Abstract

The purpose of this Dissertation is to present how Kant in The Critique of Judgment beginning with the discovery of subjective purposiveness in the third moment of the analytic of beauty proposes an answer to evil. In the Dissertation I present how Kant proposes this answer by considering two subsidiary arguments; first, subjective purposiveness is a symbol of the purposiveness of morality and second, the purposiveness of morality provides an answer to evil. ;Subjective purposiveness which is discovered in the analytic of beauty is sensible. It symbolizes purposiveness and its concomitant freedom which is supersensible and which is at the base of morality. Kant says, "the freedom of the imagination is represented in judging the beautiful as harmonious with the conformity of the law of the understanding " Critique of Judgment #59). So beauty is a symbol of morality. ;Where there is no purposiveness and freedom there is no morality. Good and evil are the objects of practical reason, respectively, acceptance or aversion to desire according to practical reason. ;Radical evil is habitual rejection of the categorical imperative, corrupt disposition which results in the restriction of freedom and the destruction of spontaneity and personality. ;Good and evil may be resolved historically by the progressive actualization of freedom, but radical evil is resolved by transcendental freedom because man's absolute freedom remains unaffected and by grace. ;The deterioration of purposiveness and freedom is evil. Transcendental freedom which prevails is symbolized by only active purposiveness