Radical Evil (radikal Böse)

Autores

  • Pablo Muchnik

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36311/2318-0501.2018.v6n2.20.p101

Palavras-chave:

self-love, inversion of the order of priority, moral incentive, rigorism, devilishness, disposition, propensity to evil

Resumo

By “evil,” Kant does not designate any set of particularly pernicious acts, but the type of volition that underlies and makes possible immorality in all its forms. The evil person, Kant believes, “makes the incentives of self-love and their inclinations the condition of compliance with the moral law –whereas it is the latter that, as the supreme condition of the satisfaction of the former, should have been incorporated into the universal maxim of the power of choice as the sole incentive” (R 6:36). This inversion of the ethical order of priority does not entail the repudiation of “the moral law (…) in rebellious attitude (by revoking obedience to it)” (R 6:36), but its conditional respect. This fraudulent relation to morality is based on complex strategies of deception, self-deception, and rationalization. The “radical “nature of these tendencies has nothing to do with the intensity or magnitude of observable wrongdoing. Evil’s radicalism is a spatial metaphor intended to designate the locus of immorality (its “root”) in an agent’s “disposition (Gesinnung). What is most baffling the Kantian view is that evil so construed is perfectly compatible with good conduct. Indeed, under the conditions of civilization, Kant believes, it is impossible to distinguish a man of good conduct from a morally good man (RGV 6:30), for the dictates of self-love generally overlap with the prescriptions of duty. The persistence of war, poverty, oppression, and the infinity of vices which cast a dark shadow over the contemporary world speak of the prescience of the Kantian approach.

Downloads

Os dados de download ainda não estão disponíveis.

Biografia do Autor

  • Pablo Muchnik

    Associate Professor at Emerson College. Educated in Argentina, he received his Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research (2002) and studied a few years in Germany. He is the author of Kant’s Theory of Evil: An Essay on The Dangers of Self-Love and the Aprioricity of History (Lexington Books, 2009), editor of the first two volumes of Rethinking Kant (Cambridge Scholar Publishers, vol. I, 2008; vol. II, 2010), co-editor of Kant’s Anatomy of Evil (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and of the fourth volume of Rethinking Kant (2014). He received various national and international scholarships and awards, and is director of the book series Kantian Questions (Cambridge Scholar Publishers) and Kant’s Sources in Translation (Bloomsbury). He was the President of the North American Kant Society between 2014-2017 and Vice President between 2009-2014.

Downloads

Publicado

2019-01-29

Edição

Seção

Artigos / Articles

Como Citar