Abstract
Often, when one encounters Kant’s remarks about moral striving and moral progress, one finds pessimism intertwined with optimism. Observations about radical evil, natural competitiveness, and vainglory rest side by side with commitments to autonomy, moral reform, and the improving effects of moral education, to take just a few examples. That Kant should be both pessimistic and optimistic about the possibility of progress is perhaps not such a great surprise. It reflects in certain respects the dual nature of humanity as such, a humanity that is simultaneously sensible and intellectual, susceptible to inclination and autonomous.
My aim in this essay is