that the pursuit is no longer prudent. The point at which determi-

nation and endurance become harmful to the self differs for each person and is

something children have to discover for themselves as they grow up. But, given

the risks, this process of discovery is not something they should undertake on

their own. Educators can assist children in this process and should take responsi-

bility for trying to prevent grave self-harm.

To sum up, our analysis of reasonably passionate commitment and pursuit has

provided three kinds of criteria. However, the interpretation of what can be called

reasonable and the judgments we make about what counts as rational, moral, or

prudent are not absolute or objective. We illustrated this in the case of prudence,

but there are also different interpretations of what constitutes harm to others, that

is, when an act is immoral and what counts as a good reason for having an ideal.

Even though there are cases in which everyone agrees that the pursuit of an ideal

is irrational or immoral, we cannot exclude the possibility that the criteria on

which they base this judgment will change. This does not diminish the relevance

of using the criteria of reasonableness; it strengthens the importance of addressing

and discussing examples, particularly those that belong to a gray area.39 This inter-

subjective perspective on the status of the criteria also indicates the importance of

providing students with context in their discussions of ideals, not only to contrib-

ute to the debate, but also (and primarily) to help them become reasonably pas-

sionate about their ideals. This brings us to the final section.

39. This debate does not always have to be deliberately instigated; it can also arise as a result of shared —positive and negative — experiences. But, whatever initiates the debate, its intended outcome is con-sensus on the question of whether or not an act or a person’s commitment counts as being reasonablypassionate.


EDUCATING TO BECOME REASONABLY PASSIONATE ABOUT IDEALS

Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.40

So far, we have elucidated the concept of being reasonably passionate about

one’s ideals and in the pursuit of those ideals. This clarification indicates that peo-

ple are able to govern their passionate attachment and pursuit, which implies that

educators can influence this as well.41 It is beyond the scope of this article to pro-

vide a detailed account of the ways in which educators can assist children in

becoming adults who are reasonably passionate about their ideals, but this might

not be necessary because the elucidation of the notion ‘‘reasonably passionate’’ has

provided sufficient indications, at least at a theoretical level, of the capacities that

educators need to address. However, to give a clearer idea of what such education

could consist of, we will offer several examples of the practices that we believe are

conducive to being reasonably passionate with regard to ideals.

According to Nicholas Burbules, reasonableness is promoted in various ways

in education.42 For instance, through learning how to solve logical problems chil-

dren acquire rational thinking skills; through encountering new, challenging, and

often conflicting ideas, they are introduced to different moral frameworks and to

the value of respect and critical reflection; through discovering what one really

cares about in life, they might learn how to serve their own interests and construct

a personal narrative about a worthwhile way of life. Each of these aspects illumi-

nates that education consists in large part of teaching reasonableness. Moreover,

the intersubjective nature of the conception we are proposing requires an educa-

tional process with regard to both the definition and justification of being reason-

ably passionate about one’s ideals. We will briefly examine each of the three

characteristics we have distinguished, beginning with rationality.

Imagine a demonstration against the plans for building new charcoal-driven

power plants around the country. Several students from one class in a secondary

school have joined an environmental protest group and have prepared for the con-

frontation with the police that is expected. With regard to the rationality of the stu-

dents’ attachment to the ideal of a sustainable environment, we can imagine a

teacher discussing the information on which the students base their belief that char-

coal power plants are a threat to their ideal (that is, a healthy environment): what the

experts say, where they disagree, and what might be feasible alternatives. Regarding

the rationality of their pursuit, the teacher could initiate a discussion about whether

or not a violent demonstration is a rational way of pursuing the ideal.

40. See again Yeats, Selected Poems of William Butler Yeats, ed. Rosenthal.

41. Of course, David Hansen writes about ideals in education as well, but he focuses on the ideals ofteachers, not on the ideals of students. See David T. Hansen, ‘‘The Place of Ideals in Teaching,’’ in Philos-ophy of Education 2000, ed. Lynda Stone (Urbana, Illinois: Philosophy of Education Society, 2001).

42. Burbules, ‘‘Rethinking Rationality.’’ For his account of reason, Burbules discusses the virtues ofobjectivity, fallibilism, pragmatism, and justification. As such our conception of reasonableness is notthe same. However, the nature and the role of education in promoting our conception of reasonable pas-sion is very similar.


William Hare’s plea for open-mindedness also serves as a good example of

what might be involved in educating children toward being rational about their

ideals.43 According to Hare, ‘‘open-mindedness involves recognizing that the very

framework of ideas we acquire through education and socialization.may in time

generate a new set of ideas that undermines that very framework itself.’’44 In our

view open-mindedness may be sustained by being reasonably passionate, for people

may also be passionate about the ideal of open-mindedness, whereas being pas-

sionate may not always be enabled by open-mindedness. As we have already sta-

ted, our passionate attachment to an ideal may increase our motivation to enhance

our knowledge and understanding of that ideal. Open-mindedness, however, pre-

supposes that one acknowledges the possibility that the ideal one is passionate

about may not be as excellent as one currently believes it to be. This implies that

there is a tension between one’s conviction that the ideal in question is the best

that one can imagine and the recognition that one might be wrong. We believe that

Jonathan Adler has offered an elegant solution for this tension.45 He suggests that

open-mindedness should not be regarded as a separate disposition or educational

aim, but as a second-order or meta-belief that one needs to have in one’s search for

the truth. Thus, being passionate about true or right ideals requires the willingness

to take into account one’s own fallibility. Although it is difficult to imagine taking

a distanced position against an ideal and at the same time being passionate about

it, Adler shows that reconciliation between our strongest beliefs and open-minded-

ness is possible, as long as open-mindedness refers to the disposition of the believer

and not to the belief itself. For instance, that racism is evil should be believed with-

out qualification. Nevertheless, students should also appreciate their fallibility par-

ticularly in evaluating matters of value and personal commitments such as the

question of what counts as racism.46

For the moral aspect of being reasonably passionate we return to our example

of students’ demonstrating against charcoal-driven power plants. The teacher of

these students will not have any difficulties in finding examples of immoral pas-

sionate pursuit — for instance, cases in which violent means were used to obstruct

plans of a government or private institution — but it is more interesting and chal-

lenging for students to discuss ambiguous cases. Is throwing cake a form of trans-

gression or a sign of Unmundigkeit (mental immaturity)? Is chaining oneself to the

gates of a power plant a peaceful or aggressive form of demonstrating? Is the dam-

aging of property a justifiable means of pursuing an ideal aim?

43. See, for example, William Hare, The Ideal of Open-mindedness and Its Place in Education. Specialissue from http://www.williamhare.org/assets/hare_theideal.pdf.

44. William Hare, Open-mindedness and Education (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1979),53. See also William Hare, What Makes a Good Teacher: Reflections on Some Characteristics Central tothe Educational Enterprise (London, Ontario: Althouse, 1993).

45. Jonathan Adler, ‘‘Reconciling Open-mindedness and Belief,’’ Theory and Research in Education 2,no. 2 (2004): 127–142.

46. Ibid., 131.


It is important that educators assume responsibility for trying to prevent or

defeat ruthlessness, and thus acknowledge that powerful influences in children’s

lives may have the potential to turn them into immoral pursuers of ideals. One

way of preventing the immoral pursuit of an ideal is by encouraging children to

become attached to several ideals in several domains of life. For instance, they

should be encouraged to have ideals with regard to the goods of health; relation-

ships; work; personal, cognitive, or creative development; and the like. Having sev-

eral ideals decreases the chance that one will become obsessed with a particular

ideal, for one has to bring these ideals into optimum balance.47 The need to bal-

ance one’s ideals also precludes a ruthless pursuit, because a single-minded focus

on one ideal is incompatible with pursuing other ideals. Another way in which

educators can contribute to the prevention of immoral action is, of course, through

inculcating (minimal) moral rules or moral principles. If people are intrinsically

motivated not to act in ways that infringe upon the welfare interests of others, it is

quite unlikely that they will pursue their ideals ruthlessly no matter how commit-

ted they are to realizing their perceived excellence. Their commitment to moral

rules and principles does not necessarily diminish their commitment to an ideal,

nor their wish to see the ideal realized, and, finally, it does not need to follow that

they are less determined in their pursuit. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther

King, Jr., who dedicated their entire lives to a moral cause with means that were

highly moral, serve as examples of such people.

Finally, the aspect of prudence can be approached in a similar vein. The teacher

of the demonstrating students can ask them if their way of pursuing the ideal might

be detrimental to their welfare interests and if they have thought about possible

consequences their pursuit might have for their preference interests. Additionally,

the teacher might ask them if they truly identify with the ideal of a sustainable

environment, or if it is something they value because their schoolmates value it.

This aspect seems to bring us to an educational dilemma, which is that impru-

dent pursuit is often characteristic for moral exemplars. On the one hand, we

believe that offering children examples of moral (or religious) heroes is a good edu-

cational means to illustrate how people have pursued moral ideals. On the other

hand, it is quite clear that people like Albert Schweitzer, Father Damien, or Steve

Biko did not act in a prudent manner. The supererogatory acts of heroes and saints

are never prudent. Therefore, if we aim for reasonably passionate pursuit, we

should not point children toward such people as exemplars to which they should

aspire. As Susan Wolf has pointed out, ‘‘there seems to be a limit to how much

morality we can stand.’’48 Or could we teach valuable moral lessons through these

exemplars? One way out of this dilemma, although we admit it is a solution with

apparent contradictions, is by offering these exemplars as ideals of the kind of per-

son children could aspire to be but urging them to pursue this ideal by other

means, in ways that are not detrimental to the self. Thereby, the ideal nature of

47. Rescher, Ethical Idealism.

48. Susan Wolf, ‘‘Moral Saints,’’ Journal of Philosophy 79, no. 8 (1982): 423.


these exemplars is not diminished — they are still regarded as morally excellent

persons — but children are not invited to follow their example in the same way.

Not everyone needs to be a moral hero; however, it is also important to teach chil-

dren that not every moral hero acts in ways that are extremely detrimental to him-

or herself. The struggle of icons such as Martin Luther, Bono, or the 2003 Nobel

Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi is one of dedication rather than of self-sacrifice.49

Moreover, these examples also illustrate what it means to be prudent in the sense

of attending to whether one’s ideal self coheres with one’s actual self. A character-

istic trait of such people is that they justify their behavior by arguing that they

could not do otherwise. Their passionate pursuit constitutes their identity.50

While extremism is not likely to be defeated by educational efforts alone, the

importance of ideals in people’s lives demonstrates the need for educational atten-

tion to young people’s passionate commitment to ideals. For this we have devel-

oped the concepts ‘‘reasonably passionate attachment’’ and ‘‘reasonably passionate

pursuit,’’ which may be the best training educators can offer regarding the way in

which people perceive of and pursue their ideals. Yet, there are situations in which

one of the criteria constitutive of these concepts (rationality, morality, and pru-

dence) may need to be discarded, thus disrupting the balance between the three

criteria. This is most clearly the case in the situation just described, that is, the

excellent moral exemplars who in fact acted against at least one criterion of the

proposed concepts. Thus, we conceive of being reasonably passionate as a prima

facie principle, not as an absolute one. In normal circumstances and for most peo-

ple, this is the best way to hold and pursue ideals, but this does not mean that in

every situation being reasonably passionate in all its aspects is the most praisewor-

thy or the best one can do. However, to decide whether or not one should be rea-

sonable in one’s passionate attachment or pursuit requires precisely the criteria we

have suggested, which reinforces our proposal that this is the best that educators

can offer children.

49. See, for example, the argument in Joseph Raz, Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and Action(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 305–329.

50. See Shirin Ebadi, Iran Awakening: One Woman’s Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Her Country(New York: Random House, 2007).


MAD ABOUT IDEALS? EDUCATING CHILDREN TO BECOME REASONABLY PASSIONATE

Documents

Transcript of MAD ABOUT IDEALS? EDUCATING CHILDREN TO BECOME REASONABLY PASSIONATE