Problem of Radical Evil and Kant’s Turn to Religion: An Analysis from Pragmatic Perspective

Abstract

One of the most significant works in the domain of philosophy of religion is Immanuel Kant’s theory of radical evil which was published as an essay entitled as “On the Radical Evil in Human Nature” in 1792. Kant in his earlier works like “Ground Work of Metaphysics of Morals”, “Critique of Practical Reason” emphasized on the issue of free will and opined that humans are free as far as controlled or determined by the moral laws. But Kant in his writings about religion expressed a radical approach to freedom by emphasizing good and evil. Kant emphasizing on the ineradicable propensity of human character thinks that radical evil is expressed through human behavior when human beings act against the moral law driven by natural inclination. At the same time, he introduced the concept of personal responsibility for the ground of a person’s character. However, for Kant, theory of radical evil is of universal character still it lacks the evidence to support his claim hence it makes a stress within his own project of ethics. The introduction of the divine interference for humans to overcome the moral and religious issues, further, complicates this theory and thus it demands careful ethical perspectives. In this paper, we will discuss Kant’s approach towards inevitable mystery and limitations of the theory of radical evil while addressing the pragmatic outlook of the doctrine on the basis of some contemporary reverberates on the conception of responsible freedom.