paul ricoeur, solicitude, love, and the gift
It is in the “original predisposition to the good,” that the possibility of
“the restoration of its power” resides. I would say that under this
modest heading — the entire project of a philosophy of religion centered
on the theme of the liberation of the ground of goodness is veiled and
unveiled.^43Ricoeur understands that this revitalization proposed by Kant refers
to the capacity of the will to be restored to a constructive mode and
to choose to act upon maxims derived from this innate predisposition
to the good.^44 This undertaking can counteract even an established
disposition, not just the propensity to evil: “However radical it may
be, evil cannot bring it about that we cease being open to the appeal
of conscience. In this sense, evil remains contingent, albeit always
already there. This paradox could be called the ‘quasi-nature of evil’.”^45
At the same time, however, Ricoeur graphically portrays the horrors
of the history of Europe: “The history of Europe is cruel: wars of
religion, wars of conquest, wars of extermination, subjugation of ethnic
minorities, expulsion or reduction to slavery of religious minorities;
the litany is without end.”^46 The question then becomes how Ricoeur
can even begin to suggest that his ethical program could succeed, for
he seems philosophically unwilling to follow Kant’s own intimations
that some kind of grace would seem necessary for a transformative
change to take place within an established evil disposition. Ricoeur
still remains reluctant to move beyond the bounds of reason to posit
any transcendent source to account for this inexplicable moment or
movement of renewal.
At this stage of his work, Ricoeur still prefers to look to conscience
as providing the needed the impetus for change. Yet he will also
go: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 491.
- Ibid., 492. Ibid., 492.
- Ricoeur will acknowledge that this regeneration involves “the restoration or
the establishment of a capable human being, one capable of speaking, of acting,
of being morally, juridically and politically responsible”, Ricoeur in Azouvi and
de Launay, Critique and Conviction, 156. - Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred, 80.
- Ricoeur, “Love and Justice,” in Paul Ricoeur: The Hermeneutics of Action, ed.
Richard Kearney, London: Sage, 1996, 9.