‘The Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil’

One of the great difficulties with Kant’s moral philosophy is that it seems to imply that our moral obligations leave us powerless in the face of evil. Kant’s theory sets a high ideal of conduct and tells us to live up to that ideal regardless of what other persons are doing. The results may be very bad. But Kant says that the law “remains in full force, because it commands categorically” (G, 438-39/57).1 The most well-known example of

this “rigorism,” as it is sometimes called, concerns Kant’s views on our duty to tell the truth.