Kant discriminates between bad and evil by defining bad as a “means to take [an action] as somehow harmful or disagreeable to one’s general well-being”. He then defines evil as a “means to take some action as morally wrong, resulting not from natural contingency, but rather, from a direct act of the agent’s will”. In this way, self-love overtakes the concept of morality, and makes a person almost inhuman. Garcia disagrees. He says that this definition puts evil under the general heading of immoral actions, so if we use Kant as our guide, evil has no unique properties distinct from immorality. Garcia stands behind the theory that evil has a definition that fuses aspects of Kant’s definition of both moral and immoral actions. It then becomes a mutant that goes directly – and purposely – against the human will, which Garcia says is a concept that Kant himself never explored.
In earlier works, Kant says that we all act using certain principles of action. Fundamentally, it is the principle we choose to utilize that determines the action’s status, not the end result. He claims that humanity is the
ultimate goal. It provides a guideline for our actions, requiring us to renounce certain actions while simultaneously acting in agreement with it. However, in Fundamentals, Kant introduces a new idea into his theory – one in which he identifies two distinct things that must happen with moral action: humanity is the mandatory end that must not be defied, and our own personal happiness must coincide with virtue.
This description of morality differs greatly from Kant’s description of immorality. Here he makes the distinction between acts that are “heteronymous” and those that are immoral. He says that there are only two guidelines for our actions as humans: self-love and the universal principle of morality, which he characterizes as “the maxim of your will [always holding] at the same time as a principle in the giving of universal law”. He clarifies immoral acts as not only something a person does out of context with universal law, but also something he or she creates and defends as universal for personal means to an end. In this way, he suggests that self-love provides a strength superior to moral law itself. Here is where Garcia intervenes. He says that in immoral actions, our actions have a specific end that only uses another person
indirectly to reach, and that this end is purely a personal goal. Garcia proposes that in evil actions, one purposely seeks to directly infringe upon the humanity of another human being. Kant, however, never imagined such was possible. Garcia says that here is where the hybridization of Kantian definitions of morality and immorality occurs. Formally, they are comparable to immoral actions, but materially they are similar to moral ones. Evil action includes a formal objective in addition to humanity, although the purpose undermines humanity itself. Also, similar to Kant’s definition of immoral acts, self-love wins over the principle of morality. Garcia writes that “evil can be seen as a kind of perverse mimicry of moral action, where humanity is indeed treated as an end in itself, but now for immoral acts of the will”.
Here, Garcia gives an example of this notion of evil: apathy towards destructing another human being’s humanity. For instance, Adolf Eichmann sent thousands of Jewish men, women, and children to their deaths. He then attempted to justify it by claiming that he was just following orders. Although he followed both his orders and the judicial law by telling the police, it unnerves us as humans to see such
blatant disregard for humanity. Eichmann destroyed lives and never looked back. A second example is realized in describing the evil of racism. It isn’t so much the taunting or the slurs, but our feelings that one race truly is superior to the other. At this point, the value of humanity is not ignored. The challenger just chooses to deny that the members of the alternative race are, in fact, human. However, in this case, we cannot claim that we are just following orders, so in essence this type of evil involves a good amount of self-deception as well.
This theory of the definition of evil holds true historically as well as modernly. Whether a matter of self-love or the disregard for God’s will, it deprives us of our being, our selves. And not only that, but it makes human life a means for our own agenda. By doing this, we have created an entirely new level of immorality, something much deeper and much more inhuman. Innately, we all have the desire to be happy and to do well. However, sometimes our love of self takes over and convinces us that using others to get what we want or what we need is acceptable. We are then morally corrupted, and that natural incentive has begun to dehumanize us. Therein lies the distinction between immorality, and pure evil.
Works Cited
Kant, Immanuel, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of
Morals.
Garcia, Ernesto V. A Kantian Theory of Evil. The Monist 2
(2002): 194-209
