Kant’s theory of radical evil, which he develops in the first part of Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone , rests on a number of basic assumptions.
1) Man is free, and his moral actions are undetermined by anything outside himself or even by anything within himself other than his own choice. This is the very definition of morality, because if we don’t act from free choice, then we can’t be held accountable for our actions. The free will simply is the moral faculty. Sensuously, we are not self-made; morally, we are authors of ourselves.
2) Though the will is free, it is given determination – specific shape in actual choices and actions – through the incorporation of good or evil incentives into the maxims that guide our choices. This incorporation of incentives is also a free act (which opens up an unfathomable regression, as Kant admits).
3) To the Pelagian assumption of free will, Kant adds another Pelagian assumption: The fact of a moral imperative implies that we are capable of obeying the command. Kant resorts to this claim when, for instance, he denies that evil habit makes us incapable of acting morally: No matter how often we have willed and acted wickedly, still in our every action we are confronted with the moral law; since we are confronted with the moral law, we must be capable of obeying it; thus, our evil habits are irrelevant to our capacity to obey.
4) At times, Kant resorts to the semi-Pelagianism of the medieval theologians, whose maxim was that God will not deny assistance to those who do the best with what they have. God comes alongside and helps us to improve morally, but we have to prove ourselves worthy of that assistance.
5) Respect for the moral law for its own sake is the purest of moral dispositions. Duty for duty’s sake, not for the sake of happiness, peace, or some other good.
With these in mind, a few notes on portions of Kant’s argument.
1) Kant argues that human beings are evil “by nature.” What does that mean? Nature is not seen here as the opposite of freedom. Rather, Kant is emphasizing two things. First, the nature of the human being in this context refers to the “subjective ground . . . of the exercise of the human being’s freedom in general . . . antecedent to every deed that falls under the scope of the senses.” But this subjective ground must be preceded by a choice, a free act, or the ground could not itself be considered moral and we couldn’t be held accountable for this. We’d be victims of some evil determinant in us.
Kant is willing to speak of “innate” evil, but only in the context described above. To say that evil is innate is not to say that nature causes evil; rather, it is to say that “he holds within himself a first ground (to us inscrutable) for the adoption of good or evil (unlawful) maxims,” and that in holding these maxims he expresses the character of the human species. To say a man is innately evil is to say that an evil maxim is posited in every use of his freedom.
Second, saying that human beings are evil by nature is a way of emphasizing the universality of evil in the human species.
2) Kant says that human beings have an “original predisposition” to the good (and, see below, a propensity to evil). He analyzes this predisposition in three categories: animal, which involves physical self-love, conatus, propagation of the species; human, which involves physical self-love but includes an element of comparison with others and thus a striving for worth in the regard of others; and personal, which is the “susceptibility to the moral law as itself a sufficient incentive to the power of choice.”
3) A predisposition is innate; a propensity differs because, Kant says, though it “can indeed be innate yet [it] may be represented as not being such,” that is, it can be thought of as being acquired or brought upon a person by his own efforts. We didn’t take on the predisposition toward self-preservation, and we can’t lose it without ceasing to be human. But we can take on good or evil propensities.
4) To say that there is a natural propensity to evil is not, again, to blame nature. It is to say that all human beings universally have an inclination to adopt maxims of conduct that depart form the moral law. The grounds of this propensity are three: human frailty, when we incorporate the moral law into the maxims that guide conduct, but our adherence to that maxim is too weak to follow it; impurity, when the moral law is adopted, but not accepted as the sole sufficient incentive to action but is mixed with other incentives (happiness, self-interest, etc); and depravity, when the moral lax is subordinate to others in our choice of maxims. Even with this propensity to evil we may do actions that conform to the moral law, but our actions conform to the law accidentally, and not because we have respect the moral law and its duties for their own sake. Thus, even someone who acts well may be evil because the maxims of his conduct are impure. We are evil by nature because, though we know the law, yet we incorporate deviation from the moral law into our maxims. This is a radical evil, innate in human nature.
5) Kant’s evidence for the universality of evil is, somewhat oddly, purely empirical. Savages are not noble, but savage, and civilized people are only more subtle in their wickedness. Civilized nations war with one another, so that the “philosophical chiliasm” that hopes for international peace is seen as fantastic as “theological chiliasm.”
6) The ground of evil cannot be placed in the sensuous nature, since our sensuous nature is a given and therefore not morally crucial. Nor is the ground of evil the corruption of reason, which is incorruptible; the moral law that expresses reasons’ demands cannot be extirpated no matter what we do. The problem is not quite the mixture of sensuous and moral incentives in the maxims of our conduct; this mixture is unavoidable. The problem is instead which incentives condition which: Do I choose to do good insofar as it brings happiness or promotes self interest (which would make adherence to the moral law conditional on the fulfilling the sensuous demands of self-love)? Or, do I choose the good for its own sake, respecting the majesty of moral law itself, regardless of whether I achieve happiness or not (which makes the moral law unconditioned, and fulfillment of sensuous incentives dependent – if it happens at all – on fulfillment of the moral law). Again, someone may act perfectly morally, but if that is done for the purpose of achieving some other end (eg, tell the truth because it’s hard to keep track of lies), then he is still evil. This propensity to invert moral and sensuous incentives is precisely the propensity to evil.
7) Kant explores the origin of evil in human nature, distinguishing between origin in time and origin in reason. He denies that we can locate an origin in time. A free act cannot be constrained by a prior event in time, because that would deprive the act of its freedom. Above all, Kant insists, the human propensity to evil cannot be inherited (as, say, from Adam), because we cannot be held accountable for the deeds of our fathers. So, the origin must be considered rationally, and when we do this, we find that every evil act is a fall from a state of innocence. Genesis presents this in temporal categories, but a philosophical interpretation of Genesis dispenses this temporal framework. When we look at Genesis 3 as a narrative presentation of the philosophical notion of evil propensity, we see that it confirms everything we’ve found by pursuing the course of reason: Adam did not count the moral law as a sufficient incentive to action, but mixed in other incentives an d inv erted the order of incentives within his maxim; sensory inducements were brought in and he sinned. Kant’s point is that we are all Adam: Every moral choice is a potential fall.
The narrative even symbolizes the fact that there is no discoverable ground for evil. Evil comes from a choice, yet our predisposition is to good. How does evil arise? Kant concludes that the answer “remains inexplicable to us, for, since it must itself be imputed to us, this supreme ground of all maxims must in turn require the adoption of an evil maxim.” Genesis makes the same point, expressing the incomprehensibility of the origin of evil.
8) In the “General Remark” that concludes the first section (which Kant identifies as a remark on the effects of grace), he asks how one can be remade morally. Supernatural help is necessary, but this comes only to the worthy, and so we have to account for moral improvement without falling back onto supernatural explanations (or, we need to explain the effects of grace without referring to grace!). That we can improve morally is evident. After all, we choose evil, so we must be able to choose good; besides, the moral law is still there, and if any command implies ability.
Kant denies that moral improvement comes by way of a step-by-step acquisition of moral habits. Once one has accepted the moral law as a self-sufficient incentive for action, one is on the road to improvement. And “legally” speaking, improvement comes through the formation of habits of obeying the moral law. Yet, this is not moral goodness, which requires a new heart, that is to say, a fundamental and irreversible change in the incentives that are incorporated into our maxim. In God’s eyes, someone who has achieved this “revolution” is a good man, though in human judgment the man may be developing virtue over time.
9) Doing one’s duty is not, Kant suggests, a source of wonder. What is a source of wonder, though, is the fact that human beings, though dependent on nature, can act against nature in pursuit of good deeds. Human beings are wonderful because we can renounce the world to do the right thing. This capacity for sacrifice must have a divine origin: “The very incomprehensibility of this predisposition, proclaiming as it does a divine origin, must have an effect on the mind, even to the point of exaltation, and must strengthen it for the sacrifices which respect for duty may impose upon it.” It’s as wonderful as the starry, starry sky above.
10) Hope plays a role in Kant’s moral theory here. We cannot be assured that our new hearts (the new ground of moral action) is unchangeable. We cannot know this by evidence, but the good man can “hope that, by the exertion of his own power, he will attain the road that leads in that direction.” The contrary opinion – that human beings are morally impotent – is the source of all sorts of false religious notions, such as the notion that God makes happiness the condition of all commandments. From this point, Kant proposes a division within religions between “religions of rogation” (or cult) and “moral religion.” According to the former (Catholic/priestly), we have not hope of moral improvement, or that only God can make us better and we need exert no effort but ask. Happiness can be had without improvement. For the latter (Protestant/Pietist/prophetic), we must all do all that’s in our power to improve, in the hope that “what does not lie in his power will be made good by cooperation from above.”