Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T02:08:20.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Can Kant’s Theory of Radical Evil Be Saved?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2017

Zachary J. Goldberg
Zachary J. Goldberg*
Affiliation:
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, I assess three contemporary criticisms levelled at Kant’s theory of evil in order to evaluate whether his theory can be saved. Critics argue that Kant does not adequately distinguish between evil and mundane wrongdoing, making his use of the term ‘evil’ emotional hyperbole; by defining evil as the subordination of the moral law to self-love his analysis is seemingly overly simplistic and empirically false; and by focusing solely on the moral character of the perpetrator of evil, Kant’s theory apparently ignores the most salient aspect of evil – the suffering of victims. While I will not claim that Kant provides us with a fully adequate theory of evil, I respond to each of these criticisms and conclude that Kant’s theory can still provide significant insight into both the nature of evil and the moral psychology of perpetrators of evil.

Keywords

radical evilmundane wrongdoingroot of evilempirical harmmoral character
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 395 - 419
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, Henry E. (1996) Idealism and Freedom: Essays on Kant’s Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, Henry E (2002) ‘On the Very Idea of a Propensity to Evil’. Journal of Value Inquiry, 36, 337–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson-Gold, Sharon, and Muchnik, Pablo (eds) (2010) Kant’s Anatomy of Evil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah (1964) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Barry, Peter Brian (2012) Evil and Moral Psychology. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Richard J. (2001) ‘Radical Evil: Kant at War with Himself’. In María Pía Lara (ed.) Rethinking Evil: Contemporary Perspectives (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), pp. 55–85.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Richard J (2002) Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation . Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Browning, Christopher (1992) Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Calder, Todd (2013) ‘Is Evil Just Very Wrong?’ Philosophical Studies, 163, 177–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Card, Claudia (2002) The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Card, Claudia (2010a) Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Card, Claudia (2010b) Kant’s Moral Excluded Middle’. In Sharon Andersen-Gold and Pablo Muchnik (eds), Kant’s Anatomy of Evil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 74–92.Google Scholar
Caswell, Matthew (2006) ‘Kant’s Conception of the Highest Good, Gesinnung, and the Theory of Radical Evil’. Kant-Studien, 97, 184–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clendinnen, Inga (2002) Reading the Holocaust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cole, Phillip (2006) The Myth of Evil. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Darwall, Stephen (2006) The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
de Wijze, Steven (2002) ‘Defining Evil: Insights from the Problem of Dirty Hands’. The Monist, 85 (2), 210–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firestone, Chris L., and Jacobs, Nathan (2013) In Defense of Kant’s Religion. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Formosa, Paul (2007) ‘Kant on the Radical Evil of Human Nature’. Philosophical Forum, 38 (3), 221–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Formosa, Paul (2008) ‘A Conception of Evil’. Journal of Value Inquiry, 42, 217–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Formosa, Paul (2009) ‘Kant on the Limits of Human Evil’. Journal of Philosophical Research, 34, 189–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, Peter A. (2011) War and Moral Dissonance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Frierson, Patrick (2003) Freedom and Anthropology in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frierson, Patrick (2014) Kant’s Empirical Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia, Ernesto (2002) ‘A Kantian Theory of Evil’. The Monist, 85 (2), 194–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrard, Eve (1998) ‘The Nature of Evil’. Philosophical Explorations: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Mind and Action, 1, 43–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrard, Eve (2002) ‘Evil as an Explanatory Concept’. The Monist, 85 (2), 320–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrard, Eve, and McNaughton, David (2012) ‘Speak No Evil?’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 36, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Zachary J. (2016) ‘Evil, “Evil”, and Taking Responsibility’. In Birgit Recki (ed.), Wozu ist das Böse gut? (Münster: Mentis), pp. 17–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gowans, Christopher W. (1994) Innocence Lost: An Examination of Inescapable Wrongdoing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gressis, Robert (2009) ‘How to Be Evil: The Moral Psychology of Immorality’. In Pablo Muchnik (ed.), Rethinking Kant, vol. 1 (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars), pp. 191–216.Google Scholar
Grimm, Stephen R. (2002) ‘Kant’s Argument for Radical Evil’. European Journal of Philosophy, 10 (2), 160–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haybron, Daniel (2002) ‘Moral Monsters and Saints’. The Monist, 85 (2), 260–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996) Practical Philosophy. Trans. and ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1998) Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and Other Writings . Trans. and ed. Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kekes, John (1990) Facing Evil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kekes, John (2005) The Roots of Evil. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kemp, Ryan (2011) ‘The Contingency of Evil: Rethinking the Problem of Universal Evil in Kant’s Religion ’. In Pablo Muchnik (ed.), Rethinking Kant, vol. 3 (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars), pp. 100–123.Google Scholar
Lord, Errol, and Maguire, Barry (eds) (2016) Weighing Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louden, Robert (2000) Kant’s Impure Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, John (1978) ‘Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 52, 13–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKenna, Michael (2012) Conversation and Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMullin, Irene (2013) ‘Kant on Radical Evil and the Origin of Moral Responsibility’. Kantian Review, 18, 49–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michalson, Gordon E. (1990) Fallen Freedom: Kant on Radical Evil and Moral Regeneration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michalson, Gordon E (ed.) (2014) Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moran, Kate (2014) ‘Delusions of Virtue: Kant on Self-Conceit’. Kantian Review, 19, 419–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, Adam (2004) On Evil. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muchnik, Pablo (2010) Kant’s Theory of Evil: An Essay on the Dangers of Self-Love and the Aprioricity of History. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Munzel, G. Felicitas (1999) Kant’s Conception of Moral Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Palmquist, S. (2015) ‘What is Kantian Gesinnung? On the Priority of Volition over Metaphysics and Psychology in Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason ’. Kantian Review, 20 (2), 235–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perrett, Roy (2002) ‘Evil and Human Nature’. The Monist, 85 (2), 304–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Luke (2007) ‘Is Evil Action Qualitatively Distinct from Ordinary Wrongdoing?’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 85 (4), 659–677.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Luke (2012) ‘Evil and Incomprehensibility’. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 36, 62–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Luke (2014) Evil: A Philosophical Investigation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, David (2007) ‘Moral Address, Moral Responsibility, and the Boundaries of the Moral Community’. Ethics, 118, 70–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, David (2015) Responsibility from the Margins. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silber, John (1991) ‘Kant at Auschwitz’. In G. Funke and T. M. Seebohm (eds), Proceedings of the Sixth International Kant Congress (Washington, DC: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and University Press of America), pp. 177–211.Google Scholar
Silber, John (2012) Kant’s Ethics: The Good, Freedom, and the Will. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, Marcus (2004) ‘The Concept of Evil’. Philosophy, 79 (308), 185–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steiner, Hillel (2002) ‘Calibrating Evil’. The Monist, 85 (2), 183–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Straus, Scott (2006) The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1993) ‘Freedom and Resentment’. In John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza (eds), Perspectives on Moral Responsibility (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 45–66.Google Scholar
Thomas, Laurence (1993) Vessels of Evil: American Slavery and the Holocaust. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Vetlesen, Arne Johan (2005) Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen (1999) Kant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen (2014) ‘The Evil in Human Nature’. In Gordon Michalson (ed.), Kant’s Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 31–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar