Immanuel Kant
Fundamental
Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals
1785
PREFACE
Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three
sciences: physics, ethics, and logic. This division is perfectly suitable to
the nature of the thing; and the only improvement that can be made in it is to
add the principle on which it is based, so that we may both satisfy ourselves
of its completeness, and also be able to determine correctly the necessary
subdivisions.
All rational knowledge is either material or formal: the former considers some
object, the latter is concerned only with the form of the understanding and of
the reason itself, and with the universal laws of thought in general without
distinction of its objects. Formal philosophy is called logic. Material philosophy,
however, has to do with determinate objects and the laws to which they are
subject, is again twofold; for these laws are either laws of nature or of
freedom. The science of the former is physics, that of the latter, ethics; they
are also called natural philosophy and moral philosophy respectively.
Logic cannot have any empirical part; that is, a part in which the universal
and necessary laws of thought should rest on grounds taken from experience;
otherwise it would not be logic, i.e., a canon for the understanding or the
reason, valid for all thought, and capable of demonstration. Natural and moral
philosophy, on the contrary, can each have their empirical part, since the
former has to determine the laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter
the laws of the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former,
however, being laws according to which everything does happen; the latter, laws
according to which everything ought to happen. Ethics, however, must also
consider the conditions under which what ought to happen frequently does not.
We may call all philosophy empirical, so far as it is based on grounds of
experience: on the other band, that which delivers its doctrines from a priori
principles alone we may call pure philosophy. When the latter is merely formal
it is logic; if it is restricted to definite objects of the understanding it is
metaphysic.
In this way there arises the idea of a twofold metaphysic- a metaphysic of
nature and a metaphysic of morals. Physics will thus have an empirical and also
a rational part. It is the same with Ethics; but here the empirical part might
have the special name of practical anthropology, the name morality being
appropriated to the rational part.
All trades, arts, and handiworks have gained by division of labour, namely,
when, instead of one man doing everything, each confines himself to a certain
kind of work distinct from others in the treatment it requires, so as to be
able to perform it with greater facility and in the greatest perfection. Where
the different kinds of work are not distinguished and divided, where everyone
is a jack-of-all-trades, there manufactures remain still in the greatest
barbarism. It might deserve to be considered whether pure philosophy in all its
parts does not require a man specially devoted to it, and whether it would not
be better for the whole business of science if those who, to please the tastes
of the public, are wont to blend the rational and empirical elements together,
mixed in all sorts of proportions unknown to themselves, and who call
themselves independent thinkers, giving the name of minute philosophers to
those who apply themselves to the rational part only- if these, I say, were
warned not to carry on two employments together which differ widely in the
treatment they demand, for each of which perhaps a special talent is required,
and the combination of which in one person only produces bunglers. But I only
ask here whether the nature of science does not require that we should always
carefully separate the empirical from the rational part, and prefix to Physics
proper (or empirical physics) a metaphysic of nature, and to practical
anthropology a metaphysic of morals, which must be carefully cleared of
everything empirical, so that we may know how much can be accomplished by pure
reason in both cases, and from what sources it draws this its a priori
teaching, and that whether the latter inquiry is conducted by all moralists
(whose name is legion), or only by some who feel a calling thereto.
As my concern here is with moral philosophy, I limit the question suggested to
this: Whether it is not of the utmost necessity to construct a pure thing which
is only empirical and which belongs to anthropology? for that such a philosophy
must be possible is evident from the common idea of duty and of the moral laws.
Everyone must admit that if a law is to have moral force, i.e., to be the basis
of an obligation, it must carry with it absolute necessity; that, for example,
the precept, "Thou shalt not lie," is not valid for men alone, as if
other rational beings had no need to observe it; and so with all the other
moral laws properly so called; that, therefore, the basis of obligation must
not be sought in the nature of man, or in the circumstances in the world in
which he is placed, but a priori simply in the conception of pure reason; and
although any other precept which is founded on principles of mere experience
may be in certain respects universal, yet in as far as it rests even in the
least degree on an empirical basis, perhaps only as to a motive, such a
precept, while it may be a practical rule, can never be called a moral law.
Thus not only are moral laws with their principles essentially distinguished
from every other kind of practical knowledge in which there is anything
empirical, but all moral philosophy rests wholly on its pure part. When applied
to man, it does not borrow the least thing from the knowledge of man himself
(anthropology), but gives laws a priori to him as a rational being. No doubt
these laws require a judgement sharpened by experience, in order on the one
hand to distinguish in what cases they are applicable, and on the other to
procure for them access to the will of the man and effectual influence on
conduct; since man is acted on by so many inclinations that, though capable of
the idea of a practical pure reason, he is not so easily able to make it
effective in concreto in his life.
A metaphysic of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely for
speculative reasons, in order to investigate the sources of the practical
principles which are to be found a priori in our reason, but also because
morals themselves are liable to all sorts of corruption, as long as we are
without that clue and supreme canon by which to estimate them correctly. For in
order that an action should be morally good, it is not enough that it conform
to the moral law, but it must also be done for the sake of the law, otherwise
that conformity is only very contingent and uncertain; since a principle which
is not moral, although it may now and then produce actions conformable to the
law, will also often produce actions which contradict it. Now it is only a pure
philosophy that we can look for the moral law in its purity and genuineness
(and, in a practical matter, this is of the utmost consequence): we must,
therefore, begin with pure philosophy (metaphysic), and without it there cannot
be any moral philosophy at all. That which mingles these pure principles with
the empirical does not deserve the name of philosophy (for what distinguishes
philosophy from common rational knowledge is that it treats in separate
sciences what the latter only comprehends confusedly); much less does it
deserve that of moral philosophy, since by this confusion it even spoils the
purity of morals themselves, and counteracts its own end.
Let it not be thought, however, that what is here demanded is already extant in
the propaedeutic prefixed by the celebrated Wolf to his moral philosophy,
namely, his so-called general practical philosophy, and that, therefore, we
have not to strike into an entirely new field. just because it was to be a
general practical philosophy, it has not taken into consideration a will of any
particular kind- say one which should be determined solely from a priori principles
without any empirical motives, and which we might call a pure will, but
volition in general, with all the actions and conditions which belong to it in
this general signification. By this it is distinguished from a metaphysic of
morals, just as general logic, which treats of the acts and canons of thought
in general, is distinguished from transcendental philosophy, which treats of
the particular acts and canons of pure thought, i.e., that whose cognitions are
altogether a priori. For the metaphysic of morals has to examine the idea and
the principles of a possible pure will, and not the acts and conditions of
human volition generally, which for the most part are drawn from psychology. It
is true that moral laws and duty are spoken of in the general moral philosophy
(contrary indeed to all fitness). But this is no objection, for in this respect
also the authors of that science remain true to their idea of it; they do not
distinguish the motives which are prescribed as such by reason alone altogether
a priori, and which are properly moral, from the empirical motives which the
understanding raises to general conceptions merely by comparison of
experiences; but, without noticing the difference of their sources, and looking
on them all as homogeneous, they consider only their greater or less amount. It
is in this way they frame their notion of obligation, which, though anything
but moral, is all that can be attained in a philosophy which passes no
judgement at all on the origin of all possible practical concepts, whether they
are a priori, or only a posteriori.
Intending to publish hereafter a metaphysic of morals, I issue in the first
instance these fundamental principles. Indeed there is properly no other
foundation for it than the critical examination of a pure practical Reason;
just as that of metaphysics is the critical examination of the pure speculative
reason, already published. But in the first place the former is not so
absolutely necessary as the latter, because in moral concerns human reason can
easily be brought to a high degree of correctness and completeness, even in the
commonest understanding, while on the contrary in its theoretic but pure use it
is wholly dialectical; and in the second place if the critique of a pure
practical reason is to be complete, it must be possible at the same time to
show its identity with the speculative reason in a common principle, for it can
ultimately be only one and the same reason which has to be distinguished merely
in its application. I could not, however, bring it to such completeness here,
without introducing considerations of a wholly different kind, which would be
perplexing to the reader. On this account I have adopted the title of
Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals instead of that of a Critical
Examination of the pure practical reason.
But in the third place, since a metaphysic of morals, in spite of the
discouraging title, is yet capable of being presented in popular form, and one
adapted to the common understanding, I find it useful to separate from it this
preliminary treatise on its fundamental principles, in order that I may not
hereafter have need to introduce these necessarily subtle discussions into a
book of a more simple character.
The present treatise is, however, nothing more than the investigation and
establishment of the supreme principle of morality, and this alone constitutes
a study complete in itself and one which ought to be kept apart from every
other moral investigation. No doubt my conclusions on this weighty question, which
has hitherto been very unsatisfactorily examined, would receive much light from
the application of the same principle to the whole system, and would be greatly
confirmed by the adequacy which it exhibits throughout; but I must forego this
advantage, which indeed would be after all more gratifying than useful, since
the easy applicability of a principle and its apparent adequacy give no very
certain proof of its soundness, but rather inspire a certain partiality, which
prevents us from examining and estimating it strictly in itself and without
regard to consequences.
I have adopted in this work the method which I think most suitable, proceeding
analytically from common knowledge to the determination of its ultimate
principle, and again descending synthetically from the examination of this
principle and its sources to the common knowledge in which we find it employed.
The division will, therefore, be as follows:
TRANSITION FROM THE COMMON RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF
MORALITY TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL
Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which
can be called good, without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence,
wit, judgement, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named,
or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are
undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may
also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of
them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good.
It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health,
and the general well-being and contentment with one's condition which is called
happiness, inspire pride, and often presumption, if there is not a good will to
correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the
whole principle of acting and adapt it to its end. The sight of a being who is not
adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken
prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a
good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being
worthy of happiness.
There are even some qualities which are of service to this good will itself and
may facilitate its action, yet which have no intrinsic unconditional value, but
always presuppose a good will, and this qualifies the esteem that we justly
have for them and does not permit us to regard them as absolutely good.
Moderation in the affections and passions, self-control, and calm deliberation
are not only good in many respects, but even seem to constitute part of the
intrinsic worth of the person; but they are far from deserving to be called
good without qualification, although they have been so unconditionally praised
by the ancients. For without the principles of a good will, they may become
extremely bad, and the coolness of a villain not only makes him far more dangerous,
but also directly makes him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been
without it.
A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its
aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the
volition; that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be
esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favour of any
inclination, nay even of the sum total of all inclinations. Even if it should
happen that, owing to special disfavour of fortune, or the niggardly provision
of a step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its
purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing, and there
should remain only the good will (not, to be sure, a mere wish, but the
summoning of all means in our power), then, like a jewel, it would still shine
by its own light, as a thing which has its whole value in itself. Its
usefulness or fruitfulness can neither add nor take away anything from this
value. It would be, as it were, only the setting to enable us to handle it the
more conveniently in common commerce, or to attract to it the attention of
those who are not yet connoisseurs, but not to recommend it to true
connoisseurs, or to determine its value.
There is, however, something so strange in this idea of the absolute value of
the mere will, in which no account is taken of its utility, that
notwithstanding the thorough assent of even common reason to the idea, yet a
suspicion must arise that it may perhaps really be the product of mere
high-flown fancy, and that we may have misunderstood the purpose of nature in
assigning reason as the governor of our will. Therefore we will examine this
idea from this point of view.
In the physical constitution of an organized being, that is, a being adapted
suitably to the purposes of life, we assume it as a fundamental principle that
no organ for any purpose will be found but what is also the fittest and best
adapted for that purpose. Now in a being which has reason and a will, if the
proper object of nature were its conservation, its welfare, in a word, its
happiness, then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting
the reason of the creature to carry out this purpose. For all the actions which
the creature has to perform with a view to this purpose, and the whole rule of
its conduct, would be far more surely prescribed to it by instinct, and that
end would have been attained thereby much more certainly than it ever can be by
reason. Should reason have been communicated to this favoured creature over and
above, it must only have served it to contemplate the happy constitution of its
nature, to admire it, to congratulate itself thereon, and to feel thankful for
it to the beneficent cause, but not that it should subject its desires to that
weak and delusive guidance and meddle bunglingly with the purpose of nature. In
a word, nature would have taken care that reason should not break forth into
practical exercise, nor have the presumption, with its weak insight, to think
out for itself the plan of happiness, and of the means of attaining it. Nature
would not only have taken on herself the choice of the ends, but also of the
means, and with wise foresight would have entrusted both to instinct.
And, in fact, we find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself with
deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, so much the more
does the man fail of true satisfaction. And from this circumstance there arises
in many, if they are candid enough to confess it, a certain degree of misology,
that is, hatred of reason, especially in the case of those who are most
experienced in the use of it, because after calculating all the advantages they
derive, I do not say from the invention of all the arts of common luxury, but
even from the sciences (which seem to them to be after all only a luxury of the
understanding), they find that they have, in fact, only brought more trouble on
their shoulders. rather than gained in happiness; and they end by envying,
rather than despising, the more common stamp of men who keep closer to the
guidance of mere instinct and do not allow their reason much influence on their
conduct. And this we must admit, that the judgement of those who would very
much lower the lofty eulogies of the advantages which reason gives us in regard
to the happiness and satisfaction of life, or who would even reduce them below
zero, is by no means morose or ungrateful to the goodness with which the world
is governed, but that there lies at the root of these judgements the idea that
our existence has a different and far nobler end, for which, and not for
happiness, reason is properly intended, and which must, therefore, be regarded
as the supreme condition to which the private ends of man must, for the most
part, be postponed.
For as reason is not competent to guide the will with certainty in regard to
its objects and the satisfaction of all our wants (which it to some extent even
multiplies), this being an end to which an implanted instinct would have led
with much greater certainty; and since, nevertheless, reason is imparted to us
as a practical faculty, i.e., as one which is to have influence on the will,
therefore, admitting that nature generally in the distribution of her
capacities has adapted the means to the end, its true destination must be to
produce a will, not merely good as a means to something else, but good in
itself, for which reason was absolutely necessary. This will then, though not
indeed the sole and complete good, must be the supreme good and the condition
of every other, even of the desire of happiness. Under these circumstances,
there is nothing inconsistent with the wisdom of nature in the fact that the
cultivation of the reason, which is requisite for the first and unconditional
purpose, does in many ways interfere, at least in this life, with the
attainment of the second, which is always conditional, namely, happiness. Nay,
it may even reduce it to nothing, without nature thereby failing of her
purpose. For reason recognizes the establishment of a good will as its highest
practical destination, and in attaining this purpose is capable only of a
satisfaction of its own proper kind, namely that from the attainment of an end,
which end again is determined by reason only, notwithstanding that this may
involve many a disappointment to the ends of inclination.
We have then to develop the notion of a will which deserves to be highly
esteemed for itself and is good without a view to anything further, a notion
which exists already in the sound natural understanding, requiring rather to be
cleared up than to be taught, and which in estimating the value of our actions
always takes the first place and constitutes the condition of all the rest. In
order to do this, we will take the notion of duty, which includes that of a
good will, although implying certain subjective restrictions and hindrances.
These, however, far from concealing it, or rendering it unrecognizable, rather
bring it out by contrast and make it shine forth so much the brighter.
I omit here all actions which are already recognized as inconsistent with duty,
although they may be useful for this or that purpose, for with these the
question whether they are done from duty cannot arise at all, since they even
conflict with it. I also set aside those actions which really conform to duty,
but to which men have no direct inclination, performing them because they are
impelled thereto by some other inclination. For in this case we can readily
distinguish whether the action which agrees with duty is done from duty, or
from a selfish view. It is much harder to make this distinction when the action
accords with duty and the subject has besides a direct inclination to it. For
example, it is always a matter of duty that a dealer should not over charge an
inexperienced purchaser; and wherever there is much commerce the prudent
tradesman does not overcharge, but keeps a fixed price for everyone, so that a
child buys of him as well as any other. Men are thus honestly served; but this
is not enough to make us believe that the tradesman has so acted from duty and
from principles of honesty: his own advantage required it; it is out of the
question in this case to suppose that he might besides have a direct
inclination in favour of the buyers, so that, as it were, from love he should
give no advantage to one over another. Accordingly the action was done neither
from duty nor from direct inclination, but merely with a selfish view.
On the other hand, it is a duty to maintain one's life; and, in addition,
everyone has also a direct inclination to do so. But on this account the of
anxious care which most men take for it has no intrinsic worth, and their maxim
has no moral import. They preserve their life as duty requires, no doubt, but
not because duty requires. On the other band, if adversity and hopeless sorrow
have completely taken away the relish for life; if the unfortunate one, strong
in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, wishes for
death, and yet preserves his life without loving it- not from inclination or
fear, but from duty- then his maxim has a moral worth.
To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds
so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest,
they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them and can take delight in the
satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in
such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be,
bas nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other
inclinations, e.g., the inclination to honour, which, if it is happily directed
to that which is in fact of public utility and accordant with duty and
consequently honourable, deserves praise and encouragement, but not esteem. For
the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty,
not from inclination. Put the case that the mind of that philanthropist were
clouded by sorrow of his own, extinguishing all sympathy with the lot of
others, and that, while he still has the power to benefit others in distress,
he is not touched by their trouble because he is absorbed with his own; and now
suppose that he tears himself out of this dead insensibility, and performs the
action without any inclination to it, but simply from duty, then first has his
action its genuine moral worth. Further still; if nature bas put little
sympathy in the heart of this or that man; if he, supposed to be an upright
man, is by temperament cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others,
perhaps because in respect of his own he is provided with the special gift of
patience and fortitude and supposes, or even requires, that others should have
the same- and such a man would certainly not be the meanest product of nature-
but if nature had not specially framed him for a philanthropist, would he not
still find in himself a source from whence to give himself a far higher worth
than that of a good-natured temperament could be? Unquestionably. It is just in
this that the moral worth of the character is brought out which is incomparably
the highest of all, namely, that he is beneficent, not from inclination, but
from duty.
To secure one's own happiness is a duty, at least indirectly; for discontent
with one's condition, under a pressure of many anxieties and amidst unsatisfied
wants, might easily become a great temptation to transgression of duty. But
here again, without looking to duty, all men have already the strongest and
most intimate inclination to happiness, because it is just in this idea that
all inclinations are combined in one total. But the precept of happiness is
often of such a sort that it greatly interferes with some inclinations, and yet
a man cannot form any definite and certain conception of the sum of
satisfaction of all of them which is called happiness. It is not then to be
wondered at that a single inclination, definite both as to what it promises and
as to the time within which it can be gratified, is often able to overcome such
a fluctuating idea, and that a gouty patient, for instance, can choose to enjoy
what he likes, and to suffer what he may, since, according to his calculation,
on this occasion at least, be has not sacrificed the enjoyment of the present
moment to a possibly mistaken expectation of a happiness which is supposed to
be found in health. But even in this case, if the general desire for happiness
did not influence his will, and supposing that in his particular case health
was not a necessary element in this calculation, there yet remains in this, as
in all other cases, this law, namely, that he should promote his happiness not
from inclination but from duty, and by this would his conduct first acquire
true moral worth.
It is in this manner, undoubtedly, that we are to understand those passages of
Scripture also in which we are commanded to love our neighbour, even our enemy.
For love, as an affection, cannot be commanded, but beneficence for duty's sake
may; even though we are not impelled to it by any inclination- nay, are even repelled
by a natural and unconquerable aversion. This is practical love and not
pathological- a love which is seated in the will, and not in the propensions of
sense- in principles of action and not of tender sympathy; and it is this love
alone which can be commanded.
The second proposition is: That an action done from duty derives its moral
worth, not from the purpose which is to be attained by it, but from the maxim
by which it is determined, and therefore does not depend on the realization of
the object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition by which the
action has taken place, without regard to any object of desire. It is clear
from what precedes that the purposes which we may have in view in our actions,
or their effects regarded as ends and springs of the will, cannot give to
actions any unconditional or moral worth. In what, then, can their worth lie,
if it is not to consist in the will and in reference to its expected effect? It
cannot lie anywhere but in the principle of the will without regard to the ends
which can be attained by the action. For the will stands between its a priori
principle, which is formal, and its a posteriori spring, which is material, as
between two roads, and as it must be determined by something, it that it must
be determined by the formal principle of volition when an action is done from
duty, in which case every material principle has been withdrawn from it.
The third proposition, which is a consequence of the two preceding, I would
express thus Duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the law. I may
have inclination for an object as the effect of my proposed action, but I
cannot have respect for it, just for this reason, that it is an effect and not
an energy of will. Similarly I cannot have respect for inclination, whether my
own or another's; I can at most, if my own, approve it; if another's, sometimes
even love it; i.e., look on it as favourable to my own interest. It is only
what is connected with my will as a principle, by no means as an effect- what
does not subserve my inclination, but overpowers it, or at least in case of
choice excludes it from its calculation- in other words, simply the law of
itself, which can be an object of respect, and hence a command. Now an action
done from duty must wholly exclude the influence of inclination and with it
every object of the will, so that nothing remains which can determine the will
except objectively the law, and subjectively pure respect for this practical
law, and consequently the maxim* that I should follow this law even to the
thwarting of all my inclinations.
*A maxim is the subjective principle of volition. The objective
principle (i.e., that which would also serve subjectively as a practical
principle to all rational beings if reason had full power over the faculty of
desire) is the practical law.
Thus the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect expected
from it, nor in any principle of action which requires to borrow its motive
from this expected effect. For all these effects- agreeableness of one's
condition and even the promotion of the happiness of others- could have been
also brought about by other causes, so that for this there would have been no
need of the will of a rational being; whereas it is in this alone that the
supreme and unconditional good can be found. The pre-eminent good which we call
moral can therefore consist in nothing else than the conception of law in
itself, which certainly is only possible in a rational being, in so far as this
conception, and not the expected effect, determines the will. This is a good
which is already present in the person who acts accordingly, and we have not to
wait for it to appear first in the result.*
*It might be here objected to me that I take refuge behind the word
respect in an obscure feeling, instead of giving a distinct solution of the
question by a concept of the reason. But although respect is a feeling, it is
not a feeling received through influence, but is self-wrought by a rational
concept, and, therefore, is specifically distinct from all feelings of the
former kind, which may be referred either to inclination or fear, What I
recognise immediately as a law for me, I recognise with respect. This merely
signifies the consciousness that my will is subordinate to a law, without the
intervention of other influences on my sense. The immediate determination of
the will by the law, and the consciousness of this, is called respect, so that
this is regarded as an effect of the law on the subject, and not as the cause
of it. Respect is properly the conception of a worth which thwarts my
self-love. Accordingly it is something which is considered neither as an object
of inclination nor of fear, although it has something analogous to both. The
object of respect is the law only, and that the law which we impose on
ourselves and yet recognise as necessary in itself. As a law, we are subjected
too it without consulting self-love; as imposed by us on ourselves, it is a
result of our will. In the former aspect it has an analogy to fear, in the latter
to inclination. Respect for a person is properly only respect for the law (of
honesty, etc.) of which he gives us an example. Since we also look on the
improvement of our talents as a duty, we consider that we see in a person of
talents, as it were, the example of a law (viz., to become like him in this by
exercise), and this constitutes our respect. All so-called moral interest
consists simply in respect for the law.
But what sort of law can that be, the conception of which must determine
the will, even without paying any regard to the effect expected from it, in
order that this will may be called good absolutely and without qualification?
As I have deprived the will of every impulse which could arise to it from
obedience to any law, there remains nothing but the universal conformity of its
actions to law in general, which alone is to serve the will as a principle,
i.e., I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim
should become a universal law. Here, now, it is the simple conformity to law in
general, without assuming any particular law applicable to certain actions,
that serves the will as its principle and must so serve it, if duty is not to
be a vain delusion and a chimerical notion. The common reason of men in its practical
judgements perfectly coincides with this and always has in view the principle
here suggested. Let the question be, for example: May I when in distress make a
promise with the intention not to keep it? I readily distinguish here between
the two significations which the question may have: Whether it is prudent, or
whether it is right, to make a false promise? The former may undoubtedly of be
the case. I see clearly indeed that it is not enough to extricate myself from a
present difficulty by means of this subterfuge, but it must be well considered
whether there may not hereafter spring from this lie much greater inconvenience
than that from which I now free myself, and as, with all my supposed cunning,
the consequences cannot be so easily foreseen but that credit once lost may be
much more injurious to me than any mischief which I seek to avoid at present,
it should be considered whether it would not be more prudent to act herein
according to a universal maxim and to make it a habit to promise nothing except
with the intention of keeping it. But it is soon clear to me that such a maxim
will still only be based on the fear of consequences. Now it is a wholly
different thing to be truthful from duty and to be so from apprehension of
injurious consequences. In the first case, the very notion of the action
already implies a law for me; in the second case, I must first look about
elsewhere to see what results may be combined with it which would affect
myself. For to deviate from the principle of duty is beyond all doubt wicked;
but to be unfaithful to my maxim of prudence may often be very advantageous to
me, although to abide by it is certainly safer. The shortest way, however, and
an unerring one, to discover the answer to this question whether a lying promise
is consistent with duty, is to ask myself, "Should I be content that my
maxim (to extricate myself from difficulty by a false promise) should hold good
as a universal law, for myself as well as for others? and should I be able to
say to myself, "Every one may make a deceitful promise when he finds
himself in a difficulty from which he cannot otherwise extricate himself?"
Then I presently become aware that while I can will the lie, I can by no means
will that lying should be a universal law. For with such a law there would be
no promises at all, since it would be in vain to allege my intention in regard
to my future actions to those who would not believe this allegation, or if they
over hastily did so would pay me back in my own coin. Hence my maxim, as soon as
it should be made a universal law, would necessarily destroy itself.
I do not, therefore, need any far-reaching penetration to discern what I have
to do in order that my will may be morally good. Inexperienced in the course of
the world, incapable of being prepared for all its contingencies, I only ask
myself: Canst thou also will that thy maxim should be a universal law? If not,
then it must be rejected, and that not because of a disadvantage accruing from
it to myself or even to others, but because it cannot enter as a principle into
a possible universal legislation, and reason extorts from me immediate respect
for such legislation. I do not indeed as yet discern on what this respect is
based (this the philosopher may inquire), but at least I understand this, that
it is an estimation of the worth which far outweighs all worth of what is
recommended by inclination, and that the necessity of acting from pure respect
for the practical law is what constitutes duty, to which every other motive
must give place, because it is the condition of a will being good in itself,
and the worth of such a will is above everything.
Thus, then, without quitting the moral knowledge of common human reason, we
have arrived at its principle. And although, no doubt, common men do not
conceive it in such an abstract and universal form, yet they always have it
really before their eyes and use it as the standard of their decision. Here it
would be easy to show how, with this compass in hand, men are well able to
distinguish, in every case that occurs, what is good, what bad, conformably to
duty or inconsistent with it, if, without in the least teaching them anything
new, we only, like Socrates, direct their attention to the principle they
themselves employ; and that, therefore, we do not need science and philosophy
to know what we should do to be honest and good, yea, even wise and virtuous.
Indeed we might well have conjectured beforehand that the knowledge of what
every man is bound to do, and therefore also to know, would be within the reach
of every man, even the commonest. Here we cannot forbear admiration when we see
how great an advantage the practical judgement has over the theoretical in the
common understanding of men. In the latter, if common reason ventures to depart
from the laws of experience and from the perceptions of the senses, it falls
into mere inconceivabilities and self-contradictions, at least into a chaos of
uncertainty, obscurity, and instability. But in the practical sphere it is just
when the common understanding excludes all sensible springs from practical laws
that its power of judgement begins to show itself to advantage. It then becomes
even subtle, whether it be that it chicanes with its own conscience or with
other claims respecting what is to be called right, or whether it desires for
its own instruction to determine honestly the worth of actions; and, in the
latter case, it may even have as good a hope of hitting the mark as any
philosopher whatever can promise himself. Nay, it is almost more sure of doing
so, because the philosopher cannot have any other principle, while he may
easily perplex his judgement by a multitude of considerations foreign to the
matter, and so turn aside from the right way. Would it not therefore be wiser
in moral concerns to acquiesce in the judgement of common reason, or at most
only to call in philosophy for the purpose of rendering the system of morals
more complete and intelligible, and its rules more convenient for use
(especially for disputation), but not so as to draw off the common
understanding from its happy simplicity, or to bring it by means of philosophy
into a new path of inquiry and instruction?
Innocence is indeed a glorious thing; only, on the other hand, it is very sad
that it cannot well maintain itself and is easily seduced. On this account even
wisdom- which otherwise consists more in conduct than in knowledge- yet has
need of science, not in order to learn from it, but to secure for its precepts
admission and permanence. Against all the commands of duty which reason
represents to man as so deserving of respect, he feels in himself a powerful
counterpoise in his wants and inclinations, the entire satisfaction of which he
sums up under the name of happiness. Now reason issues its commands
unyieldingly, without promising anything to the inclinations, and, as it were,
with disregard and contempt for these claims, which are so impetuous, and at
the same time so plausible, and which will not allow themselves to be
suppressed by any command. Hence there arises a natural dialectic, i.e., a
disposition, to argue against these strict laws of duty and to question their
validity, or at least their purity and strictness; and, if possible, to make
them more accordant with our wishes and inclinations, that is to say, to corrupt
them at their very source, and entirely to destroy their worth- a thing which
even common practical reason cannot ultimately call good.
Thus is the common reason of man compelled to go out of its sphere, and to take
a step into the field of a practical philosophy, not to satisfy any speculative
want (which never occurs to it as long as it is content to be mere sound
reason), but even on practical grounds, in order to attain in it information
and clear instruction respecting the source of its principle, and the correct
determination of it in opposition to the maxims which are based on wants and
inclinations, so that it may escape from the perplexity of opposite claims and
not run the risk of losing all genuine moral principles through the
equivocation into which it easily falls. Thus, when practical reason cultivates
itself, there insensibly arises in it a dialetic which forces it to seek aid in
philosophy, just as happens to it in its theoretic use; and in this case,
therefore, as well as in the other, it will find rest nowhere but in a thorough
critical examination of our reason.
The Autonomy of the Will as the Supreme Principle of
Morality
Heteronomy of the Will as the Source of all spurious
Principles of Morality
Classification of all Principles of Morality which can
be founded on the Conception of Heteronomy
If we have hitherto drawn our notion of duty from the common use of our
practical reason, it is by no means to be inferred that we have treated it as
an empirical notion. On the contrary, if we attend to the experience of men's
conduct, we meet frequent and, as we ourselves allow, just complaints that one
cannot find a single certain example of the disposition to act from pure duty.
Although many things are done in conformity with what duty prescribes, it is
nevertheless always doubtful whether they are done strictly from duty, so as to
have a moral worth. Hence there have at all times been philosophers who have
altogether denied that this disposition actually exists at all in human
actions, and have ascribed everything to a more or less refined self-love. Not
that they have on that account questioned the soundness of the conception of
morality; on the contrary, they spoke with sincere regret of the frailty and
corruption of human nature, which, though noble enough to take its rule an idea
so worthy of respect, is yet weak to follow it and employs reason which ought
to give it the law only for the purpose of providing for the interest of the
inclinations, whether singly or at the best in the greatest possible harmony
with one another.
In fact, it is absolutely impossible to make out by experience with complete
certainty a single case in which the maxim of an action, however right in
itself, rested simply on moral grounds and on the conception of duty. Sometimes
it happens that with the sharpest self-examination we can find nothing beside
the moral principle of duty which could have been powerful enough to move us to
this or that action and to so great a sacrifice; yet we cannot from this infer
with certainty that it was not really some secret impulse of self-love, under
the false appearance of duty, that was the actual determining cause of the
will. We like them to flatter ourselves by falsely taking credit for a more
noble motive; whereas in fact we can never, even by the strictest examination,
get completely behind the secret springs of action; since, when the question is
of moral worth, it is not with the actions which we see that we are concerned,
but with those inward principles of them which we do not see.
Moreover, we cannot better serve the wishes of those who ridicule all morality
as a mere chimera of human imagination over stepping itself from vanity, than
by conceding to them that notions of duty must be drawn only from experience
(as from indolence, people are ready to think is also the case with all other
notions); for or is to prepare for them a certain triumph. I am willing to
admit out of love of humanity that even most of our actions are correct, but if
we look closer at them we everywhere come upon the dear self which is always
prominent, and it is this they have in view and not the strict command of duty
which would often require self-denial. Without being an enemy of virtue, a cool
observer, one that does not mistake the wish for good, however lively, for its
reality, may sometimes doubt whether true virtue is actually found anywhere in
the world, and this especially as years increase and the judgement is partly
made wiser by experience and partly, also, more acute in observation. This
being so, nothing can secure us from falling away altogether from our ideas of
duty, or maintain in the soul a well-grounded respect for its law, but the
clear conviction that although there should never have been actions which
really sprang from such pure sources, yet whether this or that takes place is
not at all the question; but that reason of itself, independent on all
experience, ordains what ought to take place, that accordingly actions of which
perhaps the world has hitherto never given an example, the feasibility even of
which might be very much doubted by one who founds everything on experience, are
nevertheless inflexibly commanded by reason; that, e.g., even though there
might never yet have been a sincere friend, yet not a whit the less is pure
sincerity in friendship required of every man, because, prior to all
experience, this duty is involved as duty in the idea of a reason determining
the will by a priori principles.
When we add further that, unless we deny that the notion of morality has any
truth or reference to any possible object, we must admit that its law must be
valid, not merely for men but for all rational creatures generally, not merely
under certain contingent conditions or with exceptions but with absolute
necessity, then it is clear that no experience could enable us to infer even
the possibility of such apodeictic laws. For with what right could we bring
into unbounded respect as a universal precept for every rational nature that
which perhaps holds only under the contingent conditions of humanity? Or how
could laws of the determination of our will be regarded as laws of the determination
of the will of rational beings generally, and for us only as such, if they were
merely empirical and did not take their origin wholly a priori from pure but
practical reason?
Nor could anything be more fatal to morality than that we should wish to derive
it from examples. For every example of it that is set before me must be first
itself tested by principles of morality, whether it is worthy to serve as an
original example, i.e., as a pattern; but by no means can it authoritatively
furnish the conception of morality. Even the Holy One of the Gospels must first
be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before we can recognise Him as
such; and so He says of Himself, "Why call ye Me (whom you see) good; none
is good (the model of good) but God only (whom ye do not see)?" But whence
have we the conception of God as the supreme good? Simply from the idea of
moral perfection, which reason frames a priori and connects inseparably with
the notion of a free will. Imitation finds no place at all in morality, and
examples serve only for encouragement, i.e., they put beyond doubt the
feasibility of what the law commands, they make visible that which the
practical rule expresses more generally, but they can never authorize us to set
aside the true original which lies in reason and to guide ourselves by
examples.
If then there is no genuine supreme principle of morality but what must rest
simply on pure reason, independent of all experience, I think it is not
necessary even to put the question whether it is good to exhibit these concepts
in their generality (in abstracto) as they are established a priori along with
the principles belonging to them, if our knowledge is to be distinguished from
the vulgar and to be called philosophical.
In our times indeed this might perhaps be necessary; for if we collected votes
whether pure rational knowledge separated from everything empirical, that is to
say, metaphysic of morals, or whether popular practical philosophy is to be
preferred, it is easy to guess which side would preponderate.
This descending to popular notions is certainly very commendable, if the ascent
to the principles of pure reason has first taken place and been satisfactorily
accomplished. This implies that we first found ethics on metaphysics, and then,
when it is firmly established, procure a hearing for it by giving it a popular
character. But it is quite absurd to try to be popular in the first inquiry, on
which the soundness of the principles depends. It is not only that this
proceeding can never lay claim to the very rare merit of a true philosophical
popularity, since there is no art in being intelligible if one renounces all
thoroughness of insight; but also it produces a disgusting medley of compiled
observations and half-reasoned principles. Shallow pates enjoy this because it
can be used for every-day chat, but the sagacious find in it only confusion,
and being unsatisfied and unable to help themselves, they turn away their eyes,
while philosophers, who see quite well through this delusion, are little
listened to when they call men off for a time from this pretended popularity,
in order that they might be rightfully popular after they have attained a
definite insight.
We need only look at the attempts of moralists in that favourite fashion, and
we shall find at one time the special constitution of human nature (including,
however, the idea of a rational nature generally), at one time perfection, at
another happiness, here moral sense, there fear of God. a little of this, and a
little of that, in marvellous mixture, without its occurring to them to ask
whether the principles of morality are to be sought in the knowledge of human
nature at all (which we can have only from experience); or, if this is not so,
if these principles are to be found altogether a priori, free from everything
empirical, in pure rational concepts only and nowhere else, not even in the
smallest degree; then rather to adopt the method of making this a separate
inquiry, as pure practical philosophy, or (if one may use a name so decried) as
metaphysic of morals,* to bring it by itself to completeness, and to require
the public, which wishes for popular treatment, to await the issue of this
undertaking.
*Just as pure mathematics are distinguished from applied, pure logic
from applied, so if we choose we may also distinguish pure philosophy of morals
(metaphysic) from applied (viz., applied to human nature). By this designation
we are also at once reminded that moral principles are not based on properties
of human nature, but must subsist a priori of themselves, while from such
principles practical rules must be capable of being deduced for every rational
nature, and accordingly for that of man.
Such a metaphysic of morals, completely isolated, not mixed with any
anthropology, theology, physics, or hyperphysics, and still less with occult
qualities (which we might call hypophysical), is not only an indispensable
substratum of all sound theoretical knowledge of duties, but is at the same
time a desideratum of the highest importance to the actual fulfilment of their
precepts. For the pure conception of duty, unmixed with any foreign addition of
empirical attractions, and, in a word, the conception of the moral law,
exercises on the human heart, by way of reason alone (which first becomes aware
with this that it can of itself be practical), an influence so much more
powerful than all other springs* which may be derived from the field of
experience, that, in the consciousness of its worth, it despises the latter,
and can by degrees become their master; whereas a mixed ethics, compounded
partly of motives drawn from feelings and inclinations, and partly also of
conceptions of reason, must make the mind waver between motives which cannot be
brought under any principle, which lead to good only by mere accident and very
often also to evil.
*I have a letter from the late excellent Sulzer, in which he asks me
what can be the reason that moral instruction, although containing much that is
convincing for the reason, yet accomplishes so little? My answer was postponed
in order that I might make it complete. But it is simply this: that the
teachers themselves have not got their own notions clear, and when they
endeavour to make up for this by raking up motives of moral goodness from every
quarter, trying to make their physic right strong, they spoil it. For the
commonest understanding shows that if we imagine, on the one hand, an act of
honesty done with steadfast mind, apart from every view to advantage of any
kind in this world or another, and even under the greatest temptations of
necessity or allurement, and, on the other hand, a similar act which was
affected, in however low a degree, by a foreign motive, the former leaves far
behind and eclipses the second; it elevates the soul and inspires the wish to
be able to act in like manner oneself. Even moderately young children feel this
impression, ana one should never represent duties to them in any other light.
From what has been said, it is clear that all moral conceptions have
their seat and origin completely a priori in the reason, and that, moreover, in
the commonest reason just as truly as in that which is in the highest degree
speculative; that they cannot be obtained by abstraction from any empirical,
and therefore merely contingent, knowledge; that it is just this purity of
their origin that makes them worthy to serve as our supreme practical
principle, and that just in proportion as we add anything empirical, we detract
from their genuine influence and from the absolute value of actions; that it is
not only of the greatest necessity, in a purely speculative point of view, but
is also of the greatest practical importance, to derive these notions and laws
from pure reason, to present them pure and unmixed, and even to determine the
compass of this practical or pure rational knowledge, i.e., to determine the
whole faculty of pure practical reason; and, in doing so, we must not make its
principles dependent on the particular nature of human reason, though in
speculative philosophy this may be permitted, or may even at times be
necessary; but since moral laws ought to hold good for every rational creature,
we must derive them from the general concept of a rational being. In this way,
although for its application to man morality has need of anthropology, yet, in
the first instance, we must treat it independently as pure philosophy, i.e., as
metaphysic, complete in itself (a thing which in such distinct branches of
science is easily done); knowing well that unless we are in possession of this,
it would not only be vain to determine the moral element of duty in right
actions for purposes of speculative criticism, but it would be impossible to
base morals on their genuine principles, even for common practical purposes,
especially of moral instruction, so as to produce pure moral dispositions, and
to engraft them on men's minds to the promotion of the greatest possible good
in the world.
But in order that in this study we may not merely advance by the natural steps
from the common moral judgement (in this case very worthy of respect) to the
philosophical, as has been already done, but also from a popular philosophy,
which goes no further than it can reach by groping with the help of examples,
to metaphysic (which does allow itself to be checked by anything empirical and,
as it must measure the whole extent of this kind of rational knowledge, goes as
far as ideal conceptions, where even examples fail us), we must follow and
clearly describe the practical faculty of reason, from the general rules of its
determination to the point where the notion of duty springs from it.
Everything in nature works according to laws. Rational beings alone have the
faculty of acting according to the conception of laws, that is according to
principles, i.e., have a will. Since the deduction of actions from principles
requires reason, the will is nothing but practical reason. If reason infallibly
determines the will, then the actions of such a being which are recognised as
objectively necessary are subjectively necessary also, i.e., the will is a
faculty to choose that only which reason independent of inclination recognises
as practically necessary, i.e., as good. But if reason of itself does not
sufficiently determine the will, if the latter is subject also to subjective
conditions (particular impulses) which do not always coincide with the
objective conditions; in a word, if the will does not in itself completely
accord with reason (which is actually the case with men), then the actions
which objectively are recognised as necessary are subjectively contingent, and
the determination of such a will according to objective laws is obligation,
that is to say, the relation of the objective laws to a will that is not
thoroughly good is conceived as the determination of the will of a rational
being by principles of reason, but which the will from its nature does not of
necessity follow.
The conception of an objective principle, in so far as it is obligatory for a
will, is called a command (of reason), and the formula of the command is called
an imperative.
All imperatives are expressed by the word ought [or shall], and thereby
indicate the relation of an objective law of reason to a will, which from its
subjective constitution is not necessarily determined by it (an obligation).
They say that something would be good to do or to forbear, but they say it to a
will which does not always do a thing because it is conceived to be good to do
it. That is practically good, however, which determines the will by means of
the conceptions of reason, and consequently not from subjective causes, but
objectively, that is on principles which are valid for every rational being as
such. It is distinguished from the pleasant, as that which influences the will
only by means of sensation from merely subjective causes, valid only for the
sense of this or that one, and not as a principle of reason, which holds for
every one.*
*The dependence of the desires on sensations is called inclination, and
this accordingly always indicates a want. The dependence of a contingently
determinable will on principles of reason is called an interest. This
therefore, is found only in the case of a dependent will which does not always
of itself conform to reason; in the Divine will we cannot conceive any
interest. But the human will can also take an interest in a thing without
therefore acting from interest. The former signifies the practical interest in
the action, the latter the pathological in the object of the action. The former
indicates only dependence of the will on principles of reason in themselves;
the second, dependence on principles of reason for the sake of inclination,
reason supplying only the practical rules how the requirement of the
inclination may be satisfied. In the first case the action interests me; in the
second the object of the action (because it is pleasant to me). We have seen in
the first section that in an action done from duty we must look not to the
interest in the object, but only to that in the action itself, and in its
rational principle (viz., the law).
A perfectly good will would therefore be equally subject to objective
laws (viz., laws of good), but could not be conceived as obliged thereby to act
lawfully, because of itself from its subjective constitution it can only be
determined by the conception of good. Therefore no imperatives hold for the
Divine will, or in general for a holy will; ought is here out of place, because
the volition is already of itself necessarily in unison with the law. Therefore
imperatives are only formulae to express the relation of objective laws of all
volition to the subjective imperfection of the will of this or that rational
being, e.g., the human will.
Now all imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically. The former
represent the practical necessity of a possible action as means to something
else that is willed (or at least which one might possibly will). The
categorical imperative would be that which represented an action as necessary
of itself without reference to another end, i.e., as objectively necessary.
Since every practical law represents a possible action as good and, on this
account, for a subject who is practically determinable by reason, necessary,
all imperatives are formulae determining an action which is necessary according
to the principle of a will good in some respects. If now the action is good
only as a means to something else, then the imperative is hypothetical; if it
is conceived as good in itself and consequently as being necessarily the
principle of a will which of itself conforms to reason, then it is categorical.
Thus the imperative declares what action possible by me would be good and
presents the practical rule in relation to a will which does not forthwith
perform an action simply because it is good, whether because the subject does
not always know that it is good, or because, even if it know this, yet its
maxims might be opposed to the objective principles of practical reason.
Accordingly the hypothetical imperative only says that the action is good for
some purpose, possible or actual. In the first case it is a problematical, in
the second an assertorial practical principle. The categorical imperative which
declares an action to be objectively necessary in itself without reference to
any purpose, i.e., without any other end, is valid as an apodeictic (practical)
principle.
Whatever is possible only by the power of some rational being may also be
conceived as a possible purpose of some will; and therefore the principles of
action as regards the means necessary to attain some possible purpose are in
fact infinitely numerous. All sciences have a practical part, consisting of
problems expressing that some end is possible for us and of imperatives
directing how it may be attained. These may, therefore, be called in general imperatives
of skill. Here there is no question whether the end is rational and good, but
only what one must do in order to attain it. The precepts for the physician to
make his patient thoroughly healthy, and for a poisoner to ensure certain
death, are of equal value in this respect, that each serves to effect its
purpose perfectly. Since in early youth it cannot be known what ends are likely
to occur to us in the course of life, parents seek to have their children
taught a great many things, and provide for their skill in the use of means for
all sorts of arbitrary ends, of none of which can they determine whether it may
not perhaps hereafter be an object to their pupil, but which it is at all
events possible that he might aim at; and this anxiety is so great that they
commonly neglect to form and correct their judgement on the value of the things
which may be chosen as ends.
There is one end, however, which may be assumed to be actually such to all
rational beings (so far as imperatives apply to them, viz., as dependent
beings), and, therefore, one purpose which they not merely may have, but which
we may with certainty assume that they all actually have by a natural
necessity, and this is happiness. The hypothetical imperative which expresses
the practical necessity of an action as means to the advancement of happiness
is assertorial. We are not to present it as necessary for an uncertain and
merely possible purpose, but for a purpose which we may presuppose with
certainty and a priori in every man, because it belongs to his being. Now skill
in the choice of means to his own greatest well-being may be called prudence,*
in the narrowest sense. And thus the imperative which refers to the choice of
means to one's own happiness, i.e., the precept of prudence, is still always
hypothetical; the action is not commanded absolutely, but only as means to
another purpose.
*The word prudence is taken in two senses: in the one it may bear the
name of knowledge of the world, in the other that of private prudence. The
former is a man's ability to influence others so as to use them for his own
purposes. The latter is the sagacity to combine all these purposes for his own
lasting benefit. This latter is properly that to which the value even of the
former is reduced, and when a man is prudent in the former sense, but not in
the latter, we might better say of him that he is clever and cunning, but, on
the whole, imprudent.
Finally, there is an imperative which commands a certain conduct
immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be attained
by it. This imperative is categorical. It concerns not the matter of the
action, or its intended result, but its form and the principle of which it is
itself a result; and what is essentially good in it consists in the mental
disposition, let the consequence be what it may. This imperative may be called
that of morality.
There is a marked distinction also between the volitions on these three sorts
of principles in the dissimilarity of the obligation of the will. In order to
mark this difference more clearly, I think they would be most suitably named in
their order if we said they are either rules of skill, or counsels of prudence,
or commands (laws) of morality. For it is law only that involves the conception
of an unconditional and objective necessity, which is consequently universally
valid; and commands are laws which must be obeyed, that is, must be followed,
even in opposition to inclination. Counsels, indeed, involve necessity, but one
which can only hold under a contingent subjective condition, viz., they depend
on whether this or that man reckons this or that as part of his happiness; the
categorical imperative, on the contrary, is not limited by any condition, and
as being absolutely, although practically, necessary, may be quite properly
called a command. We might also call the first kind of imperatives technical
(belonging to art), the second pragmatic* (to welfare), the third moral
(belonging to free conduct generally, that is, to morals).
*It seems to me that the proper signification of the word pragmatic may
be most accurately defined in this way. For sanctions are called pragmatic
which flow properly not from the law of the states as necessary enactments, but
from precaution for the general welfare. A history is composed pragmatically
when it teaches prudence, i.e., instructs the world how it can provide for its
interests better, or at least as well as, the men of former time.
Now arises the question, how are all these imperatives possible? This
question does not seek to know how we can conceive the accomplishment of the
action which the imperative ordains, but merely how we can conceive the
obligation of the will which the imperative expresses. No special explanation
is needed to show how an imperative of skill is possible. Whoever wills the
end, wills also (so far as reason decides his conduct) the means in his power
which are indispensably necessary thereto. This proposition is, as regards the
volition, analytical; for, in willing an object as my effect, there is already
thought the causality of myself as an acting cause, that is to say, the use of
the means; and the imperative educes from the conception of volition of an end
the conception of actions necessary to this end. Synthetical propositions must
no doubt be employed in defining the means to a proposed end; but they do not
concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and its realization.
E.g., that in order to bisect a line on an unerring principle I must draw from
its extremities two intersecting arcs; this no doubt is taught by mathematics
only in synthetical propositions; but if I know that it is only by this process
that the intended operation can be performed, then to say that, if I fully will
the operation, I also will the action required for it, is an analytical
proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something as an
effect which I can produce in a certain way, and to conceive myself as acting
in this way.
If it were only equally easy to give a definite conception of happiness, the
imperatives of prudence would correspond exactly with those of skill, and would
likewise be analytical. For in this case as in that, it could be said:
"Whoever wills the end, wills also (according to the dictate of reason
necessarily) the indispensable means thereto which are in his power." But,
unfortunately, the notion of happiness is so indefinite that although every man
wishes to at. it, yet he never can say definitely and consistently what it is
that he really wishes and wills. The reason of this is that all the elements
which belong to the notion of happiness are altogether empirical, i.e., they
must be borrowed from experience, and nevertheless the idea of happiness
requires an absolute whole, a maximum of welfare in my present and all future
circumstances. Now it is impossible that the most clear-sighted and at the same
time most powerful being (supposed finite) should frame to himself a definite
conception of what he really wills in this. Does he will riches, how much
anxiety, envy, and snares might he not thereby draw upon his shoulders? Does he
will knowledge and discernment, perhaps it might prove to be only an eye so
much the sharper to show him so much the more fearfully the evils that are now
concealed from him, and that cannot be avoided, or to impose more wants on his
desires, which already give him concern enough. Would he have long life? who
guarantees to him that it would not be a long misery? would he at least have
health? how often has uneasiness of the body restrained from excesses into
which perfect health would have allowed one to fall? and so on. In short, he is
unable, on any principle, to determine with certainty what would make him truly
happy; because to do so he would need to be omniscient. We cannot therefore act
on any definite principles to secure happiness, but only on empirical counsels,
e.g. of regimen, frugality, courtesy, reserve, etc., which experience teaches
do, on the average, most promote well-being. Hence it follows that the
imperatives of prudence do not, strictly speaking, command at all, that is,
they cannot present actions objectively as practically necessary; that they are
rather to be regarded as counsels (consilia) than precepts precepts of reason,
that the problem to determine certainly and universally what action would
promote the happiness of a rational being is completely insoluble, and
consequently no imperative respecting it is possible which should, in the
strict sense, command to do what makes happy; because happiness is not an ideal
of reason but of imagination, resting solely on empirical grounds, and it is
vain to expect that these should define an action by which one could attain the
totality of a series of consequences which is really endless. This imperative
of prudence would however be an analytical proposition if we assume that the
means to happiness could be certainly assigned; for it is distinguished from
the imperative of skill only by this, that in the latter the end is merely
possible, in the former it is given; as however both only ordain the means to
that which we suppose to be willed as an end, it follows that the imperative
which ordains the willing of the means to him who wills the end is in both
cases analytical. Thus there is no difficulty in regard to the possibility of an
imperative of this kind either.
On the other hand, the question how the imperative of morality is possible, is
undoubtedly one, the only one, demanding a solution, as this is not at all
hypothetical, and the objective necessity which it presents cannot rest on any
hypothesis, as is the case with the hypothetical imperatives. Only here we must
never leave out of consideration that we cannot make out by any example, in
other words empirically, whether there is such an imperative at all, but it is
rather to be feared that all those which seem to be categorical may yet be at
bottom hypothetical. For instance, when the precept is: "Thou shalt not
promise deceitfully"; and it is assumed that the necessity of this is not
a mere counsel to avoid some other evil, so that it should mean: "Thou
shalt not make a lying promise, lest if it become known thou shouldst destroy
thy credit," but that an action of this kind must be regarded as evil in
itself, so that the imperative of the prohibition is categorical; then we cannot
show with certainty in any example that the will was determined merely by the
law, without any other spring of action, although it may appear to be so. For
it is always possible that fear of disgrace, perhaps also obscure dread of
other dangers, may have a secret influence on the will. Who can prove by
experience the non-existence of a cause when all that experience tells us is
that we do not perceive it? But in such a case the so-called moral imperative,
which as such appears to be categorical and unconditional, would in reality be
only a pragmatic precept, drawing our attention to our own interests and merely
teaching us to take these into consideration.
We shall therefore have to investigate a priori the possibility of a
categorical imperative, as we have not in this case the advantage of its
reality being given in experience, so that [the elucidation of] its possibility
should be requisite only for its explanation, not for its establishment. In the
meantime it may be discerned beforehand that the categorical imperative alone
has the purport of a practical law; all the rest may indeed be called
principles of the will but not laws, since whatever is only necessary for the
attainment of some arbitrary purpose may be considered as in itself contingent,
and we can at any time be free from the precept if we give up the purpose; on
the contrary, the unconditional command leaves the will no liberty to choose
the opposite; consequently it alone carries with it that necessity which we
require in a law.
Secondly, in the case of this categorical imperative or law of morality, the
difficulty (of discerning its possibility) is a very profound one. It is an a
priori synthetical practical proposition;* and as there is so much difficulty
in discerning the possibility of speculative propositions of this kind, it may
readily be supposed that the difficulty will be no less with the practical.
*I connect the act with the will without presupposing any condition
resulting from any inclination, but a priori, and therefore necessarily (though
only objectively, i.e., assuming the idea of a reason possessing full power
over all subjective motives). This is accordingly a practical proposition which
does not deduce the willing of an action by mere analysis from another already
presupposed (for we have not such a perfect will), but connects it immediately
with the conception of the will of a rational being, as something not contained
in it.
In this problem we will first inquire whether the mere conception of a
categorical imperative may not perhaps supply us also with the formula of it,
containing the proposition which alone can be a categorical imperative; for
even if we know the tenor of such an absolute command, yet how it is possible
will require further special and laborious study, which we postpone to the last
section.
When I conceive a hypothetical imperative, in general I do not know beforehand
what it will contain until I am given the condition. But when I conceive a
categorical imperative, I know at once what it contains. For as the imperative
contains besides the law only the necessity that the maxims* shall conform to
this law, while the law contains no conditions restricting it, there remains
nothing but the general statement that the maxim of the action should conform
to a universal law, and it is this conformity alone that the imperative
properly represents as necessary.
*A maxim is a subjective principle of action, and must be distinguished
from the objective principle, namely, practical law. The former contains the
practical rule set by reason according to the conditions of the subject (often
its ignorance or its inclinations), so that it is the principle on which the
subject acts; but the law is the objective principle valid for every rational
being, and is the principle on which it ought to act that is an imperative.
There is therefore but one categorical imperative, namely, this: Act
only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should
become a universal law.
Now if all imperatives of duty can be deduced from this one imperative as from
their principle, then, although it should remain undecided what is called duty
is not merely a vain notion, yet at least we shall be able to show what we
understand by it and what this notion means.
Since the universality of the law according to which effects are produced
constitutes what is properly called nature in the most general sense (as to
form), that is the existence of things so far as it is determined by general
laws, the imperative of duty may be expressed thus: Act as if the maxim of
thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.
We will now enumerate a few duties, adopting the usual division of them into
duties to ourselves and ourselves and to others, and into perfect and imperfect
duties.*
*It must be noted here that I reserve the division of duties for a
future metaphysic of morals; so that I give it here only as an arbitrary one
(in order to arrange my examples). For the rest, I understand by a perfect duty
one that admits no exception in favour of inclination and then I have not
merely external but also internal perfect duties. This is contrary to the use
of the word adopted in the schools; but I do not intend to justify there, as it
is all one for my purpose whether it is admitted or not.
1. A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels wearied of
life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself
whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life.
Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of
nature. His maxim is: "From self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten
my life when its longer duration is likely to bring more evil than
satisfaction." It is asked then simply whether this principle founded on
self-love can become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a
system of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the
very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life
would contradict itself and, therefore, could not exist as a system of nature;
hence that maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature and,
consequently, would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all
duty.
2. Another finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. He knows that he
will not be able to repay it, but sees also that nothing will be lent to him
unless he promises stoutly to repay it in a definite time. He desires to make
this promise, but he has still so much conscience as to ask himself: "Is
it not unlawful and inconsistent with duty to get out of a difficulty in this
way?" Suppose however that he resolves to do so: then the maxim of his
action would be expressed thus: "When I think myself in want of money, I will
borrow money and promise to repay it, although I know that I never can do
so." Now this principle of self-love or of one's own advantage may perhaps
be consistent with my whole future welfare; but the question now is, "Is
it right?" I change then the suggestion of self-love into a universal law,
and state the question thus: "How would it be if my maxim were a universal
law?" Then I see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of
nature, but would necessarily contradict itself. For supposing it to be a
universal law that everyone when he thinks himself in a difficulty should be
able to promise whatever he pleases, with the purpose of not keeping his
promise, the promise itself would become impossible, as well as the end that
one might have in view in it, since no one would consider that anything was
promised to him, but would ridicule all such statements as vain pretences.
3. A third finds in himself a talent which with the help of some culture might
make him a useful man in many respects. But he finds himself in comfortable
circumstances and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than to take pains in
enlarging and improving his happy natural capacities. He asks, however, whether
his maxim of neglect of his natural gifts, besides agreeing with his
inclination to indulgence, agrees also with what is called duty. He sees then
that a system of nature could indeed subsist with such a universal law although
men (like the South Sea islanders) should let their talents rest and resolve to
devote their lives merely to idleness, amusement, and propagation of their
species- in a word, to enjoyment; but he cannot possibly will that this should
be a universal law of nature, or be implanted in us as such by a natural
instinct. For, as a rational being, he necessarily wills that his faculties be
developed, since they serve him and have been given him, for all sorts of
possible purposes.
4. A fourth, who is in prosperity, while he sees that others have to contend
with great wretchedness and that he could help them, thinks: "What concern
is it of mine? Let everyone be as happy as Heaven pleases, or as be can make
himself; I will take nothing from him nor even envy him, only I do not wish to
contribute anything to his welfare or to his assistance in distress!" Now
no doubt if such a mode of thinking were a universal law, the human race might
very well subsist and doubtless even better than in a state in which everyone
talks of sympathy and good-will, or even takes care occasionally to put it into
practice, but, on the other side, also cheats when he can, betrays the rights
of men, or otherwise violates them. But although it is possible that a
universal law of nature might exist in accordance with that maxim, it is
impossible to will that such a principle should have the universal validity of
a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would contradict itself,
inasmuch as many cases might occur in which one would have need of the love and
sympathy of others, and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own
will, he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires.
These are a few of the many actual duties, or at least what we regard as such,
which obviously fall into two classes on the one principle that we have laid
down. We must be able to will that a maxim of our action should be a universal
law. This is the canon of the moral appreciation of the action generally. Some
actions are of such a character that their maxim cannot without contradiction
be even conceived as a universal law of nature, far from it being possible that
we should will that it should be so. In others this intrinsic impossibility is
not found, but still it is impossible to will that their maxim should be raised
to the universality of a law of nature, since such a will would contradict
itself It is easily seen that the former violate strict or rigorous
(inflexible) duty; the latter only laxer (meritorious) duty. Thus it has been
completely shown how all duties depend as regards the nature of the obligation
(not the object of the action) on the same principle.
If now we attend to ourselves on occasion of any transgression of duty, we
shall find that we in fact do not will that our maxim should be a universal
law, for that is impossible for us; on the contrary, we will that the opposite
should remain a universal law, only we assume the liberty of making an
exception in our own favour or (just for this time only) in favour of our
inclination. Consequently if we considered all cases from one and the same
point of view, namely, that of reason, we should find a contradiction in our
own will, namely, that a certain principle should be objectively necessary as a
universal law, and yet subjectively should not be universal, but admit of
exceptions. As however we at one moment regard our action from the point of
view of a will wholly conformed to reason, and then again look at the same
action from the point of view of a will affected by inclination, there is not
really any contradiction, but an antagonism of inclination to the precept of
reason, whereby the universality of the principle is changed into a mere
generality, so that the practical principle of reason shall meet the maxim half
way. Now, although this cannot be justified in our own impartial judgement, yet
it proves that we do really recognise the validity of the categorical
imperative and (with all respect for it) only allow ourselves a few exceptions,
which we think unimportant and forced from us.
We have thus established at least this much, that if duty is a conception which
is to have any import and real legislative authority for our actions, it can
only be expressed in categorical and not at all in hypothetical imperatives. We
have also, which is of great importance, exhibited clearly and definitely for
every practical application the content of the categorical imperative, which
must contain the principle of all duty if there is such a thing at all. We have
not yet, however, advanced so far as to prove a priori that there actually is
such an imperative, that there is a practical law which commands absolutely of
itself and without any other impulse, and that the following of this law is
duty.
With the view of attaining to this, it is of extreme importance to remember
that we must not allow ourselves to think of deducing the reality of this
principle from the particular attributes of human nature. For duty is to be a
practical, unconditional necessity of action; it must therefore hold for all
rational beings (to whom an imperative can apply at all), and for this reason
only be also a law for all human wills. On the contrary, whatever is deduced
from the particular natural characteristics of humanity, from certain feelings
and propensions, nay, even, if possible, from any particular tendency proper to
human reason, and which need not necessarily hold for the will of every
rational being; this may indeed supply us with a maxim, but not with a law;
with a subjective principle on which we may have a propension and inclination
to act, but not with an objective principle on which we should be enjoined to
act, even though all our propensions, inclinations, and natural dispositions
were opposed to it. In fact, the sublimity and intrinsic dignity of the command
in duty are so much the more evident, the less the subjective impulses favour
it and the more they oppose it, without being able in the slightest degree to
weaken the obligation of the law or to diminish its validity.
Here then we see philosophy brought to a critical position, since it has to be
firmly fixed, notwithstanding that it has nothing to support it in heaven or
earth. Here it must show its purity as absolute director of its own laws, not
the herald of those which are whispered to it by an implanted sense or who
knows what tutelary nature. Although these may be better than nothing, yet they
can never afford principles dictated by reason, which must have their source
wholly a priori and thence their commanding authority, expecting everything
from the supremacy of the law and the due respect for it, nothing from
inclination, or else condemning the man to self-contempt and inward abhorrence.
Thus every empirical element is not only quite incapable of being an aid to the
principle of morality, but is even highly prejudicial to the purity of morals,
for the proper and inestimable worth of an absolutely good will consists just
in this, that the principle of action is free from all influence of contingent
grounds, which alone experience can furnish. We cannot too much or too often
repeat our warning against this lax and even mean habit of thought which seeks
for its principle amongst empirical motives and laws; for human reason in its
weariness is glad to rest on this pillow, and in a dream of sweet illusions (in
which, instead of Juno, it embraces a cloud) it substitutes for morality a bastard
patched up from limbs of various derivation, which looks like anything one
chooses to see in it, only not like virtue to one who has once beheld her in
her true form.*
*To behold virtue in her proper form is nothing else but to contemplate
morality stripped of all admixture of sensible things and of every spurious
ornament of reward or self-love. How much she then eclipses everything else
that appears charming to the affections, every one may readily perceive with
the least exertion of his reason, if it be not wholly spoiled for abstraction.
The question then is this: "Is it a necessary law for all rational
beings that they should always judge of their actions by maxims of which they
can themselves will that they should serve as universal laws?" If it is
so, then it must be connected (altogether a priori) with the very conception of
the will of a rational being generally. But in order to discover this connexion
we must, however reluctantly, take a step into metaphysic, although into a
domain of it which is distinct from speculative philosophy, namely, the
metaphysic of morals. In a practical philosophy, where it is not the reasons of
what happens that we have to ascertain, but the laws of what ought to happen,
even although it never does, i.e., objective practical laws, there it is not
necessary to inquire into the reasons why anything pleases or displeases, how
the pleasure of mere sensation differs from taste, and whether the latter is
distinct from a general satisfaction of reason; on what the feeling of pleasure
or pain rests, and how from it desires and inclinations arise, and from these
again maxims by the co-operation of reason: for all this belongs to an
empirical psychology, which would constitute the second part of physics, if we
regard physics as the philosophy of nature, so far as it is based on empirical
laws. But here we are concerned with objective practical laws and,
consequently, with the relation of the will to itself so far as it is
determined by reason alone, in which case whatever has reference to anything
empirical is necessarily excluded; since if reason of itself alone determines
the conduct (and it is the possibility of this that we are now investigating),
it must necessarily do so a priori.
The will is conceived as a faculty of determining oneself to action in
accordance with the conception of certain laws. And such a faculty can be found
only in rational beings. Now that which serves the will as the objective ground
of its self-determination is the end, and, if this is assigned by reason alone,
it must hold for all rational beings. On the other hand, that which merely
contains the ground of possibility of the action of which the effect is the
end, this is called the means. The subjective ground of the desire is the
spring, the objective ground of the volition is the motive; hence the
distinction between subjective ends which rest on springs, and objective ends
which depend on motives valid for every rational being. Practical principles
are formal when they abstract from all subjective ends; they are material when
they assume these, and therefore particular springs of action. The ends which a
rational being proposes to himself at pleasure as effects of his actions
(material ends) are all only relative, for it is only their relation to the
particular desires of the subject that gives them their worth, which therefore
cannot furnish principles universal and necessary for all rational beings and
for every volition, that is to say practical laws. Hence all these relative
ends can give rise only to hypothetical imperatives.
Supposing, however, that there were something whose existence has in itself an
absolute worth, something which, being an end in itself, could be a source of
definite laws; then in this and this alone would lie the source of a possible
categorical imperative, i.e., a practical law.
Now I say: man and generally any rational being exists as an end in himself,
not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will, but in all
his actions, whether they concern himself or other rational beings, must be
always regarded at the same time as an end. All objects of the inclinations
have only a conditional worth, for if the inclinations and the wants founded on
them did not exist, then their object would be without value. But the
inclinations, themselves being sources of want, are so far from having an
absolute worth for which they should be desired that on the contrary it must be
the universal wish of every rational being to be wholly free from them. Thus
the worth of any object which is to be acquired by our action is always
conditional. Beings whose existence depends not on our will but on nature's,
have nevertheless, if they are irrational beings, only a relative value as
means, and are therefore called things; rational beings, on the contrary, are
called persons, because their very nature points them out as ends in
themselves, that is as something which must not be used merely as means, and so
far therefore restricts freedom of action (and is an object of respect). These,
therefore, are not merely subjective ends whose existence has a worth for us as
an effect of our action, but objective ends, that is, things whose existence is
an end in itself; an end moreover for which no other can be substituted, which
they should subserve merely as means, for otherwise nothing whatever would
possess absolute worth; but if all worth were conditioned and therefore
contingent, then there would be no supreme practical principle of reason
whatever.
If then there is a supreme practical principle or, in respect of the human
will, a categorical imperative, it must be one which, being drawn from the
conception of that which is necessarily an end for everyone because it is an
end in itself, constitutes an objective principle of will, and can therefore
serve as a universal practical law. The foundation of this principle is:
rational nature exists as an end in itself. Man necessarily conceives his own
existence as being so; so far then this is a subjective principle of human
actions. But every other rational being regards its existence similarly, just
on the same rational principle that holds for me:* so that it is at the same
time an objective principle, from which as a supreme practical law all laws of
the will must be capable of being deduced. Accordingly the practical imperative
will be as follows: So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or
in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only. We
will now inquire whether this can be practically carried out.
*This proposition is here stated as a postulate. The ground of it will
be found in the concluding section.
To abide by the previous examples:
Firstly, under the head of necessary duty to oneself: He who contemplates
suicide should ask himself whether his action can be consistent with the idea
of humanity as an end in itself. If he destroys himself in order to escape from
painful circumstances, he uses a person merely as a mean to maintain a
tolerable condition up to the end of life. But a man is not a thing, that is to
say, something which can be used merely as means, but must in all his actions
be always considered as an end in himself. I cannot, therefore, dispose in any
way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to damage or kill him. (It
belongs to ethics proper to define this principle more precisely, so as to
avoid all misunderstanding, e. g., as to the amputation of the limbs in order
to preserve myself, as to exposing my life to danger with a view to preserve
it, etc. This question is therefore omitted here.)
Secondly, as regards necessary duties, or those of strict obligation, towards
others: He who is thinking of making a lying promise to others will see at once
that he would be using another man merely as a mean, without the latter
containing at the same time the end in himself. For he whom I propose by such a
promise to use for my own purposes cannot possibly assent to my mode of acting
towards him and, therefore, cannot himself contain the end of this action. This
violation of the principle of humanity in other men is more obvious if we take
in examples of attacks on the freedom and property of others. For then it is
clear that he who transgresses the rights of men intends to use the person of
others merely as a means, without considering that as rational beings they
ought always to be esteemed also as ends, that is, as beings who must be
capable of containing in themselves the end of the very same action.*
*Let it not be thought that the common "quod tibi non vis fieri,
etc." could serve here as the rule or principle. For it is only a
deduction from the former, though with several limitations; it cannot be a
universal law, for it does not contain the principle of duties to oneself, nor
of the duties of benevolence to others (for many a one would gladly consent
that others should not benefit him, provided only that he might be excused from
showing benevolence to them), nor finally that of duties of strict obligation
to one another, for on this principle the criminal might argue against the
judge who punishes him, and so on.
Thirdly, as regards contingent (meritorious) duties to oneself: It is
not enough that the action does not violate humanity in our own person as an
end in itself, it must also harmonize with it. Now there are in humanity
capacities of greater perfection, which belong to the end that nature has in
view in regard to humanity in ourselves as the subject: to neglect these might
perhaps be consistent with the maintenance of humanity as an end in itself, but
not with the advancement of this end.
Fourthly, as regards meritorious duties towards others: The natural end which
all men have is their own happiness. Now humanity might indeed subsist,
although no one should contribute anything to the happiness of others, provided
he did not intentionally withdraw anything from it; but after all this would
only harmonize negatively not positively with humanity as an end in itself, if
every one does not also endeavour, as far as in him lies, to forward the ends
of others. For the ends of any subject which is an end in himself ought as far
as possible to be my ends also, if that conception is to have its full effect
with me.
This principle, that humanity and generally every rational nature is an end in
itself (which is the supreme limiting condition of every man's freedom of
action), is not borrowed from experience, firstly, because it is universal,
applying as it does to all rational beings whatever, and experience is not
capable of determining anything about them; secondly, because it does not
present humanity as an end to men (subjectively), that is as an object which
men do of themselves actually adopt as an end; but as an objective end, which
must as a law constitute the supreme limiting condition of all our subjective
ends, let them be what we will; it must therefore spring from pure reason. In
fact the objective principle of all practical legislation lies (according to
the first principle) in the rule and its form of universality which makes it
capable of being a law (say, e. g., a law of nature); but the subjective
principle is in the end; now by the second principle the subject of all ends is
each rational being, inasmuch as it is an end in itself. Hence follows the
third practical principle of the will, which is the ultimate condition of its
harmony with universal practical reason, viz.: the idea of the will of every
rational being as a universally legislative will.
On this principle all maxims are rejected which are inconsistent with the will
being itself universal legislator. Thus the will is not subject simply to the
law, but so subject that it must be regarded as itself giving the law and, on
this ground only, subject to the law (of which it can regard itself as the
author).
In the previous imperatives, namely, that based on the conception of the
conformity of actions to general laws, as in a physical system of nature, and
that based on the universal prerogative of rational beings as ends in
themselves- these imperatives, just because they were conceived as categorical,
excluded from any share in their authority all admixture of any interest as a
spring of action; they were, however, only assumed to be categorical, because
such an assumption was necessary to explain the conception of duty. But we
could not prove independently that there are practical propositions which
command categorically, nor can it be proved in this section; one thing,
however, could be done, namely, to indicate in the imperative itself, by some
determinate expression, that in the case of volition from duty all interest is
renounced, which is the specific criterion of categorical as distinguished from
hypothetical imperatives. This is done in the present (third) formula of the
principle, namely, in the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally
legislating will.
For although a will which is subject to laws may be attached to this law by
means of an interest, yet a will which is itself a supreme lawgiver so far as
it is such cannot possibly depend on any interest, since a will so dependent would
itself still need another law restricting the interest of its self-love by the
condition that it should be valid as universal law.
Thus the principle that every human will is a will which in all its maxims
gives universal laws,* provided it be otherwise justified, would be very well
adapted to be the categorical imperative, in this respect, namely, that just
because of the idea of universal legislation it is not based on interest, and
therefore it alone among all possible imperatives can be unconditional. Or
still better, converting the proposition, if there is a categorical imperative
(i.e., a law for the will of every rational being), it can only command that
everything be done from maxims of one's will regarded as a will which could at
the same time will that it should itself give universal laws, for in that case
only the practical principle and the imperative which it obeys are
unconditional, since they cannot be based on any interest.
*I may be excused from adducing examples to elucidate this principle, as
those which have already been used to elucidate the categorical imperative and
its formula would all serve for the like purpose here.
Looking back now on all previous attempts to discover the principle of
morality, we need not wonder why they all failed. It was seen that man was
bound to laws by duty, but it was not observed that the laws to which he is
subject are only those of his own giving, though at the same time they are
universal, and that he is only bound to act in conformity with his own will; a
will, however, which is designed by nature to give universal laws. For when one
has conceived man only as subject to a law (no matter what), then this law
required some interest, either by way of attraction or constraint, since it did
not originate as a law from his own will, but this will was according to a law
obliged by something else to act in a certain manner. Now by this necessary
consequence all the labour spent in finding a supreme principle of duty was
irrevocably lost. For men never elicited duty, but only a necessity of acting
from a certain interest. Whether this interest was private or otherwise, in any
case the imperative must be conditional and could not by any means be capable
of being a moral command. I will therefore call this the principle of autonomy
of the will, in contrast with every other which I accordingly reckon as
heteronomy.
The conception of the will of every rational being as one which must consider
itself as giving in all the maxims of its will universal laws, so as to judge
itself and its actions from this point of view- this conception leads to
another which depends on it and is very fruitful, namely that of a kingdom of
ends.
By a kingdom I understand the union of different rational beings in a system by
common laws. Now since it is by laws that ends are determined as regards their
universal validity, hence, if we abstract from the personal differences of
rational beings and likewise from all the content of their private ends, we
shall be able to conceive all ends combined in a systematic whole (including
both rational beings as ends in themselves, and also the special ends which
each may propose to himself), that is to say, we can conceive a kingdom of
ends, which on the preceding principles is possible.
For all rational beings come under the law that each of them must treat itself
and all others never merely as means, but in every case at the same time as
ends in themselves. Hence results a systematic union of rational being by
common objective laws, i.e., a kingdom which may be called a kingdom of ends,
since what these laws have in view is just the relation of these beings to one
another as ends and means. It is certainly only an ideal.
A rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when, although
giving universal laws in it, he is also himself subject to these laws. He
belongs to it as sovereign when, while giving laws, he is not subject to the
will of any other.
A rational being must always regard himself as giving laws either as member or
as sovereign in a kingdom of ends which is rendered possible by the freedom of
will. He cannot, however, maintain the latter position merely by the maxims of
his will, but only in case he is a completely independent being without wants
and with unrestricted power adequate to his will.
Morality consists then in the reference of all action to the legislation which
alone can render a kingdom of ends possible. This legislation must be capable
of existing in every rational being and of emanating from his will, so that the
principle of this will is never to act on any maxim which could not without
contradiction be also a universal law and, accordingly, always so to act that
the will could at the same time regard itself as giving in its maxims universal
laws. If now the maxims of rational beings are not by their own nature
coincident with this objective principle, then the necessity of acting on it is
called practical necessitation, i.e., duty. Duty does not apply to the
sovereign in the kingdom of ends, but it does to every member of it and to all
in the same degree.
The practical necessity of acting on this principle, i.e., duty, does not rest
at all on feelings, impulses, or inclinations, but solely on the relation of
rational beings to one another, a relation in which the will of a rational
being must always be regarded as legislative, since otherwise it could not be
conceived as an end in itself. Reason then refers every maxim of the will,
regarding it as legislating universally, to every other will and also to every
action towards oneself; and this not on account of any other practical motive
or any future advantage, but from the idea of the dignity of a rational being,
obeying no law but that which he himself also gives.
In the kingdom of ends everything has either value or dignity. Whatever has a
value can be replaced by something else which is equivalent; whatever, on the
other hand, is above all value, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a
dignity.
Whatever has reference to the general inclinations and wants of mankind has a
market value; whatever, without presupposing a want, corresponds to a certain
taste, that is to a satisfaction in the mere purposeless play of our faculties,
has a fancy value; but that which constitutes the condition under which alone
anything can be an end in itself, this has not merely a relative worth, i.e.,
value, but an intrinsic worth, that is, dignity.
Now morality is the condition under which alone a rational being can be an end
in himself, since by this alone is it possible that he should be a legislating
member in the kingdom of ends. Thus morality, and humanity as capable of it, is
that which alone has dignity. Skill and diligence in labour have a market
value; wit, lively imagination, and humour, have fancy value; on the other
hand, fidelity to promises, benevolence from principle (not from instinct),
have an intrinsic worth. Neither nature nor art contains anything which in
default of these it could put in their place, for their worth consists not in
the effects which spring from them, not in the use and advantage which they
secure, but in the disposition of mind, that is, the maxims of the will which
are ready to manifest themselves in such actions, even though they should not
have the desired effect. These actions also need no recommendation from any
subjective taste or sentiment, that they may be looked on with immediate favour
and satisfaction: they need no immediate propension or feeling for them; they
exhibit the will that performs them as an object of an immediate respect, and
nothing but reason is required to impose them on the will; not to flatter it
into them, which, in the case of duties, would be a contradiction. This
estimation therefore shows that the worth of such a disposition is dignity, and
places it infinitely above all value, with which it cannot for a moment be
brought into comparison or competition without as it were violating its
sanctity.
What then is it which justifies virtue or the morally good disposition, in
making such lofty claims? It is nothing less than the privilege it secures to
the rational being of participating in the giving of universal laws, by which
it qualifies him to be a member of a possible kingdom of ends, a privilege to
which he was already destined by his own nature as being an end in himself and,
on that account, legislating in the kingdom of ends; free as regards all laws
of physical nature, and obeying those only which he himself gives, and by which
his maxims can belong to a system of universal law, to which at the same time
he submits himself. For nothing has any worth except what the law assigns it.
Now the legislation itself which assigns the worth of everything must for that
very reason possess dignity, that is an unconditional incomparable worth; and
the word respect alone supplies a becoming expression for the esteem which a
rational being must have for it. Autonomy then is the basis of the dignity of
human and of every rational nature.
The three modes of presenting the principle of morality that have been adduced are
at bottom only so many formulae of the very same law, and each of itself
involves the other two. There is, however, a difference in them, but it is
rather subjectively than objectively practical, intended namely to bring an
idea of the reason nearer to intuition (by means of a certain analogy) and
thereby nearer to feeling. All maxims, in fact, have:
1. A form, consisting in universality; and in this view the formula of the
moral imperative is expressed thus, that the maxims must be so chosen as if they
were to serve as universal laws of nature.
2. A matter, namely, an end, and here the formula says that the rational being,
as it is an end by its own nature and therefore an end in itself, must in every
maxim serve as the condition limiting all merely relative and arbitrary ends.
3. A complete characterization of all maxims by means of that formula, namely,
that all maxims ought by their own legislation to harmonize with a possible
kingdom of ends as with a kingdom of nature.* There is a progress here in the
order of the categories of unity of the form of the will (its universality),
plurality of the matter (the objects, i.e., the ends), and totality of the
system of these. In forming our moral judgement of actions, it is better to
proceed always on the strict method and start from the general formula of the
categorical imperative: Act according to a maxim which can at the same time
make itself a universal law. If, however, we wish to gain an entrance for the
moral law, it is very useful to bring one and the same action under the three
specified conceptions, and thereby as far as possible to bring it nearer to
intuition.
*Teleology considers nature as a kingdom of ends; ethics regards a
possible kingdom of ends as a kingdom nature. In the first case, the kingdom of
ends is a theoretical idea, adopted to explain what actually is. In the latter
it is a practical idea, adopted to bring about that which is not yet, but which
can be realized by our conduct, namely, if it conforms to this idea.
We can now end where we started at the beginning, namely, with the
conception of a will unconditionally good. That will is absolutely good which
cannot be evil- in other words, whose maxim, if made a universal law, could
never contradict itself. This principle, then, is its supreme law: "Act
always on such a maxim as thou canst at the same time will to be a universal
law"; this is the sole condition under which a will can never
contradict itself; and such an imperative is categorical. Since the validity of
the will as a universal law for possible actions is analogous to the universal
connexion of the existence of things by general laws, which is the formal
notion of nature in general, the categorical imperative can also be expressed
thus: Act on maxims which can at the same time have for their object themselves
as universal laws of nature. Such then is the formula of an absolutely good
will.
Rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by this, that it sets
before itself an end. This end would be the matter of every good will. But
since in the idea of a will that is absolutely good without being limited by
any condition (of attaining this or that end) we must abstract wholly from
every end to be effected (since this would make every will only relatively good),
it follows that in this case the end must be conceived, not as an end to be
effected, but as an independently existing end. Consequently it is conceived
only negatively, i.e., as that which we must never act against and which,
therefore, must never be regarded merely as means, but must in every volition
be esteemed as an end likewise. Now this end can be nothing but the subject of
all possible ends, since this is also the subject of a possible absolutely good
will; for such a will cannot without contradiction be postponed to any other
object. The principle: "So act in regard to every rational being (thyself
and others), that he may always have place in thy maxim as an end in
himself," is accordingly essentially identical with this other: "Act
upon a maxim which, at the same time, involves its own universal validity for
every rational being." For that in using means for every end I should
limit my maxim by the condition of its holding good as a law for every subject,
this comes to the same thing as that the fundamental principle of all maxims of
action must be that the subject of all ends, i.e., the rational being himself,
be never employed merely as means, but as the supreme condition restricting the
use of all means, that is in every case as an end likewise.
It follows incontestably that, to whatever laws any rational being may be
subject, he being an end in himself must be able to regard himself as also
legislating universally in respect of these same laws, since it is just this
fitness of his maxims for universal legislation that distinguishes him as an
end in himself; also it follows that this implies his dignity (prerogative)
above all mere physical beings, that he must always take his maxims from the
point of view which regards himself and, likewise, every other rational being
as law-giving beings (on which account they are called persons). In this way a
world of rational beings (mundus intelligibilis) is possible as a kingdom of
ends, and this by virtue of the legislation proper to all persons as members.
Therefore every rational being must so act as if he were by his maxims in every
case a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends. The formal
principle of these maxims is: "So act as if thy maxim were to serve
likewise as the universal law (of all rational beings)." A kingdom of ends
is thus only possible on the analogy of a kingdom of nature, the former however
only by maxims, that is self-imposed rules, the latter only by the laws of
efficient causes acting under necessitation from without. Nevertheless,
although the system of nature is looked upon as a machine, yet so far as it has
reference to rational beings as its ends, it is given on this account the name
of a kingdom of nature. Now such a kingdom of ends would be actually realized
by means of maxims conforming to the canon which the categorical imperative
prescribes to all rational beings, if they were universally followed. But
although a rational being, even if he punctually follows this maxim himself,
cannot reckon upon all others being therefore true to the same, nor expect that
the kingdom of nature and its orderly arrangements shall be in harmony with him
as a fitting member, so as to form a kingdom of ends to which he himself
contributes, that is to say, that it shall favour his expectation of happiness,
still that law: "Act according to the maxims of a member of a merely
possible kingdom of ends legislating in it universally," remains in its
full force, inasmuch as it commands categorically. And it is just in this that
the paradox lies; that the mere dignity of man as a rational creature, without
any other end or advantage to be attained thereby, in other words, respect for
a mere idea, should yet serve as an inflexible precept of the will, and that it
is precisely in this independence of the maxim on all such springs of action
that its sublimity consists; and it is this that makes every rational subject
worthy to be a legislative member in the kingdom of ends: for otherwise he
would have to be conceived only as subject to the physical law of his wants.
And although we should suppose the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of ends to
be united under one sovereign, so that the latter kingdom thereby ceased to be
a mere idea and acquired true reality, then it would no doubt gain the accession
of a strong spring, but by no means any increase of its intrinsic worth. For
this sole absolute lawgiver must, notwithstanding this, be always conceived as
estimating the worth of rational beings only by their disinterested behaviour,
as prescribed to themselves from that idea [the dignity of man] alone. The
essence of things is not altered by their external relations, and that which,
abstracting from these, alone constitutes the absolute worth of man, is also
that by which he must be judged, whoever the judge may be, and even by the
Supreme Being. Morality, then, is the relation of actions to the relation of
actions will, that is, to the autonomy of potential universal legislation by
its maxims. An action that is consistent with the autonomy of the will is
permitted; one that does not agree therewith is forbidden. A will whose maxims
necessarily coincide with the laws of autonomy is a holy will, good absolutely.
The dependence of a will not absolutely good on the principle of autonomy
(moral necessitation) is obligation. This, then, cannot be applied to a holy
being. The objective necessity of actions from obligation is called duty.
From what has just been said, it is easy to see how it happens that, although
the conception of duty implies subjection to the law, we yet ascribe a certain
dignity and sublimity to the person who fulfils all his duties. There is not,
indeed, any sublimity in him, so far as he is subject to the moral law; but
inasmuch as in regard to that very law he is likewise a legislator, and on that
account alone subject to it, he has sublimity. We have also shown above that
neither fear nor inclination, but simply respect for the law, is the spring
which can give actions a moral worth. Our own will, so far as we suppose it to
act only under the condition that its maxims are potentially universal laws,
this ideal will which is possible to us is the proper object of respect; and
the dignity of humanity consists just in this capacity of being universally
legislative, though with the condition that it is itself subject to this same
legislation.
Autonomy of the will is that property of it by which it is a law to
itself (independently of any property of the objects of volition). The principle
of autonomy then is: "Always so to choose that the same volition shall
comprehend the maxims of our choice as a universal law." We cannot prove
that this practical rule is an imperative, i.e., that the will of every
rational being is necessarily bound to it as a condition, by a mere analysis of
the conceptions which occur in it, since it is a synthetical proposition; we
must advance beyond the cognition of the objects to a critical examination of
the subject, that is, of the pure practical reason, for this synthetic
proposition which commands apodeictically must be capable of being cognized
wholly a priori. This matter, however, does not belong to the present section.
But that the principle of autonomy in question is the sole principle of morals
can be readily shown by mere analysis of the conceptions of morality. For by
this analysis we find that its principle must be a categorical imperative and
that what this commands is neither more nor less than this very autonomy.
If the will seeks the law which is to determine it anywhere else than in
the fitness of its maxims to be universal laws of its own dictation,
consequently if it goes out of itself and seeks this law in the character of
any of its objects, there always results heteronomy. The will in that case does
not give itself the law, but it is given by the object through its relation to
the will. This relation, whether it rests on inclination or on conceptions of
reason, only admits of hypothetical imperatives: "I ought to do something
because I wish for something else." On the contrary, the moral, and
therefore categorical, imperative says: "I ought to do so and so, even
though I should not wish for anything else." E.g., the former says:
"I ought not to lie, if I would retain my reputation"; the latter
says: "I ought not to lie, although it should not bring me the least
discredit." The latter therefore must so far abstract from all objects
that they shall have no influence on the will, in order that practical reason
(will) may not be restricted to administering an interest not belonging to it,
but may simply show its own commanding authority as the supreme legislation.
Thus, e.g., I ought to endeavour to promote the happiness of others, not as if
its realization involved any concern of mine (whether by immediate inclination
or by any satisfaction indirectly gained through reason), but simply because a
maxim which excludes it cannot be comprehended as a universal law in one and the
same volition.
Here as elsewhere human reason in its pure use, so long as it was not
critically examined, has first tried all possible wrong ways before it
succeeded in finding the one true way.
All principles which can be taken from this point of view are either empirical
or rational. The former, drawn from the principle of happiness, are built on
physical or moral feelings; the latter, drawn from the principle of perfection,
are built either on the rational conception of perfection as a possible effect,
or on that of an independent perfection (the will of God) as the determining
cause of our will.
Empirical principles are wholly incapable of serving as a foundation for moral
laws. For the universality with which these should hold for all rational beings
without distinction, the unconditional practical necessity which is thereby
imposed on them, is lost when their foundation is taken from the particular constitution
of human nature, or the accidental circumstances in which it is placed. The
principle of private happiness, however, is the most objectionable, not merely
because it is false, and experience contradicts the supposition that prosperity
is always proportioned to good conduct, nor yet merely because it contributes
nothing to the establishment of morality- since it is quite a different thing
to make a prosperous man and a good man, or to make one prudent and
sharp-sighted for his own interests and to make him virtuous- but because the
springs it provides for morality are such as rather undermine it and destroy
its sublimity, since they put the motives to virtue and to vice in the same
class and only teach us to make a better calculation, the specific difference
between virtue and vice being entirely extinguished. On the other hand, as to
moral feeling, this supposed special sense,* the appeal to it is indeed
superficial when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them
out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings, which naturally
differ infinitely in degree, cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and
evil, nor has anyone a right to form judgements for others by his own feelings:
nevertheless this moral feeling is nearer to morality and its dignity in this
respect, that it pays virtue the honour of ascribing to her immediately the
satisfaction and esteem we have for her and does not, as it were, tell her to
her face that we are not attached to her by her beauty but by profit.
*I class the principle of moral feeling under that of happiness, because
every empirical interest promises to contribute to our well-being by the
agreeableness that a thing affords, whether it be immediately and without a
view to profit, or whether profit be regarded. We must likewise, with
Hutcheson, class the principle of sympathy with the happiness of others under
his assumed moral sense.
Amongst the rational principles of morality, the ontological conception
of perfection, notwithstanding its defects, is better than the theological
conception which derives morality from a Divine absolutely perfect will. The
former is, no doubt, empty and indefinite and consequently useless for finding
in the boundless field of possible reality the greatest amount suitable for us;
moreover, in attempting to distinguish specifically the reality of which we are
now speaking from every other, it inevitably tends to turn in a circle and
cannot avoid tacitly presupposing the morality which it is to explain; it is
nevertheless preferable to the theological view, first, because we have no
intuition of the divine perfection and can only deduce it from our own
conceptions, the most important of which is that of morality, and our
explanation would thus be involved in a gross circle; and, in the next place,
if we avoid this, the only notion of the Divine will remaining to us is a
conception made up of the attributes of desire of glory and dominion, combined
with the awful conceptions of might and vengeance, and any system of morals
erected on this foundation would be directly opposed to morality.
However, if I had to choose between the notion of the moral sense and that of
perfection in general (two systems which at least do not weaken morality,
although they are totally incapable of serving as its foundation), then I
should decide for the latter, because it at least withdraws the decision of the
question from the sensibility and brings it to the court of pure reason; and
although even here it decides nothing, it at all events preserves the
indefinite idea (of a will good in itself free from corruption, until it shall
be more precisely defined.
For the rest I think I may be excused here from a detailed refutation of all
these doctrines; that would only be superfluous labour, since it is so easy,
and is probably so well seen even by those whose office requires them to decide
for one of these theories (because their hearers would not tolerate suspension
of judgement). But what interests us more here is to know that the prime foundation
of morality laid down by all these principles is nothing but heteronomy of the
will, and for this reason they must necessarily miss their aim.
In every case where an object of the will has to be supposed, in order that the
rule may be prescribed which is to determine the will, there the rule is simply
heteronomy; the imperative is conditional, namely, if or because one wishes for
this object, one should act so and so: hence it can never command morally, that
is, categorically. Whether the object determines the will by means of
inclination, as in the principle of private happiness, or by means of reason
directed to objects of our possible volition generally, as in the principle of
perfection, in either case the will never determines itself immediately by the
conception of the action, but only by the influence which the foreseen effect
of the action has on the will; I ought to do something, on this account,
because I wish for something else; and here there must be yet another law
assumed in me as its subject, by which I necessarily will this other thing, and
this law again requires an imperative to restrict this maxim. For the influence
which the conception of an object within the reach of our faculties can
exercise on the will of the subject, in consequence of its natural properties,
depends on the nature of the subject, either the sensibility (inclination and
taste), or the understanding and reason, the employment of which is by the
peculiar constitution of their nature attended with satisfaction. It follows
that the law would be, properly speaking, given by nature, and, as such, it
must be known and proved by experience and would consequently be contingent and
therefore incapable of being an apodeictic practical rule, such as the moral
rule must be. Not only so, but it is inevitably only heteronomy; the will does
not give itself the law, but is given by a foreign impulse by means of a
particular natural constitution of the subject adapted to receive it. An
absolutely good will, then, the principle of which must be a categorical
imperative, will be indeterminate as regards all objects and will contain
merely the form of volition generally, and that as autonomy, that is to say,
the capability of the maxims of every good will to make themselves a universal
law, is itself the only law which the will of every rational being imposes on
itself, without needing to assume any spring or interest as a foundation.
How such a synthetical practical a priori proposition is possible, and why it
is necessary, is a problem whose solution does not lie within the bounds of the
metaphysic of morals; and we have not here affirmed its truth, much less
professed to have a proof of it in our power. We simply showed by the
development of the universally received notion of morality that an autonomy of
the will is inevitably connected with it, or rather is its foundation. Whoever
then holds morality to be anything real, and not a chimerical idea without any
truth, must likewise admit the principle of it that is here assigned. This section
then, like the first, was merely analytical. Now to prove that morality is no
creation of the brain, which it cannot be if the categorical imperative and
with it the autonomy of the will is true, and as an a priori principle
absolutely necessary, this supposes the possibility of a synthetic use of pure
practical reason, which however we cannot venture on without first giving a
critical examination of this faculty of reason. In the concluding section we
shall give the principal outlines of this critical examination as far as is
sufficient for our purpose.
TRANSITION FROM THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS TO THE
CRITIQUE OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON
The Concept of Freedom is the Key that explains the
Autonomy of the Will
Freedom must be presupposed as a Property of the Will
of all Rational Beings
Of the Interest attaching to the Ideas of Morality
How is a Categorical Imperative Possible?
Of the Extreme Limits of all Practical Philosophy.
The will is a kind of causality belonging to living beings in so far as
they are rational, and freedom would be this property of such causality that it
can be efficient, independently of foreign causes determining it; just as
physical necessity is the property that the causality of all irrational beings
has of being determined to activity by the influence of foreign causes.
The preceding definition of freedom is negative and therefore unfruitful for
the discovery of its essence, but it leads to a positive conception which is so
much the more full and fruitful.
Since the conception of causality involves that of laws, according to which, by
something that we call cause, something else, namely the effect, must be
produced; hence, although freedom is not a property of the will depending on
physical laws, yet it is not for that reason lawless; on the contrary it must
be a causality acting according to immutable laws, but of a peculiar kind;
otherwise a free will would be an absurdity. Physical necessity is a heteronomy
of the efficient causes, for every effect is possible only according to this
law, that something else determines the efficient cause to exert its causality.
What else then can freedom of the will be but autonomy, that is, the property
of the will to be a law to itself? But the proposition: "The will is in
every action a law to itself," only expresses the principle: "To act
on no other maxim than that which can also have as an object itself as a
universal law." Now this is precisely the formula of the categorical imperative
and is the principle of morality, so that a free will and a will subject to
moral laws are one and the same.
On the hypothesis, then, of freedom of the will, morality together with its
principle follows from it by mere analysis of the conception. However, the
latter is a synthetic proposition; viz., an absolutely good will is that whose
maxim can always include itself regarded as a universal law; for this property
of its maxim can never be discovered by analysing the conception of an
absolutely good will. Now such synthetic propositions are only possible in this
way: that the two cognitions are connected together by their union with a third
in which they are both to be found. The positive concept of freedom furnishes
this third cognition, which cannot, as with physical causes, be the nature of
the sensible world (in the concept of which we find conjoined the concept of
something in relation as cause to something else as effect). We cannot now at
once show what this third is to which freedom points us and of which we have an
idea a priori, nor can we make intelligible how the concept of freedom is shown
to be legitimate from principles of pure practical reason and with it the
possibility of a categorical imperative; but some further preparation is
required.
It is not enough to predicate freedom of our own will, from Whatever
reason, if we have not sufficient grounds for predicating the same of all
rational beings. For as morality serves as a law for us only because we are
rational beings, it must also hold for all rational beings; and as it must be
deduced simply from the property of freedom, it must be shown that freedom also
is a property of all rational beings. It is not enough, then, to prove it from
certain supposed experiences of human nature (which indeed is quite impossible,
and it can only be shown a priori), but we must show that it belongs to the
activity of all rational beings endowed with a will. Now I say every being that
cannot act except under the idea of freedom is just for that reason in a
practical point of view really free, that is to say, all laws which are
inseparably connected with freedom have the same force for him as if his will
had been shown to be free in itself by a proof theoretically conclusive.* Now I
affirm that we must attribute to every rational being which has a will that it
has also the idea of freedom and acts entirely under this idea. For in such a
being we conceive a reason that is practical, that is, has causality in
reference to its objects. Now we cannot possibly conceive a reason consciously
receiving a bias from any other quarter with respect to its judgements, for
then the subject would ascribe the determination of its judgement not to its
own reason, but to an impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its
principles independent of foreign influences. Consequently as practical reason
or as the will of a rational being it must regard itself as free, that is to
say, the will of such a being cannot be a will of its own except under the idea
of freedom. This idea must therefore in a practical point of view be ascribed
to every rational being.
*I adopt this method of assuming freedom merely as an idea which
rational beings suppose in their actions, in order to avoid the necessity of
proving it in its theoretical aspect also. The former is sufficient for my
purpose; for even though the speculative proof should not be made out, yet a
being that cannot act except with the idea of freedom is bound by the same laws
that would oblige a being who was actually free. Thus we can escape here from
the onus which presses on the theory.
We have finally reduced the definite conception of morality to the idea
of freedom. This latter, however, we could not prove to be actually a property
of ourselves or of human nature; only we saw that it must be presupposed if we
would conceive a being as rational and conscious of its causality in respect of
its actions, i.e., as endowed with a will; and so we find that on just the same
grounds we must ascribe to every being endowed with reason and will this
attribute of determining itself to action under the idea of its freedom.
Now it resulted also from the presupposition of these ideas that we became
aware of a law that the subjective principles of action, i.e., maxims, must
always be so assumed that they can also hold as objective, that is, universal
principles, and so serve as universal laws of our own dictation. But why then
should I subject myself to this principle and that simply as a rational being,
thus also subjecting to it all other being endowed with reason? I will allow
that no interest urges me to this, for that would not give a categorical
imperative, but I must take an interest in it and discern how this comes to
pass; for this properly an "I ought" is properly an "I
would," valid for every rational being, provided only that reason
determined his actions without any hindrance. But for beings that are in
addition affected as we are by springs of a different kind, namely,
sensibility, and in whose case that is not always done which reason alone would
do, for these that necessity is expressed only as an "ought," and the
subjective necessity is different from the objective.
It seems then as if the moral law, that is, the principle of autonomy of the
will, were properly speaking only presupposed in the idea of freedom, and as if
we could not prove its reality and objective necessity independently. In that
case we should still have gained something considerable by at least determining
the true principle more exactly than had previously been done; but as regards
its validity and the practical necessity of subjecting oneself to it, we should
not have advanced a step. For if we were asked why the universal validity of
our maxim as a law must be the condition restricting our actions, and on what
we ground the worth which we assign to this manner of acting- a worth so great
that there cannot be any higher interest; and if we were asked further how it
happens that it is by this alone a man believes he feels his own personal
worth, in comparison with which that of an agreeable or disagreeable condition
is to be regarded as nothing, to these questions we could give no satisfactory
answer.
We find indeed sometimes that we can take an interest in a personal quality
which does not involve any interest of external condition, provided this
quality makes us capable of participating in the condition in case reason were
to effect the allotment; that is to say, the mere being worthy of happiness can
interest of itself even without the motive of participating in this happiness.
This judgement, however, is in fact only the effect of the importance of the
moral law which we before presupposed (when by the idea of freedom we detach
ourselves from every empirical interest); but that we ought to detach ourselves
from these interests, i.e., to consider ourselves as free in action and yet as
subject to certain laws, so as to find a worth simply in our own person which
can compensate us for the loss of everything that gives worth to our condition;
this we are not yet able to discern in this way, nor do we see how it is
possible so to act- in other words, whence the moral law derives its
obligation.
It must be freely admitted that there is a sort of circle here from which it
seems impossible to escape. In the order of efficient causes we assume
ourselves free, in order that in the order of ends we may conceive ourselves as
subject to moral laws: and we afterwards conceive ourselves as subject to these
laws, because we have attributed to ourselves freedom of will: for freedom and
self-legislation of will are both autonomy and, therefore, are reciprocal
conceptions, and for this very reason one must not be used to explain the other
or give the reason of it, but at most only logical purposes to reduce
apparently different notions of the same object to one single concept (as we
reduce different fractions of the same value to the lowest terms).
One resource remains to us, namely, to inquire whether we do not occupy
different points of view when by means of freedom we think ourselves as causes
efficient a priori, and when we form our conception of ourselves from our
actions as effects which we see before our eyes.
It is a remark which needs no subtle reflection to make, but which we may
assume that even the commonest understanding can make, although it be after its
fashion by an obscure discernment of judgement which it calls feeling, that all
the "ideas" that come to us involuntarily (as those of the senses) do
not enable us to know objects otherwise than as they affect us; so that what
they may be in themselves remains unknown to us, and consequently that as
regards "ideas" of this kind even with the closest attention and
clearness that the understanding can apply to them, we can by them only attain
to the knowledge of appearances, never to that of things in themselves. As soon
as this distinction has once been made (perhaps merely in consequence of the
difference observed between the ideas given us from without, and in which we
are passive, and those that we produce simply from ourselves, and in which we
show our own activity), then it follows of itself that we must admit and assume
behind the appearance something else that is not an appearance, namely, the
things in themselves; although we must admit that as they can never be known to
us except as they affect us, we can come no nearer to them, nor can we ever
know what they are in themselves. This must furnish a distinction, however
crude, between a world of sense and the world of understanding, of which the
former may be different according to the difference of the sensuous impressions
in various observers, while the second which is its basis always remains the
same, Even as to himself, a man cannot pretend to know what he is in himself
from the knowledge he has by internal sensation. For as he does not as it were
create himself, and does not come by the conception of himself a priori but
empirically, it naturally follows that he can obtain his knowledge even of
himself only by the inner sense and, consequently, only through the appearances
of his nature and the way in which his consciousness is affected. At the same
time beyond these characteristics of his own subject, made up of mere
appearances, he must necessarily suppose something else as their basis, namely,
his ego, whatever its characteristics in itself may be. Thus in respect to mere
perception and receptivity of sensations he must reckon himself as belonging to
the world of sense; but in respect of whatever there may be of pure activity in
him (that which reaches consciousness immediately and not through affecting the
senses), he must reckon himself as belonging to the intellectual world, of
which, however, he has no further knowledge. To such a conclusion the
reflecting man must come with respect to all the things which can be presented
to him: it is probably to be met with even in persons of the commonest
understanding, who, as is well known, are very much inclined to suppose behind
the objects of the senses something else invisible and acting of itself. They
spoil it, however, by presently sensualizing this invisible again; that is to
say, wanting to make it an object of intuition, so that they do not become a whit
the wiser.
Now man really finds in himself a faculty by which he distinguishes himself
from everything else, even from himself as affected by objects, and that is
reason. This being pure spontaneity is even elevated above the understanding.
For although the latter is a spontaneity and does not, like sense, merely
contain intuitions that arise when we are affected by things (and are therefore
passive), yet it cannot produce from its activity any other conceptions than
those which merely serve to bring the intuitions of sense under rules and,
thereby, to unite them in one consciousness, and without this use of the
sensibility it could not think at all; whereas, on the contrary, reason shows
so pure a spontaneity in the case of what I call ideas [ideal conceptions] that
it thereby far transcends everything that the sensibility can give it, and
exhibits its most important function in distinguishing the world of sense from
that of understanding, and thereby prescribing the limits of the understanding
itself.
For this reason a rational being must regard himself qua intelligence (not from
the side of his lower faculties) as belonging not to the world of sense, but to
that of understanding; hence he has two points of view from which he can regard
himself, and recognise laws of the exercise of his faculties, and consequently
of all his actions: first, so far as he belongs to the world of sense, he finds
himself subject to laws of nature (heteronomy); secondly, as belonging to the
intelligible world, under laws which being independent of nature have their
foundation not in experience but in reason alone.
As a rational being, and consequently belonging to the intelligible world, man
can never conceive the causality of his own will otherwise than on condition of
the idea of freedom, for independence of the determinate causes of the sensible
world (an independence which reason must always ascribe to itself) is freedom.
Now the idea of freedom is inseparably connected with the conception of
autonomy, and this again with the universal principle of morality which is
ideally the foundation of all actions of rational beings, just as the law of
nature is of all phenomena.
Now the suspicion is removed which we raised above, that there was a latent
circle involved in our reasoning from freedom to autonomy, and from this to the
moral law, viz.: that we laid down the idea of freedom because of the moral law
only that we might afterwards in turn infer the latter from freedom, and that
consequently we could assign no reason at all for this law, but could only
[present] it as a petitio principii which well disposed minds would gladly
concede to us, but which we could never put forward as a provable proposition.
For now we see that, when we conceive ourselves as free, we transfer ourselves
into the world of understanding as members of it and recognise the autonomy of
the will with its consequence, morality; whereas, if we conceive ourselves as
under obligation, we consider ourselves as belonging to the world of sense and
at the same time to the world of understanding.
Every rational being reckons himself qua intelligence as belonging to
the world of understanding, and it is simply as an efficient cause belonging to
that world that he calls his causality a will. On the other side he is also
conscious of himself as a part of the world of sense in which his actions,
which are mere appearances [phenomena] of that causality, are displayed; we
cannot, however, discern how they are possible from this causality which we do
not know; but instead of that, these actions as belonging to the sensible world
must be viewed as determined by other phenomena, namely, desires and
inclinations. If therefore I were only a member of the world of understanding,
then all my actions would perfectly conform to the principle of autonomy of the
pure will; if I were only a part of the world of sense, they would necessarily
be assumed to conform wholly to the natural law of desires and inclinations, in
other words, to the heteronomy of nature. (The former would rest on morality as
the supreme principle, the latter on happiness.) Since, however, the world of
understanding contains the foundation of the world of sense, and consequently
of its laws also, and accordingly gives the law to my will (which belongs
wholly to the world of understanding) directly, and must be conceived as doing
so, it follows that, although on the one side I must regard myself as a being
belonging to the world of sense, yet on the other side I must recognize myself
as subject as an intelligence to the law of the world of understanding, i.e.,
to reason, which contains this law in the idea of freedom, and therefore as
subject to the autonomy of the will: consequently I must regard the laws of the
world of understanding as imperatives for me and the actions which conform to
them as duties.
And thus what makes categorical imperatives possible is this, that the idea of
freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world, in consequence of which, if
I were nothing else, all my actions would always conform to the autonomy of the
will; but as I at the same time intuite myself as a member of the world of
sense, they ought so to conform, and this categorical "ought" implies
a synthetic a priori proposition, inasmuch as besides my will as affected by
sensible desires there is added further the idea of the same will but as
belonging to the world of the understanding, pure and practical of itself,
which contains the supreme condition according to reason of the former will;
precisely as to the intuitions of sense there are added concepts of the
understanding which of themselves signify nothing but regular form in general
and in this way synthetic a priori propositions become possible, on which all
knowledge of physical nature rests.
The practical use of common human reason confirms this reasoning. There is no
one, not even the most consummate villain, provided only that be is otherwise
accustomed to the use of reason, who, when we set before him examples of
honesty of purpose, of steadfastness in following good maxims, of sympathy and
general benevolence (even combined with great sacrifices of advantages and
comfort), does not wish that he might also possess these qualities. Only on
account of his inclinations and impulses he cannot attain this in himself, but
at the same time he wishes to be free from such inclinations which are
burdensome to himself. He proves by this that he transfers himself in thought
with a will free from the impulses of the sensibility into an order of things
wholly different from that of his desires in the field of the sensibility;
since he cannot expect to obtain by that wish any gratification of his desires,
nor any position which would satisfy any of his actual or supposable
inclinations (for this would destroy the pre-eminence of the very idea which
wrests that wish from him): he can only expect a greater intrinsic worth of his
own person. This better person, however, he imagines himself to be when be
transfers himself to the point of view of a member of the world of the
understanding, to which he is involuntarily forced by the idea of freedom,
i.e., of independence on determining causes of the world of sense; and from
this point of view he is conscious of a good will, which by his own confession
constitutes the law for the bad will that he possesses as a member of the world
of sense- a law whose authority he recognizes while transgressing it. What he
morally "ought" is then what he necessarily "would," as a
member of the world of the understanding, and is conceived by him as an
"ought" only inasmuch as he likewise considers himself as a member of
the world of sense.
All men attribute to themselves freedom of will. Hence come all
judgements upon actions as being such as ought to have been done, although they
have not been done. However, this freedom is not a conception of experience,
nor can it be so, since it still remains, even though experience shows the
contrary of what on supposition of freedom are conceived as its necessary
consequences. On the other side it is equally necessary that everything that
takes place should be fixedly determined according to laws of nature. This
necessity of nature is likewise not an empirical conception, just for this
reason, that it involves the motion of necessity and consequently of a priori
cognition. But this conception of a system of nature is confirmed by
experience; and it must even be inevitably presupposed if experience itself is
to be possible, that is, a connected knowledge of the objects of sense resting
on general laws. Therefore freedom is only an idea of reason, and its objective
reality in itself is doubtful; while nature is a concept of the understanding
which proves, and must necessarily prove, its reality in examples of
experience.
There arises from this a dialectic of reason, since the freedom attributed to
the will appears to contradict the necessity of nature, and placed between
these two ways reason for speculative purposes finds the road of physical
necessity much more beaten and more appropriate than that of freedom; yet for
practical purposes the narrow footpath of freedom is the only one on which it
is possible to make use of reason in our conduct; hence it is just as
impossible for the subtlest philosophy as for the commonest reason of men to
argue away freedom. Philosophy must then assume that no real contradiction will
be found between freedom and physical necessity of the same human actions, for
it cannot give up the conception of nature any more than that of freedom.
Nevertheless, even though we should never be able to comprehend how freedom is
possible, we must at least remove this apparent contradiction in a convincing
manner. For if the thought of freedom contradicts either itself or nature,
which is equally necessary, it must in competition with physical necessity be
entirely given up.
It would, however, be impossible to escape this contradiction if the thinking
subject, which seems to itself free, conceived itself in the same sense or in
the very same relation when it calls itself free as when in respect of the same
action it assumes itself to be subject to the law of nature. Hence it is an
indispensable problem of speculative philosophy to show that its illusion
respecting the contradiction rests on this, that we think of man in a different
sense and relation when we call him free and when we regard him as subject to
the laws of nature as being part and parcel of nature. It must therefore show
that not only can both these very well co-exist, but that both must be thought
as necessarily united in the same subject, since otherwise no reason could be
given why we should burden reason with an idea which, though it may possibly
without contradiction be reconciled with another that is sufficiently
established, yet entangles us in a perplexity which sorely embarrasses reason
in its theoretic employment. This duty, however, belongs only to speculative
philosophy. The philosopher then has no option whether he will remove the
apparent contradiction or leave it untouched; for in the latter case the theory
respecting this would be bonum vacans, into the possession of which the
fatalist would have a right to enter and chase all morality out of its supposed
domain as occupying it without title.
We cannot however as yet say that we are touching the bounds of practical
philosophy. For the settlement of that controversy does not belong to it; it
only demands from speculative reason that it should put an end to the discord
in which it entangles itself in theoretical questions, so that practical reason
may have rest and security from external attacks which might make the ground
debatable on which it desires to build.
The claims to freedom of will made even by common reason are founded on the
consciousness and the admitted supposition that reason is independent of merely
subjectively determined causes which together constitute what belongs to
sensation only and which consequently come under the general designation of
sensibility. Man considering himself in this way as an intelligence places
himself thereby in a different order of things and in a relation to determining
grounds of a wholly different kind when on the one hand he thinks of himself as
an intelligence endowed with a will, and consequently with causality, and when
on the other he perceives himself as a phenomenon in the world of sense (as he
really is also), and affirms that his causality is subject to external
determination according to laws of nature. Now he soon becomes aware that both
can hold good, nay, must hold good at the same time. For there is not the
smallest contradiction in saying that a thing in appearance (belonging to the
world of sense) is subject to certain laws, of which the very same as a thing
or being in itself is independent, and that he must conceive and think of
himself in this twofold way, rests as to the first on the consciousness of
himself as an object affected through the senses, and as to the second on the
consciousness of himself as an intelligence, i.e., as independent on sensible
impressions in the employment of his reason (in other words as belonging to the
world of understanding).
Hence it comes to pass that man claims the possession of a will which takes no
account of anything that comes under the head of desires and inclinations and,
on the contrary, conceives actions as possible to him, nay, even as necessary
which can only be done by disregarding all desires and sensible inclinations.
The causality of such actions lies in him as an intelligence and in the laws of
effects and actions [which depend] on the principles of an intelligible world,
of which indeed he knows nothing more than that in it pure reason alone
independent of sensibility gives the law; moreover since it is only in that
world, as an intelligence, that he is his proper self (being as man only the
appearance of himself), those laws apply to him directly and categorically, so
that the incitements of inclinations and appetites (in other words the whole
nature of the world of sense) cannot impair the laws of his volition as an
intelligence. Nay, he does not even hold himself responsible for the former or
ascribe them to his proper self, i.e., his will: he only ascribes to his will
any indulgence which he might yield them if he allowed them to influence his
maxims to the prejudice of the rational laws of the will.
When practical reason thinks itself into a world of understanding, it does not
thereby transcend its own limits, as it would if it tried to enter it by
intuition or sensation. The former is only a negative thought in respect of the
world of sense, which does not give any laws to reason in determining the will
and is positive only in this single point that this freedom as a negative
characteristic is at the same time conjoined with a (positive) faculty and even
with a causality of reason, which we designate a will, namely a faculty of so
acting that the principle of the actions shall conform to the essential
character of a rational motive, i.e., the condition that the maxim have
universal validity as a law. But were it to borrow an object of will, that is,
a motive, from the world of understanding, then it would overstep its bounds
and pretend to be acquainted with something of which it knows nothing. The
conception of a world of the understanding is then only a point of view which
reason finds itself compelled to take outside the appearances in order to
conceive itself as practical, which would not be possible if the influences of
the sensibility had a determining power on man, but which is necessary unless
he is to be denied the consciousness of himself as an intelligence and,
consequently, as a rational cause, energizing by reason, that is, operating
freely. This thought certainly involves the idea of an order and a system of
laws different from that of the mechanism of nature which belongs to the
sensible world; and it makes the conception of an intelligible world necessary
(that is to say, the whole system of rational beings as things in themselves).
But it does not in the least authorize us to think of it further than as to its
formal condition only, that is, the universality of the maxims of the will as
laws, and consequently the autonomy of the latter, which alone is consistent
with its freedom; whereas, on the contrary, all laws that refer to a definite
object give heteronomy, which only belongs to laws of nature and can only apply
to the sensible world.
But reason would overstep all its bounds if it undertook to explain how pure
reason can be practical, which would be exactly the same problem as to explain
how freedom is possible.
For we can explain nothing but that which we can reduce to laws, the object of
which can be given in some possible experience. But freedom is a mere idea, the
objective reality of which can in no wise be shown according to laws of nature,
and consequently not in any possible experience; and for this reason it can
never be comprehended or understood, because we cannot support it by any sort
of example or analogy. It holds good only as a necessary hypothesis of reason
in a being that believes itself conscious of a will, that is, of a faculty
distinct from mere desire (namely, a faculty of determining itself to action as
an intelligence, in other words, by laws of reason independently on natural
instincts). Now where determination according to laws of nature ceases, there
all explanation ceases also, and nothing remains but defence, i.e., the removal
of the objections of those who pretend to have seen deeper into the nature of
things, and thereupon boldly declare freedom impossible. We can only point out
to them that the supposed contradiction that they have discovered in it arises
only from this, that in order to be able to apply the law of nature to human
actions, they must necessarily consider man as an appearance: then when we
demand of them that they should also think of him qua intelligence as a thing
in itself, they still persist in considering him in this respect also as an
appearance. In this view it would no doubt be a contradiction to suppose the
causality of the same subject (that is, his will) to be withdrawn from all the
natural laws of the sensible world. But this contradiction disappears, if they
would only bethink themselves and admit, as is reasonable, that behind the
appearances there must also lie at their root (although hidden) the things in
themselves, and that we cannot expect the laws of these to be the same as those
that govern their appearances.
The subjective impossibility of explaining the freedom of the will is identical
with the impossibility of discovering and explaining an interest* which man can
take in the moral law. Nevertheless he does actually take an interest in it,
the basis of which in us we call the moral feeling, which some have falsely
assigned as the standard of our moral judgement, whereas it must rather be
viewed as the subjective effect that the law exercises on the will, the
objective principle of which is furnished by reason alone.
*Interest is that by which reason becomes practical, i.e., a cause
determining the will. Hence we say of rational beings only that they take an
interest in a thing; irrational beings only feel sensual appetites. Reason
takes a direct interest in action then only when the universal validity of its
maxims is alone sufficient to determine the will. Such an interest alone is
pure. But if it can determine the will only by means of another object of
desire or on the suggestion of a particular feeling of the subject, then reason
takes only an indirect interest in the action, and, as reason by itself without
experience cannot discover either objects of the will or a special feeling
actuating it, this latter interest would only be empirical and not a pure
rational interest. The logical interest of reason (namely, to extend its
insight) is never direct, but presupposes purposes for which reason is
employed.
In order indeed that a rational being who is also affected through the
senses should will what reason alone directs such beings that they ought to
will, it is no doubt requisite that reason should have a power to infuse a
feeling of pleasure or satisfaction in the fulfilment of duty, that is to say,
that it should have a causality by which it determines the sensibility
according to its own principles. But it is quite impossible to discern, i.e.,
to make it intelligible a priori, how a mere thought, which itself contains
nothing sensible, can itself produce a sensation of pleasure or pain; for this
is a particular kind of causality of which as of every other causality we can
determine nothing whatever a priori; we must only consult experience about it.
But as this cannot supply us with any relation of cause and effect except
between two objects of experience, whereas in this case, although indeed the
effect produced lies within experience, yet the cause is supposed to be pure
reason acting through mere ideas which offer no object to experience, it
follows that for us men it is quite impossible to explain how and why the
universality of the maxim as a law, that is, morality, interests. This only is
certain, that it is not because it interests us that it has validity for us
(for that would be heteronomy and dependence of practical reason on
sensibility, namely, on a feeling as its principle, in which case it could
never give moral laws), but that it interests us because it is valid for us as
men, inasmuch as it had its source in our will as intelligences, in other
words, in our proper self, and what belongs to mere appearance is necessarily
subordinated by reason to the nature of the thing in itself.
The question then, "How a categorical imperative is possible," can be
answered to this extent, that we can assign the only hypothesis on which it is
possible, namely, the idea of freedom; and we can also discern the necessity of
this hypothesis, and this is sufficient for the practical exercise of reason,
that is, for the conviction of the validity of this imperative, and hence of
the moral law; but how this hypothesis itself is possible can never be
discerned by any human reason. On the hypothesis, however, that the will of an
intelligence is free, its autonomy, as the essential formal condition of its
determination, is a necessary consequence. Moreover, this freedom of will is
not merely quite possible as a hypothesis (not involving any contradiction to
the principle of physical necessity in the connexion of the phenomena of the
sensible world) as speculative philosophy can show: but further, a rational
being who is conscious of causality through reason, that is to say, of a will
(distinct from desires), must of necessity make it practically, that is, in
idea, the condition of all his voluntary actions. But to explain how pure
reason can be of itself practical without the aid of any spring of action that
could be derived from any other source, i.e., how the mere principle of the
universal validity of all its maxims as laws (which would certainly be the form
of a pure practical reason) can of itself supply a spring, without any matter
(object) of the will in which one could antecedently take any interest; and how
it can produce an interest which would be called purely moral; or in other
words, how pure reason can be practical- to explain this is beyond the power of
human reason, and all the labour and pains of seeking an explanation of it are
lost.
It is just the same as if I sought to find out how freedom itself is possible
as the causality of a will. For then I quit the ground of philosophical
explanation, and I have no other to go upon. I might indeed revel in the world
of intelligences which still remains to me, but although I have an idea of it
which is well founded, yet I have not the least knowledge of it, nor an I ever
attain to such knowledge with all the efforts of my natural faculty of reason.
It signifies only a something that remains over when I have eliminated
everything belonging to the world of sense from the actuating principles of my
will, serving merely to keep in bounds the principle of motives taken from the
field of sensibility; fixing its limits and showing that it does not contain
all in all within itself, but that there is more beyond it; but this something
more I know no further. Of pure reason which frames this ideal, there remains
after the abstraction of all matter, i.e., knowledge of objects, nothing but
the form, namely, the practical law of the universality of the maxims, and in
conformity with this conception of reason in reference to a pure world of
understanding as a possible efficient cause, that is a cause determining the
will. There must here be a total absence of springs; unless this idea of an
intelligible world is itself the spring, or that in which reason primarily
takes an interest; but to make this intelligible is precisely the problem that
we cannot solve.
Here now is the extreme limit of all moral inquiry, and it is of great importance
to determine it even on this account, in order that reason may not on the one
band, to the prejudice of morals, seek about in the world of sense for the
supreme motive and an interest comprehensible but empirical; and on the other
hand, that it may not impotently flap its wings without being able to move in
the (for it) empty space of transcendent concepts which we call the
intelligible world, and so lose itself amidst chimeras. For the rest, the idea
of a pure world of understanding as a system of all intelligences, and to which
we ourselves as rational beings belong (although we are likewise on the other
side members of the sensible world), this remains always a useful and
legitimate idea for the purposes of rational belief, although all knowledge stops
at its threshold, useful, namely, to produce in us a lively interest in the
moral law by means of the noble ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in
themselves (rational beings), to which we can belong as members then only when
we carefully conduct ourselves according to the maxims of freedom as if they
were laws of nature.
The speculative employment of reason with respect to nature leads to the
absolute necessity of some supreme cause of the world: the practical employment
of reason with a view to freedom leads also to absolute necessity, but only of
the laws of the actions of a rational being as such. Now it is an essential
principle of reason, however employed, to push its knowledge to a consciousness
of its necessity (without which it would not be rational knowledge). It is,
however, an equally essential restriction of the same reason that it can
neither discern the necessity of what is or what happens, nor of what ought to
happen, unless a condition is supposed on which it is or happens or ought to
happen. In this way, however, by the constant inquiry for the condition, the
satisfaction of reason is only further and further postponed. Hence it
unceasingly seeks the unconditionally necessary and finds itself forced to
assume it, although without any means of making it comprehensible to itself,
happy enough if only it can discover a conception which agrees with this
assumption. It is therefore no fault in our deduction of the supreme principle
of morality, but an objection that should be made to human reason in general,
that it cannot enable us to conceive the absolute necessity of an unconditional
practical law (such as the categorical imperative must be). It cannot be blamed
for refusing to explain this necessity by a condition, that is to say, by means
of some interest assumed as a basis, since the law would then cease to be a
supreme law of reason. And thus while we do not comprehend the practical
unconditional necessity of the moral imperative, we yet comprehend its
incomprehensibility, and this is all that can be fairly demanded of a
philosophy which strives to carry its principles up to the very limit of human
reason.
-THE END-