Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T00:53:49.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Form of Evil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Irit Samet
Irit Samet
Affiliation:
King's College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Upon arriving in Auschwitz Primo Levi discovered that rational discourse, in which actions are done for reasons, was left lying on the carriage floor together with his human dignity. By responding ‘Here one doesn't ask why’, the camp guard succinctly conveys the insight that evil defies reason. This paper examines two studies of evil that are predicated on that idea: Kant's and Augustine's. It argues that their theories share an underlying formation wherein evil remains incomprehensible, except in negative terms as an absence of the reasonable. This deep similarity in the structure of the concept of evil is exceptionally striking if we bear in mind the radical difference in the scope of its application: whereas for Augustine ‘evil’ is a general metaphysical concept that concerns everything that goes wrong in creation, for Kant it is limited to agents and what they do. My argument is that the privative structure which underlies their understanding of evil stems from a shared belief in the central role of rationality in ethical discourse, and in an absolute dependence of moral responsibility on free will.

Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , July 2010 , pp. 93 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © Kantian Review 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, Henry E. (1990) Kant's Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson-Gold, S. (1986) ‘Kant's rejection of devilishness: the limits of human volition’, International Philosophical Quarterly, 26, 35.Google Scholar
Anselm, Brian Davies and Evans, G. R. (1998) The Major Works (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Augustine, and Chadwick, Henry (1991) Confessions, World's Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Augustine, , Green, William M., Greene, William Chase, Levine, Philip, McCracken, George Englert and Wiesen, David S. (1957) The City of God against the Pagans, Loeb Classical Library; No. 411 (London: Heinemann).Google Scholar
Carnois, Bernard (1987) The Coherence of Kant's Doctrine of Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Connolly, William E (1993) The Augustinian Imperative: A Reflection on the Politics of Morality, Modernity and Political Thought; V.I (Newbury Park; London: Sage).Google Scholar
Fackenheim, E. (1954) ‘Kant and radical evil’, University of Toronto Quarterly, 23, 340.Google Scholar
Gerasimos, S. (1999) ‘The form of good in Plato's Republic’, in S., Fine (ed.), Metaphysics and Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel, Greene, Theodore Meyer, Hudson, Hoyt H. and Silber, John R. (1960) Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Harper Torchbooks, Cloister Library. 2nd edn (New York: Harper & Brothers).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel and Gregor, Mary J. (1997) Critique of Practical Reason, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel, Gregor, Mary J. and Korsgaard, Christine M. (1998) Ground-work of the Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel, Gregor, Mary J. and Korsgaard, Christine M. (1998) The Metaphysics of Morals, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kekes, John (2005) The Roots of Evil (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (1996) Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macdonald, S. (1999) ‘Primal sin’, in Matthews, G. B. (ed.), The Augustinian Tradition, xix, 398 (Berkeley; London: University of California Press).Google Scholar
Mathewes, Charles T. (2001) Evil and the Augustinian Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michalson, G. E. (1987) ‘The inscrutability of moral evil in Kant’, The Thomist, 51, 246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, A. W. (2003) Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty: Themes and Variations in Kant's Moral and Religious Philosophy, International Library of Philosophy (London: Routledge).Google Scholar
Neiman, Susan (2002) Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy (Princeton, N.J.; Oxford: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Seiriol, Morgan (2005) ‘The missing formal proof of humanity's radical evil in Kant's Religion’, The Philosophical Review, 114, 1, 63.Google Scholar
Wood, A. (1999) ‘Autonomy as the ground of morality’, in O'Neill Memorial Lectures University of New Mexico.Google Scholar