++Groundlaying++
++toward the++
++Metaphysics++
++of Morals++
++by++
++Immanuel Kant.++
++Second Edition.++
_____________________________
++Riga,++
++by Johann Friedrich Hartknoch++
++1786.++
++Preface.++
Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences:
++physics++, ++ethics++, and ++logic++. This division
is perfectly suitable to the nature of the thing. The
division cannot be made better, except perhaps by adding
in the principle by which the division is made. This
addition would ensure the division's completeness and
reveal the division's necessary subdivisions.
All rational knowledge is either +material+ and has
to do with some object, or it is +formal+ and has to
do with the form of the understanding, with the form
of reason itself, and with the universal rules of thinking
in general, no matter what objects the knowledge might
be about. Formal philosophy is called ++logic++. Material
philosophy, though,
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which has to do with specific objects and the laws that
govern those objects, is again twofold. This twofold
division occurs because these laws are either laws
of +nature+ or laws of +freedom+. The science of the
laws of nature is called ++physics++ or the doctrine
of nature. The science of the laws of freedom is called
++ethics++ or the doctrine of morals.
Logic can have no empirical part. That is, logic can
have no part which would rest the universal and necessary
laws of thinking on grounds based on experience. Logic
cannot have such a part because, if the grounds were
based on experience, logic would not be logic. Logic
would then not be a canon for the understanding or
for reason, that is, would not be a collection of strict
and rigorous guidelines valid for all thinking and
capable of demonstration. On the other hand, natural
philosophy as well as moral philosophy can each have
its empirical part. Natural philosophy can have its
empirical part because nature is an object of experience,
and natural philosophy must specify nature's laws according
to which everything occurs. Moral philosophy can have
its empirical part because the will of the human being
is affected by nature, and moral philosophy must specify
the laws of freedom
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according to which everything ought to be done; but
moral philosophy must also mention the conditions under
which what human beings ought to do frequently does
not get done.
All philosophy, so far as it is based on grounds of
experience, can be called +empirical+. But philosophy,
so far as it presents its teachings only on the basis
of a priori principles, can be called +pure+ philosophy.
But pure philosophy, if it is merely formal, is called
+logic+. If pure philosophy is restricted to specific
objects, then it is called +metaphysics+.
Because of these various conceptual subdivisions within
philosophy, there arises the idea of a twofold metaphysics:
a +metaphysics of nature+ and a +metaphysics of morals+.
So physics will have its empirical part, but also a
rational part. Ethics, too, will have both kinds of
parts. In the case of ethics, though, the empirical
part especially could be called +practical anthropology+,
while the rational part could properly be called +moral+.
All trades, crafts and arts, have gained through the
division of labor.
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The gain is due to the fact that in the division of
labor no one makes everything. Instead, each person
limits herself to certain work which, in how it needs
to be handled, differs markedly from other work. This
limiting makes it possible to perform the work with
increasing perfection and with greater efficiency.
Where labor is not distinguished and divided in this
way, where everyone is a Jack-of-all-trades, trade
remains woefully undeveloped. It would be worth asking
the following questions. Does pure philosophy in all
its parts require a person with special skills? Would
the whole of the learned profession be better off if
those, who promote themselves as "independent thinkers"
while calling others "hair-splitters" who work only
with the rational part of philosophy, were warned not
to try to perform two tasks at the same time? Would
it not be better if these so-called independent thinkers,
who, accustomed to trying to satisfy the tastes of
the public, mix the empirical with the rational in
all kinds of proportions unknown even to themselves,
were warned not to multi-task,
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because multi-tasking by a single person produces only
a mess when each individual task demands a special
talent? But, although those are worthwhile questions,
I here only ask whether the nature of science demands
that the empirical part always be carefully separated
from the rational part. I here also only ask whether
the nature of science requires a metaphysics of nature
to precede a proper (empirical) physics and requires
a metaphysics of morals to precede a practical anthropology.
In both cases, the metaphysics must be carefully cleansed
of everything empirical in order to know how much pure
reason could achieve and from what sources pure reason
could create its own teaching a priori. It is all the
same to me whether the latter task is conducted by
all moralists (whose name is legion) or only by those
who feel a calling to take on the task.
Since my aim here is squarely directed at moral philosophy,
I limit the above questions about metaphysics in general
to this question about the metaphysics of morals in
particular: whether it is of the greatest importance
to work out once a pure moral philosophy which would
be thoroughly cleansed of everything
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which might be empirical and belong to anthropology.
For that there must be such a pure moral philosophy
is evident from the common idea of duty and of moral
laws. Everyone must admit the following points: that
a law, if it is to be moral, if, that is, it is to
be a ground of an obligation, must carry with it absolute
necessity; that the command, "thou shalt not lie,"
holds not just for human beings, as if other rational
beings were not obliged to obey it, and the same goes
for all other genuine moral laws; that, therefore,
the ground of obligation for moral laws must be sought,
not in the nature of the human being or in the circumstances
of the world in which the human being lives, but rather
must be sought a priori only in concepts of pure reason;
and that every other prescription based on principles
of mere experience can never be called a moral law
but at most only a practical rule, and even a prescription
that might be universal in a certain way — perhaps
only in its motive — can only be a practical rule and
never a moral law if it is based in the least part
on empirical grounds.
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So moral laws, together with their principles, are essentially
different from all other practical knowledge in which
there is something empirical. But the scope is even
wider: all moral philosophy, not just moral laws and
their principles, rests wholly on its pure part. Moral
philosophy, when applied to human beings, borrows nothing
from the knowledge of human beings (anthropology),
but rather gives the human being, as a rational being,
laws a priori. These laws still require a power of
judgment that is sharpened through experience, partly
to distinguish those cases to which the laws apply,
partly to give the laws access to the will of the human
being and energy for putting the laws into practice.
This access to the will and energy for implementation
are needed because human beings, though capable of
the idea of a pure practical reason, are affected by
so many inclinations that they find it difficult to
make the idea concretely effective in the way they
live their lives.
A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary.
It is indispensable not merely to satisfy deep-rooted
curiosity about the source of the practical principles
that are present a priori in our reason.
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It is also indispensable because morals themselves remain
vulnerable to all kinds of corruption so long as that
guiding thread and highest norm of correct moral judgment
is lacking. For in the case of what is to be morally
good, it is not enough that it is in +conformity+ with
the moral law, but rather it must also be done +for
the sake of the moral law+. If it is not also done
for the sake of the moral law, then that conformity
is only very coincidental and precarious because, although
the non-moral ground will now and then produce actions
that are in conformity with the moral law, the non-moral
ground will again and again produce actions that are
not in conformity with the moral law. But, now, the
moral law, in its purity and genuineness (which is
what is most important in moral matters), is to be
found no where else than in a pure philosophy. So this
(metaphysics) must come first, and without it there
can be no moral philosophy at all. That which mixes
pure principles with empirical principles does not
even deserve to be called a philosophy (for philosophy
distinguishes itself from common rational knowledge
by presenting as a separated science that which common
rational knowledge comprehends only in a confused way).
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Even less does it deserve to be called a moral philosophy
because, through this confusion that it creates by
mixing pure principles with empirical principles, it
trashes the purity of morality itself and undermines
its own ends.
You would be way off base to think that in the preparatory
study to the famous +Wolff's+ moral philosophy, specifically
in what Wolff called +universal practical philosophy+,
you already have what is here demanded and therefore
that no new ground needs to be broken. It is just because
Wolff's moral philosophy was to be a universal practical
philosophy that it did not consider a will of any special
kind. In particular, it did not look into the possibility
of a will which would be fully motivated by a priori
principles. Such a will, animated without empirical
motives, could be called a pure will. Instead, Wolff
considered willing in general, with all actions and
conditions that belong to willing in this general sense.
Because it considers willing in general, Wolff's moral
philosophy differs from a metaphysics of morals, just
as general logic differs from transcendental philosophy.
xi [4:390]
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General logic presents the operations and rules of thinking
+in general+, but transcendental philosophy merely
presents the special operations and rules of ++pure++
thinking, i.e., those operations and rules by which
objects are cognized completely a priori. For the metaphysics
of moral is to investigate the idea and the principles
of a possible +pure+ will and not the actions and conditions
of human willing in general, which for the most part
are drawn from psychology. It is no objection to what
I am saying that this universal practical philosophy
also speaks (although without any warrant) of moral
laws and duty. For the authors of that science remain
true to their idea of it also in this: those authors
do not distinguish the motives which, as such, are
represented completely a priori merely by reason and
which are genuinely moral from those motives which
are empirical and which the understanding raises to
universal concepts merely by comparing experiences.
These authors instead, without paying attention to
the different
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sources of motives, consider only the intensity of the
motives (looking at them as all being of the same kind),
and from this sole consideration they put together
their concept of +obligation+. Their concept is, of
course, anything but moral. But a concept so constructed
is all that can be expected from a philosophy that
makes no attempt to decide the +origin+ of all possible
practical concepts and that makes no attempt to decide
whether the concepts occur a priori or merely a posteriori.
Having the intention to publish someday a metaphysics
of morals, I prepare the way for it with this groundlaying.
Without a doubt, there is properly no other foundation
for a metaphysics of morals than the critique of a
+pure practical reason+, just as for metaphysics there
is no other foundation than a critique of pure speculative
reason, which I have already published. But, first
of all, a critique of pure practical reason is not
so extremely necessary as is a critique of pure speculative
reason. A critique of pure practical reason is not
as necessary because in moral matters human reason,
even in cases of merely average intelligence, can easily
be brought to a high level of correctness and completeness.
In contrast, human reason in its theoretical but pure
use is through and
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through dialectical. In the second place, I require
that a critique of pure practical reason, if it is
to be complete, must at the same time be capable of
presenting in a common principle practical reason's
unity with speculative reason. Such a critique must
be capable of presenting this unity because in the
end there can be only one and the same reason which
is distinguished only in its application. But in this
groundlaying I was not yet able to pull off such a
feat of completeness; doing so would have required
that I drag in considerations of a quite different
kind and confuse the reader. Because of this incompleteness,
I have called this work a +groundlaying toward the
metaphysics of morals+ rather than a +critique of pure
practical reason+.
But in the third place, because a metaphysics of morals,
despite the scary title, is capable of a high degree
of popularity and resonance with the thinking of ordinary
folks, I find it useful to separate off this preparation
of the foundation of the metaphysics of morals so that
the subtleties that are unavoidable in this preparation
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need not bog down the more comprehensible teachings
of the metaphysics of morals which I will publish in
the future.
The present groundlaying, however, is nothing more than
the search for and establishment +of the highest principle
of morality+. In its purpose, this task is by itself
complete and to be kept separate from all other moral
inquiry. There is no doubt that what I have to say
about this main question, which is an important question
but which has up to now been the subject of very unsatisfying
discussion, would be made much clearer through the
application of that highest principle to the whole
system and that what I have to say would be strongly
confirmed by the adequacy that the principle displays
everywhere. But I had to forgo this advantage, which
would have been more self-serving than generally useful
anyway, because a principle's ease of use and apparent
adequacy provide no sure proof at all of the correctness
of the principle. Instead, a principle's ease of use
and apparent adequacy awaken a certain bias against
investigating and weighing the principle itself, apart
from any consideration of consequences, in a strict
way.
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I have selected a method for this book which, I believe,
will work out best if we proceed in the following way.
First, we proceed analytically from common knowledge
to the formulation of the highest principle. Then,
second, we synthetically work our way back from the
examination of this principle and its sources to common
knowledge in which we find the principle applied. Using
this method, the sections of the book turn out to be:
1. +First Section:+ Transition from
common moral rational knowledge
to the philosophical.
2. +Second Section:+ Transition from
popular moral philosophy to the
metaphysics of morals.
3. +Third Section:+ Last step from
the metaphysics of morals to the critique of
pure practical reason.
_____________________________
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++First Section.++
++Transition++
+from common moral rational knowledge+
+to philosophical.+
There is nothing at all in the world, or even out of
it, that could possibly be thought to be good without
qualification except a ++good will++. Intelligence,
humor, power of judgment, and whatever else the +talents+
of the mind may be called, are without doubt in many
respects good and desirable. Likewise, courage, decisiveness,
and perseverance in pursuit of goals, as qualities
of +temperament+, are without doubt in many respects
good and desirable. But these talents of the mind and
qualities of temperament can also become extremely
bad and harmful, if the will that is to make use of
these natural gifts, and so a will whose distinctive
quality is therefore called +character+, is not good.
It is just the same with +gifts of fortune+. Power,
wealth, reputation, even health and the whole well-being
and satisfaction with your condition, which
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goes by the name of +happiness+, produce courage; but
these gifts of fortune frequently also produce arrogance
as a by-product when there is no good will present
to check their influence on the mind, no good will
present to correct the whole principle of acting, and
when there is no good will present to make these gifts
of fortune and principle of acting conform to universal
standards. And it goes without saying that a rational
and impartial spectator, at the sight of the uninterrupted
prosperity of someone who has no trace of a pure and
good will, can never be satisfied, and so a good will
appears to constitute the indispensable condition of
even the worthiness to be happy.
Some qualities are even helpful to this good will itself
and can make its work easier. But these qualities still
have no inner unconditional worth. Instead, the qualities
always presuppose a good will which limits the esteem
which we otherwise justly have for them and which does
not allow them to be considered absolutely good. Moderation
in volatile emotions and passions, self-control and
sober reflection are not only good for many purposes,
but they even appear to constitute a part of the +inner+
worth of a person. But there is much that these qualities
lack that would be needed in order to declare them
to be good without qualification (however much the
ancients praised them unconditionally). For, without
basic principles of a good will, these qualities can
become very bad, and the cold blood of a scoundrel
makes her
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not only far more dangerous, but also in our eyes even
more immediately abominable than she would be held
to be without such cold-bloodedness.
The good will is good only through its willing, i.e.,
is in itself good. It is not good because of what it
effects or accomplishes, nor is it good because of
its suitability for achieving some proposed end. Considered
in itself, the good will is, without comparison, of
far higher value than anything that it could ever bring
about in favor of some inclination or even in favor
of the sum of all inclinations. Even if a good will
wholly lacked the capacity to carry out its purposes,
due to an especially unfavorable turn of fate or due
to the scanty provision of a step-motherly nature,
it would still shine for itself like a jewel, like
something that has all its worth in itself. A good
will would even shine like this if, despite its greatest
efforts (not, of course, as a mere wish but rather
as calling upon all means so far as they are in our
power), it never could accomplish anything and remained
only a good will. The good will's usefulness or fruitlessness
can neither add something to that will's worth nor
take anything away from that worth. Any such usefulness
would, as it were, only be the setting that would make
the will easier to handle in everyday activities or
the setting that would attract the attention of people
who do not yet know enough about the good will.
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Such usefulness would not recommend a good will to those
people who do know about the will and such usefulness
would not play a role in ascertaining the worth of
the good will.
There is, however, something very strange in the idea
of the absolute worth of the mere will: in figuring
the value of this will, no account is made of its usefulness.
Because of this strangeness, and despite the agreement
of even ordinary reason with the idea, a suspicion
must nevertheless arise that perhaps mere high-flying
fantasy is secretly the basis of the idea. The suspicion
also arises that nature, in making reason the boss
of our wills, may be misunderstood. So we will put
this idea to the test from the point of view that sees
reason as the commander of our wills.
In the natural makeup of an organized being, i.e., a
being that is put together for living, we take it to
be a basic principle that, for any organ with a specific
job to do in the being, the organ will be the most
appropriate for the job and the most suitable. Now
if, for a being with reason and a will, its +preservation+,
its +well-being+, in a nutshell, its +happiness+, were
the end or goal of nature, then nature would have hit
upon a very poor arrangement by putting reason in charge
of the creature in order to achieve this end or goal.
For all the actions that the creature has to carry
out to achieve this end or goal of happiness
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and the whole rule of its behavior would be prescribed
to the creature much more precisely by instinct. The
end or goal to obtain happiness, too, could have been
much more certainly attained by instinct than it ever
can be by reason. If reason had anyway been given to
the favored creature, then reason would only have had
to serve the creature by helping the creature meditate
on the fortunate makeup of its nature, admire it, enjoy
it, and be thankful for it. Reason would not have served
to subject the creature's powers of desiring to reason's
weak and deceitful guidance and to meddle in the purposes
of nature. In short, nature would have ensured that
reason did not try for +practical use+, that is, was
not used for making decisions about what to do, and
would have ensured that reason, with its weak insights,
did not have the audacity to think out for itself the
plan for the creature's happiness and the means to
carry out that plan. Nature would have taken over for
itself not only the choice of the ends or goals but
also of the means and with wise foresight would have
entrusted both ends and means only to instinct.
In fact, we also find that the more a cultivated reason
occupies itself with the aim of obtaining happiness
and of enjoying life the more the human being departs
from true contentment. In pursuing this aim, in many
people — and indeed those most experienced in the use
of reason, if they are only honest enough to admit
it —
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there arises a certain degree of +misology+, i.e., hatred
of reason. This misology arises because, after these
people estimate all the advantages which they receive
from not only the invention of all arts of common luxury
but also even from the sciences (which appears to them
at bottom also to be a luxury of the understanding),
they still find that they have in fact created more
trouble for themselves than they have gained in happiness.
In the end, these people wind up envying rather than
despising the more ordinary kind of human being who
is closer to the guidance of mere natural instinct
and who does not permit reason much influence on her
conduct. Some people greatly moderate, or even reduce
below zero, the boastful high praises of the advantages
that reason is supposed to provide us in terms of happiness
and satisfaction in life; we must admit that the judgment
of these people is in no way bitter or unthankful for
the goodness that exists in the way the world is governed.
And so, instead, we must admit that these judgments
secretly have as their basis the idea of a different
and much worthier purpose for their existence. Reason
is quite properly to be used for this worthier purpose
and not for happiness. It is therefore to this worthier
purpose, as the highest condition, that the private
purposes of humans beings must in large part defer.
For since reason is not sufficiently able to guide the
will reliably with regard to the will's objects
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and with regard to the satisfaction of all of our needs
(which reason in part even multiplies) — an end to
which an implanted natural instinct would have led
much more certainly — and since reason has nevertheless
been given to us as a practical faculty, i.e., as a
capacity that is to exercise an influence on the +will+,
the true function of reason must be to produce, not
at all a will that is good +as a means+ to achieve
some end, but rather a +will good in itself+. Because
in all other circumstances nature has worked purposefully
in distributing its capacities, reason was absolutely
necessary in order to produce such a will that is good
in itself. So, to be sure, this will may not be the
only and the whole good, but it must still be the highest
good and be the condition for all the other goods,
even the condition for all longing for happiness. As
such a condition, the good will is quite consistent
with the wisdom of nature. You can appreciate this
consistency even when you notice that the cultivation
of reason, which is required for the first and unconditional
end of producing a good will, in may ways limits, at
least in this life, the attainment of the second and
always conditional end of happiness. Indeed, the good
will can even reduce happiness to something less than
zero and still be consistent with the purposeful activity
of nature. Even such an extreme reduction would be
consistent with nature's purposes because reason, which
acknowledges its highest practical function to be the
production of a good will, is only capable of a satisfaction
of its own kind — namely from the attainment of an
end that again reason alone sets — when it produces
such a good will.
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Reason is even capable of this satisfaction in cases
when producing such a good will is connected with many
infringements on the ends of inclination.
The concept of a good will already dwells in the natural
sound understanding and needs not so much to be taught
as instead only to be clarified. This concept also
always stands highest in the valuation of the whole
worth of our actions and constitutes the condition
of everything else. In order to dissect this concept
of a good will, a will that is to be highly esteemed
in itself and for no further purpose, we will lay bare
the concept of ++duty++, which contains the concept
of a good will. Although the concept of duty contains
the concept of a good will, it does so only under certain
subjective limitations and restrictions. Far from hiding
and disguising the concept of a good will, these subjective
limitations and restrictions instead let the concept
of a good will stand out by contrast and allow the
concept to shine even more brightly.
I here pass over all actions that are already recognized
as contrary to duty, even though the actions might
be useful for this or that purpose; for in the case
of these actions, the question does not even arise
as to whether they are done +from duty+, since they
even conflict with duty. I also put to the side actions
that are actually in accordance with duty but are also
actions to which human beings have +no inclination+
that is direct or immediate but which human beings
perform because they are driven to do so by another
inclination. For
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in these cases it is easy to tell whether the action
conforming to duty is done +from duty+ or from a self-serving
purpose. It is much more difficult to notice this difference
in cases where the action conforms to duty and the
subject also has an +immediate+ or direct inclination
for the action. For example, a shopkeeper who does
not overcharge his inexperienced customers is certainly
acting in conformity with duty, and, where there are
many transactions, the prudent shopkeeper does not
overcharge. Instead, the prudent shopkeeper sets a
fixed common price for everyone so that a child can
shop at her store just as well as anyone else. So the
public is +honestly+ served. But this honest treatment
of the customers is not nearly enough to be the basis
for the belief that the shopkeeper acted from duty
and principles of honesty. Her self-interest required
it. But it cannot here be assumed that the shopkeeper
also had an immediate or direct inclination to give
the customers, out of love for them, so to speak, no
preference of one over the other in terms of the price.
So the action was done neither from duty nor from immediate
or direct inclination, but instead the action was done
merely for a self-interested purpose.
On the other hand, to preserve your life is a duty,
and everyone also has an immediate inclination to do
this. But, because of this inclination, the often anxious
care that most of the human race has for life is an
anxious care that still has no inner worth, and their
maxim prescribing self-preservation has no moral content.
Their action to preserve their lives definitely +conforms
to duty+,
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but it is not done +from duty+. By contrast, when adversities
and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away the
zest for living, when the unhappy person, strong of
soul, angered over her fate more than faint-hearted
or dejected, wishes for death and yet preserves her
life without loving it, not from inclination or fear,
but from duty, then her maxim has moral content.
To be beneficent where you can is a duty and there are
also many souls so compassionately disposed that they
find an inner satisfaction in spreading joy around
them and can take delight in the satisfaction of others
so far as it is their work. These compassionately attuned
souls even experience this inner satisfaction without
any motive of vanity or usefulness to themselves. But
I maintain that in such cases an action of this kind,
however much it may conform to duty, however kind it
may be, nevertheless has no true moral worth. Instead,
actions of this kind are on a par with other inclinations,
for example, with the inclination to honor. This inclination
to honor, when it is lucky enough to hit what is generally
useful and in line with duty, and is therefore worthy
of honor, deserves praise and encouragement, but not
esteem. For the maxim lacks moral content, namely,
to do such actions not from inclination, but rather
+from duty+. Granted, then, that the mind of that friend
of the human being were clouded by its own sorrow,
which extinguishes all
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compassion for the fate of others. Suppose she still
had the power to benefit others who are suffering,
but that strangers in need did not move her because
she is sufficiently occupied with her own needs. And
now she still rips — since no inclination prods her
to it — herself out of this deadly insensitivity and
does the action without any inclination, merely from
duty. Then her action has for the first time its genuine
moral worth. Suppose further still: if nature had put
very little sympathy in the heart of this or that person,
if she (after all an honest person) were of cold temperament
and indifferent — perhaps, because she herself is equipped
with the special gift of patience and enduring strength
against her own suffering, she presumes or even demands
the same in the case of every other person — toward
the sufferings of others, if nature had not exactly
formed such a person (who truly would not be nature's
worst product) to be a friend of human beings, would
she not still find in herself a source that would give
herself a worth far higher than might be the worth
of a good-natured temperament? Certainly! It is precisely
here that the worth of character begins, a worth that
is moral and above all comparison the highest. In particular,
that worth begins in that she is beneficent, not from
inclination, but from duty.
To secure your own happiness is a duty (at least an
indirect duty), for the lack of satisfaction
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with your condition, in a crowd of many worries and
in the middle of unsatisfied needs, could easily become
a great +temptation to the transgression of duties+.
But, even without looking at duty here, all human beings
already have of themselves the most powerful and most
intimate inclination for happiness, because precisely
in this idea of happiness all inclinations are united
into a collection. But the prescription of happiness
is for the most part constituted in such a way that
the prescription greatly infringes on some inclinations,
and yet the human being can formulate no definite and
secure concept of the collective satisfaction of all
inclinations, which goes by the name of happiness.
It should come as no surprise, then, how a single inclination — which
specifies what it promises and the time within which
its satisfaction can be felt — might be able to outweigh
a wavering idea. For example, a person suffering from
gout might be able to choose to eat or drink what tastes
good to her and to suffer the consequences because
she, according to her way of calculating the costs
and benefits in this case at least, does not miss out
on a present enjoyment through a perhaps groundless
expectation of a happiness that is supposed to be found
in health. But even in this case, if the universal
inclination to happiness does not control her will,
if health for her at least is not so necessary in her
calculations of costs and benefits, then there remains
in this case, as in all other cases, a law, namely,
to promote her happiness
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not from inclination but from duty. And then her conduct,
for the first time, has genuine moral worth.
No doubt, it is also in this way that we are to understand
the scriptural passages in which we are commanded to
love our neighbor and even to love our enemy. For love
as an inclination cannot be commanded. But beneficence
from duty itself, even if no inclination at all drives
us to it — indeed, even if natural and invincible disinclination
stands against us — is +practical+ and not +pathological+
love. This practical love lies in the will and not
in tendency to feeling, lies in basic principles of
action and not in melting compassion. This practical
love alone can be commanded.
The second proposition is this: an action done from
duty has its moral worth +not in the purpose+ which
is to be achieved by performing the action, but rather
in the maxim according to which the action is decided
upon. So the worth of such an action depends not on
the actuality of the object of the action but only
on the +principle+ of +willing+ according to which
the action, regardless of any objects of the faculty
of desire, is done. It is clear from what I have already
said that the purposes which we may have in our actions,
and the effects of our actions, as ends or goals and
incentives of the will, can give no unconditional and
moral worth to the actions. Where, then, can this worth
be located, if it is not
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to be found in the will, in the will's relation to the
hoped-for effect of the actions? The worth can be located
nowhere else +than in the principle of the will+, regardless
of the ends that can be brought about by such action.
For the will stands, so to speak, at a crossroads right
in the middle between its principle a priori, which
is formal, and between its motive a posteriori, which
is material. Since the will must still be controlled
by something, it must be guided by the formal principle
of willing in general when an action is done from duty,
because every material principle has been removed from
the will.
I would express the third proposition, which is a consequence
of the previous two, in this way: +duty is the necessity
of an action out of respect for the law+. I can of
course have an +inclination+ for an object as an effect
of my intended action, but I can +never+ have +respect+
for such an object precisely because the object is
merely an effect and not the activity of a will. Likewise,
I cannot have respect for inclination in general, whether
it is my own inclination or someone else's. With an
inclination of my own, I can at most approve of it;
regarding others' inclinations, I can sometimes even
love them, that is, view their inclinations as favorable
to my own self-interest. But only something that is
connected to my will merely as a ground, never as an
effect, something that does not serve my inclination
but instead outweighs it — something at least that
wholly excludes inclination
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from rough-and-ready decisions about what choices to
make — and therefore only something that is the mere
law itself, can be an object of respect and thus a
command. Now an action from duty is to be detached
completely from the influence of inclination and along
with inclination from every object of the will. So
nothing that could control the will remains except
objectively the +law+ and subjectively +pure respect+
for this practical law. And so all that remains to
guide the will is the maxim* of obeying such a law,
even if this obedience involves dialing back all my
inclinations.
So the moral worth of an action does not lie in the
effect that is expected from the action; nor, therefore,
is the moral worth of an action in some principle of
action which has to get its motivating ground from
this expected effect. For all these effects (pleasantness
of your condition, and even the promotion of the happiness
of others) can also be brought about by other causes,
and so the will of a rational being is not needed,
even though it is only in a rational being that the
highest and unconditional good can be found. So nothing
but the intellectual +representation of the law+ in
itself, +which of+
* A +maxim+ is the subjective principle of
willing; the objective principle is the practical
+law+. (That is, the objective principle
is the practical principle that would serve
all rational beings as a subjective principle,
too, if reason had full control over the
faculty of desire.)
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+course can only be found in a rational being+, so far
as this representation or thought, and not the expected
effect of the action, is the controlling motivational
ground of the will, can constitute the pre-eminent
good which we call moral. This pre-eminent moral good
is already present in the person who acts according
to the representation of the law in itself, and this
moral good does not need to wait for the expected effect
of the action in order to become good.*
* You could object that by using the word
"+respect+" I am only seeking to escape in
an obscure feeling instead of bringing clarity
to the question through a concept of reason.
But although respect is a feeling, it is
not a feeling +received+ by influence. Instead,
respect is a feeling +self-woven+ through
a rational concept. The feeling of respect,
therefore, is specifically different from
all feelings of the kind received by influence,
which reduce to inclination or fear. What
I immediately cognize or intellectually apprehend
as a law for myself, I cognize with respect,
which just signifies the consciousness of
the +subordination+ of my will to a law,
without the mediation of other influences
on my sense. The immediate or direct determination
of the will by the law and the consciousness
of that subordination is called +respect+.
So respect, this awareness of the will's
being guided by the law, must be thought
of as an +effect+ of the law on a person
and not as a +cause+ of the law. Respect
is actually the representation of a worth
that does damage to my self-love. So respect
is something that is considered neither to
be an object of inclination nor an object
of fear, although it has something analogous
to both at the same time. The +object+ of
respect is therefore only the +law+ and indeed
that law which we ourselves impose on +ourselves+
and yet which is necessary in itself. Considered
as a law, we are subject to this object of
respect without consulting self-love; as
self-imposed, this object is nevertheless
a consequence of our will. Viewing it in
the first way, as a law, the object is analogous
to fear; viewing it in the second way, as
self-imposed, the object is analogous to
inclination.
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But what kind of law can that really be, the representation
of which — without even taking into consideration the
expected effect from the action — must guide the will
so that the will can be called absolutely good without
qualification? Since I have robbed the will of any
impulse that could arise from the will by following
any law, nothing remains except the universal conformity
of actions to law in general; this universal conformity
is to serve the will as a principle. That is, I ought
never act except in this way: +that I could also will
that my maxim should become a universal law+. Here
now is the mere conformity to law in general (without
making a law for specific actions a ground) that serves
the will as its principle and even must serve it as
its principle if duty is not to be everywhere an unfounded
delusion and chimerical concept. In its judgments about
what to do, ordinary human reason agrees completely
with this principle and always has the principle in
view.
All respect for a person is actually only
respect for the law (of integrity, etc.)
of which the person provides us with an example.
Because we look at the development of our
talents as a duty, we conceive of a person
who has talents as, so to speak, an +example
of a law+ and that conception constitutes
our respect. All so-called moral +interest+
consists simply in +respect+ for the law.
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The question might be, for instance, the following.
When I am in a tight spot, may I not make a promise
with the intention of not keeping it? I easily make
here the difference in meaning that the question can
have: whether it is prudent, or whether it is in accord
with duty, to make a false promise. There is no doubt
that making a false promise can often be prudent. Indeed,
I see very well that it is not enough that I extricate
myself from a present embarrassment by means of this
excuse. Instead, I must consider carefully whether
from this lie far greater trouble than the trouble
from which I now set myself free might not arise for
me afterwards. And, since the consequences of all my
supposed +slyness+ are not so easy to predict and that
a trust once lost could be far more disadvantageous
to me than any evil that I now intend to avoid, I must
also consider whether it might be +more prudently+
handled to act in this matter according to a universal
maxim and to make it a habit to promise nothing except
with the intention of keeping the promise. But after
considering these possibilities, it soon becomes clear
to me that such a prudential maxim would only be based
on the fear of consequences. Now it is certainly something
quite different to be truthful from duty than to be
truthful out of fear of disadvantageous consequences.
For, in the case of being truthful from duty, the concept
of the action in itself already contains a law for
me. In the case of being truthful out of fear, I must
first look around elsewhere for the effects on me which
are likely
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to be connected with the action. For, if I deviate from
the principle of duty, then it is quite certainly bad.
If, however, I desert my maxim of prudence, then that
can sometimes be very advantageous to me, although
it is of course safer to stay with the maxim of prudence.
But, in order to inform myself, in the shortest and
yet least deceptive way, of the answer to this problem
of whether a lying promise conforms to duty, I ask
myself the following. Would I be quite content that
my maxim (to extricate myself from an embarrassment
by means of an untruthful promise) should hold as a
universal law (for me as well as for others) and would
I be well able to say to myself that everyone may make
an untruthful promise when she finds herself in an
embarrassment from which she cannot escape in any other
way? I soon become aware that I can indeed will the
lie but that I definitely cannot will a universal law
to lie. I cannot will a universal law to lie, for according
to such a law there would actually be no promise at
all. There would actually be no promise because it
would be pointless to pass off my intentions regarding
my future actions to others who would certainly not
believe this pretence or who, if they did rashly believe
it, would certainly pay me back in like coin. My maxim,
therefore, as soon as it became a universal law, would
have to destroy itself.
What I therefore have to do so that my willing is morally
good requires no far-reaching
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acuteness. Inexperienced as to how the world operates,
incapable of preparing myself for any events that might
occur in the world, I only ask myself: can you also
will that your maxim become a universal law? If the
maxim cannot become a universal law, then the maxim
is objectionable. It is objectionable not because it
presents an impending disadvantage to you or even to
others; instead, the maxim is objectionable because
it cannot fit as a principle into a possible universal
lawgiving. Reason compels respect from me for this
universal lawgiving. I certainly do not yet +see+ on
what the respect is based (a topic which the philosopher
may investigate), but I at least understand this much:
respect is the estimation of a worth that outweighs
all the worth of anything that inclination praises,
and the necessity of my actions from +pure+ respect
for the practical law is what constitutes duty, and
every motivating ground must yield to duty because
duty is the condition of a will good +in itself+ and
whose worth exceeds the worth of everything else.
We have, then, in the moral knowledge of common human
reason, arrived at its principle. Common human reason
of course does not abstractly think of this principle
in such a universal form, but it does actually always
have the principle before its eyes and uses the principle
as the standard for its judgment. It would be easy
to show here how
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common human reason, with this compass in hand, very
well knows in all cases that it encounters how to distinguish
what is good, what is bad, what conforms to duty, or
what is contrary to duty. If only we, as Socrates did,
draw its attention to its own principle, common human
reason can make these distinctions without our having
to teach it anything new. So there is, in order to
know what you have to do in order to be honest and
good — or even to be wise and virtuous — no need for
science and philosophy. It might even have been supposed
well in advance that the knowledge that is incumbent
on everyone — knowledge of what to do and therefore
of what to know — would be the concern of everyone,
even the concern of the most ordinary human being.
It is at this point that you have to look with admiration
at how the power of practical judgment has an advantage
over the theoretical in ordinary human understanding.
In theoretical matters, when ordinary reason dares
to depart from the laws of experience and the perceptions
of sense, it gets into nothing but incomprehensibilities
and contradictions with itself. At the very least,
when ordinary reason dares to make these departures,
it gets into a chaos of uncertainty, obscurity, and
instability. But in practical matters, it is just when
ordinary understanding excludes all sensuous motives
for practical laws that the power of judgment first
begins to show itself to advantage. When ordinary understanding
makes these exclusions it even becomes subtle, whether
it be in quibbling with its conscience or with other
claims in reference to what is to be called right or
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whether it be in wanting correctly to determine the
worth of actions for its own instruction. But what
is most remarkable is that, in determining the worth
of actions, ordinary understanding can have just as
good a hope of getting it right as a philosopher herself
can ever promise. In fact, ordinary understanding is
almost more secure in determining the worth of actions
than the philosopher because the philosopher can have
no other principle than the principle that ordinary
understanding has and because the philosopher's judgment
can easily be confused by a crowd of extraneous considerations
not pertinent to the matter at hand and can be diverted
from the right direction. Would it not, accordingly,
be more advisable in moral matters to rest content
with ordinary rational judgment? Would it not be more
advisable to bring in philosophy at most only in order
to present the system of morals more completely and
more comprehensibly? Would it not be more advisable
to bring in philosophy only so that it can present
the system's rules in a way more convenient for their
use (especially in disputation)? And would it not be
less advisable, for practical purposes, to allow philosophy
to drag ordinary human understanding away from its
happy simplicity and to put the understanding on a
new path of investigation and instruction?
Innocence is a magnificent thing, but it is also very
bad in that it cannot be easily preserved and can easily
be misled. Because of these deficiencies, even wisdom — which
otherwise perhaps consists more in doing and letting
than in knowing — still requires science, not in order
to learn from science, but rather
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to gain accessibility and permanence for wisdom's prescriptions.
The human being feels in itself a powerful counterweight
to all commands of duty, commands which reason represents
to the human being as so worthy of great respect. This
counterweight is the needs and inclinations of the
human being, and the whole satisfaction of its needs
and inclinations is included under the name of happiness.
Now reason's prescriptions are commanded without apology
and without a promise of anything to the inclinations.
Reason therefore commands, so to speak, dismissively
and with no regard for those claims that are so impulsive
and yet that appear so reasonable (and which can be
willed away by no command). From this, however, a +natural
dialectic+ arises, that is, a tendency to rant about
those strict laws of duty and to cast doubt on the
validity — at least the purity and strictness — of
those laws and, if possible, to make the laws more
suitable to our wishes and inclinations. That is, a
tendency arises that attempts to corrupt the laws at
their foundations and to destroy their dignity. The
result of this natural dialectic, then, is something
that in the end even ordinary practical reason cannot
call good.
Because of this destructive tendency of natural dialectic,
+ordinary human reason+ is driven to go out of its
comfort zone and to take a step into the field of +practical
philosophy+. Ordinary human reason is driven to this
not by some intellectual need to theorize (a need which
never afflicts it so long as it is satisfied with being
merely sound reason), but instead it is driven to it
for practical reasons. In the field of practical philosophy,
ordinary reason hopes, regarding the source of its
principle
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and the correct determination of its principle, in contrast
with the maxims or principles that rest on need and
inclination, to receive information and clear instruction.
Having received these, ordinary reason can perhaps
escape the embarrassment resulting from the flip-flopping
claims of dialectic and perhaps not run the risk of
losing all genuine moral principles in the ambiguity
into which ordinary reason easily slips. So there arises
unnoticed a +dialectic+ which requires reason to seek
help in philosophy. This dialectic arises just as much
in practical ordinary reason, when it is cultivated,
as it does in the theoretical use of reason. Both uses
of reason will therefore only find peace in a complete
critique of our reason.
_____________________________
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++Second Section.++
++Transition++
+from popular moral philosophy+
++to the++
++metaphysics of morals.++
Even if we have drawn our previous concept of duty from
the ordinary use of our practical reason, this is no
reason to conclude that we have treated the concept
of duty as a concept of experience. Rather, when we
pay attention to the experience of the way human beings
act and fail to act, we encounter frequent and, as
we ourselves admit, justified complaints that no one
can provide a sure example of the disposition to act
from pure duty. There are also justified complaints
that even though much of what +duty+ commands may be
done +according+ to duty, it is always still doubtful
whether what is done really is done +from duty+ and
so has moral worth. Because of complaints like these,
there have always been philosophers who have absolutely
denied the reality of this disposition in human actions
and who have attributed everything to a more or less
refined self-love. These philosophers nevertheless
do not call into question the correctness of the concept
of morality. Rather, with heartfelt regret for the
frailty and impurity of human nature, these philosophers
make mention of a human nature which, though definitely
noble enough
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to make an idea so worthy of respect into its prescription,
is at the same time too weak to follow the prescription.
So, instead of serving this human nature for lawgiving,
reason only serves it in order to provide for the interest
of inclinations, whether providing for the inclinations
individually or at most for their greatest compatibility
with each other.
In fact, it is absolutely impossible to find with certainty
through experience a single case in which the maxim
of an action that is otherwise in accord with duty
has rested only on moral grounds and on the representation
of a person's duty. For it is certainly sometimes the
case that the most thorough self-examination does not
turn up anything, except the moral ground of duty,
that could have been strong enough to move us to do
this or that good action and to move us to make such
a great sacrifice. It cannot, however, be safely concluded
from this unsuccessful self-examination that there
really is no hidden impulse of self-love which, under
the mere guise of that idea of duty, really was the
determining cause of the will. Because of this self-love,
masquerading as duty, we then gladly flatter ourselves
with a nobler motive which we falsely claim for ourselves.
But, in fact, we can never, even through the most strenuous
examination, fully get behind the hidden incentives
because, when the issue is about moral worth, what
matters are not the actions that you see but rather
the inner principles that you do not see.
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There are some people who ridicule all morality as a
mere mental fantasy of a human imagination super-sized
through its own boasting. You cannot do a greater service
for such people than to admit to them that the concepts
of duty (just as you gladly convince yourself from
convenience that the same applies to all other concepts)
must be drawn only from experience; for by this admission
you prepare for these people a guaranteed triumph.
I am willing to admit out of a love of humankind that
most of our actions are in accord with duty. But if
you look at people's intentions and endeavors more
closely, you will bump into the dear self everywhere;
it is on this dear self, which is always popping out,
that their intentions are based, not on the strict
command of duty. You do not need to be an enemy of
virtue in order to become (especially with increasing
years and a power of judgment that through experience
has been made partly shrewder and partly more observant)
doubtful at certain moments whether any true virtue
is really to be found in the world. To become doubtful
about the reality of true virtue, you only need to
be a cold-blooded observer who does not immediately
take the liveliest wish for the good to be the actualization
of that good. And now here nothing can protect us from
falling completely away from our ideas of duty and
preserve in our soul a well-grounded respect for duty's
laws except the clear conviction that, even if there
never have been actions
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which arose from such pure sources, the question here
is not whether this or that happens but rather whether
reason by itself and independently of all appearances
commands what ought to happen. Therefore, without letting
up even a bit, reason still commands actions of which
the world has perhaps never given an example and commands
actions the feasibility of which might very much be
doubted by someone who bases everything on experience.
For example, pure honesty in friendship can no less
be demanded of every human being, even if up to now
there might never have been an honest friend, because
this duty — as duty in general — lies before all experience
in the idea of a reason that controls the will through
a priori grounds.
Unless you want to deny entirely to the concept of morality
all truth and reference to a possible object, you must
allow that the law of morality is of such widespread
significance that it must hold not just for human beings
but for all +rational beings in general+, not just
under contingent conditions and with exceptions, but
with +absolute necessity+. Given this widespread significance
and necessity, it is clear that no experience can provide
the occasion to infer even the possibility of such
absolutely necessary laws. For with what right can
we
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turn something that perhaps is only valid under the
contingent conditions of humanity into a universal
prescription valid for every rational nature? In addition,
how should laws for the determination +of our+ will
be taken to be laws for the determination of the will
of a rational being in general? And, only as laws for
rational beings in general, how can they be taken to
be laws for us? These questions could not be answered
if moral laws were merely empirical and did not have
their origin completely a priori in pure but practical
reason.
You also could not advise morality more badly than by
wanting to derive it from examples. For each example
of morality that is presented to me must itself first
be judged according to principles of morality in order
to see whether the example is worthy to serve as an
original example, that is, as a model. In no way, however,
can the example provide the concept of morality at
the highest level. Even the Holy One of the Gospel
must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection
before you can recognize Him as the Holy One. Even
he says of himself: why do you call me (whom you see)
good when no one is good (the archetype of the good)
except the one God (whom you do not see)? Where, though,
do we get the concept of God as the highest good? We
get it only from the +idea+ that reason sketches a
priori of moral perfection and that reason inseparably
connects with the concept of a free will. In moral
matters, imitation has
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no place at all, and examples only serve as encouragement;
that is, they put beyond doubt the practicability of
the commands of the moral law. Examples make intuitive
what the practical rule expresses more generally. But
examples can never justify setting aside their true
original which lies in reason and can never justify
us in letting ourselves be guided by examples.
If, then, there is no genuine highest basic principle
of morality, which would not have to rest independently
of all experience merely on pure reason, then I believe
it would not even be necessary to ask whether it would
be good to present these concepts in general (in the
abstract). For these concepts, together with the principles
that belong to them, are established a priori, so that
presenting them in general is unnecessary provided
that the knowledge of the concepts and principles is
to differ from common knowledge and is to be called
philosophical. But in our times this presentation might
well be necessary. For if you were to take a vote as
to whether pure rational knowledge apart from anything
empirical — and therefore metaphysics of morals — or
popular practical philosophy were preferred, you can
easily guess on which side the preponderance of votes
would fall.
This descent into folk concepts is certainly commendable
if the ascent to the principles of pure reason has
already taken place and has been attained with complete
satisfaction. A successful ascent would mean
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+grounding+ the doctrine of morals first on metaphysics
and later, when it is established, providing the doctrine
with +accessibility+ by popularizing it. But it is
extremely silly already to want to give in to this
crowd-pleasing popularizing in the first investigation
on which all the correctness of the basic principles
depends. Not only can this process of popularization
never lay claim to the most rare merit of a true +philosophical
popularity+ since it is no art at all to be understandable
by the ordinary person if you, in the process, give
up all fundamental insight; the process of popularization
produces a disgusting hodge-podge of mashed up observations
and crack-pot principles which airheads thoroughly
enjoy because it is after all something quite useful
for everyday blathering. In contrast to the airheads,
those people with insight feel confused and, dissatisfied,
they look away, unable to help themselves. Meanwhile,
philosophers see quite well through the deception,
but few people pay attention when the philosophers
call for a suspension of the pretended popularizing
for a short time so that the philosophers may become
rightly popular only after first acquiring definite
insight.
You only need to look at the attempts to write about
morality in that style that is thought proper. If you
do, you will sometimes find the special configuration
of human nature (but sometimes also the idea of a rational
nature in general), now perfection, now happiness,
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here moral feeling, there the fear of God, something
of this, something of that, in a wondrous mixture.
All the while, it never occurs to anyone to ask whether
the principles of morality are even to be looked for
anywhere in the knowledge of human nature (which we
can still only get from experience). It also occurs
to no one to ask whether, if the principles are not
to be found in human nature — if, instead, the principles
are to be found fully a priori, free from anything
empirical, simply in pure rational concepts and nowhere
else to even the slightest degree — it would be better
to form a plan to separate off this investigation completely
as pure practical philosophy or (if a name much decried
may be used) as metaphysics* of morals. This separation
would allow the investigation by itself alone to be
brought to its full completeness and allow the public,
which demands popularity, to be put off until the investigation
is finished.
But a metaphysics of morals that is mixed with no anthropology,
with no theology,
* You can, if you want, (just as pure mathematics
is distinguished from applied mathematics,
and pure logic is distinguished from applied
logic, therefore) distinguish pure philosophy
of morals (metaphysics) from applied (namely
to human nature) philosophy of morals. By
using this nomenclature, you are also reminded
right away that moral principles must not
be grounded on the peculiarities of human
nature. Instead, moral principles must be
a priori and independent. But, though not
grounded on human nature, the moral principles
must still be of such a kind that it remains
possible to derive from them practical rules
for every rational nature and therefore for
human nature.
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with no physics, or hyperphysics, still less with occult
qualities (which you could call hypophysical), is not
only an indispensable substrate for all securely established
theoretical knowledge of duties, but it is at the same
time a metaphysics desired because of its great importance
for the actual fulfillment of moral prescriptions.
For the representation of duty, pure and unmixed with
any foreign additions of empirical stimuli, and in
general the representation of the moral law, has an
influence on the human heart so much more powerful
than any other incentive* that you might summon up
from the empirical field. The representation has this
influence on the heart by way of reason alone (and
it is in this way that reason first becomes aware that
it can by itself also be practical). This influence
is so strong that reason, conscious of its dignity,
despises empirical incentives and little by little
can become their master. In place of this pure metaphysics
of morals, a mixed doctrine of morals, which is put
together from incentives of feelings and inclinations
and at the same time from rational concepts,
* I have a letter from the late excellent
+Sulzer+. In this letter, he asks me what
the cause might be that would explain why
the teachings of virtue, however much they
have that is convincing to reason, nevertheless
accomplish so little. My answer was delayed
by my preparations to make it complete. But
the answer is nothing other than that the
teachers of virtue themselves have not brought
their concepts into purity and have, in wanting
to make the medicine good and strong, looked
around everywhere for motives for moral goodness,
only to wind up spoiling the medicine. For
the most ordinary
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must make the mind waver between motives that cannot
be brought under any principle and that only coincidentally
lead to the good and more often lead to the bad.
The following is evident from what has been said: that
all moral concepts have their seat and origin fully
a priori in reason, and this is the case in the most
ordinary human reason just as it is in the case of
a reason that is intellectually curious to the highest
degree; that moral concepts cannot be abstracted from
any empirical cognition and therefore from any merely
contingent cognition; that it is just in the purity
of the origin of the moral concepts that their dignity
to serve us as the highest practical principles lies;
that, each time you add something empirical to the
principles, you also subtract just as much from the
genuine influence and unlimited worth of the actions
done from those principles; that it is not only of
the greatest necessity for theoretical purposes, when
it is merely a matter of intellectual curiosity,
observation shows that, if you represent an
action of integrity, showing how it, separated
from any intention of any advantage in this
or another world, was done with a steadfast
soul even under the greatest temptation of
need or of enticement and showing how it
leaves far behind itself and eclipses every
similar action that was affected in even
the least way by a foreign incentive, then
that representation of the action lifts the
soul and arouses the wish to be able to act
in such a way, too. Even fairly young children
feel this uplifting impression, and you should
never represent duties to them in any other
way.
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but it is also of the greatest practical importance
to get practical reason's concepts and laws from pure
reason, to present them pure and unmixed. Indeed, it
is of the greatest practical importance to determine
the extent of this whole practical or pure rational
knowledge, that is, to determine the whole faculty
of pure practical reason. In determining this, however,
the principles are not to be made to depend on the
special nature of human reason in the way that speculative
philosophy does permit this dependence and sometimes
even finds necessary. Instead, because moral laws are
to be valid for every rational being in general, moral
laws are to be derived from the universal concept of
a rational being in general. By means of this derivation,
all of morals, which requires anthropology for its
+application+ to human beings, is first presented completely
independently of anthropology as pure philosophy, that
is, presented first as metaphysics (which is quite
possible in this kind of knowledge that is separated
from anything empirical). Without possessing this presentation
of pure philosophy, it would certainly be pointless
to determine for judgments arising from intellectual
curiosity what precisely the moral aspect of duty is
in everything that conforms with duty. Not only would
that determination be pointless, but without that metaphysical
presentation it would be impossible to base morals
on their genuine principles even for the merely ordinary
and practical use of morals in, to give a particular
example, moral instruction. As a result, without this
derivation of all morals in a metaphysics of morals,
it would be impossible to raise people to have pure
moral dispositions and impossible to implant these
dispositions in their minds for the highest good of
the world.
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By natural steps we have already progressed in this
work from ordinary moral judgment (which is here very
worthy of respect) to the philosophical. But additional
natural steps are needed now in order to progress from
a popular philosophy, which goes no further than it
can get by groping about by means of examples, up to
metaphysics (which does not let itself be held back
further by anything empirical since it has to size
up all the contents of rational knowledge of this kind,
going in any case up to ideas, where even examples
desert us). We must follow the practical rational faculty
from its universal rules of determination up to the
place where the concept of duty springs from that faculty
and then we must clearly present that faculty.
Each thing in nature works according to laws. Only a
rational being has the capacity to act +according to
the representation+ of law, that is, according to principles,
or has a +will+. Since +reason+ is required for the
derivation of actions from laws, the will is nothing
other than practical reason. If reason unfailingly
controls the will, then the actions of such a being
that are recognized as objectively necessary are also
subjectively necessary actions. That is to say, the
will is a faculty to choose +only what+ reason, independently
of inclination,
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recognizes as practically necessary, that is, recognizes
as good. But if reason by itself alone does not have
sufficient control over the will, if the will is still
a slave to subjective conditions (such as certain incentives)
that do not always agree with the objective conditions,
if, in short, the will +in itself+ is not fully in
conformity with reason (as is actually the case with
human beings), then the actions that are objectively
recognized as necessary are subjectively contingent.
The determination or directing of such a will according
to objective laws is +necessitation+; that is, the
relation of objective laws to a will that is not thoroughly
good is represented as the steering of the will of
a rational being that listens to reason but that, according
to the nature of its will, does not necessarily follow
what it hears.
The representation of an objective principle, insofar
as it is necessitating for a will, is called a command
(of reason), and the formula of the command is called
an ++imperative++.
All imperatives are expressed through an +ought+. Through
this ought, imperatives show the relation of an objective
law of reason to a will that, according to its subjective
makeup, is not necessarily determined or directed by
the ought (a necessitation). These imperatives say
that it would be good to do or not do something, but
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they say it to a will that does not always do something
just because it has been told that it is a good thing
to do. Practical +good+, however, guides the will by
means of representations of reason and therefore does
not guide it by subjective causes but rather by objective
causes, that is, by reasons that are valid for every
rational being as such. Practical good is distinguished
from the +pleasant+. They are different in that the
pleasant exercises influence on the will only by means
of sensation from mere subjective causes that hold
only for the senses of this or that person, and the
pleasant does not exercise influence on the will as
a principle of reason that holds for everyone.*
* The dependence of the faculty of desire
on sensations is called inclination, and
so this always indicates a +need+. The dependence
of the will, however, on principles of reason
is called an +interest+. This, therefore,
only occurs in the case of a dependent will
that of itself is not always in conformity
with reason; in the case of a divine will,
you cannot think of an interest. But even
the human will can +take an interest+ in
something without +acting from interest+.
The first, taking an interest, signifies
a +practical+ interest in the action. The
second, acting from interest, signifies a
+pathological+ interest in the object of
the action. The first shows only dependence
of the will on principles of reason in themselves.
The second shows a dependence of the will
on principles of reason that benefit inclination;
in this second case, reason only furnishes
a practical rule that shows how the needs
of inclination might be satisfied. In the
first case, the action interests me. In the
second case, the object of the action interests
me (insofar as I find that object pleasant).
In the first section we saw the following:
that, in the case of an action from duty,
none of our attention must be given to the
interest in the object of the action; instead,
all our attention must be focused on interest
in the action itself and on the action's
principle in our reason (on the law).
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So a completely good will would stand just as much under
objective laws (of the good). But such a will would
not, by standing under objective laws, be able to be
represented as +necessitated+ to actions that are in
conformity with law. Such a will could not be represented
as necessitated because such a will of itself, according
to its subjective makeup, can only be controlled by
the intellectual representation of the good. No imperatives,
therefore, hold for the +divine+ will and in general
for a +holy+ will; the +ought+ is here out of place
because the +willing+ is already of itself in necessary
agreement with the law. Imperatives are, therefore,
only formulas that express the relation of objective
laws of willing in general to the subjective imperfection
of the will of this or that rational being, for example
to the subjective imperfection of the human will.
Now, all +imperatives+ command either +hypothetically+
or +categorically+. The former, hypothetical imperatives,
represent the practical necessity of a possible action
as a means to get something else that you want (or
that you might possibly want). The categorical imperative
would be the imperative which represented an action
as objectively necessary in itself, without reference
to any other end.
Because each practical law represents a possible action
as good and therefore, for a subject practically directed
by reason, as necessary,
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all imperatives are formulas for the specification of
an action that is necessary according to the principle
of a will that is good in some way. If now the action
would be good merely as a means +to something else+,
then the imperative is +hypothetical+. If the action
is thought of as good +in itself+, and therefore as
necessary in a will that is itself in conformity with
reason, reason serving as the will's principle, then
the imperative is +categorical+.
So the imperative says which action that is possible
through me would be good. The imperative represents
the practical rule in relation to a will that does
not immediately do an action because the action is
good. The will does not do it partly because the subject
does not always know that the action would be good
and partly because, even if the subject did know the
action would be good, the subject's maxims could still
be at odds with the objective principles of a practical
reason.
So the hypothetical imperative only says that an action
would be good for some +possible+ or +actual+ purpose.
In the first case, about a possible purpose, the hypothetical
imperative is a ++problematically++ practical principle.
In the second case, about an actual purpose, the hypothetical
imperative is an ++assertorically++ practical principle.
The categorical imperative, which declares the action
to be objectively necessary in itself without reference
to any purpose, that is, even without any other end,
holds as an ++absolutely necessary++ (practical) principle.
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Something that is only possible through the powers of
some rational being is something you can also think
of as a possible purpose of some will. Therefore, there
are in fact infinitely many principles of action, provided
that the action is thought of as necessary in order
to accomplish a possible purpose that the action works
to bring about. All sciences have some practical part
that consists of problems claiming that some end or
goal is possible for us and that consists of imperatives
specifying how that end or goal can be reached. These
imperatives, therefore, can in general be called imperatives
of ++skill++. The question here is not at all about
whether the end is rational and good, but instead about
what you must do in order to reach the end. The prescriptions
that the doctor uses in order to make her patient one
hundred percent again are of equal worth with the prescriptions
that a poisoner uses to bump off her victim insofar
as each set of prescriptions serves perfectly to accomplish
its purpose. Because you do not know when you are young
what ends you may stumble across later in life, parents
seek above all to have their children learn +lots and
lots of things+ and provide for +skill+ in the use
of means to all kinds of +arbitrary+ ends. The parents
cannot identify any of these optional ends as an end
that in the future will become an actual goal of their
child, but they are all still ends that it is +possible+
that their child might one day have. The parents' concern
is so great that they typically neglect to shape and
to correct their children's judgments about the worth
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of things that the children would perhaps like to make
into ends.
There is, nevertheless, +one+ end that you can presuppose
as actual in the case of all rational beings (so far
as imperatives apply to them, namely, as dependent
beings). So there is a purpose that all rational beings
not only merely +can+ have but also a purpose which
you can safely presuppose that all rational beings
do +have+ according to a natural necessity, and this
is the purpose that all rational beings have with regard
to pursuing +happiness+. The hypothetical imperative,
which represents the practical necessity of action
as a means to the advancement of happiness, is ++assertoric++.
You must not present this kind of imperative merely
as necessary for an uncertain, merely possible purpose,
but you must present the imperative as necessary for
a purpose which you can safely and a priori presuppose
in the case of every human being; and you can safely
so presuppose this because the purpose belongs to the
nature of any human being. Now, you can call skill
in the choice of means to your own greatest well-being
+prudence+* in the narrowest sense of the word. Therefore,
* The word "prudence" has two senses. In one
sense, it goes by the name "worldly prudence."
In the second sense, the word bears the name
"private prudence." The first sense, worldly
prudence, is the skill of a human being to
have influence on others in order to use
them for the human being's own purposes.
The second sense, private prudence, is the
insight to unite all these purposes for the
human being's own lasting advantage. The
latter, private prudence, is properly the
one to which even the worth of the former,
worldly prudence, is traced back. Whoever
is prudent in the first worldly sense but
not in the second private sense is someone
of whom you could more appropriately say:
she is clever and cunning, but, on the whole,
still not prudent.
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the imperative which refers to the choice of means to
your own happiness, that is, the prescription of prudence,
is always +hypothetical+; the action is commanded not
absolutely but only as a means to some other purpose.
Finally, there is an imperative which immediately commands
certain conduct and which does not lay down as a condition
for the imperative's basis some other purpose that
is to be achieved by that conduct. This imperative
is ++categorical++. This imperative does not deal with
the matter of action and the consequences of action.
Instead, this imperative deals with the form and the
principle from which the action follows, and the action's
essential good consists in the disposition, whatever
the consequences turn out to be. This imperative may
be called the imperative +of+ ++morality++.
Willing according to these three kinds of principles
is also clearly distinguished by the +dissimilarity+
of the necessitation in the will. In order to make
this stand out now, too, I think that you would classify
these three kinds of principles most appropriately
in their order if you said it in this way: the principles
are either +rules+ of skill, or +counsels+ of prudence,
or +commands (laws)+ of morality. For only the +law+
carries with it the concept of an +unconditional necessity+
that is definitely objective and therefore universally
valid. Furthermore, commands are laws
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that must be obeyed, that is, must be obeyed even against
inclination. +Advice+ certainly contains necessity,
but this necessity can hold only under a merely subjective
contingent condition. This condition is whether this
or that human being counts this or that as belonging
to her happiness. In contrast, the categorical imperative
is limited by no condition and, as absolutely necessary
even though also practically necessary, can quite properly
be called a command. You could also call the first
kind of imperative +technical+ (belonging to art),
the second +pragmatic+* (belonging to well-being),
the third +moral+ (belonging to free conduct in general,
that is, to morals).
The question now arises: how are all these imperatives
possible? This question does not demand to know how
we are to understand the performance of an action that
the imperative commands. Instead, the question just
demands to know how we are to understand the necessitation
of the will, which the imperative expresses when it
tells us what to do. How an imperative of skill is
possible really requires no special discussion. Whoever
wills the end, wills (to the extent that reason has
* It seems to me that the proper meaning of
the word "+pragmatic+" can be defined most
precisely in this way. For those +sanctions+
are called pragmatic which flow, not out
of the right of states as necessary laws,
but which flow out of the +provision+ for
the general welfare. A +history+ is pragmatic
when it makes us +prudent+, that is, when
it teaches the world how it can take better — or
at least just as good — care of its advantage
than the world did in previous eras.
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decisive influence over her actions) also the indispensable
means that are necessary to achieve the end and that
are in her power to do. This proposition is, as concerns
willing, analytic; for, in the willing of an object
as my effect, my causality as an acting cause, that
is, the use of means, is already thought, and the imperative
already extracts the concept of actions necessary to
achieve this end from a willing of this end. (To be
sure, synthetic propositions are needed in order to
figure out the means to achieve an intended purpose,
but these synthetic propositions have to do with making
the object of the action actual and not with grounding
the act of will.) Mathematics, of course, teaches only
through synthetic propositions that, in order to divide
a line in accordance with a reliable principle into
two equal parts, I must make two intersecting arcs
from the endpoints of the line. But if I know that
an intended effect can only occur by such an action,
then the following proposition is analytic: if I fully
will the effect, then I also will the action that is
required to achieve the effect. This proposition is
analytic because thinking of something as an effect
that is possible for me to bring about in a certain
way is exactly the same as thinking of myself as acting
in the same bringing-about way with respect to that
same something.
The imperatives of prudence would, if it were only as
easy to give a well-defined concept of happiness,
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agree completely with the imperatives of skill, and
the imperatives of prudence would likewise be analytic.
For the following could be said about imperatives of
prudence just as well as it is said about imperatives
of skill: who wills the end also wills (necessarily
in accordance with reason) the sole means to the end
that are in her power to do. But it is unfortunate
that the concept of happiness is such an ill-defined
concept that, although each human being wishes to achieve
happiness, she can still never say in a definite and
self-consistent way what she really wishes and wants.
The cause of this wishy-washiness is this: that all
the elements that belong to the concept of happiness
are one and all empirical, that is, all the elements
must be borrowed from experience; that, despite the
empirical basis of the concept of happiness, the idea
of happiness requires an absolute whole, a maximum
of well-being, in my present and every future condition.
Now, it is impossible that the most insightful and
at the same time most capable, but still finite being,
could make for itself a well-defined concept of what
she here really wants. If she wants riches, how much
worry, envy and intrigue might she bring down on her
own head? If she wants lots of knowledge and insight,
they might just make her eyes sharper so that she can
see all the more dreadfully the evil that currently
is hidden from her but that she cannot avoid; or they
might just burden her eager desires, which already
trouble her enough, with even more needs. If she wants
a long life, then who can guarantee her
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that it will not be a long misery? If she at least wants
health, how often has discomfort of the body kept her
from excess into which unlimited health would have
let her fall, and so on? In short, she is not able
to figure out with complete certainty according to
any basic principle what will make her truly happy,
for figuring this out would require omniscience. So
you cannot act according to well-defined principles
so as to be happy. You can only act according to empirical
counsels, for example, counsels to diet, to be thrifty,
to be courteous, to be reserved and so on. Experience
teaches us that these counsels on the average do most
to promote our well-being. From these considerations
about happiness, the following can be concluded: that
the imperatives of prudence, strictly speaking, do
not command at all, that is, the imperatives of prudence
cannot present actions objectively as practically +necessary+;
that the imperatives of prudence are to be held to
be counsels (consilia) rather than to be commands (praecepta)
of reason; that the problem of determining reliably
and universally which action will promote the happiness
of a rational being is completely insoluble; that,
therefore, no imperative with a view to happiness is
possible which in the strict sense would command you
to do what will make you happy, and such an imperative
is not possible because happiness is not an ideal of
reason but instead an ideal of imagination. This imagination
rests merely on empirical grounds, and it is pointless
for you to expect that these empirical grounds should
specify an action by which a totality of an
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in fact infinite series of consequences would be attained.
This imperative of prudence would, nevertheless, if
you assume that the means to happiness could be accurately
specified, be an analytic practical proposition. For
the imperative of prudence is distinguished from the
imperative of skill only in this: in the case of the
latter, the imperative of skill, the end is merely
possible, while in the case of the former, the imperative
of prudence, the end is given as actual. But, since
both kinds of imperative merely command the means to
something that you assume someone wants as an end,
the imperative, which commands the willing of the means
for someone who wants the end, is in both cases analytic.
So there is also no difficulty with regard to the possibility
of such an imperative of prudence.
On the other hand, the question of how the imperative
of +morality+ is possible is without doubt the only
question in need of a solution. For the imperative
of morality is not hypothetical at all and so the objectively
represented necessity can be based on no presupposition,
as in the case of the hypothetical imperatives. But
when thinking about the imperative of morality it should
always be kept in mind that whether there is any such
imperative of morality is a claim that can be established
+by no example+ and that therefore cannot be established
empirically. Instead of looking to examples, it should
also always be kept in mind that care must be taken
with anything that appears categorical because it might
yet be hypothetical in a hidden way. For example, when
it is said that you should not make deceitful promises,
and you assume that the necessity of complying with
this is definitely not merely advice to avoid
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some other evil, what is said might in a hidden way
be saying that you should not make lying promises so
that you do not, when your deceitful behavior becomes
public knowledge, ruin your reputation. An action of
this kind, which appears to be based on a categorical
imperative but might actually be based on a hypothetical
imperative in hiding, must be considered to be bad
in itself, and so the imperative prohibiting the action
is categorical. So in no example can you prove with
certainty that the will is controlled only by the law
and not by any other incentive, even though it might
appear as if only the law is controlling the will;
for it is always possible that fear of embarrassment,
perhaps also vague worries about other dangers, might
secretly have an influence on the will. Who can prove
through experience the nonexistence of a cause since
experience teaches nothing further than that we do
not perceive the cause? If there were such secret influences
on the will, the so-called moral imperative, which,
as moral, appears categorical and unconditional, would
in fact only be a pragmatic prescription that makes
us attentive to our advantage and merely teaches us
to take care of this advantage.
So we will have to investigate the possibility of a
+categorical+ imperative completely a priori since
we do not here have the advantage that the actuality
of the categorical imperative is given in experience.
If we had that advantage, we would need the possibility
of the categorical imperative not to establish it but
merely to explain it. Though we lack that advantage,
this much is provisionally evident: that the categorical
imperative alone
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reads as a practical ++law++; all other imperatives
can indeed be called +principles+ of the will, but
they cannot be called laws. The categorical imperative
alone is a practical law, while all other imperatives
are only principles of the will, because whatever is
necessary to do in order merely to attain an arbitrary
end is something that can itself be considered as contingent,
and we can be free of the prescription if we give up
the purpose; on the other hand, the unconditional command
leaves the will no wiggle room with regard to the opposite,
and therefore the unconditional command alone carries
with it the necessity which we demand of the law.
Secondly, in the case of this categorical imperative
or law of morality, the reason for the difficulty (of
looking into the possibility of such an imperative
or law) is also very great. A categorical imperative
is a synthetic practical proposition* a priori, and,
since to look into the possibility of propositions
of this kind is so difficult in theoretical knowledge,
it is easy to see that it will be no less difficult
to look into the possibility of synthetic propositions
a priori in practical knowledge.
* Without presupposing a condition from any
inclination, I connect a priori a deed with
the will. Because the connection is a priori,
the connection is also necessary (although
only objectively necessary, that is, the
connection would hold up only under the idea
of a reason that had full control over all
subjective motives). So this is a practical
proposition which does not derive the willing
of an action analytically from another already
presupposed willing of an action (for we
have no such perfect will). Instead, the
practical proposition immediately connects
the willing of an action with the concept
of the will of a rational being, the willing
of the action being something that is not
contained in the concept of the will of the
rational being.
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In tackling this problem of the possibility of a categorical
imperative, we want first to see whether the mere concept
of a categorical imperative might also provide the
formula of a categorical imperative, the formula containing
the proposition which alone can be a categorical imperative;
for how such an absolute command is possible, even
if we also know how the command reads, will still require
special and difficult effort, which we, however, put
off until the last section.
If I think of a +hypothetical+ imperative in general,
then I do not know in advance what the imperative will
contain until the imperative's condition is given.
If, however, I think of a +categorical+ imperative,
then I know at once what the imperative contains. For,
since the imperative contains, besides the law, only
the necessity of the maxim* to be in conformity with
this law, and the law contains no condition to which
was limited, nothing remains except the universality
of law in general to which the maxim of the action
is to conform,
* A +maxim+ is the subjective principle of
acting and must be distinguished from the
+objective principle+, namely from the practical
law. The former, a maxim or subjective principle,
contains the practical rule which reason
specifies in accordance with the conditions
of the subject (often the subject's ignorance
or also the subject's inclinations). So a
maxim is the basic principle according to
which the subject +acts+. The law, however,
is the objective principle; it is valid for
every rational being and is the basic principle
according to which every rational being +ought
to act+. That is, the objective principle,
the practical law, is an imperative.
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and it is this conformance alone which the imperative
properly represents as necessary.
So there is only one categorical imperative and it is
just this: +act only according to that maxim through
which you can at the same time will that it become
a universal law+.
Now, if all imperatives of duty can be derived, as from
their principle, from this one imperative, then, even
though we leave it unsettled whether or not in general
what we call duty is an baseless concept, we will still
at least be able to indicate what we think by the concept
of duty and what this concept means.
Because the universality of the law according to which
effects occur constitutes what is properly called +nature+
in the most general sense (according to nature's form),
that is, the existence of things so far as the existence
is determined according to universal laws, the universal
imperative of duty could also be expressed like this:
+so act as if the maxim of your action were to become
through your will a+ ++universal law of nature++.
Now we will list some duties according to the usual
division of duties into duties
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to oneself and to other human beings, and into perfect
and imperfect duties*.
1) A person, who is disgusted with life because of a
series of misfortunes that has grown into hopelessness,
is still sufficiently in possession of her reason that
she is able to ask herself whether it is not wholly
contrary to duty to oneself for her to commit suicide.
Now she tests whether her maxim of her action could
indeed be a universal law of nature. But her maxim
is: from self-love, I make it my principle to shorten
my life when continuing to live threatens more misery
than pleasantness. All that remains is the question
whether this principle of self-love could be a universal
law of nature. But you then soon see that a nature
whose law it was, through the same feeling that is
* You must here be sure to note that I reserve
the division of duties for a future +metaphysics
of morals+. So this division only stands
here as arbitrary (in order to order my examples).
Moreover, by a perfect duty, I here understand
a duty that allows of no exception that is
to the advantage of inclination, and regarding
such duties I have not merely outer but also
inner +perfect duties+. This way of understanding
perfect duty runs counter to the terminology
used in the schools, but I do not intend
to defend it here because for my purpose
it is all the same whether you do or do not
concede it to me.
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to urge on the blossoming of life, to destroy life would
contradict itself and would not endure as a nature.
So that maxim could not possibly exist as a universal
law of nature and consequently would wholly conflict
with the highest principle of all duty.
2) Another person sees herself forced by need to borrow
money. She very well knows that she will not be able
to repay the money, but she also sees that nothing
will be lent to her if she does not firmly promise
to pay the money back at a specific time. She feels
like making the promise; but she still has enough of
a conscience to ask herself: is it not impermissible
and contrary to duty to get out of difficulty in this
way? Assuming that she still resolves to make the promise,
then her maxim of action would read like this: when
I believe myself to be in need of money, I will borrow
money and promise to repay it even though I know that
the money will never be repaid. Now, this principle
of self-love or of one's own advantage is perhaps quite
compatible with my whole future well-being, but the
question now is whether the principle is right. So
I change the unreasonable demand of self-love into
a universal law and put the question like so: how would
things then stand if my maxim were to become a universal
law? Putting it this way, I now see at once that the
maxim could never hold as a universal law of nature
and be compatible with itself, but
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must necessarily contradict itself. For the universality
of a law, that everyone, accordingly as she believes
herself to be in need, can promise whatever she pleases
with the intention of not keeping the promise, would
make the promise itself, and perhaps the end to be
achieved by making the promise, impossible. The promise
would be impossible because no one would believe that
anything was promised to her; instead, such utterances
of promising would be ridiculed as idle pretense.
3) A third person finds in herself a talent which by
means of some cultivation could make her a human being
useful for all kinds of purposes. But she sees herself
in comfortable circumstances and prefers to indulge
in pleasure rather than to strive to enlarge and improve
her fortunate natural predispositions. But still she
asks whether, besides agreeing in itself with her tendency
to amusement, her maxim of neglecting her natural gifts
also agrees with what is called duty. Upon asking this,
she now sees for sure that a nature could always endure
according to such a natural law even if the human being
(like the South Sea Islanders) let her talents rust
and was intent on devoting her life merely to idleness,
amusement, casual sex — in a word, to enjoyment. But
she cannot possibly ++will++ that this law become a
universal law of nature or that such a natural law
be put in us by natural instinct.
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For as a rational being she necessarily wills that all
capacities in her be developed because they, after
all, are given to her and serve her for all kinds of
purposes.
Yet a +fourth+, for whom things are going well, meanwhile
sees that other people (whom she could also easily
help) have to struggle with great difficulties. She
thinks: what's that to me? May each person just be
as happy as heaven allows or as happy as she can make
herself. I will not take anything from her or even
envy her. But I do not feel like contributing anything
to her well-being or to come to her assistance in times
of need! Now, of course, if such a way of thinking
became a universal law of nature, the human race could
quite well endure. Indeed, it could endure even better
than it does when everyone blathers on nonstop about
compassion and kindness and even occasionally tries
to put these into practice but, on the other hand,
also tries to cheat, sell the right of the human being,
or otherwise violate that right. But, although it is
possible that a universal law of nature could quite
well endure according to that maxim, it is nevertheless
impossible to ++will++ that such a principle hold everywhere
as a universal law of nature. For a will that resolved
to will according to that maxim would conflict with
itself. Such a will would conflict with itself because
many cases can arise in which a person needs the love
and compassion of others and in which the person, through
such a natural law that sprung from the person's own
will,
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would rob herself of all hope for the assistance that
she wants.
These, then, are some of the many actual — or that we
at least take to be actual — duties whose spinning
off from the one principle cited above is clear. You
must +be able to will+ that a maxim of your action
become a universal law; this is the canon for morally
judging action in general. Some actions are constituted
in such a way that their maxim cannot without contradiction
even be +thought+ as a universal law of nature. Even
more implausible is that you could +will+ that the
maxim of such actions +should+ become such a universal
law of nature. In the case of other actions, that inner
impossibility is definitely not present, but to +will+
that the actions' maxim be elevated to the universality
of a law of nature is still impossible because such
a will would contradict itself. You can easily see
that the first kind of actions, having maxims that
are unthinkable as universal laws, conflict with strict
or narrower (never slackening) duty and that the second
kind of actions, having maxims that are unwillable
as universal laws, conflict with wide (meritorious)
duty. Consequently, you can also easily see that these
examples thoroughly present all duties, as far as the
kind of obligation (not the object of the dutiful action)
is concerned, as dependent on the one principle.
If we now pay attention to ourselves whenever we transgress
a duty, we find that we
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actually do not will that our maxim should become a
universal law, for that is impossible for us. Instead,
the opposite of the maxim should rather remain a law
generally. We only take the liberty for ourselves,
or (even only for this one time) to the advantage of
our inclination, to make an +exception+ to the law.
Consequently, if we were to weigh everything from one
and the same point of view, namely that of reason,
then we would encounter a contradiction in our own
will. The contradiction would be that a certain principle
should be objectively necessary as a universal law
and yet subjectively should not hold universally but
should permit exceptions. But since we at one time
consider our action from the point of view of a will
wholly in accord with reason, but then also consider
the very same action from the point of view of a will
affected by inclination, there is actually no contradiction
here. Though there is no contradiction, there is an
opposition of inclination to the prescription of reason
(antagonismus). Through this opposition, the universality
of the principle (universalitas) is changed into a
mere generality (generalitas). By means of this transformation,
the practical principle of reason is to meet the maxim
half way. Now, although this resolution of the opposition
cannot be justified by our own judgment when our judgment
is used impartially, the resolution still proves that
we actually do acknowledge the validity of the categorical
imperative and that we (with all respect for the imperative)
only permit ourselves a few,
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as it seems to us, exceptions that are minor and forced
from us.
So we have at least shown as much as the following.
We have shown that if duty is a concept that is to
contain meaning and actual lawgiving for our actions,
then this duty can only be expressed in categorical
imperatives and can in no way be expressed in hypothetical
imperatives. We have also clearly and distinctly set
forth for every use, which is already to have done
a great deal, the content of the categorical imperative,
which must contain the principle of all duty (if there
were to be such a principle at all). But, still, we
are not so far along as to prove a priori that there
actually is an imperative of this kind, that there
is a practical law which commands absolutely and by
itself without any incentives, and that following this
law is duty.
With the aim of obtaining this a priori proof, it is
of the utmost importance to be warned against your
wanting to derive the reality of this principle from
the +special quality of human nature+. For duty is
to be the practical-unconditional necessity of action.
So duty must hold for all rational beings (and only
to such beings can an imperative apply at all) and
+only for this reason+ can duty be a law for all human
wills. Whatever, on the other hand,
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is derived from the special natural predispositions
of the human being is something that can provide a
maxim for us. Whatever is derived from certain feelings
and propensities is something that can provide a maxim
for us. Indeed, whatever is derived, where possible,
from a special tendency peculiar to human reason and
not necessarily valid for the will of every rational
being is something that can definitely provide a maxim
for us, but it is not something that can provide a
law for us. All these predispositions, feelings, and
tendencies can provide a subjective principle according
to which we may act and may have a propensity and inclination
to act, but they cannot provide an objective principle
according to which we are +directed+ to act even if
all our propensity, inclination and natural makeup
were against it. What is more, the fewer the subjective
causes of a command and the more the subjective causes
against it, the more the sublimity and inner dignity
of the command in a duty is shown. This highlighting
of sublimity and dignity occurs without these subjective
causes weakening even in the least the necessity of
the law or taking anything away from the validity of
the law.
Here we now see philosophy put in fact in a precarious
position. This position is to be firm even though it
is neither suspended from anything in heaven nor supported
by anything on earth. This is where philosophy is to
prove her purity as caretaker of her own laws, not
as the spokeswoman of what an implanted sense whispers
to philosophy or as the spokeswoman of who knows what
whispering tutelary nature. Though this whispering
sense and whispering nature might always be better
than nothing at all, they can still never provide basic
principles which reason dictates and which must throughout
have their origin fully a priori and, along with this
a priori origin, at the same time have their commanding
authority.
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These a priori basic principles expect nothing from
the inclination of the human being. Instead, they expect
everything from the supreme power of the law and from
the respect owed to the law. If their expectation is
not met, then the human being is condemned to self-contempt
and inner abhorrence.
So everything that is empirical is not only wholly unsuitable
as an addition to the principle of morality, but everything
empirical is highly damaging to the purity of morals
themselves. In this purity of morals is found the proper
worth, raised above all price, of an absolutely good
will. This purity of morals consists just in this:
that the principle of action is free from all influences
of contingent grounds which can only be provided by
experience. You also cannot too frequently issue too
many warnings against this carelessness and even base
way of thinking which searches for the principle of
morality among empirical motives and laws. These warnings
cannot be too many or too frequent because human reason,
in its weariness, gladly rests on this pillow of empirical
mush, and, in a dream of sweet illusions (which, after
all, allows reason to embrace a cloud instead of Juno),
substitutes for morality a bastard patched up from
limbs of completely different ancestry. This patched
up bastard, masquerading as morality, looks like everything
that you want to see in it, except like virtue for
those who have once beheld virtue in her true form*.
* To behold virtue in her proper form is nothing
other than to exhibit morality stripped of
all admixture of sensuous
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So the question is this: is it a necessary law +for
all rational beings+ that they judge their actions
always according to maxims that they themselves can
will as maxims that should serve as universal laws?
If there is such a necessary law, then it must (completely
a priori) already be connected with the concept of
the will of a rational being in general. But in order
to discover this connection, you must, even though
you would rather not, take a step out into metaphysics.
In particular, you must take a step out into the metaphysics
of morals, which covers an area of metaphysics that
is different from the area covered by speculative philosophy.
In a practical philosophy, it is not our concern to
assume grounds for what +happens+ but rather laws for
what +ought to happen+ even if it never does happen;
that is, in a practical philosophy our concern is with
objective-practical laws. In a practical philosophy,
we have no need to undertake an investigation into
the reasons why something pleases or displeases us,
how the enjoyment of mere sensation differs from taste,
and whether taste is different from a universal satisfaction
of reason. We have no need to investigate what the
feeling of pleasure and displeasure rests on, and how
from this feeling eager desires and inclinations arise,
and then how, through the cooperation of reason, from
these desires and inclinations maxims
and all fake decorations of reward or of self-love.
By means of the slightest exercise of one's
reason, as long as that reason has not been
completely ruined for all abstraction, everyone
can easily become aware of how much virtue
then eclipses everything else that appears
enticing to inclinations.
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arise. For all that belongs to an empirical doctrine
of the soul, which would make up the second part of
the doctrine of nature if you consider it as +philosophy
of nature+ as far as it is grounded on +empirical laws+.
Here, however, we are talking about objective-practical
laws and are therefore talking about the relation of
a will to itself so far as the will controls itself
merely through reason. When this happens, when the
will controls itself merely through reason, everything
that has reference to the empirical falls away by itself.
Everything that is empirical falls away because if
+reason by itself alone+ controls behavior (and the
possibility of this kind of control is exactly what
we now want to investigate) then reason must necessarily
execute this control in an a priori way.
The will is thought as a capacity to direct itself to
act +according to the representation of certain laws+.
And such a capacity can only be found in rational beings.
An +end+ is what serves the will as an objective ground
of the will's self-direction. This end or goal, if
it is given only by reason, must hold equally for all
rational beings. On the other hand, a +means+ is what
contains merely the ground of possibility of an action
that has an end as its effect. The subjective ground
of desiring is an +incentive+; the objective ground
of willing is a +motive+; thus the difference between
subjective ends, which rest on incentives, and objective
ends, which depend on motives that
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hold for every rational being. Practical principles
are +formal+ if they abstract from all subjective ends.
But practical principles are +material+ if they make
subjective ends, and therefore certain incentives,
their basis. The ends that a rational being arbitrarily
aims at as +effects+ of her action (material ends)
are one and all only relative. For only the ends' mere
relation to a particularly fashioned faculty of desire
of the subject gives the ends their worth. This worth
can therefore provide no valid and necessary universal
principles, that is, practical laws, for all rational
beings or for every case of willing. All these relative
ends are therefore only the ground of hypothetical
imperatives.
Suppose, however, that there were something +whose existence
in itself+ has an absolute worth, something which as
an +end in itself+ could be a ground of well-defined
laws. If that were supposed, then the ground of a possible
categorical imperative, that is, the ground of a practical
law, would lie in that something and only in that something.
Now I say: the human being and in general every rational
being +exists+ as an end in itself, +not merely as
a means+ for the optional use of this or that will.
Instead, the human being must in all its actions, whether
the actions are directed at the human being performing
the action or are directed at other rational beings,
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always be considered +at the same time as an end+. All
objects of inclinations have only a conditional worth;
for, if the inclinations and needs grounded on them
did not exist, then their object would be without worth.
But inclinations themselves, as sources of need, are
very far from having an absolute worth so that they
would be wished for in themselves. Instead, it must
be the universal wish of every rational being to be
completely free of inclinations. So the worth of any
objects +to be attained+ through our action is always
conditional. The beings whose existence rests not,
to be sure, on our will but on nature still have, if
they are beings without reason, only a relative worth
as means and are therefore called +things+. On the
other hand, rational beings are called +persons+ because
their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves,
that is, as something that may not be used merely as
a means, and therefore their nature as persons limits
any choice about how to act (and is an object of respect).
So persons are not merely subjective ends whose existence
as an effect of our action has a worth +for us+. Instead,
persons are +objective ends+, that is, things whose
existence in itself is an end. In particular, their
existence in itself is an end that cannot be replaced
by some other end in such a way that their existence
is to serve the substituted end +merely+ as a means.
Another end cannot be put in place of their existence
as an end because, if the substitution could occur,
no +absolute worth+ at all would be found anywhere;
but if all
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worth were conditional and therefore contingent, then
no highest practical principle for reason could be
found anywhere.
So if there is to be a highest practical principle and,
with regard to the human will, a categorical imperative,
then it must be a principle that, from the thought
or representation of what is necessarily an end for
everyone because it is an +end in itself+, constitutes
an +objective+ principle of the will and so can serve
as a universal practical law. The ground of this principle
is: +rational nature exists as an end in itself+. The
human being necessarily conceives of her own existence
in this way. Limited to the individual in this way,
the principle is thus a +subjective+ principle of human
actions. But every other rational being also conceives
of its existence in this way on the very same rational
ground that also holds for me*. Hence, the principle
is at the same time an +objective+ principle from which,
as a highest practical ground, all laws of the will
must be able to be derived. So the practical imperative
will be the following: +act in such a way that you
treat humanity, in your own person, as well as in the
person of every other, always at the same time as an
end, never+
* Here I set this proposition out as a postulate.
In the last section you will find the reasons
for the proposition.
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+merely as a means+. We want to see if this principle
can be worked out.
If we stay with the previous examples, then we will
have the following.
+Firstly+, as regards the concept of necessary duty
toward oneself, a person who has suicide in mind will
ask herself whether her action can be compatible with
the idea of humanity +as an end in itself+. If she,
in order to escape from a troublesome situation, destroys
herself, then she makes use of a person merely as +a
means+ for maintaining a tolerable situation until
the end of life. But the human being is not a thing
and therefore is not something that can be used +merely+
as a means. Instead, the human being must in all her
actions always be considered as an end in herself.
So I can dispose of nothing about the human being in
my person, cannot maim her, corrupt her, or kill her.
(Although it would help to avoid any misunderstanding,
I have to forego a more precise specification of this
basic principle, for example, of how the principle
would apply to the amputation of limbs in order to
save myself, how it would apply to cases in which I
expose my life to danger in order to preserve my life,
and so on; this more precise specification of the principle
belongs to morals proper.)
+Secondly+, as concerns the necessary or owed duty to
others, someone who intends to make a lying promise
to others will see at once that she wants to make use
of another human being
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+merely as a means+, without the other person at the
same time having the same the end. For the person whom
I want to use for my purposes by making such a promise
cannot possibly agree with my way of proceeding against
her, and she cannot therefore contain in herself the
end of my action. This conflict with the principle
of duty owed to other human beings more clearly catches
the eye when you bring in examples of attacks on the
freedom and property of others. For then it is evident
that the transgressor of the rights of human beings
intends to make use of the person of others merely
as a means and intends to do this without taking into
consideration that the others, as rational beings,
ought always to be valued at the same time as ends,
that is, ought always to be valued as beings who must
also be able to have in themselves the end of the very
same action*.
+Thirdly+, with regard to the contingent (meritorious)
duty to oneself, it's not enough that the
* You should not think that here the trivial:
what you do not want done to you etc. can
serve as a rule of thumb for conduct or as
a guiding principle. For this trivial saying
is, although with various limitations, only
derived from the principle of duty owed to
others; it cannot be a universal law, for
it does not contain the ground of duties
to oneself, does not contain the ground of
duties of love to others (for many a person
would gladly agree that others should not
do anything to benefit her if only she may
be excused from showing them any kindness).
And, finally, this trivial saying does not
contain the ground of duties owed to one
another; for the criminal would use this
deficiency to argue against the judges who
are punishing her, and so on.
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action not conflict with the humanity in our person
as an end in itself; the action must also +harmonize
with that humanity in our person+. Now, in humanity
there are predispositions to greater perfection that
belong to the end of nature with regard to humanity
in our subject. To neglect these predispositions would
be, at most, probably compatible with the +preservation+
of humanity as an end in itself, but neglecting them
would not be compatible with the +promotion+ of this
end.
+Fourthly+, with regard to meritorious duty to others,
the natural end that all human beings have is their
own happiness. Now, humanity would no doubt endure
if no one contributed anything to the happiness of
others but also, in so doing, intentionally withdrew
nothing from that happiness. But, if everyone does
not also try, as far as she can, to promote the ends
of others, then this neutrality is still only a negative
and not positive harmonization with +humanity as an
end in itself+. For the ends of a subject which is
an end in itself must, as far as possible, also be
+my+ ends, if that thought of an end in itself is to
have +full+ effect in me.
This principle of humanity and of each rational nature
in general +as an end in itself+ (which is the highest
limiting condition on the freedom
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of action of every human being) is not borrowed from
experience. First, because of the principle's universality,
applying as it does to all rational beings in general,
and since no experience is sufficient to say anything
definite about all rational beings in general, the
principle is not borrowed from experience. Secondly,
the principle also is not borrowed from experience
because, in the principle, humanity is not represented
or thought of as an end of human beings (subjectively);
that is, humanity is not represented as an object which
you by yourself actually make into an end; instead,
humanity is represented as an objective end which,
whatever ends we might happen to have, as a law is
to constitute the highest limiting condition of all
subjective ends. Therefore, the principle must arise
from pure reason. In particular, the ground of all
practical lawgiving resides +objectively in the rule+
and in the form of universality. This universality
(according to the first principle) makes the rule capable
of being a law (possibly a natural law). +Subjectively+,
however, the ground of practical lawgiving resides
in the +end+. The subject of all ends, however, is
each rational being as an end in itself (according
to the second principle). From this the third practical
principle of the will, as the highest condition of
the harmony of the will with universal practical reason,
now follows: the idea +of the will of every rational
being as a will giving universal law+.
According to this third practical principle of the will,
all maxims which are not consistent with the will's
own universal lawgiving are rejected. So the will is
not only subject to the law,
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but the will is subject to the law in such a way that
the will must also be seen +as giving law to itself+;
and, just because the will does give law to itself,
the will must be seen as first of all subject to the
law (of which the will itself can consider itself the
author).
Up to now, imperatives have been modelled according
to two different ways of thinking of the imperatives.
One way of thinking of imperatives is to represent
them as expressing a conformity of actions to law,
that conformity being generally similar to a +natural
order+. A second way represents imperatives as expressing
the universal +priority of the end+ of rational beings.
Both of these ways of representing imperatives definitely
excluded from the imperatives' commanding authority
all admixture of any interest as an incentive. All
interest was excluded precisely because the imperatives
were represented as categorical; they, however, were
only +assumed+ to be categorical because you had to
assume that they were categorical if you wanted to
explain the concept of duty. That there are, however,
practical propositions that command categorically could
not itself be proved. No more than before, that there
are such propositions can also not yet be proved anywhere
here in this section. But one thing could still have
been done, namely: that in cases of willing from duty,
the renunciation of any interest — that renunciation
being the specific mark distinguishing categorical
imperatives from hypothetical imperatives — would be
jointly indicated in the imperative itself by some
specific feature that the imperative contains. This
joint indication of renunciation of interest and distinction
between types of imperative occurs in the present third
formula of the principle, namely, in the idea of the
will of each rational being as a +will giving universal
law+.
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For if we think of such a will, then, although a will
+that stands under laws+ may still be connected to
this law by an interest, it is impossible for a will
which itself is highest in lawgiving to be dependent
to such an extent on any interest; for such a dependent
will would itself require still another law that would
limit the interest of the will's self-love to the condition
of the interest's validity as universal law.
So the +principle+ of every human will as +a will giving
universal law through all its maxims+* would be quite
+well-suited+ to be a categorical imperative, if the
principle were quite correct in other ways. The principle
would be well-suited to be a categorical imperative
because the principle, just for the sake of the idea
of universal lawgiving, +rests on no interest+ and
therefore alone among all possible imperatives can
be +unconditional+. The reason for the well-suitedness
of the principle can be stated even better if we turn
the proposition around: if there is a categorical imperative
(that is, a law for the will of every rational being),
then the imperative can only command that the rational
being always act from the maxim of the being's will
regarded as a will that at the same time could have
itself as giving universal law
* I can here be excused from citing examples
to illustrate this principle, for those examples
first used in this way to illustrate the
categorical imperative and its formula can
all serve just the same purpose here.
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as an object. For only then is the practical principle
and the imperative which the will obeys unconditioned
because the imperative can have no interest at all
as a ground.
It is now not surprising, when we look back on all previous
efforts that have ever been undertaken to discover
the principle of morality, why they had to fail in
every case. You saw the human being bound by its duty
to laws, but it never occurred to anyone that the human
being is subject +only to its own+, but still +universal,
lawgiving+ and that the human being is only obligated
to act according to its own will which, according to
nature's end, however, is universally lawgiving. For,
if you conceived of the human being only as subject
to a law (whichever law it might be), then this law
had to carry with itself some interest as an attraction
or constraint. The law had to have this attracting
or constraining interest because the law did not arise
from the +human being's+ will as a law; instead, the
human being's will was necessitated to act in a certain
way in conformity to law by +something else+. But by
this entirely necessary consequence, all labor expended
in trying to find a highest ground of duty was irretrievably
lost. For you never got duty; instead, you only got
necessity of action from a certain interest. Now, this
interest might be your own or another's. But in either
case the imperative always had to turn out conditioned
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and could not at all be suited to be the moral command.
So I want to call this basic principle the principle
of the +autonomy+ of the will, in opposition to every
other principle which I therefore count as ++heteronomy++.
The concept of any rational being which must consider
itself as giving universal law through all of the maxims
of its will, in order to judge itself and its action
from this point of view, leads to a very fruitful concept.
This latter, very fruitful concept hangs on the former
concept of any rational being and is the concept +of
an empire of ends+.
But, by an +empire+, I understand the systematic union
of different rational beings through a common law.
Now, because laws determine ends according to the laws'
universal validity, an empire of ends can be thought
which is possible according to the above principles.
But the thought of this empire of ends becomes possible
in this way only if you also abstract from the personal
differences of rational beings and from all content
of their private ends. If you abstract in this way,
then the thought of a whole of all ends (not only a
whole of rational beings as ends in themselves but
also of individual ends which each rational being may
set for herself) in a systematic bond is possible.
For rational beings all stand under the +law+ that each
rational being is to treat itself and all other rational
beings
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+never merely as a means+, but instead always +at the
same time as an end in itself+. But from this law,
and from the treatment the law prescribes, there arises
a systematic union of rational beings through common
objective laws. That is, an empire arises which, because
these laws have as their aim just the relation of these
beings to each other as ends and means, can be called
an empire of ends (which is, admittedly, only an ideal).
A rational being, however, belongs to an empire of ends
as a +member+, if the rational being is, of course,
universally lawgiving in the empire but also is itself
subject to these laws. A rational being belongs to
an empire of ends +as head+, if the rational being
as lawgiving is subject to the will of no other.
The rational being must always consider itself as lawgiving
in an empire of ends possible through freedom of the
will, whether it be as member or as head. A rational
being cannot keep the seat of the latter, the head's
seat, merely by the maxims of its will; instead, a
rational being can keep the seat only when the rational
being is a completely independent being without need
and without limitation to its power that is adequate
to its will.
So morality consists in the relation of all action to
the lawgiving through which alone an empire of ends
is possible. This lawgiving must, however,
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be found in every rational being itself and must be
able to arise from the rational being's will. The principle
of the rational being's will is thus this: to do no
action according to any maxim unless the maxim could
be a universal law and thus to do an action only if
+the will could through its maxim consider itself at
the same time as giving universal law+. Now, if the
maxims are not by their nature already necessarily
in agreement with this objective principle of rational
beings as giving universal law, then the necessity
of action according to that principle is called practical
necessitation, that is, +duty+. Duty does not apply
to the head in the empire of ends, but duty surely
does apply to each member and, to be sure, to each
member in equal measure.
The practical necessity of acting according to this
principle, that is, the duty, does not rest at all
on feelings, impulses and inclinations. Instead, the
practical necessity of acting according to this principle
rests merely on the relation of rational beings to
each other. In this relation, the will of a rational
being must always at the same time be considered as
+giving law+ because otherwise the rational being could
not think other rational beings as +ends in themselves+.
So reason refers every maxim of the will as giving
universal law to every other will and also to every
action towards oneself. Reason definitely does not
make these references to other wills and to self-directed
actions for the sake of any other practical motive
or for the sake of future advantage. Instead, reason
makes these references from the idea of the
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+dignity+ of a rational being who obeys no law except
a law that the rational being itself gives at the same
time.
In the empire of ends everything has either a ++price++
or a ++dignity++. What has a price is something in
the place of which something else, as an +equivalent+,
can also be placed. What, on the other hand, is elevated
above all price, that has a dignity.
What refers to general human inclinations and needs
has a +market price+. That which, even without presupposing
a need, accords with a certain taste, that is, accords
with a delight in the mere purposeless play of our
powers of mind, has a +fancy price+. That, however,
which constitutes the condition under which alone something
can be an end in itself has not merely a relative worth,
that is, a price, but instead has an inner worth, that
is, +dignity+.
Now, morality is the condition under which alone a rational
being can be an end in itself. Morality is the only
condition because only through morality is it possible
to be a lawgiving member in the empire of ends. So
morality, and humanity insofar as it is capable of
morality, is that which alone has dignity. Skill and
diligence in work have a market price; wit,
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lively imagination and humor have a fancy price. In
contrast, sincerity in promising, kindness from basic
principles (not from instinct), have an inner worth.
Nature as well as art contain nothing which they, lacking
sincerity and kindness, could put in place of sincerity
and kindness; for the worth of sincerity and kindness
consists not in the effects which arise from them,
not from the advantage and profit which they provide.
Instead, the worth of sincerity and kindness consists
in the dispositions, that is, in the maxims of the
will, that are ready to reveal themselves in this way
in actions even if success does not favor them. These
actions also require no recommendation from any subjective
disposition or taste in order to be regarded with immediate
favor and delight; they require no immediate tendency
or feeling in order to be regarded in such a way. These
actions of sincerity and kindness present the will
that practices them as an object of an immediate respect.
For this presentation of the will as a respected object,
nothing but reason is required in order +to impose+
the actions on the will. To +coax+ the actions from
the will, which in the case of duties would anyhow
be a contradiction, is not required for the presentation
of the will as a respected object. This valuation thus
shows the worth of such a way of thinking as dignity
and puts dignity infinitely far above all price. Dignity
cannot be brought into calculation or comparison with
price at all without, so to speak, assaulting dignity's
holiness.
And now, then, what is it that justifies the morally
good disposition or virtue in making such lofty claims?
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What justifies it is nothing less than the +share+ that
the disposition provides to the rational being +in
universal lawgiving+. By providing this share in universal
lawgiving, the disposition makes the rational being
fit to be a member in a possible empire of ends. The
rational being was already destined by its own nature
as an end in itself and therefore as a lawgiver in
an empire of ends to be fit to be such a member and
to be free with regard to all natural laws, obeying
only those laws that the rational being itself gives
and only those laws according to which the rational
being's maxims can belong in a universal lawgiving
(to which the rational being at the same time subjects
itself). For nothing has a worth except that worth
which the law determines for it. But lawgiving itself,
which determines all worth, must for just that reason
have a dignity, that is, have unconditional, incomparable
worth. Only the word '+respect+' provides the appropriate
expression of the valuation that a rational being must
assign to dignity. +Autonomy+ is therefore the ground
of the dignity of human nature and of all rational
nature.
The three ways above, however, of representing the principle
of morality are at bottom only so many formulas of
the very same law, in which one by itself unites the
other two in itself. Meanwhile, there is still a difference
in them that is definitely subjectively practical rather
than objectively practical, namely, so as to bring
an idea of reason closer to intuition (according to
a certain analogy)
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and, by bringing the idea closer to intuition, bringing
the idea closer to feeling. All maxims have, namely
1) a +form+, which consists in universality, and here
the formula of the moral imperative is expressed in
this way: that maxims must so be chosen as if they
were to hold as universal laws of nature;
2) a +matter+, namely an end, and here the formula says:
that the rational being, as an end according to its
nature, therefore as an end in itself, must serve for
every maxim as the limiting condition of all merely
relative and optional ends;
3) +a complete determination+ of all maxims through
that formula, namely: that all maxims as individual
lawgiving ought to harmonize with a possible empire
of ends, as with an empire of nature*. The progression
happens here as through the categories of +unity+ of
the form of the will (of the universality of the will),
of +plurality+ of the matter (of the objects, that
is, of the ends), and of +allness+ or totality of the
system of ends. But you do better if in moral +judgment+
you always
* Teleology considers nature as an empire
of ends. Morals considers a possible empire
of ends as an empire of nature. In the former,
teleological, consideration, the empire of
ends is a theoretical idea that explains
what exists. In the latter, moral, consideration,
the empire of ends is a practical idea for
bringing into existence what does not exist
but which can, in accordance of course with
precisely this practical idea, become actual
through our conduct.
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proceed according to the strict method and make the
universal formula of the categorical imperative the
ground of judgment: +act according to the maxim which
can make itself at the same time into a universal law+.
If, however, you want at the same time to make the
moral law more +accessible+, then it is very useful
to lead one and the same action through the three named
concepts of unity of form, plurality of matter, and
allness of the system of ends and, by doing this, bring
the three concepts, as far as possible, closer to intuition.
We can now end where we began, namely, with the concept
of an unconditionally good will. That +will+ is +absolutely
good+ which cannot be bad and therefore whose maxim,
if the maxim is made into a universal law, can never
conflict with itself. So this principle is also the
will's highest law: act always according to that maxim
whose universality as law you can at the same time
will; this is the sole condition under which a will
can never be in conflict with itself, and such an imperative
is categorical. Because the validity of the will, as
a universal law for possible actions, is analogous
to the universal connection of the existence of things
according to universal laws, which is what is formal
in nature in general, the categorical imperative can
also be expressed in this way: +Act according to maxims
which can have themselves, as universal laws of nature,
at the same time as an object+.
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That, then, is the makeup of the formula of an absolutely
good will.
Rational nature distinguishes itself from the others
by setting an end for itself. This end would be the
matter of any good will. Since, however, in the idea
of an absolutely good will without a limiting condition
(of the attainment of this or that end) complete abstraction
must be made from any end +to be produced+ (as this
kind of end would make every will only relatively good),
the end here must be thought not as one to be produced
+but rather as a self-sufficient+ end. So the end here
must be thought only negatively, that is, as something
never acted against, and therefore as something which
must never be valued merely as a means but which must
instead always at the same time in every act of willing
be valued as an end. This end can be nothing other
than the subject of all possible ends itself because
this subject at the same time is the subject of a possible
absolutely good will; for this will can, without contradiction,
be subordinated to no other object. The principle:
act in reference to each rational being (to yourself
and others) in such a way that the rational being is
considered in your maxim at the same time as an end
in itself, is accordingly at bottom one and the same
as the basic principle: act according to a maxim that
contains in itself at the same time its own universal
validity for every rational being. For, saying that
I ought to limit my maxim, in the use
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of means to every end, to the condition of the maxim's
universal validity as a law for every subject, is the
same as saying that the subject of ends must be made
the ground of all maxims of actions. That is, it is
the same as saying that the rational being itself must
never be treated as a mere means but instead must be
treated as the highest limiting condition in the use
of all means, that is, must always be treated at the
same time as an end.
From what has been said above, these points now follow
incontestably. First, each rational being, as an end
in itself, must, with reference to all laws to which
the rational being may ever be subject, be able to
look at itself at the same time as giving universal
law. The rational being must be able to look at itself
in this way because it is just this fitness of the
rational being's maxims for universal lawgiving that
mark out the rational being as an end in itself. Second,
the dignity of the rational being (its prerogative)
before all merely natural beings brings with it that
the rational being's maxims must always be taken from
the point of view of the rational being itself and
also at the same time from the point of view of each
other rational being as a lawgiving being (for which
reason the other rational beings are also called persons).
Now, in this way a world of rational beings (mundus
intelligibilis) as an empire of ends is possible, and
indeed possible through the individual lawgiving of
all persons as members. Accordingly, each rational
being must act in such a way as if the rational being,
through its maxims, always were a lawgiving member
in the universal empire of ends. The formal principle
of these maxims is:
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act in such a way as if your maxim at the same time
were to serve as the universal law (of all rational
beings). So an empire of ends is only possible according
to the analogy with an empire of nature. But, in thinking
by means of this analogy, it must be kept in mind that
the former, the empire of ends, operates only according
to maxims, that is, to self-imposed rules, and that
the latter, the empire of nature, operates only according
to laws of externally necessitated efficient causes.
Despite this difference in operation, we still call
the whole of nature an empire of nature; we still give
the whole of nature this name, even though the whole
of nature is seen as a machine, insofar as the whole
of nature has reference to rational beings as its ends.
Now, such an empire of ends would actually come into
existence through maxims whose rule the categorical
imperative prescribes to all rational beings, +if the
maxims were universally followed+. The following are
things that the rational being cannot count on happening:
first, that, even if the rational being itself were
to follow this maxim to the letter, every other rational
being would therefore faithfully follow the same maxim;
second, that the empire of nature and its purposive
order will harmonize with the rational being as with
a fitting member of an empire of ends possible through
the rational being itself — that is, that the empire
of nature will favor the rational being's expectation
of happiness. But, although the rational being cannot
count on these things, that law still remains: act
according to maxims of a member giving universal law
to a merely possible empire of ends. That law remains
in full force because it commands categorically. And
it is just in this that the paradox lies: first, that
merely the dignity of the human being, as rational
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nature without any other end or advantage to be attained
by this dignity, therefore with respect for a mere
idea, is nevertheless to serve as the constant prescription
of the will; and second, that it is just in this independence
of the maxim from all such incentives that the sublimity
of the maxim consists and in which the worthiness of
any rational subject to be a lawgiving member in the
empire of ends consists. For without this independence
the rational subject would have to be thought of as
subject only to the natural laws of its needs. Even
if the natural empire as well as the empire of ends
were thought as united under one head and through this
unification the latter, the empire of ends, no longer
remained a mere idea but instead received true reality,
the idea would definitely gain a strong incentive,
but through this unification the idea would never receive
an increase in its inner worth. For, if this unification
under one head did occur, even this sole unlimited
lawgiver would still always have to be thought of as
judging the worth of the rational being only according
to the rational beings' disinterested conduct that
the rational beings prescribe for themselves merely
from that idea of an empire of ends. The essence of
things does not change through their outer relations,
and, without thinking of these outer relations, what
alone constitutes the absolute worth of the human being
has to be that according to which the human being must
also be judged, no matter who the judge may be — even
if the judge is the highest being. So +morality+ is
the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will,
that is, to the possible universal
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lawgiving through the will's maxims. An action that
is compatible with the autonomy of the will is +permitted+.
An action that is not compatible with the autonomy
of the will is +impermissible+. The will whose maxims
necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy is
a +holy+, absolutely good will. The dependence of a
will that is not absolutely good on the principle of
autonomy (moral necessitation) is +obligation+. So
obligation cannot apply to a holy being. The objective
necessity of an action from obligation is called +duty+.
You can now easily explain from what has just been said
how it comes about: that, although under the concept
of duty we think a subjection under the law, in thinking
this we still at the same time imagine a certain sublimity
and +dignity+ in that person who fulfills all of her
duties. For there is definitely no sublimity in the
person insofar as the person is +subject+ to the moral
law. More plausibly, however, there is sublimity in
the person insofar as the person, with regard to the
very same moral law, at the same time is +lawgiving+
and only because of that lawgiving is subject to that
law. We have also shown above how neither fear nor
inclination but, instead, how only respect for the
law is that incentive which can give an action a moral
worth. Our own will, so far as it would act only under
the condition of a universal lawgiving possible through
the will's maxims,
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is the proper object of respect. This will is possible
for us in the idea of an empire of ends; and the dignity
of the human being consists just in this capability
to give universal law, although on the condition of
being itself at the same time subject to just this
lawgiving.
++The autonomy of the will++
++as++
+highest principle of morality.+
Autonomy of the will is the characteristic of the will
by which the will is a law to itself (independently
of any characteristic of the objects of willing). So
the principle of autonomy is: not to choose otherwise
than in such a way that the maxims of your choice are
included as universal law at the same time in the same
act of will. That this practical rule is an imperative,
that is, that the will of every rational being is necessarily
bound to the rule as a condition, cannot be proven
by mere analysis of the concepts present in the principle
because the principle is a synthetic proposition. To
prove that this practical rule is an imperative, you
would have to go out beyond the knowledge of objects
and to a critique of the subject, that is, a critique
of pure practical reason; and you would have to undertake
such a critique because this synthetic proposition,
which commands with absolute necessity, must be able
to be known completely a priori. This task of a critique,
however, does not belong in the present
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section. But that the aforesaid principle of autonomy
is the sole principle of morals can quite well be shown
by mere analysis of the concepts of morality. For by
carrying out such an analysis, we find that the principle
of morality must be a categorical imperative and that
this imperative commands nothing more nor less than
just this autonomy.
+The heteronomy of the will+
+as the source of all spurious principles+
+of morality.+
If the will seeks what is to guide it +in anything else+
than in the suitability of the will's maxims to the
will's own universal lawing, then +heteronomy+ always
results. If, that is, the will, in going out beyond
itself, seeks the law that is to guide the will in
the character of any of the will's objects, then heteronomy
always results. In cases of heteronomy, the will does
not give itself the law; but, instead, the object through
its relation to the will gives the law to the will.
This relation, whether it rests now on inclination
or on representations of reason, only allows hypothetical
imperatives to be possible: I ought to do something
just +because I want something else+. In contrast,
the moral imperative, and therefore the categorical
imperative, says: I ought to act thus and so even if
I wanted nothing else. For example, the former, hypothetical
imperative, says: I ought not lie, if I want to retain
my honorable reputation; but the latter,
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moral or categorical imperative, says: I ought not lie
even if it brought upon me not the least shame. So
the latter, categorical imperative, must abstract from
all objects to such an extent that the objects would
have no +influence+ at all on the will, so that practical
reason (will) would not merely administer alien interest
but instead would merely prove its own commanding authority
as highest lawgiving. So I ought, for example, to seek
to promote the happiness of others, not as if the existence
of that happiness were any of my concern (whether it
be through immediate inclination or some satisfaction
provided indirectly through reason); instead, I ought
to promote the existence of that happiness just because
the maxim that excludes that happiness cannot be included
in one and the same willing as a universal law.
++Division++
+of all possible principles of morality+
+from the+
++assumed basic concept++
+of heteronomy.+
Human reason has here, as everywhere in human reason's
pure use so long as human reason lacks a critique,
previously tried all possible incorrect ways before
human reason succeeds in hitting upon the one correct
way.
All principles that you might take from the point of
view of human reason are either +empirical+ or
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+rational+. The ++first++, from the principle of +happiness+,
are built on physical or moral feeling. The ++second++,
from the principle of +perfection+, are built either
on the rational concept of perfection as a possible
effect or on the concept of a self-sufficient perfection
(the will of God) as a controlling cause of our will.
+Empirical principles+ are not at all fit to be the
ground of moral laws. For the universality with which
the laws are to hold for all rational beings without
difference — the unconditional practical necessity
that is imposed on rational beings by this universality
of moral laws — falls away if the ground of the laws
is taken from the +particular arrangement of human
nature+ or from the contingent circumstances in which
that nature is placed. But the principle of +personal
happiness+ is most objectionable, not merely because
it is false, and because experience contradicts the
pretense that well-being always adjusts itself according
to good conduct, and also not merely because the principle
contributes nothing at all to the grounding of morality
since it is something quite different to make a happy
human being than to make a good human being and something
quite different to make a human being prudent and alert
to what might be to her advantage than to make her
virtuous. To be sure, those flaws make the principle
of personal happiness objectionable, but it is most
objectionable because it puts incentives underneath
morality, and these incentives, rather than supporting
morality, instead undermine it and destroy its entire
sublimity.
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The incentives undermine morality because they put motives
to virtue in the same class with motives to vice and
because the incentives only teach us to calculate better
what is to our personal advantage or disadvantage,
thus thoroughly obliterating the specific difference
between virtue and vice. On the other hand, moral feeling,
this supposed special sense*, (however shallow the
appeal to this sense is, in that those who cannot +think+
even about what depends merely on universal law believe
they can help themselves out through +feeling+, feelings,
which according to their ranking by nature are infinitely
different from each other, provide just as little a
uniform standard of good and bad; you also cannot judge
at all validly through your feeling for others), nevertheless
remains closer to morality and its dignity for the
following reasons. First, moral feeling remains closer
because moral feeling does virtue the honor of ascribing
+immediately+ to virtue the delight and high esteem
that we have for virtue. Second, moral feeling remains
closer to morality and its dignity because moral feeling
does not say to virtue, as if to her face, that it
is not her beauty but instead only the advantage to
us that ties us to her.
Among the +rational+ grounds of morality or grounds
based on reason, there is still the ontological concept
of
* I classify the principle of moral feeling
with the principle of happiness because any
empirical interest promises a contribution
to well-being through the agreeableness that
something offers us, whether this agreeableness
is immediate and without a view to advantages
or whether the agreeableness occurs with
regard to those advantages. Likewise, you
must classify, with +Hutcheson+, the principle
of compassion for the happiness of others
with the same moral sense that he assumed.
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+perfection+. (This concept is exceedingly unfounded,
indeterminate, and therefore useless for discovering
in the immense field of possible reality the greatest
sum appropriate for us. The concept also has an unavoidable
tendency, in specifically distinguishing reality, which
is here under discussion, from every other, to turn
around in a circle and cannot avoid secretly presuming
the morality that the concept is to explain.) Despite
the drawbacks of this concept of perfection, it is
still better than the theological concept, still better
than deriving morality from a divine all-perfect will.
The concept of perfection is better not merely because
we cannot of course see the divine will's perfection
but instead can only derive that perfection from our
concepts, chief among our concepts being that of morality.
Rather, the concept of perfection is also better because,
if we do not do this derivation (which, if we did do
it, would amount to a crude circle in the explanation),
the concept left to us of the divine will would have
to be made the foundation for a system of morals; but
that concept left to us would be made up of the attributes
of eager desire for glory and dominion, combined with
terrible thoughts of power and of thirst for vengeance,
and a concept made up of such attributes would pit
the concept directly against morality.
But if I had to choose between the concept of moral
sense and that of perfection in general (both of which
at least do no harm to morality, although they are
not at all suited to support morality as its foundations),
then I would decide for the latter.
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I would choose the concept of perfection because the
concept of perfection, since it at least transfers
the decision of the question from sensibility to the
court of pure reason, although here the concept also
decides nothing, nevertheless preserves unfalsified
the vague idea (of a will good in itself) for more
precise specification.
Regarding the remaining rational grounds for morality,
I believe I can be excused from a lengthy refutation
of all these doctrines. It is so easy to refute these
doctrines that even those whose job requires that they
declare themselves for one of these theories (because
listeners will not put up with a postponement of judgment)
presumably see through the theories, so that refuting
the theories here would only be superfluous labor.
What interests us more, however, is to know the following:
that these principles everywhere set up nothing but
heteronomy of the will as the first ground of morality,
and that for just this reason these principles must
necessarily fail in their purpose.
In all cases in which an object of the will must be
made the basis of action in order to prescribe to the
will the rule that is to guide the will, the rule is
nothing but heteronomy; the imperative is conditional,
namely: +if+ or +because+ you want this object, you
ought to act in such and such a way. Therefore, the
imperative can never command morally, that is, categorically.
Whether the object controls the will by means of inclination,
as with the principle of your own happiness,
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or controls the will by means of reason directed to
objects of our possible willing in general, in the
principle of perfection, the will never controls itself
+immediately+ by the thought of an action. Instead,
the will controls itself only by the incentive which
the anticipated effect of the action has on the will;
+I ought do something just because I want something
else+, and here yet another law must be put in my subject
as a ground according to which I necessarily will this
other thing that I want, and this other law again requires
an imperative which would limit this maxim. The reason
for this lack of direct self-control by the will is
the following: the thought of an object that we can
bring about through our own powers is to exert an impulse
on the subject's will; this exertion occurs according
to the natural constitution of the subject; so the
impulse belongs to the nature of the subject; whether
the impulse belongs to the nature of the subject's
sensibility (of inclination and taste) or to the nature
of the subject's understanding and reason, these features
of the subject, according to the special arrangement
of their nature, allow the subject to take delight
in an object. In this way, it is, properly speaking,
nature that would give the law. This law, as one given
by nature, must be recognized and proved through experience,
and so is contingent in itself. Because of this contingency,
this law given by nature becomes unfit to be an absolutely
necessary practical rule, which is the kind of practical
rule that the moral rule must be. Not only is this
law given by nature contingent and so unfit to be a
moral law, but this law given by nature is +always
only heteronomy+ of the will; the will does not give
the law to itself, but rather an alien impulse gives
the law to the will by means of a
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nature of the subject that is disposed to receive the
law.
So the absolutely good will, whose principle must be
a categorical imperative and whose choices are not
controlled by any objects, will contain merely the
+form of willing+ in general. Indeed, the absolutely
good will contains this form of willing in general
as autonomy. That is to say, the suitability of the
maxim of any good will to make itself into a universal
law is itself the sole law that the will of any rational
being imposes on itself, and the rational being imposes
this law on itself without making any incentive or
interest of the maxim the basis of the law.
+How such a synthetic practical proposition a priori
is possible+ and why the proposition is necessary,
is a problem whose solution no longer lies within the
boundaries of the metaphysics of morals. We have also
not asserted the proposition's truth, much less pretending
to have within our power a proof of the truth of the
proposition. We only showed by analyzing the generally
accepted concept of morality that an autonomy of the
will, in an unavoidable way, attaches to the will or,
rather, is the ground of the will. So, whoever takes
morality to be something and not to be a wildly fanciful
idea without truth must at the same time admit morality's
principle of autonomy that was cited above. So this
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section was merely analytic, just like the first section.
Now, that morality is not a phantom, which follows
if the categorical imperative and with it the autonomy
of the will is true and is absolutely necessary as
a principle a priori, requires a +possible synthetic
use of pure practical reason+. But we may not venture
on this use of pure practical reason without first
giving a +critique+ of this rational faculty itself.
Sufficient for our purpose, we have to present the
main features of such a critique in the last section.
_____________________________
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++Third Section.++
++Transition++
+from the+
++metaphysics of morals to the critique++
+of pure practical reason.+
_____________________________
+The concept of freedom+
+is the+
+key to the explanation of the autonomy+
+of the will.+
The +will+ is a kind of causality that living beings
have insofar as they are rational. +Freedom+ would
be that property of this causality by which the causality
can be effective independently of alien causes +controlling+
the will as a causality. Similarly, +natural necessity+
is the property of causality of all non-rational beings
to be directed to activity by the influence of alien
causes.
The above explanation of freedom is +negative+ and is
therefore unfruitful for seeing into the essence of
freedom. But out of this negative explanation there
flows a +positive+ concept of freedom which is so much
richer and more fruitful. The concept of a causality
carries with it the concept of +laws+ according to
which, by something that we call a cause, something
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else, namely the effect, must be assumed as a fact.
Because the concepts of causality and law are related
in this way, although freedom is not a property of
the will according to natural laws, freedom is still
not entirely lawless. Instead of operating according
to natural laws, freedom must rather be a causality
according to unchanging laws, but unchanging laws of
a special kind; for a free will would be an impossibility
if it did not operate according to some kind of law.
Natural necessity was a heteronomy of efficient causes;
for each effect was possible only according to the
law that something else determined the efficient cause
to become causally active. What, then, can freedom
of the will possibly be other than autonomy, that is,
the property of the will to be a law to itself? But
the proposition that the will is in all actions itself
a law signifies only the principle to act according
to no other maxim except one that can also have itself
as a universal law as an object. This principle, however,
is just the formula of the categorical imperative and
the principle of morality. So a free will and a will
under moral laws are one and the same.
If, therefore, freedom of the will is presupposed, then
morality together with morality's principle follow
from that presupposition merely by analysis of the
presupposition's concept. Nevertheless, the latter,
morality's principle, is still always a synthetic proposition:
an absolutely good will is a will whose maxim always
can contain itself, considered as a universal law,
in itself,
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for through analysis of the concept of an absolutely
good will that property of the maxim (i.e., the maxim's
property to be able to contain itself as a universal
law) cannot be found. Such synthetic propositions,
however, are only possible by this: that both cognitions
are bound to each other through the connection with
a third in which both cognitions are to be found. The
+positive+ concept of freedom provides this third cognition.
Unlike in cases dealing with physical causes, in this
case this third cognition cannot be the nature of the
world of sense (in which concept the concept of something
as a cause in relation to +something else+ as an effect
come together). We cannot yet show here right now what
this third cognition is to which freedom points us
and of which we have an a priori idea. We also cannot
yet make the deduction of the concept of freedom from
pure practical reason comprehensible and, along with
this deduction, cannot yet make the possibility of
a categorical imperative comprehensible. Still further
preparation is required in order to identify the third
cognition and in order to make the deduction and possibility
comprehensible.
++Freedom++
++must as a property of the will++
++of all rational beings++
+be presupposed.+
It is not enough that we ascribe, for whatever reason,
freedom to our will. We also need to have sufficient
reason to attribute the very same freedom of the will
to all rational beings.
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For, since morality serves as a law for us only because
we are +rational beings+, morality must also hold for
all rational beings; and, since morality must be derived
merely from the property of freedom, freedom must also
be proved as a property of the will of all rational
beings. In addition, it is not enough to demonstrate
freedom from certain alleged experiences of human nature
(although this is also absolutely impossible and freedom
can only be demonstrated a priori); instead, you must
prove freedom as belonging to the activity of rational
beings in general endowed with a will. I say now: any
being that cannot act other than +under the idea of
freedom+, is, just for that reason, in a practical
respect, actually free. That is to say, all laws that
are inseparably bound up with freedom are laws that
hold for such a being just as if the being's will also
in itself and in theoretical philosophy would be validly
declared to be free.* Now I maintain: that we
* I suggest that to assume this way of only
taking the mere +idea+ of freedom to be the
basis for the actions of rational beings
is sufficient for our purpose. I suggest
this so that I may not also be bound to prove
freedom in its theoretical aspect. For, even
if this theoretical aspect of proving freedom
is left undecided, the same laws that hold
for a being that cannot act except under
the idea of the being's own freedom are laws
that still would hold for a being that was
actually free. So we can here free ourselves
from the burden that presses on the theory.
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must also necessarily lend to each rational being that
has a will the idea of freedom under which alone the
being can act. For in such a being we conceive of a
reason that is practical, that is, has a causality
with respect to its objects. Now, you cannot possibly
conceive of a reason that, with its own consciousness
with regard to its judgments, receives direction from
elsewhere, for then the subject would ascribe the control
of the power of judgment not to the subject's reason
but instead to an impulse in the subject. Reason must
view itself as the authoress of its principles, independently
of alien influences. Consequently, reason, as practical
reason or as the will of a rational being, must be
viewed by itself as free. That is to say, the will
of a rational being can only be a will of its own under
the idea of freedom and so such a will must, for practical
purposes, be attributed to all rational beings.
++Of the interest,++
++which to the ideas of morality++
++attaches.++
We have at last traced the specific concept of morality
back to the idea of freedom. We were not able, however,
to prove this idea of freedom to be something actual,
not even in ourselves and in human nature. We only
saw that we must presuppose the idea if we
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want to conceive of a being as rational and with consciousness
of its causality with regard to actions, that is, as
endowed with a will. And so we find that we must, for
the very same reason, attribute this property, namely,
the property of directing itself to action under the
idea of its freedom, to each being endowed with reason
and a will.
But from the presupposition of these ideas there also
flowed the consciousness of a law of acting: that the
subjective basic principles of actions, that is, maxims,
must always be taken in such a way that they also hold
objectively, that is, hold universally as basic principles,
and therefore can serve for our own universal lawgiving.
But why then ought I subject myself to this principle
and indeed, as a rational being in general, subject
therefore also all other rational beings endowed with
a will to this principle? I am willing to admit that
no interest +impels+ me to this subjection; for that
would give rise to no categorical imperative. But I
must still necessarily +take+ an interest in this subjection
and look into how it comes about; for this ought is
actually a want that holds for each rational being
under the condition that in the case of each being
reason would be practical without hindrances. For beings
such as ourselves, who are still affected by sensibility,
as incentives of a different kind, and for whom what
reason for itself alone would do does not always happen,
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that necessity of action is only called an ought and
the subjective necessity is distinguished from the
objective necessity.
So it appears as if we actually only presupposed the
moral law, namely, the principle of autonomy of the
will itself, in the idea of freedom and could not prove
for itself the reality and objective necessity of the
moral law. If that is indeed all that we have done,
then we would still have gained something quite considerable
in the process; we would at least have specified the
genuine moral principle moral precisely than otherwise
would have been done. But with regard to the validity
of the moral principle and the practical necessity
of subjecting ourselves to that principle, we would
have gotten no farther along; for we could give no
satisfactory answer to someone who asked the following
questions. Why, then, must the universal validity of
our maxim, as a law, be the limiting condition of our
actions? On what do we base the worth that we attribute
to this way of acting, a worth which is to be so great
that there can be no higher interest anywhere? And
how does it come to pass that the human being believes
that she feels her personal worth to reside only in
this subjection to moral law, a worth against which
the worth of a pleasant or unpleasant condition is
held to be nothing?
We surely do find that we can take an interest in a
personal characteristic which
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carries with itself no interest in any condition, if
only the former characteristic makes us capable of
sharing in the latter condition in case reason were
to bring about the distribution of the condition. That
is to say, the mere worthiness to be happy, even without
the motive of sharing in this happiness, can itself
be of interest to us. But this judgment of worthiness
is in fact only the effect of the already presupposed
importance of moral laws (when we separate ourselves
from all empirical interest through the idea of freedom).
But in this way we cannot yet see into the following:
that we ought to separate ourselves from this empirical
interest, that is, ought to consider ourselves to be
free in acting and so ought nevertheless to hold ourselves
to be subject to certain laws in order to find a worth
merely in our person, a worth that can compensate us
for the loss of everything that gives worth to our
condition; how this separation is possible; and so
+from what source or on what basis the moral law binds+
us.
You must freely admit that there appears to be a circle
here from which it seems there is no recovery. We take
ourselves to be free in the order of efficient causes
in order to think ourselves in the order of ends under
moral laws, and we afterwards think ourselves as subject
to these laws because we have attributed freedom of
the will to ourselves, for freedom and individual lawgiving
of the will are both
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autonomy, and so they are reciprocal concepts. But,
precisely because they are reciprocal concepts, one
of them cannot be used to explain the other and to
specify the ground of the other. At most, one concept
can only be used for logical purposes to reduce different
appearing representations of the very same object to
a single concept (as different fractions of equal value
are reduced to the simplest expression).
But one way out of the circle still remains open to
us, namely, to try to find: whether we, when we think
ourselves through freedom as a priori efficient causes,
do not take a different standpoint than we do when
we represent ourselves according to our actions as
effects that we see before our eyes.
No subtle reflection at all is required to post the
following remark; indeed, you can assume that even
the most common understanding may make the remark,
although such an understanding makes the remark in
its own way through an obscure distinction of the power
of judgment which it calls feeling. The remark is this:
all ideas that we receive involuntarily (like those
ideas we receive through the sense organs) give us
no knowledge of objects except as the objects affect
us; what the objects may be in themselves remains unknown
to us. So, as far as this involuntary kind of ideas
is concerned, we can, even with the most strenuous
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attentiveness and clarity that the understanding may
ever add, still only arrive at knowledge of +appearances+,
never at knowledge of the +things in themselves+. As
soon as this distinction (perhaps merely through the
noticed difference between the ideas that are given
to us from somewhere else and with which we are passive
and the ideas that we produce only from ourselves and
with which we prove our activity) is made once, then
it follows of itself that you must admit and assume
that behind the appearances there is after all still
something else that is not appearance, namely, the
things in themselves. Although we admit and assume
the existence of these things in themselves, we resign
ourselves to the fact that, since they can never become
known to us in themselves but always only by how they
affect us, we cannot get closer to them and can never
know what they are in themselves. This must provide
a distinction, although crude, between a +world of
sense+ and the +world of understanding+. The first,
the world of sense, according to difference of sensibility
in various observers, can also be very diverse. Meanwhile,
the second, the world of understanding, which is the
basis for the world of sense, always remains the same.
Even the human being herself cannot presume to know,
by the knowledge she has of herself through inner sensation,
what she is in herself. For since she after all does
not, so to speak, create herself, and she gets her
concept of herself not a priori but instead empirically,
it is natural that she also gets information about
herself through the inner sense and
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consequently only through the appearance of her nature
and through the way in which her consciousness is affected.
Meanwhile, she must still necessarily assume that beyond
this constitution, put together from nothing but appearances,
of her own subject there is something else that is
the basis of her constitution. This basis of her natural
makeup or constitution is her I or ego, in whatever
way it may be constituted in itself. So, with regard
to the mere perception and receptivity of sensations
she must count herself as belonging to the +world of
sense+; but, with regard to what may be pure activity
in her (to what arrives in consciousness not by affecting
the senses but instead to what arrives in consciousness
immediately), she must count herself as belonging to
the +world of the intellect+. She knows nothing further,
however, about this latter, intellectual world.
A reflective human being must draw a conclusion of this
kind from all things that may appear to her. Presumably,
this conclusion is also to be found in the most common
understanding which, as is well-known, is always very
inclined to expect something invisible and active in
itself behind the objects of the senses. But the common
understanding again corrupts this invisible something
by wanting to make the invisible something into a sensuous
thing again, that is, by wanting to make the invisible
something into an object of intuition. And so, by trying
to make something invisible into something sensuous,
the common understanding does not become even a little
bit wiser.
Now, the human being actually finds in herself a capacity
by which she distinguishes herself from all other things,
and even from
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herself so far as she is affected by objects; and this
capacity is +reason+. This reason, as pure self-activity,
is even in this self-activity still raised above the
+understanding+ in this way: that reason in self-activity
is higher because, although the understanding is also
self-activity and does not, as sense does, merely contain
ideas that only arise when you are affected by things
(and are therefore passive), the understanding nevertheless
can produce from its activity no concepts other than
those that serve merely +to bring sensuous representations
under rules+ and that, by bringing the representations
under these rules, unite the representations in a single
consciousness; without this use of sensibility, the
understanding would think nothing at all. On the other
hand, reason, under the name of ideas, shows such a
pure spontaneity that the human being, by this spontaneity,
goes out far beyond anything that sensibility only
can provide to the human being and showcases reason's
foremost occupations by distinguishing the world of
sense from the world of understanding; in making this
distinction, however, reason marks out the boundaries
for the understanding itself.
Because of this distinction that reason makes, a rational
being, +as an intelligence+ (so not from the perspective
of the rational being's lower powers), must look at
itself as belonging not to the world of sense but instead
as belonging to the world of the understanding. So
the rational being has two standpoints from which it
can consider itself and can recognize laws for the
use of its powers and, consequently, can recognize
laws governing all of its actions. +First+, as far
as the rational being belongs to the world of sense,
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the rational being can consider itself as under laws
of nature (heteronomy). +Secondly+, as belonging to
the intelligible world, the rational being can consider
itself as under laws that are independent of nature
and are not empirical; instead, these independent and
non-empirical laws are grounded only in reason.
As a rational being, and therefore as a being belonging
to the intelligible world, the human being can never
think of the causality of its own will except as under
the idea of freedom; for independence from the determinate
causes of the world of sense (which is the kind of
independence that reason must always attribute to itself)
is freedom. Now, with the idea of freedom the concept
of +autonomy+ is inseparably connected, but the concept
of autonomy is inseparably connected with the universal
principle of morality; and the principle of morality
underlies in the idea as a ground all actions of +rational+
beings just as natural law, as an idea and ground,
underlies all appearances.
The suspicion that we stirred up earlier has now been
removed. The suspicion was that a hidden circle might
have been contained in our inference from freedom to
autonomy and then from autonomy to the moral law. In
particular, the circle might have been that we perhaps
made the idea of freedom a ground only for the sake
of the moral law in order afterwards in turn to conclude
the moral law from freedom. So, because of this hidden
circle, we could provide no ground at all for the moral
law; instead, we could only provide the moral law as
a begging of a principle that friendly souls will probably
gladly grant us, but which we
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never could set up as a provable proposition. For we
now see that, when we think ourselves as free, we transport
ourselves as members into the world of understanding
and recognize the autonomy of the will together with
its consequence, morality. But when we think ourselves
as obligated, then we consider ourselves as belonging
to the world of sense and yet at the same time as belonging
to the world of understanding.
+How is a categorical imperative+
+possible?+
The rational being, as an intelligence, counts itself
as belonging to the world of understanding, and the
rational being, merely as an efficient cause belonging
to this world of understanding, calls its causality
a +will+. But from a different point of view, the rational
being is also conscious of itself as a piece of the
world of sense in which the rational being's actions,
as mere appearances of that causality, are found. But
we cannot comprehend the possibility of these actions
as effects of that causality with which we have no
acquaintance; instead, in place of that comprehension,
we must understand those actions as determined by other
appearances, namely, by eager desires and inclinations,
and as belonging to the world of sense. So, as only
a member of the world of understanding, all my actions
would be in perfect conformity with the principle of
autonomy of the pure will; as only a piece of the world
of sense, my actions would have to be taken as in complete
conformity with the natural law of eager desires and
inclinations, and therefore with the heteronomy of
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nature. (The first actions, those of the world of understanding,
would rest on the highest principle of morality; the
second actions, those in the world of sense, would
rest on the principle of happiness.) But +the world
of understanding contains the ground of the world of
sense and therefore also the ground of the laws of
the world of sense+; thus, the world of understanding
is immediately lawgiving with respect to my will (which
belongs entirely to the world of understanding); so
the world of understanding must also be thought as
lawgiving; for these reasons, I will have to recognize
that, although from another point of view I am a being
belonging to the world of sense, I am nevertheless
subject as an intelligence to the law of the first
world, the world of understanding, that is, of reason.
Reason contains the law of the world of understanding
in reason's idea of freedom and so I will also have
to recognize that I am subject as an intelligence to
the autonomy of the will. Consequently, I will have
to look at the laws of the world of understanding as
imperatives for me and have to look at the actions
that are in conformity with this principle as duties.
And it is in this way that categorical imperatives are
possible. They are possible because the idea of freedom
turns me into a member of an intelligible world by
which, if I were only such a member, all my actions
+would+ always be in conformity with the autonomy of
the will. But, since I at the same time intuit myself
as a member of the world of sense, my actions +ought+
always to conform with the autonomy of the will. This
+categorical+ ought represents a synthetic proposition
a priori because to my will that is affected by sensuous
eager desires is added the idea of just the same will,
but pure, in itself practical, and belonging to the
world of understanding.
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This pure will contains, according to reason, the highest
condition of the first, the sensuously affected, will.
This addition is approximately like the way in which
concepts of the understanding, which in themselves
signify nothing but lawful form in general, are added
to the intuitions of the world of sense. By their addition
to intuitions, these concepts of the understanding
make synthetic propositions a priori possible, and
it is on such propositions that all knowledge of a
nature rests.
The practical use of common human reason confirms the
correctness of this deduction. There is no one, even
the most vile miscreant as long as she is otherwise
accustomed to using reason, who, when you present her
with examples of honesty in intentions, of steadfastness
in obeying good maxims, of compassion and of common
kindness (and joined moreover with great sacrifices
of advantages and convenience), does not wish that
she might also be so disposed. But, only because of
her inclinations and impulses, she cannot bring these
examples fully about in herself; although she does
not do well in realizing the examples in herself, she
still wishes to be free of such inclinations that are
burdensome to her. She proves by this wish, therefore,
that she, with a will that is free from impulses of
sensibility, transfers herself in thought into an order
of things entirely different from that of her eager
desires in the field of sensibility. This is proved
because from that wish she expects no satisfaction
of her eager desires and so expects for all of her
actual or otherwise
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imaginable inclinations no satisfying condition (for
by this even the idea which coaxes the wish from her
would lose its preeminence); instead, she can expect
only a greater inner worth of her person. She believes
herself to be this better person when she transfers
herself into the standpoint of a member of the world
of understanding. It is to this standpoint that she
is involuntarily necessitated by the idea of freedom,
that is, independence from the +determining+ causes
of the world of sense. And it is in this standpoint
that she, according to her own admission, is conscious
of a good will that constitutes the law for her bad
will as a member of the world of sense. She is acquainted
with the authority of this law whenever she transgresses
the law. So the moral ought is one's necessary willing
as a member of an intelligible world, and the moral
ought is only thought by a member of an intelligible
world as an ought insofar as she at the same time considers
herself to be a member of the world of sense.
++Of++
++the extreme boundary++
+of all practical philosophy.+
All human beings think of themselves as having a free
will. It is from this thought that all judgments about
actions, as actions that +ought+ to have been +done+
although they +were not done+, come. But this freedom
is not a concept of experience, and also cannot be
such a concept, because the concept of freedom always
remains even though experience shows the opposite
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of those demands that are represented as necessary under
the presupposition of freedom. From a different point
of view, it is just as necessary that everything that
happens be determined without exception according to
natural laws, and this natural necessity is also not
a concept of experience precisely because the concept
of natural necessity carries with it the concept of
necessity and therefore of a cognition a priori. But
this concept of a nature is confirmed by experience
and must itself be unavoidably presupposed if experience,
that is, coherent cognition of objects of sense in
accordance with universal laws, is to be possible.
Freedom is therefore only an +idea+ of reason, and
the idea's objective reality is in itself doubtful.
Nature, however, is a +concept of the understanding+,
and this concept proves, and must necessarily prove,
its reality in examples from experience.
A dialectic of reason now arises from this since, as
regards the will, the freedom attributed to the will
appears to stand in contradiction to natural necessity
and since, with this parting of the ways, reason finds,
+for purposes of intellectual curiosity+, the way of
natural necessity much more traveled and usable than
the way of freedom. Although this dialectic arises,
the footpath of freedom is still, +for practical purposes+,
the one path on which it is possible to make use of
one's reason in our conduct. So it is just as impossible
for the most subtle
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philosophy as for the most common human reason to argue
away freedom. So this philosophy must indeed presuppose
the following: that no true contradiction will be found
between freedom and natural necessity of the very same
human actions, for philosophy can give up the concept
of nature no more than it can give up the concept of
freedom.
While we wait for no true contradiction to be found,
this apparent contradiction must at least be dissolved
in a convincing way, even if we could never understand
how freedom is possible. For, if even the thought of
freedom contradicts itself or contradicts the thought
of nature, which is just as necessary, then freedom,
as opposed to natural necessity, would have to be given
up completely.
But it is impossible to escape this contradiction, if
the subject who imagines itself free thought of itself
+in the same sense+ or +in the same relation+ when
it calls itself free as it did when it assumes itself
subject to natural laws with respect to the same action.
So it is an inescapable task of speculative philosophy
to show at least the following things. First, speculative
philosophy must show that philosophy's deception about
the contradiction rests in our thinking the human being
in a different sense and relation when we call the
human being free than we do when we hold the human
being to be a piece of nature
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subject to nature's laws. Second, speculative philosophy
must show that these two senses and relations +can+
exist together not only quite well but must also be
thought +as necessarily united+ in the same subject;
for, if not necessarily united in the same subject,
no justification could be given why we should burden
reason with an idea that, although the idea can be
united +without contradiction+ with a different sufficiently
established idea, nevertheless ensnares us in a task
that puts reason in its theoretical use in a bind.
This duty, however, is incumbent only on speculative
philosophy, so that speculative philosophy might prepare
a clear path for practical philosophy. Thus it is not
at the discretion of the philosopher to decide whether
she wants to remove the apparent contradiction or wants
to leave the apparent contradiction untouched; for,
if left untouched, the theory about this is bonum vacans
and the fatalist can justifiably take possession of
the property, driving all morals out of morals' alleged
property which morals has no title to occupy.
Nevertheless, you can not yet say that the boundary
of practical philosophy begins here. For that settlement
of the controversy does not belong to practical philosophy;
instead, practical philosophy demands only of speculative
reason that speculative reason bring to an end the
discord into which speculative philosophy involves
itself in theoretical questions. If speculative reason
can bring this discord to an end, then practical reason
might have rest and security against external attacks
that could make contentious the ground on which practical
reason wants to establish itself.
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But the rightful claim, even of common human reason,
to freedom of the will is grounded on the consciousness
and the granted presupposition of the independence
of reason from merely subjectively determining causes.
These causes together constitute what belongs merely
to sensation and so what belongs under the general
name of sensibility. The human being considers herself
in such a way as an intelligence; by doing so, she
puts herself in a different order of things and in
a relation to determining grounds of a quite different
kind when she thinks of herself as an intelligence
endowed with a will and consequently as endowed with
causality than she does when she perceives herself
as a phenomenon in the world of sense (which she actually
is, too) and subjects her causality, according to external
determination, to natural laws. Now, she soon becomes
aware that both ways of thinking of herself can, and
indeed even must, take place at the same time. For
the following does not contain the least contradiction:
that a +thing as an appearance+ (that belonging to
the world of sense) is subject to certain laws while
the very same +as a thing+ or being +in itself+ is
independent of those laws. But that she must imagine
and think herself in this twofold way rests on different
kinds of awareness. First, as a thing as an appearance,
her thinking rests on the consciousness of herself
as an object affected by the senses. Second, as a thing
in itself, her thinking rests on the consciousness
of herself as an intelligence, that is, as independent
of sensuous impressions in the use of reason (and therefore
as belonging to the world of understanding).
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So it happens that the human being claims for herself
a will that does not let what belongs merely to her
eager desires and inclinations enter into her accountability.
On the contrary, she thinks of actions as possible — indeed
even as necessary — through herself, actions that can
be done only by disregarding all eager desires and
sensuous impulses. The causality of these actions lies
in her as an intelligence and in the laws of effects
and actions according to principles of an intelligible
world. She certainly knows nothing of this intelligible
world except that in this intelligible world only reason — and,
for sure, pure reason independent of sensibility — gives
the law. Also, since in this intelligible world she
is only as an intelligence her proper self (as a human
being, in contrast, only an appearance of herself),
those laws apply to her immediately and categorically.
Because those laws apply to her directly and without
exception, her inclinations and impulses (and so the
whole nature of the world of sense), no matter what
they prod her to do, cannot infringe the laws of willing
as an intelligence. This insulation of those laws from
infringement is so thorough that she does not answer
for the inclinations and impulses and does not ascribe
them to her proper self, that is, to her will. She
does, however, ascribe to her will the indulgence that
she would show the inclinations and impulses if she,
to the disadvantage of the rational laws of the will,
permitted the inclinations and impulses influence on
her maxims.
By +thinking+ itself into a world of understanding,
practical reason does not overstep its bounds at all.
But practical reason certainly would overstep its bounds
if it wanted to +look+ or +feel+ itself +into+ such
a world. The former, merely thinking itself into a
world of understanding, is only a negative
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thought with regard to the world of sense. This negative
thought is that the world of sense gives no laws to
reason for controlling the will. The thought is positive
only in this one point: that that freedom, as a negative
determinant or controller, is combined at the same
time with a (positive) capacity and even with a causality
of reason, which we call a will; this capacity or causality
of reason is a capacity to act in such a way that the
principle of actions is in accordance with the essential
character of a rational cause as a law, that is, with
the condition of the universal validity of the maxim.
But, if practical reason were still to fetch an +object
of the will+, that is, a motive, from the world of
understanding, then practical reason would overstep
its bounds and presume to be acquainted with something
which it knows nothing about. So the concept of a world
of understanding is only a +standpoint+ which reason
sees itself necessitated to take outside of the appearances
+in order to think of itself as practical+. Thinking
of itself as practical would not be possible if the
influences of sensibility had control of the human
being. But thinking of itself as practical is still
necessary if the consciousness of itself as an intelligence
and therefore as a cause that is rational and active
through reason, that is, is free acting, is not to
be denied to the human being. This thought, of course,
brings about the idea of a different order and lawgiving
than the idea of a mechanism of nature which concerns
the world of sense. This thought also makes the concept
of an intelligible world (that is, the whole of rational
beings as things in themselves)
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necessary, but without the least presumption to think
further here than merely in accordance with the +formal+
condition of the intelligible world. That is to say,
the concept of an intelligible world is made necessary
just by thinking in conformance with the universality
of the maxims of the will as laws and therefore with
the autonomy of the will, that autonomy alone being
able to coexist with the freedom of the will. While,
on the other hand, all laws that are specified by an
object give heteronomy which can only be found in natural
laws and which also can only concern the world of sense.
But then reason would overstep its entire boundary if
it attempted to +explain+ ++how++ pure reason can be
practical, which would be exactly the same as the problem
of explaining +how freedom is possible+.
For we can explain nothing except what we can trace
back to laws whose object can be given in some possible
experience. But freedom is a mere idea whose objective
reality can in no way be set forth according to natural
laws and cannot, therefore, be set forth in any possible
experience. So the idea's objective reality can never
be comprehended or even glimpsed precisely because
an example along the lines of an analogy may never
be put underneath freedom itself. The idea of freedom
holds only as a necessary presupposition of reason
in a being that believes itself to be conscious of
a will, that is, of a capacity still different from
the mere faculty of desire. (This capacity is, in particular,
the capacity to resolve to act as an intelligence and
therefore according to laws of reason, independently
of
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natural instincts.) But where the determination of natural
laws stops, all +explanation+ stops, too, and nothing
remains except +defense+, that is, repelling the objections
of those who pretend to have seen deeper into the essence
of things and, because of that alleged insight, audaciously
declare freedom to be impossible. You can only point
out to them that the contradiction that they supposedly
have discovered in freedom lies nowhere else than in
this: that they, in order to make the natural law hold
with regard to human actions, had to consider the human
being necessarily as an appearance; and now, since
you demand of them that they should think of the human
being as an intelligence also as a thing in itself,
they go on considering the human being in this (i.e.,
as a thing in itself), too, as an appearance. Of course,
in this case, where a thing in itself is confused with
an appearance, the separation of the human being's
causality (i.e., its will) from all natural laws of
the world of sense in one and the same subject would
give rise to a contradiction. But this contradiction
would fall away if they wanted to reflect and, as is
reasonable, to admit that behind the appearances there
must still lie as a ground the things in themselves
(although hidden). You cannot demand that the laws
governing the working of the things in themselves should
be the same as those laws under which the appearances
of the things in themselves stand.
The subjective impossibility of +explaining+ the freedom
of the will is one and the same with the impossibility
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of discovering and making understandable an +interest+*
which the human being might take in moral laws. Though
it is impossible to understand, the human being nevertheless
actually does take an interest in moral laws, and moral
feeling is what we call the foundation in us of this
interest. This moral feeling has been falsely given
by some people as the measuring stick for our moral
judgment. Moral feeling is a false measuring stick
for moral judgment since moral feeling must instead
be seen as the +subjective+ effect that the law exercises
on the will, while reason alone provides the will with
the objective grounds of the law.
In order to will what reason alone prescribes that the
sensuously-affected rational being ought to do, a faculty
of reason is of course required. This faculty must
+instill+ a +feeling of pleasure+ or of satisfaction
in the fulfillment of duty; so a causality
* Interest is that by which reason becomes
practical, that is, becomes a cause determining
or directing the will. For this reason, you
can only say of a rational being that it
takes an interest in something, creatures
without reason feeling only sensuous impulses.
Reason takes an immediate interest in an
action only when the universal validity of
the maxim of the action is a sufficient ground
of determination of the will. Only such an
interest is pure. But if reason can direct
the will only by means of another object
of desire or by means of a special feeling
of the subject, then reason takes only a
mediate interest in the action; and, since
reason by itself alone, without experience,
can discover neither objects of the will
nor a special feeling underlying the will
as the will's ground, the latter, mediate,
interest would only be empirical and not
a pure rational interest. The logical interest
of reason (to advance its insights) is never
immediate; instead, that logical interest
presupposes purposes for its use.
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to configure sensibility according to rational principles
must belong to reason. It is, however, completely impossible
to figure out, that is, to make a priori understandable,
how a mere thought that contains nothing sensuous in
itself could produce a sensation of pleasure or displeasure.
Such a priori understanding is impossible because the
production of a sensation from such a thought is a
special kind of causality about which, as with all
kinds of causality, we can specify nothing at all a
priori; instead, to say anything about such a production,
we must consult experience alone. But since experience
can provide no relation of cause to effect except between
two objects of experience and since here pure reason
is through mere ideas (which furnish no object at all
for experience) to be the cause of an effect which
admittedly lies in experience, it is completely impossible
for us human beings to explain how and why the +universality
of a maxim as law+, and therefore morality, interests
us. Only this much is certain: it is not +because the
moral law interests us+ that the moral law is valid
for us (for that is heteronomy and dependence of practical
reason on sensibility, in particular, dependence on
a feeling lying as the ground of practical reason,
in which case practical reason could never be morally
lawgiving); instead, it is because the moral law is
valid for us as human beings that the moral law interests
us, since the moral law arose from our will as an intelligence
and therefore from our genuine self. +But what belongs
merely to appearance is necessarily subordinated by
reason to the make-up of the thing in itself+.
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So the question of how a categorical imperative is possible
can for sure be answered so far as you can provide
the sole presupposition under which the imperative
is possible. That sole presupposition is the idea of
freedom. Also, the question can be answered so far
as you can see into the necessity of this presupposition,
which is sufficient for the +practical use+ of reason,
that is, for confidence in the +validity of this imperative+
and so also for confidence in the moral law. But how
this presupposition itself is possible is an insight
that can never be grasped by any human reason. Under
the presupposition of the freedom of the will of an
intelligence, though, the will's +autonomy+, as the
formal condition under which the will can alone be
guided, is a necessary consequence. To presuppose this
freedom of the will is also not only (without falling
into contradiction with the principle of natural necessity
in the connection of appearances of the world of sense)
entirely +possible+ (as speculative philosophy can
show), but it is also practically +necessary+. That
is to say, putting freedom, as an idea and as a condition
of action, underneath all voluntary actions of a rational
being is necessary without further condition for a
rational being who is conscious of its causality through
reason and therefore conscious of a will (which is
distinct from eager desires). But now +how+ pure reason,
without other incentives that might be taken from somewhere
else, can be practical by itself is beyond the capability
of any human reason to comprehend. That is to say,
how the mere +principle of the universal+
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+validity of all of the will's maxims as laws+ (which
of course would be the form of a pure practical reason),
without any matter (object) of the will, in which you
may in advance take some interest, can by itself provide
an incentive and produce an interest which would be
called purely +moral+ is beyond the capability of any
human reason to explain. Or, in other words: all human
reason is completely incapable of explaining +how pure
reason can be practical+, and all effort and labor
spent in searching for an explanation is wasted.
It is just the same as if I were trying to figure out
how freedom itself is possible as causality of the
will. For in such an attempt I leave the philosophical
ground of explanation and have no other ground. Now,
of course, I could bumble around in the intelligible
world that remains to me, in the world of intelligences;
but, although I have an +idea+ of such a world and
although the idea has its good ground, I still have
not the least +knowledge+ of that world and also can
never arrive at this knowledge through any effort of
my natural rational faculty. The idea only signifies
a something that remains when I have excluded from
the grounds directing my will everything that belongs
to the world of sense; I exclude everything in the
world of sense merely in order to limit the principle
of motives from the field of sensibility, and I bring
about this limitation by confining the field and by
showing that the field does not contain everything
in itself but rather that there is still more outside
of the field. But I do know anything further about
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this 'more' that is outside of the field. After separation
of all matter, that is, cognition of objects, nothing
remains to me of the pure reason which thinks this
ideal except the following two items. First, the form,
namely, the practical law of the universal validity
of maxims, remains to me. Second, it also remains to
me to think, in accordance with this practical law,
of reason with reference to a pure world of understanding
as a possible efficient cause, that is, as a cause
determining the will. Here, in these two items that
remain to me, the incentive must be completely absent.
If the incentive were not absent, then this idea of
an intelligible world itself would have to be the incentive
or would have to be that in which reason originally
took an interest; but to make understandable how the
idea could be the incentive or how reason could originally
take an interest in the idea is precisely the problem
which we are not able to solve.
This, then, is where the highest boundary of all moral
inquiry is. To specify this boundary, however, is also
already of the greatest importance for these reasons:
so that reason, on the one hand, does not hunt around
in the world of sense, in a way detrimental to morals,
for the highest motive and for an understandable but
empirical interest; but, on the other hand, so that
reason does not powerlessly, without moving from the
place, flap it wings in a space of transcendent concepts,
a space that is empty for reason and that goes by the
name of the intelligible world; and so that reason
does not lose itself among phantoms. Yet another reason
for specifying the boundary is that the idea of a pure
world of understanding as a whole of intelligences
to which we ourselves belong as rational beings (although
on the other side at the same time members of the world
of sense) always remains a useful and permitted idea
for the purpose of a
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rational faith. This idea of a pure world of understanding
remains useful and permitted, even though all knowledge
ends at the boundary of the idea, in order to produce
a lively interest in the moral law that is in us. The
idea produces this interest through the magnificent
ideal of a universal empire of +ends in themselves+
(of rational beings), an empire to which we can belong
only when we carefully conduct ourselves according
to maxims of freedom, as if the maxims were laws of
nature.
++Concluding Remark.++
The speculative use of reason, +with respect to nature+,
leads to the absolute necessity of some highest cause
+of the world+; the practical use of reason, +with
regard to freedom+, also leads to absolute necessity,
but only to absolute necessity +of laws of actions+
of a rational being as such. Now, it is an essential
+principle+ of all use of our reason to push reason's
cognition up to the consciousness of a cognition's
+necessity+ (for without this necessity the cognition
would not be a cognition of reason). But it is also
an equally essential +limitation+ of the very same
reason that reason can see into neither the +necessity+
of what exists, what happens, or of what ought to happen,
unless a +condition+ is made the ground under which
what exists exists, what happens happens, or what ought
to happen happens as it ought to happen. In this way,
however, because of the constant inquiry after the
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condition, the satisfaction of reason is only further
and further postponed. So reason searches restlessly
for the unconditioned-necessary and sees itself necessitated
to assume the unconditioned-necessary without any means
of making the unconditioned-necessary comprehensible
to reason. Reason is lucky enough if it can just find
the concept that is compatible with this presupposition
of the unconditioned-necessary. So it is no shortcoming
of our deduction of the highest principle of morality,
but instead an objection that you would have to make
against human reason in general, that reason cannot
make comprehensible the absolute necessity of an unconditional
practical law (which is the kind of law that the categorical
imperative must be); for reason cannot be blamed for
not wanting to make this absolute necessity comprehensible
through a condition, namely, by means of an interest
that is made the ground of the necessity. Reason cannot
be blamed because, if the necessity of the practical
law were based on an interest, then the law would not
be a moral law, that is, the highest law of freedom.
And so we certainly do not comprehend the practical
unconditional necessity of the moral imperative; we
do, though, at least comprehend the +incomprehensibility+
of that necessity, and that is all that can fairly
be demanded of a philosophy that strives to reach up
to the boundary of human reason in principles.
_____________________________
128 [4:463]
[Student Translation: Orr]
____________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
Sections (Xs)
Pages (Xp)
Paragraphs (Xpar)
Footnotes (Xf)
Propositions (Xpro)
Formulas (Xfor)
Examples (Xe)
Assertions (Xa)
Headings (Xh)
Glossary (Xg)
Index (Xi)
Sections (Xs)
Preface [iii - xvi]
First Section [1 - 24]
Transition from common moral rational cognition to philosophical [1 - 24]
Second Section [25 - 96]
Transition from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysics of morals [25 - 96]
The autonomy of the will as the highest principle of morality [87 - 88]
The heteronomy of the will as the source of all spurious principles of morality [88 - 89]
Division of all possible principles of morality from the assumed basic concept of heteronomy [89 - 96]
Third Section [97 - 128]
Transition from the metaphysics of morals to the critique of pure practical reason [97 - 128]
The concept of freedom is the key to the explanation of the autonomy of the will [97 - 99]
Freedom must be presupposed as a quality of the will of all rational beings [99 - 101]
Of the interest which attaches to the ideas of morality [101 - 110]
How is a categorical imperative possible? [110 - 113]
Of the extreme boundary of all practical philosophy [113 - 127]
Concluding Remark [127 - 128]
Pages (Xp)
Preface
iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv xv xvi
First Section
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Second Section
25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62
63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75
76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88
89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96
Third Section
97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106
107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117
118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128
Paragraphs (Xpar)
Preface
1. Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: [iii.2]
2. All rational knowledge is either +material+ and has [iii.12]
3. Logic can have no empirical part. That is, [iv.9]
4. All philosophy, so far as it is based [v.4]
5. Because of these various conceptual subdivisions within philosophy, [v.12]
6. All trades, crafts and arts, have gained through [v.20]
7. Since my aim here is squarely directed at [vii.18]
8. So moral laws, together with their principles, are [ix.1]
9. A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary. [ix.20]
10. You would be way off base to think [xi.5]
11. Having the intention to publish someday a metaphysics [xiii.11]
12. But in the third place, because a metaphysics [xiv.17]
13. The present groundlaying, however, is nothing more than [xv.3]
14. I have selected a method for this book [xvi.1]
First Section (Paragraphs)
1. (15) There is nothing at all in the world, [1.5]
2. (16) Some qualities are even helpful to this good [2.12]
3. (17) The good will is good only through its [3.4]
4. (18) There is, however, something very strange in the [4.3]
5. (19) In the natural makeup of an organized being, [4.14]
6. (20) In fact, we also find that the more [5.21]
7. (21) For since reason is not sufficiently able to [6.25]
8. (22) The concept of a good will already dwells [8.4]
9. (23) I here pass over all actions that are [8.17]
10. (24) On the other hand, to preserve your life [9.21]
11. (25) To be beneficent where you can is a [10.9]
12. (26) To secure your own happiness is a duty [11.25]
13. (27) No doubt, it is also in this way [13.4]
14. (28) The second proposition is this: an action done [13.14]
15. (29) I would express the third proposition, which is [14.13]
16. (30) So the moral worth of an action does [15.11]
17. (31) But what kind of law can that really [17.1]
18. (32) The question might be, for instance, the following. [18.1]
19. (33) What I therefore have to do so that [19.26]
20. (34) We have, then, in the moral knowledge of [20.21]
21. (35) Innocence is a magnificent thing, but it is [22.21]
22. (36) Because of this destructive tendency of natural dialectic, [23.20]
Second Section (Paragraphs)
1. (37) Even if we have drawn our previous concept [25.6]
2. (38) In fact, it is absolutely impossible to find [26.7]
3. (39) There are some people who ridicule all morality [27.1]
4. (40) Unless you want to deny entirely to the [28.16]
5. (41) You also could not advise morality more badly [29.10]
6. (42) If, then, there is no genuine highest basic [30.8]
7. (43) This descent into folk concepts is certainly commendable [30.22]
8. (44) You only need to look at the attempts [31.22]
9. (45) But a metaphysics of morals that is mixed [32.18]
10. (46) The following is evident from what has been [34.5]
11. (47) By natural steps we have already progressed in [36.1]
12. (48) Each thing in nature works according to laws. [36.16]
13. (49) The representation of an objective principle, insofar as [37.16]
14. (50) All imperatives are expressed through an +ought+. Through [37.20]
15. (51) So a completely good will would stand just [39.1]
16. (52) Now, all +imperatives+ command either +hypothetically+ or +categorically+. [39.15]
17. (53) Because each practical law represents a possible action [39.23]
18. (54) So the imperative says which action that is [40.9]
19. (55) So the hypothetical imperative only says that an [40.17]
20. (56) Something that is only possible through the powers [41.1]
21. (57) There is, nevertheless, +one+ end that you can [42.3]
22. (58) Finally, there is an imperative which immediately commands [43.6]
23. (59) Willing according to these three kinds of principles [43.16]
24. (60) The question now arises: how are all these [44.13]
25. (61) The imperatives of prudence would, if it were [45.24]
26. (62) On the other hand, the question of how [48.14]
27. (63) So we will have to investigate the possibility [49.20]
28. (64) Secondly, in the case of this categorical imperative [50.11]
29. (65) In tackling this problem of the possibility of [51.1]
30. (66) If I think of a +hypothetical+ imperative in [51.9]
31. (67) So there is only one categorical imperative and [52.3]
32. (68) Now, if all imperatives of duty can be [52.7]
33. (69) Because the universality of the law according to [52.14]
34. (70) Now we will list some duties according to [52.23]
35. (71) 1) A person, who is disgusted with life [53.3]
36. (72) 2) Another person sees herself forced by need [54.6]
37. (73) 3) A third person finds in herself a [55.9]
38. (74) Yet a +fourth+, for whom things are going [56.4]
39. (75) These, then, are some of the many actual — or [57.3]
40. (76) If we now pay attention to ourselves whenever [57.24]
41. (77) So we have at least shown as much [59.3]
42. (78) With the aim of obtaining this a priori [59.17]
43. (79) Here we now see philosophy put in fact [60.17]
44. (80) So everything that is empirical is not only [61.6]
45. (81) So the question is this: is it a [62.1]
46. (82) The will is thought as a capacity to [63.13]
47. (83) Suppose, however, that there were something +whose existence+ [64.15]
48. (84) Now I say: the human being and in [64.21]
49. (85) So if there is to be a highest [66.4]
50. (86) If we stay with the previous examples, then [67.3]
51. (87) +Firstly+, as regards the concept of necessary duty [67.4]
52. (88) +Secondly+, as concerns the necessary or owed duty [67.23]
53. (89) +Thirdly+, with regard to the contingent (meritorious) duty [68.16]
54. (90) +Fourthly+, with regard to meritorious duty to others, [69.10]
55. (91) This principle of humanity and of each rational [69.23]
56. (92) According to this third practical principle of the [70.23]
57. (93) Up to now, imperatives have been modelled according [71.5]
58. (94) For if we think of such a will, [72.1]
59. (95) So the +principle+ of every human will as [72.10]
60. (96) It is now not surprising, when we look [73.5]
61. (97) The concept of any rational being which must [74.5]
62. (98) But, by an +empire+, I understand the systematic [74.11]
63. (99) For rational beings all stand under the +law+ [74.23]
64. (100) A rational being, however, belongs to an empire [75.9]
65. (101) The rational being must always consider itself as [75.14]
66. (102) So morality consists in the relation of all [75.22]
67. (103) The practical necessity of acting according to this [76.15]
68. (104) In the empire of ends everything has either [77.3]
69. (105) What refers to general human inclinations and needs [77.9]
70. (106) Now, morality is the condition under which alone [77.18]
71. (107) And now, then, what is it that justifies [78.25]
72. (108) The three ways above, however, of representing the [79.20]
73. (109) 1) a +form+, which consists in universality, and [80.3]
74. (110) 2) a +matter+, namely an end, and here [80.7]
75. (111) 3) +a complete determination+ of all maxims through [80.12]
76. (112) We can now end where we began, namely, [81.9]
77. (113) Rational nature distinguishes itself from the others by [82.3]
78. (114) From what has been said above, these points [83.9]
79. (115) You can now easily explain from what has [86.12]
80. (116) Autonomy of the will is the characteristic of [87.10]
81. (117) If the will seeks what is to guide [88.11]
82. (118) Human reason has here, as everywhere in human [89.19]
83. (119) All principles that you might take from the [89.24]
84. (120) +Empirical principles+ are not at all fit to [90.8]
85. (121) Among the +rational+ grounds of morality or grounds [91.19]
86. (122) But if I had to choose between the [92.22]
87. (123) Regarding the remaining rational grounds for morality, I [93.7]
88. (124) In all cases in which an object of [93.18]
89. (125) So the absolutely good will, whose principle must [95.3]
90. (126) +How such a synthetic practical proposition a priori+ [95.13]
Third Section (Paragraphs)
1. (127) The +will+ is a kind of causality that [97.10]
2. (128) The above explanation of freedom is +negative+ and [97.18]
3. (129) If, therefore, freedom of the will is presupposed, [98.21]
4. (130) It is not enough that we ascribe, for [99.23]
5. (131) We have at last traced the specific concept [101.21]
6. (132) But from the presupposition of these ideas there [102.8]
7. (133) So it appears as if we actually only [103.4]
8. (134) We surely do find that we can take [103.24]
9. (135) You must freely admit that there appears to [104.19]
10. (136) But one way out of the circle still [105.9]
11. (137) No subtle reflection at all is required to [105.15]
12. (138) A reflective human being must draw a conclusion [107.14]
13. (139) Now, the human being actually finds in herself [107.24]
14. (140) Because of this distinction that reason makes, a [108.20]
15. (141) As a rational being, and therefore as a [109.5]
16. (142) The suspicion that we stirred up earlier has [109.16]
17. (143) The rational being, as an intelligence, counts itself [110.10]
18. (144) And it is in this way that categorical [111.16]
19. (145) The practical use of common human reason confirms [112.8]
20. (146) All human beings think of themselves as having [113.20]
21. (147) A dialectic of reason now arises from this [114.17]
22. (148) While we wait for no true contradiction to [115.8]
23. (149) But it is impossible to escape this contradiction, [115.15]
24. (150) Nevertheless, you can not yet say that the [116.19]
25. (151) But the rightful claim, even of common human [117.1]
26. (152) So it happens that the human being claims [118.1]
27. (153) By +thinking+ itself into a world of understanding, [118.24]
28. (154) But then reason would overstep its entire boundary [120.9]
29. (155) For we can explain nothing except what we [120.14]
30. (156) The subjective impossibility of +explaining+ the freedom of [121.25]
31. (157) In order to will what reason alone prescribes [122.10]
32. (158) So the question of how a categorical imperative [124.1]
33. (159) It is just the same as if I [125.11]
34. (160) This, then, is where the highest boundary of [126.13]
35. (161) The speculative use of reason, +with respect to+ [127.10]
Footnotes (Xf)
First Section
1. A +maxim+ is the subjective principle of willing; [15.23]
2. You could object that by using the word [16.8]
Second Section
3. You can, if you want, (just as pure [32.20]
4. I have a letter from the late excellent [33.19]
5. The dependence of the faculty of desire on [38.12]
6. The word "prudence" has two senses. In one [42.19]
7. It seems to me that the proper meaning [44.21]
8. Without presupposing a condition from any inclination, I [50.19]
9. A +maxim+ is the subjective principle of acting [51.19]
10. You must here be sure to note that [53.18]
11. To behold virtue in her proper form is [61.25]
12. Here I set this proposition out as a [66.24]
13. You should not think that here the trivial: [68.18]
14. I can here be excused from citing examples [72.23]
15. Teleology considers nature as an empire of ends. [80.22]
16. I classify the principle of moral feeling with [91.21]
Third Section
17. I suggest that to assume this way of [100.20]
18. Interest is that by which reason becomes practical, [122.15]
Propositions (Xpro)
1. The "First" Proposition 8 - 13
2. The Second Proposition 13.14
3. The Third Proposition 14.13
Formulas (Xfor)
1. Universal Law 52.3 (17.10 76.3 81.3 81.15 83.26)
2. Universal Law of Nature 52.19 (80.5 81.25)
3. Humanity 66.21 (74.23 80.8 82.20 83.3)
4. Autonomy 70.18 (71.24 72.10 76.5 82.23 87.13)
5. Empire of Ends 74.5 (83.23 84.23)
Examples (Xe)
1. You ought not lie viii.9
2. Intelligence, humor, power of judgment 1.8
3. Courage, decisiveness, perseverance 1.10
4. Power, wealth, honor, health, happiness 1.17
5. Moderation, self-control, reflection 2.18
6. The cold-blooded villain 2.26
7. Like a jewel 3.19
8. The shopkeeper and his inexperienced buyers 9.6
9. The unlucky one who wishes for death 10.3
10. The compassionately attuned souls 10.10
11. The inclination to honor 10.19
12. The friend of the human being 10.25
13. The man with little sympathy 11.9
14. The gouty person 12.17
15. Scriptural passages 13.4
16. A false promise 18.1
17. Pure honesty in friendship 28.9
18. The doctor and the poisoner 41.14
19. Parents and their children 41.20
20. Dividing a line into two equal parts 45.13
21. Diet, thrift, courtesy, reserve 47.11
22. You ought promise nothing deceitfully 48.24
23. The four examples (first appearance) 53.3
24. The four examples (second appearance) 67.3
25. The amputation of limbs 67.19
26. The four examples ("third" appearance) 72.23
27. Skill and diligence in work 77.23
28. Wit, imagination and humor 77.24
29. Fidelity in promising 78.2
30. Benevolence from ground propositions 78.2
31. I ought not lie 88.24
32. To promote others' happiness 89.7
33. Different fractions of equal value 105.6
34. The most wicked miscreant 112.10
Assertions (Xa)
Preface
1. Material philosophy is twofold. [iii.18]
2. Logic can have no empirical part. [iv.9]
3. Natural and moral philosophy can have an empirical part. [iv.17]
4. Physics has its empirical and rational parts. [v.15]
5. It is of the most extreme necessity to work out a pure moral philosophy. [vii.21]
6. The ground of obligation must be sought in concepts of pure reason. [viii.13]
7. Every prescription that rests on empirical grounds can never be called a moral law. [viii.17]
8. All moral philosophy rests completely on its pure part. [ix.5]
9. Moral philosophy gives a priori laws to the human being. [ix.9]
10. Power of judgement sharpened by experience is still required. [ix.10]
11. A metaphysics of moral is indispensably necessary. [ix.20]
12. Morals remain subject to all kinds of corruption. [x.2]
13. What is to be morally good must also be done for the sake of the law. [x.5]
14. Conformity alone is very contingent and precarious. [x.9]
15. Pure philosophy (metaphysics) must come first. [x.16]
16. Without metaphysics there can be no moral philosophy at all. [x.17]
First Section (Assertions)
1. Nothing but a good will can be considered good without qualifications. [1.7]
2. The good will is good through willing alone. [3.4]
3. The true function of reason must be to produce a will good in itself. [7.7]
4. The good will must be the highest good. [7.12]
5. The good will must be the condition of everything else. [7.14]
6. The concept of duty contains the concept of a good will. [8.11]
7. To secure one's own happiness is a duty. [11.25]
8. All human beings have the most powerful and intimate inclination for happiness. [12.5]
9. The human being can make no determinate and secure concept of happiness. [12.10]
10. Practical love alone can be commanded. [13.13]
11. An action from duty has its moral worth only in its maxim. [13.14]
12. Intentions and effects can give no unconditional and moral worth. [13.21]
13. The moral worth of an action can only lie in the principle of the will. [14.2]
14. Duty is the necessity of an action out of respect for the law. [14.14]
15. Only the mere law in itself can be an object of respect and thus a command. [15.1]
16. Only the law can objectively determine the wii. [15.6]
17. Pure respect for the practical law subjectively determines the will. [15.6]
18. The moral worth of action does not lie in the effects. [15.11]
19. Only the representation of the law in itself constitutes the moral good. [15.21]
20. The mere conformity to law in general must serve the will as a principle. [17.12]
21. Duty is the condition of a will good in itself. [20.18]
22. Common human reason, in order to know what to do, does not require philosophy. [21.7]
23. Out of practical grounds, common human reason is driven to philosophy. [23.24]
Second Section (Assertions)
1. It is impossible to make out by experience with certainty whether an action is done from duty. [26.7]
2. When the issue is moral worth, what matters are inner principles of actions, which are not seen. [26.24]
3. Duty lies before all experience in the idea of a reason determining the will through a priori grounds. [28.13]
4. The law must hold for all rational beings in general. [28.21]
5. The law must hold with absolute necessity. [28.23]
6. Examples serve only as encouragement and can never justify. [30.1]
7. A completely isolated metaphysics of morals is an indispensable substrate of all securely established theoretical knowledge of duties. [32.18]
8. A completely isolated metaphysics of morals is a desideratum of the greatest importance for the actual fulfillment of its prescriptions. [32.18]
9. The pure representation of duty has a powerful influence on the human heart through reason alone. [33.7]
10. Reason can get control over incentives. [33.11]
11. All moral concepts have their seat and origin completely a priori in reason. [34.5]
12. No moral concepts can be abstracted from empirical cognitions. [34.9]
13. The dignity of all moral concepts lies in the purity of their origin. [34.11]
14. So far as one adds the empirical, one also detracts from the genuine influence of moral principles and from the unlimited worth of actions. [34.13]
15. It is of the greatest practical importance to derive moral laws from the universal concept of a rational being in general. [35.1]
16. For its application to human beings, morality requires anthropology. [35.14]
17. Without presenting morals as metaphysics, it is impossible to ground morals on its genuine principles and in so doing to bring about pure moral dispositions. [35.14]
18. Each thing in nature works according to laws. [36.16]
19. Only a rational being has the capacity to act according to the representation of laws, i.e., according to principles, or has a will. [36.17]
20. The will is nothing other than practical reason. [36.20]
21. Necessitation is the determination of a will that is not in itself fully in accord with reason. [37.6]
22. The representation of an objective principle, insofar as it is necessitating for a will, is called a command (of reason), and the formula of the command is called an imperative. [37.16]
23. All imperatives are expressed through an ought. [37.20]
24. No imperatives hold for the divine will and in general for a holy will. [39.6]
25. All imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically. [39.15]
26. The hypothetical imperative only says that an action would be good for some possible or actual purpose. [40.17]
27. The pursuit of happiness is one end which one can presuppose as actual for all rational beings. [42.3]
28. The imperative which refers to the choice of means to your own happiness is hypothetical. [43.1]
29. That imperative is categorical which, without laying down as a condition for the imperative's basis some other purpose that is to be achieved by that conduct, commands the conduct immediately. [43.6]
30. Whoever wills the end, wills also the indispensable means, that are in his power. [44.20]
31. The concept of happiness is an indeterminate concept. [46.6]
32. One cannot act according to determinate principles in order to be happy. [47.8]
33. The imperative of morality is not at all hypothetical. [48.14]
34. Only the categorical imperative reads as a practical law. [49.26]
35. The categorical imperative is a synthetic practical proposition a priori. [50.14]
36. There is only one categorical imperative. [52.3]
37. Some actions are constituted in such a way that their maxim cannot without contradiction even be thought as a universal law of nature. [57.9]
38. We really do acknowledge the validity of the categorical imperative. [58.25]
39. Duty, if it is to be genuine, can only be expressed in categorical imperatives, never in hypothetical imperatives. [59.4]
40. Duty must hold for all rational beings. [59.23]
41. Everything empirical is highly damaging to the purity of morals themselves. [61.6]
42. The purity of morals consists just in this, that the principle of action is free from all influences of contingent grounds that only experience can provide. [61.10]
43. If there is a necessary law for all rational beings, then it must (completely a priori) already be connected with the concept of the will of a rational being in general. [62.1]
44. The will is thought as a capacity to determine itself to act according to the representation of certain laws. [63.13]
45. Rational beings are called persons because their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves. [65.15]
46. The human being necessarily conceives of its own existence as an end in itself. [66.12]
47. The principle of humanity must arise from pure reason. [70.11]
48. The human being is subject only to its own, but universal, lawgiving. [73.11]
49. In the empire of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. [77.3]
50. Morality and humanity, so far as it is capable of it, alone have dignity. [77.21]
51. Lawgiving itself must have a dignity. [79.12]
52. Autonomy is the ground of the dignity of human nature and of all rational nature. [79.17]
53. The three ways above of representing the principle of morality are at bottom only so many formulas of the very same law. [79.20]
54. All maxims have a form, a matter, and a complete determination of all maxims. [80.2]
55. That will is absolutely good which cannot be bad and therefore whose maxim, if the maxim is made into a universal law, can never conflict with itself. [81.11]
56. Rational nature distinguishes itself from the others by setting an end for itself. [82.3]
57. The end here must be thought not as one to be produced but rather as a self-sufficient end. [82.10]
58. Any rational being must so act as if it were through its maxims always a lawgiving member in the universal empire of ends. [83.23]
59. An empire of ends would actually come into existence through maxims whose rule the categorical imperative prescribes to all rational beings, if the maxims were universally followed. [84.11]
60. Autonomy of the will is the characteristic of the will by which the will is a law to itself. [87.10]
61. If the will seeks the law that is to determine it in the character of any of its objects, then heteronomy always results. [88.11]
62. Empirical principles are not at all fit to be the ground of moral laws. [90.8]
63. The principle of personal happiness is the most objectionable. [90.16]
64. Moral feeling, this supposed special sense, remains closer to morality. [91.4]
65. If I had to choose between the concept of moral sense and that of perfection in general, then I would decide for the latter. [92.22]
66. The absolutely good will contains merely the form of willing in general as autonomy. [95.3]
67. Whoever holds morality to be something must admit the principle of autonomy. [95.23]
Third Section (Assertions)
1. The will is a kind of causality of living beings. [97.10]
2. A free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same. [98.18]
3. Any being that can act not otherwise than under the idea of freedom is, just for that reason, in practical regard, actually free. [100.13]
4. We must attribute to each being endowed with reason and will this quality of determining itself to action under the idea of its freedom. [102.4]
5. Freedom and individual lawgiving of the will are both autonomy. [104.26]
6. This must provide a distinction between a world of sense and a world of understanding. [106.16]
7. By the knowledge the human being has of itself through inner sensation, it cannot presume to know what it is in itself. [106.22]
8. A rational being has two standpoints from which it can consider itself. [108.23]
9. With the idea of freedom the concept of autonomy is inseparably connected, but this is inseparably connected with the universal principle of morality. [109.11]
10. The world of understanding contains the ground of the world of sense, and therefore also of its laws. [111.3]
11. One must look at the laws of the world of understanding as imperatives for oneself. [111.13]
12. Categorical imperatives are possible because the idea of freedom makes me into a member of an intelligible world and I intuit myself at the same time as a member of the world of sense. [111.16]
13. The practical use of common human reason confirms the correctness of this deduction. [112.8]
14. All human beings think themselves as regards the will as free. [113.20]
15. Freedom is only an idea of reason, whose objective reality is in itself doubtful. [114.12]
16. No true contradiction will be found between freedom and natural necessity of the very same human actions. [115.3]
17. This duty, however, is incumbent only on speculative philosophy so that speculative philosophy might prepare a clear path for practical philosophy. [116.10]
18. That a thing as an appearance is subject to certain laws while the very same as a thing or being in itself is independent of those laws contains not the least contradiction. [117.17]
19. The concept of a world of understanding is only a standpoint. [119.14]
20. Reason would overstep its entire boundary if it attempted to explain how pure reason can be practical. [120.9]
21. The idea of freedom holds only as a necessary presupposition of reason. [120.23]
22. Where the determination of natural laws stops, all explanation stops, too. [121.2]
23. The subjective impossibility of explaining the freedom of the will is one and the same with the impossibility of discovering and making understandable an interest which the human being might take in moral laws. [121.25]
24. Moral feeling must be seen as the subjective effect that the law exercises on the will. [122.7]
25. The explanation of how and why the universality of a maxim as law, and therefore morality, interests us, is completely impossible for us human beings. [123.14]
26. It interests us because it is valid for us as human beings. [123.22]
27. The question of how a categorical imperative is possible can be answered so far as you can provide the sole presupposition under which the imperative is possible. [124.1]
28. Under the presupposition of the freedom of the will of an intelligence, the will's autonomy is a necessary consequence. [124.11]
29. To presuppose this freedom of the will is not only possible but also practically necessary. [124.14]
30. All human reason is completely incapable of explaining how pure reason can be practical. [125.7]
31. The idea of a pure world of understanding remains always a useful and permitted idea for the purpose of a rational faith. [126.23]
32. Reason restlessly seeks the unconditioned-necessary. [128.2]
Headings (Xh)
Preface
1. The branches of philosophy: physics, ethics, logic [iii.2]
2. All rational knowledge is material or formal; ethics is material [iii.12]
3. The empirical (practical anthropology) and rational (metaphysics of morals) parts of ethics [iv.9]
4. The need for a metaphysics of morals [v.20]
5. A metaphysics of morals differs from Wolff's philosophy [xi.5]
6. Three reasons for this Groundlaying [xiii.11]
7. The aims of this Groundlaying [xv.3]
8. The method and parts of this Groundlaying [xvi.1]
First Section (Headings)
1. Only the good will is good without qualification [1.5]
2. The good will is good in itself [3.4]
3. The practical function of reason is the establishment of a good will [4.3]
4. The concept of duty contains the concept of a good will [8.4]
5. Acting from duty [8.17]
6. Only actions from duty have a moral worth [9.21]
7. The second proposition: an action from duty has its moral worth in the principle of willing [13.14]
8. The third proposition: duty is the necessity of an action out of respect for the law [14.13]
9. The formula of universal law: mere conformity to law serves as the principle of a good will [15.11]
10. An illustration: a false promise [18.1]
11. Common human reason uses this principle of a good will [20.21]
12. Moral philosophy is still needed to avoid dialectic [22.21]
Second Section (Headings)
1. Morality cannot be drawn from experience [25.6]
2. Morality cannot be borrowed from examples [29.10]
3. Popular moral philosophy is unreliable [30.8]
4. Review of methodological conclusions [34.5]
5. Reason and its influence on the will [36.16]
6. Classification of Imperatives [37.16]
7. The hypothetical imperative [39.15]
8. The categorical imperative [43.6]
9. How hypothetical imperatives are possible [44.13]
10. How categorical imperatives are possible [48.14]
11. The formula of universal law [51.1]
12. The formula of universal law of nature [52.14]
13. Four examples [52.23]
14. Willing and thinking maxims [57.3]
15. Exceptions [57.24]
16. An a priori proof is still required [59.3]
17. Objective and relative ends [63.13]
18. The formula of humanity [64.15]
19. Four Examples [67.3]
20. The formula of autonomy [69.23]
21. The exclusion of interest [71.5]
22. Heteronomy [73.5]
23. The formula of the empire of ends [74.5]
24. Price and dignity [77.3]
25. Review of the formulas [79.20]
26. Overall review [81.9]
27. The autonomy of the will [87.7]
28. The heteronomy of the will [88.8]
29. Taxonomy of all heteronomous principles [89.14]
30. Empirical heteronomous principles: happiness and feeling [90.8]
31. Rational heteronomous principles: ontological and theological perfection [91.19]
32. The inadequacy of heteronomy in general [93.7]
33. Review and Preview: what has been proved and what is still to be proved [95.3]
Third Section (Headings)
1. Concepts of freedom: positive and negative [97.6]
2. The presupposition of freedom [99.19]
3. A vicious circle? [101.18]
4. Escaping from the vicious circle: the two standpoints [105.9]
5. How is a categorical imperative possible? [110.8]
6. A contradiction between freedom and natural necessity? [113.17]
7. Resolution of the contradiction: the two standpoints [115.15]
8. The limits of knowledge: the world of understanding [118.24]
9. The limits of explanation: the possibility of freedom [120.9]
10. The limits of explanation: moral interest [121.25]
11. Review: how is a categorical imperative possible? [124.1]
12. The highest limit of all moral inquiry [126.13]
13. Concluding remark: the limitations of reason [127.9]
Glossary (Xg)
absolute :: Kant uses 'absolute' or 'absolutely' to let us know that something is not dependent or based on some empirical, contingent condition. He frequently uses it to describe a good will, necessity, and law. So an absolutely good will is a will that is always guided by the moral law and never swayed by desires and other empirical incentives. And a moral command such as the categorical imperative expresses absolute necessity because it must be followed no matter what desires you might have. This independence from any empirical condition implies that you will not be able to excuse yourself from, or make for yourself an exception to, the moral law. [viii]
a posteriori :: This Latin phrase is typically used in connection with concepts and incentives. It indicates availability only by means of empirical investigation and is to be understood in opposition to 'a priori'. An example of an a posteriori concept is the concept of gravity. We have the concept of gravity only through experience (e.g., of dropped objects falling to the ground rather than floating) and, in its more precise form, through the empirical investigations of experimenters like Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton. In philosophy in general, it is knowledge justified by appeal to the senses that is typically alleged to be a posteriori. [xiii]
a priori :: This Latin phrase is frequently used in connection with concepts, principles, laws, and propositions. It signals availability without the aid of empirical investigation and so is to be understood in opposition to 'a posteriori'. Characterizing a principle as a priori, for instance, can signal that the principle can be known without the aid of empirical investigation. Kant thinks that all genuinely moral principles are a priori (and also that they are synthetic). In philosophy in general, it is knowledge that is sometimes alleged to be a priori, particularly knowledge of logical truths but also of some moral and metaphysical truths. In these contexts, we are said to know these truths a priori; that is, we can gain access to the truths without having to resort to empirical investigation. [v]
analytic ::
1. Kant's method of investigation is in part analytic, another part being synthetic. In this methodological context, 'analytic' refers to transitioning to higher principles (having a more general or wider scope of application) from lower principles (having a more specific or narrower scope of application) by examination of the lower principles. Other ways to think of it are to see it as a transition from conclusion to premises or assumptions, or as a process of reverse-engineering a finished product into the components from which it is assembled. Kant says (at pp. 95-6) that the first two Sections of the work exhibit this analytic approach. [xvi]
2. Kant also speaks of analytic propositions (see p. 45). Such a proposition linguistically joins together concepts that are conceptually inseparable in the sense that if you think one concept and fully probe the concept you will come across the other concept, thus merely making explicit what is already implicit in the probed concept. The usual metaphor is that one (i.e., the probed) concept contains the other concept, this containment being what makes the concepts inseparable in the specified sense. As an example, Kant says (pp. 44-5) that the proposition 'whoever wills the end also wills the indispensable means to that end' is an analytic proposition; for if we sufficiently probe the concept of willing an end we will find in it the concept of willing the indispensable means to that end. [45]
apodictic :: This unusual word indicates the absolute necessity of something such as a law or principle. For example (p. 40), the categorical imperative is an apodictic practical principle; hypothetical imperatives, on the other hand, are never apodictic because the necessity they express is always conditional (on, for instance, desires and wants) rather than absolute. [28]
appearance :: An appearance is an object of experience and is located in space and time. This word ('Erscheinung' in German) occurs most frequently in the Third Section (an earlier and less specific use appears on p. 28) in the context of the world of sense: appearances are what we encounter in the world of sense, in the world that is full of sensible objects such as trees and bumblebees. A closely related term is 'phenomenon' ('phenomena' being the plural, analogous to 'appearances'). An appearance (phenomenon) is to be contrasted with a thing in itself (noumenon). The appearance is supposed to be the appearing, to us in the world of sense, of the thing in itself which is not in the world of sense and which we cannot know; the unknowable thing in itself is in some way "behind" the appearance. [106]
assertoric :: Kant categorizes hypothetical imperatives in several ways. One of these ways is to say that the hypothetical imperative is an assertoric practical principle, by which he means that the imperative, taken as a principle, asserts that an action is appropriate for some actual or real (as opposed to some merely possible) purpose. Kant's example (p. 42) is that everyone has as an actual purpose the pursuit of happiness; the hypothetical imperative prescribing the pursuit is thus assertoric. On p. 40, Kant contrasts assertoric principles with problematic principles. [40]
autonomy :: Kant uses this word to refer to the capacity of the will to govern itself by formulating and following laws and principles that are based in reason. This capacity is a distinguishing feature of rational beings endowed with a will. Such beings can (but, if they are imperfect beings such as humans, do not always) make principled decisions that are the result of thinking things through using their reason; frequently, however, such beings make decisions (and then act) based chiefly on emotions, feelings, desires, wants, likes and dislikes, biases, and prejudices. Kant also speaks (p. 74) of the principle of autonomy, and in this usage he means a principle that prescribes that we should exercise this capacity of the will to act on rational principles or maxims formulable as universal laws. [74]
categorical :: Most generally, this signals an independence from desires, wants, and needs. So, for example, the categorical imperative is an imperative that holds independently of what you might happen to want or desire. The categorical is aligned with what is universal and absolute rather than with what is personal/individual and relative. This alignment with the universal and absolute is perhaps the chief reason why moral imperatives, which are always categorical, are not hypothetical imperatives. [39]
categories :: Although this word has the same root as 'categorical' in 'categorical imperative', their meanings are not closely related. The categories are pure concepts of the understanding. They are basic, very general concepts that are built-in to the structure of our minds and that play an essential role in constructing our experience of the empirical world, the world of sense. According to Kant, there are twelve of these categories; examples of these fundamental concepts include: unity, plurality, causality, and possibility. Kant discusses the categories at length in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). In the Groundlaying, they are mostly in the background. In fact, Kant only explicitly refers to them once, on p. 80; other references are indirect such as those on p. 108 where they are the concepts that "bring sensuous representations under rules" or on p. 112 where they are the concepts that are "added" to intuitions. [80]
cognition :: A cognition is a kind of representation (in Kant's sense) of an object or relation between objects. A moral cognition, for instance, might be a true judgment about what our duty is in a particular situation. The German word is 'Erkenntniß' and is sometimes translated as 'knowledge' in the sense of knowing that something is the case or of holding a true proposition about something. [iii]
concept :: A concept is a kind of representation (in Kant's sense) of a property or characteristic of something of a particular kind. For example, the concept of a rational being specifies the property or attribute of having the power or faculty of reason. Some concepts can be complex and specify more than one property; for example, the concept of a moral principle specifies, among others which Kant does not emphasize so much, the three properties of being universal, being necessary, and being absolute. [viii]
critique :: Kant speaks several times in the Groundlaying of a critique of reason and of practical reason. These critiques are part of his so-called critical philosophy, which is the philosophy he started putting together in the 1770s and which represents his more mature views. Kant thinks these critiques of reason are necessary in order to prevent reason from exceeding its limits, which it does when it tries to claim knowledge of things that are beyond our possible experience. Examples of such claims to knowledge, from traditional metaphysics (which Kant rejects) include claims about God's abilities, claims about the immortality of the soul, and claims about how freedom is possible. (Note that although in the Groundlaying Kant says a bunch about this last, freedom, he does not say how it is possible but only that it must be presupposed.) [xiii]
dignity :: Like so many of the terms he uses, it's hard to pin down what Kant means by 'dignity', but it seems to be closely associated with autonomy. On p. 77, he seems to say that dignity is a kind of inner worth that human beings have insofar as they can be lawgivers. He later (p. 79) also seems to add that this inner worth is unconditional and incomparable. And on p. 87 Kant suggests that dignity is, or arises from, the capability of rational beings to be universal lawgivers. [23]
duty :: In the Groundlaying, a duty is a moral obligation. For Kant, this means that duties have several features. They are based on the moral law and so are unconditioned and specify absolutely necessary actions. We feel this necessity that they have, this obligatoriness, when we respect the moral law. These features help explain Kant's account of duty in The Third Proposition (p. 14). Kant also holds that there are different kinds (pp. 52-3) of duties and that the concept of duty contains (p. 8) the concept of a good will. [viii]
ethics :: Ethics is one of the main branches of philosophy. As such, it is the science of morals, the methodological study of the system of duties that govern human conduct. As a branch of philosophy, ethics should be thought of as philosophical ethics or as moral or practical philosophy. Kant says (p. v) that ethics has two parts, one empirical and one rational: practical anthropology (which is the empirical part) and the metaphysics of morals (which is the purely rational part). The term should not be thought of as synonymous with 'morals' or 'morality' because ethics takes morals or morality as its object of study as, for instance, biology takes the living organism as its object of study. [iii]
empirical ::
1. As an adjective, it usually characterizes motives, laws, or principles as in some way relying on sense experience. So, for instance, an empirical law (such as the law of gravity) is a law that is established through observation and experiment. For Kant, no genuine moral laws or principles are empirical at their foundations (but applying the laws or principles may require empirical inputs). This is so because all moral laws are synthetic a priori statements while all empirical laws are synthetic a posteriori statements. [iv]
2. As a noun (as in 'the empirical'), it refers to content obtained or generated by using the senses. So, for instance, the propositional content in the general claim that humans desire companionship is based on our repeated observations of the social behavior of others (and ourselves). The opposite of the empirical is the transcendent, what is beyond experience (and the analogous adjective is 'transcendental'). [vi]
end in itself :: By an end in itself ('Zweck an sich selbst' in German), Kant means a rational being with a will. Human beings with wills and persons count as ends in themselves. These kinds of beings are able to set goals for themselves and to have purposes which they try to fulfill by following principles of action. This conception of rational beings underlies the Humanity formulation of the categorical imperative. [64]
experience :: In a non-technical sense, experience is the empirical knowledge we have from our interactions with the world of sense. More technically, an experience is a judgment or statement our faculty of understanding forms from combining sensory inputs (intuitions) with the twelve categories of the understanding (such as the category of causality). Kant holds that no moral concepts, such as duty, are concepts of experience (p. 25). [iv]
ground :: Kant uses this word very frequently in various contexts: "ground of obligation" at viii.13; "ground of the difficulty" at 50.12; "ground of desire" at 63.22; "ground of determinate laws" at 64.17; "ground of this principle" at 66.11; "ground of the dignity" at 79.18; "ground of the world of sense" at 111.4; "its good ground" at 125.17; and others. It can, in general, perhaps best be understood as an amalgam of the following: (rational) basis, foundation, cause, source, origin, reason, warrant, justification, account. [iv]
groundlaying :: A metaphysics of morals requires a rational basis, and in this work Kant is trying to figure out such a rational basis: the content of the sequential transitions passed through in the process of this figuring out constitutes the groundlaying. Others have translated the German word, 'Grundlegung', as 'groundwork', 'fundamental principles', 'foundations', and 'grounding'. [xiii]
heteronomy :: In contrast to autonomy, heteronomy is a capacity of the will to relinquish control to empirical influences such as desires and wants. A will in this state would be a heteronomous will and is not free. Kant also speaks of principles of heteronomy, meaning by this principles, such as the principle of happiness, that prescribe that the will should let itself be governed by desires and wants rather than by reason. According to Kant, such heteronomous principles can never be genuine moral principles. [74]
highest good :: Kant says (p. 7) that a will that is good in itself is the highest good. Such a will is good not because of what it accomplishes but only because of the way in which it wills (i.e, willing in accordance with a universalizable maxim). The highest good should not be confused with the complete good, which (as we learn (5:110) in the Critique of Practical Reason) is a good will which is also happy because it has all the virtues that entitle it to that happiness. Note that Kant also remarks (p. 29) that we identify God as the highest good. [7]
hypothetical :: This is an adjective characterizing some imperatives as based on wants, desires, and needs rather than on reason. So a hypothetical imperative prescribes that you should do some action provided that you desire some result that would probably be brought about (at least in part) by performing the action. An example of a hypothetical imperative would be: I should do what my boss tells me to do or else I won't get the promotion that I want. In this example, obeying the boss is the necessary means to the unnecessary but wanted end of getting the promotion. Kant's meaning of "hypothetical" should not be confused with the dictionary definition of "hypothetical" which equates it with "imaginary" or "supposed" as in "a hypothetical case"; for Kant, hypothetical imperatives are very real, as are the desires and wants in the world of sense upon which such imperatives are based. [40]
idea :: Kant's use of 'idea' ('Idee' in the German) is peculiar. He typically means a representation that comes from pure reason and so which represents something transcendent and unconditional. Examples include the idea of God, the idea of duty, the idea of immortality, and the idea of freedom. He rarely, if ever, uses 'idea' in the ordinary sense of just a thought, conception, or notion. For this ordinary sense, Kant is more likely to use 'representation' ('Vorstellung' in the German). Some translators use 'Idea' for Kant's peculiar sense and 'idea' for the ordinary sense. [v]
incentive :: An incentive ('Triebfeder' in the German) is just about anything that can influence the will, that can move us to action through an act of willing: feelings, desires, objects of desires, the expected effect of an action, secret or hidden springs of action, etc. They are typically empirical and of a sensuous sort and as such can never be a basis for morality. But Kant leaves it open as to whether there are non-empirical, pure, or a priori incentives. He says (p. 86), for instance, that respect (which is a special kind of feeling) for the law can be an incentive. And, though he holds it out as a possibility, Kant does not claim to be able to explain how something non-sensuous (such as an idea or a thought) could be an incentive (see pp. 123-6). Kant sometimes uses 'motive' ('Bewegungsgrund') for these possible non-sensuous incentives. [13]
inclination :: An inclination ('Neigung' in the German) is a kind of habitual desire that arises from needs and that is stimulated by sensibility (see the footnote on p. 38). Examples would include desires, either mediate or immediate, for food, sleep, sex, companionship, self-love, and happiness. Because inclinations arise from the needs we have as embodied beings, and are therefore thoroughly empirical in nature, Kant denies that inclinations can ever be a basis for morality. [ix]
intelligible :: The intelligible world is that world of things in themselves, including our true selves, which we cannot know or even be acquainted with. According to Kant, we cannot know, for instance, whether the intelligible world exists in space and time or whether causal laws govern the relations between the objects (if there are such) in the intelligible world. We cannot have such knowledge because the intelligible world is not presented to us through sensibility. Because causality cannot be attributed to the intelligible world, when we, as rational beings, think of our true selves as belonging to that world, we must think of ourselves as having freedom of the will. Still (and perhaps inexplicably), Kant wants to go on to say that the intelligible world and its things in themselves lie behind, and are the rational ground of, the appearances in the world of sense that we interact with as embodied beings. Furthermore, this rational ground, reason itself, is the source of morality. So, although we, as rational beings with wills, must think of ourselves as free, we are not totally undetermined; for we, as rational beings, willingly conform to reason and thus to moral law. But, at the same time, we, as also embodied beings belonging to the world of sense, find our wills obligated by these moral laws which have their source in the intelligible world. [109]
intuition :: An intuition ('Anschauung' in the German), in Kant's technical vocabulary, is a kind of representation which is essential to the operation of the faculty of sensibility. Intuitions can be empirical, as when we have sensuous intuitions of objects in the world of sense; examples would be the mental imagery of a patch of color, the tactile impression of a felt texture, or the auditory awareness of a singular sound. These empirical intuitions, or passively received sensory inputs with uninterpreted content, are unlike non-empirical, pure, or a priori intuitions, which are formal and have no content at all; examples of these are the intuitions of space and time. [79]
knowledge :: For Kant, knowledge is the outcome of the understanding's job of combining intuitions with concepts. The result of the combination is a judgment. So knowledge always occurs in the form of a judgment. Depending on the intuitions and concepts involved, the judgment or knowledge might be either empirical or non-empirical. Examples of the latter kind are the categorical imperative and the claim that every event has a cause, both of which are synthetic a priori judgments. [ix]
law :: There are several kinds of laws. Kant refers, for instance on p. 11, to laws of nature (e.g., theoretical laws such as the law of cause and effect), laws of freedom (e.g., practical laws such as moral laws), and laws of thought (e.g., formal laws of logic). What they all have in common is that they are true, universal, absolute, and necessary. [iv]
maxim :: A maxim is a subjective principle of willing on which a rational being with a will acts. Maxims specify the end to be achieved by the action, the means or action used to achieve the end, and the contextual circumstances of the situation. A maxim does not have to be explicitly formulated by the acting rational being. When a maxim is consistent with the moral law then it holds not just subjectively (for the acting rational being) but also objectively (for all rational beings similarly situated). For all maxims that can succeed as moral principles, Kant says (p. 80) that they have: a form, a matter, and a complete determination according to universal law. [15]
metaphysics :: It is a subsidiary branch of philosophy; in particular, it is the non-formal (non-logic) part of pure philosophy that deals with objects of the understanding. The knowledge we get from metaphysics is synthetic a priori because it says something about how our experience (hence synthetic) of nature or of morals must (hence a priori) be. Kant thinks this kind of knowledge is possible because our mind, our understanding in particular, is an active participant in constructing our experience. In general, for Kant, metaphysics is possible just to the extent that it helps to explain the structure of our experience. Note, however, that Kant thinks that traditional metaphysics, which goes beyond possible experience by making claims, for instance, about God, the soul, and substance, is not possible. [v]
metaphysics of morals :: This phrase refers to the pure, rational part of morals or ethics, the part of morals in which its principles (which are synthetic a priori propositions) are derived only from pure reason rather than also from empirical facts about the nature of human beings. The metaphysics of morals thus provides the rational basis for the system of moral duties that govern our behavior. Kant insists that morals must, for its foundations, have such a metaphysics, but he at the same time allows that morals, for its applications to human life, must have access to empirical facts about humans and their circumstances in the world of sense. [v]
misology :: Kant makes use of this uncommon word, which means a distrust or hatred of reason and reasoning, in arguing that reason has not been given to us specifically in order to help us obtain happiness. [6]
morals ::
1. Morals, in one meaning, is the system of obligations that govern how rational beings ought to behave toward each other. This is closer to the meaning of Kant's use of 'Sitten', 'Sittlichkeit', and 'Moralität' and is the meaning of 'Morals' in the English title of the work. See the first occurrence of 'morals' on page v, embedded in the phrase 'metaphysics of morals'. [v]
2. In another meaning, morals is the rational part of ethics or the rational part of the science (i.e., methodological study) of morality. This is closer to the meaning of Kant's use of 'Moral', 'Ethik', 'Moralphilosophie', and the entire phrase 'Metaphysik der Sitten'. See the second occurrence of 'morals' on page v. [v]
noumenon :: This word does not occur in the Groundlaying, but it is a synonym for 'thing in itself', which does. The opposite of 'noumenon' is 'phenomenon' or an appearance. A noumenon is unknowable because it cannot be intuited and so cannot be an object of experience. If we try to intuit a noumenon and so try to make it an object of experience, we exceed the boundary of reason. Kant is critical of those philosophers who have tried to do this, and it is because of this error that he rejects traditional (speculative) metaphysics which claims knowledge of God, immortality, and freedom. A properly critiqued reason is limited to mere ideas, not knowledge, of such features of the noumenal or intelligible world. [106]
objective :: Kant frequently uses 'objective' in two adjectival contexts: to qualify 'reality' and to qualify terms such as 'principle', 'law', and 'necessity'. In the former context (e.g., p. 114), Kant means that there is an actual, really existing, object for a representation (such as an idea or thought) that we have constructed of that object. In the latter context (e.g., p. 37), Kant means that the principle, law, or necessity is valid, holds for, or is applicable to all rational beings simply because they are rational, independently of any individuating characteristics such as desires, wants, or physical abilities. [15]
phenomenon :: A phenomenon is an appearance in the world of sense. What lies behind the phenomenon is a noumenon, or thing in itself, in the intelligible world. [117]
physics :: It is one of the main branches of philosophy. The term is not synonymous with present-day physics and is even broader in scope than our contemporary notion of the natural sciences as a group of disciplines. [iii]
practical :: Not used in the sense of 'feasible', 'practical' refers to behavior, conduct, or action. Moral principles are thus practical principles because they prescribe how we should behave, conduct ourselves, and act. And practical reason is the faculty or power of reason in its capacity to issue directives to action (i.e., to determine the will). The term should be understood in contrast to the theoretical and speculative. [v]
practical anthropology :: It is the science of human beings with respect to customs and social behavior, in other words, the empirical part of ethics. Practical anthropology, being empirical, is not a part of the metaphysics of morals, but Kant also holds that practical anthropology is essential to the application of moral principles to human life. [v]
problematic :: A category of hypothetical imperative, Kant uses this word to mark out those practical principles that pertain to merely possible purposes that a rational being might happen to have. On p. 40, Kant contrasts problematic principles with assertoric principles. [40]
pure :: Kant typically uses this adjective to describe concepts and motives that are unmixed with empirical content; it is nearly synonymous with 'a priori'. [v]
rational :: This word indicates that something (e.g., a person or a principle) is not empirical or is not mixed or encumbered in some way with empirical or sensory elements. For example, 'the rational person' might refer to someone who makes decisions based on principles arrived at through reasoning instead of someone whose actions are caused by emotions or sentiment; it might also refer to the true self, the person considered from the point of view of the intelligible world rather than the world of sense. [iii]
rational being :: This phrase refers to a special kind of being, a being with a will and so with the capacity to act on a principle. A typical human being is an example of such a being because typical humans have wills, have reason, and can (but do not always) allow their reason to guide their will. [viii]
reason :: It is a capacity, faculty, or power of rational beings to think in a lawlike or rule-based (i.e., according to a canon of thought) way; it is thus what we use when we think logically, as when we make inferences from premises to a conclusion. It is also an original source of new and pure or a priori concepts. Kant says (p. 7) that the highest practical function of reason is to help our wills become good. This meaning of 'reason' (as a faculty or power) should be distinguished from the meaning of 'reason' as an account of why something is done or what justifies it; for something akin to these latter meanings, Kant's favorite word is perhaps 'ground'. [iii]
representation :: Kant uses this word in a very special sense. For him, it is a generic term signifying any kind of output or object which we are mentally aware of and which our mind (in particular, our understanding) has actively processed. For example, all of the following are representations: concepts, ideas, intuitions, sensations. Representations can be of varying degrees of complexity, from the simple perception or intuition of a single patch of uniform color to the multi-layered comprehension of a proposition built up or synthesized out of several related concepts. Note, too, that representations do not have to be of actual objects; they can, for instance, be of imaginary objects such as centaurs and so do not have to represent something real. [15]
respect :: Respect ('Achtung' in the German) is a special kind of feeling (p. 16). This special feeling does not arise through empirical sensibility; rather, it arises when we become aware that the moral law places us under an obligation. So respect for the law is an effect that the law has on us, and it is thus not a cause of the law. [15]
science :: A science is any organized body of knowledge. Kant's meaning is much broader than in contemporary usage of the word which is more or less restricted to disciplines that employ rigorous experimental methodologies. [iii]
sensation :: A sensation ('Empfindung' in the German) is the immediate or direct effect of something on the senses. There can be external and internal sensations, depending on whether the outer sense or inner sense is affected, but in any case are always empirical, never pure or a priori. For example, visually tracking a bird in flight would involve (external) sensations; consumption of alcohol might give rise to (internal) sensations associated with giddiness. Sensations are one kind of representation and furnish the material for empirical intuitions. [13]
sensibility :: Sensibility ('Sinnlichkeit' in the German) is the capacity, faculty, or power of having sensations and intuitions. [93]
speculative :: Used frequently in conjunction with 'reason', Kant emphasizes the use of the power of reason to engage in theoretical, as opposed to practical or action-based, pursuits; a first approximation might be to think of it as intellectual curiosity. Kant thinks that speculative reason can get carried away in its attempt to gain theoretical knowledge and in so doing overstep its bounds and hopelessly try to know the transcendent. [xiii]
subjective :: Something is subjective insofar as it is particular to an individual at a given time or place, is not possessed by all rational beings, or relates to the perspective of the individual. So, for instance, desires are subjective in that they can differ in various ways (e.g., duration, intensity, existence) from individual to individual and even within the same individual. The opposite of 'subjective' is 'objective'. Another example, is sensibility; it, too, is variable, some individuals having greater perceptual acuity than others, for instance. It is their subjectivity that rules out desire and sensibility as candidates for the basis or source of morality, for Kant holds that morality exhibits universality and necessity. [12]
synthetic ::
1. Part of Kant's method is to proceed in a synthetic fashion, that is, by transitioning from higher principles to lower principles and in so doing showing how the lower depend on the higher. For this meaning, see the last paragraph of the Preface. [xvi]
2. In another context, but in which it is still opposed to 'analytic', the word describes a particular kind of proposition in which conceptually separable concepts are joined. Kant holds that all empirical propositions are synthetic (and a posteriori), the propositions' component concepts being joined by experience (e.g., by intuitions). [45]
synthetic practical proposition a priori :: This is a practical proposition which is both synthetic and a priori. So, breaking this down further, it is first of all a practical proposition, a proposition in which at least one of its expressed concepts has to do with action or conduct. Then, second, it is synthetic so that the proposition asserts a connection between concepts that are conceptually distinct, separate, not internally linked just between themselves. Third, the linkage between concepts is a priori in that the concepts are necessarily (and so not empirically) joined together by something other than experience. In sum, it is a proposition in which action-related concepts that can be thought separately are nevertheless bound to each other in a necessary way. For an example, see the footnote on p. 50, where the concepts being connected are will and action. [50]
teleology :: Teleology is a theory that views processes as aiming for or striving to achieve goals or ends. The conception of nature as having purposes, for instance, is the core of teleological theory. Kant makes use (p. 80) of teleology in comparing an empire of ends with and empire of nature. Teleology also figures in his discussion (starting on p. 4) of the role of reason in the life of a rational being. [80]
thing in itself :: A thing in itself, also called a noumenon, is what exists in the intelligible world. We cannot know things in themselves because they cannot be intuited or represented to us and so cannot be possible objects of experience. But Kant claims that they exist and that they somehow lie behind, and provide the ground for, appearances in the world of sense. [106]
transcendent :: What is transcendent is what is beyond the possibility of experience; it is accordingly unknowable. The intelligible world of things in themselves, of noumena, is a transcendent realm. [126]
transcendental :: Kant uses this adjective to refer to what helps explain the possibility of experience. So, for instance, transcendental knowledge, such as the synthetic a priori proposition that every event has a cause, sets a condition that must be met in order for us to have any experience at all. Note that, according to Kant, transcendental knowledge is possible but that transcendent knowledge is not possible. [xi]
understanding :: This word, a noun ('der Verstand' in German), has a special meaning in Kant's philosophy. The understanding is another of the powers, faculties, or capacities of the mind. Unlike the faculty of reason, the understanding is not a spontaneous source of new, pure (i.e., free from the impurities of the empirical) concepts. Rather, the understanding's main job is to take sensory inputs (empirical intuitions) and then process them (using schema) with the understanding's own pure concepts (the categories); the result is a cognition such as a thought or judgment. Unlike reason, the understanding needs sensory inputs or intuitions; without them, it would have nothing to do. [iv]
will :: The will ('der Wille' being the German word for it) is an ability or power of a rational being to represent to itself a law, principle, or rule for the specific purpose of action; at one point (p. 36), Kant says that the will is practical reason. This ability (as it occurs in humans) can be compromised or weakened by non-rational empirical factors such as desires, incentives, inclinations, and impulses; a bad will, such as that of the villain, is frequently the result. It is also possible, however, that this ability is guided or determined solely by reason, in which case a good will is the result. But note that, in order for this good will actually to produce a good outcome, further steps and favorable circumstances are required; for instance, the rational being must be free to choose (i.e., must have free will or, in the German, 'die Willkür') to act on or carry out the representation of the law for action that the will has given it, and then the external circumstances must be such that the action will be efficacious. [iv]
Index (Xi)
(Proper names and the first occurrence of uncommon words)
A
analytic 45
analytically xvi
apodictic 28
assertoric 40
autonomy 74
C
categorical 39
H
heteronomy 74
Hutcheson 91
hypophysical 33
hypothetical 39
J
Juno 61
P
problematic 40
S
Socrates 21
Sulzer 33
synthetic 45
synthetically xvi
W
Wolff xi
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Kant, Immanuel. Groundlaying toward the Metaphysics of Morals. 2nd ed. (corrected). Trans. and ed. Stephen Orr.
Groundlaying: Kant's Search for the Highest Principle of Morality. Google AppSpot,
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