On the education of moral judgment according to Kant

Abstract

The term ‘judgment’ can refer to the ability to judge, the activity of judging and the product of this activity. Every decision is a consequence of a judgment about a situation. Every moment, every day in all our actions we have to judge. Is it possible to develop a system of education to attain good judgment? These are very important questions, setting the stage of the modern philosophy of action, because the activity of judgment is fundamental not only for the moral questions but for many important works in the empirical and economic world. For example diagnostic in medicine, judging in the practice of law. Both of these activities have many real implications for the lives of the legal subjects, the people who are subject to them. If the doctor make a false diagnose patient can die. So if the judge make a mistake in his judgment the accused person may spend the rest of his life in prison or in some jurisdictions be sentenced to death. The cognitive approach to the study of judgment and decision is motivated not only by the theoretical interest, but also by the application outcomes that follow. While it is useful to investigate the cognitive processes underlying decision-making, it is also useful to know the nature of the cognitive errors and the circumstances in which they occur, in order to design interventions to eliminate them. The reflection and determination of judgment or the evaluation and decision are important not only for the project of an adequate singular action in a particular situation but also to project every new actions and products, like for the process of inventing, because the capacity to judge is based on our imagination as productive imagination. For example if I think something that it’s not real today but possible, as well as it was the light bulb for Edison, my productive imagination can work with my ability to judge to project the different methods and ways to develop this idea in reality. So judgment is not only the ability to make a decision of action (prudentia/phronesis) but also the power of mind to make real what is only an idea in the first moment. In his writings, Kant has devoted much attention to the problem of education and training of judgment. His words can be useful today for groped to build an educational theory of this human capacity