抄録
In this paper, I address the following question: In what sense and on what ground does
Kant universally attribute evil to human beings? By examining two readings, Allen W.
Wood’s unsociable sociability interpretation and Patrick R. Frierson’s inductive interpretation,
and pointing out their shortcomings, I answer this question in terms of a compromise
between the two interpretations: Kant argues for the universality of evil in the sense that
human beings are comparatively universally evil, not universally in a strict sense; on the
ground that unjust actions which are caused by a kind of passion that inevitably appears in
human coexistence support the inference of each individual’s evil Gesinnung. Through this
argument, I aim to create a reconstruction of Kant’s background thoughts about radical evil
rather than an a priori proof of radical evil.