Some Considerations on the Notion of Evil in Kant’s Moral Philosophy

Abstract

In the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Kant defines “good” and “evil” as “objects of practical reason” and “consequences of the a priori determination of the will”. It is relatively easy to understand that pure practical reason brings about, as the effect of its determination of the will, something which is good, but how shall we understand evil as a consequence of an a priori determination of the will by the moral law? Closely connected to this problem is the question if the Kantian theory enables us to understand, and judge, evil as an effect of our freedom, which arises from Kant’s conception of “freedom”, which is not for Kant the capacity to choose between good and evil, between an action in accordance to the moral law and an action against the moral law. Some interpreters of Kant have suggested that the doctrine of radical evil, which Kant develops in the first section of his work Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1792-1793), aims to provide a solution to the problem of freely chosen evil action. Against this kind of interpretations, I hold the view that Kant did not provide any correction to his theory of freedom in his later works and that the doctrine of radical evil does not aim to provide a justification for the moral responsibility of actions committed against the moral law.