Prologue

The common sense view is that good and evil, unlike right and wrong (not right), are not contradictories. They are contraries. It is not possible to be both in the same respect at the same time. But it is at least logically possible to be neither. Common sense finds that many people who are not particularly good are not downright evil either. Immanuel Kant rejected that view along with the view that a person can, at the same time, be good in some respects and evil in others. This essay challenges that excluded middle of his, defends common sense, and suggests ways to be between good and evil that preserve much of what is best in Kant's ethics.

The deep and endlessly fascinating issues Kant identifies in Book I of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (hereafter, Religion) make that work a natural place to begin thinking about evil even today. As a theory, however, Kant's analysis of “radical evil in human nature” is seriously incomplete. It offers, more specifically, a conception of radical culpability. A fuller theory would include a conception of radical harm. To be fair, Kant's objective in Book I of the Religion is an account of evil in human nature, which makes his focus on culpability appropriate. Yet even his understanding of culpability needs to be deepened with a conception of harm that goes beyond the failure merely to respect humanity.