Evil in Classical German Philosophy

Abstract

This chapter compares the accounts of evil will and evil moral psychology in Kant, Fichte, and Kierkegaard. For Kant, evil is the result of a free but ultimately incomprehensible choice on the part of rational agents to prefer self-advantage over the moral law when encountering others in society. For Fichte, evil may involve improperly giving in to natural drives, but it can also involve the giving oneself over to the pure drive to self-sufficiency. Both forms of evil manifest a self-deceptive obscurity and willful complacency that Fichte calls despair. Kierkegaard appropriates this notion of despair and incorporates it into his own more traditional (and less rationalist) picture of sin and redemption.