Kant's Theory of Evil: An Essay on the Dangers of Self-love and the Aprioricity of History

An Essay on Kant’s Theory of Evil

An Essay on Kant’s Theory of Evil The Dangers of Self-Love and the Aprioricity of History

Pablo Muchnik

LEXINGTON BOOKS a division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published by Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2009 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data to comeCIP Data

 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Key Abbreviations

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

xi

1

On the Alleged Vacuity of Kant’s Concept of Evil

2

Radical Evil and the Architectonic of Practical Reason

43

Radical Evil, Inscrutability and Moral Self-Constitution

85

3 4

The Moral Anthropology of Radical Evil

1

127

Bibliography

167

Index

175

About the Author

177

v

Key Abbreviations and Translations

All references to Kant’s works are in accordance with the AkademieEdition Vol. 1–29 of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin/Leipzig, 1902–. References to the Critique of Pure Reason follow the customary pagination of the first (A) and second (B) edition. Unless otherwise indicated, the English translations are from the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Ca) (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992–). The following abbreviations are used throughout the book: A

Anthropologie in Pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798), Ak 7 Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Ca Anthropology, History, and Education

Gr

Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785), Ak 4 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Ca Practical Philosophy

I

Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschiche in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784), Ak 8 “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim,” Ca Anthropology, History, and Education

KrV

Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781, 1787) Critique of Pure Reason, Ca Critique of Pure Reason.

KpV Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788), Ak 5 Critique of Practical Reason, Ca Practical Philosophy. vii

viii

KEY ABBREVIATIONS AND TRANSLATIONS

KU

Kritik der Urteilskraft (volume X in Weischedel’s edition) Critique of Judgment, translated by Werner S. Pluhar, Hackett Publishing Company, 1987.

MA

Mutmaßlicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte (1786), Ak 8 “Conjectural Beginning of Human History,” Ca Anthropology, History, and Education

MS

Die Metaphysik der Sitten (1797-1798), Ak 6 The Metaphysics of Morals, Ca Practical Philosophy

O

Was heißt: Sich im Denken orientieren?(1786), Ak 8 What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?, Ca Religion and Rational Theology

P

Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, Ak 4 Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science, Ca Theoretical Philosophy after 1781

PP

Zum ewigen Frieden: Ein philosophisher Entwurf (1795), Ak 8 “Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Project,” Ca Practical Philosophy

Rel

Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (17931794), Ak 6 Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Ca Religion and Rational Theology

SF

Streit der Fakultäten (1798), Ak 7 “The Contest of Faculties,” Ca Religion and Rational Theology.

WA

Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (1784), Ak 8 “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’” Ca Practical Philosophy

Acknowledgments

This book contains numerous rewritings, additions and erasures, of my 2002 dissertation. Since this project has been long in the making, I have incurred more debts than I can possibly acknowledge. The early text owes much to Richard Bernstein, my supervisor at the New School, who taught me to see philosophy as contributing to the “conversation of mankind,” to Yirmiahu Yovel, who taught me to read Kant “architectonically,” beyond the details, and to Dmitri Nikulin, who taught me to trust my own voice and urged me to contribute to the dialogue. These are lessons I am still trying to learn. Once and again, they led me to work on the early text until so many planks were changed that I wonder whether Theseus would still recognize his vessel. During this process, Sharon Anderson-Gold exerted the most benevolent of influences, both intellectually and personally. Oliver Thorndike read an earlier draft of the manuscript and made useful and insightful comments; Abraham Anderson corrected and commented on the first two chapters; and Aaron Krempa painstakingly proofread the final version and helped me cleanse it from many of its mistakes. Ralph Blasting, the Dean of Liberal Arts at Siena College, provided financial support and unflinching encouragement to finish the book. I also owe thanks to the editors of Kant-Studien for allowing me to republish a version of the first chapter, to Cambridge University Press for allowing me to republish the second, and to an anonymous reader of Lexington Books, But it is to my wife, Lauren Barthold, to whom I owe the most: she accompanied me through the long pains of intellectual childbearing, providing guidance, love, and inspiration.

ix

Introduction

The goal of this book is to develop an interpretation and defense of Kant’s theory of evil. I make a deliberate effort to remain true to what, for some contemporary sensibilities, is perhaps the most unpalatable aspect of Kant’s view: its a priori moorings, its noumenal talk. It seems unnerving and mystifying for us to think of evil other than in its empirical manifestations (as cruelty, suffering, war, genocide, injustice, etc.). Yet, in Kant’s self-understanding (though less clearly in Kant’s texts), a philosophical investigation about the a priori sources of evil is no empty boast. It is meant to shed light on the many forms immorality adopts (in actions, characters, and social institutions) and explain how they are possible. It is also a principled refusal to concede the monopoly of interpretation of human conduct to the empirical sciences. A philosophical investigation of this kind is part of Kant’s attempt to delimit a space for transcendental freedom beside the domain of causal determination. The search for the a priori sources of evil thus belongs to Kant’s transcendental method and expresses his unflinching commitment to individual responsibility. The challenge for the interpreter is to combine textual accuracy with systematic ethical theory, filling the gaps when Kant remains silent or ambivalent about an issue, developing points he disregarded, and providing a non-mystifying account of evil that shows the pertinence of Kant’s view to our moral concerns. As could be expected from this complex desideratum, the result is Kantian in outline, yet not Kant’s at every step. Basic Kantian concepts must be reinterpreted, and new ones introduced, to make a convincing case on Kant’s behalf. The product is a robust Kantian theory of evil capable of showing the systematic role evil plays in shaping Kant’s practical philosophy—a task Kant himself xi

xii

INTRODUCTION

carried out only half way and which the interpreter cannot complete without running some hermeneutical risks. By “evil” Kant means the form of volition that underlies culpable wrongdoing. Kant is not primarily concerned with the harm evildoers introduce into the world. Although this is undeniably serious, he does not believe that cruelty is the worst thing we do. 1 Worse, in his view, is what makes cruelty possible, namely, the freely adopted orientation of the will that gives systematic priority to private (agent-related) reasons at the expense of the moral point of view (the reasons we can share). This orientation, Kant believes, results from an inversion of the moral order of priority between the incentives of the human will: “self-love and their inclinations [are made] the condition of compliance with the moral law–whereas it is the latter that, as the supreme condition of the satisfaction of the former, should have been incorporated into the universal maxim of the power of choice as the sole incentive” (R 6: 36). The motivational primacy of self-love is “evil,” because it makes our whims immune to revision, undermines the possibility of constituting a common moral world, and forces other agents to sacrifice their status as self-standing sources of value. It is the blindness associated with moral incorrigibility, not a simple concern for happiness, which Kant fears and condemns in the legislative pretensions of self-love. What is most baffling in the Kantian view is that this form of volition does not necessarily translate into observable wrongdoing. Evil does not lie in “natural inclinations, which merely lack discipline and openly display themselves unconcealed to everyone’s consciousness, but is rather as it were an invisible enemy, one who hides behind reason and hence all the more dangerous.” (R 6: 57) Kant reaches the thesis about evil’s hidden character by means of empirical (historical and anthropological) reflection. Observation about the pattern of institutional development throughout history reveals a tendency in human inclinations to overcome themselves and produce concord by means of discord. As Kant puts it in the famous fourth proposition of Idea for Universal History: “The means nature employs in order to bring about the development of all its predispositions is their antagonism in society, insofar as the latter is in the end the cause of their lawful order” (I 8: 20). Since unlawful inclinations are manifestly destructive, they force human beings to submit them to discipline and put them under the coercion of public laws. Nature thus comes to the aid of reason, “precisely through those self-seeking inclinations, so that it is a matter only . . . of arranging those forces of nature in opposition to one another in such a way that one checks the destructive effect

INTRODUCTION

xiii

of the other or cancels it, so that the result for reason turns out as if neither of them existed at all and the human being is constrained to become a good citizen even if not a morally good human being” (PP 8: 366). In other words, history shows that natural antagonism, rooted in the unsociable wish each human being has “to direct everything so as to get [her] own way” (I 8: 21), does not really vanish in civil society. On the contrary, it is disguised, internalized, hidden behind a mask of good conduct. Thus, a certain duplicity in reason itself replicates a fundamental dissonance in human nature: “The human being has an inclination to become socialized, since in such a condition he feels himself as more a human being, i.e., feels the development of his natural predispositions (Naturanlagen). But he also has a great propensity (Hang) to individualize (isolate himself), because he simultaneously encounters in himself the unsociable property of willing to direct everything so as to get his own way, and hence expects resistance everywhere because he knows of himself that he is inclined on his side toward resistance against others” (I 8: 21). Kant calls this anthropological dissonance “unsociable sociability” (ungesellige Geseligkeit). Upon it, civil society builds its wobbly temple. Having learned to channel the destructive inclinations (ambition, tyranny, greed, etc.) towards socially constructive purposes, reason has managed at the same time to preserve them, thereby threatening the stability of its own progress. Kant believes, then, that acculturation transforms the crudeness and barbarism in our nature, but has left (so far) the original motivational structure intact. That is why the evil principle hides itself behind reason–it has become indiscernible to the naked eye, concealed in our evil dispositions, “and hence all the more dangerous.” Kant makes a similar point in Perpetual Peace: “Within each state it [viz., a certain malevolence (Bösartigkeit) rooted in human nature] is veiled by the coercion of civil laws, for the citizens’ inclination to violence against one another is powerfully counteracted by a greater force, namely that of the government” (PP 8: 376 note). Kant’s hope is that, by “checking the outbreak of unlawful inclinations,” the legal order will gradually create the conditions for “the development of the moral predisposition to immediate respect for right” (Ibid.). Thus, “a great step is taken toward morality (though it is not yet a moral step)” (Ibid.). The protection of the state deprives agents of excuses for further violence: “For each now believes that he himself would indeed hold the concept of right sacred and follow it faithfully, if only he could expect every other to do likewise, and the government in part assures him of this” (Ibid.). Yet, since this arrangement concerns

xiv

INTRODUCTION

only the externality of actions and leaves the “malevolence rooted in human nature” intact, it does not amount to moral improvement. Although “people can no longer get away from the concept of right in their private relations than in their public relations, and they dare not openly base politics merely on the machinations of prudence,” they nonetheless still “think of a hundred pretexts and subterfuges to evade it in practice, and attribute to cunning force the authority of being the source and the bond of all right” (PP 8: 376). Furthermore, to the extent that vices in civil society generally conceal themselves under the cloak of virtue, the temptation is to take the effect (right action) for the cause (good moral disposition)—a subreption that promotes self-complacency and allows us to continue our moral slumber. “We are cultivated in high degree by art and science. We are civilized, perhaps to the point of being overburdened, by all sorts of social decorum and propriety. But very much is still lacking before we can be held to be already moralized” (I 8: 26). For, the semblance of morality reaches no further than the power of coercion. But this power, resting on the mechanisms of nature (the fear of punishment and the expectation of reward), cannot possibly guarantee that a change in the balance of forces will not give way to atrocity. The recurrence of war and the malleability of vices, skillfully exploited by social institutions under the guise of respectability, remind us that the task of overcoming evil is not finished when we achieve “a civil society universally administering right.” (I 8: 22) It begins there. Since antagonism leads us to create a lawful civil order out of the very selflove that gives rise to it (I 8: 21), Kant comes to realize that the moral battle merely starts with political victory. Respect for rights prepare, but do not guarantee, respect for the moral law. To appreciate the implications of this conclusion one must turn to Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793). If, as history and anthropology show, legal conduct is uninformative about the moral disposition that motivates it, the import of evil cannot be reduced to a computation of suffering. Evil posits a more daunting challenge to morality than the control of violence. While a melioristic approach can asymptotically reduce conflict, it falls short of the volitional revolution required for overcoming the legislative primacy of self-love. This conclusion is not a token of moral impatience on Kant’s part, his desperate attempt to force the end. It is rather a response to evil’s radicalism, to its deep-rooted and (mostly) hidden quality. The gravity of the situation demands inverting the inversion and restoring the proper order of priority between the ethical incentives. Just as the corruption, the restoration must also be represented as the result of a

INTRODUCTION

xv

transcendental act of freedom, beyond the play of natural causes. “The human being must make or have made himself into whatever he is or should become in a moral sense, good or evil. These two [characters] must be an effect of his free power of choice, for otherwise they could not be imputed to him and, consequently, he could be neither morally good nor evil” (R 6: 44). This view, however, entails a drastic revision of Kant’s position in Idea for Universal History (1784), where he had argued that there was a seamless passage from a pathologically compelled agreement to form a society into the realization of a moral whole (I 8: 21). The foresight of nature, not the morally bound exercise of freedom, was then conceived to be the engine of moral progress. 2 But this mechanistic view clashes with the conception of moral agency Kant developed in the Groundwork (1785) and the second Critique (1788). Seamlessness transforms human beings into automata spirituale and is incompatible with the basic principles of Kant’s morality. To qualify as “evil,” Kant now realizes, the empirical dynamic of unsociable sociability, discovered by reflecting on large-scale behavioral trends in human history, must itself be construed as a result of the use of transcendental freedom. The same holds true for the choice of becoming “good.” In this case, however, there is an additional complication: restoring the ethical order of priority “could only happen through good maxims—something that cannot take place if the subjective ground of all maxims is presupposed as corrupted” (R 6: 37). The choice to liberate oneself from the dominion (Herrschaft) of evil is, therefore, incomprehensible. Yet, since we are under the obligation “to become better human beings . . . we must also be capable of it, even if what we can do is of itself insufficient and, by virtue of it, we only make ourselves receptive to a higher assistance inscrutable to us” (R 6: 45). Kant argues that we are morally justified in holding true what is, in strict sense, beyond our understanding: virtuous agents can have faith that grace will supplement their finitude, that the noncoercive laws of virtue will make idle the repressive laws of right, and that an ethical community (under the form of an invisible church of a people of God) will coexist with the political state. These claims are an articulation of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil. They contain elements of a two-stage argument: an analysis of the fundamental a priori character of evil, followed by a prescription for how to overcome it. The structure of the Religion mirrors such a division. The first, free-standing part of the book is largely devoted to grasping the formal aspect of evil (the inversion of the ethical order of priority between the incentives) that Kant believes is constitutive of

xvi

INTRODUCTION

all its empirical manifestations. The remaining three parts are devoted to superseding it: first at the level of the individual (part II), then at the level of the species (part III), and finally by distinguishing between true religion and the religion of priestcraft (part IV).3 I will follow Kant’s arrangement and leave questions of regeneration for another book. Two main reasons motivate this choice. First, there are already insightful and abundant contributions in the literature to this question that show the reasons for Kant’s turn towards religion and discuss the collective character of his moral project. In doing so, interpreters question the entrenched individualist reading of the Kantian corpus, the supposed marginality of faith (Vernunftglaube) to his Enlightenment vision, the role of history in Kantian eschatology, and the stark phenomenal/noumenal division associated with Kant’s theory.4 To what these interpreters say I will have only a few and tangential things to add here. My focus will, instead, be on the first part of Kant’s argument. The treatment of the a priori character of evil and the relation to its empirical manifestations strikes me as less lucid, more tentative and plagued with contradictions in the available literature. Yet, and this is my second reason for focusing on it, unless we can assure ourselves of the soundness of Kant’s diagnosis of the moral problem afflicting humanity, the suspicion will remain that the second half of his doctrine, the prescription on how to overcome it, is ultimately unsound. A cure can only succeed after the correct determination of the ailment. The text of Religion I is partly to blame for the reigning confusion: Kant often shifts here between the individual and the species as units of moral analysis, presents a theory of evil on uncompromising transcendental grounds, yet wants to preserve at the same time its full empirical dimension, and dresses in a religious garb a fundamentally secular conception of the human condition. All these tensions have conspired to create a veritable interpretative tangle. Available readings oscillate between emphasizing the empirical or the a priori aspects of Kant’s doctrine, overlooking the fact that neither can by itself be satisfactory to explicate Kant’s approach in the Religion—the empirical alone, because it clashes with the a priori demands of moral imputation and responsibility; the a priori alone, because it overlooks the social, empirical dimension of the problem of evil. Kant’s doctrine is eminently syncretic; unilateral emphases distort it. As I see it, Kant attempts to place, in the framework of a morality valid for rational beings as such, an empirical truth he discovered by reflecting on human history—an impure truth that resists easy a priori assimilation. My goal in this book has been to develop a conceptual apparatus capable

INTRODUCTION

xvii

of expressing this curious set of demands. There are ways of fitting in, at a transcendental level, the empirical dimension of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil, without inconsistency, but with less purity than we are used to expect from Kant. Here the inertia of our reading habits gets in the way: the rigid dualisms of the Groundwork must yield to the fluid, human-all-too-human Kantian approach in Religion, where the talk is not of pure rational beings, but of man and mankind alone. Traditional disciplinary boundaries thus collapse and must be redefined: neither history as Kant practiced it in Idea, nor anthropology as he practiced it in the Anthropology, nor morality as he practiced it in the Groundwork, can capture the complexity of the Religion, which integrates bits of each and refuses to sacrifice their fundamental truths. Once we understand the difficult balancing act Kant is trying to maintain here, most of the interpretative problems will begin to unravel—at least, that is the hunch we will pursue.

R What is evil in radical evil? Is Kant’s infamous indictment of a universal propensity to evil in all human beings, even the best of us, compatible with his commitment to transcendental freedom and individual autonomy? Is Kant justified in making such a claim? What is the conceptual apparatus required to warrant it? Can we find it, if only in vague outline, in his texts? What kind of moral anthropology follows from such vague assumptions? These and similar questions are the main concern of this study. I take them to be methodologically prior to the question of moral regeneration, and, since they remain largely unanswered in the literature, to justify our reconstructive efforts. Before entering into the maze of details, it might be useful to present the bare bones of the argument. A sense of the whole will help connect the parts. The overarching assumption of this book is that, far from being an incongruous development, the doctrine of radical evil occupies a place of pride in Kant’s practical philosophy. To substantiate this view I begin by reconstructing Kant’s foundational project in the Groundwork, where there is hardly any talk of “evil.” The strategy is necessarily indirect: since Kant’s references to evil are oblique and exasperatingly meager, in order to appreciate what he means by it we must first examine the role of the good will. Just as a good will is the source of all positive value and the rationale for the goodness of acting out of duty, we can conclude, by parity of reasoning, that an evil will must be the

xviii

INTRODUCTION

source of all negative value and account for the evilness of wrongdoing. Thus, the distinction between the value of actions and the source of their value in the will of an agent, key to understanding what Kant means with acting out of duty, can also be taken to imply that the notions of “good” and “evil” have equal footing in Kant’s axiology. They designate the two fundamental forms of willing an agent can have, i.e., the value of the value of the actions she performs. On the basis of the different criteria for evaluating actions and agents, we can then establish the existence of two different levels of commitment with respect to the categorical imperative. The first lies at the level of the agent’s maxims of action, which are right or wrong; the second, at the level of her principle of maxim-selection, which is autonomous or heteronomous. The goodness of right action consists in the fact that it rests upon a maxim decided through an autonomous mode of deliberation. The form of this decision-making process guarantees the acceptability of the action for all other agents. Through her volitions, an agent with a good will gives rise to what Kant calls a “kingdom of ends,” i.e., the type of moral world where one’s desires and ends integrate in systematic connection with everyone else’s. The evil of wrong action, in contrast, must consequently lie in the fact that it expresses a heteronomous mode of deliberation. Value here stems from the agent’s (inevitably private and idiosyncratic) feeling of pleasure and displeasure, to which Kant links self-love as an organizing volitional principle. Self-love is the power that shapes our ultimate (subjective) object of desire, namely, “happiness,” i.e., “a rational being’s consciousness of the agreeableness of life uninterruptedly accompanying his whole existence” (KpV 5: 22, 20).5 Heteronomy is the source of all spurious principles of morality, because it expresses a mode of deliberation in which reasons for action boil down to the idiosyncratic pleasure expected to result from these actions. Such deliberation draws on a feeling whose empirical genesis sets all agents at odds, undermining the possibility of constituting a world of shared values. The motivational primacy of self-love thus indicates a refusal to shape our desires according to the demands of morality. Were it to be made public, this volitional orientation would be an affront to every other agent’s sense of dignity and personal worth. What Kant finds disturbing in self-love, then, is not so much its hedonistic dimension but its potential to give rise to a mode of deliberation unsuitable to bind agents in systematic connection.6 Since pleasure rests on sensible (i.e., empirical and contingent) grounds, making its satisfaction a reason for action invests the arbitrariness of one’s feelings with the force of universal law.

INTRODUCTION

xix

By investing the primacy of self-love with legislative force, a heteronomous person ultimately decides might is right, even if her actions never transgress the letter of morality. Other agents cannot possibly accept this mode of deliberation without forfeiting their own status as persons–a situation that promotes deception and knavery as necessary strategies for self-preservation. Heteronomy is “evil,” then, because it expresses an exclusionary frame of mind in which the arbitrariness of one’s desires recognizes no moral limitation, but yields only to the empire of force. Yet, since unhindered capriciousness dehumanizes other agents and expels them from the horizon of moral consideration, prudence suggests the advantage of agreeing on mutually acceptable limitations on actions in order for each agent to cling to what is left of her idiosyncratic conception of the good. I call the moral world that results from this mode of deliberation a “jungle of means”–the conceptual counterpart of Kant’s “kingdom of ends.” Its most tantalizing aspect is that violence and wrongdoing could here be indefinitely postponed by the same self-serving calculations that would trigger them in other contexts. Thus, “from love of humanity,” Kant is “willing to admit that . . . most of our actions are in conformity with duty; but if we look more closely at the intentions and aspirations in them we everywhere come upon the dear self, which is always turning up; and it is on this that their purpose is based, not on the strict command of duty, which would often require self-denial” (Gr. 4: 407). The ubiquitous “dear self” is consecrated in the modern state. In this reading of the Groundwork, then, heteronomy (interpreted as a mode of deliberation that defines the character of a person) functions as the transcendental condition for the possibility of being a good citizen and remaining an evil person. As Kant himself recognizes, pacification—though not lasting peace—is first attained in the course of history by a multitude of intelligent devils. The problem of establishing a state, no matter how hard it may sound, is soluble even for a nation of devils (if only they have understanding) and goes like this: “Given a multitude of rational beings all of whom need universal laws for their preservation but each of whom is inclined covertly to exempt himself from them, so to order this multitude and establish their constitution that, although in their private dispositions they strive against one another, these yet so check one another that in their public conduct the result is the same as if they had no such evil dispositions.” (PP 8: 366)

Once we have examined, in the first chapter, how Kant systematically links “evil” and “heteronomy,” the task of the second chapter

xx

INTRODUCTION

is to indicate how the doctrine of radical evil in the Religion evolves from Kant’s earlier view in the Groundwork. Kant’s doctrine can be summarized in two main theses: (1) (2)

Evil corrupts the basis of all maxims, for it lies in the individual’s Gesinnung (disposition).7 Moral corruption does not concern the individual, but the species as a whole, for all human beings have a propensity to evil (Hang zum Bösen).

The first thesis results from applying transcendental freedom, whose use in the Groundwork was limited to the choice of maxims of action, to the choice of the principle of maxim-selection (the metamaxim or Gesinnung). The second thesis results from projecting the principles of Kant’s moral psychology, which in the Groundwork gave rise (in the will of a single individual) to a natural dialectic between happiness and morality, to the moral psychology of the human species as a whole. Although there is an undeniable family resemblance between the propensity to evil and Kant’s historical thesis about unsocial sociability, the advantage of framing their relation in terms of a common conceptual ancestor in the Groundwork is clear: this genealogy allows us to inscribe an eminently empirical thesis within the framework of Kant’s a priori morality, rising its transcendental status in a way consistent with Kant’s position in the Religion, but inconsistent with a mere observational claim.8 Indeed, Kant believes that the proposition “man is evil by nature” is synthetic a priori, because the predicate “evil” is not contained in the subject “man” and yet the propensity to evil is said to be necessarily and universally present in all human beings. These features place the claim at the heart of Kant’s transcendental philosophy.9 They distinguish the Religion from the tone dominant in Kant’s writings on history, whose propositions lack the validity of objective universality. Furthermore, the genealogy we are suggesting helps identify a systematic connection between the different units of moral analysis in Kant’s doctrine of radical evil–a unity of conception that is otherwise hard to grasp, and without which the charge of inconsistency seems unavoidable. Indeed, a major benefit of this reconstruction is to show that the soundness of Kant’s view largely depends on realizing that each thesis of his doctrine entails a different unit of moral analysis: the individual (thesis 1) and the species (thesis 2). This analytic distinction has, so far as I know, been generally overlooked in the literature, in which “Gesinnung” and “propensity” are considered synonymous.

INTRODUCTION

xxi

The key here is to resist Kant’s sporadic tendency to elide these notions and establish, instead, a more orderly relation between units of moral analysis and types of moral failure. For, while Kant believes that the individual has a duty to realize the good (i.e., to adopt a good will or have a good Gesinnung), the realization of the highest good is a duty that engages the whole human species. It involves the utopian project of bridging the gulf between nature and freedom, transforming the whole cultural world of institutions so that the allocation of happiness becomes proportional to one’s virtue. This goal cannot possibly be achieved by individuals’ isolated efforts, but demands universal collaboration, mutual support, and a sense of shared purpose. The idea of a propensity to evil, holding sway over the whole species, makes sense in the context of Kant’s doctrine of the highest good, which provides the transcendental underpinnings for Kant’s philosophy of history and anthropology–disciplines with an undeniable observational nature. Just as the notion of evil (at the level of individual morality) must be placed on a par with the notion of the good, the notion of radical evil (as it refers to a universal propensity) must be placed on a par with the notion of the highest good. This latter is the conceptual correlate of the propensity, and serves as an a priori orientation-device to correct the empirical manifestations of the antagonism connected with our unsocial sociability. This architectonic arrangement should not be surprising. At the basis of the two Kantian doctrines lies the same natural dialectic between happiness and morality that drives reason to formulate a totalizing object of our moral endeavors (the highest good). While the correct formulation of this object brings about the critically acceptable resolution of that dialectic, the propensity to evil perpetuates and aggravates it. Instead of connecting happiness and morality in an objective relation, the human will surrenders to a self-imposed tendency to subordinate morality to the pursuit of happiness. That is, the claims of reason and sensibility are synthesized according to their subjective order of association, making the pursuit of duty contingent upon its compatibility with the pursuit of happiness. This inadequate type of synthesis is the condition for the possibility of the monopoly of privacy that one sees everywhere one turns: mutual hostility and exploitation, hate and resentment, war and systematic humiliation, hypocrisy and deception, in sum, the widespread refusal to organize desires and values in ways limited by the categorical imperative and hence acceptable to other agents. Kant believes that the observation of human conduct gives no reason to exempt any individual, group or culture from this tendency. His anthropological and historical reflec-

xxii

INTRODUCTION

tions had long confirmed this view. Hence, he concludes, the propensity to evil is necessary and universal (the two features of the a priori). It is necessary, because it must be represented as the product of an act of transcendental freedom (an imputable choice), which expresses a subjective aspiration of human practical reason–the same aspiration that generates the highest good as a necessary object. It is universal because of its scope and widespread empirical confirmation, which indicates that no one is exempted from this very tendency. One important consequence of making evident this architectonic connection is that it opens a way for a justification of Kant’s claim “man is evil by nature.” According to the principles of Kant’s critical philosophy, the universality and necessity he attributes to this claim demand a proof of their validity. Yet, in the text of Religion I Kant (at times) seems to dismiss the need for such a proof, and appeals instead to the “multitude of woeful examples that the experience of human deeds parades before us” (Rel. 6: 33). This appeal, however, is obviously inadequate, and Kant knows it: experience can at most provide grounds for an empirical generalization, not for the a priori knockdown argument his indictment calls for. This problem has recently drawn considerable attention in the secondary literature. I am not convinced by the available interpretations. They all look for a deduction in what seems to be its natural place, the First Part of the Religion, where Kant introduces the doctrine of radical evil. However, Kant’s proof is nowhere to be found there. As an alternative, I suggest we search for the argument in the Preface to the First Edition, in which Kant traces the doctrine of the highest good back to the same subjective limitations that give rise (according to this reading) to the doctrine of radical evil. This suggestion, again, resorts to an indirect strategy: given the dearth of evidence where Kant is supposed to deliver it, we are led to search for the missing argument by examining the conceptual counterpart of what we are investigating. Just as in the Groundwork the notion of evil emerges from Kant’s analysis of the good will as its necessary correlate, in the Religion radical evil must be approached laterally as well, i.e., through the doctrine of the highest good. Given the common psychological root Kant ascribes to these doctrines, the claim “man is evil by nature” can be defended on the same grounds that provide the basis for the notion of the highest good. Seen in this light, the propensity to evil expresses a failure in the constitution of the complete (vollendete) object of pure practical reason: the expectation of happiness precedes the pursuit of morality, inverting the order of priority Kant originally envisioned.

INTRODUCTION

xxiii

Although this alternative line of argument is admittedly conjectural, its importance waxes by what it would mean not to have it: bereft of some kind of philosophical justification, Kant’s claim “man is evil by nature” would turn out to be either a symptom of his misanthropy or an emasculated generalization. Neither expresses Kant’s intention. The defense we provide at least vindicates the spirit of the Kantian enterprise in the Religion, according to which the existence of the propensity is predicated as a synthetic a priori judgment. It is not, however, a strictly transcendental argument. Empirical anthropological elements permeate our alternative “proof.” Recalling a distinction Kant draws in the third Critique, we might call the argument “metaphysical,” or better perhaps, “quasi-transcendental,” an intentionally queer designation tailored to capture the philosophical syncretism of Kant’s approach in the Religion:10 A transcendental principle is one by which we think the universal a priori condition under which alone things can become objects of our cognition in general; on the hand, a principle is called metaphysical if it is one by which we think the a priori condition under which alone objects whose concept must be given empirically can be further determined a priori. (KU 5: 181)

This anomalous procedure is not without precedent in the Kantian corpus. A similar situation can be found in the theoretical philosophy, for example, in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, where the empirical concept of matter movable in space is further determined a priori. In the Religion, “what must be given empirically” are elements of our moral psychology, along with the large-scale tendencies human actions display throughout history. My suggestion here is to take the architectonic relation between the doctrines of radical evil and the highest good as a way to further determine a priori this empirical content. On this basis, one can justify Kant’s anthropological pessimism on non-empirical grounds, in a way Kant perhaps might have endorsed had he completed the task himself. The rest of the book mirrors the two theses with which we have characterized the doctrine of radical evil. Chapter 3 examines how the notion of Gesinnung (thesis 1) affects and transforms Kant’s view of the will in the Groundwork. The Gesinnung introduces a new set of problems regarding the justification of maxims and the moral constitution of agents. For, while reasons for action can be justified in terms of the procedure that the categorical imperative entails, the choice of a principle of deliberation is inscrutable and cannot be justified in

xxiv

INTRODUCTION

terms of higher reasons. This brings forth an opaque, voluntaristic dimension into Kant’s practical reason, which was concealed in the earlier writings and must now be explored. Regarding the question of moral self-constitution, the problem is that it must be represented as itself the result of a choice. This, however, presupposes the existence of an already constituted will capable of making it and recognizing it as its own. Kant, unfortunately, does not directly tackle this issue. To fill in the lacuna in a way (I hope) Kant himself could have approved, I introduce a more fundamental volitional structure, the “unity of acknowledgment.” Just as the unity of apperception (the “I think”) must be able to accompany all my representations in order for them to be mine, the unity of acknowledgment (the “I will”) must be able to accompany all my volitions. The “I will” is thus necessary to introduce minimal conditions of unity into the manifold of desires, organizing the will’s self-and-world-directed intentions according to a basic unifying principle (either self-love or the categorical imperative). As a consequence, the agent is able to recognize the activity of her own will in the manifold volitions she has unified. Again, the absence of textual evidence at this juncture should not deter us: in order for the agent to own her choice of Gesinnung, and for the spectator to impute this choice to her, there must be a transcendental structure along these lines. The final chapter of this study tries to show that the role of the unity of acknowledgment cannot be limited to individual morality. A structure analogous to the “I will” must also be assumed if we are to attribute a self-imposed moral character to the human species. The system of propensities to evil and predispositions to good in Religion I, then, must itself be interpreted in quasi-transcendental terms, i.e., as providing conditions for the possibility of the patterns which human actions instantiate throughout history. If this interpretation is correct, the propensities to evil are necessary to explicate how the predispositions to the good can become counter-purposive and give rise to vices. What is sui generis in the methodology of the Religion is that these transcendental determinations, without which it would be impossible for us to impute a moral character to the species, are saturated with empirical content. This feature makes them irreducible to both a straightforward empirical analysis (say, in the style of the Anthropology) and a straightforward a priori analysis (say, in the style of the Groundwork). The Religion offers thus a moral anthropology of unique flavor that is neither merely pragmatic (as is the Anthropology) nor only valid for rational beings as such (as is Kant’s morality), but combines elements of both.

INTRODUCTION

xxv

The notion of “heart,” I argue, plays a key role in this context: in her heart, the agent appropriates the system of propensities and predispositions belonging to the species in a unique, individual way. The passage is possible due to an interlocking system of obligations–the duty to realize the highest good, the good, and the right, which gives rise to equally original forms of failure–the propensity to evil, an evil Gesinnung, and a wrong action. Since each type of obligation presupposes a logically independent free act of the will, the character of the species certainly conditions the individual, but determines neither her choice of Gesinnung nor her conduct. The notion of “heart,” then, preserves the autonomy of each sphere, while explaining how the universal propensities can be instantiated in particular types of evil character and wrongdoing. It schematizes–so to speak–the anthropologically informed propensities in a way that accommodates the individual’s responsibility and Kant’s commitment to transcendental freedom. The overall picture that emerges from these pages undermines the traditional dualisms with which Kant is usually associated. There is a great deal of novelty in Kant’s approach to evil in the Religion, and this explains both the enduring mystery and allure of this text. I tried to sketch here the outlines of a conceptual apparatus capable of doing justice to its unique nature. The fate of such a program is uncertain: it may attract or appall fellow Kantians, for the tensions in Kant’s approach invite the interpreter to make unorthodox moves. Our reconstruction begins unadventurously as it traverses the familiar landscape of the Groundwork, becomes more daring as it grasps the internal logic of Kant’s argument, and sometimes occupies a territory beyond the limits of what Kant himself has said. A sense of strangeness is inevitable: when it comes to evil, spontaneity and receptivity, the a priori and the a posteriori, the pure and the impure, do not behave in customary ways. This fact calls for a new conceptual apparatus informing, but also informed by, the experience of human actions; such an apparatus remains largely undeveloped within Kant’s moral philosophy. The golden rule of my reconstruction has been never to do onto Kant what I could not imagine he might have done onto himself. The paradox, of course, is that in such an undertaking a certain amount of self-description is unavoidable. How much and to what effect I meddled with the flow of Kant’s own thought rests now for the reader to determine. Despite the current proliferation of titles on evil, there are few systematic book-length studies in English exclusively focused on Kant. The work of Michalson and Anderson-Gold are exceptions, but these authors have not pursued the task I embark on here: to show

xxvi

INTRODUCTION

how the problem of evil is central to and shapes the development of Kant’s practical philosophy. 11 Michalson is skeptical about the overall success of the Kantian project, which in his view “wobbles” between autonomy and transcendence. Anderson-Gold, with whom I find myself in agreement at almost every turn, places Kant’s interpretation of evil in the context of his views on history. My emphasis, on the other hand, lies on the moral writings, in which Kant’s views on evil are harder to pin down and seem more marginal. Indeed, I want to reevaluate that very impression of marginality. The traditional deontological picture of Kant, confined to evaluating isolated actions, must give way to a view in which the individual’s Gesinnung and the collective dimension of the moral enterprise take center stage. Kant is a thinker who is more familiar with the darker sides of human volition than his reiterated references to the good will and the highest good might suggest. Evil and radical evil, I have tried to show, give depth to and invigorate his moral project. On a more topical level, the interpretation proposed here might contribute to solving some of` the most intractable problems surrounding Kant’s position: it elucidates the evil of radical evil, makes Kant’s doctrine coherent by systematically distinguishing between different units of moral analysis, provides a new strategy for justifying the claim, “man is evil by nature,” furthers our understanding of Kant’s moral psychology by expounding its inner dialectic, posits a new transcendental structure for practical reason analogous to the unity of apperception, and contributes to elucidating the connection between Kant’s pure ethics and his anthropology by presenting an interlocking set of obligations that link the individual and the species, as well as illuminating the conceptual apparatus that makes the connection possible. Although some of these issues have been treated separately in the literature, there is no single account, to my knowledge, that weaves them together in an organized fashion. Showing their connection and dependence on the problem of evil, I hope, will contribute to the development of this are of Kantian scholarship. Needless to say, as the argument unfolds, I will engage in various discussions with rival interpretations of evil in the literature. But my goal is not to criticize others, but to build, using Kant’s own tools, a strong a case for his theory of evil–addressing particularly those areas where his own design falters and leaves the builder perplexed on how to proceed. I do not believe I have an answer for every objection that can be leveled against Kant, nor do I imagine I will convince every reader of the plausibility of my interpretation. By calling the book an “essay,” I hope I can deflect the

INTRODUCTION

xxvii

expectation of finality and certitude. It is the exploratory, tentative nature of this undertaking that I really want to underline. Making explicit what Kant must have thought but did not say is a risky—perhaps even a questionable—enterprise: as Rousseau would have put it, the persuaded might remain unconvinced and the unconvinced not persuaded. But, for a thinker who values systematicity as highly as Kant does, there is no better tribute I could offer than trying to be systematic on his behalf. Where Kant is not Kantian enough, one might try to be so in his stead—even if the attempt leads one to explore a conceptual territory at which Kant barely hinted. NOTES 1. For the contrary opinion, see Judith Shklar, “Putting Cruelty First”, in Ordinary Vices (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984, chapter I, 7, and “The Liberalism of Fear”, in Liberalism and the Moral Life, ed. N. Rosenblum, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 21–38. Along the lines of Shklar’s analysis, see Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), part III. Among Kant scholars, Claudia Card finds Kant’s attitude to suffering most disturbing. Cf. Claudia Card, The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), chapter 4, 73–95. 2. Paul Guyer also notices this tension. He argues that there is an important shift from the view Kant held in Idea for Universal History (1784), where moral change is supposed to come about by entirely natural processes (particularly, through the exercise of prudence), to Kant’s view in the appendixes to Perpetual Peace (1795), where he openly argues for the need of the free and morally motivated exercise of the human will, “which must be seen as being compatible with the natural course of history but which cannot itself be considered as a merely natural phenomenon.” (p.408) See Paul Guyer, “Nature, Morality, and the Possibility of Peace” in Kant on Freedom, Law and Happiness (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 408-434. To understand Kant’s conceptual shift, I venture in this book, one must turn to the Groundwork (1785), where Kant sets himself to justify the aprioricity of morality, and to the Religion (1793), where the problem of radical evil receives its fullest expression. History is undoubtedly the arena in which radical evil unfolds, but its lessons cannot be used as a substitute for a transcendental account of the a priori source of evil in human freedom. As I will argue in chapter 2, this turns out to be the crux of my disagreement with Allen Wood’s interpretation of Kant’s doctrine. 3. Evidence for this two-stage interpretation finds historical expression in the fact that Kant published the first essay of the Religion as an independent text in the Berlinische Monatschrift (April 1792), and added three additional essays in the 1793 book, which “contains the complete development of the

xxviii

INTRODUCTION

first” (Rel. 6: 11). The discussion of grace in the General Remark at the end of Book I may seem to contradict the suggested division. Yet, Kant himself calls such a discussion “parergon,” i.e., “[a] secondary occupation that does not belong to the religion within the boundaries of pure reason “yet borders on it” (R 6: 52). Reason justifies this extension into “extravagant ideas” as a way to “make up for its moral impotence.” (Ibid.) Grace, admittedly a supernatural concept of which there is no cognition, helps “remove difficulties that obstruct what stands firm on its own (practically),” namely, that we can become good because we ought to. 4. Among the most influential contributions are: Allen Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Sharon Anderson-Gold, Unnecessary Evil: History and Moral Progress in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Albany: SUNY Press, 2001); Gordon E Michalson, Fallen Freedom: Kant on Radical Evil and Moral Regeneration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990);Yirmiahu Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968); Patrick R. Frierson, Freedom and Anthropology in Kant’s Moral Philosophy (London: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Philip J. Rossi, The Social Authority of Reason: Kant’s Critique, Radical Evil, and the Destiny of Humankind (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005); and Felicitas Munzel, Kant’s Conception of Moral Character: The “Critical” Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgment (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1999). 5. This view is recurrent in the corpus. Cf. e.g., G 4: 399, 405, and 418; KpV 5: 25, 61, and 73; KU 5: 208 and 434n; R 6: 58 and 67; TP 8: 282, 283, and 290. 6. Cf. Andrews Reath, “Hedonism, Heteronomy, and Kant’s Principle of Happiness,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 70 (1989): 52–55. 7. Throughout this book, I use “Gesinnung” to refer to “the first subjective ground of the adoption of maxims,” which for Kant “can only be one” and apply “to the entire use of freedom universally” (Rel. 6: 25). A major premise of my reconstruction is that this notion should be reserved to the sphere of individual morality. Otherwise, the evil character of the species would determine the character of the particular agent. This determination, however, would not only cancel her responsibility for having acquired it, but also undermine the possibility of our meaningfully imputing that character to her. Furthermore, it would make Kant’s talk of having a good Gesinnung (with the associated notions of moral worth and virtue) if not inconsistent, at least highly suspicious: if all human beings, even the best, have a propensity to evil, it is hard to see how an individual could have a good will. In this reading, virtue would not be simply difficult to attain, but border the impossible. The first is indeed Kant’s view, but the second clearly not. To avoid these problems, I use the German word “Gesinnung” to call attention to the technical sense Kant assigns to “disposition,” a notion he also uses in more ordinary ways (e.g., “habitual disposition” (habituallle Disposition) where the emphasis is on habit (Gewohnheit)), and sometimes confuses with “propensity” (Hang), thereby creating serious exegetical problems. Most of the difficulties disappear if we reserve “propensity” to refer to the morality of the whole human species, a

INTRODUCTION

xxix

sense that captures the gist of Kant’s discussions in the Religion, but not always the letter of his text. 8. The most articulate exposition of the relation between the propensity to evil and unsocial sociability appears in Allen Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 286-90 My dissatisfaction with it lies in its naturalizing tendencies, which lead to the underestimation (or at least the bracketing) of the noumenal dimension of Kant’s doctrine, according to which a historical thesis cannot satisfy the need of an account of the a priori genesis of the propensity. 9. Kant changed his mind at some point between the first Critique, where he dismissed the possibility of such a transcendental approach for morality (KrV A15/B 29), and the second, where he embraced it. 10. I owe this reference and clarification to Oliver Thorndike, who pressed me on this point. 11. Cf. Gordon E Michalson, Fallen Freedom, and Sharon Anderson-Gold, Unnecessary Evil.

1

On the Alleged Vacuity of Kant’s Concept of Evil1

“Der Mensch mit seinen Mängeln Ist besser als das Heer von willenlosen Engeln”2 —Über den Ursprung des Übels, Albrecht von Haller

In recent years there has been a growing interest in Kant’s doctrine of radical evil, arising from as diverse quarters as philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the social sciences.3 This interest has generated a revival of the notion of evil, which had been displaced from the center of philosophical discussion in the twentieth century.4 A common trait in the current literature is that it takes the pertinence of the use of the concept of evil for granted. Yet, before understanding what Kant means by radical evil, it seems appropriate to ask first whether the notion of evil has any legitimate function to play in Kant’s practical philosophy. Given its religious and metaphysical background, “evil” seems to stand out as an incongruous afterthought in a deliberately secular project like Kant’s. Furthermore, Kant’s own understanding of maxim-formation provides good reason to be skeptical about a notion that operates as a kind of idle meta-maxim. The pertinence of reviving a concept arguably so flawed cannot be taken at face value. Thus, the task I set myself in this chapter is to show the necessity of the concept of evil as it lies at the core of Kant’s moral philosophy as early as the Groundwork (1785), i.e., independently of Kant’s prior disquisitions about human history in Idea for a Universal History (1784) and before he actually coins the notion of “radical evil” in the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793). Although this procedure will tell us little about the latter doctrine, we will at least be sure that an evil said to be “radical” is not empty talk. 1

2

CHAPTER 1

There is an additional reason for taking the Groundwork as our point of departure: it will place us in a better position to break a deadlock between two rival schools of interpretation of radical evil in the AngloAmerican tradition. On the one hand, interpreters like Henry Allison have insisted on the continuity of the a priori infrastructure of Kant’s morality, and hence claimed that the origins of Kant’s view of radical evil in the Religion “must be found in the Groundwork.”5 Indeed, here Kant first presents a constellation of features (rigorism, rational agency, transcendental freedom, moral obligation, etc.) inextricable from his later view. On the other hand, interpreters like Allen Wood have found in Idea for a Universal History the key to understanding the social dynamics of the propensity to evil, tracing the roots of Kant’s view to his thesis about unsocial sociability.6 True enough, much of what Kant says about the vices of culture and the diabolical vices in the Religion draws on this thesis. The problem is that the empirical approach in Idea does not easily mesh with the a priori apparatus of Kant’s morality, nor does this apparatus, primarily concerned with isolated actions and individual morality, seem tailored to capture large anthropological trends. Hence the clash of interpretations—each school of thought capturing, but also excluding, part of the truth about Kant. For Kant’s early writings on history adopt a strictly naturalistic tone, and consequently lack the complexity of Kant’s commitment to transcendental freedom and the a priori character of morality introduced into his mature conception of radical evil. Although the Groundwork contains these features, Kant’s discussion here is ill suited to helping us grasp the social dimension of the problem of evil. This social dimension is best seen in the historical writings, but, again, at the price of losing the noumenal side of Kant’s view. This instability calls, then, for a conceptual framework capable of combining the truth of each approach while avoiding their shortcomings: on the empirical side, a neglect of evil’s noumenal dimension, and on the transcendental idealist side, an individualism that neglects evil’s social dynamic. The goal of this book is to achieve such a combination of truths. Since Kant’s position in the Groundwork is necessary for understanding the conceptual grid the doctrine of radical evil inherits, and since the notion of evil seems to play such a marginal role in Kant’s foundational text, showing its centrality, despite appearances to the contrary, is a litmus test for our project. (1) SKEPTICISM ABOUT THE NOTION OF EVIL Current writers in moral philosophy may find themselves in sympathy with the distrust with which some of Kant’s contemporaries received

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

3

his doctrine of radical evil. Kant’s doctrine contains two main theses: (1) evil corrupts the ground of all maxims, and (2) this corruption is not a matter of the individual, but of the species as a whole. Focusing on the second claim, Goethe considered Kant’s doctrine a “stain” in the mantle of his critical philosophy, for it reintroduces religious “prejudices” (i.e., the doctrine of original sin) Kant had so carefully tried to supersede with his conception of autonomy. Focusing on the first claim, Schiller considered Kant’s view “scandalous,” for Kant’s belief in the corruption of maxims is nothing but a symptom of Kant’s dismissal of sensibility.7 Similarly, it is often felt nowadays that the notion of “evil” has unpalatable metaphysical connotations regarding the activities of a mysterious noumenal self, as well as a touch of Christian dogmatism—features one might gladly dispense with in doing moral philosophy. The title of the book in which Kant presents these views, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, serves to confirm these impressions. Thus, one might want to suggest, there is no need to entertain the notion of “evil,” far less to assume that it pertains to the very fabric of humanity. The more mundane notion of “wrong” is able to do the same philosophical job, but without awakening theological and metaphysical suspicions. (“Wrong” in this context means the set of immoral actions an agent decides to perform, i.e., the immoral actions based on principles.) A reply to this suggestion is that it leads to the conflation of agent and action. While the notion of “wrong” denotes immoral actions and their principles, the notion of “evil” should be reserved for the person’s character or Gesinnung.8 When we speak of an “evil action,” we do so figuratively and commit a kind of subreption.9 In a strict sense, “evil” is meant to designate (a) the (relatively) invariant form of the will in the various circumstances of action, and (b) the will’s liability to a certain kind of expression, which depends on what the agent takes as her ultimate reason for action. Both the form and the expression of the will are the result of a transcendental act of freedom. The person is “evil” who, as a consequence of that act, heeds the demands of duty on the condition that they do not conflict with the dictates of selflove. Therefore, just as we need a criterion to evaluate willed actions (in terms of right or wrong), we also need a criterion to evaluate the person’s will (in terms of good or evil), and these criteria, though they may well be connected, are not identical. This rebuttal, however, will not satisfy those who still consider the notion of “evil” superfluous. They will argue that the proposed distinctions are quite artificial in Kant’s ethics, whose unit of analysis is the agent’s maxim. A maxim can be defined as a subjective prin-

4

CHAPTER 1

ciple of action that expresses what the agent wants to do (i.e., the end of her action) and for what reasons (i.e., her motive). If maxims are interpreted in a comprehensive enough way, namely, as presenting a rule of life that expresses the kind of person one wants to be, the set of wrong actions based on immoral maxims exhausts the meaning one would wish to reserve for the notion of “evil.”10 The kind of maxim that makes a particular action wrong determines, at the same time, the immorality of the person—her life-policy or fundamental intention. To account for a malicious action, then, we do not need a mysterious invariant form of willing, over and above the wrong involved in particular maxims. A so-called “evil” person is one who repeatedly does wrong, and the meaning of this wrongdoing is simply the sum of immoral (wrong) maxims from which those actions follow. We do not need the “Gesinnung”: the continuum of intentions, ranging from the more specific to the life-policy or fundamental intention (all implicit in the maxim), organizes moral phenomena in a way that can be tested by the categorical imperative. “Evil” does not shed new light on moral phenomena; it only adds dead weight to our terminology. The objector concludes, then, that we can safely forgo the use of separate criteria for persons and actions—one is enough for all purposes. Although centuries apart, the discomfort of Kant’s contemporaries and the line of thought I have just laid out stem from a common root. They are based on a misunderstanding of the notion of a good will—the fundamental source of value in Kantian ethics.11 It is not by chance that the opening statement of the Groundwork is: “It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that can be considered good without limitation (ohne Einschränkung) except a good will” (Gr. 4: 393). Kant goes back to this assumption at several places. Two instances are particularly revealing. One is the concluding remark in the discussion of the different formulations of the Categorical Imperative (section II), where Kant claims to have returned to the beginning of his argument, i.e., “the concept of a will unconditionally good (eines unbedingt guten Willens)” (Gr. 4: 437). The other is the transition from autonomy as a property of the will to autonomy as a principle of action (section III) (Gr. 4: 446–47). In this case, the good will is not mentioned but goodness is implicitly identified with the property of autonomy. One can hardly exaggerate the importance the good will has in organizing the argumentative moves in the Groundwork, both in the analytic and synthetic sections. If we do not give the good will its due, we shall get a picture of Kant’s morality that subordinates all concerns of value to those of duty. Yet, such a picture distorts the order Kant himself had envisaged: “We shall set before ourselves the concept of

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

5

duty, which contains that of a good will though under certain limitations and hindrances” (Gr. 4: 397). The good will as such is without those limitations—and this feature allows it to function as the unconditioned condition that puts the structure of obligation to work and gives the actions out of duty the value they have. Only by reducing the Groundwork to mere deontology can the doctrine of radical evil be perceived as a betrayal of the principles of Kant’s practical philosophy—the betrayal Kant’s contemporaries claimed it was. Only if we detach Kant’s discussion of moral worth and the motive of duty without attending to the role the good will plays in the overall argument, can the notion of wrong be seen as a candidate to replace the notion of evil—as our contemporary critic would have it. Assuming that the criterion for actions (right and wrong) is all there is to Kantian ethics disregards the difference between what is evaluated and the source of its value, between duty and the kind of will which gives duty its meaning and worth. Although Kant’s deontology can well prove that an action is right, it cannot show what is good about it, namely, why acting out of duty is itself good. This is what the doctrine of the good will does.12 The basic form of one’s will, not the value of isolated actions, is the cornerstone of Kant’s morality from its inception. Nelson Potter expresses the point well: Notice first that Kant does begin the discussion with the concept of a good will, which I take it is the concept of a morally good person. The aim is to discover the principle that is operative in the functioning of such a will. How is this to be done except by examining actions that are expressive of this underlying quality of character? Our qualities of inner character remain hidden until they are expressed or exemplified in action.13

The problem is that not enough attention has been paid to one of the implications of this kind of reading. For, by parity of reasoning, if the good will is the source of the goodness right actions exhibit, the evil will must be the source of the evilness (as the opposite value) of wrong actions. The value of right or wrong actions derives from the goodness or evilness of the will that decides upon them and which these actions express. Therefore, Kant’s quest for the source of corruption of all maxims in the Religion is not, after all, an afterthought. Rather, it is necessary to spell out what the foundational project in the Groundwork had only insinuated: a full-fledged theory of an evil will is called for as a conceptual correlate of Kant’s conception of a good will. Testimony of Kant’s passion for systematicity is that he begins to speak of an “evil Gesinnung” in precisely this way a few years later.

6

CHAPTER 1

Seen in this light, the development of Kantian ethics can be interpreted as the overdue examination of a claim the Groundwork deliberately ignored: “I here pass over all actions that are already recognized as contrary to duty (pflichtwidrig), even though they may be useful for this or that purpose; for in their case the question whether they might have been done from duty (aus Pflicht) never arises, since they even conflict with it” (Gr 4: 397).14 As we know, Kant had been preoccupied, in the period just before the writing of the Groundwork, with finding a social and historical interpretation for those very actions, and even saw them as expression of a fundamental anthropological tension (our “unsocial sociability”), which shapes the direction of history (I 8: 20–1). However, in the Groundwork, which is concerned with “the search for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality” (Gr. 4: 392), Kant had a very different agenda. The investigation of the empirical and the social dynamics of evil did not easily square with the vindication of the a priori character of morality and the defense of individual freedom and responsibility—Kant’s avowed intent in that work. But argumentative expedience is not tantamount to a conceptual vacuum. Given what we know of Kant’s prior and subsequent writings, the methodological consequences of his silence are clear. The problem of evil is going to return with a vengeance; Kant’s future response to it, however, will not be able to relinquish the ground he has gained by conceptualizing the will as practical reason. Since the way backwards was blocked by this momentous achievement, and the path forward marked out by it, a reconstruction of Kant’s theory of evil in the Groundwork must make virtue of necessity and proceed indirectly, via an investigation of the notion of a good will. We must determine what Kant does not say, but must have meant given what he eventually comes to say. Such an indirect procedure offers the hope of cracking open the presuppositions of Kant’s systematicity—it may allow us to discover a transcendental conception of “evil” where there seemed to have been none. Needless to say, there is more to “radical evil” than can be drawn out of the references to an “evil will” we find in the Groundwork, and it is undeniable that Kant’s moral view and terminology undergo important changes.15 These transformations are the substance of the rest of this study. My intention here has been to sketch some basic objections to the use of the notion of evil in Kant, and trace their root to a certain reading of the Groundwork, namely, the deontological approach that gives a marginal role to the doctrine of the good will. By opposing such a tendency and placing the good will at the center of Kant’s morality, we can undercut those objections. Our alternative reading yields two important consequences:

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

7

(1) It forestalls the attacks of those who see in the doctrine of radical evil a relapse into religious dogmatism. For, if an evil will is the negative counterpart of a good (autonomous) will, the new doctrine will less likely seem to be a concession to religious prejudices: nobody denies that heteronomy has a conspicuous role to play in Kant’s foundational argument. The obstacles to developing an organic interpretation of Kant’s theory of evil, rising from his struggle to make sense of the lessons of history in terms of his moral philosophy, are considerably diminished if we attend to this point. The interpreter must show first why Kant associates “evil” with heteronomy, and how he then “radicalizes” this conception in the Religion. The current chapter will try to answer the first question—the rest of the book is occupied with the second. (2) It protects the notion of “evil” from the attacks of those who want to replace it with the notion of “wrong.” For, just as the good will provides the clue to understanding what is good about right actions, the notion of wrong requires an evil will to explain what is evil about wrongdoing. That wrong actions are prohibited is easily seen from the tests associated with the categorical imperative. But to understand why their maxims are wrong, i.e., what the evil is that these actions bring forth into the world, we still need the notion of an evil will as the source of their value. Moreover, since “a good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, because of its fitness to attain some proposed end, but only because of its volition“ (Gr. 4: 394), the most counter-intuitive aspect of Kant’s conception of evil follows as a matter of consistency: the consequences of actions cannot determine what is evil in an evil will. Once we realize that the deontological layer of the Groundwork is not self-sufficient, but rests instead on the role played by the good will, the alleged vacuity of evil also proves untenable: the real opposite of a good will is an evil will, not a wrong action. In both cases, value primarily lies in an underlying volitional form, not in what such form “effects or accomplishes” in the empirical world.16 The persuasiveness of this interpretation hangs on grasping the relation between Kant’s criterion for evaluating actions and his criterion for evaluating persons. The rest of the chapter is devoted to this question. It will cover fairly familiar ground among Kant scholars and bracket the discussion of evil to the very end. My hope is that, by

8

CHAPTER 1

taking (with another goal in mind) a new look at the Groundwork, we will be able to discover the obverse of a good will and compensate somehow for Kant’s silence. (2) THE CRITERION FOR EVALUATING ACTIONS The most direct way to understand why the categorical imperative is the criterion for evaluating the morality of actions is to analyze Kant’s definition of the will (Wille): “the capacity to act in accordance with the representation of laws, that is, in accordance with principles” (Gr. 4: 412).17 This definition brings together two different features: (a) a capacity that distinguishes the human will from other kinds of volition, and (b) the various relations to law such a will establishes by means of its representations. The first feature demarcates the limits to the imputability of actions; the second defines the structure of justification. (2.1) The Imputation of Actions Kant contrasts the peculiar capacity that characterizes the human will with two other kinds of volition that obliterate all traces of humanity: the animal will (arbitrium brutum) and the holy will.18 The arbitrium brutum distinguishes itself by the fact that it does not involve the representation of laws. The animal is directly determined by the force of its desires, without the mediation of rational activity.19 The cause of behavior (the representation of an object) is homogeneous with its effect (the attempt to realize it). Both are spatiotemporal events connected by a causal rule, without the will participating in their genesis, acceptance, or arrangement. Pursuing desires, therefore, is not properly an action, but a form of being done, an occurrence without the mark of agency or authorship. This is why Kant sometimes calls desires “pathological”—not because they are devious, but because they are passive. Such passivity places the animal below the level of imputation: “Imputation in the moral sense is the judgment by which someone is regarded as the author (causa libera) of an action (Handlung), which is then called a deed (Tat) and stands under laws” (MS 6: 227). The behavior of an animal might wreak havoc or cause joy, but it is neither right nor wrong. The holy will represents the opposite situation. Reason infallibly rules here: “actions that are cognized as objectively necessary are also subjectively necessary” (Gr. 4: 412). This form of volition never swerves from what “reason, independently of inclination, cognizes as

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

9

practically necessary, that is, as good” (Ibid.). Lacking opposing temptations, holy choices are univocal: the representation of the good always provides sufficient reason to attain it. Just as in the case of the animal will, the holy will is homogeneous. There is no motivational split in either case: while the arbitrium brutum is determined by sensibility without reason, reason determines the holy will without sensibility. Furthermore, although the holy will, as pure activity, is the author of its actions, we cannot meaningfully speak of “imputation” here: the response is entailed by the law, the command is followed as a matter of necessity. The holy will is free in the sense of not being determined by the laws of nature, but there is no depth in its freedom. Unforcedly forced to be moral, the holy will takes neither pride nor shame in the authorship of its actions, and hence stands above imputation. The pure activity of angels and the pure passivity of animals cancel moral self-expression out—they eliminate the burden of responsibility one bears for the will one has. Human volition, by contrast, is characterized by its structural heterogeneity. As Kant puts it: If reason solely by itself does not adequately determine the will; if the will is exposed (unterworfen, i.e., subject) also to subjective conditions (certain incentives) that are not always in accord with the objective ones; in a word, if the will is not in itself completely in conformity with reason (as it is actually the case with human beings), then actions that are cognized as objectively necessary are subjectively contingent, and the determination of such a will in conformity with objective laws is necessitation. That is to say, the relation of objective laws to a will that is not thoroughly good is represented as the determination of the will of a rational being through grounds of reason, indeed, but grounds to which this will is not by its nature (Natur) necessarily obedient. (Gr. 4: 413, my emphasis)20

The human will is heterogeneous, because the cognition of something as good is not sufficient reason to act on it, as it is in the holy will. Such insufficiency must be understood as a result of the will’s being affected by impulses (Antriebe) of sensibility, i.e., the ones that rule in the animal will. Although the human will is sensuous, for it is pathologically affected, its volitions are at the same time rational, for they involve the active representation of laws.21 Furthermore, its internal heterogeneity is structural: were the human will directly determined by sensuous impulses, it would become animal; but were reason always sufficient to move it, it would become holy. The depth of freedom belongs to the human in-between: the structural heteroge-

10

CHAPTER 1

neity of our volition, marked by the difference between being exposed (unterworfen—subject) and being determined by sensuous impulse, is the condition for the possibility of imputation and necessitation (Nötigung). Imputation is made possible because the objective conditions for the goodness of an action are subjectively contingent, i.e., the agent is free to disregard what reason demands. Necessitation takes place because the rational grounds that present an action as good do not forfeit their claim on the will, even if, prompted by sensible impulses, it does not actually respond to them.22 (2.1.1) Necessitation

Kant believes that the validity of rational grounds does not depend on the agent’s recognition. “Necessitation” reveals a twofold aspect in the human relation to the law: (a) the independence of the law’s validity from the agent’s recognition, and (b) the expectation that such validity acquire authority, i.e., be fully motivating. Although both the holy and the animal wills comply with the law in their actions, they are not necessitated (genötigt) to action. To be “necessitated” means that the command of the law is perceived as an “ought” (Sollen), i.e., as an imperative indicating the goodness of an action, the performance of which is not guaranteed by the cognition of such a goodness.23 This points to the unique character of the good presented to us by reason: while its validity is independent of the agent’s recognition, it can become authoritative, i.e., effectively determine the ground of action, if and only if the agent represents it as being good for her. Kant believes that in its presentation the good posits a demand for recognition, which can be fulfilled only if its re-presentation is such that the agent accepts the good because of its validity. The good in question may be the moral good, the useful, or the agreeable, for it simply indicates the status of objective demands that are subjectively contingent. This view of normativity is usually referred to as “internalist.” It holds that the reason why the action is good is also the reason for doing it.24 My point is that Kant’s internalism comprises not only categorical imperatives, as is normally understood, but also hypothetical imperatives (rules of skill and counsels of prudence), because such internalism is built into the structural heterogeneity he assigns to the human will. Since Kant separates authority from validity, in order to become motivating the good must produce an interest in the agent. Kant defines “interest” as “the dependence of a contingently determinable will on the principles of reason” (Gr 4: 414 note). Being ratio-

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

11

nal, these principles must be discovered as a result of the agent’s spontaneous activity of reflection. Since the human will is “not always of itself in conformity with reason” (Ibid.), the good is only contingently contained in the agent’s principles. This contingency stems from the fact that the human will is exposed to two different sources of interest, “practical” and “pathological,” each one expressing an essential aspect of the will’s heterogeneous structure. None of these interests is sufficient to determine the will by itself, but each presents a possible ground for action. Kant usually refers to these grounds as “incentives” (Triebfeder), which can settle a course of action if, and only if, the agent makes them the determining ground (Bestimmungsgrund) of her will. Once the incentive is incorporated into the ground, it is called a motive (Bewegungsgrund). A motive takes an incentive as the determining ground, preventing other candidates from occupying the position of determination. Since in a heterogeneous will no incentive is in itself determinative, “for actions that are cognized as objectively necessary are subjectively contingent” (Gr. 4: 413), the agent is always accountable for what she takes to be motivating. All the pieces are in place for what Henry Allison famously dubbed “the Incorporation Thesis.”25 According to this view, a moment of spontaneity is contained even in desire-based actions: the sensible incentive must be “deemed or taken as an appropriate basis of action,” i.e., it must be incorporated by the will into a maxim, since it is insufficient to determine conduct without the agent’s making it determinative.26 Kant puts it this way in the Groundwork: “what inclinations and impulses (hence the whole nature of the world of sense) incite him to cannot infringe upon the laws of his volition as intelligence; indeed, he does not hold himself accountable for the former or ascribe them to his proper self, that is, to his will, though he does ascribe to it the indulgence he would show them if he allowed them to influence his maxims to the detriment of the rational laws of his will” (Gr. 4: 457–8). The same is true in actions performed out of duty, in which the agent must invest the moral incentive with motivating power, relegating inclinations to a subordinate position. “For, the [human] will stands between its a priori principle, which is formal, and its a posteriori principle, which is material, as at a crossroads” (Gr. 4: 400). It is bound to choose—to give priority to one of its incentives. Self-expression and self-determination are unavoidable given the heterogeneity of its incentive structure. This is the picture of rational agency that crystallizes in the Religion, in which Kant unambiguously identifies evil as an inversion of the ethi-

12

CHAPTER 1

cal order of priority. The passage from which Allison takes the name of his famous thesis makes the connection clear: [F]reedom of the power of choice (Willkür) has the characteristic, entirely peculiar to it, that it cannot be determined to action through any incentive except so far as the human being has incorporated it into his maxim (has made it into a universal rule for himself, according to which he wills to conduct himself); only in this way can an incentive, whatever it may be, coexist with the absolute spontaneity of the power of choice (of freedom). But the moral law is itself an incentive in the judgment of reason, and whoever makes it his maxim is morally good. Now, if the law fails nevertheless to determine somebody’s free power of choice with respect to an action relating to it, an incentive opposed to it must have influence on the power of choice of the human being in question; and since, by hypothesis, this can only happen because this human being incorporates the incentive (and consequently also the deviation from the law) into his maxim (in which case he is an evil human being), it follows that his disposition (Gesinnung) as regards the moral law is never indifferent (never neither good nor bad). (Rel. 6: 24)

In this passage, the language of Willkür and Wille with which Kant comes to designate, respectively, the enacting and the legislative aspects of the will (MS 6: 213), gives a dexterity and clarity of expression to his later writings mostly lacking in the Groundwork. However, and this is the important point, Kant’s characterization of the will as an interested activity contains the fundamentals of this later view. To be motivated, the agent must take an interest in the good (be it practical or pathological). Taking an interest is an activity from which angels and animals are exempt, since the law is always authoritative for them. In the human case, by contrast, the value (good or evil) of our conduct is the product of having arranged those incentives. It is the result of a synthesis that gives priority to one of them, and hence decides the question of the authority of the law for an agent. Kant’s commitment to the noumenality of choice and the rigorism that accompanies it are already present in the Groundwork. What remains obscure is why the primacy of the pathological interest, which Kant associates with the principle of self-love and considers in itself a subjectively necessary good, turns out to be the source of evil for him.27 What is the danger self-love brings in tow? To answer this question we must first understand the function of autonomy in the Groundwork—a task that in turn requires laying out Kant’s structure of justification. These are not digressions: they show how the conceptual trajectory of evil intersects the path of the good will.

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

13

(2.2) The Structure of Justification Kant’s distinction between maxims and laws provides the framework of his structure of justification and brings with it a set of competing conceptions of the good. In order to appreciate how these conceptions originate and relate to our previous discussion, let me begin by drawing the main lines of Kant’s justificatory framework. (2.2.1) Maxims and Laws

The structural heterogeneity that makes imputation and necessitation possible also entails the distinction between maxims and laws. A maxim is the subjective principle of action, and must be distinguished from the objective principle, namely the practical law. The former contains the practical rule determining reason conformably with the conditions of the subject (often his ignorance or also his inclinations), and is therefore the principle in accordance with which the subject acts; but the law is the objective principle valid for every rational being, and the principle in accordance with which he ought to act, i.e., an imperative. (Gr. 4: 422 note, my emphasis) Since, according to Kant’s definition, the representation of laws is the distinctive trait of the will, there arises a systematic difference between the object that is presented (the law or objective good) and the way in which it is represented (the maxim). Such a difference is negligible in the holy will, whose maxims are always lawful, and is absent in the animal will, in which there is no “representation” to speak of. Moreover, a presupposition of Kant’s internalism is that the objective side of the representation provides an immanent standard to evaluate the accuracy of the subjective side. That is, the agent is in principle capable of evaluating the objectivity (or lack thereof) in her own maxims. The standard is immanent, because the subjective representation on which the agent acts cannot be determined without a reflection on the law on which she ought to act. In the passage above, Kant indicates two essential constraints. (1) In order to be objective, the subjective principle must rest on grounds valid for every rational being. Let me call this the demand for universality. (2) In order to be objective, the subjective principle must be free from the restrictive conditions of subjectivity, which Kant identifies with ignorance (i.e., cognitive limitations) and inclinations (i.e., pathological limitations). Let me call this the demand for unconditionality.28 In order to understand how these demands work in the process of justification, we have to keep in mind that for Kant every action has

14

CHAPTER 1

an end (Gr. 4: 427-8), and that “rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature [because] it sets itself an end” (Gr. 4: 437). While the demand for universality concentrates on the validity of the grounds (motives) upon which the action is willed, leaving the content of ends undetermined, the demand for unconditionality focuses on the subjective relation to those grounds, determining the validity of ends themselves. There is, then, a basic difference in the direction of the two demands. Whereas universality is guided toward the rationality of other beings as a check upon the agent’s motives for adopting an action, unconditionality is guided toward the agent’s own rationality as a check upon her subjective limitations. That is, universality is a demand placed on grounds with respect to ends whose content is not specified, while unconditionality is a demand placed on the agent’s own relation to ends. In both cases, rationality imposes a constraint. The difference is that the demand for universality requires the agent to enlarge her own perspective by including the rational view of other agents, whereas unconditionality requires the agent to identify her self with rational nature. This difference in orientation stems from Kant’s theory of action, in which motives and ends do not generally coincide. In the Kantian view, although the agent sets both the motive and the end of an action (the so-called “material of volition”), these are not usually identical. The motive expresses the type of interest (pathological or practical) an agent takes in an end; the end is the state of affairs her action intends to bring about. A given end, say, helping a person in need, may have multiple motives: compassion, prudence, duty, and so on. Different motives affect the conception of my actions and the way I carry out my intention, just as the same end can be based on different motives. The relation is not of one-to-one correspondence. Motive and end coincide only when an action out of duty has a duty as its end (the special case of morally worthy actions). (2.2.2) Universality

Whether the agent desires the action or not, whether she knows how to attain the end, whether the end as such is required or feasible— these are not concerns of the demand for universality. This demand focuses, rather, on the conditions of reasonability of action, i.e., on the agent’s capacity to recognize the validity of grounds and act on them. Since the content of the end is not specified, the grounds for adopting it may arise from empirical or from pure practical reason, generating hypothetical and categorical imperatives alike.

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

15

The demand on maxims can adopt two forms: (a) “If you will an end and certain means within your power are necessary to achieve it, then you ought to will those means or abandon the end.”29 The law presents here the goodness of the action as a means to something else whose value is not deliberated upon. The criterion for the goodness of the means (usefulness) is independent of the assessment of the ends, which arise directly from the faculty of desire and mobilize reason to search the means to attain them. The condition of reasonability sets the limit for consistency in the relation of means and ends when the agent represents herself as the cause bringing about those ends (Gr. 4: 417). This relation underpins all hypothetical imperatives (rules of skills and precepts of prudence), and is the distinctive trait of empirical practical reason. The demand for universality expresses here what counts as a valid ground, namely, its effectiveness. An agent that is reasonable in setting her means-ends relations gives to the rationality of other agents its due—anyone sharing her end would approve (i.e., call “good”) her choice of means. (b) If, instead, the action is represented as good in itself, not as part of an instrumental calculus, then the ground for adopting the end must itself be unconditioned, that is, based on our rational nature. The demand for universality determines here the value of ends whose goodness could not be assessed by hypothetical imperatives. The goodness (usefulness) of means is now conditioned by the goodness (rightness) of the ends to which they serve. Such conditioning is made possible because the intrinsic goodness of the action does not lie in its consistency with the means to achieve it, but is rather internalized. That is, it rests on the relation between the end and the ground for adopting it, so that it is the universalizability of the ground that makes the action “good.” This is the basic form of categorical imperatives. Reasonability is here non-instrumental, for it implies the agent’s capacity to act on grounds recognized as valid in themselves. The validity of the ground is the reason that agents would assent to an action whose end is as such contingent. Kant refers to this type of volition as the “motive of duty.” The possibility of adopting a rational ground irrespective of the agent’s subjective relation to the end is, for Kant, the hallmark of pure practical reason (Gr. 4: 448). All this is well known. We should note, however, that although the ground-end relation can determine the value of the end as something intrinsically good, it could not possibly determine the content of this very end. That is, although the ground itself is unconditionally adopted (out of respect for duty), the end of the action stems from empirical practical reason. Therefore, the demand for universalizability

16

CHAPTER 1

does not guarantee pure reason’s self-sufficiency. This fact is expressed in the first formulation of the categorical imperative: “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time (zugleich) will that it become a universal law” (Gr. 4: 421). The adverb “zugleich” is key here. It indicates that what must be universalizable is neither the action nor what is aimed at by it (the end), but rather the grounds (motives) upon which these are decided to be good in the maxim. The action and its end are like placeholders whose value gets determined by their relation to these grounds in the maxim that unifies them. Their value depends on whether the agent’s own rational nature, independently from sensible incentives, supplies the motive and provides a check on the adoption of contingent ends. This guarantees the possibility of their being accepted by every rational agent. This way of construing the demand for universality undermines the common charge of empty formalism. Since every action necessarily has an end, content is always present in the procedure to evaluate the maxims of action. In Kant’s model, pure practical reason sets the motive of duty but draws on ends that are in themselves determined by empirical practical reason (self-love). Hence, the motive of duty provides the limiting condition for an agent to adopt contingent ends as such—that is, it establishes the terms under which this adoption is acceptable for other agents. The rightness of the action depends on its end having been adopted independently of its empirical source.30 Reasonability, as it applies to the categorical imperative, requires the agent to discard actions whose maxims are inconsistent when universalized. The content of particular duties is thus determined indirectly. The failure of the universalized maxim yields a duty by requiring the agent to refrain from the action she originally intended. All other compounds are considered permitted. The pursuit of permitted ends is legitimate because the claims of empirical practical reason, whose systematic arrangement yields the totalizing end Kant calls “happiness,” are previously subject (unterworfen) to the control of morality. Their goodness is thus conditioned by the goodness of acting out of duty. Kant’s indirect derivation of duties is important for us, because it suggests the presence of two different levels of commitment on the side of the agent. (1) A commitment to perform actions whose compound (i.e., the relation of ground and end in the maxim) is universalizable, or to perform the contrary action if the proposed compound fails the test. (2) A commitment to make consistency in the ground-end relation the general criterion to select among possible maxims.31 The first

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

17

commitment leads the agent to perform certain types of action, the second to endorse a general criterion for selecting maxims of action. That is, one tells her what to do under a certain circumstance, the other how to deliberate about morality in general; one concerns her conduct, the other what she owes to herself and to others were she to adopt the moral point of view; one determines the value of maxims of action, the other the value of the will from which those maxims arise. It is at this deeper level that the agent discloses the overall character of her will—her resolve to give the practical interest the upper hand over the pathological, or, instead, to arrange incentives the other way around and comply with duty only conditionally.32 Kant’s famous example about promising illustrates the point: Another finds himself urged by need to borrow money. He well knows that he will not be able to repay it but sees also that nothing will be lent him unless he promises firmly to repay it within a determinate time. He would like to make such a promise, but he still has enough conscience to ask himself: is it not forbidden and contrary to duty to help oneself out of need in such a way? Supposing that he still decided to do so, his maxim of action would go as follows: when I believe myself to be in need of money I shall borrow money and promise to repay it, even though I know that this will never happen. Now this principle of self-love or personal advantage is perhaps quite consistent with my whole future welfare, but the question now is whether it is right. I therefore turn the demand of self-love to universal law and put the question as follows: how would it be if my maxim became a universal law? I then see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of nature and be consistent with itself, but must necessarily contradict itself. (Gr. 4: 422)

The agent’s hesitation about whether the action is right is indicative of the duality of interests he is experiencing. Kant is aware that, by calling attention to this wavering, he prefigures the answer he is expecting to extract from the example. For the question is not whether a deceitful promise is effective or useful—the agent already knows “it is perhaps quite consistent with [his] whole future welfare.” Rather, the question is how this knowledge fares when scrutinized from the moral point of view. Kant deliberately frames the situation as constituting a moral problem, and this presupposes that the agent is sensitive to having entered a zone of “moral danger.”33 Now, even accepting the prefiguration of Kant’s loaded deck (evil agents, one might presume, would have an uncanny capacity for moral gerrymandering), the result of the subsequent deliberation remains up for grabs. Though irrepressible, the voice of conscience (located at the second-level of commit-

18

CHAPTER 1

ment to the categorical imperative) can determine neither the specific content of the maxim of action nor the actual outcome of elevating that maxim to universal law. For, Kant recognizes that, in spite of his qualms, the agent can nonetheless decide to form a maxim on the basis of self-love. This is in fact what happens in the example: the agent proceeds to form a maxim of self-love, even after having tacitly endorsed the point of view of morality and asked himself the question about his action’s rightness. I take this to mean that the first level of commitment must be construed as being relatively independent from the second. “Relatively,” that is, it must be sufficiently conditioned to be informative about the character of the agent’s will (second level), but without ruling out the possibility of doing otherwise (first level). Anything stronger than that would mean that the commitment to having a good will is not simply virtuous, but also makes the agent holy on the spot.34 Furthermore, were the agent to decide to undergo (in bad faith) the whole process of universalization, he would still be capable at the end of rationalizing away the ensuing contradiction, and granting himself an exception “(just for this once) to the advantage of his inclination” (Gr. 4: 424). Honesty is not guaranteed, but presupposed in the process of elevating one’s maxim to universal law. I take this to mean that, when standing “as at a crossroad” (Gr. 4: 400), the fear of contradiction can persuade only the agent who is already committed to avoid it. For the one who has given primacy to self-love, it is the fear of consequences that really counts. The efficacy of her conduct requires that “the opposite of [her] maxim should instead remain a universal law” (Gr. 4: 424). That is, everyone else must be duped by morality if she is to attain her purpose. This generalized deception, Kant believes, starts first in foro interno by silencing the voice of conscience. In any case, the need of deception indicates that the agent’s motive is not doing pure, unadulterated evil for evil’s sake: the transgression is justified, in the agent’s eyes, by her exceptionalism, which in this case and “just for this once,” warrants the suspension of moral constraints in view of another, overweening good (“the advantage of [her] inclination”). But the temporary suspension of morality is not its cancellation. The agent, after all, experiences the urge to justify herself—and this urge is due to the fact that, in the Kantian account, the validity of the law is independent from the agent’s recognition. It remains in place even when the agent ignores it. This view prefigures much of Kant’s discussions of radical evil in the Religion and explains his polemical rejection of devilishness. I will deal with these questions later on. It suffices now to say that a set of

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

19

basic assumptions, first formulated in the Groundwork, connects both works. These are, to summarize: that given the structural heterogeneity of our will, we cannot dispense with the activity of justifying our conduct in terms of a “good” (be it moral or pathological); that the value of our actions is not self-sufficient, but rests on a second, meta-level of commitment, according to which the agent determines her general policy of maxim-selection (her mode of moral deliberation about morality); and that that determination must itself be a choice for which we are responsible. It is this third assumption that allows Kant to morph his early conception of evil into the mature doctrine of radical evil. (2.2.3) Unconditionality

In the preceding section, I tried to show that the categorical imperative (first formulation) represents an application of the demand for universality that also generates hypothetical imperatives (when the end lies outside the action). Both kinds of imperatives express the criterion of reasonability in actions in which the end is an object of desire connected with the sensible incentive, either mobilizing reason to attain it (in hypothetical imperatives) or submitting itself to reason with regard to the motive of duty (as a limiting condition). In both cases, the formal constraints determining the validity of the ground do not determine the content of the end. We must now examine the possibility of such a determination of content. In contrast with the demand for universality that focuses on grounds and leaves ends undetermined, the demand for unconditionality has a more restrictive scope. It applies to actions whose end it is a duty for an agent to have. Goodness does not depend here on the relation of the end to the universalizability of the grounds, but on its relation to the agent’s own rationality (her independence from subjective limitations). In actions of this kind, ends and motives have a common source: pure practical reason. This interpretation of unconditionality rests on a certain understanding of Kant’s phrasing, “conformably with the conditions of the subject” in his definition of maxims.35 This should not be interpreted as part of the demand for adopting a principle “valid for every rational being.” This must be identified, as I have done, with universality—to do otherwise, overlooks the consequences (in terms of justification) of the different ways in which ends and motives may relate in an action. In order to account for this variation, unconditionality should be taken to apply to ends and their relation to the agent’s own rationality.

20

CHAPTER 1

So understood, this demand complements the one we discovered in the first formulation of the categorical imperative, referring to grounds and their validity for all rational beings. Just as the latter determines the value of actions when ends are empirically given, unconditionality requires that both motive and end be the expression of pure practical reason. This brings Kant’s structure of justification in line with Kant’s theory of action—an advantage that would be lost if we conflated the two demands. The need for a second demand hangs on the fact that universality is not concerned with the genesis of the ends, but with their consistency within the ground-end relation. This consistency assures the validity of contingent actions for all rational agents, but leaves open the possibility that the demand for unconditionality may set conditions on the genesis of ends themselves, so that their content becomes necessary and acceptable. Since unconditionality requires ends to be adopted independently of the agent’s subjective limitations, it imposes constraints on what counts as the agent’s valid self-relation in setting ends as such. The genetic conditions are by definition unconditioned: an end ought to be adopted because of its intrinsic rational character. Empirical practical reason has no place in this new configuration. Yet, among the set of actions that are done out of duty and show that pure reason is practical, the demand for unconditionality applies only to those whose ends are also duties. This is so because pure rationality not only determines the ground on which the end is adopted (as was the case with the demand for universality), but also the very content of the end (which must itself be rational). This unique kind of end is not simply consistent with the ground of its adoption when universalized—it is identical with it.36 For Kant, a maxim expressing this kind of end has moral content.37 Maxims with moral content are performed out of duty and have a duty as their end. Let me call the content of the end “objective” in order to distinguish it from all other contingent or “subjective” ends, which are prompted by empirical practical reason and organized by “selflove.”38 Whereas the demand for universality determines the validity of ends by checking on their grounds, i.e., indirectly and drawing upon empirical practical reason as a source of ends, unconditionality sets the condition of their validity directly. For it stipulates that ends are valid if their adoption does not depend on subjective limitations—a condition that only pure practical reason, having itself as its own object, could fulfill. The rational genesis of ends saturates what had been left undetermined by reasonability. According to Kant, this is the

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

21

ultimate expression of pure practical reason, which he understands as the capacity to set rational ends and motivate us to attain them. The implication of acting out of duty is different in each case. When duty is understood as a limiting condition operating on grounds for the adoption of ends, then pure practical reason checks the ends of empirical practical reason and requires the agent to act only on ends that are consistent with the maxim’s universalizability. This results in what Kant calls “perfect duties” and permitted actions. When, on the other hand, duty provides the ground and also the content of the end, practical reason has itself as its own object and becomes “pure.” The self-sufficiency of reason yields the duties Kant calls “imperfect,” which, in the Metaphysics of Morals, turn out to be those associated with seeking one’s perfection and the happiness of others. These are ends that it is a duty for an agent to have. The agent’s commitment here is to unconditionally adopt unconditional ends. They differ from perfect duties, which command a specific action, for they enjoin a form of willing that leaves its concrete application to the agent’s own judgment. What is a matter of duty here is an attitude, not an act. This interpretation makes clear the difference between perfect and imperfect duties that is altogether cryptic in the Groundwork. Kant says: “I understand . . . by a perfect duty one that admits no exception in favor of inclination” (Gr. 4: 422 note). Such a formulation is misleading because it suggests that imperfect duties make allowances for inclination, i.e., grant us “the liberty of making an exception to [the universal law] for ourselves (or just for this once)” (Gr. 4: 424). This allowance would not only disqualify imperfect duties from being “duties” at all, but would also confuse them with the frame of mind characteristic of an evil Gesinnung. The problem disappears if we interpret the genesis of imperfect duties in terms of the difference between ”reasonability,” concerned with limiting our contingent ends, and “pure rationality,” capable of setting ends that is a duty for us to have. Let me extract two further consequences from this reading. (1) Just as the meaning of the goodness of the will varies between perfect and imperfect duties according to the different implications of acting out of duty, the meaning of an evil will must also change depending on the kind of transgression an agent engages in. That is, the sense of “evil” must also depend on whether her actions disclose a failure in her commitment to duty as a limiting condition or to duty as providing moral content. Kant’s silence about this implication notwithstanding, my claim is that this distinction affects the design of his moral anthropology and plays itself out in the discussion of the vices associated with animality and humanity. Without it, I will argue in

22

CHAPTER 1

chapter 4, it is difficult to make sense of what Kant says about these predispositions to good in the Religion. (2) More immediately for our purposes, the relation between the demands for universality and for unconditionality draws attention to a possible connection between two of the main formulations of the categorical imperative.39 Just as the so-called formula of universality expresses the condition for the valid ground-end relation, the formula of the end-in-itself can be interpreted as expressing the conditions for the possibility of the end-subjective condition relation. This is so because the formula of end-in-itself is tailored to emphasize the matter of the moral law, and the material of volition is precisely what the demand for unconditionality is supposed to regulate. Indeed, the demand requires that the setting of subjective ends be measured first by our capacity for setting ends as such: Kant identifies this capacity with our “rational nature” (Gr. 4: 437). To treat humanity also as an end-in-itself means to comply with the conditions that allow an agent to reflect upon her capacity for setting ends as such. In this reflection, Kant believes, rational nature posits itself as its own object, as an end in itself. This characterization accounts for the positive role of the end-initself formula. But this formula contains also a negative role: humanity is a limiting condition and “must never be acted against” (Gr. 4: 437). Thus, an agent must restrict her ends in actions involving other agents, so that they would “always be able to contain in themselves the end of the very same action” (Gr. 4: 430). The restrictive character of the end-in-itself formula is what it shares with that of universality and justifies Kant in considering them as interchangeable (Gr. 4: 436).40 An action whose end contains its possible acceptance by all other agents must be based on “a maxim that at the same time contains in itself its own universal validity for every rational being” (Gr. 4: 438). The limiting condition in the end-in-itself formula is the intersubjective expression of the same limitation in the formula of universality. That is, it expresses the restriction that pure practical reason (the motive of duty) imposes upon empirical practical reason as the source of contingent ends. (2.2.4) Unconditionality and Moral Worth

The example of the sympathetic individual in Groundwork I illustrates the demand for unconditionality. The end (purpose) of his action presents all the appearances of being morally good, for “to be beneficent where one can is a duty” (Gr. 4: 398). Furthermore, “with-

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

23

out any other motive of vanity or self-interest [the friend-of-man (Menschenfreund)] finds an inner satisfaction in spreading joy around him and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is his own work” (Ibid.).41 If we disregard the agent’s subjective relation to the grounds of action, his lack of vanity and self-interest may seem to leave no room for reproach. Yet, Kant concludes, “however amiable [the action] might be, [it] has nevertheless no true moral worth but is on the same footing with other inclinations (Neigungen), for example, the inclination to honor.” (Ibid.) Inclinations however are based on the agent’s feeling (Gefühl) of pleasure and displeasure. Such feelings provide merely subjective grounds for action and, because of their contingent empirical genesis, set rational beings at odds with one another. The alleged irreproachability of our agent is then far from clear. To see what has gone awry we must reflect on the issue of moral content. The actions of the friend-of-man fall morally short neither because of a deficiency in the grounds (which “lack vanity and self-interest”) nor because of the intrinsic nature of the end (which “deserves praise and encouragement” (Ibid)). Rather, the deficiency lies in the subjective relation the agent establishes with the goodness of her end. Beneficence is adopted “because of the inner satisfaction in spreading joy around.” (Ibid) This makes the agent’s performance rest on her subjective state (Zustand) and prevents her from evaluating the moral significance of her action. This is why Kant compares beneficence with honor. Honor is praiseworthy “if it fortunately lights upon what is in fact the common interest and in conformity with duty” (Ibid). But it can also give rise to vainglory, foolhardiness, and cruelty, as the example of the Arathapescaw and Dog Rib Indians in the Religion illustrates. They have, Kant complains, “no other aim than mere slaughter. . . . [W]e see in the complacency with which the victors boast of their grandiose deeds (the butchery, the merciless killing, and the like) that it is in their mere superiority, and in the havoc that they can wreak, with no other end, that they place their good” (Rel. 6: 33 note). What is most disturbing for Kant is that the motivational structure that makes this Schadenfreude possible is indistinguishable from the bravery we so admire in our own military men.42 The moral ambiguity of honor, no less than the moral ambiguity of pity, make the “good” these feelings exhibit utterly conditional and contestable. As Kant proceeds to explain, the helpfulness of the friendof-man depends on his moral luck. As a gift of nature (Naturgabe), his “sympathetically attuned” soul is “undoubtedly good and desirable for many purposes, but can also be extremely evil and harmful (böse und schädlich) if the will which is to make use of [it], and whose distinctive

24

CHAPTER 1

constitution (Beschaffenheit) is therefore called character, is not good” (Gr. 4: 393). Imagine somebody very much in trouble, but intending to commit an awful crime.43 The sympathetic individual, strictly speaking, would have no desire to distinguish between the requests for help of the criminal and those of the victims. His motivational shortcomings distort his moral criteria: since the reasons for helping draw on his pleasure for “spreading joy around,” any one undergoing a serious predicament could fit the bill, no matter how that help affects his other obligations. Fortune, not choice, decides the issue—just as with the Indian and the soldier for whom honor could be either a pretext for cruelty or a preparation for morality. This implies that, when judged from the perspective of the impartial spectator (the victims, of course, would have other things to say), the surfeit of sympathy (a truly amiable feeling for Kant) is no better than the “coolness of the scoundrel” (Gr. 4: 394). Perhaps it is even worse, for the scoundrel will sooner or later show his true colors. Now, if we abstracted his pleasure in helping, and imagine now the friend-of-man “overclouded by his own grief” and thus “cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others” (Gr. 4: 398), this unfortunate constellation of feelings would bring with it the opportunity to reveal the value of a good will. “[F]ar from concealing it and making it unrecognizable” (Gr. 4: 397), these “subjective limitations and hindrances” are the occasion for the agent’s character to shine “all the more brightly” (Ibid.). When the gifts of nature and fortune are removed, we are better able to see whether the agent could “find within himself a source from which to give himself a far higher worth than a mere good-natured temperament might have” (Gr. 4: 398–99). Far from being an invitation to “despise [one’s friends] and do with repugnance what duty bids,” as Schiller’s famous satire suggested, Kant’s example is meant to provide a test for the goodness of one’s will.44 The question to ask oneself is: do you have the capacity to extricate yourself from the torpor of indifference and become “beneficent not from inclination but from duty”? An affirmative answer is a sure sign of the moral corrigibility of your inclinations, and hence of your moral worth. Neither the philanthropist nor the scoundrel, Kant believes, could honestly answer this way. Some interpreters have found this leveling of sympathy and evil outrageous. Richard Bernstein, for example, argues that “following out the logic of Kant’s rigorist analysis, there does not seem to be any way to avoid the conclusion that a benign sympathetic person (who gives the incentive of sympathy priority over the moral law in his maxim), Hitler, and even Eichmann (whose maxims presumably did not give

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

25

priority to respect for the moral law) are all morally evil.”45 More needs to be said to avoid the implication that heedless good nature differs only in degree, as a form of heteronomy, from brutal malice.46 But, in light of what we already know, Bernstein’s complaint seems ungrounded. For, Kant detects two kinds of limitations in the actions of the sympathetic individual. (1) The objective end is adopted conditionally, making compliance with the duty of beneficence utterly contingent on good luck. (2) Since the moral evaluation of the claims for help is not part of the agent’s mode of deliberation, the friend-of-man is unwilling to discriminate among legitimate and illegitimate claims. It is not simply, as Bernstein seems to think, that the sympathetic individual lacks “a further stretch of motivating thought”47—the problem for Kant is that his whole mode of thinking (Denkungsart) about morality is corrupted because of that very lack. The agent’s shortcomings exemplify the pathological and cognitive limitations unconditionality requires us to overcome. Sympathy, “however amiable it may be,” makes the agent morally smug and conceals his flaws behind a trail of good deeds. Under less fortunate circumstances, the same inadequacies may give rise to indifference and cruelty. If properly exploited by hate and propaganda, the gerrymandering of moral danger may well lead to mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Needless to say, the friend-of-man is no Hitler or Eichmann. This is why Kant says that his actions deserve “praise and encouragement” (Gr. 4: 398)—they create the social conditions for the development of morality. The sternest chastisement, on the other hand, seems lenient in the case of the others. But esteem (Hochschätzung) escapes them all—it must be reserved for the agent with true moral worth (sittlicher Wert), the agent with a good will. To determine who is a candidate for this highest accolade one might pursue some variant of Paton’s “method of isolation.”48 Placed outside the comfort zone (in Kant’s example, when grief eclipses natural inclination), we can isolate and better appraise the agent’s mettle, the strength of her character. Imagining oneself placed in extreme conditions allows one to judge one’s willingness to remove the blind spots in one’s moral horizon. Kant’s intuition is that, when the chips are down, there are no excuses. Malaise does not excuse us from the performance of duty, if it is a duty. It is no accident, then, that he discusses “moral content” in connection “with moral worth”: maxims with moral content are the closest a structurally heterogeneous will could come to the unlimited goodness of a good will (Gr. 4: 393).49 When the motive of duty is a limiting condition for contingent ends, pure practical reason works on empirical desires and depends on the

26

CHAPTER 1

matter of sensibility—the human, all-too-human situation. The demand for unconditionality, on the other hand, determines the rationality of those ends, thereby bringing pure practical reason closer to moral perfection. The “subjective limitations and hindrances” (Gr. 4: 397) that distinguish us from the holy will are here (almost) lifted. (3) THE CRITERION FOR EVALUATING PERSONS The structure of justification discussed in the prior sections shows that the goodness of particular actions is due to their complying with the conditions of reasonability and unconditionality. When undertaking an action, the agent supposes its end to be good, and, if her maxim accommodates the objective demands presented by the law, she considers the pursuit of the action to be justified. This is why Kant hints at the presence of two different levels of commitment on the part of the agent—one to pursue a certain type of maxim of action, and the other to reflect about what could justify such a pursuit. The move from the initial supposition of goodness in the end of the action to the final justification of the maxim indicates the agent’s mode of deliberation, the moral character of her will. For, while the initial supposition (in most cases) depends on how the agent is affected by the object’s properties, the final attribution of value depends on the maxim’s compliance with the categorical imperative as the criterion to select maxims in general.50 Kant makes a similar point in the Analytic of the second Critique, in which he links the good with practical necessity: “what we [ought to] call good must be, in the judgment of every reasonable man, an object of the faculty of desire, and evil must be, in everyone’s eyes, an object of aversion; hence for this appraisal reason is needed, in addition to sense”51 (KpV 5: 61). The universal agreement on the value of the intended object is due to the form of the maxim, i.e., it does not lie in the properties of any given object of desire (theorem III). Otherwise, the acceptability of the object to other agents would be contingent upon their subjective conditions, i.e., on whatever gives them pleasure or displeasure (theorem II). On this basis, it is impossible to encounter a “necessary” object. Every agent would call good whatever pleased her. But such a conception of the good could never yield a practical law. Even if a particular agent were strong enough to impose her idiosyncratic conception on others, she could at most determine their external conduct, not the adoption of her end. This is something that can only be done by each person choosing freely, without coercion. As

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

27

Kant puts it: “Another can indeed coerce me to do something that is not my end (but only a means to another’s end), but not to make this my end . . . I can have no end without making it an end for myself” (MS 6: 382). To supersede the situation of conflict associated with the primacy of self-love Kant resorts to the basic deliberative conditions we indicated above. When deliberating about the good, the agent must make the acceptability of the ground-end relation her criterion to choose among possible courses of actions, committing herself to act only on maxims that comply with those conditions. Since the conditions stem from the objective demands posited by practical laws with regard to maxims, and these are equal for all agents (i.e., they underlie our “common” moral consciousness), ends cohere in a system that can be shared by all rational beings. This yields what Kant calls a “kingdom of ends”: By a kingdom I understand a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws. Now since laws determine ends in terms of their universal validity, if we abstract from the personal differences of rational beings as well as from the content of their private ends we shall be able to think of a whole of all ends in systematic connection (a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and of the ends of his own that each may set himself, that is, a kingdom of ends. . . . (G 4: 433)

Given the importance of this result, one should ask: what prevents Kant’s rational strictures from being themselves arbitrary and ungrounded? The answer is clear in the Groundwork: the good will—the cornerstone of Kant’s justificatory framework.52 The good will complies with the unconditional demand of the moral law in all its volitions, for it is good “without limitation.” Since the human will is good insofar as it shows the good will in its actions, the structure of justification to which every rational agent must appeal is grounded precisely on the absolute nature of the good will. Without the unconditioned condition on which the conditions for the goodness of the agent’s actions rest, the structure of justification would itself remain ungrounded. In taking this stance, Kant relies on a key assumption regarding human rationality: the fate of reason is to search for the unconditioned whereby the sum of conditions is brought to completion (KrV A308/B364).53 Justification, the giving of practical reasons for actions, initiates a process of regress similar to what takes place in explanation, the giving of theoretical reasons for events. In both cases, the regress operates on the (transcendental) assumption that, if the

28

CHAPTER 1

conditioned is given, the unconditioned must be given as well (KrV A308/B364).54 Now, the good will is guided by two fundamental presuppositions: (1) rationality is itself the source of all value, and (2) rational nature spontaneously confers value without being determined by external objects. Rationality is the source of value, for it is the only property that can withstand the demand for unconditionality. This does not mean that the values of sensibility are unimportant, but rather that they are conditioned and bring no closure to justification. If justification were based on them, it would give way to an infinite series of further conditions, without ever reaching the unconditioned. This is why neither the objects of inclination, nor inclinations themselves, nor even anything that could be acquired through our action, could ever serve for Kant as a foundation of morality (Gr. 4: 428). Although these objects are all valuable, they are not absolutely valuable. In this model, value cannot be read off from objects but is conferred independently (a priori) by the agent’s rational activity. As Kant puts it in the second Critique: “the concept of good and evil must not be determined before the moral law (for which, as it would see, this concept would have to be made the basis) but only . . . after and by means of it” (KpV 5: 63). The logical pre-existence of the law generates a “paradox of method,” which introduces in morality a turn comparable to the Copernican revolution in metaphysics.55 The perspectival shift could be phrased thus: the rational law is the condition for the possibility of moral objects, which are given “after and by means of” it. Were the experience of value determined by pre-existent objects of desire, nothing could be said about them a priori and morality would alternate between dogmatism and skepticism (as metaphysics did before the first Critique). Just as the objectivity of the world of nature requires the a priori activity of our understanding, the objectivity of moral valuations cannot possibly rest on a cosmic order independent of our own choice. That is, objectivity does not precede but arises out of the activity of organizing desires according to a rule an a priori rule (in this case, the categorical imperative). Kant calls this volitional revolution “autonomy,” which reveals “the property (Beschaffenheit) of the will by which it is a law to itself (independently of any property of the objects of volition)” (Gr. 4: 440). A will that “is a law to itself” must have renounced all interest arising from empirical objects of desire and committed itself to its rational nature as the source of all value. It is thus transcendentally free. As Kant tries to demonstrate in Groundwork III and assumes as a fact of reason in the Analytic of the second Critique, the freedom of

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

29

such a will entails that it expresses the moral law in all its maxims. For, “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same” (Gr. 4: 447). Since a being “that cannot act otherwise than under the idea of freedom is just because of that really free in a practical respect” (Gr. 4: 448), it follows that human agents, due to the structural heterogeneity of their will, are obligated to comply with the conditions of autonomy. Autonomy, then, besides designating the essential property of a good will, must also provide a principle to establish the legitimacy of the volitions of a structurally heterogeneous will. “The principle of autonomy is . . . to choose only in such a way that the maxims of your choice are also included (zugleich) as universal law in the same volition” (Gr. 4: 440). That is, “autonomy” is both the property and the supreme principle that guides the choices of a good will. As a property, autonomy expresses the unconditioned condition grounding the structure of justification. This role satisfies reason’s need for the unconditioned, the defining trait Kant attributes to the good will. As a supreme principle, autonomy provides the criterion to evaluate the agent’s mode of deliberation. This is because it expresses the rule for assessing the way in which she adopts maxims in general. The fact that Kant places the principle of autonomy on a par with the other formulations of the categorical imperative should not obscure its distinctive status. For, the formulae of universality and of end-in itself have actions in mind—they require the agent to “act such that . . . ” Autonomy, on the other hand, bids her to “choose such that . . . ” Its universe of application is that of maxims, requiring them to be at-the-same-time (zugleich) included as universal law. Autonomy is thus a second-order principle, a meta-maxim governing how to think about morality and choose maxims of a certain kind, namely, those that express reason’s capacity to confer value and be the source of value. That this principle must have the status of a maxim follows from the fact that our will is not holy: its volitions are not of themselves a practical law (Gr. 4: 402 note). According to the logic of the Groundwork, therefore, a choice must also be part of the adoption of one’s mode of deliberation. Kant will soon make this explicit by introducing the notion of Gesinnung, whose goodness (or lack thereof) is the result of an act of transcendental freedom.56 In this context, autonomy defines what counts as the goodness of the agent’s second level of commitment to the categorical imperative. If the conditions of consistency in the ground-end relation and of unconditionality in the end-subjective relation are in fact made the guideline to select among maxims of actions, it is because those

30

CHAPTER 1

maxims are an expression of an autonomous will, which chooses and justifies them by reason of their compatibility with universal law-giving. Autonomy, as the overarching principle for evaluating an agent’s will, determines the criteria for evaluating maxims of action. It is the condition, itself unconditioned, on which those criteria rest. Because of this unconditionality, the commitment to autonomy epitomizes the self-legislative property of the will, i.e., of being positively free, not merely in the “negative” sense of being “efficient independently of alien causes determining it” (Gr. 4: 446). This second level of commitment thus defines the moral quality of a person as a whole and is the source of the value of her discrete actions, whose maxims are good insofar as they have been autonomously chosen. Kant contrasts autonomy with heteronomy, i.e., the “source of all spurious principles of morality” (Gr. 4: 440). A heteronomous will goes beyond itself and seeks its determining principle “in a property of any of its objects.” (Ibid.) “The will in that case does not give itself the law; instead, the object, by means of its relation to the will, gives the law to it.” (Ibid.) As a criterion for the agent’s adoption of maxims, heteronomy could only give imperatives that are hypothetical in form. They require the agent to will something because something else is willed, giving the pathological interest dominance over the practical one. Principles based on heteronomy are “spurious” and remain unjustified. For the will never determines itself immediately, “but only by means of an incentive that the anticipated effect of the action has upon [it] . . . Here yet another law must be put as the basis in me . . . that . . . in turn needs an imperative that would limit [my] maxim” (Gr. 4: 444). The conditional character of such commands forces reason to look for further conditions to ground and justify them. Kant believes that the only way to avoid an infinite regress and satisfy reason’s demand for the unconditioned is to assume the good/autonomous will. The property of such a will is expressed in the supreme principle guiding the agent’s selection of maxims that guarantees the acceptability of her conceptions of the good for every rational being. This is why Kant conceives of autonomy as the source of morally acceptable maxims, i.e., as the source of the goodness of maxims an agent displays in her actions. Actions based on these maxims are “right.” The consequence of this reading should now be clear: just as autonomy explains what is good about right maxims, heteronomy must be construed as the source of the evil of our wrongdoing. For, as a criterion of maxim-selection, heteronomy reveals the agent’s liability to take as ultimate reasons for action ends that cannot possibly be justified. These ends represent objects of volition that are not assumed uncondition-

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

31

ally, but rather on the condition of willing something else, and hence they escape moral revision and control. The value of a higher order desire is as ungrounded as that of the lower members in the chain, for it never provides the unconditioned condition practical reason needs to complete the justificatory series. In this mode of deliberation, the acceptability of ends is based on the contingency of the agent’s feeling of pleasure and displeasure, and since their adoption depends on changing empirical conditions, there is neither necessity nor universality in the goodness (agreeableness) a subject attributes to them. Moreover, the fundamental arbitrariness in the genesis of value generates a Hobbesian situation in which the standing of a subjective conception of the good depends on the agent’s capacity for imposing it on other agents. This explains why Kant considers the principles of heteronomy morally “spurious” (unecht). Principles here have an insurmountable privacy: their validity is strictly subjective, limited to the contingent arrangement of circumstances and the whims of those who find themselves in them. The evilness of the actions these principles are supposed to justify resides in the fact that they generate an ethical state of nature, a world where ends cannot possibly be universally shared. Maxims operate on the assumption that might is right. They are “spurious,” for they haunt the community with the specter of impending conflict. Their deficiency is concealed (but does not disappear) when agents accept the fragile truce of legality. Even if, by the beneficial effect of circumstances, agents manage never to break the letter of the law, no kingdom of ends can be established on this basis—no world where values are necessary objects for the faculty of desire, where ends are publicly shared because they result from having overcome our personal differences (the privacy of our conceptions of the good). Let me call this moral world a “jungle of means,” the conceptual counterpart of Kant’s “kingdom of ends.” It designates the agonistic relation between agents who are willing to determine the value of their values by sheer force, fear of punishment, and deception.57 In the cacophony of values that results, each agent secretly dreams of tyrannizing over every one else, forcing them to fight against or to submit to her whims, even if her true intentions never become fully manifest. So interpreted, heteronomy provides the transcendental condition for the possibility of the anthropological observation Kant makes in Idea for a Universal History. The human being is an animal which, when it lives among others of its species, has need of a master. For, he certainly misuses his

32

CHAPTER 1 freedom in regard to others of his kind; and although as a rational creature he wishes a law that sets limits to the freedom of all, his selfish animal inclination still misleads him into excepting himself from it where he may. Thus he needs a master, who breaks his stubborn will and necessitates him to obey a universally valid will with which everyone can be free. But where will he get this master? Nowhere else but from the human species. But then this master is exactly as much an animal who has need of a master. (I 8: 23)

Heteronomy makes possible the frame of mind dominant in the average modern individual. It characterizes the inner moral life of human beings in civilization, masters and subjects alike. When projected to a global level, Kant believes it underlies the violent dynamics of war and injustice we see repeating themselves in international relations. At both levels of analysis, individual and collective, there presumably is an underlying volitional form, which is evil not so much because of its consequences (prudence also favors the establishment of public right (öffentliche Gerechtigkeit) and a federation of states), but because the primacy of the pathological interest in thinking about the good prevents the constitution of a common world of values. Each agent conceives herself as an atomic hermeneutic center vying for hegemony, and this contributes to perpetuate the antagonism from which men try in vain to escape. In this context Kant utters a complaint that will resonate throughout the Religion: “out of such crooked wood as the human being is made, nothing entirely straight can be fabricated” (I 8:23). With this sentence, Kant says both more and less than the conceptual framework of the Groundwork would allow him to say. More, because the complaint in Idea refers to the human species as a whole, while heteronomy is a notion strictly limited to the sphere of individual morality; and less, because with heteronomy Kant manages to reintroduce in his a priori moral framework “all actions that are already recognized as contrary to duty” (Gr. 4: 397), which he said he would pass over in silence at the beginning of the Groundwork. From this imbalance, it emerges the doctrine of radical evil, as I will try to explain in the next chapter. (4) SUMMARY My claim here has been that the systematic connection Kant draws in the Groundwork between autonomy and a good will is completed, by dint of conceptual symmetry, when we analyze their theoretical

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

33

counterparts: heteronomy and evil. In Kant’s argument, autonomy and heteronomy are competing forms of deliberation and justification, each championing an interest in a structurally heterogeneous will, the primacy of which determines what kind of person one is—what one takes to be the ultimate principle for action (duty or self-love). The good or evil character of the will, therefore, determines the kind of moral world the agent makes possible through her first level of commitment to the categorical imperative, the rightness or wrongness of her maxims of action. The kingdom of ends is the moral world resulting from the systematic integration of the objects of volition of autonomous agents; the jungle of means, the world brought forth by the motivational primacy of self-love in heteronomous agents. Both types of world reflect the most characteristic move of Kant’s morality: a shift from the consequences of action to their underlying volitional form. Although antagonism is mostly hidden in actions according to duty, only a good will that chooses her first order maxims out of respect for duty (i.e., autonomously) is conducive to a lasting peace. Only morality provides the archetype of a master without a master— being unconditioned, the good will puts an end to the series of justifying reasons. Heteronomy, on the other hand, masks the continuation of conflict—it is incapable of constituting a world of common values, and (in some cases) is the positive source of our wrongdoings (i.e., of actions against duty). This point brings us back to the beginning of the chapter. I tried here to show the necessity of the concept of “evil” in the Groundwork that is obscured by Kant’s primary concern with the goodness of a will. Skepticism about the role of evil is based on a misunderstanding about the role the good will plays in the process of justification of maxims: without a rational source of value there would be no justified values. By distinguishing between the criterion to evaluate actions and the criterion to evaluate persons, I drew upon the notions of autonomy and heteronomy to illuminate what Kant means by a “good” and “evil” will. The alleged vacuity of Kant’s concept of evil rests on the confusion between the first and second level of commitment to the categorical imperative. It is at the second level that the good or evil of a will resides: in her mode of deliberation, the agent positions herself either as a legislating member in the kingdom of ends or as a would-be tyrant in the jungle of means, making rules that invite or preclude the endorsement of other agents. It is fair to say that the confusion between evaluative criteria is partly due to Kant’s own language, in which autonomy appears both as the supreme principle of morality and as yet one more formulation of

34

CHAPTER 1

the categorical imperative. The four examples of Groundwork II, seemingly concerned with isolated actions, contribute to obscure the role autonomy has as the fundamental principle of maxim selection. My claim has been that this confusion can be cleared away once we ground Kant’s deontology on his theory of value and justification. This is what Kant claims to be doing in Groundwork I, in which duty is a contrasting device, not the end of the inquiry. This intuition should guide our interpretation of his famous examples (as we illustrated with promising). Such a strategy assures a central place to the notion of a good will, whose necessary correlate is an evil will, not a wrong action. NOTES 1. A shorter (and considerably different) version of this chapter appeared, under the same title, in Kant-Studien 97, no. 4, (2006): 430–51. 2. “Man, with all his faults/ is better than a host of angels without a will”. Kant quotes these verses in his Introduction to MPV (6: 396). 3. A good example of such crisscrossing of interests is Radical Evil, ed. by Joan Copjec (London: Verso, 1996). 4. Cf. Otfried Höffe, “Ein Thema widergewinnen: Kant über das Böse,” in Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, ed. O. Höffe und Annemarie Pieper (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), 1–34. Höffe argues for the necessity of reviving the question of evil, which, he believes, was displaced from the center of philosophical debate in the 20th century, despite the many events that made its consideration most urgent. 5. Cf. Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 146. Paul Guyer argues that what Allison calls the “Incorporation Thesis,” according to which an inclination is not by itself a cause of action unless the agent incorporates it as a motive in her maxim, already entails the idea of a “fundamental maxim,” which Kant will later identify as the “Gesinnung” in the Religion. See Paul Guyer, “Moral Worth, Virtue, and Merit,” in Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, Op. Cit., 294–95. 6. Cf. Allen Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 283 ff. Sharon Anderson-Gold pioneered this social line of interpretation, emphasizing the competitiveness inherent in comparative self-love as Kant presents it in the predisposition to humanity (R 6: 27). Cf., e.g. Sharon Anderson-Gold, Unnecessary Evil, chapters 2 and 3, and her earlier “Kant’s Rejection of Devilishness: The Limits of Human Volition,” Idealistic Studies 14 (1984): 43 ff. 7. See Goethe’s letter to Herder (June 7, 1793) and Schiller’s to Koerner (Februarz 22, 1793). These references are taken from Emil Fackenheim, “Kant and Radical Evil,” University of Toronto Quarterly 23 (1954): 340. The reactions of Kant’s contemporaries still inform our sensitivities. Gordon Michalson, for instance, provides a good example of the continuity of Schiller’s line of thought. As Michalson sees it, “Radical evil can thus be viewed as the final result of Kant’s

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

35

latent resentment against the body, his philosophical chagrin that our reason must cohabit with sensuousness” (Fallen Freedom, 69). Fackenheim’s emphasis on individual’s autonomy at the expense of Kant’s historic and anthropological reflections could be interpreted as in line with Goethe’s. Cf. Emile Fackenheim, “Kant’s Concept of History.” Kant-Studien 58, no 3 (1956-7): 381-98. 8. I use here “character” (in the moral sense) and “Gesinnung” interchangeably. It should be noted, however, that there is in Kant also an honorific sense of “character” which surfaces at times, for example, in the Metaphysics of Morals and Anthropology. In this honorific sense, “character” designates the “property of the will by which the subject binds himself to definite practical principles that he has prescribed to himself irrevocably by his own reason. Although these principles may sometimes indeed be false and incorrect, nevertheless the formal element of the will in general, to act according to firm principles (not to fly off hither and yon, like a swarm of gnats), has something precious and admirable in it; for it is also something rare” (A 7: 292). “Gesinnung,” on the other hand, designates the single transcendental act of freedom by means of which an agent imposes on herself a certain mode of thinking, either giving primacy to the incentive of self-love or to that of duty. To the extent that this act conditions all subsequent choices, the meanings of “Gesinnung” and “character” tend to overlap. Yet, in the honorific sense, “character” entails “resolve,” commitment to firm principles, while “Gesinnung” should be reserved to designate the outcome of a discrete, atomic act of freedom. “Character,” then, has a diachronic dimension lacking in “Gesinnung.” They emerge also at different points: Kant believes that few have acquired character “before the age of thirty” (A: 7: 294), whereas the Gesinnung is said to be “innate,” “not earned in time,” always having been there “from his youth on” (R 6: 25). These differences in meaning, however, are negligible in Religion I, and I will adhere to Kant’s relaxed usage in the sequel. 9. The first in doing so is Kant himself, who often speaks of good and evil “actions.” For reasons evident below, I will consider this a kind of category mistake that applies to actions a predicate that strictly belongs to persons. 10. Rüdiger Bittner interprets maxims as Lebensregeln. Cf., R. Bittner, “Maximen,” Akten des 4. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, ed. G. Funke (Mainz, 1974), 485–98. This view overlaps with Onora O’ Neill’s, who takes maxims to be fundamental intentions that control and guide our more specific intentions. Cf. Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 84-104. 11. There have been many recent attempts to correct this misunderstanding. Crucial is the work of Onora O’Neill (Constructions of Reason, especially “Kant after Virtue”, chap. 8, 145-162), Christine Korsgaard (Creating the Kingdom of Ends (London: Cambridge University Press, 1996, particularly in “Kant’s Formula of Humanity,”106–32, “Aristotle and Kant on the source of value,” 225-248, and “Two distinctions in Goodness,” 249–74), and Barbara Herman (The practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993, particularly in “On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty,” 1–22, and in “Leaving Deontology Behind,” 208–40).

36

CHAPTER 1

12. In a nutshell: dutiful actions are unconditionally good because they are the most accomplished expression of a good will, the unconditioned condition of all goodness. Duty, being the good will’s most consummate expression, sets the condition for the goodness of all other goods. Korsgaard makes this point repeatedly. Cf. Op. Cit., “Aristotle and Kant on the source of value” (pp. 239 ff.) and “Two distinctions in goodness”(pp. 257 ff.). Her views have somewhat evolved in her more recent writings. Cf., e.g., Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity, Cambridge University Press, 1996, and “Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant”, The Journal of Ethics, Vol. 3 (1999), pp. 1-29. 13. See Nelson Potter, “Kant and the Moral Worth of Actions,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 34 (1996): 227-8. 14. In the Religion, actions of this kind will be the first step in Kant’s system of inferences to establish the existence of an evil will, i.e., eine bösse Gesinnung. See Rel 6: 20. 15. Most significantly, the second thesis of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil, which refers to the species as the unit of moral analysis, draws on Kant’s doctrine of the highest good. As I argue in chapter 2, Kant will find here a way of interpreting the empirical dynamics of unsocial sociability in a manner compatible with the a priori demands of morality. Furthermore, while the doctrine of the fact of reason (“das Faktum der Vernunft”) and the belief that the goodness or evilness of the will is itself chosen gain full swing in the Religion, they are absent in the Groundwork. These latter views, which I elaborate in chapter 3, set in motion the problem of justification of the choice of one’s moral character. Finally, Kant’s introduction of a systematic distinction between Willkür (choice) and Wille (pure practical reason) enriches and clarifies the monolithic vocabulary about the will (Wille) in the Groundwork. 16. This, of course, is not because consequences are unimportant for a finite will like ours (the opposite is true), but because they are untrustworthy as guides for moral judgment. Just as the coolness of the scoundrel can make him more dangerous and abominable (Gr. 4: 394), the gifts of nature and fortune can make the evil will look more innocent and agreeable than it is. Modern life, for Kant, teems with sheepish wolves. Kant’s references to “misology” and the miseries of civilization at the beginning of the Groundwork (Gr. 4: 395–96) make clear the Rousseauian background of this view. 17. This definition has suggested several interpretations among Kant scholars. They vary from understanding the represented “laws” as moral laws, to an understanding that includes subjective and objective principles (hypothetical and categorical imperatives). I side with this latter reading, for it is the only one that makes sense of Kant’s discussion of imperatives following the above definition. Cf. Pierre Laberge, “La définition de la volonté comme faculté d’agir selon la représentation des lois,” in Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Ein kooperativer Kommentar, ed. Otfried Höffe (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989), 83–96. 18. In the Groundwork, Kant does not use the opposition “arbitrium brutum” and “liberum arbitrium that he introduced in the solution to the Third Antinomy (KrV A533/B561 ff.). The terminological license I am taking dove-

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

37

tails, as it will become clear below, with Henry Allison’s analysis of freedom and rational agency, i.e., the so-called “Incorporation Thesis,” which he sees operating already in the first Critique. Cf. Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, chapter 2. 19. Kant defines the faculty of desire (Begehrungsvermögen) in the second Critique as “a being’s faculty to be by means of its representations the cause of the reality of the objects of these representations.” (KpV, 5: 9 n, 8) See also MS 6: 211; KU 5: 178n; and A 7: 251. He does not provide a similar definition in the Groundwork. 20. Kant’s peculiar use of the word “nature” (Natur) in this sentence is worth noticing. For, it contains an ambiguity comparable to the one in the statement “der Mensch is von Natur böse”(“man is evil by nature”) in Religion. If “nature” here meant “the sum of objects of experience,” as it does in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant’s claims would make no sense, for neither evil nor the contingent obedience to the grounds of reason would be imputable. 21. A similar split can be found at the cognitive level between intuitions and concepts. This isomorphism, I will argue in chapter 3, has important consequences for how to interpret Kant’s conception of the will. 22. Kant often makes this argument having in mind the notion of obligation (Verbindlichkeit) rather than of necessitation (Nötigung) (Cf., e.g. Gr. 4: 408). “Obligation” is a more restrictive concept, tantamount to moral necessitation—i.e., the necessitation arising from the categorical imperative. As is introduced in the definition of the will (Gr. 4: 413), “necessitation” also includes the laws of empirical practical reason, i.e., hypothetical imperatives. Since the use of empirical practical reason is relatively unproblematic for Kant, he usually focuses on obligation in order to make a case for the non-instrumental use of reason. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that the relation of necessitation is more fundamental: the binding of the moral law (contained in the notion of being obliged—verbunden) is a special case of the binding that takes place in all choices of a heterogeneous will. 23. Imperatives do not apply to the holy will, for whom the “ought” is always an “is” (Sollen is Wollen) (Gr. 4: 414), nor do they apply to the animal will, which is indifferent to the order of reason (KrV A548/B576). 24. Christine Korsgaard makes this point in relation to Kant’s view of obligation (Verbindlichkeit) and distinguishes between internalist and externalist conceptions of normativity. Externalists hold that understanding that and why doing something is right is not sufficient reason to do it. Cf. C. Korsgaard, “Kant’s analysis of obligation: The argument of Groundwork I,” 43. 25. Cf. Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 40. I tried here to find within the Groundwork the elements of the view Kant makes explicit in the Religion. My reconstruction thus turns out to be more convoluted than Allison’s, avoids the risks of anachronism while achieving the same goal. 26. Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 39. As Allison puts it: “According to this model, then, intentional actions of a rational agent are never ‘merely’ the causal consequence of the agent’s antecedent psychological state (or any other antecedent condition for that matter) but require, as necessary

38

CHAPTER 1

condition, an act of spontaneity.” (5) This act, Allison explains, “is the practical analogue of the spontaneity of the understanding.” (5) I will follow this clue in chapter 3. 27. Paul Guyer has identified a tension between Kant’s conception of inclinations in the Groundwork, in which Kant claims that they have “conditional worth” and, as the source of needs, trigger “the universal wish of every rational being to be altogether free from them” (Gr. 4: 428), and the Religion, in which he claims that “considered in themselves natural inclinations are good” (Rel. 6: 58). See Guyer, Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, 223-224. I have tried here to reduce this tension by emphasizing those sections in the Groundwork in which Kant speaks of inclinations as expressing a necessary interest for a structurally heterogeneous will. This reading provides a smoother transition to the Religion, but it is undeniable that the passages Guyer notices suggest a Stoic side to the earlier Kant that I am downplaying. 28. This reading is inspired by Barbara Herman, who distinguishes between two different functions of the motive of duty: its roles as a limiting condition of one’s desires and in morally worthy actions. These roles broadly coincide with the ones I attribute to the demands for universality and unconditionality (Cf Hermann, The Practice of Moral Judgment, 6-17). I depart from Herman’s reading in that I include hypothetical imperatives under the demand for universality, whereas she restricts her analysis to the motive of duty. More importantly, Herman’s concern is primarily with actions, whereas I mimic her distinction to get at the moral value of persons. 29. Thomas Hill argues for this formulation of the Hypothetical Imperative. It modifies Kant’s own (Gr. 4: 417), for it introduces the possibility of abandoning the end in order to preserve the reasonability of the action. Cf. Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 17–37. 30. If this reading is correct, we can also face Ross’ complaint that Kant confuses the motive of duty with the end of the action, producing an infinite regress. Duty is not the end of action, but the condition for performing it. In Kant’s theory of action, (subjective) ends proceed from empirical practical reason and cannot be confused with the motive of duty. Cf. William David Ross, The Right and the Good (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1930), 5. 31. Kant commentators usually call the operational version of these commitments ”the CI procedure.” This designation is inspired by Rawls and underlies the “constructivist” reading of Kant’s morality, which is dominant in the Anglophone literature. For a succinct description of the procedure, see John Rawls, “Themes in Kant’s Moral Philosophy,” in Kant’s Transcendental Deductions, ed. Eckart Förster (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 82–90, and more recently in his published Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 167–70. The details and complications of the CI procedure are not essential to our discussion here. The point I am trying to make is that, even if we were to ascribe to a constructivist position, Kant’s conception of evil introduces unexpected bumps into how the CI-procedure is usually read.

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

39

32. Even in this latter case, her actions may still conform to duty “from anxiety about detrimental results” (Gr. 4: 402)—the dictates of prudence usually overlap with those of morality, but this agreement is purely contingent for Kant. 33. This awareness depends on what Barbara Herman has called “rules of moral salience,” which represent “a kind of knowledge” prior to making moral judgments and necessary for the CI-procedure to work. As Herman puts it, “[a]cquired as elements in a moral education, [these rules] structure an agent’s perception of his situation so that what he perceives is a world with moral features. They enable him to pick out those elements of his circumstances or of his proposed action that require moral attention.” (See Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment, 77) 34. Along similar lines, in “Moral Worth, Virtue, and Merit” Paul Guyer defends the need for distinguishing two levels of commitment in Kant’s model of rational agency. His reading, however, tends to favor a smoother relation between what he calls, following Nelson Potter, “action-maxims” and the “fundamental maxim” than the one envisioned in this study. For Guyer, “a free agent’s actions are not the product of some number of maxims that are adopted and function independently of each other, one of which might perhaps recommend acting on one sort of psychological incentive or inclination while another recommends against acting on some other sort of inclination. Rather, it is Kant’s view that the particular maxims a person adopts are always adopted as a consequence of his commitment to one or the other of two fundamental and overarching maxims: the maxim always to do, out of respect for duty, all and only what duty requires or permits ( . . . ); or the maxim always to do, out of self-love, what inclination suggests, even when so doing is compatible with doing what duty requires.” (Guyer, Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, 294–95) As the example of promising shows, in the relation between different-order maxims Kant allows for a great deal of latitude and tension. The idea of subsumption implicit in Guyer’s model, on the other hand, seems to apply the modus operandi of theoretical reason to practical reason, in which judgment plays a different role. Given Kant’s commitment to the “Incorporation Thesis,” there must be independence in the acts of freedom at each level of choice. Guyer’s language, then, seems too strong: the “fundamental maxim” cannot be a maxim “always to do” what duty or inclination might suggest. The influence of inclination, and the consequent possibility that it become motivating, cannot be ruled out without, at the same time, seriously limiting the agent’s transcendental freedom. 35. Quoted above (Gr. 4: 422 note). 36. Ross’ famous criticism properly belongs here, in the sphere of what Kant calls “imperfect duties” in the Groundwork. However, Ross overlooks the fact that these objective ends (e.g., beneficence) can be carried out in many possible ways—out of duty, sympathy, self-love, fear of reproof, and so on. Kant’s point is that the worth of these actions is not revealed in the purpose (whose “rightness” is alike in all the different circumstances), but in the principle of

40

CHAPTER 1

volition. This principle obliges the agent to will the end in a certain manner and affects the way she carries it out. 37. The notion of “moral content” is related to the notion of “moral worth.” Kant introduces the former at the beginning of the Groundwork in his discussion of the three types of motivation (Gr. 4: 398,). 38. Cf. Gr. 4: 428, 36. Kant’s distinction in the Groundwork s differs from my own. I am adopting here the terminology of his later works. 39. I follow Paton’s taxonomy here. Cf. H. J. Paton, The Categorical Imperative (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1947), 129 ff. 40. All this plays itself out later on in the Doctrine of Virtue, where besides benevolence and the cultivation of talents Kant includes as duties of virtue the omissions from, e.g., suicide, gluttony, avarice, servility, etc. Cf. Paul Guyer’s interpretation of these apparently narrow duties in “Moral Worth, Virtue, and Merit,” in Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, 313-323. 41. I have altered the quotation by changing the persons from plural to singular. Following Herman (The Practice of Moral Judgment, 18), I think that key for understanding the example is to see that “the souls so sympathetically attuned” (in the first part of the example) and the “person of cold temperament” (in the second part) refer to one and the same person. 42. Kant argues: “this is not without basis in reason. For that a human should be capable of possessing and adopting as is goal something (honor) which he values more highly still than his life, and of sacrificing all self-interest to it, this surely bespeaks of a certain sublimity in his disposition” (Rel. 6: 33 note). Kant’s argument here illustrates an important point: the moral primacy of self-love is compatible with a great deal of self-sacrifice—it has nothing necessarily hedonistic or egotistic about it, as it has been often taken to have. I return to this point in chapter 3. 43. I am following here Barbara Herman’s analysis. Cf. B. Herman, On the Value of Acting from Duty,” in The Practice of Moral Judgment, 5. 44. Schiller’s “Scruples of Conscience” is quoted by Allen Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 28. This example illustrates some of the reasons Kant had to oppose moral feeling as a possible foundation of morality. Cf. C. Korsgaard, “Skepticism about Practical Reason,” Creating the Kingdom of Ends, 312 ff. 45. Cf. Richard Bernstein, Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), “Kant at War with Himself,” 19. 46. See chapter 3 (§5). 47. Richard Bernstein, Ibid., p. 17. Here Bernstein draws on Korsgaard’s interpretation of the example (Christine Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends, Op. Cit., p. 60). 48. H. J. Paton, The Categorical Imperative, op. cit., pp. 47–50. For an insightful criticism of the Herman-Henson debate on “overdetermination,” see Paul Guyer, “Moral Worth, Virtue, and Merit,” op. cit., pp. 289-293. 49. Cf. A. Wood, Op. Cit, pp. 33 ff. 50. Cf. Christine Korsgaard, “Two Distinctions In Goodness,” Creating the Kingdom of Ends, 267-8. I leave aside in this summary the complications of imperfect duties.

ON THE ALLEGED VACUITY OF KANT’S CONCEPT OF EVIL

41

51. I have modified the translation. “Was wir gut nennen sollen, muß in jedes vernünftigen Menschen Urteil ein Gegenstand des Begehrungsvermögen sein” (My emphasis). 52. The notion of “Gesinnung,” which presupposes a choice at the fundamental level of commitment to the categorical imperative, will complicate the Groundwork’s view I am describing. I deal with this problem in chapter 3. 53. Christine Korsgaard makes this point in her “Kant’s formula of Humanity,” Op. Cit., pp. 116–19. 54. The Kantian assumption about the fate of reason plays a central role in Susan Neiman’s interpretation, according to which evil breaks down the nexus of intelligibility and leads us to ask for an unremittingly further “why”. See, S. Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 80 ff. 55. Cf. John R. Silber, “The Copernican Revolution in Ethics: The Good Reexamined,” Kant-Studien 51 (1959–60): 85 ff. 56. According to Allison, the new notion responds to the problem of explaining the continuity of choice within this framework. Cf. Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 136. I will return to this point in chapter 3. 57. Karl Jaspers makes a similar point in his “Das radical Böse bei Kant,” Rechenschaft und Ausblick (Münich, R. Piper, 1951), 109.

2

Radical Evil and the Architectonic of Practical Reason1

“Whatsoever you show me thusly, unbelieving, I hate it.” —Horace2

We saw in the first chapter that doubts about the role the notion of “evil” has in Kant’s foundational project in the Groundwork subside once we realize that an evil will, and not a wrong action, is the necessary conceptual correlate of a good will, Autonomy and heteronomy, we suggested, are Kant’s criteria for determining the value of a person. A heteronomous agent is “evil,” because her mode of deliberation indicates a willingness to act on unjustifiable reasons. Her desires float free from the constraints of the categorical imperative, and questions of value are ultimately decided by deception, fear, or force. This frame of mind generates what we called, in playful contraposition to Kant’s “kingdom of ends,” a “jungle of means,” i.e., the type of moral world in which might is right—even if, by the contingent arrangement of circumstances, there are no visible signs of violence to reveal it. It is not self-love as such, we concluded, but its claim to hegemony (to set values irrespective of justificatory constraints) that Kant considers morally pernicious—the source of the evil the world occasionally exhibits. Instances of mutual antagonism, the phenomena Idea for a Universal History considered in light of a teleological account of our moral destiny, thus find their transcendental condition for possibility in heteronomy, considered as a mode of deliberation. The prevalence of this cast of mind, one might retrospectively suggest from the vantage point of the Groundwork, is what for Kant gives rise to the form of life dominant in the modern world. It accounts for the relentless competitive activity of bourgeois individuality, for the duplicity in interpersonal relations, 43

44

CHAPTER 2

for the need of a coercive/legal system to regulate social interactions and keep citizens in check, for the violence that erupts when the public sword is missing, and for the aggressiveness different states display in their mutual dealings. Heteronomy, according to this retrospective reading, can be assumed to underlie the fundamental tension Kant detected at the heart of the present historical situation of humanity: evil men can make good citizens.3 My contention is that the need to account for, impute, and denounce this tension, not as a transitory stage in a narrative of ineluctable moral progress, but in terms of the conception of moral agency that emerges from the Groundwork, motivates the development of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil in the Religion. The plan stepmotherly nature has set up for us must be interpreted now in terms of a voluntary exercise of transcendental freedom on our part. Punishment and desert must depend on justice and merit, not on the blind play of natural forces—nature’s plan, in a word, must become our own. But this desideratum creates for Kant the problem of how to expand the a priori framework of morality in order to embrace large-scale anthropological tendencies. A tool Kant originally designed for persons and actions had now to be calibrated in order to evaluate social phenomena beyond the individual’s control. I will venture in this chapter an interpretation of how this transformation took place. We begin by tracing Kant’s two main theses about radical evil to their conceptual sources in the Groundwork. This will help us dispel the impression that his doctrine is a mere rationalization of religious prejudices. More importantly, it will recommend a way to provide, on Kant’s behalf, a justification for his controversial claim “man is evil by nature”—a justification without which his view flounders, but which, after careful examination of the first book of the Religion, seems still to be missing. The main service of this reconstruction is that it introduces a principle of order into what otherwise might appear as rhapsodic comments on Kant’s part. There is a constructive principle, we will discover, under the maze of details: it not only shapes the internal arrangement of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil, but also determines a place for it within an “architectonic practical reason,” in which the different parts of Kantian ethics harmonize according to a plan (KrV A833/B861). (1) A BRIEF GENEALOGY OF EVIL’S RADICALISM I propose we interpret the “radicalism” of evil as a result of Kant’s extending in the Religion two basic assumptions of the Groundwork:4

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

45

(a) Kant radicalizes his doctrine of transcendental freedom to comprise now a choice of the ultimate principle of maxim-selection. By “radicalization” I mean the extension of freedom, whose sphere of influence in the Groundwork was limited to the choice of maxims of action (characteristic of the first level of commitment to the categorical imperative), to cover now the choice of the principle of maximselection (characteristic of the second level of commitment). This extension implies a reflection of freedom upon itself, for it expresses the agent’s decision about how she will use her freedom in general. This act of reflection is imputable—by its means, the agent constitutes her moral character by choosing a rule for choosing. To refer to this act, Kant resorts to the notion of Gesinnung (disposition), i.e., the agent’s “first (erste) subjective ground of the adoption of maxims” (Rel. 6: 25). An agent’s Gesinnung is good or evil according to the principle of maxim-selection she has chosen to give herself, i.e., according to the self-imposed deliberative tendency of her fundamental maxim.5 This conception bolsters the first thesis with which we characterized Kant’s doctrine of radical evil: “Evil corrupts the basis of all maxims, for it lies in the individual’s Gesinnung.” The notion of “Gesinnung,” however, roughly matches what Kant would have called in the Groundwork a “good” or an “evil” will (Wille). Since the main lines of the conceptual apparatus are already in place, the deduction of an evil Gesinnung is relatively unproblematic for Kant, as his two-step inference at the beginning of Book I indicates.6 Kant operates here within the traditional boundaries of morality: the individual and her freedom. What is truly innovative is the host of problems the Gesinnung introduces in terms of the justification of maxims and the moral constitution of agents. These problems reveal a hidden voluntaristic dimension in Kant’s ethics, as well as the need to develop a more complex conceptual apparatus if we are to impute an evil “first choice” to an agent. I will deal with these questions in the next chapter. More immediate for our purposes is avoiding a typical misunderstanding: with the adjective “radical” Kant does not intend to express the intensity of harm or the amount of immorality an agent produces with her actions, but the location of their source at the level of the individual’s Gesinnung. “Radical,” in this sense, refers neither to the quality nor to the effects of actions, but to the locus of evil; it is a spatial metaphor, not one of intensity or magnitude.7 The first half of the title of Religion I makes this clear—as Kant himself describes it, his project has to do with “the indwelling (Einwohnung) of the evil principle alongside (neben) the good” (Rel. 6: 19). Kant’s spatial image will disappoint

46

CHAPTER 2

those who, like Arendt, expected to find traces of the demonic in it.8 Such expectations, however, miss the Rousseaueian undertone of the Kantian metaphor. The progress of civilization severs être and paraître, and the “radicalism” of evil is an admonition to distrust the appearance of virtue (Tugendschein) our actions generally display. (b) Kant naturalizes the principles of his moral psychology. By “naturalization” I do not mean, as is usually the case in contemporary discussions, the reduction of ethical phenomena to their ultimate biological determination. Such a use would not be strictly Kantian—at least if we take seriously his mature, incompatibilist moral philosophy (dominant in the Religion, in which “human nature” is chosen as an act of transcendental freedom).9 By “naturalization” I mean, instead, Kant’s extension of the conflict between competing incentives in the human will, which in the Groundwork characterized the individual’s subjective use of freedom, to the subjective use of freedom attributable now to the human species as a whole. This extension leads Kant to introduce a more comprehensive sense of agency, referring to the entire class of finite rational beings. It is within this framework that it makes sense to interpret his second thesis about radical evil: “Moral corruption is not a matter of the individual, but of the whole species, for all human beings have a propensity to evil (Hang zum Bösen).” Needless to say, when Kant speaks of the species as an “agent,” he does so figuratively. He is using “agency” in a regulative sense, i.e., as an idea of reason useful to give global historical phenomena a distinctive moral interpretation.10 Strictly speaking, the species is a subject of imputation, not a metaphysical entity to which we can ascribe actions in a constitutive, literal sense—as we do in the case of individuals.11 The purpose of Kant’s extended sense of agency is to move our attention away from the existential obstacles a single individual faces in the battle to attain virtue (the main point of the “natural dialectic” in the Groundwork) toward the historical struggle the species must wage in the pursuit of its own destiny. This struggle, Kant believes, gives rise to a different kind of obligation: “Now, here we have a duty sui generis, not of human beings towards human beings but of the human race towards itself. For every species of rational beings is objectively—in the idea of reason—destined to a common end, namely the promotion of the highest good as a good common to all” (Rel. 6: 97). The new sense of agency represents a breakthrough with respect to the moral individualism of the Groundwork, but it is not without precedent. Among other places, Kant had long ago argued in the second proposition of Idea that it is the human species—not the individual—

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

47

that has a distinctive moral teleology: the development of “those predispositions whose goal is the use of reason” (I 8: 18). 12 This is a collective goal, different in kind from the ends an individual sets for herself. It involves mutual collaboration and leads to the creation of culture (I 8: 19). Furthermore, to the extent that the human being “should labor and work himself up so far that he might make himself worthy of well-being through his conduct of life” (I 8: 20), it is partaking of this collective project that promotes his rational self-esteem (vernünftige Selbstschätzung). What is missing in these opening sections of Idea, however, is the conception of the human species as an agent: it is nature’s will—not ours—that sets the end (the development of rational predispositions) and procures the means (unsocial sociability) to attain it.13 The species is a pawn in a plan set by another, and it plays the game mostly unawares: The human being wills concord; but nature knows better what is good for his species: it wills discord. He wills to live comfortably and contentedly; but nature wills that out of sloth and inactive contentment he should through himself into labor and toils, so as, on the contrary, prudently to find out the means to pull himself out of the latter. (I 8: 21)

This element of passivity and unintentionality disappears in the Religion. The species finally comes to age: it sets its own end and is accountable for its own failures. The historical obstacles toward attaining our moral destiny are henceforth to be construed as self-imposed. But such construal rests on a delicate balancing act. Although the will of the species must be interpreted as analogous to that of the individual in all relevant senses of agency, the species is not to be confused with the Hegelian Geist. A candidate for moral judgment, the species does not properly act—it is we who attribute, for the purposes of evaluation and imputation, global patterns of action and intentionality to what otherwise would have seemed fortuitous acts. This need of ours, however, should not lead us to hypostatize into a substance what is, in strict sense, only a subject.14 (1.1) Logical Independence Kant walks this fine line by suggesting an isomorphism between the will of the species and that of the individual. The second half of his title, “Of the radical evil in human nature” (my emphasis), captures the meaning well: the issue is not of location, but of collective moral character. Although the two parts of Kant’s title are connected by the preposition “or,” which may (misleadingly) suggest an implicit iden-

48

CHAPTER 2

tity between them, the bulk of the text in Religion I makes clear that Kant has something else in mind: [B]y the human being of whom we say that he is good or evil by nature we are entitled to understand not individuals (for otherwise one human being could be assumed to be good, and another evil, by nature) but the whole species . . . ” (Rel 6: 25; my emphasis)15

Indeed, the consistency of Kant’s doctrine depends on realizing that each of its theses entails a logically independent unit of moral analysis. For, if the evaluation of the character of the species did not draw on its own moral standard, the evil an individual does would be explicated (and exculpated) as a matter of species affiliation, not as the result of her choice.16 Similarly, the propensity to evil would make it impossible for the individual to have a good will or Gesinnung. In both cases, a choice at the level of the species would carry causal efficacy at the level of the individual, completely undermining her autonomy: the evil we do would in fact be done by the species in us. The same point can be made if we start from the other end of the spectrum: Kant believes that an inference from the particular character of agents and actions to the general character of the species would be utterly inconclusive. “Experience seems to confirm [a] middle position between the two extremes,” i.e., “that the human being is by nature neither [good nor evil] . . . that he is good in some parts and evil in others” (Rel. 6: 22). Kant calls this position “latitudinarian,” and although he acknowledges that it fits our considered judgment about the observable ways of humanity (homo phenomenon), it does not warrant any conclusion about its moral character (homo noumenon). He is unapologetically a “rigorist” when it comes to this question: “it is of great consequence to ethics in general . . . to preclude, so far as possible, anything morally intermediate, either in actions . . . or in human characters; for with any such ambiguity all maxims run the risk of losing their determination and stability” (Ibid.). To the extent that Kant holds that “one human being could be assumed to be good, and another evil, by nature” (Rel. 6: 25), only an independent moral criterion for the species could underwrite the certainty his rigorism calls for. In spite of these considerations, the ambiguity of the title has prejudiced generations of Kantian readers to conflate the two thesis of his doctrine. Interpreters have overwhelmingly considered the notions of “evil Gesinnung” and “propensity to evil” (Hang zum Bösen) as if they were synonymous. Influenced by the mischievous “or,” they expected to find an identity here—and an identity they found. Even a reader of the acuity of Henry Allison stumbles at this point:

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

49

[T]he distinctive features of the Kantian conception of Gesinnung are that it is acquired, although not in time, and that it consists in the fundamental or controlling maxim, which determines the orientation of one’s Willkür as a moral being. Given this, we can now see that this Gesinnung is precisely what Kant means by a moral propensity.17

It is true, as Allison rightly points out, that these notions share basic formal features; but isomorphism is not identity. The synonymy Allison suggests cannot represent Kant’s considered view. It does violence to two central, non-negotiable commitments in Kantian ethics: the emphasis on personal freedom and responsibility, as well as Kant’s rigorism. If the propensity and the Gesinnung were indeed synonymous, Goethe would have been right all along: Kant’s doctrine of radical evil would be but a clumsy rationalization of original sin. “Kant required a long lifetime,” Goethe complains, “to purify his philosophical mantle of many impurities and prejudices. And now he has wantonly tainted it with the shameful stain of radical evil, in order that Christians too might be attracted to kiss its hem.”18 Kant’s protestations were loud and clear, but to no avail: Whatever the nature . . . of the origin of moral evil in the human being, of all the ways of representing its spread and propagation through the members of our species and in all generations, the most inappropriate is surely to imagine it as having come to us by way of inheritance from our parents; for then we could say of moral evil what the poet says of the good: genus et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi, vix ex nostra puto [Race and ancestors, and those things which we did not make ourselves, I scarcely consider as our own]. (Rel 6: 40; my emphasis)

Goethe’s reading reflects an all too common misunderstanding of the logic of Kant’s argument. No matter the occasional lapses, the overall design of the text makes clear that Kant means the Gesinnung to indicate the fundamental moral outlook of an individual agent, which can be good or evil according to the form of her fundamental maxim.19 The propensity, on the other hand, Kant says is to evil, and to evil alone. It is meant to designate the character of the whole human species. “Good” does not apply here—this is the attribute Kant reserves instead for the system of predispositions (Anlage zum Guten), i.e., for the complementary set of anthropological determinations with which he describes our moral teleology and preserves the meaningfulness of a choice at the species level.20 If we disregard these textual considerations and embrace the misleading impression of identity Kant gives in the title, his project in Religion I is destined to implode. As Richard Bernstein pithily puts it:

50

CHAPTER 2 Kant is at war with himself. For, on the one hand, he never wants to compromise the basic claim of his moral philosophy: that human beings . . . are free . . . solely and completely responsible for their moral choices and for the maxims they adopt . . . On the other hand, Kant also wants to affirm that all human beings have an innate propensity to moral evil.21

In our reconstruction, the implosion is avoided altogether, because the Gesinnung and the propensity result from two independent acts of freedom, pertain to different units of analysis, and fall under different moral constraints (the categorical imperative and the duty to realize the highest good). There is no war to be afraid of: the distinctions we suggest open a conceptual space for thinking of different rules of imputation and evaluation that account for the “evil” Kant attributes to each type of agent in his doctrine. Although Kant should have been more careful (and forthcoming), interpretative charity favors the line we advocate. The alternative condemns him to the embarrassment of contradiction and disregards the conceptual division of labor between propensities and predispositions Kant himself envisions. (2) “CHANGE BUT THE NAME . . . ” The clearest textual evidence for the genealogy of the propensity to evil we are suggesting appears in a famous passage at the end of Groundwork I. The claim there is that, in spite of their irreconcilable character as determining grounds of the will, the demands of happiness and morality present themselves as being equally pressing for a will like ours. Although to be happy is a necessary goal for all finite rational beings, reason holds up every maxim of the will to the standard of the pure will. No matter how inclination might protest to the contrary, the agent recognizes that only the form of universal law makes her subjective principles acceptable for others. From this irreducible conflict of interest arises a propensity (Hang) to rationalize those strict laws of duty and to cast doubt upon their validity, or at least upon their purity and strictness, and where possible, to make them better suited to our wishes and inclinations, that is, to corrupt them at their basis and to destroy their dignity—something that even common practical reason cannot, in the end, call good (Gr. 4: 405).

Kant identifies this tendency with a “natural dialectic.” Although this summary identification has momentous consequences, it has been

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

51

usually underappreciated in the literature. Henry Allison is a famous exception. He refers to the same passage in the Groundwork to substantiate his claim that there is a fundamental continuity between this earlier work and the Religion.22 It is remarkable, then, that Allison did not develop this insight any further. He proceeds instead to identify the Gesinnung and the propensity, mesmerized by the picture that holds many Kantians captive—the picture, that is, that confines Kantian ethics to the methodological individualism of the Groundwork. In the context of that earlier work, the “dialectic” refers to the fact that, in the attempt to reconcile the contradictory and seemingly equitable demands of a finite will, the agent is led to overstep the limits reason sets for its proper employment. To place the motivation for action anywhere else than in respect for the law undermines the maxim’s claim to have objective validity. For, the propensity (Hang) to question the intransigence of the motive of duty and accommodate inclinations is corrupting and distorts moral judgment: the satisfaction of one’s desires, whatever the consequences, is made the measure of all things. Nonetheless, Kant calls the dialectic “natural.” The pursuit of happiness is necessary for empirical practical reason—a need that leads the agent to rationalize the “strict laws of duty” when they oppose the pathological interest of self-love. The universal propensity to evil in Religion I is an outgrowth of the same dialectic. Describing the process of deliberation that must have taken place for Adam to fall into evil, i.e., in an attempt to shed some light (through a glass, darkly) on the rational origin of the propensity afflicting the species, Kant uses language reminiscent of the passage in the Groundwork:23 He thereby began to question the stringency of the command that excludes the influence of every other incentive, and thereupon to rationalize (verünfteln) downgrading his obedience to the command to the status of the merely conditional obedience as a means (under the principle of self-love), until, finally, the preponderance of the sensory inducements over the incentive of the law was incorporated into the maxim of action, and thus sin came to be. Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur [“Change but the name, of you the tale is told”]. (Rel 6: 42)

The dialectic, which the single individual enacts in the process of moral deliberation, Kant considers in his later work to be “entwined with humanity itself and, as it were, rooted in it.” (Rel 6: 32) That is, the natural dialectic is naturalized—Kant interprets it as part of the makeup of the human will. It reveals the fundamental subjective obstacle the species faces in the course of its moral development. Independently of

52

CHAPTER 2

the way in which each individual might have resolved the antinomy between the claims of happiness and morality within her own Gesinnung, Kant believes that anthropological research provides “no cause for exempting anyone” (Rel 6: 25) from the propensity to invert the ethical order of priority. Since this sophistry represents “the subjective ground of the possibility of the deviation of the maxims from the moral law” (Rel. 6: 29), Kant unambiguously dubs it a “propensity to evil.” The qualification “to evil” (“zum Bösen”) is decisive. It entails that Kant now interprets the “natural dialectic,” which in the Groundwork was assumed to be a sheer fact of our finitude, Kant now interprets as a result of an act of freedom. That is, its “naturalness” should no longer be represented as the consequence of psychic forces beyond our control. It must be understood, instead, as a self-incurred (selbstverschuldet) condition, as a consequence of a choice. In order to be morally meaningful, the propensity must have been brought about by humanity upon itself—its naturalness is made, not given. It is thus analogous to the “self-incurred (selbstverschuldet) immaturity (Unmündigkeit)” human beings have a duty to overcome in their slow march toward Enlightenment (WA 8: 35).24 The immaturity Kant denounces, in both cases, is not biological; it has to do with cowardice and laziness, cunning and self-deception—freedom and responsibility go all the way down. The inbuilt intentionality of this dialectic points at an important difference in how to interpret the illegitimate products of human rationality in the Kantian corpus. In contrast to the dialectical nature of speculative reason, a faculty whose fate (Schicksal) leads it to generate transcendental illusions (KrV A vii), the dialectical nature of practical reason must be represented as a willful overstepping of limits. To distinguish the outcome of this transgressive process from the non-culpable transcendental illusions of speculative reason, let me introduce the notion of a “practical illusion.”25 (3) Practical Illusion As in all transcendental illusions, a “practical illusion” is a subjectively necessary product of human reason that, without due criticism, takes itself to be objectively necessary (KrV A295/B352).26 What is distinctive of a practical illusion is that this “taking to be” must be represented as the result of a choice, i.e., as an exercise of freedom that presupposes an active process of self-deception on our part. Though all transcendental illusions result from the dogmatic employment of reason, a practical illusion cannot be excused as a cognitive mistake. It

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

53

is a full-blown moral failure. Here are the defining features one might attribute to the notion: • A practical illusion differs from ordinary transcendental illusions because it is itself the voluntary product of the use of freedom. To the extent that the moral law is in fact objectively capable of providing the motivational ground, there must be choice, not “fate,” at the root of its genesis. • As all transcendental illusions, the source of a practical illusion is subjective. Yet, “subjective” does not designate here the need for reason to overstep the limits of experience, but the inherent contingency of an act that makes imputation possible. • Finally, as in all other transcendental illusions, a practical illusion is necessary. It is not an arbitrary product of a deficient subject, but the expression of a fundamental aspiration of human reason. Kant’s “propensity to evil” has the same formal features: just as a practical illusion, it is also imputable, subjective, and necessary—evil is not error.27 By linking these notions, we can discern another sense of evil’s “radicalism.” While in connection with the individual’s Gesinnung, “radical” designates the locus of evil (a spatial metaphor), in connection with the species’ propensity, “radical” refers to a peculiar kind of necessity—one that is subjective in character, but not for that reason arbitrary or accidental. In this second sense, the radicalism of evil conveys a modal metaphor. Each image connects with a specific unit of moral analysis, expresses a different sense of evil’s radicalism, and is independent from the other (the locus of evil is uninformative about its necessity). Naturalizing the natural dialectic gives rise to a transcendental illusion Kant presumes to be entwined with the nature of human practical reason. This necessity accompanies the distorted mode of thinking (Denkungsart) about morality that can be attributed to the whole species, but does not indicate, as does the Gesinnung, where the evil principle is supposed to dwell. The title of the first Book combines both images in the same doctrine. Framing the meaning of the propensity this way can account for much of what Kant says in Idea, but reflects a significantly different style of philosophizing. Interpreted as a practical illusion, the question of evil has now been lifted from its “impure” empirical origins and becomes part of the “pure” rational apparatus of Kant’s critical philosophy. Furthermore, given its collective scope, the propensity extends the domain of morality beyond its customary individualistic confines. A new type of

54

CHAPTER 2

moral agent, the human species, enters the historical scene and can be held accountable for what it does with itself. Necessary for the purposes of imputation, the agency of the species represents a moral truth Kantian ethics cannot do without, albeit it being a metaphysical fiction. Neither a straightforward result of pure morality, which searches for the grounds of obligation “independently of the nature of the human being” (Gr. 4: 389), nor a straightforward historical claim without normative pretense, the agency of the species comes to satisfy the need to pass judgment in a context in which individual morality has little to offer. History is ennobled and morality enlarged in Kant’s new approach. (4) THE NEED OF A FORMAL PROOF In so far as transcendental illusions are bound to reason’s necessary aspirations, they remain present even after their deceptive character has been unmasked by criticism (KrV A297/B354). The same is true in the case of a practical illusion: the universal propensity to evil subsists even if particular individuals adopt good Gesinnungen, i.e., resolve the illusion in critically acceptable ways within their wills. As we indicated above, the persuasiveness of Kant’s doctrine depends on finding the right relation between these logically independent units of analysis. There are two extremes Kant needs to avoid: too tight a connection and too much disconnect. The first takes the evil character of the species to entail the evil Gesinnung of the individual, leaving the particular agent no room to exercise her freedom (Rel 6: 32); the second voids the propensity of existential grip, making it irrelevant in our own personal struggle to attain virtue. Kant navigates between the excesses of analyticity and irrelevance by postulating a basic isomorphism in the conditions of choice at both levels of analysis. As Allison notices, the choices of Gesinnung and propensity are both the outcomes of transcendental acts (Taten), independent of the temporal conditions of the Second Analogy, and hence “innate” (angeboren).28 But a close reading of the text shows that Kant makes a subtle distinction between these choices: with the choice of Gesinnung, the individual establishes “the ultimate subjective ground of the adoption of the [i.e., her] maxims” (Rel. 6: 25); with the choice of propensity, the species determines the “subjective ground of the exercise of freedom in general (überhaupt)” (Rel. 6; 21). This difference is important: without it, Kant’s reasoning would be flagrantly circular. For, if in order to account for the possibility of an agent’s evil Gesinnung, Kant assumes the evil nature of the species, and that assumption

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

55

is justified, in turn, by the fact that some agents willingly act against the law, then the Gesinnung of those agents will be functioning both as explanans and explanandum in his argument. To the extent that “evil Gesinnung” and “man’s evil nature” are identical, Kant cannot legitimately use them to justify one another. The text of the Religion is hopelessly unclear. At times, Kant argues as though in possession of it, “we can spare ourselves the formal proof that there must be such a corrupt propensity rooted in the human being, in view of the multitude of woeful examples that the experience of human deeds parades before us” (Rel 6: 32). At times, he asserts the contrary view: “even though the existence of this propensity to evil in human nature can be established through experiential demonstrations of the actual resistance in time of the human power of choice against the law, these demonstrations still do not teach us the real nature of that propensity or the ground of this resistance” (Rel. 6: 35). Kant is well aware that only an a priori type of argument can do the justificatory trick; yet, instead of providing one, he proceeds to “develop” the concept of “evil” without justifying the existence of a universal propensity to it. To turn perplexity into annoyance, at one point Kant argues as if he had already provided the proof we are looking for, but the proof is nowhere to be seen.29 Kant’s vacillations endanger his position. The claim “man is evil by nature” cannot possibly be analytic: if the predicate “evil” belonged to the concept “man,” the act of ascribing a moral character to humanity would be self-contradictory. A conceptual entailment would leave the destiny of humanity in the hands of the law of identity, not the moral law, where it properly belongs. If Kant’s claim is to have moral status, it must be synthetic. Furthermore, since the ascription of a “propensity to evil” is said to hold without exception for every agent, even the best, the claim has a priori pretensions also. Kant’s brazen empiricist gestures should not distract us: his infamous condemnation of the human species belongs to the heart of his critical philosophy, concerned with the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments, and must be defended accordingly. No matter how much empirical evidence Kant may gather about observable wrongdoing, it will never relieve him from the task of needing to justify the validity of his moral indictment on (at least some kind of) a priori ground. His doctrine stands or falls with this ordeal. (4.1) Kant’s Dilemma: A Deduction—Dispensable or Trivial? Kant’s ambiguities have fueled a recent controversy between Allen Wood and Henry Allison on this issue. Their positions can be

56

CHAPTER 2

considered symptomatic of an unfortunate dilemma Kant poses to the interpreter: either to emphasize the widespread social/empirical dimensions of evil at the expense of its noumenal origin (the path Wood follows), or to stress its noumenal origin at the expense of its social/empirical dimension (Allison’s alternative).30 Pushed to their limit, both alternatives lead to undesirable results. The first invites us, as Allison complains, to construe evil “purely naturalistically as either a social or biologically conditioned trait, perhaps an unfortunate byproduct of our evolutionary development.”31 The second leads to an individualistic conception of evil that overlooks the role the propensity plays in Kant’s moral teleology.32 If our reading is correct, the clash is not accidental—it reenacts stages in the process Kant himself underwent while forming the idea of a “propensity to evil.” Allen Wood eschews the need of a “formal proof” by downplaying the a priori, transcendental character of the propensity. Focusing on Kant’s philosophy of history, Wood claims that the proposition “man is evil by nature” is an empirical thesis (though not an inductive generalization).33 The basic idea is that “[s]ince it purports to be a thesis about human nature, it makes most sense to look for its foundation in Kantian anthropology.”34 On this interpretation, radical evil pertains to our social condition and “is closely bound up with our tendencies to compare ourselves with others and compete with them for self-worth,” tendencies which Kant had identified with “unsociable sociability” in Idea. The appeal of this view is that, at first sight, does justice to the text of the Religion, in which Kant’s examples of evil (i.e., unprovoked cruelty, falsity in interpersonal relations, hate as a result of mutual dependence, and war among states) stem from the competitive tendencies Wood correctly emphasizes. On closer examination, however, it becomes clear that this line of thought cannot offer the whole Kantian story. There are two important omissions in it. First, Kant associates the “evil” tendencies our social condition brings to the fore with the “predispositions to the good” (Anlage zum Guten), more precisely, with the predispositions to animality and humanity. They are not, in any straightforward sense, linked to the three propensities to evil (i.e., frailty, impurity, and wickedness). Wood remains silent on this crucial point, and does not explain how it is possible that all sorts of vices are “grafted” onto these (in principle) progressive and beneficent tendencies.35 That they are grafted is beyond dispute; the explanatory task, however, consists in showing how, at a transcendental level (i.e., independent from social interaction), our practical reason can warp these purposive tendencies and turn them to “evil.”36

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

57

Second, and connected with this, Wood’s appeal to the empirical testimony of history and anthropology does not square with Kant’s undaunted placement of the choice of the propensity at the noumenal level. Why that choice was made is, unquestionably, beyond our comprehension (Rel. 6: 22 note)—but how it must have taken place, given our knowledge of human conduct, can be illuminated by some kind of philosophical argument, without thereby incurring in metaphysical garrulousness.37 There is a transcendental dimension to the genesis of the propensity Wood simply bypasses. The sociality of evil is, without a doubt, an essential expression of that mysterious non-temporal choice, but offers no surrogate for its justification. The choice of propensity must be understood in its own a priori terms, i.e., as an act “antecedent to every act (Tat) that falls within the scope of the senses” (Religion 6: 21). This act of freedom provides the conditions for the possibility of the sad spectacle of evils history parades, but is not to be confused with these empirical manifestations. By wisely refraining to ignore our ignorance of the noumenal, Wood is led to equate radical evil with “unsociable sociability”. This latter doctrine may well be an empirical thesis; the former is clearly not. The propensity to evil, although referring to the whole species, is not an anthropological (observational/empirical) claim in any straightforward sense—and Wood’s social approach is ill suited to accommodate this fact. The importance of Idea displaces in this interpretation the lessons of the Groundwork. Henry Allison, on the other hand, is uncompromising about such lessons. He offers a transcendental deduction in three steps to defend the a priori character of Kant’s position.38 (1)

(2) (3)

It is impossible to attribute a propensity to good to a finite will like ours. Such a propensity would consist in the spontaneous preference of the incentive of morality over that of happiness. Yet, this is a trait of holiness and is unavailable to the human will. Given Kant’s rigorism, this impossibility entails the necessity of attributing the contrary propensity to our species (i.e., a propensity to evil). Since the impossibility of a propensity to good is not logical (for the notion is not self-contradictory), the conclusion “man is evil by nature” has synthetic a priori status.

The elegance of this argument is very appealing. However, I doubt it proves what it is supposed to. The fact that human beings are not holy is a necessary condition for having a propensity to evil, but not a

58

CHAPTER 2

sufficient one.39 Besides not being holy, it must be possible to ascribe to the species (to every individual without exception) the inversion the ethical order of priority between the incentives. That the human will is not holy only means that it cannot escape the strictures of obligation, not that it actually has a propensity to evil. The conclusion vouched by Allison’s argument, then, is uninformative about the moral character of the whole species. The fact that the objective demands of reason are subjectively contingent does not preclude the possibility that, counterfactually, every human agent might have chosen the primacy of duty as her ultimate motivating ground. It is the necessity of assuming the absence of such a choice, not its mere possibility, which a transcendental deduction must justify. As Wood concisely puts it, the fact that our will is not holy reduces the import of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil to “a trivial practical corollary of our finitude.”40 Furthermore, Allison’s interpretation of holiness in step 1 is misleading. The notion of a “propensity to good” cannot properly characterize the motivational structure of the holy will—at least in the traditional view of the Groundwork that Allison seems to expose in the original version of this proof.41 Kant defines a propensity as “the subjective ground of the possibility of an inclination (habitual desire, conscupiscentia), insofar as this possibility is contingent for humanity in general” (Rel. 6: 29). The holy will, whose reason infallibly determines the subjective form of its maxims (Gr. 4: 412–13), cannot possibly have a propensity. Its holiness resides precisely in not being affected by sensible incentives. “Goodness” is a matter of course, not of choice, in this type of volition. It is true—as Allison indicates in step 2—that Kant is a rigorist. Yet, from the fact that man does not have a “propensity to good,” it does not follow that humanity must have a “propensity to evil.” For the first alternative was not available to begin with. The synthetic a priori character of Allison’s conclusion, therefore, is purchased by conceptual imprecision—Kant’s moral anthropology does not warrant notions such as “propensities to good” or “predispositions to evil” for human beings. The propensity, although referring to an a priori choice, must be understood in light of Kant’s sweeping anthropological observations—and Allison’s individualistic approach is ill suited to accommodate this fact. The importance of the Groundwork displaces in this interpretation the lessons of Idea. (4.2) Conceptual Stratification These remarks do not mean to suggest a wholesale dismissal of Wood and Allison’s interpretations. My goal, rather, has been to show that

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

59

they are one-sided: each interpreter rightly embraces a prong of Kant’s dilemma, but ignores the other side of Kant’s doctrine. If we want to remain true to Kant’s complex view in the Religion, however, the social dimension of the propensity to evil should not be obtained at the expense of surrendering its transcendental origin, nor should this origin turn its back to the empirical dimension of evil, to the dynamics of unsocial sociability. Casting a new look at the distinction between radicalization and naturalization might be helpful here. Whereas radicalization (and its associated notion of Gesinnung) locates the source of an agent’s wrongdoing in her ultimate principle of maxim-selection, naturalization (and its associated notion of propensity) is meant to describe the moral frame of mind (Denkungsart) we can attribute to the species and indicate how an evil Gesinnung is itself possible. Although both notions operate at a transcendental level (i.e., they provide knowledge of the a priori conditions for the possibility of certain (moral) phenomena), to the extent that they range over different units of moral analysis, they can be represented as being hierarchically organized. This relation I call “conceptual stratification.” Interpreting Kant’s position in this light renders us a twofold service. It undercuts the aforementioned charge of circularity, which is based on the assumption that the Gesinnung and the propensity are synonymous. More importantly, it helps clarify the kind of empirical evidence we may expect to receive in support of Kant’s doctrine. While observable wrongdoing can furnish indirect evidence for an agent’s evil Gesinnung (the two-step inference, must start from actions against the law), appeals to experience are virtually futile if we want to demonstrate the existence of the propensity. Since an evil Gesinnung (a concept itself with transcendental status) is made possible by a higher-order transcendental concept (the propensity to evil), empirical evidence of wrongdoing is—so to speak—twice removed from the phenomenon it is supposed to illustrate. As Kant puts it, “anthropological research [must show] that the grounds that justify us in attributing [the propensity to evil] [ . . . ] are of such a nature that there is no cause for exempting anyone from it” (Rel. 6: 25). But this type of research also entails the relative unimportance of piecemeal, small-scale, empirical confirmation: “So far as the agreement of actions with the law goes [ . . . ] there is no difference (or at least there ought to be none) between a human being of good morals (bene moratus) and a morally good human being (moraliter bonus)” (Rel 6: 30). I take Kant’s point here to be primarily methodological: the intelligibility of a social fact (like the propensity to evil) requires

60

CHAPTER 2

a different interpretative paradigm. The individualism of the Groundwork sets the empirical threshold too low: both actions according to duty (pflichtmäßig) and against duty (pflichtwidrig) can support Kant’s claim. Since evil has learned to hide behind reason in the contemporary world, we must consult large patterns of action, through large periods of time, and interpret them in light of an overarching teleological narrative, if we are to discern any meaning in the mass of seemingly random, ethically ambiguous, historical events. What empirical examples of actions can at most corroborate (in the minimalist sense of not falsifying) Kant must prove by other means. (5) KANT’S FAILED ATTEMPT Before offering my version of such proof, it is instructive to follow Kant’s own reasoning in the first Part of the Religion to detect where it falls short: (1)

The “multitude of woeful examples” of man’s observable immorality gives ample (indirect) proof of the presence of an evil Gesinnung in the perpetrators. (This claim is justified by Kant’s two-step system of inferences (Rel. 6: 20)). (2) If we can justify the presence of evil Gesinnungen, then we have grounds to assume the transcendental concept that makes them possible; hence, the propensity to evil is justified and “we can spare ourselves [its] formal proof” (Rel 6: 32). (This conclusion results from a logical operation: an inference from the actual to the possible is valid). (3) Since (a) the propensity to evil is not analytically entailed by the concept “man” (Rel 6: 32), (b) nor is its assumption contradicted by available empirical evidence, the proposition “man is evil by nature” has synthetic a priori status. ((3 a) is a corollary of Kant’s doctrine of transcendental freedom, and (3 b) expresses the minimal empirical requirement to validate a higher-order transcendental concept). I find steps (1) and (3) convincing, but step (2) problematic. The logical operation Kant performs here presupposes a symmetrical relation between the notions of “Gesinnung” and “propensity.” It assumes that radicalization and naturalization operate at the same transcendental level. Yet, this assumption flattens the difference between the units of moral analysis and the types of agent they involve.

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

61

Furthermore, it ignores that, for the purpose of imputation, the moral characters that the individual and the species give to themselves must be construed as the result of independent acts of freedom. Mere logical maneuvering cannot do the job. The fact that there is proof of the immorality of particular Gesinnungen does not demonstrate that the whole species is evil—only that those agents are. All Kant’s inference could support is a claim about the widespread generality of the propensity; of its universality, it proves nothing at all. Step (3 b) might allow Kant to fill the gap. But the price is inanity: the good, the wicked, and the morally mediocre are bundled in an empty condemnation. Kant’s failure, however, is illuminating. It delineates what is needed for success, namely, a philosophical account of the necessity of attributing the propensity to all human beings, independently of the Gesinnung (good or evil) each individual adopts for herself, but that is mindful of the role the propensity has in Kant’s philosophy of history. Putting things this way allows us to appreciate what was in front of us from the very beginning: the key for the so-called deduction does not lie where it is usually sought, i.e., in the first Part of the Religion, but in the Preface to the First Edition, where the highest good conceals all reference to radical evil. This should not be surprising: due to their common dialectical origin in human practical reason, the propensity to evil and the highest good combine anthropology and aprioricity precisely in the way required to solve Kant’s dilemma. We faced a similar situation in the first chapter of this study. There we had to focus on the “good will” in order to grasp what Kant meant by an “evil will,” its necessary conceptual correlate. The case is parallel now: since Kant’s proof for the propensity to evil fails where everyone expects to find it, we must reach out to what Kant says about its conceptual counterpart, the doctrine of the highest good. There is a common argumentative pattern at play, and in both cases indirectness paves the path to systematicity. These systemic connections suggest the presence of an underlying architectonic plan integrating the different parts of Kant’s ethics—the good and the highest good, evil and radical evil. It was this architectonic plan that allowed us to determine the meaning of an evil will in the Groundwork, and which will gives us the key to justify Kant’s anthropological pessimism in the Religion. (6) THE IDEA OF AN ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON By “architectonic” Kant means the “art of constructing systems” (KrV A832/B860). This art is supposed to show how the various modes of

62

CHAPTER 2

knowledge form a unity under one idea, i.e., how they form a system rather than a patchwork or rhapsodic aggregate. Kant believes that every rational faculty has an interest of its own and advances it according to a principle (KpV 5: 119). “The interest of its speculative use consists in the cognition of the object up to the highest a priori principles; that of its practical use consists in the determination of the will with respect to the final and complete end” (KpV 5: 120). It often happens, however, that in pursuing their own interest the faculties collide and contradict one another.42 Such contradictions represent a threat to the very possibility of rational activity. The task of the architectonic, therefore, is to show how the interests of reason ultimately harmonize. Although Kant, in several places, draws the outline of an architectonic of pure reason, he never develops the idea of an architectonic of its practical part.43 Focusing on this wing of his master plan, however, is important for us. It will help us locate the source of the practical illusion, i.e., the key to the deduction of the propensity to evil Kant misplaced in the Preface to the Religion. More importantly, it will confirm the overarching assumption of this study, namely, that radical evil is not, as a cursory impression might suggest, an unfortunate development in Kant’s practical philosophy. If radical evil finds its architectonic place within the system, it could no longer be considered a “stain” in the critical mantle. (6.1) The Organizing Principle of the Dialectic Part of the Architectonic If, as we have claimed, Kant’s doctrine of radical evil is an outgrowth of his conception of “evil” in the Groundwork, it would reasonable to search for the organizing principle of this part of the architectonic in the extensions we called “radicalization” and “naturalization.” These are instances of reason’s totalizing drive. The Gesinnung unifies all the volitions of an agent under a single principle, allowing the moral evaluation of the person as a whole—independently of the discrete character of her manifold choices and actions.44 The propensity, on the other hand, is meant to describe the single form one might attribute (for the purposes of evaluation and imputation) to the will of all human beings—a whole of wholes. This form is irreducible to the manifold Gesinnungen of its individual components—a totality is different than the aggregate of its parts, even when those parts are themselves totalities. The discrete choices of individuals, according to this view, must be represented as transcendentally free and logically independent from one another. Otherwise, the autonomy of the agent would be seriously

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

63

compromised. However, and this is the important point, human reason is called to unify them in a single, totalizing volitional principle— the individual’s Gesinnung. This act of unification is unavoidable: human reason is fatefully driven to search for the unconditioned to complete the series of conditions. Similarly, particular Gesinnungen must be represented as the result of free and logically independent acts of choice. Otherwise, the individual would not be responsible for her character. Yet, due to the same totalizing drive of reason, we are called to unify those Gesinnungen under a single volitional form—the propensity to evil. It sounds suspicious, however, to use the language of “totality” in the plural. Other totalities, such as the “universe” or Spinoza’s “substance,” preclude such a use. But the totalities Kant has in mind in the Religion are moral, not metaphysical. Without the presence of two different types of agent, human beings would be free—if one could speak here of “freedom” at all—once, and only once: a single noumenal choice on the part of the species would determine all subsequent individual uses of freedom.45 But this is a parody of agency, a noumenal pre-determinism inimical to the spirit of Kant’s practical philosophy. He makes sure to undercut it by postulating different kinds of agents (the individual and the species), which make different kinds of unifying choices (the Gesinnung and the propensity).46 Strikingly similar features are found in Kant’s doctrine of the highest good. As Kant introduces it in the Dialectic of the second Critique, this doctrine responds to the same totalizing drive of reason.47 There should be nothing startling about this architectonic over-determination: Kant’s two doctrines, after all, rest on the same natural dialectic between happiness and morality. The consequences of this connection, however, are significant: this architectonic arrangement allows us to defend, on Kant’s behalf, the claim about radical evil he left unguarded in the Religion, by appealing to the same philosophical grounds he used to justify his doctrine of the highest good. In this alternative strategy for vindication, the Preface to the first edition looms suddenly large. (7) THE CHALLENGE OF TELEOLOGY In the Preface, Kant makes a point about the purposive character of human action: “in the absence of all reference to an end no determination of the will can take place in human beings at all, since no such determination can occur without an effect, and its representation” (Rel. 6:

64

CHAPTER 2

4). This is, indeed, an important mitigation of the Groundwork’s tendencies towards abstraction. However, it acquires a much deeper significance if we connect it with the natural dialectic of practical reason. For, when this dialectic is naturalized in the Religion, the inescapable reference to ends can be seen to present the transcendental conditions for the possibility of preserving—or of disrupting—the ethical order of priority between the incentives. Given Kant’s commitment to the socalled Incorporation Thesis (R 6: 24), the result, whatever it is, cannot possibly depend on the sheer force of the incentives—it must be the outcome of a choice. To the extent that this choice can be said to hold universally, the question whether “the human being is good or evil by nature” can be decided with rigorist precision. The Preface is important, according to this reading, because it brings an anthropological matter of fact to bear on the transcendental framework of pure practical reason. If, as Kant says, “pure reason always has its dialectic, whether it is considered in its speculative or in its practical use” (KpV 5: 107), the resolution of this dialectic will contain the standards for success or failure in each case. Since we are dealing here with a practical illusion, the dialectical outcomes will translate into the two most comprehensive objects of practical reason there are: the highest good and the propensity to evil. Responding to the totalizing need of reason, Kant reduces the multifarious substantial differences existing between maxims of good and evil to a single formal difference that comprises them all: the lexical order of priority between the incentives of the human will (Rel. 6: 36). And this commonality allows us to pass from one doctrine to the other in the search for Kant’s missing proof. To better understand this process of commutation, we need to consider, if only in outline, why Kant sees the highest good as a total object of practical reason. This is a highly contested area within Kantian studies. Since my goal is strictly architectonic, I will content myself with a few snapshots, summarily side with those who believe it has an important role to play in Kantian ethics, and sidestep, as much as possible, the thorniest interpretative issues. 48 7.1. The Highest Good as a Total Object Kant explains in the Preface that, although the categorical imperative binds us “through the mere form of universal lawfulness of the maxims to be adopted” (Rel 6: 3), and hence bids us to bracket all representation of ends, it is unavoidable for a finite rationality like ours to envision an end as a consequence of our action. As we saw in

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

65

chapter one, the non-coincidence of motive and end is a characteristic trait of Kant’s theory of action. This trait implied that, in the groundend relation, the motive of duty must function as a limiting condition for the adoption of intrinsically contingent ends. Kant’s point in the Preface is that, although those ends cannot be at the basis of the determination of an agent’s will (otherwise the action would be heteronomous), they necessarily accompany the agent’s representation of the consequences of her action. Without it, we would know how to act, but ignore “whither” (wohin), and hence “obtain no satisfaction” in our moral pursuits (Rel 6: 5). That is, we would understand that a morally relevant action must be based on the motive of duty, but lack the representation of the state of affairs we want to achieve by acting out of duty. Given our anthropological limitations, apathy and despair (frames of mind inimical to moral action) would necessarily follow. Thus, elicited by a contingent feature in the make-up of the human mind, the question “whither” touches morality at its very core. Kant could (momentarily) postpone it in the Groundwork, whose project was to found morality (Gr. 4: 392). Yet, it “cannot possibly be a matter of indifference to reason” (Rel. 6: 5) whether human beings have in fact the power to pursue the taxing demands of duty. For, even if morality, “without promising anything to the inclinations, and so, as it were, with disregard and contempt for those claims” (Gr. 4: 405), commands actions whose consequences are not part of such a command, human beings are nonetheless compelled to represent and care for those neglected consequences. Kant’s doctrine of the highest good is meant to provide a morally acceptable answer to this need of ours. It presents a final end comprising all actions and abstentions—an end which can be justified by reason and whose absence would create an impasse in our moral determination (Rel. 6: 5). This end is justified, Kant believes, because it overrides the “subjective” answer humans give to the question of teleology: the promotion of their happiness. As the idea of a sum-total of satisfaction of our needs and inclinations, happiness is also a totalizing end that underlies every human being’s subjective relation to her manifold desires (Gr. 4: 418). Yet, being an expression of our sensibility, happiness is incompatible with the a priori demands of morality. It would expedite decision at the price of forfeiting our autonomy. Kant needs an end that avoids this unacceptable result: the “highest good,” the complete/total (vollendete) object of pure practical reason. This object is “total” because it combines, in a single volition, the dual interests of a finite rational being, happiness and morality—or, as Kant puts it in his more Promethean moments, of nature and freedom (Rel

66

CHAPTER 2

6: 5). And it is an object “of pure practical reason,” because, unlike happiness, the highest good presupposes the existence of virtue as its condition for the possibility. In contrast with the “good” (das Gute), which results from embracing the categorical imperative and excluding happiness as determining ground of the will (KpV 5: 63), the highest good (das höchste Gute) systematically incorporates happiness as part of the object of volition. The ground of the action (the unconditioned commitment to morality) has as its end a state of affairs that incorporates happiness as one of its components.49 This incorporation represents the complete (consummatum) good for a human being: having made herself worthy of happiness, as the good required from her, the individual is now justified in expecting happiness to follow proportionally to her worth. Merit reaps reward in a world so organized, extending the desideratum of the Groundwork in the direction of a comprehensive vision of moral contentment: Now, inasmuch as virtue and happiness together constitute the possession of the highest good in a person, and happiness distributed in exact proportion to morality (as the worth of a person and his worthiness to be happy) constitutes the highest good of a possible world, the latter means the whole, complete good, in which, however, virtue as the condition is always the supreme good, since it has no further condition above it, whereas happiness is something that, though always pleasant to the possessor of it, is not of itself absolutely and in all respects good but always presupposes morally lawful conduct as its condition. (KpV 5: 110-1, my emphasis)

The highest good for the individual is tantamount to the satisfaction of her need for happiness as a consequence of her virtue. This reward she hopes to obtain by an unflinching commitment to deserve it. The expectation is compatible with autonomy, because it is the pre-existence of goodness in her Gesinnung that sustains the hope for reward. To be good at all, however, that Gesinnung must have been adopted unconditionally. The reward completes, but does not precede, the commitment to a life of virtue. The reverse order would be self-defeating: giving representational precedence to the reward undermines the motivational structure that makes us worthy to receive it. In a world in which (man-made) justice prevailed and a judge capable of assessing virtue (God) existed, Kant believes, the reward would surely take place. This expectation gives raise to a new moral command: act so that the highest good becomes possible through your actions. The new imperative does not simply tell the individual how

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

67

to act, as did the formulas in the Groundwork; it also tells her what should be realized: “the highest good of a possible world.” 50 This is the world Kant adumbrated as the end of human history in Idea.51 But his vision has undergone important changes. The gradual moralization of the world is no longer the outcome of mechanical processes, but the result of a persistent and deliberate effort. It is the world the virtuous create through their actions, but whose possibility, unlike the goodness in their Gesinnung, does not depend on the single will alone. The realization of the highest good requires common purpose and global cooperation. It rests, then, on the conception of agency associated with the kingdom of ends in the Groundwork—but is not to be confounded with it. There are two important differences. First, the systematic connection of rational beings now contains an in-built reward mechanism for the allocation of happiness. In order to prevent Job’s affront, Kant reconciles politics and morality in the highest good, so that social institutions make it impossible for the virtuous to suffer and the vicious to thrive. As Philip Rossi eloquently puts it, Kant’s vision contains an “anthropodicy”: the highest good is a project that finds our redemption in justice and human solidarity.52 This vision of a possible world allows the discrete and unconnected actions of individuals to converge on a comprehensive moral goal, and inspires the virtuous to overhaul the real world, the world of radical evil. Second, the completion of this project is indefinitely deferred into to the future—Kant’s vision is of asymptotic approximation, not of arrival. This gives a collective historical shape to his postulate about the immortality of the soul.53 Indefinite deferral provides a compass to orient our actions throughout history, but, as in the postulate of immortality itself, it also points at what lies beyond history and transcends our efforts. The capstone of Kant’s secular vision in the Groundwork is the ethical community in the Religion, in which God has an ineliminable role to play. This is not an unpremeditated religious lapse on Kant’s part. It is an internal necessity of his doctrine: since the highest good is the idea of a world in which happiness follows in proportion to virtue, and since virtue is inscrutable to the human eye, politics and morality, the immanent tools of historical progress, cannot altogether dispense with the transcendent tools religion. Kant had long recognized that the world of the Enlightenment was not the enlightened world (WA 8: 40). The arrogance of those who want to force the end, and in the name of solidarity or the interests of justice claim to penetrate the mysteries of the human heart, leads only to tyranny and political abuse. “Woe to the legislator who would want to bring about through coercion a polity directed to ethical ends! For he would thereby not only achieve

68

CHAPTER 2

the very opposite of ethical ends, but also undermine his political ends and render them insecure” (Re. 6: 96). In Kant’s philosophy, religion keeps politics decent and morality inexhaustibly ambitious. Anthropodicy, important as it is, leads to theodicy—though a theodicy stripped of all cognitive pretension. This is the spirit with which Kant presented the thrust of his critical project from the very beginning: “I had to deny knowledge to make room for faith” (KrV Bxxx). And it is the spirit with which he made the provocative assertion of the Preface to the Religion—“morality thus leads inevitably to religion” (Rel. 6: 6)—that still baffles those readers who want to “purge Kant’s philosophy of all metaphysics.”54 (7.2) A Failure in Subordination The expansive stages in the promotion of the highest good confirm our earlier contention: Kant is operating with a dual conception of agency, the single individual and the whole species. This duality coincides with the one we assigned to the notions of radicalization and naturalization. They result, in both cases, from applying the formal (architectonic) principle of totalization to Kant’s assumptions in the foundational project. Just as, at the level of the individual, an evil Gesinnung represents the failure to subordinate the ethical incentives in a critically acceptable way, at the level of the species, the propensity to evil hinders the realization of the highest good. The first failure contributes to the creation of the jungle of means; the second undercuts Kant’s eschatological vision. We cannot start out in the ethical training of our connatural moral predisposition to the good with an innocence which is natural to us but must rather begin from the presupposition of a depravity of our power of choice in adopting maxims contrary to the original ethical predisposition; and, since the propensity to this [depravity] is inextirpable, with unremitting counteraction against it. (Rel. 6: 51)

This assumption explains why Kant links the doctrine of radical evil to “moral discipline” (Asketik) (Ibid.). Awareness of the natural dialectic in our will is supposed to trigger a permanent counter-action on our part that will (eventually) lift the obstacles towards attaining our moral destiny.55 “[T]hus the antinomy of pure reason, which becomes evident in its dialect, is in fact the most beneficial error into which human reason could have ever fallen, inasmuch as it finally drives us to search for the key to escape from this labyrinth” (KpV 5: 108). But things cannot possibly look so cheerful if one is stuck in the

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

69

maze, as the human species is supposed to be. The inversion of the order of priorities between the incentives hinders the Kantian project of bringing sensuous nature under the form of an intelligible world. It frustrates the interest practical reason has in realizing the unconditioned in experience. Without discipline (criticism), human rationality will never come to age. For the propensity is to fall under the illusion that morality can lie elsewhere than in respect for the law (KpV 5: 86)—to succumbs, in other words, to the expectation that happiness can precede the attainment of virtue. This is the error Kant attributes to Garve in Theory and Practice. Since Kant composed this text at the time of the Religion, it can be considered indicative of his general conception at the time. According to Garve’s interpretation: “From happiness in the most general sense of the word arises the motives for every effort and so too for observance of the moral law. I must first know in general that something is good before I can ask whether fulfillment of moral duties belongs under the heading of the good; the human being must have an incentive, which puts him in motion, before one can set him a goal, toward which this motion can be directed.” (TP 8: 281–82—This is Kant’s quotation from Garve)

Kant’s refutation comes in a footnote to this passage: This is precisely what I insist upon. The incentive which the human being can have before a goal (end) is set for him can obviously be nothing other than the law itself through the respect it inspires (without its being determined what end one may have and may attain by complying with it). For the law with respect to what is formal in choice is indeed all that remains when I have left out of consideration the matter of choice (the goal, as Garve calls it). (TP 8: 282 note)

Garve’s mistake is significant for the understanding of the highest good. The inclusion of the claims of happiness, as Kant sees them, must depend on their prior subordination to the formal constraints of morality (i.e., to the pursuit of virtue). Without this subordination, the will becomes heteronomous: happiness does not appear as the expected reward, but as the secret motive for being virtuous, providing the pretext under which duty is heeded as a means to satisfy selflove. In the highest good, on the other hand, virtue is represented as being the cause of happiness: the representation of duty precedes the expectation of reward, and determines such a reward according to an objective rule (the proportionality between happiness and worth). Everything is upside down in Garve’s interpretation: happiness appears

70

CHAPTER 2

as the cause of virtue. Thus, the representation of happiness precedes compliance with duty, and anticipates the reward according to a subjective rule of association (the importance we attribute to the effect reverts upon the cause). The outcome of Garve’s view is the complete demise of Kantian morality: the categorical demands of duty are made conditional, obeyed as long as they agree with the pathological interest of self-love, which has stealthily managed to become motivating. This is precisely the cast of mind Kant attributes to the whole human species in its current stage of development, i.e., the pre-critical stage that cries for the birth of critical philosophy (KrV Axi). In the process of solving the dialectic illusion of practical reason, we may imagine there arises, as in Garve’s interpretation, the temptation to substitute the objective order of causation with the subjective order of association. This is a natural illusion, part of the dialectic character of practical reason. Solving it in a critically acceptable way gives raise to highest good; surrendering to it, produces its conceptual counterpart, the propensity to evil. In either case, the demands of moral judgment require that we postulate a choice and a will to hold accountable for it. Now, if we had grounds to believe that this cast of mind underlies all existing social relations in the contemporary world, we would also have grounds to assume that “man is evil by nature.” For, the substitution in question perverts the will’s motivational structure (as the dynamics of unsocial sociability in Idea have made clear long ago) and is also self-imposed (as Kant’s commitment to transcendental freedom after the Groundwork demands). Garve’s reasoning, criticized in Theory and Practice, acts then as a mouthpiece for Adam’s reasoning in the Religion—and in Adam we all have sinned, for his reasoning is a symbol for the rationalizing tendencies “entwined with humanity itself and, as it were, rooted in it” (Rel 6: 32). In the ordering of concepts, perception and distinction of states, whereby one of them is given preference over the other, must precede the choice of one of them and hence the determination in advance of a certain end. But a state that a being endowed with consciousness of himself and of his state prefers to other ways of being, when this state is present and perceived by him, is a good state; and a series of such good states is the most general concept expressed by the word happiness. (TP 8: 281—the passage is Kant’s citation from Garve)

Garve’s statement expresses the same rationalizing tendencies that give rise to the natural dialectic in the Groundwork and to the propensity to evil in the Religion. The transcendental condition for the possibility of such rationalizations is linked to the anthropologi-

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

71

cal matter of fact Kant discusses in the Preface. Since “in the absence of all reference to an end no determination of the will can take place in human beings at all” (Rel. 6: 4), the temptation is to invert the objective order of connection (between motive and end) and replace it by our subjective order of association. This “is one of the inescapable limitations” of human practical reason: the consequence of the action (the end), “though last in practice (nexu effectivo) [is yet first] in representation and intention (nexu finali)” (Rel. note 6: 7). There is a profound moral ambivalence in this tendency. On the one hand, the inescapable reference to ends is the condition for the possibility of the highest good. In representing a final goal, Kant believes, agents find an occasion to “prove the purity of their intention” (Ibid.), i.e., their fundamental commitment to virtue and to the motive of duty. Without the hope for a possible moral world, human beings would be haunted by apathy and despair. On the other hand, behind this hope lurks morality’s greatest danger. There is plenty of room for the will to juggle with, and rationalize, what counts as “nexu effectivo” and “nexu finali”—if it concerns the volitional content, the “highest good” results; if it touches and “corrupts” the motivational structure, the result is “radical evil.” For the purposes of evaluation and imputation, we must assume a choice in either case. (9) AN ALTERNATIVE PROOF FOR THE PROPENSITY Despite appearances to the contrary, Kant’s proof of the propensity to evil is not really missing, but misplaced and buried in the Preface to the Religion under the cover of the highest good. It consists in the realization that the dialectical nature of human practical reason generates both doctrines. Kant admits that much by identifying the propensity with a “natural dialectic,” and by suggesting that the highest good solves the antinomy of practical reason. My contribution to his argument has been to connect these seemingly disparate doctrines by an architectonic arrangement. They represent complementary answers to the challenge anthropology introduces into Kant’s pure morality. Kant seems dimly aware of the architectonic unity we advocate, but is carried away in the first Book and, in a forbidden logical maneuver, turns into identity what is only an isomorphism. At least three threads of argument are intertwined in his proof. (1) Since the incentives of happiness and duty give rise to a natural dialectic, (2) whose resolution must be represented as an act of a transcendental choice, and (3) anthropological observation does not give us

72

CHAPTER 2

ground for exempting any human being from having undermined the objective order of connection that should exist between them, Kant is justified in concluding that there is a propensity to evil in all human beings. It consists in having accepted the illusion that happiness (the nexu finali) could trump virtue (the nexu effectivo) as motivational ground in generating the total object of practical reason. Although this acceptance stems from an anthropological limitation (and is in a sense natural), it must be represented as something “brought upon us by ourselves” (Rel 6: 32). It is evil, because the propensity to evil that results from it frustrates pure reason’s need for realizing the unconditioned in experience. More substantively, it is evil because it is indicative of a frame of mind in which self-centered reasons (organized by the principle of self-love) displace considerations of duty (the source of reasons we can share). The choice we are describing is isomorphic, but not identical with the individual’s choice of Gesinnung. Although both stem from acts of transcendental freedom, they concern different moral objects, the “good” and the “highest good,” and fall under the constraint of different types of imperatives, one that brackets and the other that includes teleological considerations. The latter involves global cooperation and transcends the individual’s intention and control; the former falls within the scope of a single will. One imperative tells the agent how to act (if she is virtuous), the other tells her whither (what to expect as a result of her actions). In both cases, the evil represented is compatible with the legality of actions—to turn itself into atrocity it needs the beckoning of circumstances. In the competitive social conditions of the real world, opportunities arise all too often. But, if we understand the propensity to evil in connection with the highest good, Kant’s indictment, “man is evil by nature,” does not bundle the vicious and the virtuous in an empty condemnation. Although indisputably difficult, it is at least possible for particular individuals to have good Gesinnungen, even in the midst of the most corrupt environment. Indeed, they ought to—though we have no certainty about how they will resolve these matters in their own hearts. Indeed, the reason that agents choose the Gesinnungen they have is as inscrutable (unerforschlich) as the reason that the species has (or can be said to have) a propensity to evil. Combining the insights in the Preface and in Book I, we may reconstruct Kant’s proof along these lines: (1)

There is a natural dialectic between the claims of happiness and morality in the human will.

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

(2)

(3) (4)

73

It is part of our anthropological limitations to give precedence “in representation and intention” to what in fact comes “last in practice,” and hence we tend to substitute the objective order of connection with the subjective order of association. There is a natural propensity, therefore, to place the claims of happiness over those of morality. Since observable actions do not give us any cause for exempting anyone from this tendency, we can conclude that the propensity to evil is present in all human beings, even the best.

Step (1) is a basic assumption of Kant’s morality, a constant both in the Groundwork (Gr. 4: 405) and the Religion (Rel 6: 42). Step (2) expresses what Kant considers to be an anthropological fact, a general feature of human practical reason. Step (3) is a consequence of (2) and (1). Step (4) states the minimal empirical requirements to validate a higher-order transcendental concept (the condition for the possibility of a lower-order transcendental concept, such as an “evil Gesinnung”). From these steps, it follows that there is a universal propensity to invert the order of priorities between the ethical incentives, that is, that human beings are radically evil. There is no denying it: Kant’s conclusion has a sui generis “synthetic a priori” status. The notion of “evil” is not analytically contained in the notion of “man,” and is “universal” and “necessary” (in the peculiar sense specified in 4.2 above). Furthermore, Kant’s argument appeals to observable action (empirical evidence) negatively, i.e., only in so far as it does not contradict his positive philosophical argument, which bears the burden of the proof. Yet, his vindication is not a priori in any straightforward sense: anthropological assumptions about the workings of the human mind and the dynamics of social relations play a major role in it.56 This sets Kant’s proof in the Religion worlds apart from a classic transcendental deduction. What has taken place here is that an anthropological/empirical matter of fact has been re-signified in terms of the a priori apparatus of Kant’s morality. This gives a philosophical justification to what otherwise would appear as no more than observational, but makes the proof less than transcendental. Kant might have called this line of argument “metaphysical,” for it offers a principle “by which we think the a priori condition under which alone objects whose concepts must be given empirically can be further determined a priori” (KU 5: 181). I prefer to call it “quasi-transcendental,” a name better suited to capture its peculiarly hybrid nature. Terminological quibbling aside, the point of finding something like this “proof” is that it shields Kant’s view from unnecessary objec-

74

CHAPTER 2

tions (e.g., circularity, triviality, etc.), and squarely places the Religion within the framework of critical philosophy. If nothing else, the argument preserves the consistency of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil and its explanatory power to account for the sources of immorality, accepting its ultimate inscrutability and the narrow boundaries within which we are forced to make sense of it. (9.1) The Vice of Subreption In the Preface to the Religion, Kant presents step (2) as if it were a mere anthropological fact—the necessary expression of our subjective limitations. But, if it is a “limitation,” why should one call it “evil”? The answer can be found in the Dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason, in which Kant describes the subjective necessity of inverting the objective order of connection as the “vice of subreption” (vitium subreptionis) (KpV, 5: 116).57 He compares it with “an optical illusion in the self-consciousness of what one does as distinguished from what one feels—an illusion that even the most practiced cannot altogether avoid” (Ibid.). In the context of individual morality, the illusion arises from the confusion between the pleasure resulting from the a priori determination of the will by the law (i.e., respect) and the pleasure resulting from the empirical determination of the will by a given object (i.e., agreeableness). This was perhaps the cause of Garve’s mistake. Since the inward effect in both cases is the same, namely, a pleasure providing an impulse to activity, there is a tendency to obliterate the differences regarding the genesis of such an impulse. Yet, as we saw above, this point is crucial when it comes to preserving the purity of practical reason. For, while respect is a feeling resulting from the will’s self-affectation in relation to the moral law (i.e., it is the consequence of what the agent does), the agreeable is a feeling resulting from the agent’s receptivity (i.e., it is the consequence of what she feels). The effect is comparable, but the cause is not: one proceeds from our spontaneity, the other from our sensuous nature; one is autonomous and active, the other heteronomous and passive; while one brings pleasure through displeasure, the other is immediately pleasurable. In agreement with his account in Religion, Kant argues in the second Critique that the illusion of practical reason consists in believing that the incentive of sensibility, which is organized under the principle of self-love, disguises itself as a possible surrogate for the incentive of morality as determining ground of the will. This creates the practi-

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

75

cal illusion that inverting their objective ethical order is of no moral consequence. This is the common formal feature underlying all our wrongdoing. Here the idiosyncrasy of a subjective state replaces objective (rational) considerations, leading to a Hobbesian-like mode of deliberation in which might is right. The subreption happens when the pleasure that accompanies moral feeling is equated with the pleasure that arises from the anticipated satisfaction of our sensuous needs, i.e., when happiness and morality are confused under the pretext of their having a similar sensible, phenomenological effect. This confusion is the result of the mechanism described in the prior section. The end of the action—whose representation accompanies the moral determination of the will as a necessary consequence (though not necessarily as its determining ground)—is incorporated in the intentional structure of the agent and starts functioning as her actual motivating force. What ought to be an expression of her autonomy (her will’s independence from sensibility) is really an expression of self-love (the arbitrariness of which is the demise of morality). The illusion of practical reason that “even the most practiced [person] cannot altogether avoid” (KpV 5: 116), is the instantiation, at the level of the individual’s morality, of what Kant calls the “propensity to evil” when referring to the moral character of the species. The importance of Kant’s account in the second Critique is that the subreption is not indicative of a cognitive failure, but is singled out as a “vice.” Nothing that occurs within the inner sanctum of practical reason can escape the structure of obligation, and, consequently, the burden of imputation. The error we experience about the primacy of pleasure is an act of self-deception. (10) THE LAY OUT OF THE ARCHITECTONIC Let me conclude by drawing the blueprint of the architectonic of practical reason, which has guided our reconstruction of Kant’s view in the last two chapters. The architectonic can be divided into two sections: (A)

An inner section that contains the notions of good and evil, along with their conceptual implications: the different formulations of the categorical imperative and the features associated with them (the demands for reasonability and unconditionality, and the necessity of distinguishing between two levels of commitment). We may call this section, following Kant’s cue in the second Critique, the Analytic Part of the

76

CHAPTER 2

architectonic. Its most important task is to justify the exclusion of heteronomy (and its associated principle of happiness) from the foundation of morality.58 Anthropological considerations are ancillary to this purpose. We covered the contents of this section in the first chapter. (B) An outer section that results from extending the assumptions of the inner section. It contains the doctrines of the highest good and the two theses about radical evil, namely, that evil lies in the individual Gesinnung and that the propensity is universal and necessary. This contains what we called the Dialectic Part of the architectonic. Anthropological considerations become now essential and are incorporated within a priori apparatus of morality. The transition from one section to the other is guided by the need of human rationality to find always more comprehensive totalities. Although this need is intrinsically frustrated in the cognitive domain, it finds satisfaction in the practical sphere. Despite remaining necessarily unknown, the unconditioned can be realized in the good Gesinnung and (indefinitely approached) in the highest good of a possible world, the attainability of which sets in motion the mechanism of the postulation of freedom, the immortality of the soul, and God’s existence. At play here is Kant’s strategy for separating the notions of “totality” and the “unconditioned” (KpV 5: 110), which speculative reason considered as equivalent (KrV A322/B379), and which now Kant splits into two different senses of “highest,” the complete (consummatum) and the supreme (supremum). Throughout this chapter, I mapped Kant’s distinction between two different types of volitional object (the good and the highest good) onto two different types of agents (the individual and the species). The individual is under the obligation of realizing the good in her Gesinnung; the species is obliged to realize the highest good and shape the world of nature according to the demands of freedom. Thus, Kant’s notions of an “evil Gesinnung” and a “propensity to evil” represent a failure in the constitution of each of these two basic objects of practical reason. The isomorphism underlying the process of constitution of the “good” and the “highest good” explains the relation, as well as the logical independence, between the choices we must impute at each level of moral analysis. This architectonic relation proves important, because it shows that Kant’s doctrine of radical evil is not an ad hoc aggregate to his practical philosophy, but part of an organic ethical system.

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

77

NOTES 1. An earlier version of this chapter appears under the title, “An Alternative Proof of the Universal Propensity to Evil,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, ed. Sharon Anderson-Gold and Pablo Muchnik (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). 2. Kant quotes this verse when discussing “how synthetic propositions are a priori possible?” in Prolegomena §5 (P 4: 277). 3. This is a Mandevilleian view that becomes even clearer in the example of the nation of demons in Perpetual Peace (PP 8: 366). 4. The question about the continuity or lack thereof in Kant’s view about evil has triggered controversy from the very beginning. Reinhold’s criticism of the so-called “Reciprocity-Thesis,” according to which freedom and morality are identical, resurfaces in the contemporary disputes about the difficulty of imputing immoral actions to heteronomous agents. See, for example, Michelle Kosch, Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard (London: Oxford University Press, 2006); G. Prauss, Kant über freiheit als Autonomie (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann,1982), 62–101; and John Silber, “The Ethical Significance of Kant’s Religion,” in Immanuel Kant: Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. T.M. Greene and H. H. Hudson (New York: Harper & Row, 1960) lxxxvi–xciv. H. Allison is on the other side of the trenches. With the help of his Incorporation Thesis, Allison re-describes Kant’s unfortunate expressions about heteronomy in the Groundwork, finding an act of freedom where Kant says “nature” (Gr. 4: 444). Cf. Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 85–106. 5. Cf. H. Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 136 ff. 6. See Rel 6: 20, 46: “In order to call a human being evil, it must be possible to infer a priori from a number of consciously evil actions, or even from a single one, an underlying evil maxim, and from this, the presence in the subject of a common ground, itself a maxim, of all particularly evil maxims.” Given the unknowability of motives (even one’s own) (Cf. Gr 4: 407; MS 6: 392,), it is essential for Kant to start with wrong actions (gesetzwidrige) for the two-step inference to succeed. Frierson rightfully insists on this point. See, Patrick R. Frierson, Freedom and Anthropology in Kant’s Moral Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 105-107. 7. H. Allison and A. Wood make similar points. Cf. H. Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 147; and A. Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 284. As we saw in the first chapter, “good” and “evil” have little to do with the evaluation of consequences. As Kant famously put it, a will is not good “because of what it effects or accomplishes . . . but only because of its volition . . . ” (Gr. 4: 394). The same holds, ceteris paribus, for an evil will. It is a misunderstanding of Kantian ethics to expect the radicalism of evil to refer to the nature of actions. 8. See Hanna Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1976), 459. This disappointment drives Bernstein’s interpretation of radical evil and explains his attempt to refurbish the notion of a

78

CHAPTER 2

“diabolic will.” Cf. R. Bersntein, Radical Evil, 39. I will return to this point in chapter 3. 9. Things are less clear if we consider sections of the first Critique, particularly the Canon, but this earlier view is not my focus here. 10. I owe this clarification to an objection raised by Sharon Anderson-Gold. See Paul Guyer, “Nature, Freedom, and Happiness,” in Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, 374. Guyer resorts to the language of “postulation” to capture Kant’s intentions. 11. A. Wood makes a similar point. Cf. Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 289. One should distinguish in Kant, then, between subjects of imputation (e.g., corporations, nations, groups, the species, etc.) and agents in strict, metaphysical sense (i.e., individual actors). While the former are candidates for moral evaluation, the latter are the real locus of responsibility. “Agency” loosely construed covers both cases. To give an example: in PP, Kant refers to war crimes and violations to the universal right of hospitality in terms of obligations incumbent upon states and the human species. These are, respectively, the units of analysis of the ius gentium and the ius cosmopoliticum; yet, Kant’s attribution of rights and responsibilities does not ignore the obvious fact that it is always particular individuals who commit wrongdoing. Neither the state nor the species properly acts, but they can be held accountable for complying with a distinctive set of obligations. 12. The collective sense of agency is also evident in, for instance, the Transcendental Doctrine of Method in the first Critique (A 738/B767 ff.), and in What is Enlightenment (1784). After the Groundwork (1785), it is a constant theme in Kant’s writings on history. 13. It can be argued that, after the eighth proposition, the human species is called to appropriate the plan of nature and hence becomes more active: “Nevertheless, in regard to the most distant epochs that our species is to encounter, it belongs to human nature not to be indifferent about them, if only they can be expected with certainty. This can happen all the less especially in our case, where it seems that we could, through our own rational contrivance, bring about faster such a joyful point in time for our posterity” (I 8: 27). This activity, however, is missing (or at least downplayed) in the preceding part of Kant’s essay—this is the point I am trying to make. 14. The temptation here is comparable to a practical paralogism—cousin to those speculative misdemeanors Kant denounced in the first Critique. 15. Kant makes a similar point at Rel 6: 29: “if it is legitimate to assume that this propensity belongs to the human being universally (and hence to the character of the species), the propensity will be called a natural propensity of the human being to evil.” The notion of “heart” he introduces immediately afterwards is meant to explain how the universal propensity actualizes itself in the evil Gesinnungen of particular individuals according to three different degrees of perversity (frailty, impurity, and depravity). I will return to this point in chapter 4. 16. See Rel. 6: 21: “Lest anyone be immediately scandalized by the expression nature, which would stand in direct contradiction to the predicates

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

79

morally good or morally evil . . . by “the nature of a human being” we only understand here the subjective ground—wherever it may lie—of the exercise of the human being’s freedom in general (under objective moral laws) antecedent to every deed that falls within the scope of the senses.” 17. See Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 153. Allison is by no means alone. Other influential interpreters have reached a similar conclusion. Daniel O’Connor, for instance, interprets Kant’s indictment “man is evil by nature” as “all men have, in fact, chosen an evil disposition.” See Daniel O’ Connor, “Good and Evil Disposition,” Kant-Studien Heft 3 (1985): 296. Mark Timmons is even more extreme, for he identifies radical evil with lack of moral worth. “[A]n evil disposition, an evil will, a character that lacks moral worth and one who is possessed of radical evil are one and the same.” See Mark Timmons, “Evil and Imputation in Kant’s Ethics,” Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik Bd. 2 (1994): 134. 18. This is in a letter to Herder quoted by Emil Fackenheim, in “Kant and Radical Evil,” University of Toronto Quarterly 23 (1954), p. 340. 19. For instances of Kant’s lapses, see Rel 6: 31–32, 35, and 36. 20. Kant is careful to distinguish “propensities to evil” from “predispositions to good.” They play very different roles in the process of attaining man’s moral destiny: predispositions present the purposive arrangement of the will; propensities are counter-purposive and explain the deviation from such a destiny. In Kant’s framework, a “propensity to the good” is a category mistake. Daniel O’Connor and Richard Bernstein complain about a “lack of symmetry” between these notions. I consider this complaint a misunderstanding. Cf. O’Connor, “Good and Evil Disposition”: 297; and R. Bernstein, Radical Evil, 24. I will return to this point in chapter 4. 21. See Richard Bernstein, Radical Evil, 33. 22. Cf. H. Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 151. 23. The Biblical narrative Kant resorts to here is not meant as an “explanation” of the (rational) origin of evil. This would entail having intellectual intuition and is beyond our ken. It is offered as an Ersatz, as a way to translate into the imperfect medium of time what we must represent as lying beyond time and which would otherwise remain totally incomprehensible to us (Rel 6: 43). The story of Adam’s fall, therefore, is an illustration through a glass, darkly, i.e., “in accordance with this weakness of ours,” (Ibid.) without pretending to disclose the very nature of the thing. For an analysis of the importance of narrative in Kant’s ethics, see Gordon E. Michalson Jr., “Kant, the Bible, and the Recovery from Radical Evil,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, forthcoming. 24. In the new translation of What is Enlightenment in the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, “Unmündigkeit” is rendered “minority.” This translation is meant to capture the legal connotation of the word. I prefer the old “immaturity” and used it throughout. 25. Bernstein also connects Kant’s doctrine of radical evil with a “dialectical illusion,” though he means this in a completely different way. For Bernstein, “the concept of radical evil is a dialectical illusion because it seduces us into thinking that we can explain something that we cannot possibly ex-

80

CHAPTER 2

plain—why we freely adopt the maxims (good or evil) that we actually adopt” (Bernstein, Radical Evil, 35). 26. To my knowledge, Kant never develops the notion of a “practical illusion.” The closest he gets to the meaning I attribute to it is in the Dialectic of the Second Critique, where he identifies it with the “vice of subreption” (KpV, 5: 116). I will return to this point below 27. By associating the propensity to evil with a “practical illusion,” I do not intend to suggest that immorality has a derivative ontological status or is a mere perspectival mistake on our part, as was customary among dogmatic metaphysicians. See G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Justice of God and the Freedom of Man in the Origin of Evil” (Chicago: Open Court Classics, 1985), particularly, parts I and II, and Olivier Reboul, Kant et le problème du mal (Montreal: les Presses de l’Université de Montreal, 1971), chapter 2, 48ff. In the Kantian sense I am trying to elicit, “illusion” points at the origin of evil in the workings of practical reason, and tries to capture the type of necessity accompanying it. 28. “Innate” in the sense that these acts must be “posited as the ground antecedent to every use of freedom given in experience [ . . . ]” (Rel 6: 22, 47), not that we are born with the features that result from such use. 29. He says: “The appropriate proof of this sentence of condemnation [i.e., “man is evil by nature”] by reason sitting in moral judgment is contained not in this section [§ III], but in the previous one. This section contains only the corroboration of the judgment through experience—though experience can never expose the root of evil in the supreme maxim of a free power of choice in relation to the law, for, as intelligible deed, the maxim precedes all experience” (Rel 6: 39 note). 30. The scholarly landscape is, of course, more complicated than I make it sound. There are at least two alternative lines of interpretation worth noticing. Cristoph Schulte maintains that the alleged absence of a transcendental deduction is the result of Kant’s awareness of the impossibility of a formal proof. Cf. Christoph Schulte, Radikal Böse. Die Karriere des Bösen von Kant bis Nietzsche (München: W.F. Verlag, 1991), pp. 78–88. Seirol Morgan, on the other hand, develops a transcendental deduction by associating the primacy of self-love with Kant’s conception of “negative freedom.” Seirol Morgan, “The Missing Formal Proof of Humanity’s Radical Evil I Kant’s Religion,” The Philosophical Review 114, no. 1 (January 2005): 80–86. Schulte makes Kant sound disingenuous, if not deceitful, when he asserts the need of proof; Morgan’s otherwise illuminating approach, unfortunately, lacks textual support in the Religion—as the author freely admits (87). 31. Cf. Henry Allison, “On the Very Idea of a Propensity to Evil,” Journal of Value Inquiry 36, no. 2–3 (2002): 346. I think Allison’s complain is a bit unfair. Wood’s interpretation of evil does not deny transcendental freedom, but connects the exercise of free agency to its social and historical context. This, indeed, is Kant’s own strategy in his writings on anthropology and history. My disagreement with Wood lies primarily in the fact that, pace Kant, Wood dismisses the need for an a priori justification of Kant’s infamous claim, while

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

81

I think it can (and should) be given on Kant’s behalf. Furthermore, I think there is a way of connecting propensities and predispositions in a “quasi-transcendental” way via the concept of “heart,” which explains how the teleology Kant attributes to humanity can, in an act of transcendental freedom, itself be subverted. I will return to this in chapter 4. 32. For a rejection of this individualistic line of interpretation, see Sharon Anderson-Gold, Unnecessary Evil, chapter 3, and Philip Rossi, The Social Authority of Reason (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005), chapters 4 and 5. 33. A. Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 287. 34. A. Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 286. 35. Wood’s silence echoes Kant’s own—my point is that the Religion’s text can be successfully prodded and made to speak, a task Wood does not undertake. I will try to do it in chapter 4. 36. Jeanine Grenberg makes a similar point. Since the drive to society is fundamentally purposive and beneficial, in order to wreak havoc in inter-subjective relations, the tendency to pay unwarranted attention to the demands of self-love must be assumed to be already in place when we come in contact with other self-centered, competitive agents. See Jeanine Grenberg, Kant and the Ethics of Humility (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 34 ff, and more recently, “Social Dimensions of Immanuel Kant conception of Evil,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, forthcoming. 37. “Metaphysically garrulous” is Wood’s turn of phrase in private communication with him. 38. Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 152-161, particularly 155. With small variations, he reiterates the proof in “Ethics, Evil and Anthropology in Kant: Remarks on Allen Wood’s Kant’s Ethical Thought,” Ethics 111, 3 (April 2001): 609–10; and in “On the Very Idea of a Propensity to Evil”: 342. To make the contrast with Wood starker, I favor the original formulation in the book, in which Allison is less clear about the role of happiness and the meaning of holiness in his deduction. 39. Mark Timmons makes a similar point. Cf. Timmons, “Evil and Imputation in Kant’s Ethics”: 138. 40. See Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 287. 41. In the Metaphysics of Morals’ version of “holiness,” of course, things get more complicated, for Kant admits the possibility of human holly wills (MS 6: 383). But this is not the version Allison seems to endorse in his Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Nor will this fix the larger philosophical problem: the conceptual counterpart of the propensity is not virtue, a concept that Kant uses at the level of individual morality, but the highest good, which plays itself out as a collective moral project throughout human history. 42. The ideas of freedom, God, and immortality are a good example of this kind of clash. Although they transcend the limits of possible experience and are empty for speculative reason, they play an important role for practical reason and gain reality in the determination for the agent’s will. If reason were not architectonic, the opposing interests of these faculties would clash and cancel one another.

82

CHAPTER 2

43. See the third chapter of his Doctrine of Method in the KrV (called “The architectonic of pure reason”) and the two introductions to the KU (1790 and 1793). The doctrine of the primacy of practical reason (KpV, section three of the Dialectic) and the role of reflective judgment are also crucial in the architectonic design. 44. The evaluation is possible because observable actions express first-order maxims, whose form in turn exhibits the principle of maxim-selection (autonomy or heteronomy), i.e., the second-order maxim. Since Kant represents this maxim as itself having been adopted by a single choice (Rel 6: 20-21), the Gesinnung stands for the total use of freedom an agent makes throughout the various circumstances of her life. 45. This situation is akin to Ralph Walker’s famous objection to Kant’s theory of free will. See Ralph Walker, Kant (Boston: Routledge and Paul Kegan, 1978), 148–49. In the Religion, however, the noumenal choice of the species would determine the individual’s freedom (not its phenomenal manifestations) as part of a causal series. 46. It would be a mistake to read Kant’s postulation as carrying illegitimate metaphysical commitments. As his more famous triad in the second Critique (immortality, God, and freedom), the agency required for imputation in the Religion also draws on “a theoretical proposition, though one not demonstrable as such, [but which we hold true] insofar it is attached inseparably to an a priori unconditionally valid practical law” (KpV 5: 122). Although we have no knowledge of these agents, we are justified in assuming their existence for moral purposes. Otherwise, there would be an act of freedom, but no actor to whom we could impute it. The case of the species, as we pointed out above (§1, point b), contains the additional complication of involving the language of “as if.” 47. Cf. Y. Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History, 36 ff. 48. For a good summary of the current state of discussion, see Jaqueline Mariña, “Making Sense of Kant’s Highest Good,” Kant-Studien 91 (2000): 329–55. 49. The distinction between “ground” and “object” has been variously wielded by commentators in order to make sense of the doctrine of the highest good and reply to Beck’s double charge of its being ultimately inconsistent and empty. Cf. L. W. Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 243 ff. Among the most important defenders of Kant’s vieware Allen Wood, Kant’s Moral Religion, Cornell University Press, 1970, F. Beiser, “Moral Faith and the Highest Good,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Moral Philosophy, ed. Paul Guyer (London: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 588 ff, particularly p. 616, and Y. Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History. 50. I am following Yovel in this analysis. Cf. Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History. 33. 51. And before that, the world he described in the Canon of the first Critique. As Kant puts it there: “Happiness alone is far from the complete good for our reason. Reason does not approve of it (however much inclination may wish for it) where it is not united with the worthiness to be happy, i.e., with morally good conduct. Yet morality alone, and with it, the mere worthiness

RADICAL EVIL AND THE ARCHITECTONIC OF PRACTICAL REASON

83

to be happy, is also far from being the complete good. In order to complete the latter, he who has not conducted himself so as to be unworthy of happiness must be able to hope to partake of it” (KrV A813/B841). 52. Philip Rossi, “Kant’s Metaphysics of ‘Permanent Rupture’: Radical Evil and the Unity of Reason,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, forthcoming. 53. I agree with the thrust of Paul Guyer’s reading of the different implications of Kant’s postulates. As Guyer puts it: “The problems with the postulates of immortality and freedom are thus quite different. The concept of the highest good is not sufficient to ground the postulate of immortality unless a particular and implausible conception of moral perfection is added; the concept of the highest good is not necessary to ground the postulate of freedom, which is already implicit in the validity of the moral law. The only the postulate of God as the author of the laws of nature in which it is possible for virtue to result in happiness is a necessary and sufficient condition for the possibility of the highest good.” (Cf. Paul Guyer, “From a Practical Point of View: Kant’s Conception of a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason,” in Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, 354). 54. This is Frederick Beiser’s turn of phrase. As Beiser puts it: “Since the 1960s there has been a movement afoot in the Anglophone world to purge Kant’s philosophy of all metaphysics, to make Kant scrubbed and sanitary for a more positivistic age. It began with Kant’s transcendental idealism; it then moved onto his ethics; but it has now dared to enter the inner sanctum itself: moral faith. True to their antimetaphysical program, these scholars have defended a completely secular and immanent conception of the highest good, according to which it is simply a goal of human striving that need not involve the beliefs in the existence of God or immortality.” Cf. Frederick Beiser, “Moral Fait and the Highest Good,” 589. 55. Very much like virtue in the individual, the task of achieving the highest good “is always in progress and yet starts from the beginning—It is always in progress because, considered objectively, it is an ideal and unattainable, while yet constant approximation to it is a duty. That it always starts from the beginning has a subjective basis in human nature, which is affected by inclinations because of which [the resolution to achieve it] can never settle down in peace and quiet with its maxims adopted once and for all but, if it is not rising, is unavoidably sinking” (MS 6: 409). 56. I want to thank Dmitri Nikulin, who made me first aware of this feature. 57. The German is “Fehler des Erschleichens (vitium subreptionis).” “Fehler” can be rendered, more literally, as “error.” I use “vice” to emphasize that this is a moral error, not merely an epistemic mistake. This is also Beck’s choice in his translation. 58. As Kant puts it: “The distinction of the doctrine of happiness from the doctrine of morals, in the first of which empirical principles constitute the whole foundation whereas in the second they do not make even the smallest addition to it, is the first and most important business incumbent upon the Analytic of Pure practical reason, in which it must proceed as precisely and, so to speak, as scrupulously as any geometer in his work” (KpV 5: 92).

3

Radical Evil, Inscrutability and Moral Self-Constitution

“Der Mensch kann leider nur über oder unter dem Thiere stehen.”1 —Franz Baader

The second chapter of this study has shown that Kant’s doctrine of radical evil results from extending his view of evil in the Groundwork in two fundamental directions: by radicalizing his conception of freedom, Kant locates the source of wrongdoing at the level of an agent’s Gesinnung, and by naturalizing his moral psychology, Kant argues for the existence of a natural propensity to evil in the whole human species. Although the text of the Religion is often ambiguous, we have seen that the consistency of Kant’s doctrine requires each extension to rest on a different unit of moral analysis and to fall under a different type of obligation. While the individual is supposed to realize the good, the species must promote the highest good—and the meaning of “evil” varies according to the obligation neglected in each case. The key to understanding this doctrine, then, is to see that Kant connects a specific sense of agency (constitutive and regulative) with a specific moral teleology (the personal struggle to attain virtue and the collective struggle to create the highest good of a possible world) with a specific level of moral analysis (the individual and the species). These spheres are clearly interrelated but, for the purposes of moral imputation and evaluation, they must be construed as being logically independent from one another. The rest of the book is devoted to fleshing out the details of this architectonic connection. In this chapter, we will resume the analysis of the system of inferences Kant uses to establish the presence of an evil Gesinnung. The focus will be on the morality of the single individual, 85

86

CHAPTER 3

and the goal to elucidate what is the transcendental apparatus that makes Kant’s talk of “choosing one’s Gesinnung” possible. Although Kant’s discussion here seems to move within the traditional individualist boundaries of his morality, we will discover a voluntaristic dimension in human freedom that was absent in the Groundwork, as well as the need to postulate a more fundamental volitional structure in order to impute a “first” choice to the human will. These developments respond to reason’s dialectical nature and crystallize in the first thesis of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil. In the next chapter, we will return to the species as a unit of moral analysis. Key for our interpretation is the isomorphic relation Kant establishes between the will of the species and the will of the individual.2 The system of predispositions to good (Anlagen zum Guten) and propensities to evil (Hange zum Bösen) is the distillation of Kant’s anthropological observations and hence could be read in a straightforward empirical way. We will interpret it, instead, in light of the transcendental apparatus outlined in the current chapter. The need for imputing a moral character to the human species, we will argue, distinguishes the anthropology of the Religion from the more empirically minded approach in the Anthropology.3 This empirical approach yields a Beobachtungslehre, an observational doctrine concerned with the phenomenal uses of freedom. The Religion, on the other hand, develops a distinctive moral anthropology, which is tailored to accommodate the a priori, rigorist language of imputation, and, hence, wedded to (the little we can know about) the transcendental origins of these large-scale behavioral patterns. As Kant puts it in a passage from the Metaphysics of Morals—to my knowledge, the only one in the corpus where he uses the expression: The counterpart of a metaphysics of morals, the other member of the division of practical philosophy as a whole . . . would be moral anthropology, which, however, would deal only with the subjective conditions in human nature that hinder people or help them in fulfilling the laws of the metaphysics of morals. It would deal with the development, spreading, and strengthening of moral principles (in education, through schools and popular instruction), and with other similar teachings based on experience. It cannot be dispensed with, but it must neither precede it nor be mixed with it, for one would run the risk of bringing forth false or at least indulgent moral laws that would misrepresent as unattainable what is not attained just because the law has not been presented in all its purity (which constitutes its very strength) or because false and impure incentives were used in addition to it in itself in accordance with duty and good. (MS 6: 217. My emphasis)

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

87

Kant’s opinion about the phenomenal dimension of human nature remains arguably the same in both lines of anthropological work: “the human species [presents itself] not as evil, but as a species of rational beings that strives among obstacles to rise out of evil in constant progress towards the good” (A: 7 333).4 But he never develops the specifically moral core implicit in this vision. I suggest we take the first book of the Religion as an indication of what that core might look like. Although the content of “the subjective conditions in human nature that hinder people or help them in fulfilling the laws of the metaphysics of morals” contains “teachings and precepts based on experience,” the Religion conceives human nature itself as self-imposed, as the result of our own doing. Hence, the demands of imputation complicate the import and interpretation of this empirical anthropological content. There is no room here for the moral neutrality of a pragmatic anthropology—latitudinarian compromise must yield to a clear-cut rigorism, and prudential knowledge of the world, necessary to attain our happiness, must give way to a more important use of that knowledge, i.e., the one necessary to attain our moral destiny (der Bestimmung des Menschen). The dialectical drive that gives rise to the second thesis of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil, then, also leads him to develop a new kind of anthropology in the Religion. Neither fully empirical nor fully a priori, I call this new style of philosophizing “quasi-transcendental” to capture its unique syncretic nature. (1) THE SYSTEM OF INFERENCES The system of inferences Kant uses in the Religion to demonstrate the presence of an evil Gesinnung introduces two important innovations with respect to the foundational project in the Groundwork: the recognition of the groundlessness of freedom, and the need to postulate a transcendental structure analogous to the unity of apperception in order to unify all of one’s volitions and make the initial use of freedom itself possible. The first innovation opens a new set of questions regarding the justification of maxims; the second entails a theory of moral self-constitution Kant left largely undeveloped in his practical philosophy. Since these points are connected, I will begin with the system of inferences and work my way to the question of self-constitution. This procedure follows the indirect method we adopted in the preceding chapters: when it comes to evil in Kant, one must move from what he says to what he must presumably have thought, but did not say, in order to state what he does. Kant says:

88

CHAPTER 3 In order, then, to call a human being evil, it must be possible to infer a priori from a number of consciously evil actions, or even from a single one, an underlying evil maxim, and from this, the presence in the subject of a common ground, itself a maxim, of all particular morally evil maxims. (Rel. 6: 20)

The predicate “evil” is the result, then, of a double abstraction. From a manifold of consciously immoral actions one must be able to infer an evil maxim whose form determines these actions’ wrongness; and from the manifold of evil maxims, one must infer their common ground, namely, a second-order maxim whose form determines the evil of discrete first-order maxims. I call “first-order maxims” those subjective principles containing a determination of the will that is connected with observable action; a maxim of “second-order” is one that determines the form of willing which informs first-order maxims.5 As we saw in chapter one, this latter is the principle of maxim-selection that decides how an agent chooses her principles of action (i.e., the maxims of the first-order). According to Kant, there are only two principles of maxim-selection, autonomy and heteronomy, whose adoption decides whether the agent’s Gesinnung is good or evil.6 Two main features characterize Kant’s reasoning here. The path of inferences moves steadily away from the domain of experience. It proceeds from observable actions to their immediate maxims; and, from this level, which still lies within the limits of experience (since those maxims have been adopted with “consciousness of their evil”), the inference moves a step further into the domain of transcendental freedom. It postulates here an act through which the agent constitutes her second-order maxim, but which itself lies beyond experience.7 Furthermore, the path of inferences leads to instances of increasing unification: the form of the second-order maxim comprises the manifold of discrete first-order maxims within a single principle, which in turn informs the evil character of the manifold of observable actions. As we argued in the last chapter, the search for the unconditioned drives both moves—away from experience, toward the condition that completes the series of conditions and is independent of it. 1.1 The Problem of Discernment Given the strict dualism prevalent in Kant’s practical philosophy, there are (at least) three objections that need to be addressed in order to get the inferential system off the ground:8

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

89

(I) If the agent acts in conscious opposition to the law, the evil character of her action is experienced in inner sense (as guilt, remorse, feeling of impunity, etc.) and therefore has a temporal dimension. Such an experience, however, cannot disclose the fundamental tenor of moral evil, which consists in the transcendental (non-temporal) choice of rejecting the law as the will’s incentive. According to Kant, there is a strict separation between the domain of nature and the domain of freedom. Moreover, since the relation of the will to the law must be determined a priori, i.e., independently of experience, an action done in conscious opposition to the law is not suitable to provide evidence of an evil Gesinnung, because such an action is itself an experience. (II) It is clear that if the agent acts according to the letter of the law, the rightness of her action cannot justify any conclusion about her Gesinnung. The action she performs could still be done out of inclination and its legality be just a veneer of the agent’s basic immorality. (III) Even if the action is wrong (i.e., contrary to what the moral law commands), this does not automatically make the Gesinnung evil. The action could still be the result of unfortunate circumstances or an error in the actor’s judgment, i.e., a mistake in the typic or schematism of what is asserted in the law (in abstracto). This mistake may reflect an agent’s cognitive shortcomings, but does not necessarily impair her moral character. Needless to say, circumstances beyond the agent’s control do not do it either. The first difficulty questions the possibility of an inference from first-order evil maxims to a second-order maxim operating as their ground. The Gesinnung, which is the result of a single act of transcendental freedom, cannot be inferred from the effect of maxims of action in inner sense. The consciousness of having performed actions contrary to the law is itself a temporal experience and can be explained by the laws governing causality in nature. Since maxims are adopted by an agent’s act of freedom and are not observable (not even one’s own), and since we know of evil maxims only through our consciousness of their immorality, this temporal phenomenon is incapable of establishing the necessity of a noumenal (non-temporal) state of affairs. The second and third difficulties, on the other hand, question the possibility of gaining insight into the moral quality of even first-order maxims. Neither right nor wrong actions seem to provide reliable evi-

90

CHAPTER 3

dence of intention. From the spectator’s point of view, a “man of good morals” and a “morally good man” are indistinguishable (Rel. 6: 30). If the observable action contradicts the letter of the law, however, we are in no better position to establish the motive than we are when the action was right. The transgression may well be explained by an unfortunate combination of circumstances or by a non-culpable mistake in the agent’s judgment.9 Such a mistake clearly affects the moral status of her action, but does not necessarily nullify her ultimate intention of acting out of duty. Although the action is overtly wrong (pflichtwidrig), the motivational structure can still be said to be good.10 The sum of these difficulties seems to undermine the very possibility of Kant’s system of inferences. For, if the moral quality of firstorder maxims cannot be determined without hesitation by simply evaluating observable actions, and if we know of the maxim’s evilness only through actions done with consciousness of their being wrong, all we have is a temporal phenomenon incapable of sustaining inferences about the agent’s Gesinnung. Neither the path from observable actions (right or wrong) to non-observable maxims, nor the path from maxims experienced as evil to the Gesinnung from which they supposedly stem, seems able to provide the a priori criterion Kant needs to support his reasoning. (1.2) Moral Cognition The predicament we are describing rests on the assumption that we must know the moral quality of an agent’s manifold first-order maxims in order to make a judgment about her Gesinnung. But since this knowledge is not available, inferences built upon it are doomed to be unreliable. A brief examination of Kant’s views in the second Critique, however, shows that this conclusion trades on an obvious mistake: it interprets the moral knowledge of maxims according to the requirements of speculative reason.11 The moral law is not something we know as we do objects of experience. The consciousness of the law is a fact of reason (Faktum der Vernunft) (KrV 5: 31). It cannot be ferreted out from any antecedent data, nor can it be constructed with the cooperation of the understanding and the forms of intuitions (as speculative reason requires for objects of experience). Rather, it is something with which we are immediately acquainted as an inherent feature of our practical rationality. Since we are immediately conscious of the law, Kant believes that we can determine a priori what conditions maxims must fulfil in order to be objective. The criterion does not depend in any way on the observ-

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

91

able features of the action, as the objections raised above presuppose, but inheres in the moral law as a fact of reason.12 This helps us circumvent the difficulties encountered above. Even if motives as such are inscrutable, actions done with consciousness of their being evil provide conclusive evidence that the moral incentive has been disregarded. Since this incentive is given to us as a fact of reason, neglect can only have taken place by a deliberate subordination of duty to self-love on the part of the agent. There is no need of beating around the bush: “If the law fails . . . to determine somebody’s free power of choice with respect to an action relating to it, an incentive opposed to it must have influence on the power of choice of the human being in question; and since, by hypothesis, this can only happen because this human being incorporates the incentive (and consequently also the deviation from the moral law) into his maxim (in which case he is an evil human being)” (Rel. 6: 24). It is important to notice, however, that Kant’s conclusion could not possibly be supported by actions according to duty. Barring intellectual intuition, there is no way of determining whether the dear self has not actually been the motive behind the right action. The possibility of dissemblance, however, is ruled out in Kant’s system of inferences: the agent undertakes the actions with “consciousness of their being evil,” and this can only mean that she has invested self-love with motivational priority. It is the law’s failure “to determine somebody’s free power of choice,” not its putative success, that provides the smoking gun. As Sharon Anderson-Gold puts it: “the connection between right action and a moral incentive is always hypothetical even when right action is a consistent pattern of behavior, whereas the connection between any wrong action and the existence of a ‘counterincentive’ is direct. For if a person who can recognize the moral law is capable of acting contrary to the law, then that person can only do so if an incentive contrary to the moral law is effectively operative.”13 This fundamental asymmetry in the accessibility of good and evil maxims is all Kant’s argument needs at the first step. The next move, the inference of an evil Gesinnung, follows the typical pattern of transcendental arguments: from something given (the evil first-order maxims), something else is found that provides the a priori condition for its possibility. (2) INSCRUTABILITY Although the appeal to the moral law as a fact of reason solves the problem of discernment, it brings about new difficulties regarding

92

CHAPTER 3

the justification of the second-order maxim. For, although Kant’s system of inferences is designed to identify the evil Gesinnung as the ultimate source of reasons for what an agent does, it is not meant to explain why an agent has chosen the Gesinnung she has. This is not a shortcoming that could be rectified by adding (per impossibile) intellectual intuition to the human mind.14 Justification of the second order maxim is incompatible with the role the Gesinnung plays as “first (erste) subjective ground” (Rel 6: 25). For, if the second-order maxim is to play a foundational role in an explanation of observable wrongdoing, the adoption of this maxim cannot be explained in terms of higher reasons. Otherwise, a more primordial maxim would count as “first,” turning the Gesinnung into a “second.” Inscrutability, then, has nothing to do with our cognitive limitations, as it might seem at first sight. It is part of the function Kant assigns to the Gesinnung: as the end of the series of justifying reasons, the reasons appealed to in the choice of the second-order maxim must themselves be groundless or else give in to an infinite regress. This is the point Kant makes in a famous note: That the first subjective ground of the adoption of moral maxims is inscrutable can be seen provisionally from this: Since the adoption is free, its ground (e.g., why I have adopted an evil maxim and not a good one instead) must not be sought in any incentive of nature, but always again in a maxim; and, since any such maxim must have its ground as well, yet apart from a maxim no determining ground of the free power of choice ought to, or can, be adduced, we are endlessly referred back in the series of subjective determining grounds, without ever being able to come to the first (ersten) ground. (Rel. 6: 22 note)15

The inscrutability surrounding the Gesinnung, however, introduces a dimension of intrinsic opacity in the use of human freedom. Kant realized that, in the process of giving and taking reasons, we must represent the agent as choosing a mode of deliberation that informs this process but cannot be justified by reasons of the same kind. Although the question “what should I do?” receives a definite answer in Kantian ethics, the answer to “how should I deliberate?” must remain inevitably elusive. For, it depends on whether the agent recognizes the moral law as the supreme determining ground of her will. Since that recognition, however, is not determined by morality as a fact of reason (all that fact means is that duty is a necessary and irreducible incentive for the human will), the choice of how to deliberate has reasons that reason cannot grasp.

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

93

This is not accidental. In order to explain the accession of the moral law into the motivational structure, Kant needs more than what the moral incentive can provide, namely, he needs to account for the incorporation of that incentive as the determining ground. This incorporation, however, is an act of freedom that cannot be enforced by an external power nor induced by reasons of self-interest (e.g., one’s happiness or utility). While external enforcement would destroy the agent’s autonomy, the appeal to self-interest would be self-defeating, since it invokes non-moral reasons to justify moral deliberation. In both cases we lose, in the very attempt to grasp, what we are trying to justify.16 The only way to preserve it is by recognizing that the authority the moral law gains in the Gesinnung relies on the fact that the agent has already been swayed by moral considerations. But such a presupposition is what Kant means by having a good Gesinnung (Rel. 6: 24)—hence, it cannot explain how this character itself came about. Since, in order to be imputable, the primacy of the moral point of view must nonetheless be represented as the result of a choice, Kant rightly concludes that the reason a mode of deliberation prevails in the Gesinnung is necessarily unfathomable—either morality is self-justifying, for “no amount of subtle reasoning on our part would produce it or win our power of choice over it” (Re. 6: 27 note), or it is not justifiable at all.17 Kant realized in the Religion, then, that what an agent takes to be motivating in the choice of her “first subjective ground” (either the incentive of duty or of self-love) presupposes the mode of deliberation of that Gesinnung and cannot justify it. Why the law becomes motivating (or fails to do so) is equivalent to the question of how the free will is possible: we reach here “the extreme boundary of all practical philosophy” (Gr. 4: 455), the very limits of intelligibility.18 All we can legitimately do is to give a phenomenology of respect, i.e., of the effect the law has a priori in our mind. Yet, this account cannot explain why the agent effectively took an interest in morality and considered duty motivating to begin with. Taking such an interest involves a leap of volition no argument can bridge.19 Kant gives a formal account to explain why the moral law is the most suited expression of human freedom. As Seirol Morgan succinctly puts it: “Kant’s reasoning is that since all the will is is freedom, the only thing that can possibly provide the will with a reason is spontaneity itself. As freedom is its inner nature, the will has reason to choose the principle which best preserves and expresses it. Of course, according to Kant this principle is the Categorical Imperative.”20 The crucial point, however, is that such an account does not touch the core of the existential problem: accepting the moral law as a fact of reason is also

94

CHAPTER 3

accepting that there is no non-question-begging reason to justify that fact. A “faith” of sorts is required for its adoption in the Gesinnung: we are supposed to subjectively hold true an original interest in morality on the basis of insufficient objective grounds. That the feeling of respect ensues a priori once the moral law has been given accession does not explain why the agent takes (or does not take) a practical interest in the first place. Since the objective grounds are insufficient, the justificatory gap calls for an exercise of the will to fill it in. But that exercise prefigures the type of Gesinnung that is going to result from it, and consequently cannot explain why it came about. Kant himself says that much: ”evil can have originated only from moral evil” (Rel 6: 43, 64). The reverse, of course, applies to the good, which must also have proceeded from the moral good. Just as the feeling of respect makes us aware of a moral law already somehow effective in us (KpV 5: 75-6), the primacy of self-love presupposes the mode of deliberation it is supposed to generate.21 2.1 Justification Reconsidered This aspect of self-presupposition is not completely new. It is an upshot of Kant’s conception of agency. As we saw in the first chapter, recognizing the validity of the moral law is necessary, but not sufficient to grant it motivational power (Gr. 4: 413). The law is authoritative if and only if it is chosen to be so. Since the reasons behind this choice must be construed as incited (but not determined) by the law’s validity (otherwise, the human will would be holy), the law must have already had access into the agent’s motivational structure for her to choose a good Gesinnung. That choice certainly draws on the law’s validity (a fact of reason), but the recognition of this validity cannot escape the subjective (contingent) moment of endorsement. As a result of radicalizing the use of transcendental freedom, therefore, Kant comes to accept in the Religion that, in the eyes of the evil agent, the incentive of self-love is as self-justifying as the moral incentive is in the eyes of the good. This realization points at an important difference between the justification of first and second-order maxims. The categorical imperative (in the formulae of universal law and end-in-itself) contains a procedure for evaluating first-order maxims and the particular actions ensuing from them. Although the details of the procedure are complicated and can be understood in various ways, the fundamental goal is clear: the test offers an exercise for expanding one’s moral imagination. The agent must be able to will that (1) the maxim of her action become a

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

95

universal law, and (2) that she be member of the world created by her action if it were to take place by a law of nature. The imaginary act of giving universal law confronts her with two of her intentions, namely, the one embodied in the original maxim (which is subjectively valid) and the one she assumes as a universal legislator (which is objectively valid). Contradictions at this level help the agent decide how to act in a given circumstance. 22 The test for maxims of action, however, remains notoriously silent about why an agent should engage in this kind of exercise to start with—why she should embrace autonomy as a principle of maximselection. As we saw in chapter 1, in order for the test to succeed, the agent must “still [have] enough conscience to ask [herself]” (Gr. 4: 422) whether what she intends to do is right. Yet, were she to lack such decency, had she gerrymandered the moral horizon to dismiss crucial signs of danger, in short, had she adopted heteronomy as her second-order maxim, no matter how contradictory the universalized first-order maxim might be she could still find ways to convince herself of her entitlement to “an exception . . . (just for this once) to the advantage of [her] inclination” (Gr. 4: 424). Kant is fully aware that the universalizing procedure does not make people moral—it only elucidates the mode of thinking of those who already are. To an agent like the “fool” of Hobbes, who “hath said in his heart: ‘there is no such thing as justice’,” only the fear of consequences would deter from wrongdoing.23 To the extent that good and evil agents live in different moral worlds, what moves the virtuous will leave the “fool” impassive. Both agents would understand the meaning of moral reasons, but their effect would be purely intellectual in the agent with an evil Gesinnung. For, “from the fact that a being has reason does not at all follow that, simply by virtue of representing its maxims as suited to universal legislation, this reason contains a faculty of determining the power of choice unconditionally, and hence be ‘practical’ on its own” (Rel. 6: 26 note). In the Religion, then, Kant draws a wedge between rationality and morality—notions that are hard to distinguish in the Groundwork. The reason an agent is receptive to moral reasons is not itself justified by rational deliberation. This receptivity requires the agent to have given motivational accession to the fact of reason in her Gesinnung. But such accession presupposes the agent’s goodness and cannot explain its genesis. As Gordon Michalson Jr. puts it, “moral selfhood in the deepest, Kantian sense consists of something more like ‘agency’ than like a static ‘essence’. The definite feature of the moral self is already a kind of willing, and not an essence that is logically prior to an

96

CHAPTER 3

original act of willing.”24 Since the “ground” of all maxims is groundless, what matters for morality is not so much how an individual acts, but how she constitutes herself as an agent—how she wills that “original act of willing.” Thus, in his later writings, Kant’s attention changes from action to virtue, from duties to character. These changes are expression of the same totalizing drive of reason that gives rise to the doctrine of radical evil in the Religion.25 It goes without saying that this shift does not mean that Kant severs all ties with the structure of obligation he presented in the Groundwork. Kant remains always committed to the view that morality necessitates the agent to be autonomous and that duty is what we have most reason to do. Yet, he comes to accept that there is a choice involved at each stage of the process, a leap of volition that only the individual can make—and this, in turn, implies that the reasons that determine the direction of the leap presuppose, but do not really explain, the type of Gesinnung the leap will generate. Once freedom is radicalized, it is impossible for him to evade that voluntaristic consequence. (3) Unifying Principles In contrast with the difficulties of the preserving and cultivating one’s character, the question of moral self-constitution has received little attention in the literature.26 In order to shed some light on it, we need first to recall the fundamentals of Kant’s conception of agency. The passage Allison uses to support his Incorporation-Thesis is illustrative: Freedom of the power of choice has the characteristic, entirely peculiar to it, that it cannot be determined through any incentive except so far as the human being has incorporated it into his maxim (has made it into a universal rule for himself, according to which he wills to conduct himself; only in this way can an incentive, whatever it may be, coexist with the absolute spontaneity of the power of choice (of freedom). (Rel. 6: 24)

According to this view, the form the will gives to itself is the result of a synthesis that involves various elements: the material of volition, the incentives, and the motive. The material of volition consists in the manifold of the agent’s desires (Begierde). Kantian “desires,” however, should not be understood in a narrowly sensuous way; they comprise also the non-empirically determined objects Kant calls “duties” (in the plural). The material of volition, then, encompasses all the particular objects that give content to the conative power of the will, which is al-

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

97

ways a will of something—“for in the absence of all reference to an end no determination can take place in human beings at all” (Rel. 6: 4). Incentives (Triebfedern), on the other hand, provide reasons for action, whose sources Kant reduces to one of the two fundamental interests operative in the human will: the practical and the pathological. These interests are channeled through two overarching organizing principles: duty (in the singular) and self-love. The former shapes desires according to the demands of morality, the latter according to those of self-interest. The outcomes of these respective acts of synthesis are the objects Kant calls “the good” (das Gute) and “well-being” (happiness) (das Wohl) (KpV 5: 62-3). In contrast to specific volitions (the ends of particular actions), these comprehensive objects indicate the two basic goals we attribute to a finite rationality.27 Happiness represents our final subjective end and morality our final objective end, but they cannot be both incorporated at the same time as the determining ground of the maxim—only one incentive can become motivating. Whether the Gesinnung is good or evil depends on “which of the two [the agent] makes the condition of the other” (Re. 6: 36). This view of agency yields a picture of human volition as a system of integrated goals, without which the inferences in Religion I would have no traction. The movement from first to second order maxims depends on the assumption that the principles of self-love or duty, having received motivational priority in the Gesinnung, introduce a basic volitional form into the maxims of the first order. The model is analogous to the one Kant used to describe the work of theoretical reason: just as the categories of the understanding unify the manifold of intuitions according to a priori rules that yield empirical objects, the unifying principles of practical reason (self-love and the categorical imperative) provide the rules according to which the moral agent organizes the manifold of her desires and constitutes moral objects. Dieter Henrich puts it this way: There exists an obvious analogy between Kant’s conception of the functions of the understanding and his formula of the categorical imperative. The categories are basic concepts for the determination of objects. They create conceptual unity within the manifoldness of that which is given in space and time. They constitute in this context a connection in accordance with rules that make objectivity as such possible. However, the categorical imperative is also a function of unity, namely, a function of the unity of the will. All moral actions are universal in accordance with their form. We can recognize what is evil by its exclusion of rational universality in action, and by the fact that it leads the will to contradict itself.28

98

CHAPTER 3

There is at play, however, an important difference between these unifying functions. Whereas in its cognitive employment reason relies on intuitions, which must be given to us from an “external,” nonrational source (sensibility), in its practical employment reason deals with self-prescribed principles. Thus, it has the capacity to determine its objects according to a form that lies exclusively within itself. Although inclinations are given, they are not motivating unless the agent makes them so. Through this act, inclinations are raised from their sensible origin and become part of the rational nexus. The resulting object, happiness, is “an ideal of imagination” (Gr. 4: 418), and as such requires the decisive contribution of reason for its formation. In contrast to the understanding that cannot intuit, the will, even in this empirical employment, has the capacity to supersede the receptive moment that limits the understanding to the conditioned. It produces the ideal of a maximum of satisfaction—of a “sum total of inclinations.” In spite of Kant’s dualistic terminology, then, self-love does not really pertain to our passive nature. The integration of the material of volition into a harmonious whole requires reason to subordinate, cancel, compound, postpone, etc., particular desires in terms of an overall policy. Drafting this policy presupposes the capacity to detach oneself from the urgency of particular desires and, therefore, is part of the agent’s spontaneity. Self-love is as much an expression of freedom as is the categorical imperative.29 This distinguishes the products of the will from those of the understanding. Although there cannot be nature without the categories, there can be a moral world without the categorical imperative: this world is the jungle of means. That is, while nature is possible only on the condition that the logical connections between representations be further subjected to the objective rules of connection of consciousness in general (i.e., the categories), the moral world of values can subsist even when agents shape and organize them in idiosyncratic, subjective ways. There is a single set of unifying rules that makes empirical objectivity possible—the moral world, in contrast, relies on the dual set of duty and self-love. Although Kant considers the kingdom of ends the world of objectively valid values, and in that respect, the highest expression of pure practical reason, there is nonetheless a moral world in place when values are not shared. Whereas moral objectivity can exist under subjective unifying principles, empirical objectivity cannot. Once nature is constituted through the understanding, the will is free to reshape it according to the objectivity of morality or the privacy of self-love. Let us turn now to the question of moral self-constitution. The unique situation we face in trying to conceptualize the choice of an

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

99

evil Gesinnung is that a transcendentally free agent, which must be represented as being outside the conditions of experience, is said to inaugurate her use of freedom by giving primacy to a unifying principle that presupposes an empirically given content in order to operate. In this first use of freedom, however, self-love could find nothing empirical to unify. Content can only arise in the subsequent uses, but these derivative acts depend on the form the will has given to the second-order maxim, and cannot be appealed to in order to explain how self-love was adopted in the first place.30 The problem is that, if self-love were construed in the typical Kantian way, i.e., as an empirically bound unifying principle, the result would be inadmissible: only duty would be available for choice at this stage. The absence of a counter-incentive, however, would make the human will hallow: without a competing alternative, the moral incentive would gain automatic primacy in the Gesinnung, and what is “cognized as objectively necessary [would] also [be] subjectively necessary” (Gr. 4: 412). For, “the law imposes itself on [the agent] irresistibly, because of his moral predisposition; and if no other incentive were at work against it, he would also incorporate it into his supreme maxim as sufficient determination of his power of choice, i.e., he would be morally good” (Re. 6: 36). Kant hints at this problem when he claims, “evil can have originated only from moral evil” (Rel 6: 43). Yet, he did not develop the implications of this view. He appealed instead to the “inscrutability” of the reasons that give rise to the first choice. In light of our reconstruction, however, Kant’s appeal is lame as it now stands: even if we were to accept at face value the thesis about moral self-presupposition, the self-love we attribute to the logically prior volitional structure must differ in kind from the empirically bound self-love it gives rise to in the choice of an evil second-order maxim. Things look quite different in the case of the moral incentive. After all, duty is a strictly a priori principle, purged from anything empirical, and with some ingenuity could be tweaked to fit the needs of a transcendental first choice. But there is no room for tweaking in the case of self-love. According to the official Kantian, “all practical principles which presuppose an object (material) of the faculty of desire as the determining ground of the will are without exception empirical” (KpV 5: 21); and, “all material practical principles as such, without exception, of one and the same kind and come under the general principle of self-love or one’s own happiness” (KpV 5: 22). If the choice of an evil second-order maxim is to make any sense, then, Kant must have had a different sense of self-love in mind.

100

CHAPTER 3

(3.1) Will-and-Object-directed Intentions To get at this sense, let me first try to determine how, given the Kantian model of choice, one might conceive of a use of self-love independent of external affectation from already existing objects of desire. This independence would put the sensible and the moral incentive on the same footing, thus making them amenable to the a priori conditions of a transcendental use of freedom. Without this transformation, the troublesome consequence of assimilating the human to the holy will seems hard to avoid. Since the human will is structurally heterogeneous, when it reflects upon itself it encounters an internal manifold: the sensible and the rational incentives. This act of reflection is “the first command of all duties to oneself” (MS, 6: 441, 191). The manifold it encounters can be roughly construed along the lines Kant assigns to inner sense in his theoretical philosophy, i.e., as providing a “matter” a higher rational faculty needs to unify in order to produce objectivity. This “matter,” of course, is not to be identified with “intuitions of our self and its inner states” (KrV A33/B49). The unifying principles of the will, associated with the ethical incentives, squarely belong to reason’s spontaneity; hence, they have already superseded the moment of receptivity that always accompanies the labors of the understanding. However, and this is the important point, the internal manifold must be distinguished from the manifold of desires with which the will constitutes “happiness” and the “good.” These are the practical objects that result from applying the principles of self-love and duty to a manifold of desires, whose content depends on the affectation of already existing empirical objects. In this capacity, duty and self-love function as “limiting conditions” that shape empirically bound desires and organize them according to the practical and pathological interests of the human will. The “matter” in this case, then, can be interpreted as representing the practical correlate of the manifold of intuition Kant associates with outer sense in his epistemology. The analogy works because, just as the manifold of outer intuitions must be unified according to the categories in order to yield empirical objects, the manifold of desires must be unified by the principles of duty or self-love in order to yield practical objects. In the case of the inner volitional manifold, however, the “matter” is independent of the empirical content of desires: it concerns the unifying principles themselves, not that which they unify. Given the Kantian model of choice, we can presuppose that just as the outer matter of desires has to be unified in order to produce moral objectivity, the inner matter of the will has to be unified to produce the moral self, i.e., the Gesinnung as an object.

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

101

In contrast to the empirical self, which Kant considers to be a mere appearance depending on inner intuition (KrV B 152–53), the moral self is constituted in the transcendental act of choosing one’s own motivational structure. This act is beyond the spatiotemporal conditions of appearances and lends itself to moral knowledge (imputation and evaluation). It extends then the cognitive domain beyond its customary sensible boundaries—though only for practical purposes and without epistemic pretensions. That the will finds an inner manifold is not a transcendent claim about the moral self as a thing in itself. It is, rather, a necessary consequence of our finitude— an analytic proposition entailed by the fact that the human will is neither animal nor holy. The act of unification of this manifold, however, is synthetic: by ranking the incentives in an order of priority, the will gives to them a form that was not already present. This form determines the agent’s motivational structure and constitutes her self as an object of choice. The immediate product, then, of adopting a second-order maxim is the Gesinnung, an object whose form, in turn, contains the pattern of choice exhibited by the agent throughout her moral life. For first-order maxims and observable actions draw on the content of outer desires, but are themselves shaped according to the form the will has given to its internal manifold. Again, the relation in question is analogous to the one Kant establishes between inner and outer intuitions in his epistemology: as determinations of the mind, all spatial representations of outer sense are also temporal, and hence shaped according to the form of inner sense. “Time,” as Kant puts it, “is an a priori condition of all appearances in general, and indeed the immediate condition of the inner intuition (of our souls) and thereby also the mediate condition of outer appearances” (KrV A34/B50). To capture the unique character of the act of moral self-constitution that, as a free exercise of the will, must itself be construed as being non-temporal, Kant resorts to the metaphor of innateness in the Religion. The choice in question is “innate” (angeboren), because, although we must represent the will as being its author, the Gesinnung “has not been acquired in time”—the one who harbors it has always been good or evil “from his youth on” (Rel 6: 25).31 Interpreting it as an event (Geschehen) in the conscious life of the individual would throw the choice back into the mechanistic net of nature. It is, then, from the traces in empirical moral consciousness, left by the transcendental activity of her own will, that the agent recognizes herself as the author of her Gesinnung. As Yovel points out:

102

CHAPTER 3 The human self is not given beforehand, as simple, finished, selfcontained primary datum. It rather constitutes itself as its own result through the (non-vicious) circular process, in which it imparts its rational structure (the categories in knowledge, the Categorical Imperative in morality) to the objects of natural or moral experience, and becomes capable of recognizing itself in them.32

To emerge as an object of choice, the Gesinnung must have been organized according to a unifying principle that informs the internal manifold the agent encounters a priori in her will. The manifold is a priori, and hence pliable to a transcendentally free act of constitution, for it is present in the human will independently of the affectation from external objects of desire. By examining the form of her subsequent choices, the agent can retrospectively discover the form she must have introduced to her inner manifold in that primordial formative act. This form establishes immediately her moral character, and, derivatively, the principle according to which her moral identity will be displayed throughout her life. This, I take, is the gist of the moral side of the circle to which Yovel refers: while in the act of self-constitution the organized manifold proceeds from a will-directed intention, the subsequent acts of choice are world-directed, i.e., they result from a unification of inclinations and objects of desire that are empirically given. Kant believes that these two different types of act refer to one another, because a will-directed intention underlies and accompanies all of our world-directed intentions. That is, the way the agent constituted her Gesinnung is reflected by the way she constitutes objects of desire in general. The will’s self-relation sustains and determines the relation an agent establishes with the outer world of objects, i.e., with her empirically bound desires and in her relations with other agents. Without presupposing this interlocking set of references, moral identity would be such as Hume described it: “nothing but a bundle or collection of different [choices] . . . a kind of theater, where several [decisions] successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.”33 (4) THE “I WILL” My claim is that, to avoid this Humean fragmentation, Kant must have presupposed the existence of a transcendental structure, analogous to the unity of apperception, to underpin his system of inferences in Religion I. It must be one and the same will which, by constituting the Gesinnung as an object of choice, also established the principle

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

103

with which the agent henceforth organizes her world-directed desires in general. If the choice of Gesinnung is to be possible, then, the first use of freedom cannot also be the ultimate: we must presuppose, for the purposes of imputation and evaluation, a logical subject to hold accountable for this initial formative activity. This subject, of course, is not a substance (a feature that would make it akin to the I of rational psychology), but a function of unity, the (epistemically empty) agent of a volitional activity. For, if the constitution of moral objects is to make sense, there must be a logically prior volitional unity that forms the agent’s Gesinnung, and, through this act of self-constitution, introduces a basic form that shapes all subsequent choices. The analogy with the “I think” we are suggesting is not new in the literature. Henry Allison, for instance, claims that there is a systematic relation between Kant’s conception of rational agency in the Incorporation Thesis and his doctrine of transcendental apperception: Thus, in light of this thesis, one might say that just as it must be possible for the ‘I think’ to accompany all my representations in order for them to be ‘mine’, that is, in order for me to be able to represent anything through them, so too it must be possible for the ‘I take’ to accompany all my inclinations if they are to be ‘mine’ qua rational agent, that is, if they are to provide motives or reasons for acting.34

More recently, Jürgen Stolzenberg argues along similar lines: Just as the pure “I think” must be able to accompany all of my representations and contains a consciousness of rules of synthesis a priori (which synthetically combines a manifold of given representations to form a uniform consciousness of an object of knowledge), so, in a similar way, the manifold of desires and sensible drives of a subject must be in accordance with those practical rules which are formulated in the categories of freedom if these desires are to count as desires determined by pure reason, and hence if they are to count as moral desires for an object.35

The key intuition of these authors, however, needs to be supplemented in two important directions: the role of the analogy with apperception must be extended to comprise the process of moral self-constitution, and should not be limited to the constitution of outer moral objectivity. Furthermore, we need to break loose from the one-to-one correspondence between epistemic and practical a priori unifying principles: in Kant’s morality, self-love, though clearly subjective, is a principle that has equal power to constitute a moral objectivity as the categorical imperative. Before explaining

104

CHAPTER 3

some of the advantages associated with this view, let me first try to substantiate the analogy. Kant famously claims: “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought at all, which is as much as to say that the representation would either be impossible or else at least would be nothing for me” (KrV B 131-32). The unity of apperception is pure activity. It brings the cognitive subject into existence and must be distinguished from empirical self-consciousness, whose content is (passively) received through the forms of sensibility. We gather the presence of this active self indirectly, through the mediation of inner sense. For, as in all other cases, the knowledge of one’s own existence demands a manifold of sensible intuition, which proceeds from a source other than the pure understanding generating the representation “I think” (KrV note B 158). The choice of unifying volitional principles, however, obeys different strictures than those of knowledge: it has to do with the production of objects, not with their cognition (KpV 5: 55).36 In contrast to theoretical principles, then, practical principles presuppose empirical objects as given, and their function is to subject “the manifold of desires to the unity of consciousness of practical reason commanding in the moral law” (KpV 5: 65). Yet, it is the same reason, now in relation to the faculty of desire, which brings unity to the manifold (just as the understanding did in relation to the faculty of knowledge). “Pure practical self-consciousness,” as Stolzenberg puts it, “like pure theoretical self-consciousness, has only functional significance as a criterion. By analogy with the formula of theoretical self-consciousness—the famous “I think”—it could be expressed in the form of a purely rational “I will.”37 It makes sense then to assume a transcendental structure, similar to the unity of apperception, to account both for the relation between first and second order maxims and the constitution of the Gesinnung. As we have seen, maxims of first and second order relate to one another because a single will forms them according to self-imposed rules of maxim selection, i.e., rules that introduce unity and volitional continuity into maxims of action. The form of these maxims, in turn, arranges the manifold of desires in terms of two overarching objects, happiness and morality. Thus, just as it must be possible for the “I think” to accompany all my intuitions, the “I will” must be able to accompany all my volitions for them to be mine. The pure activity of the “I will” constitutes the Gesinnung as an object of choice, generating the susceptibility to certain type of reasons (moral or self-inter-

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

105

ested), which will henceforth dominate the agent’s mode of deliberation. Though the “I will” brings the moral subject into existence (i.e., shapes her intelligible character), it must be distinguished from both the Gesinnung (the immediate product of the activity) and empirical moral consciousness (the character the Gesinnung grounds, in turn). Furthermore, a similar conceptual grid accompanies both transcendental structures: just as the unity of apperception underlies the categories, empirical concepts, and empirical objects, the “I will” underlies the Gesinnung, first order maxims, and observable actions. The Kantian constitution of the world (of natural and of moral objects) seems to require the presence of elementary transcendental structures, instances of a pure activity of which we have only indirect awareness and no real knowledge. To preserve the analogy with the first Critique, let me call the “I will” (pure practical self-consciousness) the “unity of acknowledgement.” Like the unity of apperception, the unity of acknowledgment is an analytic proposition. It is contained in the idea of a will that sets its own purposes, and says no more than that the manifold of desires must be subject to the conditions under which I can identify them as my own. (4.1) Key to Some Puzzles Lest the analogy lead us astray, there are important differences between the will and the understanding to keep in mind: The schematic relation between categories and empirical concepts is not equivalent to the relation between first and second order maxims. Practical principles do not derive from one another in strict logical fashion of super-and-subordination. Although Kant believes that observable conduct exhibits a pattern indicative of an agent’s moral character, actions and choices must remain, in principle, open-ended and unpredictable. • Whereas the categories of the understanding are objective synthetic principles, self-love is intrinsically subjective. That is, while the experience of natural objects requires objective rules of connection, moral experience cannot preclude subjective unifying principles. The idiosyncratic connection of appearances yields no world at all, whereas the jungle of means is a painful reality. This fundamental asymmetry in what counts as a constitutive principle distinguishes natural from moral necessity—is from ought to be, speculative from practical reason. •

106

CHAPTER 3

Once we accept these few caveats, there are significant heuristic advantages to postulating the unity of acknowledgment. First, the “I will” helps us avoid “moral schizophrenia,” the pathology that consists in the agent’s incapacity of recognizing herself in her Gesinnung.38 A healthy moral life requires not only grasping the pattern that connects the discrete exercises of one’s will, but also conceiving oneself as the author of such a pattern. An agent suffering from “moral schizophrenia,” however, cannot recognize herself in her choices. Although she might be able to discover, in an intellectual exercise of abstraction, a volitional pattern connecting her manifold acts of willing, she would nonetheless be unable to own those acts—they would appear, to her, as expressing the will of another. Such an agent would adopt a third-person perspective with respect to her own choices. This makes any attempt at imputation futile: I cannot be held accountable for volitions that are, in my own eyes, not mine. This pathology represents the flipside of the Humean fragmentation mentioned above: while the variegated self Hume has in mind could still acknowledge each one of the gliding instances of her volition, the schizophrenic moral agent perceives the continuity between the choices, but is incapable of recognizing the pattern as being her own. In the first case, the self is many, but this plurality is compatible with owning each of its particular acts; in the second, the choices are one but they are not mine, for I do not recognize myself in them. The unity of acknowledgement solves both problems with a single stroke: the choices by which the agent recursively discovers her Gesinnung, exhibit the same volitional pattern of activity that she identifies must have already been present for her Gesinnung to exist. Thus, this transcendental volitional structure can help explain both the abidingness of the moral self, and the ownership we presuppose the healthy moral agent takes for her different choices. It is one and the same will, which, for the purposes of evaluation and imputation, we presume underlies them all. More importantly, the unity of acknowledgment helps account for the problem of moral self-presupposition: the type of reason the “I will” incorporates in the process of self-constitution generates a mode of deliberation whose adoption informs the agent’s general use of freedom. The same “I will” underlies will-and-world directed intentions, i.e., the volitional pattern that gives rise to the Gesinnung and which henceforth is exhibited in the various instances of choice (i.e., first-order maxims and observable actions). By recognizing the traces of her own activity in all these acts, the agent acknowledges herself as their author. This is important because it allows us to appreciate the integrity of the

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

107

Kantian corpus: the empirically bound exercise of self-love, which saturates the letter of Kant’s texts, requires a more fundamental volitional structure for it to be possible, just as the categories referred to a higher function of unity in Kant’s epistemology. This half-stated assumption is the cornerstone of Kant’s practical philosophy— without the “I will,” the moral life of an individual would be patchwork of disjointed choices and the system of inferences in the Religion would crumble. Finally, the unity of acknowledgement helps elucidate the aprioricity of self-love. Just as the “I think” brings about the cognitive agent into existence, the unity of acknowledgment generates the moral agent. Since the latter is an act of practical reason, not concerned with the intuition of an external (non-rational) manifold but with a manifold that is already existing in the heterogeneous will as such, the “matter” the “I will” has to organize lies within itself and does not require empirical affectation. This a priori sense of volitional “matter” is necessary to envision the possibility of an evil Gesinnung. As we saw in §3, even before receiving empirical content from particular desires, the will must choose the principle of self-love as its basic modus operandi. This choice of will-directed intention defines the agent’s moral identity by introducing an order into the incentives. To be possible, however, it requires presupposing a logical subject to which to impute it—otherwise, there would be an act without an actor. The activity of this subject (akin to the pure I of theoretical philosophy and not a res volens) generates an object of choice (the evil Gesinnung), which in turn can be said to shape the agent’s subsequent mode of deliberation. If self-love were construed in the traditional way, i.e., as an empirical principle, it would have nothing to unify in this “first” act of choice. To bring our remarks in the first chapter to bear on this extended picture of agency, we can now formulate the two basic unifying principles of Kantian ethics: (1)

The “I will” of the agent of good Gesinnung, which applies the form of duty to all volitions, gives to its choices the form “I will that you will.” She recognizes as motivating only reasons that are acceptable for other agents. For her, what only counts as a desire is only what is morally permissible, and thus her interests are inclusive of those of other human beings, whom she respects as independent sources of value. She builds a community of shareable purposes with them, a kingdom of ends, which results from the integration of agents whose object is “the good” (das Gute).

108

CHAPTER 3

(2)

The “I will” of the agent of evil Gesinnung, which applies selflove as unifying principle, gives her choices the form “I will what I please.” “What pleases” is in itself a sufficient reason, no matter how it affects other agents. Here, subjective reasons for action systematically disregard the question of their permissibility, resulting in an attitude that may or may not lead to observable wrongdoing depending on the contingent circumstances. This mode of deliberation represents diverse interests as mutually exclusive. The other’s will is not an independent source of value, but a means to my ends—a thing that one can use as one wishes. The agent builds through her choices a competitive, antagonistic society, in which anticipation and distrust lead to an overt or hidden war of all against—a jungle of means. This is the collective expression of the systematic connection between agents whose object is “happiness” (das Wohl).

The passage (Übergang) from the empirical consciousness of the activity of the “I will” in the first-order maxims to the form that activity must have had in order to constitute the Gesinnung is made possible by an assumption Kant states in the opening sections of the Anthropology: Even if [the human being] only wants to study himself, he will reach a critical point, particularly as concerns his condition in affect (Affekt), which normally does not allow dissimulation (Verstellung): that is to say, when the incentives are active, he does not observe himself, and when he does observe himself, the incentives are at rest. (A 7: 121)

Kant intends this remark to indicate one of the difficulties accompanying knowledge of human nature (homo noumenon): at the moment of transcendental choice, when the incentives are active, we are not conscious of them, but when we are conscious it is because the choice has already taken place. Consciousness always arrives morally late. However, Kant’s remark does more than to point at our theoretical limits: he says that the phenomena encountered in moral self-scrutiny bear a mark that does not “normally” allow “dissimulation.” That is, the emotional condition one finds oneself in is itself the result of an activity of which we are not conscious but are nonetheless entitled to presuppose—at least, when the agent’s Gesinnung is evil and adopted first order maxims with full consciousness of their being contrary to the law (gesetzwidrig). This practical piece of knowledge points, with

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

109

a priori certainty, to the existence of the “I will,” an activity that is as hard to get a hold of as that of the “I think” for the consciousness of the epistemic subject. (5) Neither a Brute Nor a Devil The existence of only two forms in which the will’s internal severance is unified strikes many readers as suspicious. Even if there were a single way of hitting the moral target (itself a disputable assumption), there are surely many ways of being evil: “I will what I please” seems too thin and narrow to account for the whole gamut of human immorality. This presumed limitation has been a favorite target among Kantian critics. In the recent literature, for instance, Claudia Card argues for the need to introduce considerations of suffering in order to expand Kant’s agent-centered conception in the direction of the patient’s point of view.39 Otherwise, we get an inverted, even perverse moral perspective: a moral narcissism more concerned with the purity of one’s motives than with another person’s affliction. As Card puts it: “in doing evil [according to Kant], we make ourselves less worthy—less worthy of happiness and certainly unworthy of esteem. If that is a harm, we harm ourselves” (74). And a few lines below: “[Kant’s] concern with evil remains primarily a concern for the moral purity of potential perpetrators rather than for the quality or decency of the lives of potential victims.” (74–75) Ignoring the dimension of harm, Card suggests, puts Kant in a double bind. It leads him to disregard the existence of “evil desires, interests, or inclinations” (84). These are the motivational forces that drive agents to inflict intolerable harm on one another, yet, Kant considers them diabolic and hence beyond humanity. Furthermore, harm-insensitivity leads Kant to obfuscate the difference between minor wrongdoing and serious evil action, reducing all immorality to the primacy of prudence (self-love) over morality. “The deliberate choices of both murderer and subway free rider are wrong in exactly the same way. The fact that no one suffers in one case and someone dies in the other is, for Kant, morally irrelevant” (82). Card traces both shortcomings to a single source: Kant’s inability to understand that “what motivates cruelty may be a normative self-conception [ . . . ], the desire to be a certain kind of person, one who would be worthy of the admiration or esteem of certain others whose admiration or esteem one values” (85). Hence, if the agent places her identity in the esteem of “lesser beings than God, it should not be surprising that one’s fundamental practical principles are frequently less than moral” (87).

110

CHAPTER 3

Richard Bernstein finds similar problems.40 In his view, the doctrine of radical evil is “intended to explain why (from a practical point of view) we deviate from following the moral law,“ however, “when stripped down to bare essentials, it simply reiterates the fact that human beings who are conscious of the moral law sometimes (freely) deviate from it” (33).41 This is a rather trivial and disappointing claim. There is an asymmetry, therefore, between Kant’s inflated rhetoric and the explanatory power of his doctrine, a great “disparity between what he intends and what he says” (33–34).42 To avoid eviscerating the notion of radical evil, Bernstein suggests refurbishing the notion of diabolical will, which Kant hastily dismissed in the Religion. In a consistent theory of freedom, Bernstein argues, diabolical evil cannot be said to apply to the species (for “if man as species were intrinsically devilish, then there would be no morality” (38), but is certainly an open possibility for particular individuals. Given Kant’s conception of freedom, “it must be possible for an individual to defy and repudiate the moral law in such a manner that he freely adopts a disposition (Gesinnung) in which he consistently refuses to do what the moral law requires “ (39). To limit incentives to only two kinds, as Kant does, is clearly artificial: “it is difficult to see how the incentives that motivate fanatics and terrorist who are willing to sacrifice themselves for some cause or movement can be accounted by self-love” (42). In the course of this study, I tried to explain why Kant refused to follow Card’s train of thought and consider cruelty the worst thing we do. I want to focus now on the overlapping part of these objections, namely, the presumed inability of self-love to account for the most outrageous forms of immorality. To defend Kant’s view we need to take a closer look at the reasons he adduces to discard both sensibility and a corrupt legislative reason (Wille) as possible sources of evil. Card speaks of the motivational power of “evil desires and inclinations.” This, however, entails a category mistake, for in the Kantian view sensibility as such has no relation whatsoever with “evil.” This relation obtains either in the empiricist account of motivation, in which desires are causal forces and reason is their slave, or in (a certain reading of) the Christian view that associates sin with bodily desires. Neither reflects Kant’s position. For him, to count as “evil,” the agent must have taken those inclinations and desires as valid reasons for action and formed immoral maxims. A will for which inclinations and desires were directly motivating could neither be held responsible nor feel obligated by the moral law. Determined by “evil desires,” the will would be exempt from the activity of unifying volitions. Instead of “taking as,” it would “receive as”—and this passivity would make

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

111

the human being a cog in the mechanism of nature. Notice, however, that such mechanism is not limited to our pathological nature (our sensibility), but also includes our “second nature” (our sociality), i.e., those desires that arise from the expectations of the group to which we belong and from which we seek approval.43 This includes those “important persons” we grant authority in our self-conceptions (those beings “lesser than God” Card talks about). In What is Enlightenment, for instance, Kant refers to the “doctor” and the “priest” as authoritative figures, whose judgment we blindly allow to replace our own (WA 8: 35). Once we have we have abandoned our biological/historical childhood (nature’s “alien guidance” (fremde Leitung)), however, we must represent ourselves as responsible for what is authoritative for us. Reference to social expectations is not exculpating. For the purposes of evaluation and imputation, passivity is always “self-incurred” (selbstverschuldet). Immaturity is an act of the will: a product of self-deception, a stratagem to preserve the illusion of patience and shift to others the responsibility for our motivational structure. This is why Kant believes that our sensuous nature (pathological or social) “contains too little to provide a ground of moral evil in the human being, for, to the extent that it eliminates the incentives originating in freedom, it makes of the human a purely animal being” (Rel. 6: 35).44 Kant’s rejection of devilishness is more controversial. In Religion I, Kant tries to do it on purely analytic grounds, but the result is mixed. Drawing on the so-called “reciprocity thesis,” which claims that “freedom and unconditional practical law reciprocally imply each other” (KpV 5: 29), Kant concludes that it is impossible that “reason could extirpate within itself the dignity of the law itself” (Rel. 6: 35). It is self-contradictory “to think of oneself as a freely acting being, yet as exempted from the one law commensurate to such a being (the moral law)” (Ibid.). The contradiction, however, is unconvincing. Kant takes for granted what he needs to prove: since the hypothesis of a corrupt Wille questions the identification of freedom and morality, why should we accept the reciprocity thesis to begin with? In its simplest version (Groundwork III), the reciprocity thesis starts from the idea that the notion of causality would be inconceivable without a law connecting logically independent occurrences. If we assume the existence of freedom, we must recognize that its causality cannot be lawless. Lawlessness would turn the free will into an “absurdity” (Unding): it would deny the notion of law, and, at the same time, affirm the notion of freedom that implies it (Gr 4: 446). Objects of desire cannot provide the law we are seeking. Since the material of volition is empirically determined, such a determination

112

CHAPTER 3

is incompatible with a transcendentally free will, whose law must express the will’s property of being a law to itself. This property Kant calls “autonomy,” and its principle, the categorical imperative, commands universally and unconditionally—the only features compatible with the will’s freedom.45 Kant’s account, however, meets Bernstein’s objection halfway. The hypothesis that a human being can be a teuflische Wesen is meant to question precisely this identification of autonomy and transcendental freedom. Devilishness implies an agent who is free and nonetheless has an “absolutely evil Wille” (schlechthin böser Wille), a “malignant reason.” By its very nature, such an agent neglects the moral law and organizes conduct around the incentive of doing evil for evil’s sake. Kant claims that this hypothesis “comprises too much.” But his quick dismissal presupposes the acceptance that there are only two incentives in a finite rationality. Under this assumption, it is true, a free agent, whose sole incentive were the sheer opposition to morality, cannot possibly resort to the laws of nature to determine her conduct—such a legislation would prevent us calling her actions “evil.” Yet, a devilish being cannot resort to self-love either—we are imagining her as doing evil for its own sake, not for the sake of her self-interest. Since the only other available incentive is duty, a devilish being would have no law whatsoever to guide her conduct—Kant concludes, then, that this agent would be an Unding. But such a conclusion misses Bernstein’s deeper point: Kantian ethics works on a dogmatic limitation of the incentives available to humans. (5.1) Devilishness Reconsidered The confusion arises because Kant is mingling two different lines of argument: (1) a corrupt Wille is incapable of being legislative, for it leads to the contradictory thought of a lawless law; (2) since the incentive of doing evil for its own sake exceeds the boundaries of self-love, devilishness represents a type of incentive not “applicable to the human being” (Rel. 6: 35). The first line draws on the inherent normativity of rational action; the second draws on the limits of our moral psychology. Kant shifts from one to the other without making their different assumptions clear. It is not surprising then that his rejection of devilishness has been criticized on both accounts. As John Silber has pointed out long ago, an agent who systematically rejects the incentive of morality is no absurdity (Unding). A handful of historical and fictional examples can be produced to prove Kant wrong. “Kant’s insistence to the contrary, man’s free power to reject

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

113

the law in defiance is an ineradicable fact of human experience.”46 “In dismissing the devilish rejection of the law . . . Kant called attention to the limitations of his conception of freedom rather than to the limits of human freedom itself.”47 For, by assimilating freedom and pure reason, “Kant thoughtlessly assumed that volitional rationality loses its power in the violation of the moral law.”48 This assumption, however, neglects the fact that the practice of immorality is in most cases not only compatible with careful rational calculus, but also demands it. Kant is aware of this problem. His official reply can be found in the Metaphysics of Morals, in which he distinguishes between the explanatory principle of the concept of free Willkür and the empirical evidence of man’s use of it. “Although experience shows that man as a sensible being has the capacity to choose in opposition to as well as in conformity with the law, his freedom as an intelligible being cannot be defined by this, since appearances cannot make any supersensible object (such as the free Willkür) understandable” (MS 6: 227). No matter how many examples we may present of individuals that systematically oppose the moral law in their conduct, Kant can always shrug them off: observable conduct does not decide upon the validity of the normative dimension of the will (Wille).49 From a purely normative perspective, the agent’s opposition to the moral law is incapable of defining her freedom of choice (Willkür). In the logic of the Kantian argument, “only freedom in relation to the lawgiving of reason is really a capacity; the possibility of deviation from it an incapacity” (MS 6: 227).50 To count as “evil” the deviation must be free, but it is only the moral law (and the concomitant obligation to adopt it in one’s maxims) that justifies our inference to the existence of such a freedom, its ratio essendi. Thus, a diabolical will, conceived as being exempt from the moral law, forfeits the freedom that warrants our attribution of “evil” to its volitions, and, in this sense, it is self-contradictory (an Unding). However, Bernstein rightly notices, this Kantian reply does not touch the core of Silber’s objection. “Silber is not referring to empirical ‘facts’ in the restricted technical sense in which these terms are used in the Critique of Pure Reason, where they refer to the phenomenal realm. He is using them more broadly, in a manner consistent with Kant’s own usage when he speaks of ‘the experience (Erfahrung) of the actions of men’ in the Religion.”51 Hence, if Wille is interpreted in a broader sense than in the passage from the Metaphysics of Morals, i.e., as designating the unified faculty of volition and not merely “pure practical reason,” it remains possible that certain agents do evil for its own sake, i.e., that they have a corrupt Wille, whose primary incentive is to defy the moral law (41). A truly coherent theory of freedom

114

CHAPTER 3

cannot restrict the range of choices opened to us. As Bernstein puts it, “there is no free choice (Willkür) unless there is the choice to be morally evil, even devilish” (42). If recognition of the moral law can serve as an incentive to act morally, there can always be a counter-incentive. We can choose to be perverse, we can choose to be devilish, we can choose to defy the moral law. We may be told that such a choice is irrational . . . that there is a performative contradiction whereby we are both exercising and denying our freedom. But it does not follow that we cannot do this! On the contrary, such a possibility is intrinsic to the human Willkür. There are no intrinsic restraints on what the Willkür can choose to do: we are “radically free.” (41–42).

The crux of Bernstein’s criticism, then, is that once we question the formal grounds Kant adopts to defend the lawgiving function of Wille, there seems to be no reason to deny that particular agents organize their volitional structure around the incentive of doing evil for evil’s sake. Such agents would recognize the moral incentive, but would choose to defy it out of sheer commitment to evil.52 Kant’s moral psychology is not prepared to accommodate this extreme kind of immorality, a “third incentive” over and above duty and self-love. Kant openly admits it: “the human being (even the worst (ärgste)) does not repudiate the moral law, whatever his maxims, in rebellious attitude (by revoking obedience to it)” (Re. 6: 36). Moreover, Bernstein believes that Kant’s assimilation of immorality to the primacy of self-love leads him to overlook the major difference between “those who may be misguided because they give priority to their sympathetic feeling for their fellow human beings, those (like Eichmann) whose primary incentive for performing their ‘duty’ seems to be advancing their own career, those who mock and defy the moral law, and those who do evil for evil’s sake” (42). This conclusion coincides with Card’s: Kant’s moral psychology is unable to draw the most basic moral distinctions. In Bernstein’s reading, self-love is too thin a principle to make pertinent discriminations, and the sensuous incentive too shallow to describe the motivational structure of serious evildoers. Thus his conclusion: a robust conception of evil calls for the rehabilitation of devilishness. (5.2) Self-Love as a “Thick” Moral Principle The offshoot of Bernstein’s analysis is that there is nothing self-contradictory in promoting evil for evil’s sake. The contradiction Kant tried

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

115

to generate in Religion I depends on accepting the analyticity of freedom and morality —an analyticity which is precisely what a devilish form of volition puts into question. If Kant is to discard devilishness, he needs to provide a further argument: one may think of a devilish agent whose unifying principle of volition revolves around the interest of producing a maximum of evil in the world. Such an agent would choose maxims of the first order because their content opposes what the moral law commands. Her choice of the maxim of the second order would specify the criterion to select first order maxims, namely, that they be principles that take defiance of the moral law as itself motivating, no matter how much self-sacrifice the defiance might take. Now, if we examine this form of volition more closely, we will see that it is self-stultifying. The problem with devilishness is not that it yields a strict contradiction, but that it represents a motivational structure that is itself unsustainable. The absurdity is existential, not logical. While the material of volition of an agent of evil Gesinnung is organized according what she pleases (das Wohl), the Gesinnung of a devilish being would have as its general object “evil” as such (das Böse). The “I will” accompanying her choices would have the form “I will you cannot will.” Subjective considerations about wellbeing would play neither a role in the process of maxim formation nor in the process of deliberation; otherwise, the Gesinnung would fall back into the conventional framework of self-love. Ignoring all concerns about happiness, the fundamental intention of a devilish being would display a disinterestedness curiously resembling holiness. For, what unifies devilish volitions is the determination of undoing morality, but this deliberate destruction would have to be motivated by reasons that disregard considerations about personal advantage or any other idiosyncratic goal. Advancing an immoral cause or redressing an injustice by violent means, motives Bernstein ascribes to fanatics and terrorists, could not weigh in on the diabolical decision-making. In these impermissible goals the agent has invested her “happiness”; her subjective conception of the good is wrapped up in their immorality. Even if pursuing them comes at a great deal of self-sacrifice, these goals give a meaning that sustains, unto death, the agent’s moral life. They justify in her eyes, and those who are similarly minded, the sacrifice in question. Like Milton’s Satan, one may imagine the diabolical agent saying: “evil be thou my good.”53 But with this utterance even Satan admits a good (and hence remains within the bounds of justification), while denying the moral good in existential defiance.54 Matthew Caswell reaches a similar conclusion. He argues that it is “impossible to subordinate morality to its opposite, for it is impos-

116

CHAPTER 3

sible to subordinate any interest to an interest in its opposite.”55 The impossibility resides in the fact that the subordinated interest “cannot possibly be action-guiding, since the contradictory interest will override it in every possible case” (153). He provides a non-moral example to illustrate his view: Now, it is possible for me to subordinate my career interest to my golf interest, neglecting professional duties in order to spend more time golfing; or, alternatively, I could make my job a higher priority, and play golf only when my work schedule allowed. But it is not possible to subordinate my love of golf to a hatred of golf . . . The two interests (golf-love and golf-hatred) cannot share a home in the same will; either one is present or the other, but they cannot be subordinated relative to one another. (152)

Caswell’s point is that although we can will interests that are “contrary,” thereby establishing a hierarchy of priorities, we cannot possibly will interests that are ”contradictory,” because the subordinated interest effectively vanishes and plays no role in determining action (153). My point is that the diabolical volition represents a selfdefeating motivational structure, for it deprives itself of reasons for action. Even the most brutal acts of cruelty (say, the burning of villages, murder, rape of women, nailing of prisoners, torturing of babies, dismembering of children, etc., all the atrocities Dostoevsky refers to in “Rebellion” or any other ones from the darkest catalogue of human malice) could not entice a devilish being. These acts are not fully gratuitous, completely disinterested, as is required from the diabolical agent—we presume in the perpetrators a pleasure in humiliating, in undermining another human being’s capacity for agency, in vengeance, in greed or ambition, in spitefully proving that there is no god and hence everything is permitted, in escaping boredom, etc. None of these motives is “devilish” in the Kantian sense—their wickedness stems from a (perverse) subjective conception of the good, and falls under the aegis of self-love broadly construed. The hypothesis Kant is rejecting as “comprising too much” is that the knowledge of the wrongness of an action (not pleasure, ideology, self-serving calculations, self-assertiveness, etc.) could in itself motivate human beings. The very morality of the action must be a positive disincentive to doing it—but this leaves the diabolical will with no diabolical reason: when I make it my good that you cannot will it, the maxim guiding my action inevitably rebounds into a variant of selflove.56 Although Bernstein is right in that there is nothing intrinsically contradictory with the devilish volition, when properly spelled out,

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

117

doing evil for evil’s sake turns out to be smoke and mirrors: an empty gesture of defiance that is parasitic on some arbitrary conception of the good. For, as Kant explains in the Anthropology, “the human being . . . never sanctions (billigt) the evil in himself, and so there is actually no malice (Bosheit) from principles, but only from the forsaking of them” (A 7:293–94). Pure defiance, then, is incompatible with the tendency human beings have to justify their principles, i.e., to give them a semblance of acceptability within themselves and in the parochial tribunal of the meaningful others. The distinctive trait of Kantian ethics is that it imagines that tribunal to be always cosmopolitan (weltbürgerlich), including all human beings. As a matter of anthropological observation (a mixture of introspection, knowledge of mores of one’s neighbor, and factual/fictional reports on the life of others), Kant came to believe that finite rational agents, even as they disregard the moral law, act sub specie boni, no matter how distorted or perverse that supposition might be. This belief is not an expression of Kant’s naiveté. Kant never doubted that humans were capable of very nasty crimes, but he also recognized that, in order to be accountable, we must represent our actions as pursuing something that matters to us, some good to which we bestow our interest. A being indifferent to the good has no reason for action. (5.3) Banality Reconsidered Let me conclude these observations about self-love by analyzing an example of evil that has received much attention in the literature. It is often pointed out that Eichmann not only shielded himself with the excuse, common among war criminals, of having obeyed authority, but that he went as far as to claim to have done his duty. As Hannah Arendt reports, “to the surprise of everybody” Eichmann gave a fairly accurate rendering of the categorical imperative.57 His version certainly distorts the meaning of the Kantian formula, for it “thoughtlessly” confounds the general law of the land and the universally valid moral law.58 Yet, this blunder indicates that, at the basis of Eichmann’s actions, there was not the incentive of doing evil for evil sake, which would make him a devilish being, but rather a distorted use of moral judgment: Eichmann identified the good with the will of the Führer. This perversion is not uncommon. There is always some rationalizing explanation among criminals, and nobody justifies her conduct by appealing to the incentive of doing evil for evil’s sake—at least not in courts, of which Kant believes every agent’s moral consciousness is an instantiation. Even Hitler would have been at a loss without Versailles, his appeal

118

CHAPTER 3

drastically reduced without the perceived danger of communism or the supposed iniquity of an international Jewish conspiracy. According to Arendt, Eichmann’s distortion of moral judgment was due to his “inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else.”59 It is this inability—not a corrupt legislative reason—that Kant identifies as an evil Gesinnung. The agent who grounds her mode of deliberation on the principle of self-love systematically overlooks the limit other agents impose upon her actions. In refusing to recognize others’ dignity and absolute worth, the agent is ready to objectify them and treat them as disposable means. What is perplexing in Kant’s view is that, however necessary, such a readiness is not sufficient to give rise to wrongdoing. Much depends on the contingent circumstances. There need be nothing self-contained in our self-love: social belongings and involuntary associations always punctuate our idiosyncratic conception of the good, and these ties (the virtual audience of the meaningful others) shape the way we go about justifying ourselves. As Kant makes clear with his examples of the officer and the clergyman in What is Enlightenment (WA 8: 37–38), what duty requires is to step back and reflect on the circumstances we find ourselves in. It is not a matter of breaking loose from our attachments, but of critically evaluating them and refusing to act if our maxim cannot be communicated to the entire reading public.60 The importance of this becomes clear when we realize that Eichmann’s mode of deliberation does not substantially differ from that of the shopkeeper in the Groundwork who returns the exact change to the inexperienced customer (i.e., acts according to duty) only because, in his particular community, the policy of obtaining maximum profit in all circumstances is detrimental to business. Were his reputation of honesty not at stake, or could he reap advantage from his customers with impunity, the shopkeeper would not hesitate to utilize clients as a means to his own ends. In the shopkeeper’s community, the reputation of honesty translates into commercial success, while dishonesty is deprecated and punished. By checking his immediate inclination and measuring it up against his standard of happiness, which, though idiosyncratic, is socially constructed by his belonging to the particular group, the merchant gives to his conduct the appearance of decency. This Tugendschein incites him to interpret his character in terms of the complaisance of his actions with the values of these meaningful others. The generality of his maxim is admitted as a substitute for its required universality, and the agent interprets his moral character in terms of the approval he receives from the opinion of others. “For to us someone already counts as good when his evil is common to a

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

119

class” (Rel. 6: 33). The shopkeeper is “evil,” not because his action lacks moral worth (as the discussion in the Groundwork seems to suggest). Rather, he is evil because without the incentive of self-love luckily hiding the “corruption” of his Gesinnung, nothing would have prevented his wrongdoing. The merchant enjoyed an alibi; Eichmann did not. But even the hatred of Hitler was not a case of unadulterated evil—it had to be wrapped up and packaged in the garments of a good, whose first victim was perhaps Hitler himself. Kant’s rejection of devilishness, then, does not entail the evisceration of evil, as Bernstein and Card suggest. It is required by the conditions of moral accountability. Devilishness assumes that humans could dispense with the activity of rationalizing their actions, of justifying their conduct by appealing to certain reasons they care about. Yet, a will that does not care about its reasons cannot be held accountable and is beyond imputation.61 The same grounds that led Kant to treat holiness as an unattainable goal for a finite rationality apply here. A will for which happiness is not a “temptation,” i.e., the source of a competitive conception of the good, is itself homogeneous, subject to a single type of incentive, unburdened from the task of giving itself a form. Although their actions have opposite moral content, both a demon and a saint are one-dimensional agents. The appeal of Milton’s Satan is that he was not such a demon. Despite appearances to the contrary, Kant’s rejection of devilishness is the condition for the possibility of preserving the freedom of the will, which is cancelled as soon as we neglect its structural heterogeneity. Stripped naked of reasons, demons are wantons—they have no choice to make.

NOTES 1. “Man, unfortunately, can only stand above or below the animals.” 2. Arguably, the most controversial aspect of our reconstruction is the attribution of agency to the human species. In strict sense, it is only individuals that act for Kant. I defended this view in the preceding chapter by conceiving such an agency as a regulative idea, necessary for practical purposes but without metaphysical strings attached. 3. This approach is dominant, but not hegemonic, in Kant’s writings on history. As Paul Guyer notices, there are important tensions between the mechanistic approach in Idea and the moral framework Kant endorses in the Appendixes to Perpetual Peace. Cf. Paul Guyer, Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, 376–407. 4. This is one of the last sentences of the Anthropology and is meant to sum up Kant’s observations about the character of the species. The tone is

120

CHAPTER 3

typical of his writings on history, characterized by a sober optimism about the attainability of man’s destiny and our asymptotic approximation to it. 5. This terminology follows closely Nelson Potter’s distinction between “action-maxims” and “fundamental maxim,” to which Paul Guyer also appeals. As it will become clear in the discussion below, the truly “fundamental maxim” is not the one located in the Gesinnung, as these interpreters suggest, but the one we must presume characterizes the transcendental volitional structure that lies at its basis. To avoid confusion, I refer to the Gesinnung as a “second-order” maxim, the “first” act of transcendental freedom, and reserve “fundamental” to designate the activity of the volitional structure that accounts for what makes the second-order maxim possible. Cf. Nelson Potter, “Kant and the Moral Worth of Actions”: 232, and Guyer, Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, 295. 6. As I interpret Kant, the “goodness” of autonomy resides in the fact that it guides moral deliberation according to universalizable principles. Since these principles are based on moral reasons, they can be shared by all agents and allow them to constitute a common world of value experience—what Kant calls the “kingdom of ends”. The “evil” of heteronomy, on the other hand, resides in the fact that self-love ultimately resorts to feelings (pleasure and displeasure) as the criterion for selecting maxims of action. Since these feelings are utterly subjective and private, no common world of moral experience can be based on them. This generates what we called a “jungle of means,” a situation where values are decided by the might and cunning of the contenders. 7. Although the act escapes consciousness, the demands of moral imputation lead us to consider it as if it were deliberate. Kant tries to capture this flickering status by calling the second-order maxim “innate” (angeboren) (Rel 6: 25). I deal with this question below (§3.1). 8. These objections are inspired by Wimmer’s interpretation. See Reiner Wimmer, Kants kritische Religionsphilosophie (Berlin-New York: W. De Gruyter, 1990), 116-118. 9. This conclusion could be reached, say, by a disingenuous reading of Groundwork I: “A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, because of its fitness to attain some proposed end, but only because of its volition [ . . . ]” (Gr. 394, 8). I am envisioning here a situation similar to what Glaucon ironically calls “perfect justice”—the person of good disposition who has “the greatest reputation for injustice” (Republic, 361c). 10. This is the type of situation Patrick Frierson denounces in “Kantian Moral Pessimism,” in Anderson-Gold and Muchnik eds., Kant’s Anatomy of Evil. According to Frierson, it is characteristic of contemporary philosophical discussions to explain moral failures in terms of non-moral factors, such as lack of knowledge, competence, social conditions, non-culpable negligence, etc. These factors, however, are beyond the agent’s control; consequently, Frierson argues, they suggest an explanation of wrongdoing that favors strategies Kant would consider self-ingratiating and self-deceptive. Kant’s moral pessimism in the Religion has the advantage of ruling out this type of account from the very beginning. Since evil corrupts the basis of all maxims, but we

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

121

are nonetheless responsible for it, the weight of external factors is made to depend on the agent’s character, and cannot exculpate it. 11. Kant’s views about the objective validity of the categorical imperative registered important changes since the Groundwork III, where he attempted to derive the bindingness of the moral law from an independent proof of transcendental freedom. For an insightful summary of the state of scholarship on this question, cf. Kosch, Freedom and Reason, 29-37. 12. In the Religion, Kant makes a similar point about the factuality of the moral incentive in connection with the predisposition to personality. He claims that “the susceptibility (Empänglichkeit) to respect for the moral law as of itself a sufficient incentive to the power of choice” (Rel. 6: 27, 52) must be given to us from within. Otherwise, “no amount of subtle reasoning (herausklügen) on our part would produce it or win our power of choice over to it” (Rel. 6: 27 note, 51). Yet, personality is part of Kant’s moral anthropology and cannot be legitimately appealed to within the system of inferences, which in our reading concerns the individual’s Gesinnung and not the character of the species. The proper use of the notion of “predisposition” is in relation to the “propensities to evil.” I return to this point in chapter 4. See Matthew Caswell, “The Value of Humanity and Kant’s Conception of Evil,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (Oct. 2006): 638–46, for an illuminating reading of the implications of personality. 13. See Anderson-Gold, Unnecessary Evil, 42–43. Patrick Frierson has a similar reading. See Patrick Frierson, Freedom and Anthropology in Kant’s Moral Philosophy, 106. 14. As we noticed in chapter 2 in connection with the propensity, Bernstein calls radical evil “a dialectical illusion because it seduces us into thinking that we can explain something that we cannot possibly explain—why we freely adopt the maxims (good or evil) that we actually do adopt—whether it be the choice of an ultimate subjective ground of maxims or the choice of specific maxims in concrete situation.” (Bernstein, Radical Evil, 35) When it comes to individual morality, I believe this charge rests on a misunderstanding of the role of the notion of Gesinnung. Although this notion is designed to explain the form of first-order maxims (what Bernstein calls the “specific maxims in concrete situations”), Kant never intended it to explain the reasons behind the adoption of the second order maxim. Robert Louden adopts a similar line of defense against this line of criticism, which he calls the charge of “explanatory impotence.” See Robert Louden, “Evil Everywhere: The Ordinariness of Kantian Radical Evil,” in Anderson-Gold and Muchnik eds., Kant’s Anatomy of Evil. 15. Needless to say, the appeal to some kind of antecedent cause (education, genetics, environment, etc.) in order to explain the agent’s choice of Gesinnung would cancel the freedom and responsibility Kant considers essential in it. Causes play no role at the level of justification—they are not reasons, and if they become so, it is with our willful collaboration, not on their strength alone. 16. See H. A. Prichard, “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” Mind, 81 (Jan., 1912): 21–37. Prichard interprets this issue in the context of the question “why should I be moral?” and argues that all answers are in fact

122

CHAPTER 3

question begging. Kant’s response to this problem in the second Critique is to recognize the moral law as a fact of reason. The “mistake” Prichard condemns is endemic to the moral point of view—a constitutive feature of the moral perspective, and hence no “mistake” at all. Morality is self-justifying and does not require an argument in the style Prichard is expecting—indeed, this is the style of argument Kant tried and subsequently abandoned after Groundwork III. See Dieter Henrich, “The Concept of Moral Insight and Kant’s Doctrine of the Fact of Reason,” in ed. Richard Velkley, The Unity of Reason: Essays on Kant’s Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 74–82. 17. Gordon Michalson detects still a further tension: “What becomes evident here is the possibility that Kant is using the claim that the source of moral evil is freedom as a premise in generating the further claim that the source of moral evil is unknowable. The peculiarity of this line of argumentation gradually becomes clear: the peculiarity is that the conclusion of Kant’s train of thought appears to deny his ability to know his own major premise. If the overriding epistemological issue here concerns a demand for agnosticism regarding the ultimate source or ground of evil, then Kant can hardly argue this case on the basis of a claim about what the source of evil is. If the conclusion flatly states the unknowability of P, then P forfeits any chance for candidacy as a remise in the argument designed to reach that conclusion” (Michalson, Fallen Freedom, 64). 18. See Evgenia Cherkasova, “On the Boundary of Intelligibility: Kant’s Conception of Radical Evil and the Limits of Ethical Discourse”, The Review of Metaphysics 58 (March 2005): 579 ff. 19. “Leap of volition” is Seirol Morgan’s language. See, Morgan, “The Missing Formal Proof of Humanity’s Radical Evil”: 77. 20. Morgan, ”The Missing Formal Proof of Humanity’s Radical Evil”: 77. 21. Kierkegaard explores this paradox in relation to the notion of “original sin. Cf. Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, trans. by R. Thomte and A. Anderson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). 22. This way of construing the test shelters it from Mill’s famous criticism, i.e., that, in final analysis, it is the disutility of the consequences of the universal adoption that the agent rejects in her mental experiment (J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, in The Basic Writings of J.S.Mill: On Liberty, The Subjection of Women, & Utilitarianism (New York: The Modern Library, 2002), 236). For, the test allows the agent to enlarge her imagination (to think with the perspective of another) and find a contradiction with her initial intention (to find herself incapable of thinking consistently). The contradiction is between two intentions of the same agent (the desire to act on the maxim, and the desire to universalize it and be part of the world such a maxim would create), and does not directly involve the undesirability of a certain state of affairs. 23. See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. by Edwin Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994), chapter xv, 90. 24. Gordon Michalson, Fallen Freedom, 57. 25. In an architectonic of practical reason, the Tugendlehre should be placed side by side with Kant’s first thesis about the locus of moral corruption in the

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

123

Gesinnung. In spite of appearances to the contrary, they are conceptual counterparts in the Kantian ethical system. Cf. Silber, “The Ethical Significance of Kant’s Religion”, cxiv–cxv. 26. The most comprehensive study of “character” in English is Felicitas Munzel’s. See Felicitas Munzel, Kant’s Conception of Moral Character: The “Critical” Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgment (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999). Patrick Frierson’s Freedom and Anthropology makes a persuasive case for the way empirical influences can affect one’s character without undermining Kant’s conception of transcendental freedom. 27. Kant believes that these goals exist side-by-side, vie for precedence in the motivational structure, and are the source of a “natural dialectic.” As we saw in chapter 2, the need to solve this “natural dialectic” leads Kant to formulate the doctrine of the highest good in the second Critique. The highest good is the total object of practical reason, for it integrates happiness and morality according to an objective rule. This total object, however, entails an even higher level of synthesis than the one we are analyzing here. Our concern is with the conflict existing at the level of the determining ground of the will, not with the way in which that conflict gets resolved and generates a more comprehensive practical object. 28. Cf. Henrich, “The Concept of Moral Insight,” 74. 29. See Reath, “Hedonism, Heteronomy and Kant’s Principle of Happiness”: 50. 30. Needless to say, these choices are “subsequent” only in the order of explanation, not in a temporal one—all choices are acts of freedom beyond the temporal conditions of sensible intuition. 31. Gordon Michalson detects two different criteria for innateness in connection with the propensity: “innateness entails something that ‘cannot be eradicated,’ and innateness involves something for which we cannot ‘assign a further cause’” (Michalson, Fallen Freedom. 66). He dismisses the second as a genuine criterion, for it is an indication of ignorance on our part, and “it is not clear how Kant can legitimately make a claim about something as crucial as innateness on the basis of an appeal to agnosticism” (66). 32. See Y. Yovel, “Kant’s Practical Reason as Will”: 292. What Yovel overlooks here is that also self-love is a unifying principle that gives rise to moral character. Limiting this to the categorical imperative would make unintelligible the existence of evil Gesinnungen. This points at a fundamental difference between practical and speculative reason, which Yovel does not seem to consider in this passage. 33. See David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), §1.4.6, 165. To make Hume’s view bear on my discussion of Kant, I changed his “perceptions” for either “choices” or “decisions.” 34. See Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 40. 35. Jürgen Stolzenberg, “The pure ‘I will’ Must be Able to Accompany all of my Desires: The Problem of a Deduction of the Categories of Freedom in

124

CHAPTER 3

Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason,” in the Proceedings of the 10th International Kant Congress (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 419. 36. As Kant insists, theoretical knowledge is relevant only for the application of practical principles, not for their genesis. 37. Stolzenberg, “The Pure ‘I will’ Must be Able to Accompany All My Desires,” 416. 38. For a different understanding of “moral schizophrenia”, see Michael Stocker, “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories,” The Journal of Philosophy 73, no. 14 (1976): 453–66. In this famous paper, Stocker used “moral schizophrenia” to describe a split between motives and values he attributed to all modern ethical theories, and which condemned agents to internal disharmony and precluded the pursuit of a “good life.” 39. See Claudia Card, The Atrocity Paradigm, chapter 4, 73–95. Quotations and page numbers in this paragraph are from this work. 40. Bernstein, “Kant at War with Himself,” in Radical Evil, 11–45. Quotations and page numbers in this paragraph are from this work. 41. Bernstein refers, in this context, to the “propensity to evil,” which, in our reconstruction, belongs to the species not the individual. This difference of interpretation, however, does not alter the gist of Bernstein’s point. 42. This conclusion reflects the Arendtian roots of Bernstein’s reading. As Arendt claims in The Origins of Totalitarianism (and Bernstein quotes at the beginning of his essay): “Kant [was] the only philosopher who, in the word he coined for it, at least must have suspected the existence of this evil even though he immediately rationalized it in the concept of a ‘perverted will,’ that could be explained by comprehensible motives.” 43. This social dimension of self-love is explored by Sharon Anderson-Gold in “Kant, Radical Evil, and Crimes Against Humanity,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil. As she puts it: “Self-love does not have as its only object the physically constituted self. Human identity is a complex process that evolves in association with others. Our conception of our good typically involves the good of others whom we love and upon whom we depend. Social and material goods are typically accessed and distributed according to one’s position within various groups.” 44. This is not the place for a thorough examination of Card’s interpretation of Kant, but two brief comments are necessary. First, Card’s account seems to concern what Kant would call the “empirical character,” and cannot serve to elucidate the process of noumenal self-constitution that gives rise to the Gesinnung, the agent’s “intelligible character.” Her attempt at “solving Kant’s mystery” (85 ff), i.e., at accounting for why some agents choose an evil disposition, not only disregards the unavoidable inscrutability that accompanies such a choice, but also (and more importantly) disregards the agent’s freedom and responsibility for her fundamental moral outlook. To explain behavior “that otherwise appears simply perverse, irrational, perhaps even diabolical” (90), attributes the freedom of a turnspit to Kantian agents. 45. See Kosch, Freedom and Reason, 36–37.

RADICAL EVIL, INSCRUTABILITY AND MORAL SELF-CONSTITUTION

125

46. John Silber, “The Ethical Significance of Kant’s Religion,” cxxix. Silber provides as examples fictional and historic characters, such as Ahab, the industrial and financial tyrants of the XIX century, Napoleon, and Hitler. 47. Silber, “The Ethical Significance of Kant’s Religion,” cxxix. Silber makes the same point in another of his essays, “Kant at Auschwitz,” in Proceedings of the Sixth International Kant Congress, edited by G. Funke and T. Seebohm (Center of Advanced Research in Phenomenology & University Press of America, 1991), 198–99. 48. Sibler, “The Ethical Significance of Kant’s Religion,” cxxx. 49. Cf. Allen Wood, Kant’s Moral Religion, 212–13. 50. Sharon Anderson-Gold makes a similar point in her “Kant’s Rejection of Devilishness: the Limits of Human Volition,” Idealistic Studies 14 (1984). Anderson-Gold argues that the problem with Silber’s position is that he confounds personality and character (interpreted in terms of the existential category of authenticity). This confusion makes it impossible to hold agents accountable for their choices. The loss of the possibility of accountability in Silber’s account is due to the fact that “there exists no imperative for such persons [i.e., the devilish agent] to limit their freedom” (43). 51. Berstein, Radical Evil, 40. Quotations and page numbers in this and subsequent paragraphs are from this work. 52. Matthew Caswell calls this form of volition “contrarian” and distinguishes it from the “demonic will” of the standard interpretation. See Matthew Caswell, “Kant on the Diabolical Will: A neglected alternative?” Kantian Review 12-2 (2007): 150–51. While the demonic will is subject to two incentives, the contrarian will has a “third motivational ingredient [i.e.], [the] ‘incentive to defy the moral law . . . The contrarian’s Gesinnung would involve a tripartite ordering: love of evil is its highest priority, and the condition under which all other pursuits are prompted; either self-love or else morality assume second place, leaving the other to occupy third place’” (151). 53. Milton’s reference is from Irit Samte-Porat, “Satanic Motivations” The Journal of Value Inquiry 41 (2007): 80. 54. As Samet-Porat explains: “The phrase ‘evil be thou my good’ can only be understood if we can see what is the good that Satan sees in evil doing . . . [namely], the preservation of his unsubmissive will.” (Samte-Porat, “Satanic Motivations”: 84) 55. Matthew Caswell, “Kant on the Diabolical Will”:152. Quotations and page numbers in this and the following paragraph are from this work. 56. This is the way Allen wood characterizes devilish volition. Cf. Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 285. 57. Cf. H. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, (N.Y: Penguin Books, 1994), 136. 58. According to Arendt, Eichmann’s version of the Kantian imperative amounted to the principle “Act as if the principle of your action were the same as that of the legislator of the land.” She suggests that this formulation is equivalent to Hans Frank’s, the Nazi governor of Poland: “Act in such a way

126

CHAPTER 3

that the Führer, if he knew your action, would approve it” (Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem. 136). 59. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 49. 60. I deal with this in my “Competing Enlightenment Narratives: A Case Study Of Rorty’s Anti-Kantianism,” in Rethinking Kant: Current Trends in North American Kantian Scholarship, volume 1, ed. Pablo Muchnik, (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar Publishers, 2008), 299–322, especially 309. 61. Cf. H. Allison, “Reflections on the banality of (radical) evil: A Kantian analysis,” in Idealism and Freedom, 176. Allison claims that “Kant’s denial of a diabolical will is not a dubious bit of empirical moral psychology, but rather an a priori claim about the conditions of the possibility of moral accountability. Specifically, the claim is that in order to be accountable and, therefore to be either good or evil, it is necessary to recognize the validity of the moral law.”

4

The Moral Anthropology of Radical Evil

“Genus et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi, vix ex nostra puto.” —Ovid1

Our analysis of the system of inferences in Religion I yielded a surprising result: it is hard to imagine how, given the traditional Kantian framework, a transcendentally free agent could inaugurate her use of freedom by giving motivational primacy to self-love in her Gesinnung. For, self-love is a unifying principle that requires empirically given content in order to operate, and there cannot be any such content in a choice that is supposed to take place “antecedent to every use of freedom given in experience” (Rel. 6: 22). This impossibility indicates that Kant must have had a different use of self-love in mind. We associated it with a transcendental structure analogous to the unity of apperception. The claim was that this structure gives the form “I will what I please” to the will-directed intentions, organizing the matter it encounters within itself in the act of ranking the ethical incentives. This matter is “a priori,” i.e., independent of empirical affectation, and its organization constitutes the Gesinnung as an object of choice, derivatively shaping world-directed intentions. Without this alternative use of self-love, we argued, duty would turn out to be the only available incentive for choice at this stage. Consequently, all human beings would be good without exception, because “the law . . . imposes itself on [them] irresistibly, because of [their] moral predisposition” (Rel. 6: 36). Our solution avoids this untoward conclusion, but rests on an implication Kant did not develop: there is a hidden transcendental history of the human will, a pre-history—so to speak—of the emergent 127

128

CHAPTER 4

self, for which we tried to account for by postulating the “I will.” Our guiding assumption was that “the first (erste) subjective ground of the adoption of the maxims” (Rel. 6: 25) could not be also the “ultimate,” for the choice of Gesinnung itself presupposes the existence of an even more basic volitional structure in order to be possible. Surely, this volitional structure is assumed only for the purposes of moral evaluation and imputation. The temptation here, as in the paralogisms, is to take what is merely a logical subject as if it were a substance. Yet, the “I” of the “I will” is the imaginary focus of an activity, an agency we must presuppose for moral experience and moral judgment to be possible. This presupposition does not justify drawing metaphysical conclusions about the will’s quantity, quality, modality, or relation. We must refrain from saying, for instance, that the will is in fact simple or identical. Such assertions would require the support of an intellectual intuition, which is something beyond our reach; if, perchance, we were to provide a sensible intuition as a surrogate, the will would be turned into an appearance and forfeit its absolute spontaneity. In light of this, I propose we interpret the unity of acknowledgment along the lines of the other practical postulates. Just as we must assume God’s existence, the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will in order to pursue the highest good, we must also assume the “I will” in order to establish our moral character. These assumptions extend knowledge in a practical direction, but have no epistemic pretension. While the first set of postulates is necessary for carrying out actions, the second is necessary for the ascription of actions to a single moral subject. If this reading is correct, the “I will” turns out to be a key element in evil’s radicalism. At the level of individual morality, evil is radical because the “I will” introduces a form of volition that organizes the will’s internal manifold in an object (the Gesinnung) according to the same principle with which the agent organizes objects of desire in general. These different acts of organization point to a single volitional form and justify Kant’s claims about the continuity of choice and the responsibility for one’s moral outlook.2 The unity of acknowledgment, therefore, is the condition for the possibility of the first thesis of Kant’s doctrine of radical evil. “Evil corrupts the basis of all maxims,” because a single volitional form underlies and unifies the all of the agent’s intentions, both self-and-world directed, i.e., her Gesinnung and her first-order maxims. Without it, there would be volitions in me I could not recognize as “mine.”3 The goal of this final chapter is to extend the use of the unity of acknowledgment to the second thesis of Kant’s doctrine: “moral cor-

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

129

ruption is not a matter of the individual, but of the species as a whole, for all human beings have a propensity to evil.” The isomorphism Kant detects in the conditions of choice at each level of analysis justifies this extension: the reasons that led us to postulate the “I will” in order to impute a moral character to the individual are also operative at the level the species. There is, however, an important difference: the meaning of the propensity to evil is influenced by Kant’s historical/ anthropological reflections about human nature. The “matter” available for choice here, therefore, diverges in kind from the a priori willdirected intentions that give rise to the Gesinnung. This difference affects the scope and type of obligation effective in each case, but does not touch the core of the assumption that there must be one and the same will to give this matter a form. The combination of anthropologically informed content with the transcendental apparatus of Kant’s practical philosophy yields a moral anthropology of unique flavor in the Religion. Kant’s approach here is neither fully empirical nor fully a priori, but contains elements of both. This syncretism brings home a central theme in our study. We have argued that Kant’s mature reflection about the moral character of the species is an attempt to articulate two lines of thought which run parallel in his prior writings: the demands of moral agency and imputation are brought to bear on the empirical data gathered by observing large-scale human behavioral patterns throughout history. Kant’s position in Religion I is the culmination of this reconciling project: here the a priori apparatus developed in the Groundwork meets with the empirical content developed in the historical writings. This convergence overcomes their respective limitations: individualist morality is expanded to include a collective sense of agency, and anthropological determinations are interpreted in terms of a rigorist moral framework. The outcome is a daring methodological experiment that redraws the lines of the work Kant had hitherto produced. Unfortunately, Kant was not sufficiently clear about his novel methodology. The half-finished character of his revolutionary gesture has left generations of readers to ponder Kant’s “real” intention. Once again, we are forced to resort to our customary indirect method in order to fill the blanks and determine what Kant must have thought given what he said. An inference of this kind is, of course, inconclusive. “Since [it] is something like the search for the cause of a given effect, and is therefore something like a hypothesis . . . it appears as if I am taking the liberty in this case of expressing an opinion, and that the reader might therefore be free to hold another opinion” (KrV A xvii). [AQ: Is the bold in the original?] The risk is worth taking: to ad-

130

CHAPTER 4

vance a hypothesis about the way in which Kant reconciled empirical anthropology with the apparatus of his a priori morality is necessary to defend the plausibility of our general line of interpretation. Once we advance our reasons, as Kant did with in his “subjective deduction,” matters might look less opinionated than they now seem. And the gains are enormous: if our approach is correct, it might help bring Kant’s reflections on human nature into “the secure path of science,” closer, so to speak, to “the first thoughts of Copernicus” (KrV B xvi) with which he wanted to identify the whole critical enterprise. Indeed, there is “a revolution in the way of thinking” about human nature in the Religion. The basic precept of a moral anthropology is that human beings are what they freely determine themselves to be: there is no given mold, imposed by God or by nature, to which they have to accommodate. This is one of the facets of the larger question of “autonomy,” and if we trust Kant’s vision in the Logic, one whose answer will affect all interests of reason: The field of philosophy in the cosmopolitan sense can be brought down to the following questions:

1. 2. 3. 4.

What What What What

can I know? ought I to do? may I hope? is the human being?

Metaphysics answers the first question, morals the second, religion the third, and anthropology the fourth. Fundamentally, however, we could reckon all of this to anthropology, because the first three questions refer to the last one. (Lectures on Logic 9:25)

A morally informed answer to the question “what is the human being?” implies abandoning the theocentric and naturalistic frames of reference with which humans try to explain themselves to themselves and cover their self-incurred immaturity (Unmündigkeit). Appealing to God’s pre-conceived plan for humanity or to a scientific truth about what humans “really” are, are typical contrivances for being told by “another” how to live and what to make of ourselves. The human species, however, came to age in the Religion, and this fact required in Kant’s mind a philosophical transformation to reflect it. So interpreted, Kant’s moral anthropology goes hand-in-hand with the overall Enlightenment project to which his critical philosophy is meant to respond. The message of the anthropological indictment in the First Part of the Religion is, then, that only if we take responsibility for what, in a moral sense, we have made ourselves to be, is there hope about what we can,

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

131

together, achieve. This view is not an aberration in the principles of Kant’s philosophy—it is its logical conclusion, striving to shed both the old Christian language of original sin with which we used to cover the childishness of our self-conception, and the new scientific language of objectivity, with which we would like to hide it once again. Kant has the human species, finding its way toward its moral destiny, all by itself, and requiring a self-conception—a moral anthropology—capable of reflecting this fact. (1) KANT’S MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY To appreciate the novelty of Kant’s approach in the Religion, let me place it in the larger context of his anthropology. Kant had been lecturing on this subject for many years (his first course on anthropology dates to the winter semester 1772-73, twenty five years prior to publishing his notes in the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View). The source of Kant’s early interest lies in the conviction that: morality cannot exist without anthropology, for one must first know the agent whether he is in a position to accomplish what is required of him. One can, indeed, certainly consider practical philosophy even without anthropology, or even without knowledge of the agent, only then it is merely speculative, or an Idea; so man must at least be studied accordingly. (Collins ’Lecture Notes, 27: 244)4

However, as Kant begins to consolidate the principles of his mature critical philosophy the significance of anthropology increasingly dwindles. The clearest expression of its marginality appears in the Groundwork, where Kant considers knowledge of human nature important for questions of application, but irrelevant to the hard-core task of founding morality on a priori principles (Gr. 4: 412). “[A]ll moral concepts,” Kant says, “have their origin completely a priori in reason. . . .They cannot be abstracted from any empirical and therefore merely contingent cognitions . . . just in this purity of their origin lies their dignity” (Gr. 4: 411). Anthropology, on the other hand, is an empirical enterprise, a Beobachtungslehre based on observation of the phenomenal effects of freedom. Were it to be mixed with morality, the result would be disastrous: “adding anything empirical to [the supreme practical principles] one subtracts just that much from their genuine influence and from the unlimited worth of action” (Gr. 4: 411). Thus, the project of a metaphysical foundation of morality leads Kant to sever the ties practical philosophy initially had with the

132

CHAPTER 4

psychology of human motivation. From being “merely speculative, or an Idea,” the divorce is now considered necessary to establish the philosophical credentials of morality. The outcast body of knowledge will be embraced by a new discipline. Although Kant considers it to be strictly empirical, anthropology is nonetheless not concerned with “what nature makes of the human being”—this type of naturalizing account amounts to what Kant calls “physiological knowledge,” a “theoretical speculation [that is] a pure waste of time” (A 7:719). Kant’s conception is self-described as “pragmatic.” It touches “the investigation of what [the human being] as a free-acting being makes of himself, or can and should make of himself” (A 7: 119). Robert Louden characterizes Kant’s view as “cosmopolitan,” for it contains “knowledge of the human being as a citizen of the world” (A 7: 120). This cosmopolitanism, however, harbors a manifest tension: although anthropology makes universal claims about human nature, the discipline in Kant’s mind has forfeited the right to the a priori knowledge such claims require. As Louden puts it: Kant is certainly not claiming that the kind of knowledge of humanity stressed in his anthropology is an example of what (in the first Critique) he calls an “a priori cognition”—a cognition that occurs ‘absolutely independently of all experience’ (KrV B 3). Rather, knowledge of the nature of humanity is an empirical cognition, which has its source ‘a posteriori, namely in experience’ (KrV B 2). But the kind of empirical knowledge he is referring to in his anthropology is one that, while experience-based, emphasizes reflection about the chief tendencies and characteristics of the human species as a whole rather than limited and partial observations about the behavior of particular individuals or groups within the species in particular times and places.5

Kant’s goal is to offer a universal conception of human nature (though one arrived at throough experience) with which to criticize the prejudices and idiosyncrasies of particular groups.6 This “knowledge of the world” (Weltkenntnis) benefits its possessor and promotes her success in human interactions. Kant’s project is thus “pragmatic”: neither “practical” in the strict sense, since this would require principles “which are based on the concept of freedom, all natural bases determining the will being excluded,” (KU 5: 173) nor “empirical” in the strict sense, since experience cannot underwrite the universality of Kant’s claims.7 The importance of this anthropological knowledge resides in that it “yields an advantage for the reading public: the completeness of the headings under which this or that observed human quality of practical relevance can be subsumed offers readers many

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

133

occasions and invitations to make each particular into a theme of its own, so as to place it in the appropriate category” (A 7: 121–22). The system of propensities and predispositions in Religion I is not exempt from the universalism of the Anthropology. In both works, Kant means to have purged his observations from the residues of cultural specificity (no matter how quaint or self-defeating this intention may sound to us). But what the Anthropology presents as a general reflection on human commonalities, the Religion—due to its overarching concern with moral evaluation and imputation—must represent as being brought by the species upon itself. The tendencies Kant discovers by casting a cosmopolitan glance upon humanity must be interpreted as deriving from a noumenal activity for which we hold the species accountable. Thus, the search for the conditions of accountability of the phenomenal uses of freedom moves Kant’s theorizing beyond the empirical boundaries of the Anthropology; it places the enterprise in the conceptual territory which morality had monopolized since the Groundwork. In this territory, there is no room for the moral ambivalence of a pragmatic perspective on human nature. Understanding, for example, “what has been found to hinder or stimulate memory in order to enlarge it or make it agile” (A 7: 119) can be helpful to promote one’s scientific or commercial success (morally indifferent purposes), but also comes in handy for the villain to succeed in her businesses. The rigorist language of imputation in the Religion shrugs off this pragmatic indeterminacy and aims at detecting the fundamental moral character of actions and agents. The concluding section of the Anthropology is a test case to appreciate the differences. Here Kant’s argument oscillates between descriptions of the teleological tendencies associated with what the human being “should make of himself” and descriptions of the counter-purposive tendencies that thwart such achievement and account for what “the human being [in fact] makes of himself.” These oscillations give the text of the Anthropology a patchwork quality: discussions of the necessary stages of human development (cultivation, civilization, and moralization) are interspersed with comments about the mismatch between biology and culture, the difficulties of acquiring knowledge, and the meaning of Rousseau’s longing for a return to nature. The conceptual jumble, however, conceals a deeper sense of order. It points precisely at what the Anthropology is missing: a discussion of the propensities to evil (frailty, impurity, and depravity) that are decisive for Kant’s argument in the Religion. My suggestion, then, is that we interpret the system of propensities in this work as Kant’s attempt to explicate how, at a transcendental level, we may conceive the will of

134

CHAPTER 4

the species to warp and distort the original predispositions to the good, derailing the march of humanity toward its moral purpose. Although Kant arrives at the descriptive content of these anthropological tendencies through experience (reflecting on human conduct at a global scale), the arrangement and configuration they adopt at the empirical level must be interpreted (for the purpose of evaluation and imputation) as the result of acts of transcendental freedom. This way of construing the relation between propensities and predispositions raises the methodological stakes. In order to account for the process of constitution of the moral character of species, a Beobachtungslehre has little to offer: Kant’s claim “man is evil by nature” is not an empirical generalization about human wrongdoing. But neither is it fit to don the pure, a priori garments of morality: Kant is not talking here about rational beings as such, but of “man” and “mankind” alone, using no circumlocution. He desperately needs bits of both types of doctrine, empirical matter and a priori form, but cannot use them in their current unadulterated state. This tension puts a unique pressure onto the Religion—a pressure that leads Kant to abandon the empirical, morally neutral grounds of a pragmatic anthropology and to embrace a full-fledged moral anthropology, a doctrine in which the traditional boundaries between purity and impurity become porous and fluid. We may envision this doctrine as a belated attempt to capture the pre-critical insight that first led Kant to anthropology in the 1770s. As Manfred Kuehn argues, coinciding with the Inaugural Dissertation (1770) and its radical distinction between the two worlds (mundus intelligibilis and mundus sensibilis), anthropology develops in the Kantian corpus as a merely empirical discipline.8 During the “silent decade,” and in a process that culminates with the Groundwork (1785), anthropology becomes ever more marginal, since Kant’s “serious” philosophical work concentrates in the project of finding a metaphysical foundation for morality. Anthropological observations receive temporary asylum in the historical writings (of the early 1780’s), and then full nationality in the published lectures of 1798. However, in the eyes of the mature Kant, the discipline must have contained a serious flaw: it was populated with universal claims about human nature, but did not contain the a priori apparatus necessary to justify those claims. The situation was paradoxically similar to the one afflicting the queen of sciences, metaphysics, and which led Kant to publish the first Critique in 1781. Anthropology, a minor monarch among the traditional sciences, was also vulnerable to the attacks of “the skeptics” (KrV A ix), and for the same reasons. The Religion, I propose, is an attempt to redress the situation. In it, Kant develops a discourse on human

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

135

nature with an explicit a priori grounding, which brings anthropology, once more, close to morality, but in a way that has transformed their respective natures since those pre-critical days. As support for this genetic speculation one might provide two sets of reasons. The way that leads Kant to develop a moral anthropology roughly matches the way other disciplines undertook to enter the “secure path of science”: the dogmatic and skeptical pendulum, the long periods of groping, and even the “revolution in the way of thinking” that solves prior anomalies. In our case, however, “the new light [never fully] broke” (KrV B xi)—Kant gives only the sketch of a “science” in the Religion. That he had some kind of system in mind may be gathered from the fact that, at the heart of a discussion about transcendental freedom, Kant presents anthropologically informed propensities and predispositions in perfect symmetrical order. This mode of presentation invites the reader to suspect the existence of a transcendental connection between them. The text of the Religion leaves little doubt about Kant’s intentions: he wants to provide a theory of evil which, by appealing to the anthropological system of propensities and predispositions, would be capable of making pertinent moral discriminations at an empirical level. The interpretative challenge, then, is to discover the conceptual apparatus that could explain how moral phenomena derive from the noumenal activities of the species’ will. That is, we must show how the empirically informed propensities and predispositions could be organized at a transcendental level, in a way that both captures behavioral regularities and preserves the individual’s autonomy and responsibility for her actions. (2) A THREE-LAYER MODEL OF MORAL CONSTITUTION The unity of acknowledgment proves helpful here. For, if we are to interpret the system of propensities and predispositions in a quasitranscendental way, we may consider it as providing the content the “I will” encounters in the process of constituting the species character: the content is given, i.e., empirically informed, but its organization is transcendentally free. It is worth insisting that the language of choice in this context is strictly figurative and commits Kant to consider neither the species nor the “I will” as agents in a constitutive sense. The species is a subject of imputation, and the “I will” a logical function that allows us to hold this subject accountable for its moral character. This act of self-constitution introduces an additional layer into the model we described in the prior chapter:

136

CHAPTER 4

Layer 1: The manifold the “I will” encounters within itself as a set of propensities and predispositions is organized into an object of choice. This act determines “what the human being makes of himself,” i.e., the moral character of the species. The propensities to evil are meant to explain how human nature can divert from its inherent moral destiny—from “what the human being should make of himself.” This goal is best captured by the predisposition to personality, towards which the other predispositions (animality and humanity) are supposed to contribute. Personality introduces a split between is and ought that will be bridged at the end of times. Thus, human nature is for Kant a self-transformative structure, composed of purposive and counter-purposive tendencies that play themselves out in a historical narrative of moral progress. The choice of species character takes place within a distinctive normative structure: humanity has the duty to promote the highest good. Layer 2: The manifold the “I will” encounters within itself (the sensible and moral incentives) is organized into an object of choice. This act determines the individual’s Gesinnung, i.e., her moral character. The mode of organization at this level must be represented as conditioned, but not determined, by the choice at the level of the species. Otherwise, moral evaluation and imputation would be meaningless. Since the manifold here arises from a different source than at layer 1, the transcendental act of organization is independent from the one that gives rise to the universal propensity to evil. The emergent moral agent has a distinctive destiny: as an individual, she is expected to realize the good, and as a member of the species, she must join other agents to promote the highest good. Layer 3: When the manifold proceeds from world-directed intentions, it must also be organized by self-prescribed practical principles. These are the first-order maxims of Kant’s system of inferences, whose expression yields a different kind of objectivity than the prior layers—not a moral subject but a moral world (the kingdom of ends or the jungle of means). The form these maxims have draws on the Gesinnung (the second-order maxim), but is independent from it, for it concerns a matter arising from a different source (i.e., empirical desires). Once again, the transcendental act of unification takes place under a distinctive normative structure: the agent must do the right in her actions, realize the good in her Gesinnung, and promote the highest good as a member of the species.

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

137

Kant’s model of moral constitution is characterized by an increasing degree of specification: the “I will” shapes the character of the species, the Gesinnung of the individual, and, derivatively, her discrete actions. Since the matter is different in each case, the organizing acts are isomorphic, but logically independent from one another. Thus, the choices are conditioned, but not determined by the activity that has taken place at the other constitutive stages. This prevents Kant’s conflating them into a single act of freedom. To the extent that all moral principles can be reduced to two basic forms, “I will what I please” and “I will that you will,” the process introduces minimal conditions of unity into the various manifolds. This allows the agent to recognize the different results of the acts of constitution as of her own doing. Her activity responds to an interlocking set of obligations: the duties to promote the highest good, realize the good, and do the right. These obligations provide independent criteria for success or failure at each level of moral analysis, but maintain a sufficient relation between them. According to this model, although “no man is an island,” all human beings stand or fall by themselves in the ocean of moral responsibility. (2.1) Man’s Heart The increasing degree of specification in Kant’s model relies on a notion that has been generally overlooked in the literature: the notion of “heart” (Herz). In this reading, the notion plays a decisive role in Kant’s moral anthropology, because “heart” is where the universal anthropological determinations attributable to the species find individualized moral expression, thereby allowing the two theses of radical evil to intersect. As Kant puts it in the Anthropology: To say that the human being has a good disposition (gut Gemüt) means that he is not stubborn but compliant; that he may get angry, but is easily appeased and bears no grudge (is negatively good).—On the other hand, to be able to say of him that “he has a good heart,” though this also still pertains to sensibility, it is intended to say more. It is an impulse (Antrieb) toward the practical good, even if it is not exercised according to principles, so that both the person of good disposition (Gutmütige) and the person of good heart (Gutherzige) are people whom a shrewd guest can use as he pleases.—Accordingly, natural aptitude (das Naturell) has more (subjectively) to do with the feeling of pleasure or displeasure, as to how one human being is affected by another . . . than (objectively) with the faculty of desire, where life manifests itself not merely in feeling, internally, but also

138

CHAPTER 4 in activity, externally, though merely in accordance with incentives (Triebfedern) of sensibility. Now temperament (Temperament) exists in this relation, and must still be distinguished from habitual disposition (hatiuallen Disposition) (incurred through habit (Gewohnheit)), because a habitual disposition is not founded upon any natural predisposition (Naturanlage), but on occasional causes. (A 7: 285–86)

Here Kant distinguishes between the natural aptitude (Naturell), i.e., the disposition (Gemüt) he associates with the mere receptivity of the subject, and “something more,” the heart (Herz), which he associates with temperament and considers active (“though merely in accordance with incentives of sensibility”). Both features pertain to our sensuous nature, but while the natural attitude has to do with our susceptibility to the feeling of anger, i.e., to our receptiveness (or lack thereof) to an affect (Affekt) that powerfully stirs “the feeling of pleasure or displeasure in the subject’s present state that does not let him rise to reflection” (A: 7: 251), a good heart is “an impulse towards the practical good.” Certainly, this impulse “lacks principles” and is not to be identified with the agent’s character—“that property of the will by which the subject binds himself to definite practical principles that he has prescribed to himself irrevocably by his own reason” (A 7: 292). Kant clearly says that neither a good disposition nor a good heart can protect us against the wiles of “a shrewd guest”—only firm principles can prevent our “[flying] off hither and yon, like a swarm of gnats” (A: 7: 292). But a good disposition is more gullible than a good heart, since it squarely pertains to our affective makeup and is thus further removed from the control of reflection than “an impulse towards the practical good.” The heart belongs to the faculty of desire, “where life manifests itself not merely in feeling, internally, but also in activity, externally.” And “desire,” Kant explains, “is the self-determination of a subject’s power through the representation of something in the future as an effect of this representation” (A 7: 251). This aspect of self-determination, then, makes the heart work as a conceptual intermediary between the natural attitude, a mere disposition of the mind (Gemüt) of which we have no control, and the moral character, the unequivocal expression of self-imposed principles. Furthermore, Kant says that the tendencies of a good heart are not “habit,” something that depends “on occasional causes,” but on our natural predispositions (Naturanlagen). This gives the heart an affinity with both the good of morality and the anthropological tendencies that prepare human nature towards that good. It is true, in the passage Kant associates those tendencies with “temperament” and claims they “pertain to sensibility.” However,

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

139

this is probably due to the fact that in the Anthropology Kant is not interested in the questions of imputation, but on the phenomenal manifestations of the use of freedom. The discussion of character in a later section should not mislead us: as the title of the chapter makes clear, the goal is “cognizing the interior of the human being from the exterior” (A 7: 283). The heart’s “impulse towards the practical good,” along with the four types of temperament (sanguine, melancholic, choleric, and phlegmatic) are sure signs of the agent’s “character as a way of thinking (Denkungsart),” but say nothing of our alleged responsibility for those very signs. Once Kant’s purpose shifts in the Religion, however, and given the twofold intermediary role the heart has between sensibility and spontaneity, and between the individual and the species, the notion becomes a natural candidate for Kant to bridge the gaps within his doctrine. My claim, then, is that “heart” becomes an essential element for Kant’s moral anthropology: it helps him account for the connection between his units of moral analysis and explain the passage between the noumenal activities of the will and their phenomenal expression in typical sentiments and actions. This is how Kant introduces the notion: If it is legitimate to assume that this propensity belongs to the human being (zum Menschen) universally (and hence to the character of the species), the propensity will be called a natural propensity of the human being to evil.—We can further add that the will’s (Willkür) capacity or incapacity arising from this natural propensity to adopt or not to adopt the moral law in its maxims can be called the good or the evil heart (das gute oder böse Herz). (Rel. 6: 29)

This passage confirms what we have been holding all along: the universal propensity to evil does not suffice to determine the moral quality of the individual’s maxims. Despite the existence of that propensity, Kant claims that the agent still has the capacity to adopt a good or an evil heart, depending on how she relates to the moral law. Since this touches the individual’s character, the capacity pertains to the second layer of Kant’s model of moral constitution, and is hence systematically connected with the notion of Gesinnung. By associating the relation to the law with the agent’s “heart,” Kant presumably intends to highlight the emotive component of one’s moral character, i.e., the aesthetic/receptive dimension of the feeling of respect. It is at this sensitive level that one might capture the nuanced manifestations of an individual’s willingness or unwillingness to limit her subjective conceptions of the good according to the demands of morality.

140

CHAPTER 4

The notion of “heart” is thus meant to bring the propensities and predispositions to bear on the moral outlook of the particular individual. It gives existential content to universal anthropological determinations, and anthropological significance to noumenal moral forms. Just as “thoughts without intuitions are empty, [and] intuitions without concepts are blind” (KrV B75/A51), the notion of heart mediates between spontaneity and receptivity: it gives anthropological content to the form of individual Gesinnungen and existential import to the universal system of propensities and predispositions. This notion, then, allows Kant to form more nuanced (i.e., empirically informed and applicable) moral judgments at both levels of analysis. In short, “heart” plays in Kant’s moral anthropology a role similar to the schemata of the first Critique: it provides “a third thing, which must stand in homogeneity with the category on the one hand and the appearance on the other, and makes possible the application of the former to the latter” (KrV A 138/B177). In contrast to the monolithic character of the Gesinnung, which displays a single type of maxim and disregards the content of an agent’s moral vocabulary, the notion of “heart” allows for a richer description of the individual’s conception of the good. The description is thicker, empirically informed, and hence permeated by generally valid anthropological observations. Less pure than the Gesinnung, yet working at the same transcendental level, the heart of the individual gives us a better sense of what she really cares about, a fuller picture of her inner moral life. And, less existentially removed than abstract truths about human beings, yet bearing the imprint of Kant’s anthropological reflections, this notion provides the equivalent of a moral “type,” a “schema,” an image where the individual can recognize herself in the universal and the universal instantiate itself in the individual. By developing a typology of evil hearts, then, Kant is able to present in Religion I a phenomenology of immoral actions (Handlungen), indicative of broad anthropological tendencies, yet harbored by concrete agents who are fully responsible for the character they give themselves. In this typology, the empirical manifestations of evil are correlated with a progression in the immorality of their presumed noumenal ground. In this last instance, if we adopt Kant’s rigorist position, the diversity of evil hearts is a variation on the single theme of “evil Gesinnung.” However, the emotive and phenomenal manifestations of that single volitional form admit of a classification by degrees, according to the magnitude (quantity and quality) of an evil that is anthropologically meaningful. No longer the private, discrete, incom-

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

141

mensurable use of individual freedom, the evil we feel in our hearts shows regularities that are amenable to sociological interpretation: We can think of three different grades (Stufen) of this natural propensity to evil. First, it is the general weakness of the human heart in complying with the adopted maxims, or the frailty of human nature; second, the propensity to adulterate moral incentives with immoral ones (even when it is done with good intention, and under maxims of good), i.e., impurity; third, the propensity to adopt evil maxims, i.e., the depravity of human nature, or of the human heart. (Rel. 6: 29)

These types of evil heart instantiate, at the individual level of moral analysis, the kind of inversion in the ethical order of priority Kant identifies with the propensities to evil in the whole human species. The notion of “heart,” then, is the key to understand how Kant can be an individualist at the level of moral responsibility, while insisting, at the same time, on the social/anthropological dimension of evil.9 This insistence does not come at the price of abandoning transcendental freedom, as Henry Allison seems to suggest in his dispute with Allen Wood.10 For, if we presume the “I will” to have organized its internal manifold according to the schema of one of these typical inversions (frailty, impurity, depravity), we can then attribute to the agent a heart corresponding to a general propensity (frail, impure, depraved), but without neglecting the noumenal act (Tat) which underlies and makes those empirical effects possible. If this reading is correct, our account manages to pass through the Scylla and Charybidis of recent Kantian interpretation, i.e., between naturalism and moral individualism. The notion of heart allows Kant to preserve both his commitment to the a priori origin of evil (the basis of Allison’s reading) and the empirical/anthropological dimension that the universal propensity to evil assumes in human history (the basis of Wood’s interpretation). There is truth in each of these positions, and the schematic function of “heart” allows Kant to preserve it. For, it links the individual’s Gesinnung and the species’ character in anthropologically meaningful ways, while protecting the dimension of transcendental freedom that must operate at each level of analysis. Neither a trivial corollary of our finitude nor a straightforward anthropological thesis, the propensity to evil finds instantiation in the heart of particular individuals (according to degrees or magnitude) thanks to the transcendental apparatus we developed on Kant’s behalf: the unity of acknowledgment and the three-layer model of moral constitution. Thus, stretching the traditional boundaries of orthodox interpretation, the notion of “heart” makes the heterodox assumption of a fluidity

142

CHAPTER 4

between spontaneity and receptivity, between the a priori and the a posteriori, pointing at the presence of a quasi-transcendental apparatus which informs, but is also informed by, the ways in which evil actually works in the phenomenal world. (3) HUMANITY AS A SELF-TRANSFORMATIVE STRUCTURE Interpreted in this way, human nature is for Kant a teleological system of countervailing tendencies. Predispositions to good (Anlagen zum Guten) and propensities to evil (Hange zum Bösen) represent the purposive and counter-purposive trends operative in that system that pull human nature in different directions and force it (in analogy with the individual’s will) to take charge of its destiny and give itself a form. “Broadly construed,” Gordon Michalson notes, “the point of Kant’s language about the original predisposition to good and the natural propensity to evil is to enable him to argue that evil arises from what we freely do with what we are naturally given, rather than from what we are naturally given taken by itself.”11 To accomplish this goal, Kant makes a distinction in the modality of the tendencies—a distinction that allows him to account for the process of subversion of its natural teleology. Whereas predispositions are “original (ursprünglich), for they belong to the possibility of human nature” (Rel. 6: 28), propensities are contingent (zufällig). “By a propensity (propensio),” Kant says, “I understand the subjective ground of the possibility of an inclination (habitual desire, conscupiscentia), insofar as this possibility is contingent (zufällig) for humanity in general (Menschheit)” (Rel. 6: 29). Predispositions, then, are meant to capture the normative pole of a teleology that is latent in human nature, prior to and independent from the exercise of freedom; propensities, on the other hand, account for the dominance inclinations (organized by the principle of self-love) end up having in the actual use humans make of their freedom—a use which disrupts the teleology originally present in it. Thus, while predispositions are constitutive and do not require a choice, propensities cannot be conceived without one. The term “original” in relation to predispositions, then, fulfills a twofold role. It designates the constituent elements (Bestandstücke) that characterize the human type of volition, as well as the purposeful form of their combination (Rel. 6: 29). That is, “original” refers both to the fundamental components of human nature, as well as to their necessary arrangement. The term straddles descriptive and prescriptive functions—it designates the typical features of a finite rationality

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

143

and indicates the form of their purposive arrangement. As Kant puts it: the predispositions “are not only (negatively) good (they do not resist the moral law) but they are predispositions to the good (zum Guten) (they demand compliance with it)” (Rel. 6: 28). Many interpreters have claimed that Kant’s terminology is inconsistent, because it does not allow for a propensity toward the good.12 This conceptual vacuum is said to create an asymmetry in the options available to the human will. The asymmetry, however, is unavoidable: if propensities and predispositions were equally “original,” humans would have the freedom of indifference—they would be at a loss about what they are meant to choose. The conceptual asymmetry between predispositions and propensities is designed to avoid their tossing a coin. It accounts for why humanity ought to care about its moral destiny: the telos works as a reminder of the insufficiency any historical achievement has with respect to the absolute demands of the moral law. As the only species of rational beings with which we are acquainted (A 7: 321), humans experience the fate of reason within themselves and in their own history: attaining the unconditioned (realizing the highest good) is a goal infinitely deferred. The asymmetry between Kant’s anthropological determinations provides thus the conceptual coordinates for a narrative of asymptotic approximation. Within this narrative, the system of propensities to evil is tailored to explain the ways in which human beings are capable of subverting their original predisposition to the good. (4) THE HISTORICITY OF THE PREDISPOSITIONS TO GOOD Before trying to understand how the subversion can be said to take place at a transcendental level, let me first interpret the system of predispositions to good as representing necessary historical milestones. For this purpose, it is useful to recall the Rousseauian background of Kant’s distinctions. Past the initial impression of incompatibility between these authors (Rousseau does claim that man is good by nature), we can see that Kant’s arrangement of the predispositions to good proceeds directly from Rousseau’s philosophy of history; more importantly, in Kant’s own reading, Rousseau can be seen to have spearheaded the heterodox methodology of moral anthropology. As Allen Wood suggests: “if we look closely, we can see that [their] two doctrines are not only compatible, but they are actually one and the same doctrine.”13 Kant distinguishes between three original elements in human nature: the predispositions to animality, humanity, and personality.

144

CHAPTER 4

Animality and humanity express two different variants of self-love, whereas personality occupies a category all by itself, for it is “the susceptibility to respect the moral law as of itself a sufficient incentive to the power of choice” (Rel. 6: 27). Self-love is “mechanical” in animality, for it “does not have reason at its root at all”; it is “comparing” in humanity, for it “is rooted in a reason which is indeed practical, but only as subservient to other incentive” (Rel. 6: 28). The presumed lack of reason in animality has led many interpreters to exclude it from the sphere of radical evil, focusing exclusively on the perversions of humanity (the vices of culture and the diabolical vices).14 I find the exclusion premature. For, if mechanical self-love did not involve a form of practical rationality, neither its proper use would qualify as a “predisposition to good” nor its abuse give rise to the vices of “savagery” (Laster der Rohigkeit) (Rel. 6: 27). To clarify Kant’s thought on this point of interpretation, we must recall that the variants of self-love in question perfectly map onto Rousseau’s amour de soi and amour propre. Amour de soi is a natural sentiment which inclines every animal to attend to its self-preservation and which guided in man by reason and modified by pity, produces humanity and virtue. Amour propre is only a relative sentiment, factitious, and born in society, which inclines every individual to set greater store by himself than by anyone else, inspires men with all the evil they do one another, and is the genuine source of honor.15

Amour de soi (what Kant calls “animality”) implies a mode of moral self-relation and relation with other agents based on the immediacy of feelings, i.e., “on the first and simplest operations of the human Soul.” According to Rousseau, these feelings point at the presence of “two principles prior to reason,” self-preservation and pity, from whose “cooperation and . . . combination...all the rules of natural right seem to follow” (SD, 127). These “pre-rational” principles prevail in the state of nature, which is for him a moral necessity, a conjecture “which perhaps never did exist, which probably never will exist, and about which it is nevertheless necessary to have exact Notions in order accurately to judge of our present state” (SD, 125). Amour propre (Kant’s “humanity”), on the other hand, is the psychological mindset that results from the development of sociality out of this original mindset. The principles of freedom and perfectibility slowly replace the dominance of self-preservation and pity in the natural state.16 This development has the positive effect of expanding all our faculties, but comes at the price of disrupting their original harmony. As a result,

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

145

“to be and to appear became two entirely different things, and from this distinction arose ostentatious display, deceitful cunning, and all the vices that follow in their wake” (SD, 170). The dominance of amour-propre thus institutes a mediated, competitive, and calculative form of life, in which the agent’s sense of personal worth depends upon the opinion of others. This mode of relation leads to inevitable conflicts: factitious comparisons produce a zero-sum game in which one’s sense of superiority is purchased by another’s sense of inferiority. More importantly, the game is self-defeating: the assurance we expect to receive about our worth never arrives because those who are perceived as inferior cannot validate any self-image worth-having. The inevitable result of this social dynamic is political despotism, for human beings “let themselves be oppressed only so far as they are swept up by blind ambition and, looking below more than above themselves, come to hold Domination dearer than independence, and consent to bear chains so that they might impose chains on others in turn” (SD, 183). At this stage, despotism reintroduces the state of nature: “Here all private individuals again become equal because they are nothing and, since the Subjects have no other Law left than the will of the Master, and the Master no other rule than his passions, the notions of good and the principles of justice again vanish” (SD, 185–86). The discontent that inevitably ensues from this unfortunate situation, Rousseau argues, triggers the longing to go backward, to return to the state of nature. But that passage is blocked: the original innocence has been disfigured by a “passion that believes it reasons and the understanding that hallucinates” (SD, 124).17 The only cure for the malaise of civilization and the political instability that accompanies it lies forward, in the total reconfiguration of our social institutions. This change Rousseau identifies with the formation of a general will: “each of us puts his person and his full power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in a body we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”18 Alternatively, the non-political solution to the human crisis is educating a single individual, a man like Emile. This is a “negative education”: the goal is to protect him from destructive social influence, so that nature can take its course. In the resulting superior human kind, impassive like the man of nature but with his faculties fully developed, the fallen human species will find redemption and justification. This brief summary of Rousseau’s philosophy says as much about Rousseau as it does about Kant. For Kant not only adopts Rousseau’s tripartite historical sequence, but also finds inspiration in Rousseau for developing his own moral anthropology:

146

CHAPTER 4 Rousseau wrote three works on the damage done to our species by 1) leaving nature for culture, which weakened our strength, 2) civilization, which caused inequality and mutual oppression, 3) presumed moralization, which brought about unnatural education and the deformation of our way of thinking (Dekungsart).—These three works, I maintain, which present the state of nature as a state of innocence . . . should serve his Social Contract, Emile, and Savoyard Vicar only as a guiding thread for finding our way out of the labyrinth of evil with which our species has surrounded itself by its own fault.—Rousseau did not really want the human being to go back to the state of nature, but rather to look back at it from the stage were he now stands. He assumed that the human being is good by nature (as far as nature allows good to be transmitted), but good in a negative way; that is, he is not evil of his own accord and on purpose, but only in danger of being infected and ruined by evil or inept leaders and examples. (A 7: 326–27)

According to this passage, Kant reads Rousseau in a quasi-transcendental key, very much like his approach in the Religion. Both authors find a correlation between historical stages and characteristic human types, and both interpret them not so much as historical realities, but as theoretical constructs useful to describe the a-temporal moral outlook associated with a certain epoch. Thus, Rousseau’s historical sequence (“state of nature/civilization/moralization”) is the diachronic expression of characteristic forms of moral individuation (“the bon sauvage, the bourgeois, and the citoyen/man of authenticity”), whose invariant structure underlies historical change. Kant’s typology of hearts is based on a similar conceptual configuration: large-scale historical and anthropological tendencies are systematically linked with a priori moral structures that are not acquired in time, but can be instantiated in characteristic types of moral character. This is the nub of their common approach: “Rousseau did not really want the human being to go back to the state of nature,” but envisioned it as a “state of innocence [which] should serve only as a guiding thread for finding our way out of the labyrinth of evil with which our species surrounded itself by its own fault.” Interpreted in this light, amour de soi (animality), the moral outlook of the savage, is not a drive ever left behind in the course of historical progress, but a permanent moral need that finds expression in the goal of living “within oneself,” i.e., in harmony with our physical needs and independent from the whims of other men.19 Although Rousseau projects this mode of life into the remote historical past, it actually contains essential aspects of his moral ideal, i.e., of the future he envisions for humanity.

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

147

The autarchy of the man of nature, who lives in a state of feeling and is free because he is self-sufficient, is reenacted, by a deliberate act of reason, in the autonomy of the citizens of the Social Contract, who give themselves the law and are free because they are independent of the arbitrariness of others, and the authenticity of Emile, who is free because he can say what he thinks and think what he says.20 Amour-proper (humanity), on the other hand, is the dominant sentiment of the bourgeois, the alienated man of civilization. He lives in the world of appearances, of Tugendschein, where the “presumed moralization . . . brought about unnatural education and the deformation of our Dekungsart.” The bourgeois lives “outside himself”—for he is enslaved by a myriad of artificial needs and gets the sense of his own existence through the opinion of others. This type of existence lies at the root of our misery in the modern world. It will accompany us so long as we remain in a state of mere “aggregation” (SC, 48). Here the freedom of autarchy has been replaced by the passions for honor, dominance, and possession, which are never completely satisfied and “are for the most part incurable because the sick person does not want to be cured and flees from the dominion of principles” (A 7: 266). These “manias,” by means of which one inclination becomes dominant at the expense of all others,” can be paired with the calmest reflection, [and] is easy to see that they are not thoughtless, like affects, or stormy and transitory; rather, they take root and can even coexist with rationalizing” (A 7: 265). They represent the self-inflicted enslavement to the goals our society values (reputation, power, and money). In their pursuit, bourgeois individuality is forced to depend upon those who are ultimately indifferent to us and towards whom one feels no sympathy. Kant calls this ambivalence “unsocial sociability” (ungesellige Geselligkeit), i.e., “the propensity to enter into society, which, however, is combined with a thoroughgoing resistance that constantly threatens to break up this society” (I 8: 20). Just as Rousseau, Kant believes that such rivalry is a spur toward culture: “this resistance . . . awakens all the powers of the human being, brings him to overcome his propensity to indolence, and, driven by ambition, tyranny, and greed, to obtain for himself a rank among his fellows” (I 8: 21). Furthermore, the dominance of these sentiments represents a necessary stage “towards the foundation of a mode of thought which can with time transform the rude natural predisposition to make moral distinctions into determinate practical principles and hence transform a pathologically compelled agreement to form a society finally into a moral whole” (I 8: 21, 44–45). Kant offers a similar reading of Rousseau in Conjectural Beginning of Human History, where he claims:

148

CHAPTER 4 In his writing on the influence of the sciences and on the inequality of human beings, [Rousseau] shows quite correctly the unavoidable conflict of culture with the nature of the human species as a physical species in which each individual was entirely to reach his vocation; but in his Emile, his Social Contract and other writings, he seeks again to solve the harder problem of how culture must proceed in order properly to develop the predispositions of humanity as a moral species to their vocation, so that the latter no longer conflict with humanity as a natural species. From this conflict . . . arise all true ills that oppress human life, and all vices that dishonor it, nevertheless, the incitements to the latter, which one blames for them, are in themselves good and purposive as natural predispositions, but these predispositions, since they were aimed at the merely natural condition, suffer injury from progressing culture and injure culture in turn, until perfect art again becomes nature, which the ultimate goal of the moral vocation of the species. (MA 8: 116-17)

The internal necessity governing this process explains why Kant counts humanity, the intermediary stage of conflict, as a predisposition to good, even as it generates a host of destructive passions and “diabolical vices” (Rel., 6: 27). The present state of historical development hangs between animality (projected into the past) and personality (projected into the remote future). In the present, denaturation is not yet culture, and the lost innocence still has to give way to a new one. The transitional muddle, however, cannot be avoided: humanity (amour propre/ unsocial sociability) represents a necessary step towards morality (the general will/ authenticity), because the struggle for recognition in society creates a powerful net of mutual dependence, a system of social and political institutions that provides a framework for the exercise of pure practical reason, as well as the impulse to develop one’s intellectual and physical capacities to their full extent. The legal order, however, operates on a system of rewards and punishments that puts morality on a precarious basis. Here individuals depend on an overall calculus of prudential considerations about their chances of transgressing the law with impunity. In Rousseau, this is a consequence of the spurious social contract of the second Discourse—an arrangement that manages to protect the property of the rich, but excludes a mass of oppressed and resentful outcasts, who sooner or later will instigate tyranny and lead to revolutions. What social injustice does for Rousseau, war and competitiveness does for Kant. Unwittingly, as if by a cunning of nature, the conditions are set in both cases for entering a genuine association and forming an ethical community (SD, 172).

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

149

But this final move is not automatic. The mode of deliberation based on amour prope, drawing on a reason that compares and calculates, differs in kind from the unconditional capacity to determine the will “simply by virtue of representing its maxims as suited to universal legislation” (Rel. 6: 27 note). No variant of self-love can attain this unconditionality, and were the predisposition to personality “not given from within, no amount of subtle reasoning on our part would produce it or win our power of choice over to it” (Ibid.). Although the legal order (“the [stage of] presumed moralization”) that arises out of the tensions of amour-propre forces the individual to take other agents into consideration, it falls short of expanding her judgment into a universal law. Only the “idea of the moral law with the respect inseparable from it” (Rel. 6: 27) can guarantee such expansion. Therefore, Kant believes that, in order to realize man’s moral destiny, the mode of deliberation that personality embodies must supersede that of humanity. But whereas humanity superseded animality in the development of civilization as one form of self-love gave place to another, personality entails a radical discontinuity and requires a deliberate decision on our part. To place the system of predispositions in its Rousseauian background helps explain their sequential arrangement in Kant’s moral anthropology, and accounts for the good each one is supposed to represent. Animality (amour de soi) corresponds to the so-called state of nature, in which individuals act on the basis of feeling and connect with themselves and each other immediately. Humanity (amour propre) corresponds to the current civilized state, in which individuals make self-serving calculations that aggregate them into separate and hostile groups. This aggregation is a step towards morality, for it forces agents to enlarge their horizon and include the views of other people in the pursuit of their self-regarding inclinations. Finally, personality, in its collective dimension, corresponds to the idealized future of the species, in which the highest good (i.e., the ethical community) will be realized and bring about the harmonious association of discrete social unions; in its personal dimension, it is the predisposition that encourages the single individual to lead a life of virtue, like Emile, even in the midst of a corrupt social order. (5) THE APRIORICITY OF THE PREDISPOSITIONS TO GOOD If we focus now on the arrangement of the system of predispositions, abstracting from their historical dimension, we can see that their

150

CHAPTER 4

sequence is determined by the gradual expansion of their binding power. Animality (amour de soi) concerns the relation of single wills, humanity (amour propre) the relation of particular wills in a given community, and personality expresses the cosmopolitan perspective that overcomes the idiosyncrasies of local communities. Each stage is necessary in the process of achieving the final end of human nature and builds upon the prior one. Their lexical order is evinced by the fact that “man can indeed use the first two [predispositions] inappropriately (zweckwidrig, i.e., contrary to their ends)” (Rel. 6: 28), but this is not possible with personality. (5.1) Animality Animality is a form of self-love in which the will relates to itself and to others in terms of the immediacy of feelings. It requires no reason, in the sense that natural drives (to self-preservation, sexual reproduction, and sociability) are tailored to ensure the subsistence of the individual and the species. Sentience is at the basis of the motivational structure. The fact that reason plays a marginal role does not mean that conduct is not imputable. Although the purposiveness of natural impulses can be interpreted in biological terms, their admittance in the motivational structure, as in the case of any other impulse, must be represented as an act of freedom. Kant’s view of mechanical self-love is congruent with the analysis of the sympathetic individual in Groundwork I (Gr. 4: 398). As we saw in chapter one, the friend-of-man (Menschenfreund) is moved to help others in distress due to his sympathetically attuned soul, whereby he establishes with his fellow beings an immediate bond based on feeling. The other’s suffering—not the moral validity of her claim for help—motivates the action. Yet, no matter how amiable this response might seem, it suffers from a twofold limitation: the end of beneficence is adopted conditionally, depending on the agent’s state (Zustand), making her incapable of discriminating between valid and invalid claims for help. Thus, the friend-of-man would be unwilling to act when he ought to and willing when he should not. Although the end of sympathy is good, its adoption is not controlled by duty and hence invites all sorts of abuses. A similar point can be made with respect to animality. The impulses of self-preservation, sexuality, and community with other fellow humans, are in themselves good. They allow the species to satisfy its natural needs of food and shelter, to propagate, and to establish peaceful relations among its members. In each of these spheres, mechanical

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

151

self-love aims at establishing a harmonious totality, a relation that allows man to live within himself, i.e., in harmony with others and in the immediacy of feelings. The limited number of his physical needs gives him a sense of autarchy; sexuality connects him erotically with others; and sympathy establishes a community of sentiment, based on mutual deference for suffering. Yet, unless animality is submitted to the demands of personality, which provides the conditions under which the goals of self-love are permissible, natural impulses may become counter-purposive (zweckwidrig) and give rise to the “vices of savagery.” “At their greatest deviation,” i.e., when natural needs give place to “gluttony, lust and wild lawlessness (in relation to other beings),” the “vices of savagery” become “beastly vices” (Rel. 6: 27). (5.2) Humanity The predisposition to humanity presents a different aspect of selflove. Kant calls it “comparing” and associates it with empirical practical reason. Man is taken here “as a living and at the same time a rational being” (Rel. 6:26), and this expands the horizon of moral consideration. For, in mechanical self-love, pleasure and displeasure had the absolute monopoly of the reasons for action. Although self-love may bind us here with others, the hermeneutical center of reference is an intrinsically subjective and self-referential state. Comparing self-love expands it. Although sentience still determines action, it does so mediately, i.e., by incorporating a reflection upon the other agents’ conceptions of the good. “Only in comparison with others does one judge oneself happy or unhappy” (Rel. 6: 27), and thus their opinions and values become essential for determining our own goals. Reasons for action, therefore, are not determined exclusively by our immediate inclinations, as in mechanical self-love, but incorporate a reflection in which the view of other agents is key to determining what—for us—is worth pursuing. Our conception of happiness is established after and by means of this comparison. But just as we are led to consider the views of other agents, we expect to receive their recognition as well. Needless to say, this mutual dependence is partly the historic outcome of the loss of autarchy in civilization. But it is also a necessary conceptual step in the process of expanding our moral horizon. Self-referential feelings are unreliable guides in a social context, in which, to succeed, we must consider the interests of others and find our worth in their eyes. This need of recognition puts the individual outside himself and places him in a symbolic world she shares with other agents.

152

CHAPTER 4

In Kant and the Ethics of Humility, Jeanine Grenberg offers a different interpretation of the effects of mutual dependence. She believes it is fundamentally corrupting and the basis of the over-assertion of the self, which Kant associates with radical evil. In Grenberg’s reading, the loss of the Stoic dream of ataraxia generates an awareness of vulnerability and fear that initiate a maddening circle of preemptive mutual hostility.21 This is of course true, but partial and lopsided. Mutual dependence also buttresses morality and is part of the needs the individual has for establishing ethical communities. Ignoring its essential contribution to morality is part of the individualist legacy Kant is trying to overcome with his extended conception of agency. Dependence is an essentially ambiguous notion in Kantian ethics. The Stoic dream of autarchy, best expressed by Rousseau’s amour de soi and in the predisposition to animality, never fully vanishes; it is transformed and made legitimate by Kantian autonomy, in which promoting the good of others becomes part of my own good. Attachment and dependence are engrossing and self-fulfilling when they prove compatible with the demands of morality. The dangers of comparing self-love can be appreciated by reexamining the example of the shopkeeper (Gr. 4: 397). In returning the exact change, the shopkeeper is not moved by an immediate inclination to protect his inexperienced customer (as he would, if mechanical selflove were his motivational source). The decision not to overcharge the child is the result of subordinating his immediate desire for profit to the prospects of a more complicated calculus, in which his long-term interest is better served by acquiring a reputation of honesty. This consideration takes into account the opinion of others—in his community, the indiscriminate pursuit of profit is bad for business. The reputation he acquires in the eyes of fellow citizens invites him to understand himself as an “honest man,” and perpetuates his moral slumber. Mores and traditions are not morality. Kant rightly suspects that local solidarity often masks an extended sense of privacy, an unwillingness to make our conception of the good cosmopolitan and universally acceptable. For, although comparing self-love implies a mode of deliberation that considers the interests of other agents, the expansion of the horizon of moral consideration is driven here by a desire to please a handful of meaningful others, to belong to and fit in their arbitrary conception of the good. This is a form of self-incurred immaturity, of de-individuation that promotes both paternalism and diffidence. If we add to this configuration the fundamental emotional ambivalence we have with respect to social attachments, to those others “whom [we] cannot stand, but also cannot leave alone” (I 8: 21,

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

153

44), the elements for tragedy are in place. The primacy of self-love in a type like the merchant makes him suspect others of desiring the same superiority he sees throbbing within himself. Preemption becomes a contextual necessity, the rational thing to do, and the result is foreseeable: open violence, when there is promise of victory, but more frequently duplicity, cunning and deception—“secret falsity even in the most intimate friendship,” “a propensity (Hang) to hate him to whom we are indebted,” a hidden joy in the misfortune of others, etc. All these vices must be “reckoned universal maxim[s] of prudence in [human] intercourse” (Rel. 6: 33). Kant believes that “envy, ingratitude, spitefulness” are condemnable features amour-propre grafts on us. Although they “do not really issue from nature as their root” (Rel. 6: 27), since our mutual dependence also makes us more considerate, they nonetheless tend to dominate intersubjective relations in situations of rivalry and distrust, unavoidable in civilization. Kant calls them “vices of culture” which, in their “extreme degree of malignancy (Bösartigkeit) (where they are simply the idea of a maximum of evil that surpasses humanity),” deserve to be called “diabolical vices” (teuflische Laster) (Rel. 6: 27). This designation, however, does not require him to assume that humans are devilish beings, The intensity of the vices does not call for a corrupt Wille—it only needs a Hobbesian social environment, as Sharon Anderson-Gold has persuasively argued.22 The social dynamic we are describing, however, concerns the phenomenal expression of radical evil, and cannot be used as a substitute for the transcendental choice we must assume (to make the species responsible for it) at its basis. (5.3) Personality Personality represents Kant’s moral ideal of self-relation and relation with other agents. It provides the criteria according to which the other predispositions ought to be arranged in order to achieve our moral destiny.23 The human being is here “taken as a rational and at the same time a responsible being” (Rel. 6: 26). While animality is the function of the will that connects agents in terms of the immediacy of their feelings, and humanity connects them mediately, in terms of their mutual recognition as sources of (pathological) interest, personality binds them as ends in themselves, i.e., as rational natures with absolute worth. This perspective keeps in check the antagonistic character of comparing self-love that was triggered by the fact that agents, who lack assurance about their own value, were forced “to gain worth in the opinion of others” (Rel. 6: 27). This circumstance makes man live

154

CHAPTER 4

outside himself: his self-understanding depends on the value he possesses in the eyes of other agents, on the use they can make of him for their for own projects, in short, on his “price” (Gr. 4: 434). By shifting the grounds of moral consideration from sentience to reason, personality proposes a different criterion of valuation: the agent’s dignity (Würde). “What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity” (Gr. 4: 435). This criterion admits of no comparison to anything external to it. It is self-sufficient, absolute, unconditional, and thereby works as the measure according to which everything else ought to be measured (Gr. 4: 428).24 In contrast to animality, in which self-sufficiency is based on the conditional value of feelings, personality demands that the agent’s adoption of ends be compatible with her (pure) rational nature, i.e., that ends be adopted independently of subjective limitations, unconditionally. This demand forestalls the abuses to which animality is susceptible (i.e., the vices of savagery) but preserves its normative core. The Rousseauian ideal of living “within oneself” now rests on reason’s autonomy, not on psychological autarchy, as it did for the savage. In contrast to humanity, dignity marks a person out as having absolute worth, as an end in itself, “something that may not be used merely as a means, and hence so far limits all choice (Willkür) (and is an object of respect)” (Gr. 4: 428). Being irreplaceable, a person draws a limit upon what one can do to her. Personality is violated when an agent “make[s] use of another human being merely as a means, without the other at the same time containing in [herself] the end [of that action]” (Gr. 4: 430). This condition forestalls, in turn, the abuses lurking in humanity while preserving its normative core: the immediate ends of inclination are here subordinated to a process of deliberation that takes every agent into account, irrespective of what group they belong to. Thus, by preserving the normative core of the other two predispositions, personality allows the harmonic integration of all agents’ permissible goals in a kingdom of ends. Here the contingent ends of empirical practical reason are made congruent with the demand for universality, and the necessary ends of pure reason are adopted unconditionally. This integration expresses the teleologically acceptable functions of humanity and animality. It yields a system of perfect and imperfect duties (towards oneself and towards other agents) that allows human beings to realize their moral destiny: the hope to receive happiness in proportion to their virtue.

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

155

(6) PROPENSITIES TO EVIL As we saw in section 2.1, with the notion of heart Kant manages to string together the species and the individual in morally meaningful ways. Thus, on the one hand, the different propensities to evil (frailty, impurity and depravity) are but distinctions in degree of a single natural propensity to evil in human nature, i.e., the (universal/subjectively necessary) propensity to invert the ethical order of priority between the incentives. In this respect, Kant is concerned with the morality of the human species, and all propensities boil down to essentially one of them, depravity, which underlies the others and accounts for what is evil in them. The same was true in regards to the system of predispositions, where personality accounted for the goodness of the prior stages. This structural similarity is important, because, paradoxically, Kant says that frailty and impurity exhibit “good maxims.” Thus, it is difficult to see at first glance what is evil about these volitions, without realizing that the presumed “goodness” of the maxims is the outcome of a process of self-deception, which becomes fully evident only at the last level of depravity, which permeates the other propensities as well.25 On the other hand, the propensities are instantiated in types of observable actions and individual characters. It is here where the typology of hearts is meant to illustrate large-scale anthropological tendencies while making agents responsible for the evil they do. Actions and characters that exhibit frailty are different from those exhibiting impurity or wickedness, but each instance of immorality is expressive of a choice for which we hold the agent accountable. Kant’s taxonomy of hearts complements his view of immorality in the Groundwork and the Analytic of the Critique of Practical Reason, where all maxims that presuppose an object as their determining ground were indiscriminately lumped together as if they were of a single kind, i.e., “material maxims.” Such conflation has risen the suspicion that self-love is incapable of accounting for the motivational structure of agents who commit outrageous crimes, as we saw in chapter three. The system of propensities allows Kant to bring nuance to this one-size-fits-all approach to immorality. Although he remains convinced that self-love underlies all propensities, he now can show that the phenomenology of evil varies depending on which propensity gains motivational priority in the individual’s heart. The noumenal inversion of the ethical order through which the predispositions to good (animality and humanity) are turned into counter-purposive uses draws now on an anthropological content that allows Kant to make more subtle empirical distinctions.

156

CHAPTER 4

(6.1) Frailty Although “frailty” describes the phenomenon sometimes referred to as “weakness of the will,” its most relevant systematic function in Kant’s moral anthropology is to exhibit the transcendental conditions for the possibility of the vices of savagery, i.e., of the misuse of animality as a predisposition to good. The frailty (fragilitas) of human nature is expressed even in the complaint of an Apostle, “What I would, that I do not,’”i.e., I incorporate the good (the law) into the maxim of my power of choice; but this good, which is an irresistible incentive objectively or ideally (in thesi), is subjectively (in hypothesi) the weaker (in comparison with inclination) whenever the maxim is to be followed. (Rel. 6:29)

The phenomenon of weakness of the will can be described as one in which the agent judges some action to be morally required, but fails to act according to what she has most reason to do. Although the moral incentive is recognized as in itself motivating, the agent does not to carry it out and, instead, she acts according to an inclination.26 That is, in cases of weakness of the will, “moral knowledge is unaccompanied by moral action.”27 Remorse and guilt usually follow, because the agent is aware of a lack of correspondence between her objective and her subjective reasons for action. Although she recognizes the validity of the moral law, she does not grant it authority. In her motivational structure the last word is reserved for inclination, despite the ascendancy the law has for her in thesi. If there were no competitive grounds for action, which the agent herself recognizes as having inferior justificatory power, she would consider the moral incentive irresistible. She justifies that belief by the assurance knowledge of the good gives to her. When inclinations lead her to depart from the general observance of adopted maxims, she explains her failure in terms of the “frailty of human nature,” of “the weakness of the human heart.” This weakness, however, does not detract from her awareness of what duty requires. The rejection (evinced by guilt and remorse) of her course of action is reassuring of the ultimate goodness in her heart. As a trait of heart, frailty and the associated phenomenon of weakness of the will require active self-deception on her part.28 Kant believes that consciousness of the law as an incentive to determine choice is necessarily accompanied by the feeling of respect. If it were true that “I incorporated the good (the law) into my maxim,” such an adoption would be in itself sufficient to regard the incentive of inclinations as

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

157

being worthless. For, “what is essential in every determination of the will by the moral law is that, as a free will (Willkür)—and so not only without the cooperation of sensuous impulses (Antriebe) but even with rejection of all of them and with infringement upon inclinations in so far as they could oppose the law—it is determined solely by the law” (KpV 5: 72). It would be impossible for such an agent to act upon the comparatively worthless grounds of self-love without thereby endorsing a valuation that puts in question that very worthlessness—and it is this valuation that makes her Gesinnung evil. The agent with a weak heart, however, makes herself believe that her motivational structure is essentially good, even when her actions suggest otherwise. Since her departure from the law is only due to the overwhelming power that the natural incentive exerts on her, she justifies it as not being a serious case of disrespect. This is reassuring. Although she endorses the law as objective source of reasons, she in fact places morality on a par with inclination, and attributes the dominance of the latter to its comparative strength. But this way of describing the situation belies the renunciation of her freedom. Her self-deception consists in interpreting the loss of moral ground as not having a decisive effect in the ultimate morality of heart, whose goodness is shielded by her knowledge of the law and subsequent tingles of regret. The agent thinks along these lines: “since I incorporated the good (the law) into my maxim,” any deviation is not really due to my evil heart, but to the weakness of my will, of which I am not entirely responsible, since frailty is part of human nature.” This reasoning takes the recognition of the law’s validity as if it were equivalent to having granted it authority, and excuses the dominance of inclination in terms of a weakness we all share. Such a contrivance disavows and hides the choice that must have taken place to make the weakness possible. The agent takes intellectual awareness of the law as a surrogate for respect. The dominance of inclination, which in Kant can only be the result of the will’s “taking” the sensible incentive as motivating , is interpreted in terms of the comparative weakness of the moral incentive—as if the decision-making process were the outcome of the sheer play of causal forces. Although actions contrary to duty (gesetzwidrig) are obvious candidates to exhibit the weakness of an agent’s will, the same (heteronomous) motivational structure can be said to be operative even in actions according to duty (gesetzmäßig). For, the systematic subordination of (objectively overriding) moral reasons to the sensible incentive is compatible with duties performed out of inclination. Frailty,

158

CHAPTER 4

then, is the transcendental condition for the possibility of a particular kind of immorality. Namely, the one connected with the transgression of imperfect duties (such as self-preservation, temperance and beneficence), whose goal overlaps with the impulses Kant associated with mechanical self-love. Indeed, frailty designates the mode of deliberation in which sentience is given monopoly in the agent’s heart, even though she is aware of what the law demands from her. This monopoly affects her moral judgment, but not necessarily her actions. This type of heart, then, is compatible with two different scenarios. Either the command of the law and the object of inclination coincide, and the agent fulfills her duty out of immediate inclination towards the end, or they clash, and the agent commits wrongdoing (experiencing guilt or regret as an aftermath). These alternatives share an essential feature: the unconditionality with which the (objective) ends of duty ought to be adopted is here conditioned by the agent’s subjective conception of the good, a conception which ultimately determines what kind of action will ensue—whether according or contrary to duty. It is the conditionality in the adoption of ends, even when they coincide with the demands of duty, that made Kant in Groundwork I suspect the motivational structure of the friend-of-man. The same conditionality characterizes the predisposition to animality and explains the fundamental ambivalence of mechanical self-love, whose lack of subordination to the unconditional demands of reason gives rise to the vices of savagery. Frailty, therefore, presents the a priori conditions for the possibility of a counter-purposive use of essential goals in a structurally heterogeneous will. It presents the subjective ground of the possibility of a volitional pattern in which objective ends (imperfect duties) are pursued on the condition that they agree with the subjective (i.e., arbitrary) dictates of inclination. The agent with frail heart is never beyond the grip of the attractions of “gluttony, lust and wild lawlessness (in relation to other human beings)” (Rel. 6: 27), even if moral luck would have her moderate and sympathetic. For she has lifted the constraints of unconditionality in the adoption of objective ends, neglecting the condition without which the arbitrariness of self-love perverts the motivational structure. This mode of deliberation is a specific form of heteronomy, i.e., one in which the ends of duty are sacrificed for those of immediate inclination (mechanical self-love). Frailty, thus, explains why this frame of mind may give rise to wrongdoing, though in many cases it spares us from it. Richard Bernstein, as we saw in chapter one, considers inadmissible to call the sympathetic individual of the Groundwork a candidate

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

159

for radical evil.29 His perplexity reflects the ingrained association of evil with observable wrongdoing. This is precisely the picture Kant’s doctrine of radical evil puts into question: what matters in evaluating an agent’s Gesinnung or heart is not so much her actions, but the general principle of deliberation, the type of reasons that her heart cherishes and harbors. When we consider the latter, the contingency of the amicable feelings of the friend-of-man does not preclude the possibility of him becoming a scoundrel—and this is precisely what a transcendental account of evil is supposed to show. (6.2) Impurity While frailty contains the self-deceptive attempt to pass knowledge of the moral law as a substitute for respect, impurity endangers moral cognition as such. The misrepresentation of the object of practical reason is itself the result of a heteronomous mode of deliberation in which comparing self-love has received motivational priority. Selfdeception takes place when the agent interprets her motivational structure in terms of the content of her volition, whose amenability to the letter of the law gives her a false sense of assurance about her uprightness. The impurity (impuritas, improbitas) of the human heart consists in this, that although the maxim is indeed good with respect to its object (the intended compliance with the law) and perhaps even powerful enough in practice, it is not purely moral, i.e., it has not, as it should be the case, adopted the law alone as its sufficient incentive but, on the contrary, often (an perhaps always) needs still other incentives in order to determine the power of choice for what duty requires; in other words, actions conforming to duty are not done purely from duty. (Rel 6: 30, 53–54)

The agent with an impure heart has adopted as her end what the moral law prescribes, but the reason for this adoption sidesteps the moral incentive and requires the concurrence of self-love. The agent’s conception of happiness thus supplements the deficiency of the motive of duty as a “sufficient incentive.” Although the action that ensues is generally according to duty, the motive of duty did not work as a limiting condition for the agent’s subjective conception of the good. Hence, again, the “goodness” of the action is a matter of luck, not of a good Gesinnung. While in an agent with a frail heart “knowledge of the good is not accompanied by moral action,” the agent with an impure heart

160

CHAPTER 4

transforms morality into a system of hypothetical imperatives. Able to resist the immediate promptings of feeling, the agent with an impure heart shapes desires according to her subjective conception of the good, giving to her actions the appearance of rationality, as the example of the shopkeeper in the Groundwork shows. The propensity to impurity, then, is systematically connected with the predisposition to humanity. For, the man who lives outside himself has the propensity to substitute the rational form of universality, which discloses the possibility of her dignity and autonomy, by the form of generality, which enslaves him to the arbitrary values of his group. Impurity in the constitution of the object of volition is at the core of this form of heteronomy, which is compatible with good conduct, but which can well give rise to immorality in comparative/competitive contexts. (6.3) Wickedness Depravity (Bösartigkeit) represents a staggering increase in the degree of malignancy. An agent with a depraved heart does not simply transform morality into a system of conditional imperatives, but perverts moral judgment as such. In depravity, deliberation becomes oblivious of morally salient features that accompany actions, and such insensitivity opens the possibility of a maximum of wrongdoing. The depravity (Bösartigkeit) (vitiositas, pravitas) or, if one prefers, the corruption (Verderbtheit) (corruptio) of the human heart is the propensity of the power of choice to maxims that subordinate (nachsetzen) the incentives of moral law to others (not moral ones). It can also be called the perversity (Verkehrtheit) (perversitas) of the human heart, for it reverses (umkehrt)the ethical order as regards the incentives of a free power of choice; and although with this reversal there can still be legally good (legale) action, yet the mind’s attitude (Denkungsart) is thereby corrupted at its root (s far as the moral disposition (Gesinnung) is concerned), and hence the human being is designated as evil. (Rel. 6: 30)

A depraved person does not simply give priority to the non-moral reasons arising from self-love (as was the case with frailty and impurity), but this priority is the result of a deliberate judgment of value by which moral reasons are placed behind (nachgesetzt) non-moral considerations.30 While in frailty the agent claims not to endorse this judgment, and in impurity a contingent inclination hides the motivational shortcoming, in wickedness the pursuit of non-moral reasons is

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

161

a matter of principle. The agent has adopted a fundamental maxim of conduct that “reverses the ethical order as regards the incentives of a free power of choice” (Rel. 6: 30). Her maxim neglects moral reasons in favor of others that are not moral. Thus, the agent with a perverse heart recognizes objective moral requirements, but shrugs them off, for she is committed to pursue her subjective conception of the good no matter how it stands in relation to the moral law. The value of morality is deliberately devalued, and reasons lacking (objective) justificatory power override the claim moral considerations exert on a heterogeneous will like ours. Although in frailty and impurity the moral incentive does not receive authority in the motivational structure, the agent makes at least a lukewarm attempt to acknowledge the outweighing character of moral reasons. In perversity, pretenses fall off: the agent unabashedly places herself above the law. Instead of hiding and justifying the inversion of the order of priorities like in the other propensities, this type of agent willfully embraces it. But this mindset does not mean that she has adopted the life-policy of pursuing evil for evil’s sake. Although she is aware of what morality requires, she grants herself “moral holidays” and callously uses everyone else as a tool to her goals. This explains why Kant considers depravity the highest expression of the propensity to evil. “[G]uilt can be judged in its first two stages (those of frailty and impurity) to be unintentional (unvorsätzlich) guilt (culpa); in the third, however, as deliberate guilt (vorsätzliche) (dolus), and is characterized by a certain perfidy (Tücke) on the part of the human heart (dolus malus) in deceiving itself as regards its own good or evil disposition, and provided its actions do not result in evil (which they could well do because of their maxims), in not troubling itself on account of its disposition (Gesinnung)but rather considering itself justified before the law” (Rel. 6: 38). The lack of intention in the first two propensities is, as we saw, part of the process of self-deception the agent incurs when she tries to disavow the nature of her choice. “Unintentional” is the allegation of the agent, not the verdict of the impartial judge. But in depravity, even the allegation disappears. The choice is recognized as “intentional,” and the insidiousness resides now in the agent’s holding a value judgment: “non-moral reasons can trump moral considerations, because they have more value for me.” By giving principled priority to self-love, the maxims of a depraved agent systematically deny the status of persons to all other rational beings—they have no dignity, only a price for her.

162

CHAPTER 4

(7) CONCLUDING REMARKS We tried to show in this chapter that, at a quasi-transcendental level, the system of propensities to evil is designed to explain how the predispositions to good can become counter-purposive. This kind of account is, to my knowledge, absent in the Anglophone Kantian literature, which oscillates between an anthropological interpretation of evil that captures its social dynamics but downplays its noumenal dimension, and an individualist moral methodology that captures this noumenal dimension but downplays the social dynamics. This antinomic impasse, we argued, is symptomatic of two powerful, conflicting intellectual forces that shape the development of Kantian ethics: on the one hand, a philosophy of history of Rousseauian inspiration and a set of pragmatic observations about human nature; on the other, the metaphysical project of founding morality exclusively on a priori grounds. The first crystallizes in Kant’s writings on history and his lectures on anthropology, the second in the Groundwork and the Analytic of the second Critique. The moral anthropology of the Religion, we suggested, is Kant’s attempt at reconciling them: it extends the a priori apparatus of morality in the direction of totalized conception of agency (the human species), and it elevates Kant’s empirical observations about human nature to a quasi-transcendental status, neither fully empirical nor fully a priori. The seeds of these tendencies lie, in part, in the dialectical nature of human rationality, that gives rise to the totalized notions of Gesinnung and a universal propensity to evil; in part, in a revolutionary new conception of “human nature,” that extends the notion of autonomy from the individual will to the will of the species. These conceptual transformations required a new methodology, which Kant unfortunately developed only halfway. To supplement this lack, we postulate the unity of acknowledgement, a three-layer model of moral constitution, and the notion of “heart,” which plays in Kant’s moral anthropology a function similar to the schematism of the first Critique. Admittedly, these are mere hypotheses, interpretative moves advanced and justified in terms of their heuristic use. We ventured them in the spirit of systematicity, and somewhat hesitantly, for although convinced by them, it would be foolish to claim any certainty about what Kant must have thought but did not say. This for Kant alone to determine. According to this reading, the condition for the possibility of disrupting the essential goals of animality is formulated in the propensity to frailty. Moral knowledge of the validity of the law is taken as a surrogate for its required authority in the motivational structure. The agent

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

163

with a frail heart fails to comply with the demand for unconditionality in the adoption of objective ends (imperfect duties) to which she has an immediate inclination. This can give rise to the vices of barbarity. The subversion of the predisposition to humanity adopts two forms. Impurity affects moral knowledge, for it entails a failure in the constitution of the object of the object of pure practical reason: happiness (das Wohl) is taken as a surrogate for morality (das Gute). Yet, since the sensible incentives of the agent with an impure heart happen to accord with the letter of the law, there is no observable transgression of the content of duty. The most serious problem of impurity is that the agent is tempted to accept her good conduct as a token of good character, and this engenders a dangerous self-satisfaction, which underlies the vices of culture. Wickedness intensifies the degree of malignancy, for here the inversion of the order of priorities is a deliberate expression of a value judgment: moral considerations are placed behind non-moral ones. This affects the very core of the agent’s outlook: it makes her insensitive to the morally relevant features that deserve consideration in assessing possible courses of action. Such is evil’s radicalism—the pervasive distortion of salient moral features that translates the volitional form of Gesinnung into a moral world where other human beings are denied their dignity and intrinsic value. Underlying these different propensities there is a common principle, self-love, which imprints to the manifold moral data a basic form: “I will what I please.” This is the unifying volitional principle Kant wants to bring forth with his doctrine of radical evil, which in depravity attains its clearest expression. The goal of this Essay has been to unmask its many dangers. NOTES 1. “Race and ancestors, and those things which we did not make ourselves, I scarcely consider as our own.” Kant quotes this passage from Metamorphoses (XIII, 140–41) in the context of his discussion of original sin. See Rel. 6: 40. 2. Something similar should be said about the radicality of a good Gesinnung, a theme virtually absent in the first book of the Religion, but central to Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue. To be imputable, a good Gesinnung must also be represented as the result of the “I will” having organized its internal manifold and given priority to the moral incentive. This act gives all volitions the form “I will that you will,” shaping maxims of action in ways that reflect the agent’s fundamental commitment to upholding duty in her mode of deliberation.

164

CHAPTER 4

3. Another heuristic advantage of assuming the “I will” is that it helps elucidate the problem of moral self-presupposition: the reasons that induce (but do not cause) an agent to choose a certain kind of Gesinnung presuppose the Gesinnung she is about to choose. The moral agent can discover the pre-existent form of her will by reflecting on the history of her subsequent choices. For, the principle with which the “I will” organizes its internal manifold has the same form as the principle with which the (now constituted) agent organizes objects of desire in general. 4. For an interesting discussion of this claim, see Oliver Thorndike, “Understanding Kant’s Claim that ‘Morality cannot be without Anthropology,” in Rethinking Kant: Volume I, 109-135. Thorndike refers to a whole cluster of passages in which Kant makes identical or similar claims: Lectures on Ethics Herder 27:1235–36; Anthropology Collins 25:914–16; Moral Philosophy Kaehler pp.5–6; Anthropology Friedländer 25:47133–4728; Moral Mrongovius II 29:59821-59922; Menschenkunde 25:8589-22; Anthropology Mrongovius 25:121130–33; 2:311; A15/B29; 4:388, 412; 5:8; 6:217. 5. See, Robert Louden, “Anthropology from a Kantian Point of View: Toward a Cosmopolitan Conception of Human Nature,” in Rethinking Kant, 101. 6. Since Kant never left Königsberg, he is an easy target for the accusation of ethnocentrism. Indeed, all his references to other peoples are secondhand (through the reports from travelers). He offers two kinds of justification. First, Königsberg, a thriving port and important political center, is “a city which, by way of rivers, has the advantages of commerce both with the interior of the country and with neighboring and distant lands of different languages and customs, [and hence] can well be taken as an appropriate place for broadening one’s knowledge of human beings as well as of the world, where this knowledge can be acquired without traveling” (A 7: 120 note) Furthermore, even if the world had not come to Kant, there would still be an additional methodological reason to reflect upon one’s neighbors: “if one wants to know what to look for abroad, in order to broaden the range of anthropology, first one must have acquired knowledge of human beings at home, through social intercourse with one’s townsmen or countrymen” (A: 7: 120). The difficulties of what Levi-Strauss would call “le regard eloigne” (the view from afar) accompany the discipline of anthropology from its very inception. 7. See Robert Louden, “Anthropology from a Kantian Point of View,” 95, and Allen Wood, “Kant and the Problem of Human Nature,” in Essays on Kant’s Anthropology, eds. Brian Jacobs and Patrick Kain (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 38-59. 8. See Manfred Kuehn, “Introduction,” Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, ed. Robert Louden (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2006), xvi. 9. See Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 289 10. See Allison, “On the Very Idea of a Propensity to Evil”; 346. 11. Michalson, Fallen Freedom, 37-8.

THE MORAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RADICAL EVIL

165

12. For instance, Cf. O’Connor, “Good and Evil Dispositions”: 297; Bernstein, Radical Evil, 30; Card, The Atrocity Paradigm, 77; and Michalson, Fallen Freedom, 45. 13. Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought, 291. 14. Allen Wood and Sharon Anderson-Gold are the most important representatives of this line of thought. In spite of the alleged identity between Kant and Rousseau on the question of evil, Wood does not draw the Rousseauian connection far enough. He rightly insists in the fact that amour-propre “is . . . the same trait as ‘self-conceit’ or ‘ambition’—the sense of comparative selfworth and the desire to achieve superior worth in the eyes of others—which constitutes, in Kant’s view, the radical propensity to evil” (291). However, as I argue below, amour de soi also plays a major role in Kant’s doctrine, and the dominance of amour propre is not an unqualified evil in either author. Indeed, humanity is part of our predispositions to the good, and Wood’s unilateral emphasis on the negative effects of amour propre glosses over its positive contribution to moral teleology. 15. See J.J. Rousseau, The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed.Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 218 (note xv). I’ll refer to the Discourse on Inequality as “SD,” followed by the page number in the English translation. 16. See my “An Essay on the Principles of Rousseau’s Anthropology,” Philosophy and Social Criticism26, n.2, 2000, pp. 51–77. Especially see 65 ff. 17. Despite the frequent misunderstandings, Rousseau is very clear about the impossibility of going back to nature: “What, then? Must Societies be destroyed, thine and mine annihilated, and men return to live in forest with the Bears? A conclusion in the style of my adversaries, which I would rather anticipate than leave them the shame of drawing it” (SD, 203, note 9). 18. See J. J. Rousseau, The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge University Press, 1997), 50. I’ll refer to this book as “SC,” followed by the pagination in the English translation. 19. Rousseau, SD, 187. 20. Cf. Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ed.. Peter Gay (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), Part II, pp. 96 ff. Also, see Jean Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 23 and 37. 21. See Grenberg, Kant and the Ethics of Humility, 26 ff. 22. Anderson-Gold, “Kant’s Rejection of Devilishness: The Limits of Human Volition”: 36 ff. 23. As Matthew Caswell puts it, “what makes animality and humanity predispositions to the good is their relation to morality, which is given through a different predisposition.” See Caswell, “The Value of Humanity”: 641. 24. Reading the Groundwork backwards, i.e., from the perspective of the Religion (the opposite line of argument from the one we followed in this study), Matthew Caswell argues that the predisposition to personality should not be confused with the meaning of “humanity” in the earlier work, for rational nature is no guarantee of morality, since “the most rational being of this

166

CHAPTER 4

world might still need certain incentives, coming to him from the objects of inclination, to determine his power of choice.” (Rel. 6: 27 note) In the Groundwork, “humanity” is ambiguous and must be read sometimes as “person,” if evil is to be morally accountable, and not simply as shorthand for “rational.” See Caswell, “The Value of Humanity”: 636 ff. 25. Allison makes this point in Kant’s Theory of freedom:159. 26. I am following Timmons’ line of analysis in this characterization. Cf. Timmons, “Evil and Imputation in Kant’s Ethics”: 123. 27. Alexander Broadie and Elizabeth M. Pybus, “Kant and weakness of Will,” Kant-Studien Heft 4 (1982): 406. 28. In contrast to Allison (Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 159), Mark Timmons argues that weakness of the will is not indicative of self-deception, but rather of a broader use of the Incorporation Thesis (Timmons, “Evil and Imputation”:126). According to Timmons, Allison has unnecessarily limited the candidate reasons for incorporation to those that are endorsed by the agent. A more comprehensive view, therefore, must expand the range of reasons for action to the non-endorsed ones. This expansion would explain cases such as weakness of the will. I side with Allison on this point, for reasons evident below. 29. See Bernstein, Radical Evil, 17–18. 30. Mark Timmons makes this point: “whereas in cases of weakness and impurity, the agent at least correctly represents to herself the importance or rational weight attaching to moral considerations vis-à-vis other, non-moral considerations, the wicked agent fails to properly represent to herself the importance of moral considerations. In short, the wicked agent’s choices are based on a perverted value judgment” (Timmons, “Evil and Imputation”: 131).

Bibliography

Allison, Henry. Kant’s Theory of Freedom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ———. “Reflections on the Banality of (Radical) Evil: A Kantian Analysis.” Idealism and Freedom: Essays on Kant’s Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ———. “Ethics, Evil, and Anthropology in Kant: Remarks on Allen Wood’s Kant’s Ethical Thought.” Ethics 111, Issue 3 (April 2001): 594–616. Anderson-Gold, Sharon. “Kant’s Rejection of Devilishness: the Limits of Human Volition.” Idealistic Studies 14 (1984): 35–48. ———. Unnecessary Evil: History and Moral Progress in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001. ———. “Kant, Radical Evil, and Crimes against Humanity,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, edited by Sharon Anderson-Gold and Pablo Muchnik. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of Evil. N.Y: Penguin Books, 1994. ———. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1976. Baier, Kurt. “The Point of View of Morality.” Australian Journal of Philosophy 32, no. 2 (1954): 104–35. Beck, Lewis White. A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960. Beiser, Frederick. “Moral Faith and the Highest Good,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Moral Philosophy, edited by Paul Guyer. London: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Bernstein, Richard. Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation. Cambridge: Polity Press,2002, Bittner, Rüdiger. “Maximen.” Pp. 485–98 In Akten des 4. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, edited by ed. G. Funke and J. Kopper. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974. 167

168

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Broadie, Alexander and Pybus, Elizabeth. “Kant and weakness of Will.” KantStudien, Heft 4, (1982): 406. Card, Claudia. The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Caswell, Mathew. “The Value of Humanity and Kant’s Conception of Evil,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (Oct. 2006): 635–63. ———. “Kant on the Diabolical Will: A neglected alternative?” Kantian Review12, no.2 (2007): 147–57. Cherkasova. Evgenia. “On the Boundary of Intelligibility: Kant’s Conception of Radical Evil and the Limits of Ethical Discourse,” The Review of Metaphysics 58 (March 2005): 571–84. Copjec, Joan. Radical Evil. London: Verso, 1996. Fackenheim, Emil. “Kant and Radical Evil.” University of Toronto Quarterly 23 (1954): 339–53. ———. “Kant’s Concept of History.” Kant-Studien 58, no 3, (1956–1957): 381–98. Frierson, Patrick. Freedom and Anthropology in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Cambrige: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ———. “Kantian Moral Pessimism,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, edited by Sharon Anderson-Gold and Pablo Muchnik. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. Garcia, Ernesto. “A Kantian Theory of Evil.” The Monist 85, no, 2, (April 2002): 194–209, Grenberg, Jeanine. Kant and the Ethics of Humility: A Story of Dependence, Corruption, and Virtue. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ———. “Social Dimensions of Immanuel Kant conception of Evil,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, edited by Sharon Anderson-Gold and Pablo Muchnik. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. Guyer, Paul. Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Henrich, Dieter. “The Concept of Moral Insight and Kant’s Doctrine of the Fact of Reason” in The Unity of Reason, edited by Richard Velkley. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Herman, Barbara. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. ———. “Making Room for Character.” Pp. 36–60 in Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics. Rethinking Happiness and Duty, edited by Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Hill, Thomas E. Jr. Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Edited by Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994. Höffe, Otfried. “Ein Thema widergeoinnen: Kant über das Böse.” Pp. 11–34 in Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, edited by Otfried Höffe and Annemarie Pieper. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 1995.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

169

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Jaspers, Karl “Das radical Böse bei Kant.” Rechenschaft und Ausblick. Münich: R. Piper, 1951. Kierkegaard, Søren. The Concept of Anxiety. Translated by R. Thomte and A. Anderson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980. Korsgaard, Christine. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Kosch, Michelle. Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard, London: Oxford University Press, 2006. Kuehn, Manfred. “Introduction.” Pp. ix–xxxv in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, edited by Robert Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Laberge, Pierre. “La définition de la volonté comme faculté d’agir selon la représentation des lois.” Pp. 83–96 in Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Ein kooperativer Kommentar, edited by Otfried Höffe. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989. Lawrence, Joseph P. “Radical Evil and Kant’s Turn to Religion.” The Journal of Value Inquiry 36, no. 2–3 (2002): 319–35. Leibniz, G.W. Theodicy. Chicago: Open Court Classics, 1985. Longuenesse, Béatrice. “Kant’s ‘I think’ versus Descartes’ ‘I am a thing that thinks.’” Pp. 9–31 in Kant and the Early Moderns, edited by Daniel Garger and Béatrice Longuenesse. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. Louden, Robert. “Anthropology from a Kantian Point of View: Toward a Cosmopolitan Conception of Human Nature.” Pp. 88–108 in Rethinking Kant: Current Trends in North American Kantian Scholarship, edited by Pablo Muchnik. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar Publishers, 2008, ———. “Evil Everywhere: The Ordinariness of Kantian Radical Evil,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, edited by Sharon Anderson-Gold and Pablo Muchnik. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming). Mariña, Jaqueline. “Making Sense of the Highest Good,” Kant-Studien 91 (2000): 329–55. Michalson, Gordon E. Fallen Freedom: Kant on Radical Evil and Moral Regeneration. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ———. “Kant, the Bible, and the Recovery from Radical Evil,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, edited by Sharon Anderson-Gold and Pablo Muchnik. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming). Morgan, Seirol, “The Missing Formal Proof of Humanity’s Radical Evil in Kant’s Religion,” The Philosophical Review 114, no. 1 (January 2005): 80–86. Muchnik, Pablo. “An Essay on the Principles of Rousseau’s Anthropology.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 26, n.2 (2000): 51–77. ———. “Competing Enlightenment Narratives: A Case Study Of Rorty’s AntiKantianism.” Pp. 294–314 in Rethinking Kant: Current Trends in North American Kantian Scholarship, edited by Pablo Muchnik. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar Publishers, 2008,

170

BIBLIOGRAPHY

O’Neill, Onora. Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Nell, Onora. Acting on Principle. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975. Neiman, Susan. Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. O’Connor, Daniel. “Good and Evil Disposition.” Kant-Studien, Heft 3 (1985): 288–302. Paton, H. J. The Categorical Imperative. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971. ———. “An Alleged Right to Lie: A problem in Kantian Ethics.” Kant-Studien 45 (1953–1954): 190–203. Nelson Potter, “Kant and the Moral Worth of Actions.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 34, (1996): 227–28. Prauss, G. Kant über freiheit als Autonomie. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main, 1983. Prichard, H.A. “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” Mind81. (Jan., 1912): 21–37. Rawls, John. “Themes in Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” Pp. 81–113 in Kant’s Transcendental Deductions, edited by Eckart Förster. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989. Reath, Andrew. “Hedonism, Heteronomy, and Kant’s Principle of Happiness.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 70 (1989): 42.72. Reboul, Olivier. Kant et le problème du mal. Montreal: Les Presses de l’ Université de Montreal, 1971. Ross, W. D. The Right and the Wrong. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1930. Rossi, Philip J. The Social Authority of Reason. Albany: SUNY Press, 2005. ———. “Kant’s Metaphysics of ‘Permanent Rupture’: Radical Evil and the Unity of Reason,” in Kant’s Anatomy of Evil, edited by Sharon AndersonGold and Pablo Muchnik. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. Rousseau, Jean Jacques. The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings. Edited by Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ———. The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings. Edited by Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Samte-Porat, Irit. “Satanic Motivations.” The Journal of Value Inquiry 41 (2007): 77–94. Schulte, Christoph. Radikal Böse: Die Karriere des Bösen von Kant bis Nietzsche. MünchenL Wilhem Fink Verlag, 1991. Silber, John R. “The Copernican Revolution in Ethics: The Good Reexamined.” Kant-Studien 51 (1959–1960): 85–101. ———. “The Ethical Significance of Kant’s Religion.” Pp. lxxix–cxxxiv in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, translated by T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson. New York, Harper & Row, 1960.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

171

———. “Kant at Auschwitz.” Pp. 198–99 in Proceedings of the Sixth International Kant Congress, edited by G. Funke and T. Seebohm. Washington, D.C.: Center of Advanced Research in Phenomenology & University Press of America, 1991. Stolzenberg, Jürgen, “The Pure ‘I Will’ Must be Able to Accompany all of my Desires: The problem of a Deduction of the Categories of Freedom in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason.” Pp. 415-425 in the Proceedings of the 10th International Kant Congress. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Timmons, Mark. “Evil and Imputation in Kant’s Ethics.” Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik 2 (1994): 114–41. Walker, Ralph. Kant. Boston: Routledge and Paul Kegan, 1978. Wimmer, Reiner. Kants kritische Religionsphilosophie. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990 Wood, Allen. Kant’s Moral Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970. ———. Kant’s Ethical Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ———. “Kant and the Problem of Human Nature.” Pp. 38–59 in Essays on Kant’s Anthropology, edited by Brian Jacobs and Patrick Kain. Cambridge University Press, 2003. Yovel, Y. Kant and the Philosophy of History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968. ———. “Kant’s Practical Reason as will: Interest, Recognition, Judgment and Choice.” The Review of Metaphysics 52, no. 2 (December, 1998): 275–77.

OTHER CONSULTED SOURCES Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by David Ross. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Augustine. Confessions. Translated by Pine Coffin. England: Penguin Books, 1961. Beiser, Frederick C. The Fate of Reason. German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. Benn, S. I. “Wickedness.” Ethics 95, No. 4 (July 1985): 796–810. Caballar, Georg. “Kants Weg von der Theodizee zur anthropodizee und retour. Verspätete Kritik an Odo Marquard.” Kant-Studien, Vol. 84, No. 1, (1993): 90–102. Cassirer, Ernst. The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Translated by P. Gay. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Bernard Carnois. The Coherence of Kant’s Doctrine of Freedom. New Haven: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Ciaramelli, Fabio. “Du mal radical à la banalité du mal.” Revue philosophique de Louvain 93, No.3, (August 1995): 392–407. Engstrom, Stephen. “Conditioned Autonomy.” Philosophy and Phenomnological Research 48, (1988): 435–53.

172

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov, edited by Ralph E. Matlaw, Norton and Company, 1976. Fenves, Peter. Late Kant: Towards Another Law of the Earth. New York: Routledge, 2003. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. Versuch einer neuen Darstellund der Wissenschatslehere (1797/1798). Felix Meiner Verlag, 1984. Fischer, N. “Der Formalem Grund der Bösen Tat.” Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung, (1988): 18–44. Foot, Philippa. “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives.” Pp. 157– 73 in Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Foucault, Michel. “What is Enlightenment?” Ethics, Subjectivity, and Truth, edited by Paul Rabinow, The New Press, 1994. Frankfurt, Harry. “Freedom of the will and the concept of a person.” The Importance of What we Care About, Cambridge University Press, 1988. Harris, Nigel. “Kantian Duties and Immoral agents.” Kant-Studien 83, No. 3, (1992): 336–43. Henson, Richard G. “What Kant Might Have Said: Moral Worth and the Overdetermination of Dutiful Action.” The Philosophical Review 88 (1979): 39–54. Hill, Thomas. “Kant on Imperfect Duty and Supererogation.” Kant-Studien 62, No. 1, (1971): 55–76. Konhardt, Klauss. “Die Unbergreiflichkeit der Freiheit.” Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 42, No. 3 (July-Sept. 1988): 397–416. Korsgaard, Christine. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ———. “Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant,” The Journal of Ethics 3 (1999): 1–29. Lara, María Pia. Rethinking Evil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Lichtigfeld, A. “A Kantian Contribution to the Problem of Evil.” Kant-Studien 58, no. 1, (1967): 55–57. Meerbote, Ralph. “Wille and Willkür in Kant’s Theory of Action.” Pp. 69–84 in Interpreting Kant. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1982. Mill, J. S. The Basic Writings of J. S. Mill: On Liberty, The Subjugation of Women & Utilitarianism. New York: The Modern Library, 2002. Munzel, Felicitas. Kant’s Conception of Moral Character: The “Critical” Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. Neiman, Susan. “Kant and the Structure of Practical Reason,” in the Eleventh Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter, Jerusalem 1995. Nuyen, A. T. “The sublimity of evil.” Philosophy of Religion 41, No. 3 (June 1997: 135–47. Pereboom, Derk. “Kant on god Evil, and Theology.” Faith and Philosophy 13, No. 4 (October 1996): 508–33. Ranasinghe, Nalin. “Ethics for the Little Man: Kant, Eichmann, and the Banality of Evil.” The Journal Of Value Inquiry 36 (2002): 299–317.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

173

Rawls, John. Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. ———. A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Reboul, Olivier. “Le Mal dans la Philosophie Religieuse et Politique de Kant.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, (September 1973), 169–75. Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Shklar. Judith. “Putting Cruelty First,” in Ordinary Vices. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984, chapter I. ———. “The Liberalism of Fear,” in Liberalism and the Moral Life, edited by N. Rosenblum, Harvard University Press, 1989. Starobinski, Jean. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Stocker, Michael. “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories.” The Journal of Philosophy 73, no.14 (1976): 453–66. Trigg, Roger. “Sin and Freedom.” Religious Studies 20, no. 2 (June 1984): 191–202. Wilke, Victoria S. Kant on Happiness in Ethics. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. Williams, Bernard. Moral Luck. Cambridge University Press, 1983. ———. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Index

175

About the Author

Pablo Muchnik is associate professor of philosophy at Siena College. He is the editor of Rethinking Kant (Vol. I, 2008; Vol. II, forthcoming) and coeditor (with Sharon Anderson-Gold) of Kant’s Anatomy of Evil (forthcoming).

177