Kant’s philosophy played a decisive role in Jaspers’ thinking, a fact reflected both in Jaspers’ writings on Kant and in Jaspers’ own reflections. A striking example of this influence is the problem of good and evil, which Kant prefers to discuss in connection with the question of faith in reason, and Jaspers in connection with the question of philosophical faith as opposed to revealed faith. Although, according to Jaspers, philosophical faith is also grounded in reason, it nevertheless points to transcendence, whereas Kant’s morally determined faith in reason is based solely on self-legislating reason. Despite this difference, both philosophers agree that good and evil arise only through human beings. Kant’s three stages of the good (animality, humanity, and personality) and of evil (weakness, dishonesty, and the perversity of the human heart) prove to be a significant source for Jaspers’ threefold relationship between good and evil, namely the moral, the ethical, and the metaphysical. But unlike Kant, who seeks to ground general practical principles a priori, Jaspers emphasizes above all the uniqueness of human existence and the subjective path of enlightenment. Jaspers thus assumes that the metaphysical level of the good is realized not through law and duty, as in Kant, but through love, which is the basis of true communication.

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