The Status of Leibniz's Theodicy in Kant's Pre-Critical Thought

Abstract

Immanuel Kant has addressed the problem of evil in many of his works. The neglected part of Kant’s thought -especially among Muslim scholars- is his philosophical objections and defenses regarding the problem of evil in pre-critical and early critical periods. Many of his ideas in this subject remained unchanged until the end of his scientific life and were inspiring for the formation of his later theories. This article, using a descriptive-analytical method, examines the principles of Leibniz’s Theodicy (i.e., evil as privation, theory of the best of all possible worlds, natural evil as punishment, and linking moral evil to free will) from Kant’s viewpoint and shows their role in the formation of his Theodicy in the pre-critical period. Contrary to Leibniz, he defends the positive reality of evil by distinguishing between logical contradiction and real contradiction. Moreover, based on the principles of Newtonian physics, Kant does not consider natural evil as punishment. However, he is in agreement with Leibniz in justifying moral evil according to mankind’s free will. Regarding the best of all possible worlds theory, it plays the most important role in Kant’s Theodicy in the pre-critical period. Although some objections to this theory are found in Kant’s articles, he seriously has upheld it even at the beginning of the critical period and after his Copernican revolution.

Keywords

• the problem of evil
• kant
• leibniz
• theodicy
• the best of all possible worlds