Pinocchios hjerte: En kantiansk lesning av historien om tredukken som ville bli et ekte menneske

Abstract

This chapter offers a closer reading of Collodi’s Pinocchio (2002) through the lens of Kant’s moral philosophy. It explores how the story thematizes important moral aspects of growing up, and it considers the story’s suitability in moral education. The first parts offer an analysis of Pinocchio against the backdrop of a short outline of central ideas in Kant’s account of the human condition. This shows how Collodi’s story evolves around two central questions: What is required in order to be a moral agent, and how does one become a morally good agent? The next part shows that Collodi’s own answers to these two questions support the claim that Pinocchio is a “Bildungsroman” and that the conception of moral development in the story is Kantian. The final part addresses the challenge of the moral paradox to the possibility of moral education and argues the suitability of Pinocchio in moral education as a basis for interpretation of life from a child’s perspective.