Immanuel Kant and Original Sin

I've recently tried to read up on Kant's doctrine of "radical evil," his effort at reconciling his Enlightenment philosophy with the Christian conception of original sin.

I will spare you, dear reader, any twistings and turnings on this road just now. I'll simply link you to an article by Paul Formosa, a professor at Macquarie University.

Available through academia.edu

Money quote (so far as I can tell).

If we read Kant as offering the view that at the very moment of birth (how long after conception?) we make a free, timeless noumenal choice to adopt an evil supreme maxim, then his position is metaphysically daunting and wildly implausible. But there is no reason to read Kant in this overtly metaphysical way. Kant only claims that such a supreme choice must be 'posited' and thus 'represented' as being present at birth.

I am reminded of the following comic.

Back to School

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