Radical Evil and Moral Redemption

Abstract

The treatment of Kant’s works on religion is not well integrated in the current secondary literature into the account of his practical philosophy. Whilst pioneering works on Kant’s writings on religion have been written these writings are still largely framed as contributions to ‘philosophy of religion’ and not thought of as performing a significant role in the development of Kant’s practical philosophy. lt will be my contention in this chapter that these writings do in fact perform an important role in Kant’s practical philosophy. The Second Critique closes with the account of the postulates and the Third Critique culminates with an account of moral faith. I wish to demonstrate in this chapter that Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone and the Conflict of the Faculties should he seen as an extension of topics broached in the Second and Third Critiques, an extension which enables Kant to significantly expand his conception of rational religion and enables him to outline a form of rational eschatology. This notion of rational eschatology will be demonstrated to provide Kant with a treatment of history that is significant for comprehending the relationship for him between ethics and politics.KeywordsMoral ActorMoral CommunityMoral ProgressEvil SpiritGood PrincipleThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.