MAD ABOUT IDEALS? EDUCATING CHILDREN TO BECOME REASONABLY PASSIONATE

Introduction

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 background 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 remember 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 enormous impact.² As a result governments of various countries have called for the development of educational programs to be implemented at all primary and secondary schools.³ This new phenomenon in the battle against radicalization and terrorism is possibly related to the idea that radicalized adolescents were recruited at a relatively young age and this phenomenon may be countered by an apposite educational 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 personality, 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 evaluation 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 somewhat 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 pursuing 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, 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 realization 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 susceptible 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 relation 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 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

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 definitions 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 representing 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 person, but resorts to a white lie every time she is afraid of losing face, we will question 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 enthusiastic, 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 indicate that persons have strong positive emotions about their ideals: they value them highly and therefore would like to see them realized. Using the term “passionate” has a risk, for it seems to be reserved for very strong emotions and at times nonrational attitudes. For instance, one of the definitions of “passion” provided in the Oxford English Dictionary is “any kind of feeling by which the mind is powerfully affected or moved; a vehement, commanding or overpowering emotion.” 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 importance 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, particularly 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 valuable 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 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 individuals. 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 questions, as we seek and find an orientation to the good.”¹⁶ Our self-definition requires a framework of ideals, which he calls hypergoods:

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 desirable. We believe that John Kekes is right in claiming that “good lives then, combine 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.

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 attachment and pursuit are beneficial to the ideal cause and to the person him- or herself.

Being passionate about one’s ideals

We distinguish among three dimensions of being reasonably passionate about ideals. First, a reasonably passionate person is rational in embodying fidelity to reasoning. Second, a reasonably passionate person is prudent: such a person is passionate 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 minimally 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 passionate 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 reflexive.”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 conception of the best.²²

It is possible that reflecting on one’s ideals reduces one’s passionate attachment, 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, extending 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 compelled.”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 passionate 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 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 convergence 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 interests 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 questions 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.

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 negatively 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

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, perhaps even in ways that endanger the interests of others or of oneself, may be a sufficient 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, morality, 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 situations. 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 reasonably 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 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 superior 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 psychological 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 people 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 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 detrimental 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 pursuit 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 pleasure 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 determination 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 responsibility 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 intersubjective perspective on the status of the criteria also indicates the importance of providing students with context in their discussions of ideals, not only to contribute to the debate, but also (and primarily) to help them become reasonably passionate about their ideals. This brings us to the final section.

Educating to become reasonably passionate about ideals

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 people 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 provide 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 children 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 illuminates that education consists in large part of teaching reasonableness. Moreover, the intersubjective nature of the conception we are proposing requires an educational process with regard to both the definition and justification of being reasonably 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 confrontation with the police that is expected. With regard to the rationality of the students’ attachment to the ideal of a sustainable environment, we can imagine a teacher discussing the information on which the students base their belief that charcoal 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.

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 passionate may not always be enabled by open-mindedness. As we have already stated, our passionate attachment to an ideal may increase our motivation to enhance our knowledge and understanding of that ideal. Open-mindedness, however, presupposes 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-mindedness 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 without qualification. Nevertheless, students should also appreciate their fallibility particularly 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 passionate 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 challenging for students to discuss ambiguous cases. Is throwing cake a form of transgression or a sign of Unmündigkeit (mental immaturity)? Is chaining oneself to the gates of a power plant a peaceful or aggressive form of demonstrating? Is the damaging of property a justifiable means of pursuing an ideal aim?

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; relationships; work; personal, cognitive, or creative development; and the like. Having several 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 balance 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 committed 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 imprudent 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 educational 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 person 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 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 children 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 characteristic 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 attention to young people’s passionate commitment to ideals. For this we have developed 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 prudence) 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 people, 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 praiseworthy or the best one can do. However, to decide whether or not one should be reasonable 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.