Passions and Evil in Kant's Philosophy

Abstract

Abstract:In this paper, I aim at relating passions to evil in Kant's philosophy. I begin by explaining the difference between affects and passions in the text Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Kant claims that both affects and passions are illnesses of the mind, because both affect and passion hinder the sovereignty of reason. I show that passions are worse than affects for the purpose of pure reason. Second, I relate affects and passions to the degrees of the propensity to evil in the Religion. I analyze the idea of an ethical community as a way to overcome the evil, which goes beyond political and anthropological solutions suggested by Kant.