Childhood and Early Youth 43guild in the early eighteenth century can easily be overestimated, but the
social standing of its members can just as easily be underestimated. It is sig¬
nificant that Kant, throughout his life, was very conscious of his origins.
The central moral precept of the guild system was "honor" (Ehre). In¬
deed, without honor, the member of the guild was nothing. Kant's pro¬
nouncements about his parents and his sisters must be seen in just this
context. When he says that he was never allowed to see anything dishon¬
orable as a child, and that the blood of his parents was never sullied by
anything indecent, he had in mind this moral conception of honor char¬
acteristic of the guilds. When Wasianski emphasizes that Schulz supported
Kant's parents in a way that was compatible "with the feeling of honor
shared by Kant and his parents," he is talking about precisely this.^65
Monetary handouts would not have been acceptable. Help with the sup¬
ply of firewood was a different story.
For the mature Kant, however, honor was only a very incomplete ex¬
pression of morality. Honorableness or Ehrbarkeit was merely external.^66 It
therefore could not possibly capture the true nature of morality. Indeed, he
explicitly points out not only that "moral culture must be based on maxims
not on discipline" (because discipline concentrates on what is external,
merely preventing bad habits, whereas maxims form a certain moral dis¬
position) but also that
these maxims cannot be maxims of honor (Ehre), but only those of right. The former
can very well coincide with an absence of character, while the latter cannot. Further¬
more, honor is something entirely conventional that must first be learned as it were,
and requires experience. In this way, the formation of character can come about only
very late, or better, it is possible only very late. By contrast, the representation of right
lies deep in the soul of everyone, even of the most delicate child. It would be very good
if one led the child to ask: "Is this the right thing to do?" rather than telling it: "You
should be ashamed of yourself."^67
It is, accordingly, just as much a mistake to argue that the simple morality
of the guilds, a morality based on honor, forms the root of Kant's moral
theory as it is a mistake to claim that the simple Pietism of his parents ex¬
plains his mature views.
While Emanuel's youth as the "son of a master" (Meistersohn) does not
explain Kant's later philosophical development, it is important for under¬
standing his background. Indeed, the one cannot be understood without
the other. Pietism helped those who accepted it through the difficult times
created by the crisis in the guild system. With its emphasis on lay priest¬
hood, individual Bible study, and a community of the faithful, Pietism was