Two concepts of moral evil. From Kant’s Religion (1793) to Fichte’s Ethics (1798)

Abstract

In light of translation of the fichtean Ethics into English and Spanish (December 2005), I proceed in this paper to present this work and its philosophical method, focusing my attention afterwards in the explanation of moral evil (§16), as privileged lows that give us the key. Based on Kant's work, especially in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1973), we find in Kant and Fichtes Jena period, two concepts of moral evil; one as weakness or the no-being of liberty, and the other as an act or itself. In the end, both visions complement each other, and reveal two moments of liberty or originating reality, one more closely related to the Illustration and the other to Romanticism.