This commentary on Rossi’s The Ethical Commonwealth in History will address three points of interpretation related to Kant’s conception of the ethical community/commonwealth. First, I will raise a number of concerns related to Rossi’s use of Kant’s concept of the highest good. Second, I will examine the relevance of the overall project of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason to his discussion of the ethical community, a matter that Rossi does not take up. Third, I will challenge the (...) optimism that Rossi assigns to Perpetual Peace in light of its closing “antinomy between politics and morals.”. (shrink)

In a note introduced into the second edition of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1794), Kant assigns a systematic role to the General Remarks at the end of each Part of his book. He calls those Remarks, “as it were, parerga to religion within the boundaries of pure reason; they do not belong within it yet border on it” (RGV 6:52). As Kant sees them, the parerga are only a “secondary occupation” that consists in removing transcendent obstacles. This (...) paper is skeptical of Kant's view. It proposes an alternative account, according to which the parerga are essential to our moral education, since they force human reason to confront its own limitations and resist the urge to take refuge in spurious religious beliefs. That urge, I argue, is linked to the propensity to evil, and uses religious orthodoxy to undermine moral religion. By clipping our dogmatic wings, the parerga encourage reason to face its own dialectical tendencies and direct its speculative interest to immanent practical use. This redirection counteracts the debilitating effects of the propensity to evil and plays a key role in our moral regeneration. To consider the parerga “derivative,” as Kant himself does, is therefore a grave mistake. (shrink)

In a note introduced into the second edition of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1794), Kant assigns a systematic role to the General Remarks at the end of each Part of his book. He calls those Remarks, “as it were, parerga to religion within the boundaries of pure reason; they do not belong within it yet border on it” (RGV 6:52). As Kant sees them, the parerga are only a “secondary occupation” that consists in removing transcendent obstacles. This (...) paper is skeptical of Kant's view. It proposes an alternative account, according to which the parerga are essential to our moral education, since they force human reason to confront its own limitations and resist the urge to take refuge in spurious religious beliefs. That urge, I argue, is linked to the propensity to evil, and uses religious orthodoxy to undermine moral religion. By clipping our dogmatic wings, the parerga encourage reason to face its own dialectical tendencies and direct its speculative interest to immanent practical use. This redirection counteracts the debilitating effects of the propensity to evil and plays a key role in our moral regeneration. To consider the parerga “derivative,” as Kant himself does, is therefore a grave mistake. (shrink)

En este trabajo, me propongo reconstruir dos tesis de importancia metaética, jurídica y política que Kant expone en Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloβen Vernunft. Se trata de dos tesis que mantienen una sólida consistencia con dos de los núcleos temáticos de la Rechstlehre, lo que nos permite proponer que el texto de 1793 puede ser considerado una suerte de crítica propedéutica para la metafísica jurídico-política de Kant. La primera de estas tesis será analizada en la sección I y (...) atañe a la concepción metaética de la libertad que Kant presenta en Religion a propósito del análisis del mal radical. La segunda, analizada en la sección II, a la serie de diferencias trazadas entre el estado de naturaleza y la comunidad éticos, por un lado, y el estado de naturaleza y la comunidad jurídico-políticos, por el otro. En una sección III, presentaré el sentido que estas tesis obtienen respecto de la recepción crítica que Kant hace de las teorías modernas iusnaturales. (shrink)

Among scholars, how to interpret and evaluate Kant’s rejection of diabolical evil remains controversial. This article has two aims. First, I will examine all six forms of diabolical evil either discussed by Kant or implicitly contained in his texts, thereby demonstrating the reasons why each of these forms must be rejected within his framework. The conclusion of this text analysis is that the extremity of human evil for Kant is quasi-diabolical Willkür which does evil for the sake of self-assertion. Second, (...) I will offer a moderate defense of Kant’s view of diabolical evil as a whole. On the one hand, the legitimacy of Kant’s rejection of both diabolical Wille and full-fledged diabolical Willkür can be confirmed within his theory of practical freedom. On the other hand, faced with the possibility of ‘occasionally doing evil qua evil’, a critical defense of Kant’s moral psychology can be established, i.e. a defense that casts doubt on the distinguishability between ‘doing evil for the sake of self-assertion’ and ‘doing evil qua evil’. (shrink)

The past decade has seen a sizable increase in scholarship on Kant’s Religion. Yet, unlike the centuries of debate that inform our study of his other major works, scholarship on the Religion is still just in its infancy. As such, it is in a particularly vulnerable state where errors made now could hinder scholarship for decades to come. It is the purpose of this paper to mitigate one such danger, a danger issuing from the widely assumed view that the Religion (...) is shaped by “two experiments.” We will begin with a survey of the four current interpretations of the experiments, and then propose one further interpretation, one that hopefully will help dismantle this alleged “conundrum” and thereby help scholarship on the Religion move beyond this early misstep. (shrink)

This paper discusses Kant’s assessment of the religious idea of grace in relation to autonomous ethical practice. Following Kant’s own explanation of his methods and goals in interpreting religious ideas, my focus is on the ethical import of inherited religious concepts for human beings, rather than on literal theological dogmas concerning supernatural matters. I focus on how Kant’s inquiry into the ethical significance of the idea of grace is intertwined with another less recognized concept, that of favor. The latter concept (...) plays a crucial role in understanding Kant’s analyses, because it establishes a criterion by which to adjudicate historically-formed ideas of grace. Insofar as grace is understood in ways that assimilate it to endeavors to win favor, it works against our capacity to follow the moral law. On the constructive side, insofar as the concept of grace is understood to support ethical practice based on the moral law, it can be a vehicle for what Kant calls rational religion. This two-sided analysis of grace is a key component of the project of the Religion and other related writings, wherein Kant offers both critical and constructive investigations of historically-formed religious ideas found in scripture, ecclesiastical institutions and other sources. (shrink)

Schelling’s views of evil in Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom is usually thought of as a radicalization of Kant’s argument for the propensity to evil in human nature in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason. In this paper, I argue that Kant does not provide a full transcendental deduction for the ground of evil in human nature because this would give a rational reason for there to be evil, Schelling provides a theological–metaphysical reconstruction of Kant’s argument (...) by providing a non-rational ground for evil and the difference between Kant and Schelling lies in how they conceive of the actualization of the ground of evil—through intelligible deed or protohistorical choice—which has repercussions for how they think of conversion. (shrink)

This Guide is designed to restore the theological background that informs Kant’s treatment of grace in Religion to its rightful place. This background is essential not only to understand the nature of Kant’s overall project in this book, namely, to determine the “association” or “union” between Christianity (as a historical faith) and rational religion, but also to dispel the impression of “internal contradictions” and conundrums” that contemporary interpreters associate with Kant’s treatment of grace and moral regeneration. That impression, we argue, (...) is the result of entrenched interpretative habits that can be traced back to Karl Barth’s reading of the text. Once we realize that such a reading rests on a mistake, much of the anxiety and confusion that plague current discussions on these issues can be put to rest. (shrink)