Immanuel Kant's Theory Of Radical Evil

Immanuel Kant’s theory of Radical Evil presents a secular position defining evil in away of which the agents performing evil acts can be held accountable. It centres around the concept that evil, specifically evil is performing acts of atrocity rooted from placing self-love ahead of duty. Therefore right action is acting out of duty in obedience with the Universal moral law, and in contrast what can be seen as an evil act is an act carried out with the motivation being self-love or self centred tendencies. Furthermore, choosing to perform an evil act in order for superiority or even evil for the cause of being evil is seen by Kant as diabolical evil, but he denied its possibility in accordance with moral agents. Kant believes that all moral

Kant counters the theory of an agent being overwhelmed by their emotions as the reason for committing to a bad maxim, as he believes they are still in a sense choosing to play into their own self interested motivations. Kant’s concept of Radical Evil can be brought about by going through three stages which allow an agent to become one without moral code. Calder explains these stages as the inability to choose to be “morally right” (Calder 2.2) the agent fails to act upon moral law and chooses their immoral action which is more beneficial to their own self interest. Then “impurity” (2.2) specifically impurity of that person which allows them to continue to act immorally. Finally “perversity, or wickedness” (2.2) these attributes cause the agent to continually prioritise their self motivations over moral law and feel guiltless no matter the consequence of that action. To understand Kant’s theory further let us depict an example of his concepts in a hypothetical scenario. Say a moral agent has the willingness to be temperament for the stability of their family or care of their children, but also not wanting to uphold their sobriety because they enjoy the pleasures that come with consuming alcohol. The agent chooses to give in to their self-love by regularly drinking, sacrificing the virtue of

The first stage of what can be seen as their corruption is the decision to torture the detainee who they possess authority over for their own gain of information, then the agent plays into this impurity or bad maxim by continually doing so and revelling in the action they are committing. Finally this bad maxim corrupts all principles of this agent as they begin to use this means of torture for the sake of doing so as they enjoy the power they posses, demonstrating a complete disillusion from the moral law. However Kant does indicate that no matter the motivation acts such as these demonstrate “will that they are equally evil” (2.2). This does not account for intention, as intention can often affect action and consequence or whether a person is truly evil, such as someone only using torture methods for information to protect national security. Whether this is a different degree of evil or these actions can be justified is not accounted for by