Cultivating moral consciousness: The quintessential relation of practical reason and mind (Gemüt) as a bulwark against the propensity for radical evil

Abstract

To perfect human beings with an innate propensity for radical evil is a formidable task. Kant explicitly says that the propensity for evil is not eradicable; it is rooted in human nature, specifically in the human power of choice-making. The task is to reorient the natural order of choice-making (which derives its maxim from an object of the inclinations), to the moral order that takes the moral law as its supreme principle. I explicate the role of a specific capacity of the human subjective side of judging in this process; namely, of ‘mind’ in its sense as Gemüt. While human willing and choice-making are subject to the influence of sensuousness (the inclinations and passions), Gemüt is a capacity of sensibility (Sinnlichkeit) that allows the human subject to enjoy the feeling of being pleased in the fulfillment of duty. Its four specific aesthetic preliminary concepts of responsiveness to concepts of duty – moral feeling (as respect for the law), conscience, love of humanity, and respect for oneself (self-esteem) – must be cultivated in order to make objective practical reason also subjectively practical. Thereby one secures a bulwark against the ineliminable propensity for evil whose first effect is to destroy inner moral integrity.