Predispositions to the Good (Anlagen zum Gute)

Abstract

In Part I of Religion within the boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant distinguishes three predispositions to the good: animality, humanity, and personality (R 6:26). Unlike the propensities to evil, which are “contingent for humanity in general” (R 6:29), the predispositions to good are “original (ursprunglich), for they belong to the possibility of human nature” (R 6:28). Animality and humanity express two different variants of self-love (“mechanical” and “comparing”), whose mode of operation can be traced back to Rousseau’s distinction between “amour de soi” and “amour propre.” Seen this way, the predispositions to the good are not merely determinants of our anthropological structure, but have also a diachronic implication. Animality designates the characteristic moral outlook of agents in the state of nature, while humanity expresses the moral orientation of civilized individuals (their unsociable sociability). Upon these tendencies, Kant believes, all sorts of vices can be grafted. The predisposition to personality, however, stands as a category all of its own: it is irreducible to self-love and immune to any moral corruption (a feature of great importance for the prospects of moral regeneration). Kant conceives of personality as the end towards which all the other predispositions to the good contribute as necessary conditions. The attainment of this end requires a qualitative shift in the moral orientation of the human species, a transformation without which it would impossible for the species to comply with the collective duty of realizing the highest good.