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START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON ***
This
eBook was prepared by Matthew Stapleton.
1788
by
Immanuel Kant
translated
by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott
This
work is called the Critique of Practical Reason, not of the pure practical
reason, although its parallelism with the speculative critique would seem to
require the latter term. The reason of this appears sufficiently from the
treatise itself. Its business is to show that there is pure practical reason,
and for this purpose it criticizes the entire practical faculty of reason. If
it succeeds in this, it has no need to criticize the pure faculty itself in
order to see whether reason in making such a claim does not presumptuously
overstep itself (as is the case with the speculative reason). For if, as pure
reason, it is actually practical, it proves its own reality and that of its
concepts by fact, and all disputation against the possibility of its being
real is futile.
With
this faculty, transcendental freedom is also established; freedom, namely, in
that absolute sense in which speculative reason required it in its use of the
concept of causality in order to escape the antinomy into which it inevitably
falls, when in the chain of cause and effect it tries to think the
unconditioned. Speculative reason
could only exhibit this concept (of freedom) problematically as not impossible
to thought, without assuring it any objective reality, and merely lest the
supposed impossibility of what it must at least allow to be thinkable should
endanger its very being and plunge it into an abyss of scepticism.
Inasmuch
as the reality of the concept of freedom is proved by an apodeictic law of
practical reason, it is the keystone of the whole system of pure reason, even
the speculative, and all other concepts (those of God and immortality) which,
as being mere ideas, remain in it unsupported, now attach themselves to this
concept, and by it obtain consistence and objective reality; that is to say,
their possibility is proved by the fact that freedom actually exists, for this
idea is revealed by the moral law.
Freedom,
however, is the only one of all the ideas of the speculative reason of which
we know the possibility a priori (without, however, understanding it), because
it is the condition of the moral law which we know. * The ideas of God and
immortality, however, are not conditions of the moral law, but only conditions
of the necessary object of a will determined by this law; that is to say,
conditions of the practical use of our pure reason. Hence, with respect to
these ideas, we cannot affirm that we know and understand, I will not say the
actuality, but even the possibility of them. However they are the conditions
of the application of the morally determined will to its object, which is
given to it a priori, viz., the summum bonum.
Consequently in this practical point of view their possibility must be
assumed, although we cannot theoretically know and understand it. To justify
this assumption it is sufficient, in a practical point of view, that they
contain no intrinsic impossibility (contradiction).
Here we have what, as far as speculative reason is concerned, is a
merely subjective principle of assent, which, however, is objectively valid
for a reason equally pure but practical, and this principle, by means of the
concept of freedom, assures objective reality and authority to the ideas of
God and immortality. Nay, there is a subjective necessity (a need of pure
reason) to assume them. Nevertheless the theoretical knowledge of reason is
not hereby enlarged, but only the possibility is given, which heretofore was
merely a problem and now becomes assertion, and thus the practical use of
reason is connected with the elements of theoretical reason. And this need is
not a merely hypothetical one for the arbitrary purposes of speculation, that
we must assume something if we wish in speculation to carry reason to its
utmost limits, but it is a need which has the force of law to assume something
without which that cannot be which we must inevitably set before us as the aim
of our action.
{PREFACE
^paragraph 5}
·
Lest any one
should imagine that he finds an inconsistency here when I call freedom the
condition of the moral law, and hereafter maintain in the treatise itself that
the moral law is the condition under which we can first become conscious of
freedom, I will merely remark that freedom is the ratio essendi of the moral
law, while the moral law is the ratio cognoscendi of freedom. For Pad not the
moral law been previously distinctly thought in our reason, we should never
consider ourselves justified in assuming such a thing as freedom, although it
be not contradictory. But were there no freedom it would be impossible to
trace the moral law in ourselves at all.
It
would certainly be more satisfactory to our speculative reason if it could
solve these problems for itself without this circuit and preserve the solution
for practical use as a thing to be referred to, but in fact our faculty of
speculation is not so well provided. Those
who boast of such high knowledge ought not to keep it back, but to exhibit it
publicly that it may be tested and appreciated. They want to prove: very good,
let them prove; and the critical philosophy lays its arms at their feet as the
victors. Quid statis? Nolint.
Atqui licet esse beatis. As they then do not in fact choose to do so, probably
because they cannot, we must take up these arms again in order to seek in the
mortal use of reason, and to base on this, the notions of God, freedom, and
immortality, the possibility of which speculation cannot adequately prove.
Here
first is explained the enigma of the critical philosophy, viz.:
how
we deny objective reality to the supersensible use of the categories in
speculation and yet admit this reality with respect to the objects of pure
practical reason. This must at first seem inconsistent as long as this
practical use is only nominally known.
But
when, by a thorough analysis of it, one becomes aware that the
reality
spoken of does not imply any theoretical determination of
the
categories and extension of our knowledge to the supersensible;
but
that what is meant is that in this respect an object belongs to
them,
because either they are contained in the necessary determination
of
the will a priori, or are inseparably connected with its object;
then
this inconsistency disappears, because the use we make of these
concepts
is different from what speculative reason requires. On the
other
hand, there now appears an unexpected and very satisfactory
proof
of the consistency of the speculative critical philosophy. For
whereas
it insisted that the objects of experience as such,
including
our own subject, have only the value of phenomena, while
at
the same time things in themselves must be supposed as their basis,
so
that not everything supersensible was to be regarded as a fiction
and
its concept as empty; so now practical reason itself, without
any
concert with the speculative, assures reality to a supersensible
object
of the category of causality, viz., freedom, although (as
becomes
a practical concept) only for practical use; and this
establishes
on the evidence of a fact that which in the former case
could
only be conceived. By this the strange but certain doctrine of
the
speculative critical philosophy, that the thinking subject is to
itself
in internal intuition only a phenomenon, obtains in the
critical
examination of the practical reason its full confirmation,
and
that so thoroughly that we should be compelled to adopt this
doctrine,
even if the former had never proved it at all. *
{PREFACE
^paragraph 10}
·
The union of
causality as freedom with causality as rational mechanism, the former
established by the moral law, the latter by the law of nature in the same
subject, namely, man, is impossible, unless we conceive him with reference to
the former as a being in himself, and with reference to the latter as a
phenomenon- the former in pure consciousness, the latter in empirical
consciousness. Otherwise reason
inevitably contradicts itself.
By
this also I can understand why the most considerable objections which I have
as yet met with against the Critique turn about these two points, namely, on
the one side, the objective reality of the categories as applied to noumena,
which is in the theoretical department of knowledge denied, in the practical
affirmed; and on the other side, the paradoxical demand to regard oneself qua
subject of freedom as a noumenon, and at the same time from the point of view
of physical nature as a phenomenon in one’s own empirical consciousness; for
as long as one has formed no definite notions of morality and freedom, one
could not conjecture on the one side what was intended to be the noumenon, the
basis of the alleged phenomenon, and on the other side it seemed doubtful
whether it was at all possible to form any notion of it, seeing that we had
previously assigned all the notions of the pure understanding in its
theoretical use exclusively to phenomena. Nothing but a detailed criticism of
the practical reason can remove all this misapprehension and set in a clear
light the consistency which constitutes its greatest merit.
So
much by way of justification of the proceeding by which, in this work, the
notions and principles of pure speculative reason which have already undergone
their special critical examination are, now and then, again subjected to
examination. This would not in other cases be in accordance with the
systematic process by which a science is established, since matters which have
been decided ought only to be cited and not again discussed. In this case,
however, it was not only allowable but necessary, because reason is here
considered in transition to a different use of these concepts from what it had
made of them before. Such a transition necessitates a comparison of the old
and the new usage, in order to distinguish well the new path from the old one
and, at the same time, to allow their connection to be observed. Accordingly
considerations of this kind, including those which are once more directed to
the concept of freedom in the practical use of the pure reason, must not be
regarded as an interpolation serving only to fill up the gaps in the critical
system of speculative reason (for this is for its own purpose complete), or
like the props and buttresses which in a hastily constructed building are
often added afterwards; but as true members which make the connexion of the
system plain, and show us concepts, here presented as real, which there could
only be presented problematically. This remark applies especially to the
concept of freedom, respecting which one cannot but observe with surprise that
so many boast of being able to understand it quite well and to explain its
possibility, while they regard it only psychologically, whereas if they had
studied it in a transcendental point of view, they must have recognized that
it is not only indispensable as a problematical concept, in the complete use
of speculative reason, but also quite incomprehensible; and if they afterwards
came to consider its practical use, they must needs have come to the very mode
of determining the principles of this, to which they are now so loth to
assent. The concept of freedom is the stone of stumbling for all empiricists,
but at the same time the key to the loftiest practical principles for critical
moralists, who perceive by its means that they must necessarily proceed by a
rational method. For this reason I beg the reader not to pass lightly over
what is said of this concept at the end of the Analytic.
I
must leave it to those who are acquainted with works of this kind to judge
whether such a system as that of the practical reason, which is here developed
from the critical examination of it, has cost much or little trouble,
especially in seeking not to miss the true point of view from which the whole
can be rightly sketched. It presupposes, indeed, the Fundamental Principles of
the Metaphysic of Morals, but only in so far as this gives a preliminary
acquaintance with the principle of duty, and assigns and justifies a definite
formula thereof; in other respects it is independent. * It results from the
nature of this practical faculty itself that the complete classification of
all practical sciences cannot be added, as in the critique of the speculative
reason. For it is not possible to define duties specially, as human duties,
with a view to their classification, until the subject of this definition
(viz., man) is known according to his actual nature, at least so far as is
necessary with respect to duty; this, however, does not belong to a critical
examination of the practical reason, the business of which is only to assign
in a complete manner the principles of its possibility, extent, and limits,
without special reference to human nature. The classification then belongs to
the system of science, not to the system of criticism.
{PREFACE
^paragraph 15}
·
A reviewer who
wanted to find some fault with this work has hit the truth better, perhaps,
than he thought, when he says that no new principle of morality is set forth
in it, but only a new formula. But
who would think of introducing a new principle of all morality and making
himself as it were the first discoverer of it, just as if all the world before
him were ignorant what duty was or had been in thorough-going error? But
whoever knows of what importance to a mathematician a formula is, which
defines accurately what is to be done to work a problem, will not think that a
formula is insignificant and useless which does the same for all duty in
general.
In
the second part of the Analytic I have given, as I trust, a sufficient answer
to the objection of a truth-loving and acute critic * of the Fundamental
Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals- a critic always worthy of respect- the
objection, namely, that the notion of good was not established before the
moral principle, as he thinks it ought to have been. *(2) I have also had
regard to many of the objections which have reached me from men who show that
they have at heart the discovery of the truth, and I shall continue to do so
(for those who have only their old system before their eyes, and who have
already settled what is to be approved or disapproved, do not desire any
explanation which might stand in the way of their own private opinion.)
{PREFACE
^paragraph 20}
*
[See Kant’s “Das mag in der Theoric ricktig seyn,” etc. Werke, vol. vii,
p. 182.]
*(2)
It might also have been objected to me that I have not first defined the
notion of the faculty of desire, or of the feeling of Pleasure, although this
reproach would be unfair, because this definition might reasonably be
presupposed as given in psychology. However,
the definition there given might be such as to found the determination of the
faculty of desire on the feeling of pleasure (as is commonly done), and thus
the supreme principle of practical philosophy would be necessarily made
empirical, which, however, remains to be proved and in this critique is
altogether refuted. It will, therefore, give this definition here in such a
manner as it ought to be given, in order to leave this contested point open at
the beginning, as it should be. LIFE is the faculty a being has of acting
according to laws of the faculty of desire. The faculty of DESIRE is the being’s
faculty of becoming by means of its ideas the cause of the actual existence of
the objects of these ideas. PLEASURE
is the idea of the agreement of the object, or the action with the subjective
conditions of life, i.e., with the faculty of causality of an idea in respect
of the actuality of its object (or with the determination of the forces of the
subject to action which produces it). I have no further need for the purposes
of this critique of notions borrowed from psychology; the critique itself
supplies the rest. It is easily seen that the question whether the faculty of
desire is always based on pleasure, or whether under certain conditions
pleasure only follows the determination of desire, is by this definition left
undecided, for it is composed only of terms belonging to the pure
understanding, i.e., of categories which contain nothing empirical. Such
precaution is very desirable in all philosophy and yet is often neglected;
namely, not to prejudge questions by adventuring definitions before the notion
has been completely analysed, which is often very late. It may be observed
through the whole course of the critical philosophy (of the theoretical as
well as the practical reason) that frequent opportunity offers of supplying
defects in the old dogmatic method of philosophy, and of correcting errors
which are not observed until we make such rational use of these notions
viewing them as a whole.
When
we have to study a particular faculty of the human mind in its sources, its
content, and its limits; then from the nature of human knowledge we must begin
with its parts, with an accurate and complete exposition of them; complete,
namely, so far as is possible in the present state of our knowledge of its
elements. But there is another thing to be attended to which is of a more
philosophical and architectonic character, namely, to grasp correctly the idea
of the whole, and from thence to get a view of all those parts as mutually
related by the aid of pure reason, and by means of their derivation from the
concept of the whole. This is only possible through the most intimate
acquaintance with the system; and those who find the first inquiry too
troublesome, and do not think it worth their while to attain such an
acquaintance, cannot reach the second stage, namely, the general view, which
is a synthetical return to that which had previously been given analytically.
It is no wonder then if they find inconsistencies everywhere, although the
gaps which these indicate are not in the system itself, but in their own
incoherent train of thought.
I
have no fear, as regards this treatise, of the reproach that I
wish
to introduce a new language, since the sort of knowledge here
in
question has itself somewhat of an everyday character. Nor even
in
the case of the former critique could this reproach occur to anyone
who
had thought it through and not merely turned over the leaves. To
invent
new words where the language has no lack of expressions for
given
notions is a childish effort to distinguish oneself from the
crowd,
if not by new and true thoughts, yet by new patches on the
old
garment. If, therefore, the readers of that work know any more
familiar
expressions which are as suitable to the thought as those
seem
to me to be, or if they think they can show the futility of these
thoughts
themselves and hence that of the expression, they would, in
the
first case, very much oblige me, for I only desire to be
understood:
and, in the second case, they would deserve well of
philosophy.
But, as long as these thoughts stand, I very much doubt
that
suitable and yet more common expressions for them can be found. *
{PREFACE
^paragraph 25}
·
I am more afraid
in the present treatise of occasional misconception in respect of some
expressions which I have chosen with the greatest care in order that the
notion to which they point may not be missed. Thus, in the table of categories
of the Practical reason under the title of Modality, the Permitted, and
forbidden (in a practical objective point of view, possible and impossible)
have almost the same meaning in common language as the next category, duty and
contrary to duty. Here, however, the former means what coincides with, or
contradicts, a merely possible practical precept (for example, the solution of
all problems of geometry and mechanics); the latter, what is similarly related
to a law actually present in the reason; and this distinction is not quite
foreign even to common language, although somewhat unusual. For example, it is
forbidden to an orator, as such, to forge new words or constructions; in a
certain degree this is permitted to a poet; in neither case is there any
question of duty. For if anyone chooses to forfeit his reputation as an
orator, no one can prevent him. We have here only to do with the distinction
of imperatives into problematical, assertorial, and apodeictic. Similarly in
the note in which I have pared the moral ideas of practical perfection in
different philosophical schools, I have distinguished the idea of wisdom from
that of holiness, although I have stated that essentially and objectively they
are the same. But in that place I understand by the former only that wisdom to
which man (the Stoic) lays claim; therefore I take it subjectively as an
attribute alleged to belong to man. (Perhaps
the expression virtue, with which also the made great show, would better mark
the characteristic of his school.) The expression of a postulate of pure
practical reason might give most occasion to misapprehension in case the
reader confounded it with the signification of the postulates in pure
mathematics, which carry apodeictic certainty with them. These, however,
postulate the possibility of an action, the object of which has been
previously recognized a priori in theory as possible, and that with perfect
certainty. But the former postulates the possibility of an object itself (God
and the immortality of the soul) from apodeictic practical laws, and therefore
only for the purposes of a practical reason.
This certainty of the postulated possibility then is not at all
theoretic, and consequently not apodeictic; that is to say, it is not a known
necessity as regards the object, but a necessary supposition as regards the
subject, necessary for the obedience to its objective but practical laws. It
is, therefore, merely a necessary hypothesis. I could find no better
expression for this rational necessity, which is subjective, but yet true and
unconditional.
In
this manner, then, the a priori principles of two faculties of the mind, the
faculty of cognition and that of desire, would be found and determined as to
the conditions, extent, and limits of their use, and thus a sure foundation be
paid for a scientific system of philosophy, both theoretic and practical.
Nothing
worse could happen to these labours than that anyone should make the
unexpected discovery that there neither is, nor can be, any a priori knowledge
at all. But there is no danger of this. This
would be the same thing as if one sought to prove by reason that there is no
reason. For we only say that we know something by reason, when we are
conscious that we could have known it, even if it had not been given to us in
experience; hence rational knowledge and knowledge a priori are one and the
same. It is a clear contradiction to try to extract necessity from a principle
of experience (ex pumice aquam), and to try by this to give a judgement true
universality (without which there is no rational inference, not even inference
from analogy, which is at least a presumed universality and objective
necessity). To substitute subjective necessity, that is, custom, for
objective, which exists only in a priori judgements, is to deny to reason the
power of judging about the object, i.e., of knowing it, and what belongs to
it. It implies, for example, that we must not say of something which often or
always follows a certain antecedent state that we can conclude from this to
that (for this would imply objective necessity and the notion of an a priori
connexion), but only that we may expect similar cases (just as animals do),
that is that we reject the notion of cause altogether as false and a mere
delusion. As to attempting to remedy this want of objective and consequently
universal validity by saying that we can see no ground for attributing any
other sort of knowledge to other rational beings, if this reasoning were
valid, our ignorance would do more for the enlargement of our knowledge than
all our meditation. For, then, on this very ground that we have no knowledge
of any other rational beings besides man, we should have a right to suppose
them to be of the same nature as we know ourselves to be: that is, we should
really know them. I omit to mention that universal assent does not prove the
objective validity of a judgement (i.e., its validity as a cognition), and
although this universal assent should accidentally happen, it could furnish no
proof of agreement with the object; on the contrary, it is the objective
validity which alone constitutes the basis of a necessary universal consent.
{PREFACE
^paragraph 30}
Hume
would be quite satisfied with this system of universal empiricism, for, as is
well known, he desired nothing more than that, instead of ascribing any
objective meaning to the necessity in the concept of cause, a merely
subjective one should be assumed, viz., custom, in order to deny that reason
could judge about God, freedom, and immortality; and if once his principles
were granted, he was certainly well able to deduce his conclusions therefrom,
with all logical coherence. But even Hume did not make his empiricism so
universal as to include mathematics. He holds the principles of mathematics to
be analytical; and if his were correct, they would certainly be apodeictic
also: but we could not infer from this that reason has the faculty of forming
apodeictic judgements in philosophy also- that is to say, those which are
synthetical judgements, like the judgement of causality. But if we adopt a
universal empiricism, then mathematics will be included.
Now
if this science is in contradiction with a reason that admits only empirical
principles, as it inevitably is in the antinomy in which mathematics prove the
infinite divisibility of space, which empiricism cannot admit; then the
greatest possible evidence of demonstration is in manifest contradiction with
the alleged conclusions from experience, and we are driven to ask, like
Cheselden’s blind patient, “Which deceives me, sight or touch?” (for
empiricism is based on a necessity felt, rationalism on a necessity seen). And
thus universal empiricism reveals itself as absolute scepticism. It is
erroneous to attribute this in such an unqualified sense to Hume, * since he
left at least one certain touchstone (which can only be found in a priori
principles), although experience consists not only of feelings, but also of
judgements.
·
Names that
designate the followers of a sect have always been accompanied with much
injustice; just as if one said, “N is an Idealist.” For although he not
only admits, but even insists, that our ideas of external things have actual
objects of external things corresponding to them, yet he holds that the form
of the intuition does not depend on them but on the human mind.
{PREFACE
^paragraph 35}
However,
as in this philosophical and critical age such empiricism can scarcely be
serious, and it is probably put forward only as an intellectual exercise and
for the purpose of putting in a clearer light, by contrast, the necessity of
rational a priori principles, we can only be grateful to those who employ
themselves in this otherwise uninstructive labour.
INTRODUCTION.
Of
the Idea of a Critique of Practical Reason.
The
theoretical use of reason was concerned with objects of the
cognitive
faculty only, and a critical examination of it with
reference
to this use applied properly only to the pure faculty of
cognition;
because this raised the suspicion, which was afterwards confirmed, that it
might easily pass beyond its limits, and be lost among unattainable objects,
or even contradictory notions. It is quite different with the practical use of
reason. In this, reason is concerned with the grounds of determination of the
will, which is a faculty either to produce objects corresponding to ideas, or
to determine ourselves to the effecting of such objects (whether the physical
power is sufficient or not); that is, to determine our causality. For here,
reason can at least attain so far as to determine the will, and has always
objective reality in so far as it is the volition only that is in question.
The first question here then is whether pure reason of itself alone suffices
to determine the will, or whether it can be a ground of determination only as
dependent on empirical conditions. Now, here there comes in a notion of
causality justified by the critique of the pure reason, although not capable
of being presented empirically, viz., that of freedom; and if we can now
discover means of proving that this property does in fact belong to the human
will (and so to the will of all rational beings), then it will not only be
shown that pure reason can be practical, but that it alone, and not reason
empirically limited, is indubitably practical; consequently, we shall have to
make a critical examination, not of pure practical reason, but only of
practical reason generally. For when once pure reason is shown to exist, it
needs no critical examination. For reason itself contains the standard for the
critical examination of every use of it. The critique, then, of practical
reason generally is bound to prevent the empirically conditioned reason from
claiming exclusively to furnish the ground of determination of the will. If it
is proved that there is a [practical] reason, its employment is alone
immanent; the empirically conditioned use, which claims supremacy, is on the
contrary transcendent and expresses itself in demands and precepts which go
quite beyond its sphere. This is just the opposite of what might be said of
pure reason in its speculative employment.
However,
as it is still pure reason, the knowledge of which is here the foundation of
its practical employment, the general outline of the classification of a
critique of practical reason must be arranged in accordance with that of the
speculative. We must, then, have the Elements and the Methodology of it; and
in the former an Analytic as the rule of truth, and a Dialectic as the
exposition and dissolution of the illusion in the judgements of practical
reason. But the order in the subdivision of the Analytic will be the reverse
of that in the critique of the pure speculative reason. For, in the present
case, we shall commence with the principles and proceed to the concepts, and
only then, if possible, to the senses; whereas in the case of the speculative
reason we began with the senses and had to end with the principles. The reason
of this lies again in this: that now we have to do with a will, and have to
consider reason, not in its relation to objects, but to this will and its
causality. We must, then, begin with the principles of a causality not
empirically conditioned, after which the attempt can be made to establish our
notions of the determining grounds of such a will, of their application to
objects, and finally to the subject and its sense faculty. We necessarily
begin with the law of causality from freedom, that is, with a pure practical
principle, and this determines the objects to which alone it can be applied.
FIRST
PART.
BOOK
I. The Analytic of Pure Practical Reason.
CHAPTER
I. Of the Principles of Pure Practical Reason.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 5}
Practical
principles are propositions which contain a general determination of the will,
having under it several practical rules.
They are subjective, or maxims, when the condition is regarded by the
subject as valid only for his own will, but are objective, or practical laws,
when the condition is recognized as objective, that is, valid for the will of
every rational being.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 10}
Supposing
that pure reason contains in itself a practical motive, that is, one adequate
to determine the will, then there are practical laws; otherwise all practical
principles will be mere maxims. In case the will of a rational being is
pathologically affected, there may occur a conflict of the maxims with the
practical laws recognized by itself. For example, one may make it his maxim to
let no injury pass unrevenged, and yet he may see that this is not a practical
law, but only his own maxim; that, on the contrary, regarded as being in one
and the same maxim a rule for the will of every rational being, it must
contradict itself. In natural philosophy the principles of what happens, e.g.,
the principle of equality of action and reaction in the communication of
motion) are at the same time laws of nature; for the use of reason there is
theoretical and determined by the nature of the object. In practical
philosophy, i.e., that which has to do only with the grounds of determination
of the will, the principles which a man makes for himself are not laws by
which one is inevitably bound; because reason in practical matters has to do
with the subject, namely, with the faculty of desire, the special character of
which may occasion variety in the rule. The practical rule is always a product
of reason, because it prescribes action as a means to the effect. But in the
case of a being with whom reason does not of itself determine the will, this
rule is an imperative, i.e., a rule characterized by “shall,” which
expresses the objective necessitation of the action and signifies that, if
reason completely determined the will, the action would inevitably take place
according to this rule. Imperatives, therefore, are objectively valid, and are
quite distinct from maxims, which are subjective principles. The former either
determine the conditions of the causality of the rational being as an
efficient cause, i.e., merely in reference to the effect and the means of
attaining it; or they determine the will only, whether it is adequate to the
effect or not. The former would be hypothetical imperatives, and contain mere
precepts of skill; the latter, on the contrary, would be categorical, and
would alone be practical laws. Thus
maxims are principles, but not imperatives. Imperatives themselves, however,
when they are conditional (i.e., do not determine the will simply as will, but
only in respect to a desired effect, that is, when they are hypothetical
imperatives), are practical precepts but not laws. Laws must be sufficient to
determine the will as will, even before I ask whether I have power sufficient
for a desired effect, or the means necessary to produce it; hence they are
categorical: otherwise they are not laws at all, because the necessity is
wanting, which, if it is to be practical, must be independent of conditions
which are pathological and are therefore only contingently connected with the
will. Tell a man, for example, that he must be industrious and thrifty in
youth, in order that he may not want in old age; this is a correct and
important practical precept of the will. But it is easy to see that in this
case the will is directed to something else which it is presupposed that it
desires; and as to this desire, we must leave it to the actor himself whether
he looks forward to other resources than those of his own acquisition, or does
not expect to be old, or thinks that in case of future necessity he will be
able to make shift with little. Reason, from which alone can spring a rule
involving necessity, does, indeed, give necessity to this precept (else it
would not be an imperative), but this is a necessity dependent on subjective
conditions, and cannot be supposed in the same degree in all subjects. But
that reason may give laws it is necessary that it should only need to
presuppose itself, because rules are objectively and universally valid only
when they hold without any contingent subjective conditions, which distinguish
one rational being from another. Now tell a man that he should never make a
deceitful promise, this is a rule which only concerns his will, whether the
purposes he may have can be attained thereby or not; it is the volition only
which is to be determined a priori by that rule. If now it is found that this
rule is practically right, then it is a law, because it is a categorical
imperative. Thus, practical laws refer to the will only, without considering
what is attained by its causality, and we may disregard this latter (as
belonging to the world of sense) in order to have them quite pure.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 15}
All
practical principles which presuppose an object (matter) of the faculty of
desire as the ground of determination of the will are empirical and can
furnish no practical laws.
By
the matter of the faculty of desire I mean an object the realization of which
is desired. Now, if the desire for this object precedes the practical rule and
is the condition of our making it a principle, then I say (in the first place)
this principle is in that case wholly empirical, for then what determines the
choice is the idea of an object and that relation of this idea to the subject
by which its faculty of desire is determined to its realization. Such a
relation to the subject is called the pleasure in the realization of an
object. This, then, must be presupposed as a condition of the possibility of
determination of the will. But it is impossible to know a priori of any idea
of an object whether it will be connected with pleasure or pain, or be
indifferent. In such cases, therefore, the determining principle of the choice
must be empirical and, therefore, also the practical material principle which
presupposes it as a condition.
In
the second place, since susceptibility to a pleasure or pain can be known only
empirically and cannot hold in the same degree for all rational beings, a
principle which is based on this subjective condition may serve indeed as a
maxim for the subject which possesses this susceptibility, but not as a law
even to him (because it is wanting in objective necessity, which must be
recognized a priori); it follows, therefore, that such a principle can never
furnish a practical law.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 20}
All
material practical principles as such are of one and the same kind and come
under the general principle of self-love or private happiness.
Pleasure
arising from the idea of the idea of the existence of a thing, in so far as it
is to determine the desire of this thing, is founded on the susceptibility of
the subject, since it depends on the presence of an object; hence it belongs
to sense (feeling), and not to understanding, which expresses a relation of
the idea to an object according to concepts, not to the subject according to
feelings. It is, then, practical only in so far as the faculty of desire is
determined by the sensation of agreeableness which the subject expects from
the actual existence of the object. Now, a rational being’s consciousness of
the pleasantness of life uninterruptedly accompanying his whole existence is
happiness; and the principle which makes this the supreme ground of
determination of the will is the principle of self-love. All material
principles, then, which place the determining ground of the will in the
pleasure or pain to be received from the existence of any object are all of
the same kind, inasmuch as they all belong to the principle of self-love or
private happiness.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 25}
All
material practical rules place the determining principle of the will in the
lower desires; and if there were no purely formal laws of the will adequate to
determine it, then we could not admit any higher desire at all.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 30}
It
is surprising that men, otherwise acute, can think it possible to distinguish
between higher and lower desires, according as the ideas which are connected
with the feeling of pleasure have their origin in the senses or in the
understanding; for when we inquire what are the determining grounds of desire,
and place them in some expected pleasantness, it is of no consequence whence
the idea of this pleasing object is derived, but only how much it pleases.
Whether an idea has its seat and source in the understanding or not, if it can
only determine the choice by presupposing a feeling of pleasure in the
subject, it follows that its capability of determining the choice depends
altogether on the nature of the inner sense, namely, that this can be
agreeably affected by it. However dissimilar ideas of objects may be, though
they be ideas of the understanding, or even of the reason in contrast to ideas
of sense, yet the feeling of pleasure, by means of which they constitute the
determining principle of the will (the expected satisfaction which impels the
activity to the production of the object), is of one and the same kind, not
only inasmuch as it can only be known empirically, but also inasmuch as it
affects one and the same vital force which manifests itself in the faculty of
desire, and in this respect can only differ in degree from every other ground
of determination. Otherwise, how could we compare in respect of magnitude two
principles of determination, the ideas of which depend upon different
faculties, so as to prefer that which affects the faculty of desire in the
highest degree. The same man may return unread an instructive book which he
cannot again obtain, in order not to miss a hunt; he may depart in the midst
of a fine speech, in order not to be late for dinner; he may leave a rational
conversation, such as he otherwise values highly, to take his place at the
gaming-table; he may even repulse a poor man whom he at other times takes
pleasure in benefiting, because he has only just enough money in his pocket to
pay for his admission to the theatre. If the determination of his will rests
on the feeling of the agreeableness or disagreeableness that he expects from
any cause, it is all the same to him by what sort of ideas he will be
affected. The only thing that
concerns him, in order to decide his choice, is, how great, how long
continued, how easily obtained, and how often repeated, this agreeableness is.
just as to the man who wants money to spend, it is all the same whether the
gold was dug out of the mountain or washed out of the sand, provided it is
everywhere accepted at the same value; so the man who cares only for the
enjoyment of life does not ask whether the ideas are of the understanding or
the senses, but only how much and how great pleasure they will give for the
longest time. It is only those that would gladly deny to pure reason the power
of determining the will, without the presupposition of any feeling, who could
deviate so far from their own exposition as to describe as quite heterogeneous
what they have themselves previously brought under one and the same principle.
Thus, for example, it is observed that we can find pleasure in the mere
exercise of power, in the consciousness of our strength of mind in overcoming
obstacles which are opposed to our designs, in the culture of our mental
talents, etc.; and we justly call these more refined pleasures and enjoyments,
because they are more in our power than others; they do not wear out, but
rather increase the capacity for further enjoyment of them, and while they
delight they at the same time cultivate. But to say on this account that they
determine the will in a different way and not through sense, whereas the
possibility of the pleasure presupposes a feeling for it implanted in us,
which is the first condition of this satisfaction; this is just as when
ignorant persons that like to dabble in metaphysics imagine matter so subtle,
so supersubtle that they almost make themselves giddy with it, and then think
that in this way they have conceived it as a spiritual and yet extended being.
If with Epicurus we make virtue determine the will only by means of the
pleasure it promises, we cannot afterwards blame him for holding that this
pleasure is of the same kind as those of the coarsest senses. For we have no
reason whatever to charge him with holding that the ideas by which this
feeling is excited in us belong merely to the bodily senses. As far as can be
conjectured, he sought the source of many of them in the use of the higher
cognitive faculty, but this did not prevent him, and could not prevent him,
from holding on the principle above stated, that the pleasure itself which
those intellectual ideas give us, and by which alone they can determine the
will, is just of the same kind. Consistency
is the highest obligation of a philosopher, and yet the most rarely found. The
ancient Greek schools give us more examples of it than we find in our
syncretistic age, in which a certain shallow and dishonest system of
compromise of contradictory principles is devised, because it commends itself
better to a public which is content to know something of everything and
nothing thoroughly, so as to please every party.
The
principle of private happiness, however much understanding and reason may be
used in it, cannot contain any other determining principles for the will than
those which belong to the lower desires; and either there are no [higher]
desires at all, or pure reason must of itself alone be practical; that is, it
must be able to determine the will by the mere form of the practical rule
without supposing any feeling, and consequently without any idea of the
pleasant or unpleasant, which is the matter of the desire, and which is always
an empirical condition of the principles. Then only, when reason of itself
determines the will (not as the servant of the inclination), it is really a
higher desire to which that which is pathologically determined is subordinate,
and is really, and even specifically, distinct from the latter, so that even
the slightest admixture of the motives of the latter impairs its strength and
superiority; just as in a mathematical demonstration the least empirical
condition would degrade and destroy its force and value.
Reason, with its practical law, determines the will immediately, not by
means of an intervening feeling of pleasure or pain, not even of pleasure in
the law itself, and it is only because it can, as pure reason, be practical,
that it is possible for it to be legislative.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 35}
To
be happy is necessarily the wish of every finite rational being, and this,
therefore, is inevitably a determining principle of its faculty of desire. For
we are not in possession originally of satisfaction with our whole existence-
a bliss which would imply a consciousness of our own independent
self-sufficiency this is a problem imposed upon us by our own finite nature,
because we have wants and these wants regard the matter of our desires, that
is, something that is relative to a subjective feeling of pleasure or pain,
which determines what we need in order to be satisfied with our condition. But
just because this material principle of determination can only be empirically
known by the subject, it is impossible to regard this problem as a law; for a
law being objective must contain the very same principle of determination of
the will in all cases and for all rational beings. For, although the notion of
happiness is in every case the foundation of practical relation of the objects
to the desires, yet it is only a general name for the subjective determining
principles, and determines nothing specifically; whereas this is what alone we
are concerned with in this practical problem, which cannot be solved at all
without such specific determination. For it is every man’s own special
feeling of pleasure and pain that decides in what he is to place his
happiness, and even in the same subject this will vary with the difference of
his wants according as this feeling changes, and thus a law which is
subjectively necessary (as a law of nature) is objectively a very contingent
practical principle, which can and must be very different in different
subjects and therefore can never furnish a law; since, in the desire for
happiness it is not the form (of conformity to law) that is decisive, but
simply the matter, namely, whether I am to expect pleasure in following the
law, and how much. Principles of self-love may, indeed, contain universal
precepts of skill (how to find means to accomplish one’s purpose), but in
that case they are merely theoretical principles; * as, for example, how he
who would like to eat bread should contrive a mill; but practical precepts
founded on them can never be universal, for the determining principle of the
desire is based on the feeling pleasure and pain, which can never be supposed
to be universally directed to the same objects.
·
Propositions which
in mathematics or physics are called practical ought properly to be called
technical. For they have nothing to do with the determination of the will;
they only point out how a certain effect is to be produced and are, therefore,
just as theoretical as any propositions which express the connection of a
cause with an effect. Now whoever chooses the effect must also choose the
cause.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 40}
Even
supposing, however, that all finite rational beings were thoroughly agreed as
to what were the objects of their feelings of pleasure and pain, and also as
to the means which they must employ to attain the one and avoid the other;
still, they could by no means set up the principle of self-love as a practical
law, for this unanimity itself would be only contingent. The principle of
determination would still be only subjectively valid and merely empirical, and
would not possess the necessity which is conceived in every law, namely, an
objective necessity arising from a priori grounds; unless, indeed, we hold
this necessity to be not at all practical, but merely physical, viz., that our
action is as inevitably determined by our inclination, as yawning when we see
others yawn. It would be better
to maintain that there are no practical laws at all, but only counsels for the
service of our desires, than to raise merely subjective principles to the rank
of practical laws, which have objective necessity, and not merely subjective,
and which must be known by reason a priori, not by experience (however
empirically universal this may be). Even the rules of corresponding phenomena
are only called laws of nature (e.g., the mechanical laws), when we either
know them really a priori, or (as in the case of chemical laws) suppose that
they would be known a priori from objective grounds if our insight reached
further. But in the case of merely subjective practical principles, it is
expressly made a condition that they rest, not on objective, but on subjective
conditions of choice, and hence that they must always be represented as mere
maxims, never as practical laws. This second remark seems at first sight to be
mere verbal refinement, but it defines the terms of the most important
distinction which can come into consideration in practical investigations.
A
rational being cannot regard his maxims as practical universal laws, unless he
conceives them as principles which determine the will, not by their matter,
but by their form only.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 45}
By
the matter of a practical principle I mean the object of the will. This object
is either the determining ground of the will or it is not. In the former case
the rule of the will is subjected to an empirical condition (viz., the
relation of the determining idea to the feeling of pleasure and pain),
consequently it can not be a practical law. Now, when we abstract from a law
all matter, i.e., every object of the will (as a determining principle),
nothing is left but the mere form of a universal legislation. Therefore,
either a rational being cannot conceive his subjective practical principles,
that is, his maxims, as being at the same time universal laws, or he must
suppose that their mere form, by which they are fitted for universal
legislation, is alone what makes them practical laws.
The
commonest understanding can distinguish without instruction what form of maxim
is adapted for universal legislation, and what is not.
Suppose, for example, that I have made it my maxim to increase my
fortune by every safe means. Now, I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of
which is dead and has left no writing about it. This is just the case for my
maxim. I desire then to know whether that maxim can also bold good as a
universal practical law. I apply it, therefore, to the present case, and ask
whether it could take the form of a law, and consequently whether I can by my
maxim at the same time give such a law as this, that everyone may deny a
deposit of which no one can produce a proof. I at once become aware that such
a principle, viewed as a law, would annihilate itself, because the result
would be that there would be no deposits. A practical law which I recognise as
such must be qualified for universal legislation; this is an identical
proposition and, therefore, self-evident. Now, if I say that my will is
subject to a practical law, I cannot adduce my inclination (e.g., in the
present case my avarice) as a principle of determination fitted to be a
universal practical law; for this is so far from being fitted for a universal
legislation that, if put in the form of a universal law, it would destroy
itself.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 50}
It
is, therefore, surprising that intelligent men could have thought of calling
the desire of happiness a universal practical law on the ground that the
desire is universal, and, therefore, also the maxim by which everyone makes
this desire determine his will. For whereas in other cases a universal law of
nature makes everything harmonious; here, on the contrary, if we attribute to
the maxim the universality of a law, the extreme opposite of harmony will
follow, the greatest opposition and the complete destruction of the maxim
itself and its purpose. For, in that case, the will of all has not one and the
same object, but everyone has his own (his private welfare), which may
accidentally accord with the purposes of others which are equally selfish, but
it is far from sufficing for a law; because the occasional exceptions which
one is permitted to make are endless, and cannot be definitely embraced in one
universal rule. In this manner, then, results a harmony like that which a
certain satirical poem depicts as existing between a married couple bent on
going to ruin, “O, marvellous harmony, what he wishes, she wishes also”;
or like what is said of the pledge of Francis I to the Emperor Charles V, “What
my brother Charles wishes that I wish also” (viz., Milan).
Empirical principles of determination are not fit for any universal
external legislation, but just as little for internal; for each man makes his
own subject the foundation of his inclination, and in the same subject
sometimes one inclination, sometimes another, has the preponderance. To
discover a law which would govern them all under this condition, namely,
bringing them all into harmony, is quite impossible.
Supposing
that the mere legislative form of maxims is alone the sufficient determining
principle of a will, to find the nature of the will which can be determined by
it alone.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 55}
Since
the bare form of the law can only be conceived by reason, and is, therefore,
not an object of the senses, and consequently does not belong to the class of
phenomena, it follows that the idea of it, which determines the will, is
distinct from all the principles that determine events in nature according to
the law of causality, because in their case the determining principles must
themselves be phenomena. Now, if no other determining principle can serve as a
law for the will except that universal legislative form, such a will must be
conceived as quite independent of the natural law of phenomena in their mutual
relation, namely, the law of causality; such independence is called freedom in
the strictest, that is, in the transcendental, sense; consequently, a will
which can have its law in nothing but the mere legislative form of the maxim
is a free will.
Supposing
that a will is free, to find the law which alone is competent to determine it
necessarily.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 60}
Since
the matter of the practical law, i.e., an object of the maxim, can never be
given otherwise than empirically, and the free will is independent on
empirical conditions (that is, conditions belonging to the world of sense) and
yet is determinable, consequently a free will must find its principle of
determination in the law, and yet independently of the matter of the law. But,
besides the matter of the law, nothing is contained in it except the
legislative form. It is the legislative form, then, contained in the maxim,
which can alone constitute a principle of determination of the [free] will.
Thus
freedom and an unconditional practical law reciprocally imply each other. Now
I do not ask here whether they are in fact distinct, or whether an
unconditioned law is not rather merely the consciousness of a pure practical
reason and the latter identical with the positive concept of freedom; I only
ask, whence begins our knowledge of the unconditionally practical, whether it
is from freedom or from the practical law? Now it cannot begin from freedom,
for of this we cannot be immediately conscious, since the first concept of it
is negative; nor can we infer it from experience, for experience gives us the
knowledge only of the law of phenomena, and hence of the mechanism of nature,
the direct opposite of freedom. It is therefore the moral law, of which we
become directly conscious (as soon as we trace for ourselves maxims of the
will), that first presents itself to us, and leads directly to the concept of
freedom, inasmuch as reason presents it as a principle of determination not to
be outweighed by any sensible conditions, nay, wholly independent of them. But
how is the consciousness, of that moral law possible? We can become conscious
of pure practical laws just as we are conscious of pure theoretical
principles, by attending to the necessity with which reason prescribes them
and to the elimination of all empirical conditions, which it directs. The
concept of a pure will arises out of the former, as that of a pure
understanding arises out of the latter. That this is the true subordination of
our concepts, and that it is morality that first discovers to us the notion of
freedom, hence that it is practical reason which, with this concept, first
proposes to speculative reason the most insoluble problem, thereby placing it
in the greatest perplexity, is evident from the following consideration: Since
nothing in phenomena can be explained by the concept of freedom, but the
mechanism of nature must constitute the only clue; moreover, when pure reason
tries to ascend in the series of causes to the unconditioned, it falls into an
antinomy which is entangled in incomprehensibilities on the one side as much
as the other; whilst the latter (namely, mechanism) is at least useful in the
explanation of phenomena, therefore no one would ever have been so rash as to
introduce freedom into science, had not the moral law, and with it practical
reason, come in and forced this notion upon us. Experience, however, confirms
this order of notions. Suppose some one asserts of his lustful appetite that,
when the desired object and the opportunity are present, it is quite
irresistible. [Ask him]- if a gallows were erected before the house where he
finds this opportunity, in order that he should be hanged thereon immediately
after the gratification of his lust, whether he could not then control his
passion; we need not be long in doubt what he would reply. Ask him, however-
if his sovereign ordered him, on pain of the same immediate execution, to bear
false witness against an honourable man, whom the prince might wish to destroy
under a plausible pretext, would he consider it possible in that case to
overcome his love of life, however great it may be. He would perhaps not
venture to affirm whether he would do so or not, but he must unhesitatingly
admit that it is possible to do so. He judges, therefore, that he can do a
certain thing because he is conscious that he ought, and he recognizes that he
is free- a fact which but for the moral law he would never have known.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 65}
Act
so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a
principle of universal legislation.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 70}
Pure
geometry has postulates which are practical propositions, but contain nothing
further than the assumption that we can do something if it is required that we
should do it, and these are the only geometrical propositions that concern
actual existence. They are, then, practical rules under a problematical
condition of the will; but here the rule says: We absolutely must proceed in a
certain manner. The practical
rule is, therefore, unconditional, and hence it is conceived a priori as a
categorically practical proposition by which the will is objectively
determined absolutely and immediately (by the practical rule itself, which
thus is in this case a law); for pure reason practical of itself is here
directly legislative. The will is thought as independent on empirical
conditions, and, therefore, as pure will determined by the mere form of the
law, and this principle of determination is regarded as the supreme condition
of all maxims. The thing is
strange enough, and has no parallel in all the rest of our practical
knowledge. For the a priori thought of a possible universal legislation which
is therefore merely problematical, is unconditionally commanded as a law
without borrowing anything from experience or from any external will. This,
however, is not a precept to do something by which some desired effect can be
attained (for then the will would depend on physical conditions), but a rule
that determines the will a priori only so far as regards the forms of its
maxims; and thus it is at least not impossible to conceive that a law, which
only applies to the subjective form of principles, yet serves as a principle
of determination by means of the objective form of law in general. We may call
the consciousness of this fundamental law a fact of reason, because we cannot
reason it out from antecedent data of reason, e.g., the consciousness of
freedom (for this is not antecedently given), but it forces itself on us as a
synthetic a priori proposition, which is not based on any intuition, either
pure or empirical. It would, indeed, be analytical if the freedom of the will
were presupposed, but to presuppose freedom as a positive concept would
require an intellectual intuition, which cannot here be assumed; however, when
we regard this law as given, it must be observed, in order not to fall into
any misconception, that it is not an empirical fact, but the sole fact of the
pure reason, which thereby announces itself as originally legislative (sic
volo, sic jubeo).
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 75}
Pure
reason is practical of itself alone and gives (to man) a universal law which
we call the moral law.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 80}
The
fact just mentioned is undeniable. It is only necessary to analyse the
judgement that men pass on the lawfulness of their actions, in order to find
that, whatever inclination may say to the contrary, reason, incorruptible and
selfconstrained, always confronts the maxim of the will in any action with the
pure will, that is, with itself, considering itself as a priori practical. Now
this principle of morality, just on account of the universality of the
legislation which makes it the formal supreme determining principle of the
will, without regard to any subjective differentes, is declared by the reason
to be a law for all rational beings, in so far as they have a will, that is, a
power to determine their causality by the conception of rules; and, therefore,
so far as they are capable of acting according to principles, and consequently
also according to practical a priori principles (for these alone have the
necessity that reason requires in a principle). It is, therefore, not limited
to men only, but applies to all finite beings that possess reason and will;
nay, it even includes the Infinite Being as the supreme intelligence. In the
former case, however, the law has the form of an imperative, because in them,
as rational beings, we can suppose a pure will, but being creatures affected
with wants and physical motives, not a holy will, that is, one which would be
incapable of any maxim conflicting with the moral law. In their case,
therefore, the moral law is an imperative, which commands categorically,
because the law is unconditioned; the relation of such a will to this law is
dependence under the name of obligation, which implies a constraint to an
action, though only by reason and its objective law; and this action is called
duty, because an elective will, subject to pathological affections (though not
determined by them, and, therefore, still free), implies a wish that arises
from subjective causes and, therefore, may often be opposed to the pure
objective determining principle; whence it requires the moral constraint of a
resistance of the practical reason, which may be called an internal, but
intellectual, compulsion. In the supreme intelligence the elective will is
rightly conceived as incapable of any maxim which could not at the same time
be objectively a law; and the notion of holiness, which on that account
belongs to it, places it, not indeed above all practical laws, but above all
practically restrictive laws, and consequently above obligation and duty. This
holiness of will is, however, a practical idea, which must necessarily serve
as a type to which finite rational beings can only approximate indefinitely,
and which the pure moral law, which is itself on this account called holy,
constantly and rightly holds before their eyes. The utmost that finite
practical reason can effect is to be certain of this indefinite progress of
one’s maxims and of their steady disposition to advance.
This is virtue, and virtue, at least as a naturally acquired faculty,
can never be perfect, because assurance in such a case never becomes
apodeictic certainty and, when it only amounts to persuasion, is very
dangerous.
The
autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws and of all duties
which conform to them; on the other hand, heteronomy of the elective will not
only cannot be the basis of any obligation, but is, on the contrary, opposed
to the principle thereof and to the morality of the will.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 85}
In
fact the sole principle of morality consists in the independence on all matter
of the law (namely, a desired object), and in the determination of the
elective will by the mere universal legislative form of which its maxim must
be capable. Now this independence is freedom in the negative sense, and this
self-legislation of the pure, and therefore practical, reason is freedom in
the positive sense. Thus the moral law expresses nothing else than the
autonomy of the pure practical reason; that is, freedom; and this is itself
the formal condition of all maxims, and on this condition only can they agree
with the supreme practical law. If therefore the matter of the volition, which
can be nothing else than the object of a desire that is connected with the
law, enters into the practical law, as the condition of its possibility, there
results heteronomy of the elective will, namely, dependence on the physical
law that we should follow some impulse or inclination. In that case the will
does not give itself the law, but only the precept how rationally to follow
pathological law; and the maxim which, in such a case, never contains the
universally legislative form, not only produces no obligation, but is itself
opposed to the principle of a pure practical reason and, therefore, also to
the moral disposition, even though the resulting action may be conformable to
the law.
Hence
a practical precept, which contains a material (and therefore empirical)
condition, must never be reckoned a practical law. For the law of the pure
will, which is free, brings the will into a sphere quite different from the
empirical; and as the necessity involved in the law is not a physical
necessity, it can only consist in the formal conditions of the possibility of
a law in general. All the matter of practical rules rests on subjective
conditions, which give them only a conditional universality (in case I desire
this or that, what I must do in order to obtain it), and they all turn on the
principle of private happiness. Now, it is indeed undeniable that every
volition must have an object, and therefore a matter; but it does not follow
that this is the determining principle and the condition of the maxim; for, if
it is so, then this cannot be exhibited in a universally legislative form,
since in that case the expectation of the existence of the object would be the
determining cause of the choice, and the volition must presuppose the
dependence of the faculty of desire on the existence of something; but this
dependence can only be sought in empirical conditions and, therefore, can
never furnish a foundation for a necessary and universal rule. Thus, the
happiness of others may be the object of the will of a rational being. But if
it were the determining principle of the maxim, we must assume that we find
not only a rational satisfaction in the welfare of others, but also a want
such as the sympathetic disposition in some men occasions. But I cannot assume
the existence of this want in every rational being (not at all in God). The matter, then, of the maxim may remain, but it must not be
the condition of it, else the maxim could not be fit for a law. Hence, the
mere form of law, which limits the matter, must also be a reason for adding
this matter to the will, not for presupposing it. For example, let the matter
be my own happiness. This (rule), if I attribute it to everyone (as, in fact,
I may, in the case of every finite being), can become an objective practical
law only if I include the happiness of others. Therefore, the law that we
should promote the happiness of others does not arise from the assumption that
this is an object of everyone’s choice, but merely from this, that the form
of universality which reason requires as the condition of giving to a maxim of
self-love the objective validity of a law is the principle that determines the
will. Therefore it was not the object (the happiness of others) that
determined the pure will, but it was the form of law only, by which I
restricted my maxim, founded on inclination, so as to give it the universality
of a law, and thus to adapt it to the practical reason; and it is this
restriction alone, and not the addition of an external spring, that can give
rise to the notion of the obligation to extend the maxim of my self-love to
the happiness of others.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 90}
The
direct opposite of the principle of morality is, when the
principle
of private happiness is made the determining principle of
the
will, and with this is to be reckoned, as I have shown above,
everything
that places the determining principle which is to serve
as
a law, anywhere but in the legislative form of the maxim. This
contradiction,
however, is not merely logical, like that which would
arise
between rules empirically conditioned, if they were raised to
the
rank of necessary principles of cognition, but is practical, and
would
ruin morality altogether were not the voice of reason in
reference
to the will so clear, so irrepressible, so distinctly
audible,
even to the commonest men. It can only, indeed, be maintained in the
perplexing speculations of the schools, which are bold enough to shut their
ears against that heavenly voice, in order to support a theory that costs no
trouble.
Suppose
that an acquaintance whom you otherwise liked were to attempt to justify
himself to you for having borne false witness, first by alleging the, in his
view, sacred duty of consulting his own happiness; then by enumerating the
advantages which he had gained thereby, pointing out the prudence he had shown
in securing himself against detection, even by yourself, to whom he now
reveals the secret, only in order that he may be able to deny it at any time;
and suppose he were then to affirm, in all seriousness, that he has fulfilled
a true human duty; you would either laugh in his face, or shrink back from him
with disgust; and yet, if a man has regulated his principles of action solely
with a view to his own advantage, you would have nothing whatever to object
against this mode of proceeding. Or suppose some one recommends you a man as
steward, as a man to whom you can blindly trust all your affairs; and, in
order to inspire you with confidence, extols him as a prudent man who
thoroughly understands his own interest, and is so indefatigably active that
he lets slip no opportunity of advancing it; lastly, lest you should be afraid
of finding a vulgar selfishness in him, praises the good taste with which he
lives; not seeking his pleasure in money-making, or in coarse wantonness, but
in the enlargement of his knowledge, in instructive intercourse with a select
circle, and even in relieving the needy; while as to the means (which, of
course, derive all their value from the end), he is not particular, and is
ready to use other people’s money for the purpose as if it were his own,
provided only he knows that he can do so safely, and without discovery; you
would either believe that the recommender was mocking you, or that he had lost
his senses. So sharply and clearly marked are the boundaries of morality and
self-love that even the commonest eye cannot fail to distinguish whether a
thing belongs to the one or the other. The few remarks that follow may appear
superfluous where the truth is so plain, but at least they may serve to give a
little more distinctness to the judgement of common sense.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 95}
The
principle of happiness may, indeed, furnish maxims, but never such as would be
competent to be laws of the will, even if universal happiness were made the
object. For since the knowledge of this rests on mere empirical data, since
every man’s judgement on it depends very much on his particular point of
view, which is itself moreover very variable, it can supply only general
rules, not universal; that is, it can give rules which on the average will
most frequently fit, but not rules which must hold good always and
necessarily; hence, no practical laws can be founded on it. Just because in
this case an object of choice is the foundation of the rule and must therefore
precede it, the rule can refer to nothing but what is [felt], and therefore it
refers to experience and is founded on it, and then the variety of judgement
must be endless. This principle, therefore, does not prescribe the same
practical rules to all rational beings, although the rules are all included
under a common title, namely, that of happiness. The moral law, however, is
conceived as objectively necessary, only because it holds for everyone that
has reason and will.
The
maxim of self-love (prudence) only advises; the law of morality commands. Now
there is a great difference between that which we are advised to do and that
to which we are obliged.
The
commonest intelligence can easily and without hesitation see what, on the
principle of autonomy of the will, requires to be done; but on supposition of
heteronomy of the will, it is hard and requires knowledge of the world to see
what is to be done. That is to say, what duty is, is plain of itself to
everyone; but what is to bring true durable advantage, such as will extend to
the whole of one’s existence, is always veiled in impenetrable obscurity;
and much prudence is required to adapt the practical rule founded on it to the
ends of life, even tolerably, by making proper exceptions. But the moral law
commands the most punctual obedience from everyone; it must, therefore, not be
so difficult to judge what it requires to be done, that the commonest
unpractised understanding, even without worldly prudence, should fail to apply
it rightly.
It is always in everyone’s power to satisfy the categorical command of morality; whereas it is seldom possible, and by no means so to everyone, to satisfy the empirically conditioned precept of happiness, even with regard to a single purpose. The reason is that in the former case there is question only of the maxim, which must be genuine and pure; but in the latter case there is question also of one’s capacity and physical power to realize a desired object. A command that everyone should try to make himself happy would be foolish, for one never commands anyone to do what he of himself infallibly wishes to do. We must only command the means, or rather supply them, since he cannot do everything that he wishes. But to command morality under the name of duty is quite rational; for, in the first place, not everyone is willing to obey its precepts if they oppose his inclinations; and as to the means of obeying