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Radical evil (German: das radikal Böse) is a phrase used by German philosopher Immanuel Kant, one representing the Christian term, radix malorum. Kant believed that human beings naturally have a tendency to be evil.
Kant’s account of radical evil demonstrates how evil can be a genuine moral alternative while nevertheless being an innate condition. Given the general optimism of the time, Kant’s view was revolutionary.
In the Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Arendt borrows Kant’s term ‘radical evil’ to describe the evil of the Holocaust. However, Arendt does not mean what Kant means by ‘radical evil’ (see section 2.2 for Kant’s view of radical evil).
Summary. Kant’s thesis that there is in human nature an innate, universal, inextirpable, and radical propensity to evil belongs to his attempt to choose fragments of (Christian) revelation and see if they cannot be seen to lead back to the religion of pure reason.
Kant’s use of Pietist terminology such as the “change of heart” (Herzensänderung), classic theological language such as “radical evil” (radix malorum), his detailed engagement with Augustinian themes throughout the Religion, and focus on Pietist and Moravian models of grace (AK 7:54–57 [1798]), which were prevalent in his region ...
This chapter situates Kant’s conception of virtue against the thesis of radical evil, according to which although human beings have a predisposition to virtue, they nevertheless have a propensity to moral evil.
The first analyzes Kant's conception of radical evil and its connections with other features of his moral theory, particularly his rigorism. It also maintains that the roots of this conception are to be found in the Groundwork.
