Perversity of the Heart

Abstract

In Religion within Boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant claims that are afflicted with an or of heart. Such depravity is a feature of evil in nature through which we come to heed claims of self-love over those of morality.1 Although Kant (R 6:22n, 35, 37) denies that could ever intend evil purely for its own sake, he also insists that perversity cannot be reduced to merely influence of inclination on our choices. Kant (R 6:31, 37) argues that our wills always harbor a fundamental antagonism to morality from which we cannot extricate ourselves, even though we are morally responsible for putting up this resistance. Radical evil is a debility that necessarily compromises every free action, yet it is a corruption that must itself be freely chosen by those who suffer from it. We can never escape this propensity to evil, but we are nonetheless obligated to overcome it. Radical evil is sometimes identified with possibility of opposing reason that is implicit in concept of rational agency in general, insofar as an actor can follow principles only if she can also knowingly violate them.2 But for Kant radical evil involves not just ability to transgress, but an active opposition to reason that is at work in even our most virtuous behavior. Kant denies that radical evil is a necessary aspect of free agency per se. Such depravity is a necessary feature only of agency, a special characteristic that distinguishes from all other possible rational beings (R 6:21). Although Kant considers radical evil to involve our continually choosing to resist morality, he also takes this evil to be a liability that afflicts us prior to anything we actually choose to do. Radical evil is supposedly innate and present in at moment of birth (R 6:21-22). Such claims do not appear to be merely empirical generalizations based on ubiquity of vice. Although Kant allows that radical evil cannot be inferred from the concept of being (R 6:32), he insists that it is subjectively necessary in every human (R 6:32) in such a way that makes it impossible for any of us to eradicate it (R 6:51). Kant's supporters have frequently regarded his account of radical evil as an embarrassment or even a betrayal of his central moral