Search results
Radical evil (German: das radikal Böse) is a phrase used by German philosopher Immanuel Kant, one representing the Christian term, radix malorum. Kant believed that human beings naturally have a tendency to be evil.
Kant’s account of radical evil demonstrates how evil can be a genuine moral alternative while nevertheless being an innate condition. Given the general optimism of the time, Kant’s view was revolutionary.
In the Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Arendt borrows Kant’s term ‘radical evil’ to describe the evil of the Holocaust. However, Arendt does not mean what Kant means by ‘radical evil’ (see section 2.2 for Kant’s view of radical evil).
According to Kant, we become radically evil when we subordinate the moral law to our own self‐interest (prudence). He holds that we never do wrong for the sake of doing wrong but only for the sake of prudence or from inclinations to more limited goods.
In Religion Within the Limits of Mere Reason, radical evil is both an innate propensity and a morally imputable act – a paradoxical status that has prompted commentators to reject it as inconsistent with the rest of Kant's moral theory.
Kant’s use of Pietist terminology such as the “change of heart” (Herzensänderung), classic theological language such as “radical evil” (radix malorum), his detailed engagement with Augustinian themes throughout the Religion, and focus on Pietist and Moravian models of grace (AK 7:54–57 [1798]), which were prevalent in ...
The first analyzes Kant's conception of radical evil and its connections with other features of his moral theory, particularly his rigorism. It also maintains that the roots of this conception are to be found in the Groundwork.
