Hsuan Huang Chinese Culture University Kant s Concept of Radical Evil In Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Kant discusses the concept of radical evil. The German word radikal derives from the Latin word rādīx, which means root ( Wurzel ), origin ( Ursprung ), and source ( Quelle ) (Kluge 664). Therefore, when Kant explains the nature of radical evil, he also tries to enquire into the origin of moral evil (Religion 35). Kant observes that the source of evil... can lie only in a rule made by the will for the use of its freedom, that is, in a maxim (17). In Critique of Practical Reason, Kant makes a similar statement which echoes this observation. He writes that the concept of good and evil must not be determined before the moral law... but only... after it and by means of it (54). Therefore, in order to grasp the concept of evil, one has to understand the struggle in a pathologically affected human will, namely, the conflict of maxims with the practical laws cognized by himself (CPR 17). Human beings, for Kant, are finite rational beings (CPR 23). This description implies the inner conflict that a creature experiences: For, being a creature and thus always dependent with regard to what he requires for complete satisfaction with his condition, he can never be altogether free from desires and inclinations which, because they rest on physical causes, do not of themselves accord with the moral law, which has quite different sources; and consequently, with reference to those desires, it is always necessary for him to base the disposition of his maxims on moral necessitation, not on ready fidelity but on respect, which demands compliance with the law even though this is done reluctantly.... (CPR 71) As finite beings, humans are driven and conditioned by their sensual desires. Yet, as rational beings at the same time, they cannot turn a deaf ear to the voice of reason and ignore the commands of the moral law (CPR 32). In his article Kant and Radical Evil, Fackenheim summaries Kant s view of human beings in very concise terms: Man, according to Kant, belongs at once to two worlds. One is the world of sense, the other the intelligible world. As a member of the former, he is subject to natural inclinations; as a member of the latter, he is subject to a universal moral law (260). This is the human condition from Kant s point of view: a being who is finite and rational at the same time and therefore the will has to constantly strive for the unattainable goal of following the moral law (CPR 72). Kant defines will in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals as a capacity to
determine itself to acting in conformity with the representation of certain law (36). The representation of laws is actually principles, so the will can be thought as a capacity determined by principles (24). There are two direct opposite principles that can be adopted as the determining ground of the will : one is the principle of morality, and the other the principle of one s own happiness, or the principle of self-love (CPR 19,32). The principle of happiness can indeed furnish maxims, but it can never serve as laws of the will, because practical laws are objective, universal practical rules and are the determining ground of the will of every rational being (CPR 17, 18, 33). On the contrary, a maxim is the subjective principle of volition, writes Kant in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (14, note). In Critique of Practical Reason, Kant defines maxims as follows: Practical principles are propositions that contain a general determination of the will, having under it several practical rules. They are subjective, or maxims, when the condition is regarded by the subject as holding only for his will (17). In other words, maxims are subjective, practical principles that contain the determining ground for the will. Therefore, the principles that one makes for oneself are not yet laws to which one is unavoidably subject (CPR 17-18). The question is: how can a human being adopt a practical law, which is objective and universal, as his or her maxim, which is only a subjective principle? Kant s answer is as follows: If a rational being is to think of his maxims as practical universal laws, he can think of them only as principles that contain the determining ground of the will not by their matter but only by their form (CPR 24). In other words, only the form of the maxim can be thought as a practical law, which is act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that become a universal law (GMM 31). If a person adopts this law as his or her maxim, then this person is morally good. What Kant wants to emphasizes here is the universality of the moral law. However, in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Kant discusses the form of the maxim in terms of subordination, which concerns whether it is the moral law or the principle of self-love that is the condition of the other (31). The subordination of the principle of self-love to the moral law is the reversed moral order of the incentives, and a person is evil if he or she adopts the two incentives in the inverted order (31). To make the moral law as the supreme condition of the principle of self-love is not an easy task for human beings. They are easily tempted by what promises agreeablesness (GMM 32). Kant makes the following observation concerning the struggle of the finite rational beings in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone: Man (even the most wicked) does not, under any maxim whatsoever,
repudiate the moral law in the manner of a rebel (renouncing obedience to it). The law, rather, forces itself upon him irresistibly by virtue of his moral predisposition; and were not other incentive working in opposition, he would adopt the law into his supreme maxim as the sufficient determining ground of his will; that is, he would be morally good. But by virtue of an equally innocent natural predisposition he depends upon the incentives of his sensuous nature and adopts them also (in accordance with the subjective principle of self-love) into his maxim. (31) Kant thinks that human beings cannot be morally good in some ways and at the same time morally evil in others (20). In other words, they cannot be partially good and partially evil, or good and evil at the same time (31). If a person adopt the moral law into his or her supreme maxim, then that person would be good. However, if any incentive deviating from the moral law is adopted into the supreme maxim of a person, then he or she would be morally evil (20, 31). Incentives are the content of the maxims (31). Both the moral law and the sensual impulse are incentives of the will, and since a human being naturally adopts both into his maxim, what is adopted is not the content but the form of the maxim (31). Consequently man (even the best) is evil only in that he reverses the moral order of the incentives when he adopts them into his maxim.... he makes the incentive of self-love and its inclinations the condition of obedience to the moral law... (31-32). In other words, when the incentive of self-love is subordinated to the moral law, the moral order of them is inverted. Kant observes that if a propensity to this inversion of the moral order of these two incentives does lie in human nature, there is in man a natural propensity to evil.... This evil is radical, because it corrupts the ground of all maxims... (32). What is the ground of all maxims? Kant thinks that it should be possible for us to infer a priori an underlying evil maxim from one or several evil acts done by an agent; and further, from this maxim to infer the presence in the agent of an underlying common ground, itself a maxim, of all particular morally-evil maxims (16). This ultimate subjective ground of the adoption of maxims is called disposition, which is a maxim itself (20). This disposition is both innate and acquired. (17, 20). It is innate because it is posited as the ground antecedent to very use of freedom in experience... and is thus conceived of as present in man at birth though birth need not be the cause of it (17). Yet, the paradox is that, even though a disposition is considered as inborn, it is also adopted by free choice, but not in time (20). Kant explains as follows: Since, therefore, we are unable to derive this disposition, or rather its ultimate ground, from any original act of the will in time, we call it a property of the will which belongs to it by nature (although actually the disposition is grounded in freedom) (21). In other words, our will can
freely choose to acquire the ultimate maxim of all our maxims, but since it does not choose in time, it appears that our will naturally chooses its ultimate maxim. If the will adopts the principle of self-love into the ultimate maxim, then the ground of all maxims, that is, the disposition, is corrupted, because the moral order of incentives is reversed (32). However, Kant admits that the ultimate subjective ground of the adoption of moral maxims is inscrutable (17). In other words, we do not know what the ultimate ground is for a person to adopt the reversed moral order. Referring to the Bible, Kant wrote, the first beginning of all evil represented as inconceivable by us... but man is represented as having fallen into evil only through seduction, and hence as being not basically corrupt... but rather as still capable of an improvement (39). The state of innocence, even though it is wonderful, is not completely positive for Kant. There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced (GMM 17). The problem of innocence, therefore, is that it goes astray easily. Kant made the following remark: In the search for the rational origin of evil actions, every such action must be regarded as though the individual had fallen into it directly from a state of innocence (Religion 36). This fall from the state of innocence into that of evil, fortunately, is never a hopeless condition. We cannot completely eradicate the wickedness in us, but that does not mean we should not even try. Radical evil, according to Kant, lies in the human nature. Human beings have this natural propensity... to evil (24). However, the paradox is, even though a propensity is innate, it can also be considered as being brought by man upon himself (24). That is to say, our nature is imputable if it does not follow the moral law. Like the disposition, this propensity to evil, that is, radical evil, is also both innate and acquired (24, 28). Kant thinks that a propensity to evil can inhere only in the moral capacity of the will. But nothing is morally evil... but that which is our own act (26). The paradox of the propensity is that it is both an act and not an act. Kant thinks the word act can refer to the will s exercise of freedom to adopt the supreme maxim (26). Or, it can refer to the actions performed through the exercise of freedom in accordance with that maxim (26). The former is intelligible action; the latter, sensible action (26-27). Kant explains that the propensity to evil is intelligible action, therefore not an act performed in the sensible world, because it is a subjective determining ground of the will which precedes all acts and which, therefore, is itself not an act (26). In other words, it refers to the will s choosing the principle of self-love as the supreme maxim, and therefore not empirical action. Kant calls this propensity to evil the original sin (peccatum originarium) (26). However, the propensity to evil is sensible action,
since it is the formal ground of all unlawful conduct, which violates the law and is termed vice, which is the derivative sin (peccatum derivatum) (26). According to Kant, the natural propensity to evil as intelligible action cannot be eradicated (27). In other words, the original sin is ineradicable. In fact, according to Kant, there is always hope for human beings to improve themselves. For man, therefore, who despite a corrupted heart yet possesses a good will, there remains hope of a return to the good form which he has strayed (Religion 39). In other words, we need not to despair of the condition of humanity. To become morally better, a person needs to have a revolution in his cast of mind as well as a gradual reform in his sensuous nature (43). That is to say, this transformation is both intelligible and sensible: For, the will stands between its a priori principle, which is formal, and its a posterior incentive, which is material, as at a crossroads (GMM 13). Through this continuous and infinite progress, hopefully human beings can all strive to become morally better persons.
Works Cited Fackenheim, Emil L. Kant and Radical Evil. Immanuel Kant: Critical Assessments. Vol. 3. Ed. Ruth Chadwick. London: Routledge, 1992. 259-273. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Trans. and ed. Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. ---. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. and ed. Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. ---. Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. Trans. Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson. New York: Harper, 1960. Kluge: Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Ed. Elmar Seebold. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995.