Kant: rigorism, immorality, and imputability in Religion within the boundaries of mere reason
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5380/sk.v23i3.101333Keywords:
freedom, morality, imputation, evil, will, power of choiceAbstract
My aim in this article is, first, to offer a brief discussion on the occurrence of the theme of evil prior to the approach we find in Religion within the boundaries of mere reason (1793), and then to proceed with an interpretative analysis of the prologue to the First Part of that work. This refers specifically to the passage spanning pages 19 to 25 of volume 6 of the Academy Edition (RGV, AA 06: 19–25), which consists of five paragraphs in its initial section, followed by a ‘Remark’ containing four additional paragraphs. What I intend to have found in these paragraphs are elements capable of contributing to the interpretative thesis that the conceptual tools Kant develops in constructing the concept of the human will — as both rational and sensibly affected — are not particularly well-suited to provide sufficient clarity for establishing a concept of freedom of the will that is both unambiguous and capable of grounding a rational explanation of the possibility of free and imputable immorality.
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