Metaphysics and Anthropology in Kant's doctrine of Character

This paper assesses Kant's ideas on character, as exposed in the Critique of pure reason and in Pragmatic Anthropology. The main issue raised by the modern concept of character concerns its disputed mutability: do people inherit an unchangeable character, or can education and circumstances influence it significantly? Kant's answer is a highly complex one. He deals indeed with the concept from both a metaphysical and an anthropological point of view. Metaphysically, character accounts for the regularity of any causal action, which would otherwise be random and unpredictable. This holds for intelligible causes and for phenomenal ones as well. Anthropologically, character is neither merely inherited, nor effectively influenced by education. Rather, moral character is forged by a sudden revolution. Studying the empirical side of the human character, whose freedom is taken from granted, anthropology addresses the empirical research on human beings to a pragmatic scope.