"Kant thought that if we are praised as good and condemned as evil, it is presupposed that we are free and rational. If one is condemned as evil, for having done something, one must have made a rational choice to perform that action, and that rational choice must have been made in accordance with an evil maxim. One is blamed because the maxim from which one acted was evil. If one’s action is simply driven by external influences, one should not be blamed. One may, for instance, just happen to undergo some urge to perform an evil action, but one should only be blamed for rationally choosing to succumb to the urge.
Kant thinks that we are all evil to some extent; that is, not all our rational actions are performed out of respect for the moral law. In fact, he thinks that we are all subject to what he calls ‘radical evil’. The origin of our evil goes to the roots of our choice. We have somehow (timelessly?) chosen to have the capacity to be influenced by those natural inclinations resisting the moral law. This is described, contentiously, as a ‘noumenal choice’ which, even if think-able, would have to been unknowable, since not within the time-space bounds of the empirical world."
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Anderson, Pamela Sue & Jordan Bell (2010), Kant and Theology, London, T & T Clark, p. 67
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