Problems with Religion and Politics 367it."^142 Every human being is necessarily evil in this sense, and yet every
human being is responsible for this evil because he or she has freely adopted
a deviant maxim.
This evil is radical, since it corrupts the ground of all maxims; as natural propensity,
it is also not to be extirpated through human forces, for this could only happen through
good maxims - something that cannot take place if the subjective supreme ground of
all maxims is supposed to be corrupted. Yet it must equally be possible to overcome this
evil, for it is found in the human being as acting freely.^143
Furthermore, this evil has a beginning in time. This means that if we want
to explain the origin of evil, we must look for the causes of every particular
transgression in an earlier period of our lives "all the way back to the time
when the use of reason had not yet developed."^144
Where this evil, which is inherent in our rationality, came from, cannot
be explained. It is inscrutable. Yet Kant has more to say about it. The first
inscrutable ground for the adoption of good or evil maxims is disposition
or Gesinnung. It is a single characteristic of any human being, but it is also
something that we have freely adopted.I45 Nevertheless, it cannot be known.
There "cannot be any further cognition of the subjective ground of or the
cause of this adoption, for otherwise we would have to adduce still another
maxim into which the disposition would have to be incorporated, and this
maxim must in turn have its ground."^146
If this is true, the question must be how we can ever get out of this state.
Kant himself asks that question explicitly and tries to answer it.
If a human being is corrupt in the very ground of his maxims, how can he possibly
bring about this revolution by his own forces and become a good human being on his
own? Yet duty commands that he be good, and duty commands nothing but what we can
do. The only way to reconcile this is by realizing that the revolution is necessary for the
way of thinking (Denkungsart), but that the gradual reform is necessary for the sensible
disposition (Sinnesart) (which places obstacles in the way of the former) and therefore
must be possible as well. That is, when a human being reverses the supreme ground of
his maxims by a single irreversible decision (and thereby puts on a new man), he is to
this extent, by principle and way of thinking (Denkungsart), a subject receptive to the
good; but he is a good human being only in the incessant laboring and becoming, i.e.
he can hope ... to find himself on the good (though narrow) path of constant progress
from good to better.^147
I he biblical story of the Fall is suggestive. Our evil is the result of seduc-
tlQn, and this means that we are not ineluctably corrupt but capable of im¬
provement.^148 We must first bring about a revolution in our thinking, that
is, found a character, and then we must work on it. Nevertheless, the moral