Abstract

Although Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone is considered one of Kant's major works, it has attracted relatively little attention from Kant scholars. Interest in his ethics has led them to study Book I, "On the Radical Evil in Human Nature," for its significance in his account of virtue. For Michalson's purpose, however, the more significant parts of the work are those dealing with an agent's moral regeneration and salvation. As Kant's answer to the question, What may I hope for? Religion is an attempt to bring to a conclusion the drama of mankind's fall into moral evil and its salvation. The account, Michalson maintains, is unsuccessful because of its rationalistic approach. Although Kant tries to narrate the drama in the Enlightenment vocabulary of moral autonomy, he must at crucial points resort to the vocabulary of Christianity. What gives Kant's position its profundity and complexity is his refusal to attribute evil to ignorance; but, given his account of moral evil, he is subsequently unable "to appeal cleanly and economically to the free will as the source of its own salvation."