Christmas is, by and large, the favored holiday amongst children. However, it is often criticized for fostering and promoting consumerism, imposing a norm to spend money that many people can’t reasonably live up to. The problem with this criticism of Christmas is that it does not properly address the question of whether or not it is Christmas itself that has led to this consumerism or if it is due to the influence of consumer good manufactures corrupting a perfectly good and even laudatory holiday. To approach this problem, it is necessary attempt to identify what the essential aspects of the holiday are. It is the contention of this essay that Christmas is an expression of an expressly Kantian notion, and works to develop the ethical education of children.
This point can best be made by looking at Christine Korsgaard’s discussion of Kant in Two Distinctions in Goodness. In that paper, Korsgaard explains that, for Kant, the only unconditionally good thing is the good will. She then goes on to explain Kant’s distinction between conditional and unconditional goods. For Kant, “if anything is conditioned in any way, reason seeks its condition, continually seeking the conditions of each condition until it reaches something unconditional”(TDG, 180). Causality is a good example of this. The condition of an event is its cause, and the condition of that cause is a prior cause etc. Now the only way to stop reason in this regress upon the conditions is by finding the unconditioned condition of something. For causality, Kant thinks this is impossible and will only lead to confusions, contradictions, and paradoxes. However, Kant thinks that when it comes to value, it is possible to determine the unconditioned condition of goodness, and it is the good will. Now, the way Korsgaard understands Kant’s reasoning for this is that we, as rational beings, take ourselves to have a value-conferring status in virtue of the fact that we can make rational choices. That is to say that we give things value when we choose them rationally. In fact, this is the only way things can obtain value. Because of this relationship between rationality and value, rational nature gains a special sort of status; it becomes the unconditioned condition of value, which is equivalent to an end in itself. Consequently, a good will is a perfectly rational will.
So what does this have to do with Christmas? Well, Korsgaard identifies a special significance in the fact that we have value-conferring status in virtue of our rational nature. Since each of us are the same in so far as we are rational, “we must regard others as capable of conferring value by reason of their rational choices and so as ends in themselves…The ends that are chosen by any rational being, take on the status of objective goods”(TDG, 182). This means that one cannot preferentially value one’s own rational ends over anyone else’s. They have the same value in so far as they are the objects of rational choice. Korsgaard goes on to say that “for this reason it is our duty to promote the happiness of others – the ends that they choose – and, in general to make the highest good our end”(TDG, 182). The highest good for Kant is the idea that everyone be happy in proportion to their virtue. The highest good maximizes the two forms of good, objective good (the good will) and subjective good (happiness). Kant thinks that people do not have the causal power to bring about the highest good. However, we can conceive of engaging in Christmas practices as symbolically acting on this duty, although one cannot actually do so. Christmas practices are a token gesture towards our commitment to the highest good, happiness in proportion to virtue.
This interpretation can clearly be seen at work in the classic Christmas carol “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” At first sight, this song seems to reflect a rather anti-Kantian notion: one ought to be good because otherwise one will not get presents. However, it is important to keep in mind that this song is targeted towards children, and should be taken as part of their ethical education (and thus won’t fully express the Kantian ethics). That this song is Kantian becomes far more obvious when we note the line “so be good for goodness sake!” This, clearly a pun, uses the basic Kantian notion, that one is good for its own sake, as the penultimate line in the verse. The pun indicates two readings of this song, which bridge two phases in the ethical education. First, there is the reading mentioned above, that one is good for the sake of rewards. However, one can also read this song to largely be descriptive of the nature of Christmas. Since Christmas is about bring about happiness in proportion to virtue, a good person’s ends will be preferentially maximized in the spirit of Christmas.
There is a lot more that can be said here, and not nearly enough room to do so. However, what can be said here is that, according to this analysis, Christmas is about acknowledging that good people ought to be happy, and making a gesture towards that end. From this view, Christmas is a very respectable holiday, and not even necessarily theistic. With this analysis in mind, one does not need to engage in wanton materialism to engage in Christmas practices. There are innumerable ways to make good people happy and, by and large, the materialistic ways are the least interesting. In fact, to some extent, the major problem with Christmas is that it is only one day. We should all be constantly looking to achieve the highest good, and it is sad that we only spend one day acknowledging this fact. Based on this interpretation, every day should be Christmas.
Citations:
(TDG) : Christine Korsgaard, "Two Distinctions in Goodness," The Philosophic Review, 92 (1983): 169-195.
Citations:
(TDG) : Christine Korsgaard, "Two Distinctions in Goodness," The Philosophic Review, 92 (1983): 169-195.
