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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 this law, these need not in this case be taught, for in this respect
whatever he wishes to do be can do.
He
who has lost at play may be vexed at himself and his folly, but if he is
conscious of having cheated at play (although he has gained thereby), he must
despise himself as soon as he compares himself with the moral law. This must,
therefore, be something different from the principle of private happiness. For
a man must have a different criterion when he is compelled to say to himself:
“I am a worthless fellow, though I have filled my purse”; and when he
approves himself, and says: “I am a prudent man, for I have enriched my
treasure.”
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 100}
Finally,
there is something further in the idea of our practical reason, which
accompanies the transgression of a moral law- namely, its ill desert. Now the
notion of punishment, as such, cannot be united with that of becoming a
partaker of happiness; for although he who inflicts the punishment may at the
same time have the benevolent purpose of directing this punishment to this
end, yet it must first be justified in itself as punishment, i.e., as mere
harm, so that if it stopped there, and the person punished could get no
glimpse of kindness hidden behind this harshness, he must yet admit that
justice was done him, and that his reward was perfectly suitable to his
conduct. In every punishment, as such, there must first be justice, and this
constitutes the essence of the notion. Benevolence
may, indeed, be united with it, but the man who has deserved punishment has
not the least reason to reckon upon this.
Punishment, then, is a physical evil, which, though it be not connected
with moral evil as a natural consequence, ought to be connected with it as a
consequence by the principles of a moral legislation. Now, if every crime,
even without regarding the physical consequence with respect to the actor, is
in itself punishable, that is, forfeits happiness (at least partially), it is
obviously absurd to say that the crime consisted just in this, that be has
drawn punishment on himself, thereby injuring his private happiness (which, on
the principle of self-love, must be the proper notion of all crime). According
to this view, the punishment would be the reason for calling anything a crime,
and justice would, on the contrary, consist in omitting all punishment, and
even preventing that which naturally follows; for, if this were done, there
would no longer be any evil in the action, since the harm which otherwise
followed it, and on account of which alone the action was called evil, would
now be prevented. To look, however, on all rewards and punishments as merely
the machinery in the hand of a higher power, which is to serve only to set
rational creatures striving after their final end (happiness), this is to
reduce the will to a mechanism destructive of freedom; this is so evident that
it need not detain us.
More
refined, though equally false, is the theory of those who suppose a certain
special moral sense, which sense and not reason determines the moral law, and
in consequence of which the consciousness of virtue is supposed to be directly
connected with contentment and pleasure; that of vice, with mental
dissatisfaction and pain; thus reducing the whole to the desire of private
happiness. Without repeating what has been said above, I will here only remark
the fallacy they fall into. In order to imagine the vicious man as tormented
with mental dissatisfaction by the consciousness of his transgressions, they
must first represent him as in the main basis of his character, at least in
some degree, morally good; just as he who is pleased with the consciousness of
right conduct must be conceived as already virtuous. The notion of morality
and duty must, therefore, have preceded any regard to this satisfaction, and
cannot be derived from it. A man must first appreciate the importance of what
we call duty, the authority of the moral law, and the immediate dignity which
the following of it gives to the person in his own eyes, in order to feel that
satisfaction in the consciousness of his conformity to it and the bitter
remorse that accompanies the consciousness of its transgression. It is,
therefore, impossible to feel this satisfaction or dissatisfaction prior to
the knowledge of obligation, or to make it the basis of the latter. A man must
be at least half honest in order even to be able to form a conception of these
feelings. I do not deny that as the human will is, by virtue of liberty,
capable of being immediately determined by the moral law, so frequent practice
in accordance with this principle of determination can, at least, produce
subjectively a feeling of satisfaction; on the contrary, it is a duty to
establish and to cultivate this, which alone deserves to be called properly
the moral feeling; but the notion of duty cannot be derived from it, else we
should have to suppose a feeling for the law as such, and thus make that an
object of sensation which can only be thought by the reason; and this, if it
is not to be a flat contradiction, would destroy all notion of duty and put in
its place a mere mechanical play of refined inclinations sometimes contending
with the coarser.
If
now we compare our formal supreme principle of pure practical reason (that of
autonomy of the will) with all previous material principles of morality, we
can exhibit them all in a table in which all possible cases are exhausted,
except the one formal principle; and thus we can show visibly that it is vain
to look for any other principle than that now proposed. In fact all possible
principles of determination of the will are either merely subjective, and
therefore empirical, or are also objective and rational; and both are either
external or internal.
Foundation
of Morality, are:
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 105}
EXTERNAL
INTERNAL
Education Physical
feeling
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 110}
(Montaigne)
(Epicurus)
The civil
Moral feeling
Constitution (Hutcheson)
(Mandeville)
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 115}
INTERNAL
EXTERNAL
Perfection
Will of God
(Wolf and the
(Crusius and other
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 120}
Stoics)
theological Moralists)
Those
of the upper table are all empirical and evidently incapable of furnishing the
universal principle of morality; but those in the lower table are based on
reason (for perfection as a quality of things, and the highest perfection
conceived as substance, that is, God, can only be thought by means of rational
concepts). But the former notion, namely, that of perfection, may either be
taken in a theoretic signification, and then it means nothing but the
completeness of each thing in its own kind (transcendental), or that of a
thing merely as a thing (metaphysical); and with that we are not concerned
here. But the notion of perfection in a practical sense is the fitness or
sufficiency of a thing for all sorts of purposes. This perfection, as a
quality of man and consequently internal, is nothing but talent and, what
strengthens or completes this, skill. Supreme perfection conceived as
substance, that is God, and consequently external (considered practically), is
the sufficiency of this being for all ends. Ends then must first be given,
relatively to which only can the notion of perfection (whether internal in
ourselves or external in God) be the determining principle of the will. But an
end- being an object which must precede the determination of the will by a
practical rule and contain the ground of the possibility of this
determination, and therefore contain also the matter of the will, taken as its
determining principle- such an end is always empirical and, therefore, may
serve for the Epicurean principle of the happiness theory, but not for the
pure rational principle of morality and duty. Thus, talents and the
improvement of them, because they contribute to the advantages of life; or the
will of God, if agreement with it be taken as the object of the will, without
any antecedent independent practical principle, can be motives only by reason
of the happiness expected therefrom. Hence it follows, first, that all the
principles here stated are material; secondly, that they include all possible
material principles; and, finally, the conclusion, that since material
principles are quite incapable of furnishing the supreme moral law (as has
been shown), the formal practical principle the pure reason (according to
which the mere form of a universal legislation must constitute the supreme and
immediate determining principle of the will) is the only one possible which is
adequate to furnish categorical imperatives, that is, practical laws (which
make actions a duty), and in general to serve as the principle of morality,
both in criticizing conduct and also in its application to the human will to
determine it.
I.
Of the Deduction of the Fundamental Principles of Pure Practical
Reason.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 125}
This
Analytic shows that pure reason can be practical, that is, can of itself
determine the will independently of anything empirical; and this it proves by
a fact in which pure reason in us proves itself actually practical, namely,
the autonomy shown in the fundamental principle of morality, by which reason
determines the will to action.
It
shows at the same time that this fact is inseparably connected with the
consciousness of freedom of the will, nay, is identical with it; and by this
the will of a rational being, although as belonging to the world of sense it
recognizes itself as necessarily subject to the laws of causality like other
efficient causes; yet, at the same time, on another side, namely, as a being
in itself, is conscious of existing in and being determined by an intelligible
order of things; conscious not by virtue of a special intuition of itself, but
by virtue of certain dynamical laws which determine its causality in the
sensible world; for it has been elsewhere proved that if freedom is predicated
of us, it transports us into an intelligible order of things.
Now,
if we compare with this the analytical part of the critique of pure
speculative reason, we shall see a remarkable contrast.
There it was not fundamental principles, but pure, sensible intuition
(space and time), that was the first datum that made a priori knowledge
possible, though only of objects of the senses. Synthetical principles could not be derived from mere
concepts without intuition; on the contrary, they could only exist with
reference to this intuition, and therefore to objects of possible experience,
since it is the concepts of the understanding, united with this intuition,
which alone make that knowledge possible which we call experience. Beyond objects of experience, and therefore with regard to
things as noumena, all positive knowledge was rightly disclaimed for
speculative reason. This reason, however, went so far as to establish with
certainty the concept of noumena; that is, the possibility, nay, the
necessity, of thinking them; for example, it showed against all objections
that the supposition of freedom, negatively considered, was quite consistent
with those principles and limitations of pure theoretic reason. But it could
not give us any definite enlargement of our knowledge with respect to such
objects, but, on the contrary, cut off all view of them altogether.
On
the other hand, the moral law, although it gives no view, yet gives us a fact
absolutely inexplicable from any data of the sensible world, and the whole
compass of our theoretical use of reason, a fact which points to a pure world
of the understanding, nay, even defines it positively and enables us to know
something of it, namely, a law.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 130}
This
law (as far as rational beings are concerned) gives to the world of sense,
which is a sensible system of nature, the form of a world of the
understanding, that is, of a supersensible system of nature, without
interfering with its mechanism. Now, a system of nature, in the most general
sense, is the existence of things under laws. The sensible nature of rational
beings in general is their existence under laws empirically conditioned,
which, from the point of view of reason, is heteronomy. The supersensible
nature of the same beings, on the other hand, is their existence according to
laws which are independent of every empirical condition and, therefore, belong
to the autonomy of pure reason. And, since the laws by which the existence of
things depends on cognition are practical, supersensible nature, so far as we
can form any notion of it, is nothing else than a system of nature under the
autonomy of pure practical reason. Now, the law of this autonomy is the moral
law, which, therefore, is the fundamental law of a supersensible nature, and
of a pure world of understanding, whose counterpart must exist in the world of
sense, but without interfering with its laws. We might call the former the
archetypal world (natura archetypa), which we only know in the reason; and the
latter the ectypal world (natura ectypa), because it contains the possible
effect of the idea of the former which is the determining principle of the
will. For the moral law, in fact, transfers us ideally into a system in which
pure reason, if it were accompanied with adequate physical power, would
produce the summum bonum, and it determines our will to give the sensible
world the form of a system of rational beings.
The
least attention to oneself proves that this idea really serves as the model
for the determinations of our will.
When
the maxim which I am disposed to follow in giving testimony is tested by the
practical reason, I always consider what it would be if it were to hold as a
universal law of nature. It is manifest that in this view it would oblige
everyone to speak the truth. For it cannot hold as a universal law of nature
that statements should be allowed to have the force of proof and yet to be
purposely untrue. Similarly, the maxim which I adopt with respect to disposing
freely of my life is at once determined, when I ask myself what it should be,
in order that a system, of which it is the law, should maintain itself. It is
obvious that in such a system no one could arbitrarily put an end to his own
life, for such an arrangement would not be a permanent order of things. And so
in all similar cases. Now, in
nature, as it actually is an object of experience, the free will is not of
itself determined to maxims which could of themselves be the foundation of a
natural system of universal laws, or which could even be adapted to a system
so constituted; on the contrary, its maxims are private inclinations which
constitute, indeed, a natural whole in conformity with pathological (physical)
laws, but could not form part of a system of nature, which would only be
possible through our will acting in accordance with pure practical laws. Yet
we are, through reason, conscious of a law to which all our maxims are
subject, as though a natural order must be originated from our will.
This law, therefore, must be the idea of a natural system not given in
experience, and yet possible through freedom; a system, therefore, which is
supersensible, and to which we give objective reality, at least in a practical
point of view, since we look on it as an object of our will as pure rational
beings.
Hence
the distinction between the laws of a natural system to which the will is
subject, and of a natural system which is subject to a will (as far as its
relation to its free actions is concerned), rests on this, that in the former
the objects must be causes of the ideas which determine the will; whereas in
the latter the will is the cause of the objects; so that its causality has its
determining principle solely in the pure faculty of reason, which may
therefore be called a pure practical reason.
There
are therefore two very distinct problems: how, on the one side, pure reason
can cognise objects a priori, and how on the other side it can be an immediate
determining principle of the will, that is, of the causality of the rational
being with respect to the reality of objects (through the mere thought of the
universal validity of its own maxims as laws).
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 135}
The
former, which belongs to the critique of the pure speculative reason, requires
a previous explanation, how intuitions without which no object can be given,
and, therefore, none known synthetically, are possible a priori; and its
solution turns out to be that these are all only sensible and, therefore, do
not render possible any speculative knowledge which goes further than possible
experience reaches; and that therefore all the principles of that pure
speculative reason avail only to make experience possible; either experience
of given objects or of those that may be given ad infinitum, but never are
completely given.
The
latter, which belongs to the critique of practical reason, requires no
explanation how the objects of the faculty of desire are possible, for that
being a problem of the theoretical knowledge of nature is left to the critique
of the speculative reason, but only how reason can determine the maxims of the
will; whether this takes place only by means of empirical ideas as principles
of determination, or whether pure reason can be practical and be the law of a
possible order of nature, which is not empirically knowable. The possibility
of such a supersensible system of nature, the conception of which can also be
the ground of its reality through our own free will, does not require any a
priori intuition (of an intelligible world) which, being in this case
supersensible, would be impossible for us. For the question is only as to the
determining principle of volition in its maxims, namely, whether it is
empirical, or is a conception of the pure reason (having the legal character
belonging to it in general), and how it can be the latter. It is left to the
theoretic principles of reason to decide whether the causality of the will
suffices for the realization of the objects or not, this being an inquiry into
the possibility of the objects of the volition. Intuition of these objects is
therefore of no importance to the practical problem. We are here concerned
only with the determination of the will and the determining principles of its
maxims as a free will, not at all with the result. For, provided only that the
will conforms to the law of pure reason, then let its power in execution be
what it may, whether according to these maxims of legislation of a possible
system of nature any such system really results or not, this is no concern of
the critique, which only inquires whether, and in what way, pure reason can be
practical, that is directly determine the will.
In
this inquiry criticism may and must begin with pure practical laws and their
reality. But instead of intuition it takes as their foundation the conception
of their existence in the intelligible world, namely, the concept of freedom.
For this concept has no other meaning, and these laws are only possible in
relation to freedom of the will; but freedom being supposed, they are
necessary; or conversely freedom is necessary because those laws are
necessary, being practical postulates. It cannot be further explained how this
consciousness of the moral law, or, what is the same thing, of freedom, is
possible; but that it is admissible is well established in the theoretical
critique.
The
exposition of the supreme principle of practical reason is now finished; that
is to say, it has been- shown first, what it contains, that it subsists for
itself quite a priori and independent of empirical principles; and next in
what it is distinguished from all other practical principles. With the
deduction, that is, the justification of its objective and universal validity,
and the discernment of the possibility of such a synthetical proposition a
priori, we cannot expect to succeed so well as in the case of the principles
of pure theoretical reason. For these referred to objects of possible
experience, namely, to phenomena, and we could prove that these phenomena
could be known as objects of experience only by being brought under the
categories in accordance with these laws; and consequently that all possible
experience must conform to these laws. But I could not proceed in this way
with the deduction of the moral law. For this does not concern the knowledge
of the properties of objects, which may be given to the reason from some other
source; but a knowledge which can itself be the ground of the existence of the
objects, and by which reason in a rational being has causality, i.e., pure
reason, which can be regarded as a faculty immediately determining the will.
Now
all our human insight is at an end as soon as we have arrived at fundamental
powers or faculties, for the possibility of these cannot be understood by any
means, and just as little should it be arbitrarily invented and assumed.
Therefore, in the theoretic use of reason, it is experience alone that can
justify us in assuming them. But
this expedient of adducing empirical proofs, instead of a deduction from a
priori sources of knowledge, is denied us here in respect to the pure
practical faculty of reason. For whatever requires to draw the proof of its
reality from experience must depend for the grounds of its possibility on
principles of experience; and pure, yet practical, reason by its very notion
cannot be regarded as such. Further,
the moral law is given as a fact of pure reason of which we are a priori
conscious, and which is apodeictically certain, though it be granted that in
experience no example of its exact fulfilment can be found. Hence, the
objective reality of the moral law cannot be proved by any deduction by any
efforts of theoretical reason, whether speculative or empirically supported,
and therefore, even if we renounced its apodeictic certainty, it could not be
proved a posteriori by experience, and yet it is firmly established of itself.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 140}
But
instead of this vainly sought deduction of the moral principle, something else
is found which was quite unexpected, namely, that this moral principle serves
conversely as the principle of the deduction of an inscrutable faculty which
no experience could prove, but of which speculative reason was compelled at
least to assume the possibility (in order to find amongst its cosmological
ideas the unconditioned in the chain of causality, so as not to contradict
itself)- I mean the faculty of freedom. The moral law, which itself does not
require a justification, proves not merely the possibility of freedom, but
that it really belongs to beings who recognize this law as binding on
themselves. The moral law is in fact a law of the causality of free agents
and, therefore, of the possibility of a supersensible system of nature, just
as the metaphysical law of events in the world of sense was a law of causality
of the sensible system of nature; and it therefore determines what speculative
philosophy was compelled to leave undetermined, namely, the law for a
causality, the concept of which in the latter was only negative; and therefore
for the first time gives this concept objective reality.
This
sort of credential of the moral law, viz., that it is set forth as a principle
of the deduction of freedom, which is a causality of pure reason, is a
sufficient substitute for all a priori justification, since theoretic reason
was compelled to assume at least the possibility of freedom, in order to
satisfy a want of its own. For the moral law proves its reality, so as even to
satisfy the critique of the speculative reason, by the fact that it adds a
positive definition to a causality previously conceived only negatively, the
possibility of which was incomprehensible to speculative reason, which yet was
compelled to suppose it. For it adds the notion of a reason that directly
determines the will (by imposing on its maxims the condition of a universal
legislative form); and thus it is able for the first time to give objective,
though only practical, reality to reason, which always became transcendent
when it sought to proceed speculatively with its ideas. It thus changes the
transcendent use of reason into an immanent use (so that reason is itself, by
means of ideas, an efficient cause in the field of experience).
The
determination of the causality of beings in the world of sense, as such, can
never be unconditioned; and yet for every series of conditions there must be
something unconditioned, and therefore there must be a causality which is
determined wholly by itself. Hence, the idea of freedom as a faculty of
absolute spontaneity was not found to be a want but, as far as its possibility
is concerned, an analytic principle of pure speculative reason. But as it is
absolutely impossible to find in experience any example in accordance with
this idea, because amongst the causes of things as phenomena it would be
impossible to meet with any absolutely unconditioned determination of
causality, we were only able to defend our supposition that a freely acting
cause might be a being in the world of sense, in so far as it is considered in
the other point of view as a noumenon, showing that there is no contradiction
in regarding all its actions as subject to physical conditions so far as they
are phenomena, and yet regarding its causality as physically unconditioned, in
so far as the acting being belongs to the world of understanding, and in thus
making the concept of freedom the regulative principle of reason. By this
principle I do not indeed learn what the object is to which that sort of
causality is attributed; but I remove the difficulty, for, on the one side, in
the explanation of events in the world, and consequently also of the actions
of rational beings, I leave to the mechanism of physical necessity the right
of ascending from conditioned to condition ad infinitum, while on the other
side I keep open for speculative reason the place which for it is vacant,
namely, the intelligible, in order to transfer the unconditioned thither. But
I was not able to verify this supposition; that is, to change it into the
knowledge of a being so acting, not even into the knowledge of the possibility
of such a being. This vacant place is now filled by pure practical reason with
a definite law of causality in an intelligible world (causality with freedom),
namely, the moral law. Speculative reason does not hereby gain anything as regards
its insight, but only as regards the certainty of its problematical notion of
freedom, which here obtains objective reality, which, though only practical,
is nevertheless undoubted. Even the notion of causality-the application, and
consequently the signification, of which holds properly only in relation to
phenomena, so as to connect them into experiences (as is shown by the Critique
of Pure Reason)- is not so enlarged as to extend its use beyond these limits.
For if reason sought to do this, it would have to show how the logical
relation of principle and consequence can be used synthetically in a different
sort of intuition from the sensible; that is how a causa noumenon is possible.
This it can never do; and, as practical reason, it does not even concern
itself with it, since it only places the determining principle of causality of
man as a sensible creature (which is given) in pure reason (which is therefore
called practical); and therefore it employs the notion of cause, not in order
to know objects, but to determine causality in relation to objects in general.
It can abstract altogether from the application of this notion to
objects with a view to theoretical knowledge (since this concept is always
found a priori in the understanding even independently of any intuition).
Reason, then, employs it only for a practical purpose, and hence we can
transfer the determining principle of the will into the intelligible order of
things, admitting, at the same time, that we cannot understand how the notion
of cause can determine the knowledge of these things. But reason must cognise
causality with respect to the actions of the will in the sensible world in a
definite manner; otherwise, practical reason could not really produce any
action. But as to the notion which it forms of its own causality as noumenon,
it need not determine it theoretically with a view to the cognition of its
supersensible existence, so as to give it significance in this way. For it
acquires significance apart from this, though only for practical use, namely,
through the moral law. Theoretically
viewed, it remains always a pure a priori concept of the understanding, which
can be applied to objects whether they have been given sensibly or not,
although in the latter case it has no definite theoretical significance or
application, but is only a formal, though essential, conception of the
understanding relating to an object in general. The significance which reason
gives it through the moral law is merely practical, inasmuch as the idea of
the idea of the law of causality (of the will) has self causality, or is its
determining principle.
II.
Of the Right that Pure Reason in its Practical use has to an Extension
which is not possible to it in its Speculative Use.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 145}
We
have in the moral principle set forth a law of causality, the determining
principle of which is set above all the conditions of the sensible world; we
have it conceived how the will, as belonging to the intelligible world, is
determinable, and therefore we therefore we have its subject (man) not merely
conceived as belonging to a world of pure understanding, and in this respect
unknown (which the critique of speculative reason enabled us to do), but also
defined as regards his causality by means of a law which cannot be reduced to
any physical law of the sensible world; and therefore our knowledge is
extended beyond the limits of that world, a pretension which the Critique of
Pure Reason declared to be futile in all speculation. Now, how is the
practical use of pure reason here to be reconciled with the theoretical, as to
the determination of the limits of its faculty?
David
Hume, of whom we may say that he commenced the assault on the claims of pure
reason, which made a thorough investigation of it necessary, argued thus: The
notion of cause is a notion that involves the necessity of the connexion of
the existence of different things (and that, in so far as they are different),
so that, given A, I know that something quite distinct there from, namely B,
must necessarily also exist. Now necessity can be attributed to a connection,
only in so far as it is known a priori, for experience would only enable us to
know of such a connection that it exists, not that it necessarily exists. Now,
it is impossible, says he, to know a priori and as necessary the connection
between one thing and another (or between one attribute and another quite
distinct) when they have not been given in experience. Therefore the notion of
a cause is fictitious and delusive and, to speak in the mildest way, is an
illusion, only excusable inasmuch as the custom (a subjective necessity) of
perceiving certain things, or their attributes as often associated in
existence along with or in succession to one another, is insensibly taken for
an objective necessity of supposing such a connection in the objects
themselves; and thus the notion of a cause has been acquired surreptitiously
and not legitimately; nay, it can never be so acquired or authenticated, since
it demands a connection in itself vain, chimerical, and untenable in presence
of reason, and to which no object can ever correspond. In this way was
empiricism first introduced as the sole source of principles, as far as all
knowledge of the existence of things is concerned (mathematics therefore
remaining excepted); and with empiricism the most thorough scepticism, even
with regard to the whole science of nature( as philosophy). For on such
principles we can never conclude from given attributes of things as existing
to a consequence (for this would require the notion of cause, which involves
the necessity of such a connection); we can only, guided by imagination,
expect similar cases- an expectation which is never certain, however of ten it
has been fulfilled. Of no event could we say: a certain thing must have
preceded it, on which it necessarily followed; that is, it must have a cause;
and therefore, however frequent the cases we have known in which there was
such an antecedent, so that a rule could be derived from them, yet we never
could suppose it as always and necessarily so happening; we should, therefore,
be obliged to leave its share to blind chance, with which all use of reason
comes to an end; and this firmly establishes scepticism in reference to
arguments ascending from effects to causes and makes it impregnable.
Mathematics
escaped well, so far, because Hume thought that its propositions were
analytical; that is, proceeded from one property to another, by virtue of
identity and, consequently, according to the principle of contradiction. This,
however, is not the case, since, on the contrary, they are synthetical; and
although geometry, for example, has not to do with the existence of things,
but only with their a priori properties in a possible intuition, yet it
proceeds just as in the case of the causal notion, from one property (A) to
another wholly distinct (B), as necessarily connected with the former.
Nevertheless, mathematical science, so highly vaunted for its
apodeictic certainty, must at last fall under this empiricism for the same
reason for which Hume put custom in the place of objective necessity in the
notion of cause and, in spite of all its pride, must consent to lower its bold
pretension of claiming assent a priori and depend for assent to the
universality of its propositions on the kindness of observers, who, when
called as witnesses, would surely not hesitate to admit that what the geometer
propounds as a theorem they have always perceived to be the fact, and,
consequently, although it be not necessarily true, yet they would permit us to
expect it to be true in the future. In this manner Hume’s empiricism leads
inevitably to scepticism, even with regard to mathematics, and consequently in
every scientific theoretical use of reason (for this belongs either to
philosophy or mathematics). Whether with such a terrible overthrow of the
chief branches of knowledge, common reason will escape better, and will not
rather become irrecoverably involved in this destruction of all knowledge, so
that from the same principles a universal scepticism should follow (affecting,
indeed, only the learned), this I will leave everyone to judge for himself.
As
regards my own labours in the critical examination of pure reason, which were
occasioned by Hume’s sceptical teaching, but went much further and embraced
the whole field of pure theoretical reason in its synthetic use and,
consequently, the field of what is called metaphysics in general; I proceeded
in the following manner with respect to the doubts raised by the Scottish
philosopher touching the notion of causality. If Hume took the objects of
experience for things in themselves (as is almost always done), he was quite
right in declaring the notion of cause to be a deception and false illusion;
for as to things in themselves, and their attributes as such, it is impossible
to see why because A is given, B, which is different, must necessarily be also
given, and therefore he could by no means admit such an a priori knowledge of
things in themselves. Still less could this acute writer allow an empirical
origin of this concept, since this is directly contradictory to the necessity
of connection which constitutes the essence of the notion of causality, hence
the notion was proscribed, and in its place was put custom in the observation
of the course of perceptions.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 150}
It
resulted, however, from my inquiries, that the objects with which we have to
do in experience are by no means things in themselves, but merely phenomena;
and that although in the case of things in themselves it is impossible to see
how, if A is supposed, it should be contradictory that B, which is quite
different from A, should not also be supposed (i.e., to see the necessity of
the connection between A as cause and B as effect); yet it can very well be
conceived that, as phenomena, they may be necessarily connected in one
experience in a certain way (e.g., with regard to time-relations); so that
they could not be separated without contradicting that connection, by means of
which this experience is possible in which they are objects and in which alone
they are cognisable by us. And so it was found to be in fact; so that I was
able not only to prove the objective reality of the concept of cause in regard
to objects of experience, but also to deduce it as an a priori concept by
reason of the necessity of the connection it implied; that is, to show the
possibility of its origin from pure understanding without any empirical
sources; and thus, after removing the source of empiricism, I was able also to
overthrow the inevitable consequence of this, namely, scepticism, first with
regard to physical science, and then with regard to mathematics (in which
empiricism has just the same grounds), both being sciences which have
reference to objects of possible experience; herewith overthrowing the
thorough doubt of whatever theoretic reason professes to discern.
But
how is it with the application of this category of causality (and all the
others; for without them there can be no knowledge of anything existing) to
things which are not objects of possible experience, but lie beyond its
bounds? For I was able to deduce the objective reality of these concepts only
with regard to objects of possible experience. But even this very fact, that I
have saved them, only in case I have proved that objects may by means of them
be thought, though not determined a priori; this it is that gives them a place
in the pure understanding, by which they are referred to objects in general
(sensible or not sensible). If anything is still wanting, it is that which is
the condition of the application of these categories, and especially that of
causality, to objects, namely, intuition; for where this is not given, the
application with a view to theoretic knowledge of the object, as a noumenon,
is impossible and, therefore, if anyone ventures on it, is (as in the Critique
of Pure Reason) absolutely forbidden. Still, the objective reality of the
concept (of causality) remains, and it can be used even of noumena, but
without our being able in the least to define the concept theoretically so as
to produce knowledge. For that this concept, even in reference to an object,
contains nothing impossible, was shown by this, that, even while applied to
objects of sense, its seat was certainly fixed in the pure understanding; and
although, when referred to things in themselves (which cannot be objects of
experience), it is not capable of being determined so as to represent a
definite object for the purpose of theoretic knowledge; yet for any other
purpose (for instance, a practical) it might be capable of being determined so
as to have such application. This could not be the case if, as Hume
maintained, this concept of causality contained something absolutely
impossible to be thought.
In
order now to discover this condition of the application of the said concept to
noumena, we need only recall why we are not content with its application to
objects of experience, but desire also to apply it to things in themselves. It
will appear, then, that it is not a theoretic but a practical purpose that
makes this a necessity. In speculation, even if we were successful in it, we
should not really gain anything in the knowledge of nature, or generally with
regard to such objects as are given, but we should make a wide step from the
sensibly conditioned (in which we have already enough to do to maintain
ourselves, and to follow carefully the chain of causes) to the supersensible,
in order to complete our knowledge of principles and to fix its limits;
whereas there always remains an infinite chasm unfilled between those limits
and what we know; and we should have hearkened to a vain curiosity rather than
a solid-desire of knowledge.
But,
besides the relation in which the understanding stands to objects (in
theoretical knowledge), it has also a relation to the faculty of desire, which
is therefore called the will, and the pure will, inasmuch as pure
understanding (in this case called reason) is practical through the mere
conception of a law. The objective reality of a pure will, or, what is the
same thing, of a pure practical reason, is given in the moral law a priori, as
it were, by a fact, for so we may name a determination of the will which is
inevitable, although it does not rest on empirical principles. Now, in the
notion of a will the notion of causality is already contained, and hence the
notion of a pure will contains that of a causality accompanied with freedom,
that is, one which is not determinable by physical laws, and consequently is
not capable of any empirical intuition in proof of its reality, but,
nevertheless, completely justifies its objective reality a priori in the pure
practical law; not, indeed (as is easily seen) for the purposes of the
theoretical, but of the practical use of reason. Now the notion of a being
that has free will is the notion of a causa noumenon, and that this notion
involves no contradiction, we are already assured by the fact- that inasmuch
as the concept of cause has arisen wholly from pure understanding, and has its
objective reality assured by the deduction, as it is moreover in its origin
independent of any sensible conditions, it is, therefore, not restricted to
phenomena (unless we wanted to make a definite theoretic use of it), but can
be applied equally to things that are objects of the pure understanding. But,
since this application cannot rest on any intuition (for intuition can only be
sensible), therefore, causa noumenon, as regards the theoretic use of reason,
although a possible and thinkable, is yet an empty notion. Now, I do not
desire by means of this to understand theoretically the nature of a being, in
so far as it has a pure will; it is enough for me to have thereby designated
it as such, and hence to combine the notion of causality with that of freedom
(and what is inseparable from it, the moral law, as its determining
principle). Now, this right I certainly have by virtue of the pure,
not-empirical origin of the notion of cause, since I do not consider myself
entitled to make any use of it except in reference to the moral law which
determines its reality, that is, only a practical use.
If,
with Hume, I had denied to the notion of causality all objective reality in
its [theoretic] use, not merely with regard to things in themselves (the
supersensible), but also with regard to the objects of the senses, it would
have lost all significance, and being a theoretically impossible notion would
have been declared to be quite useless; and since what is nothing cannot be
made any use of, the practical use of a concept theoretically null would have
been absurd. But, as it is, the concept of a causality free from empirical
conditions, although empty, i.e., without any appropriate intuition), is yet
theoretically possible, and refers to an indeterminate object; but in
compensation significance is given to it in the moral law and consequently in
a practical sense. I have, indeed, no intuition which should determine its
objective theoretic reality, but not the less it has a real application, which
is exhibited in concreto in intentions or maxims; that is, it has a practical
reality which can be specified, and this is sufficient to justify it even with
a view to noumena.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 155}
Now,
this objective reality of a pure concept of the understanding in the sphere of
the supersensible, once brought in, gives an objective reality also to all the
other categories, although only so far as they stand in necessary connexion
with the determining principle of the will (the moral law); a reality only of
practical application, which has not the least effect in enlarging our
theoretical knowledge of these objects, or the discernment of their nature by
pure reason. So we shall find also in the sequel that these categories refer
only to beings as intelligences, and in them only to the relation of reason to
the will; consequently, always only to the practical, and beyond this cannot
pretend to any knowledge of these beings; and whatever other properties
belonging to the theoretical representation of supersensible things may be
brought into connexion with these categories, this is not to be reckoned as
knowledge, but only as a right (in a practical point of view, however, it is a
necessity) to admit and assume such beings, even in the case where we
[conceive] supersensible beings (e.g., God) according to analogy, that is, a
purely rational relation, of which we make a practical use with reference to
what is sensible; and thus the application to the supersensible solely in a
practical point of view does not give pure theoretic reason the least
encouragement to run riot into the transcendent.
CHAPTER
II. Of the Concept of an Object of Pure Practical Reason.
By
a concept of the practical reason I understand the idea of an object as an
effect possible to be produced through freedom. To be an object of practical
knowledge, as such, signifies, therefore, only the relation of the will to the
action by which the object or its opposite would be realized; and to decide
whether something is an object of pure practical reason or not is only to
discern the possibility or impossibility of willing the action by which, if we
had the required power (about which experience must decide), a certain object
would be realized. If the object be taken as the determining principle of our
desire, it must first be known whether it is physically possible by the free
use of our powers, before we decide whether it is an object of practical
reason or not. On the other hand, if the law can be considered a priori as the
determining principle of the action, and the latter therefore as determined by
pure practical reason, the judgement whether a thing is an object of pure
practical reason or not does not depend at all on the comparison with our
physical power; and the question is only whether we should will an action that
is directed to the existence of an object, if the object were in our power;
hence the previous question is only as the moral possibility of the action,
for in this case it is not the object, but the law of the will, that is the
determining principle of the action. The only objects of practical reason are
therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object
necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one
necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.
If
the notion of good is not to be derived from an antecedent practical law, but,
on the contrary, is to serve as its foundation, it can only be the notion of
something whose existence promises pleasure, and thus determines the causality
of the subject to produce it, that is to say, determines the faculty of
desire. Now, since it is impossible to discern a priori what idea will be
accompanied with pleasure and what with pain, it will depend on experience
alone to find out what is primarily good or evil. The property of the subject,
with reference to which alone this experiment can be made, is the feeling of
pleasure and pain, a receptivity belonging to the internal sense; thus that
only would be primarily good with which the sensation of pleasure is
immediately connected, and that simply evil which immediately excites pain.
Since, however, this is opposed even to the usage of language, which
distinguishes the pleasant from the good, the unpleasant from the evil, and
requires that good and evil shall always be judged by reason, and, therefore,
by concepts which can be communicated to everyone, and not by mere sensation,
which is limited to individual [subjects] and their susceptibility; and, since
nevertheless, pleasure or pain cannot be connected with any idea of an object
a priori, the philosopher who thought himself obliged to make a feeling of
pleasure the foundation of his practical judgements would call that good which
is a means to the pleasant, and evil, what is a cause of unpleasantness and
pain; for the judgement on the relation of means to ends certainly belongs to
reason. But, although reason is alone capable of discerning the connexion of
means with their ends (so that the will might even be defined as the faculty
of ends, since these are always determining principles of the desires), yet
the practical maxims which would follow from the aforesaid principle of the
good being merely a means, would never contain as the object of the will
anything good in itself, but only something good for something; the good would
always be merely the useful, and that for which it is useful must always lie
outside the will, in sensation. Now if this as a pleasant sensation were to be
distinguished from the notion of good, then there would be nothing primarily
good at all, but the good would have to be sought only in the means to
something else, namely, some pleasantness.
It
is an old formula of the schools: Nihil appetimus nisi sub
ratione
boni; Nihil aversamur nisi sub ratione mali, and it is used
often
correctly, but often also in a manner injurious to philosophy,
because
the expressions boni and mali are ambiguous, owing to the
poverty
of language, in consequence of which they admit a double
sense,
and, therefore, inevitably bring the practical laws into
ambiguity;
and philosophy, which in employing them becomes aware of
the
different meanings in the same word, but can find no special
expressions
for them, is driven to subtile distinctions about which
there
is subsequently no unanimity, because the distinction could
not
be directly marked by any suitable expression. *
·
Besides this, the
expression sub ratione boni is also ambiguous.
For
it may mean: “We represent something to ourselves as good, when and because
we desire (will) it”; or “We desire something because we represent it to
ourselves as good,” so that either the desire determines the notion of the
object as a good, or the notion of good determines the desire (the will); so
that in the first case sub ratione boni would mean, “We will something under
the idea of the good”; in the second, “In consequence of this idea,”
which, as determining the volition, must precede it.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 5}
The
German language has the good fortune to possess expressions which do not allow
this difference to be overlooked. It possesses two very distinct concepts and
especially distinct expressions for that which the Latins express by a single
word, bonum. For bonum it has das Gute [good], and das Wohl [well, weal], for
malum das Bose [evil], and das Ubel [ill, bad], or das Well [woe]. So that we
express two quite distinct judgements when we consider in an action the good
and evil of it, or our weal and woe (ill). Hence it already follows that the
above quoted psychological proposition is at least very doubtful if it is
translated: “We desire nothing except with a view to our weal or woe”; on
the other hand, if we render it thus: “Under the direction of reason we
desire nothing except so far as we esteem it good or evil,” it is
indubitably certain and at the same time quite clearly expressed.
Well
or ill always implies only a reference to our condition, as pleasant or
unpleasant, as one of pleasure or pain, and if we desire or avoid an object on
this account, it is only so far as it is referred to our sensibility and to
the feeling of pleasure or pain that it produces. But good or evil always
implies a reference to the will, as determined by the law of reason, to make
something its object; for it is never determined directly by the object and
the idea of it, but is a faculty of taking a rule of reason for or motive of
an action (by which an object may be realized). Good and evil therefore are
properly referred to actions, not to the sensations of the person, and if
anything is to be good or evil absolutely (i.e., in every respect and without
any further condition), or is to be so esteemed, it can only be the manner of
acting, the maxim of the will, and consequently the acting person himself as a
good or evil man that can be so called, and not a thing.
However,
then, men may laugh at the Stoic, who in the severest paroxysms of gout cried
out: “Pain, however thou tormentest me, I will never admit that thou art an
evil (kakov, malum)”: he was right. A bad thing it certainly was, and his
cry betrayed that; but that any evil attached to him thereby, this he bad no
reason whatever to admit, for pain did not in the least diminish the worth of
his person, but only that of his condition. If he had been conscious of a
single lie, it would have lowered his pride, but pain served only to raise it,
when he was conscious that he had not deserved it by any unrighteous action by
which he had rendered himself worthy of punishment.
What
we call good must be an object of desire in the judgement of every rational
man, and evil an object of aversion in the eyes of everyone; therefore, in
addition to sense, this judgement requires reason. So it is with truthfulness,
as opposed to lying; so with justice, as opposed to violence, &c. But we
may call a thing a bad [or ill) thing, which yet everyone must at the same
time acknowledge to be good, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. The man
who submits to a surgical operation feels it no doubt as a bad thing, but by
their reason he and everyone acknowledge it to be good. If a man who delights
in annoying and vexing peaceable people at last receives a right good beating,
this is no doubt a bad thing; but everyone approves it and regards it as a
good thing, even though nothing else resulted from it; nay, even the man who
receives it must in his reason acknowledge that he has met justice, because he
sees the proportion between good conduct and good fortune, which reason
inevitably places before him, here put into practice.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 10}
No
doubt our weal and woe are of very great importance in the estimation of our
practical reason, and as far as our nature as sensible beings is concerned,
our happiness is the only thing of consequence, provided it is estimated as
reason especially requires, not by the transitory sensation, but by the
influence that this has on our whole existence, and on our satisfaction
therewith; but it is not absolutely the only thing of consequence. Man is a
being who, as belonging to the world of sense, has wants, and so far his
reason has an office which it cannot refuse, namely, to attend to the interest
of his sensible nature, and to form practical maxims, even with a view to the
happiness of this life, and if possible even to that of a future. But he is
not so completely an animal as to be indifferent to what reason says on its
own account, and to use it merely as an instrument for the satisfaction of his
wants as a sensible being. For the possession of reason would not raise his
worth above that of the brutes, if it is to serve him only for the same
purpose that instinct serves in them; it would in that case be only a
particular method which nature had employed to equip man for the same ends for
which it has qualified brutes, without qualifying him for any higher purpose.
No doubt once this arrangement of nature has been made for him he requires
reason in order to take into consideration his weal and woe, but besides this
he possesses it for a higher purpose also, namely, not only to take into
consideration what is good or evil in itself, about which only pure reason,
uninfluenced by any sensible interest, can judge, but also to distinguish this
estimate thoroughly from the former and to make it the supreme condition
thereof.
In
estimating what is good or evil in itself, as distinguished from what can be
so called only relatively, the following points are to be considered. Either a
rational principle is already conceived, as of itself the determining
principle of the will, without regard to possible objects of desire (and
therefore by the more legislative form of the maxim), and in that case that
principle is a practical a priori law, and pure reason is supposed to be
practical of itself. The law in that case determines the will directly; the
action conformed to it is good in itself; a will whose maxim always conforms
to this law is good absolutely in every respect and is the supreme condition
of all good. Or the maxim of the will is consequent on a determining principle
of desire which presupposes an object of pleasure or pain, something therefore
that pleases or displeases, and the maxim of reason that we should pursue the
former and avoid the latter determines our actions as good relatively to our
inclination, that is, good indirectly, i.e., relatively to a different end to
which they are means), and in that case these maxims can never be called laws,
but may be called rational practical precepts. The end itself, the pleasure
that we seek, is in the latter case not a good but a welfare; not a concept of
reason, but an empirical concept of an object of sensation; but the use of the
means thereto, that is, the action, is nevertheless called good (because
rational deliberation is required for it), not however, good absolutely, but
only relatively to our sensuous nature, with regard to its feelings of
pleasure and displeasure; but the will whose maxim is affected thereby is not
a pure will; this is directed only to that in which pure reason by itself can
be practical.
This
is the proper place to explain the paradox of method in a critique of
practical reason, namely, that the concept of good and evil must not be
determined before the moral law (of which it seems as if it must be the
foundation), but only after it and by means of it.
In fact, even if we did not know that the principle of morality is a
pure a priori law determining the will, yet, that we may not assume principles
quite gratuitously, we must, at least at first, leave it undecided, whether
the will has merely empirical principles of determination, or whether it has
not also pure a priori principles; for it is contrary to all rules of
philosophical method to assume as decided that which is the very point in
question. Supposing that we wished to begin with the concept of good, in order
to deduce from it the laws of the will, then this concept of an object (as a
good) would at the same time assign to us this object as the sole determining
principle of the will. Now, since this concept had not any practical a priori
law for its standard, the criterion of good or evil could not be placed in
anything but the agreement of the object with our feeling of pleasure or pain;
and the use of reason could only consist in determining in the first place
this pleasure or pain in connexion with all the sensations of my existence,
and in the second place the means of securing to myself the object of the
pleasure. Now, as experience alone can decide what conforms to the feeling of
pleasure, and by hypothesis the practical law is to be based on this as a
condition, it follows that the possibility of a priori practical laws would be
at once excluded, because it was imagined to be necessary first of all to find
an object the concept of which, as a good, should constitute the universal
though empirical principle of determination of the will. But what it was
necessary to inquire first of all was whether there is not an a priori
determining principle of the will (and this could never be found anywhere but
in a pure practical law, in so far as this law prescribes to maxims merely
their form without regard to an object). Since, however, we laid the
foundation of all practical law in an object determined by our conceptions of
good and evil, whereas without a previous law that object could not be
conceived by empirical concepts, we have deprived ourselves beforehand of the
possibility of even conceiving a pure practical law. On the other hand, if we
had first investigated the latter analytically, we should have found that it
is not the concept of good as an object that determines the moral law and
makes it possible, but that, on the contrary, it is the moral law that first
determines the concept of good and makes it possible, so far as it deserves
the name of good absolutely.
This
remark, which only concerns the method of ultimate ethical inquiries, is of
importance. It explains at once the occasion of all the mistakes of
philosophers with respect to the supreme principle of morals. For they sought
for an object of the will which they could make the matter and principle of a
law (which consequently could not determine the will directly, but by means of
that object referred to the feeling of pleasure or pain; whereas they ought
first to have searched for a law that would determine the will a priori and
directly, and afterwards determine the object in accordance with the will).
Now, whether they placed this object of pleasure, which was to supply the
supreme conception of goodness, in happiness, in perfection, in moral
[feeling], or in the will of God, their principle in every case implied
heteronomy, and they must inevitably come upon empirical conditions of a moral
law, since their object, which was to be the immediate principle of the will,
could not be called good or bad except in its immediate relation to feeling,
which is always empirical. It is only a formal law- that is, one which
prescribes to reason nothing more than the form of its universal legislation
as the supreme condition of its maxims- that can be a priori a determining
principle of practical reason. The ancients avowed this error without
concealment by directing all their moral inquiries to the determination of the
notion of the summum bonum, which they intended afterwards to make the
determining principle of the will in the moral law; whereas it is only far
later, when the moral law has been first established for itself, and shown to
be the direct determining principle of the will, that this object can be
presented to the will, whose form is now determined a priori; and this we
shall undertake in the Dialectic of the pure practical reason. The moderns,
with whom the question of the summum bonum has gone out of fashion, or at
least seems to have become a secondary matter, hide the same error under vague
(expressions as in many other cases). It shows itself, nevertheless, in their
systems, as it always produces heteronomy of practical reason; and from this
can never be derived a moral law giving universal commands.
Now,
since the notions of good and evil, as consequences of the a priori
determination of the will, imply also a pure practical principle, and
therefore a causality of pure reason; hence they do not originally refer to
objects (so as to be, for instance, special modes of the synthetic unity of
the manifold of given intuitions in one consciousness) like the pure concepts
of the understanding or categories of reason in its theoretic employment; on
the contrary, they presuppose that objects are given; but they are all modes
(modi) of a single category, namely, that of causality, the determining
principle of which consists in the rational conception of a law, which as a
law of freedom reason gives to itself, thereby a priori proving itself
practical. However, as the actions on the one side come under a law which is
not a physical law, but a law of freedom, and consequently belong to the
conduct of beings in and consequently the consequently belong to the beings in
the world of intelligence, yet on the other side as events in the world of
sense they belong to phenomena; hence the determinations of a practical reason
are only possible in reference to the latter and, therefore, in accordance
with the categories of the understanding; not indeed with a view to any
theoretic employment of it, i.e., so as to bring the manifold of (sensible)
intuition under one consciousness a priori; but only to subject the manifold
of desires to the unity of consciousness of a practical reason, giving it
commands in the moral law, i.e., to a pure will a priori.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 15}
These
categories of freedom- for so we choose to call them in contrast to those
theoretic categories which are categories of physical nature- have an obvious
advantage over the latter, inasmuch as the latter are only forms of thought
which designate objects in an indefinite manner by means of universal concept
of every possible intuition; the former, on the contrary, refer to the
determination of a free elective will (to which indeed no exactly
corresponding intuition can be assigned, but which has as its foundation a
pure practical a priori law, which is not the case with any concepts belonging
to the theoretic use of our cognitive faculties); hence, instead of the form
of intuition (space and time), which does not lie in reason itself, but has to
be drawn from another source, namely, the sensibility, these being elementary
practical concepts have as their foundation the form of a pure will, which is
given in reason and, therefore, in the thinking faculty itself. From this it
happens that as all precepts of pure practical reason have to do only with the
determination of the will, not with the physical conditions (of practical
ability) of the execution of one’s purpose, the practical a priori
principles in relation to the supreme principle of freedom are at once
cognitions, and have not to wait for intuitions in order to acquire
significance, and that for this remarkable reason, because they themselves
produce the reality of that to which they refer (the intention of the will),
which is not the case with theoretical concepts. Only we must be careful to
observe that these categories only apply to the practical reason; and thus
they proceed in order from those which are as yet subject to sensible
conditions and morally indeterminate to those which are free from sensible
conditions and determined merely by the moral law.
Table
of the Categories of Freedom relatively to the Notions of Good and Evil.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 20}
Subjective,
according to maxims (practical opinions of the
individual)
Objective,
according to principles (Precepts)
A
priori both objective and subjective principles of freedom
(laws)
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 25}
Practical
rules of action (praeceptivae)
Practical
rules of omission (prohibitivae)
Practical
rules of exceptions (exceptivae)
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 30}
To
personality To the condition of the person.
Reciprocal,
of one person to the others of the others.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 35}
The
Permitted and the Forbidden
Duty
and the contrary to duty.
Perfect
and imperfect duty.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 40}
It
will at once be observed that in this table freedom is considered as a sort of
causality not subject to empirical principles of determination, in regard to
actions possible by it, which are phenomena in the world of sense, and that
consequently it is referred to the categories which concern its physical
possibility, whilst yet each category is taken so universally that the
determining principle of that causality can be placed outside the world of
sense in freedom as a property of a being in the world of intelligence; and
finally the categories of modality introduce the transition from practical
principles generally to those of morality, but only problematically. These can
be established dogmatically only by the moral law.
I
add nothing further here in explanation of the present table, since it is
intelligible enough of itself. A division of this kind based on principles is
very useful in any science, both for the sake of thoroughness and
intelligibility. Thus, for instance, we know from the preceding table and its
first number what we must begin from in practical inquiries; namely, from the
maxims which every one founds on his own inclinations; the precepts which hold
for a species of rational beings so far as they agree in certain inclinations;
and finally the law which holds for all without regard to their inclinations,
etc. In this way we survey the whole plan of what has to be done, every
question of practical philosophy that has to be answered, and also the order
that is to be followed.
Of
the Typic of the Pure Practical Judgement.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 45}
It
is the notions of good and evil that first determine an object of the will.
They themselves, however, are subject to a practical rule of reason which, if
it is pure reason, determines the will a priori relatively to its object. Now,
whether an action which is possible to us in the world of sense, comes under
the rule or not, is a question to be decided by the practical judgement, by
which what is said in the rule universally (in abstracto) is applied to an
action in concreto. But since a practical rule of pure reason in the first
place as practical concerns the existence of an object, and in the second
place as a practical rule of pure reason implies necessity as regards the
existence of the action and, therefore, is a practical law, not a physical law
depending on empirical principles of determination, but a law of freedom by
which the will is to be determined independently on anything empirical (merely
by the conception of a law and its form), whereas all instances that can occur
of possible actions can only be empirical, that is, belong to the experience
of physical nature; hence, it seems absurd to expect to find in the world of
sense a case which, while as such it depends only on the law of nature, yet
admits of the application to it of a law of freedom, and to which we can apply
the supersensible idea of the morally good which is to be exhibited in it in
concreto. Thus, the judgement of the pure practical reason is subject to the
same difficulties as that of the pure theoretical reason. The latter, however,
had means at hand of escaping from these difficulties, because, in regard to
the theoretical employment, intuitions were required to which pure concepts of
the understanding could be applied, and such intuitions (though only of
objects of the senses) can be given a priori and, therefore, as far as regards
the union of the manifold in them, conforming to the pure a priori concepts of
the understanding as schemata. On the other hand, the morally good is
something whose object is supersensible; for which, therefore, nothing
corresponding can be found in any sensible intuition. Judgement depending on
laws of pure practical reason seems, therefore, to be subject to special
difficulties arising from this, that a law of freedom is to be applied to
actions, which are events taking place in the world of sense, and which, so
far, belong to physical nature.
But
here again is opened a favourable prospect for the pure practical judgement.
When I subsume under a pure practical law an action possible to me in the
world of sense, I am not concerned with the possibility of the action as an
event in the world of sense. This
is a matter that belongs to the decision of reason in its theoretic use
according to the law of causality, which is a pure concept of the
understanding, for which reason has a schema in the sensible intuition.
Physical causality, or the condition under which it takes place, belongs to
the physical concepts, the schema of which is sketched by transcendental
imagination. Here, however, we have to do, not with the schema of a case that
occurs according to laws, but with the schema of a law itself (if the word is
allowable here), since the fact that the will (not the action relatively to
its effect) is determined by the law alone without any other principle,
connects the notion of causality with quite different conditions from those
which constitute physical connection.
The
physical law being a law to which the objects of sensible intuition, as such,
are subject, must have a schema corresponding to it- that is, a general
procedure of the imagination (by which it exhibits a priori to the senses the
pure concept of the understanding which the law determines). But the law of
freedom (that is, of a causality not subject to sensible conditions), and
consequently the concept of the unconditionally good, cannot have any
intuition, nor consequently any schema supplied to it for the purpose of its
application in concreto. Consequently the moral law has no faculty but the
understanding to aid its application to physical objects (not the
imagination); and the understanding for the purposes of the judgement can
provide for an idea of the reason, not a schema of the sensibility, but a law,
though only as to its form as law; such a law, however, as can be exhibited in
concreto in objects of the senses, and therefore a law of nature. We can
therefore call this law the type of the moral law.
The
rule of the judgement according to laws of pure practical reason is this: ask
yourself whether, if the action you propose were to take place by a law of the
system of nature of which you were yourself a part, you could regard it as
possible by your own will. Everyone does, in fact, decide by this rule whether
actions are morally good or evil. Thus, people say: “If everyone permitted
himself to deceive, when he thought it to his advantage; or thought himself
justified in shortening his life as soon as he was thoroughly weary of it; or
looked with perfect indifference on the necessity of others; and if you
belonged to such an order of things, would you do so with the assent of your
own will?” Now everyone knows well that if he secretly allows himself to
deceive, it does not follow that everyone else does so; or if, unobserved, he
is destitute of compassion, others would not necessarily be so to him; hence,
this comparison of the maxim of his actions with a universal law of nature is
not the determining principle of his will. Such a law is, nevertheless, a type
of the estimation of the maxim on moral principles. If the maxim of the action
is not such as to stand the test of the form of a universal law of nature,
then it is morally impossible. This is the judgement even of common sense; for
its ordinary judgements, even those of experience, are always based on the law
of nature. It has it therefore always at hand, only that in cases where
causality from freedom is to be criticised, it makes that law of nature only
the type of a law of freedom, because, without something which it could use as
an example in a case of experience, it could not give the law of a pure
practical reason its proper use in practice.
It
is therefore allowable to use the system of the world of sense as the type of
a supersensible system of things, provided I do not transfer to the latter the
intuitions, and what depends on them, but merely apply to it the form of law
in general (the notion of which occurs even in the commonest use of reason,
but cannot be definitely known a priori for any other purpose than the pure
practical use of reason); for laws, as such, are so far identical, no matter
from what they derive their determining principles.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 50}
Further,
since of all the supersensible absolutely nothing [is known] except freedom
(through the moral law), and this only so far as it is inseparably implied in
that law, and moreover all supersensible objects to which reason might lead
us, following the guidance of that law, have still no reality for us, except
for the purpose of that law, and for the use of mere practical reason; and as
reason is authorized and even compelled to use physical nature (in its pure
form as an object of the understanding) as the type of the judgement; hence,
the present remark will serve to guard against reckoning amongst concepts
themselves that which belongs only to the typic of concepts. This, namely, as
a typic of the judgement, guards against the empiricism of practical reason,
which founds the practical notions of good and evil merely on experienced
consequences (so-called happiness). No doubt happiness and the infinite
advantages which would result from a will determined by self-love, if this
will at the same time erected itself into a universal law of nature, may
certainly serve as a perfectly suitable type of the morally good, but it is
not identical with it. The same typic guards also against the mysticism of
practical reason, which turns what served only as a symbol into a schema, that
is, proposes to provide for the moral concepts actual intuitions, which,
however, are not sensible (intuitions of an invisible Kingdom of God), and
thus plunges into the transcendent. What is befitting the use of the moral
concepts is only the rationalism of the judgement, which takes from the
sensible system of nature only what pure reason can also conceive of itself,
that is, conformity to law, and transfers into the supersensible nothing but
what can conversely be actually exhibited by actions in the world of sense
according to the formal rule of a law of nature.
However, the caution against empiricism of practical reason is much
more important; for mysticism is quite reconcilable with the purity and
sublimity of the moral law, and, besides, it is not very natural or agreeable
to common habits of thought to strain one’s imagination to supersensible
intuitions; and hence the danger on this side is not so general. Empiricism,
on the contrary, cuts up at the roots the morality of intentions (in which,
and not in actions only, consists the high worth that men can and ought to
give to themselves), and substitutes for duty something quite different,
namely, an empirical interest, with which the inclinations generally are
secretly leagued; and empiricism, moreover, being on this account allied with
all the inclinations which (no matter what fashion they put on) degrade
humanity when they are raised to the dignity of a supreme practical principle;
and as these, nevertheless, are so favourable to everyone’s feelings, it is
for that reason much more dangerous than mysticism, which can never constitute
a lasting condition of any great number of persons.
CHAPTER
III. Of the Motives of Pure Practical Reason.
What
is essential in the moral worth of actions is that the moral
law
should directly determine the will. If the determination of the
will
takes place in conformity indeed to the moral law, but only by
means
of a feeling, no matter of what kind, which has to be
presupposed
in order that the law may be sufficient to determine the
will,
and therefore not for the sake of the law, then the action
will
possess legality, but not morality. Now, if we understand by
motive
(elater animi) the subjective ground of determination of the
will
of a being whose reason does not necessarily conform to the
objective
law, by virtue of its own nature, then it will follow,
first,
that not motives can be attributed to the Divine will, and that
the
motives of the human will (as well as that of every created
rational
being) can never be anything else than the moral law, and
consequently
that the objective principle of determination must always
and
alone be also the subjectively sufficient determining principle of
the
action, if this is not merely to fulfil the letter of the law,
without
containing its spirit. *
·
We may say of
every action that conforms to the law, but is not done for the sake of the
law, that it is morally good in the letter, not in the spirit (the intention).
Since,
then, for the purpose of giving the moral law influence over the will, we must
not seek for any other motives that might enable us to dispense with the
motive of the law itself, because that would produce mere hypocrisy, without
consistency; and it is even dangerous to allow other motives (for instance,
that of interest) even to co-operate along with the moral law; hence nothing
is left us but to determine carefully in what way the moral law becomes a
motive, and what effect this has upon the faculty of desire. For as to the
question how a law can be directly and of itself a determining principle of
the will (which is the essence of morality), this is, for human reason, an
insoluble problem and identical with the question: how a free will is
possible. Therefore what we have to show a priori is not why the moral law in
itself supplies a motive, but what effect it, as such, produces (or, more
correctly speaking, must produce) on the mind.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 5}
The
essential point in every determination of the will by the moral law is that
being a free will it is determined simply by the moral law, not only without
the co-operation of sensible impulses, but even to the rejection of all such,
and to the checking of all inclinations so far as they might be opposed to
that law. So far, then, the effect of the moral law as a motive is only
negative, and this motive can be known a priori to be such. For all
inclination and every sensible impulse is founded on feeling, and the negative
effect produced on feeling (by the check on the inclinations) is itself
feeling; consequently, we can see a priori that the moral law, as a
determining principle of the will, must by thwarting all our inclinations
produce a feeling which may be called pain; and in this we have the first,
perhaps the only, instance in which we are able from a priori considerations
to determine the relation of a cognition (in this case of pure practical
reason) to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. All the inclinations
together (which can be reduced to a tolerable system, in which case their
satisfaction is called happiness) constitute self-regard (solipsismus). This
is either the self-love that consists in an excessive fondness for oneself
(philautia), or satisfaction with oneself (arrogantia). The former is called
particularly selfishness; the latter self-conceit. Pure practical reason only
checks selfishness, looking on it as natural and active in us even prior to
the moral law, so far as to limit it to the condition of agreement with this
law, and then it is called rational self-love. But self-conceit reason strikes
down altogether, since all claims to self-esteem which precede agreement with
the moral law are vain and unjustifiable, for the certainty of a state of mind
that coincides with this law is the first condition of personal worth (as we
shall presently show more clearly), and prior to this conformity any
pretension to worth is false and unlawful. Now the propensity to self-esteem
is one of the inclinations which the moral law checks, inasmuch as that esteem
rests only on morality. Therefore
the moral law breaks down self-conceit. But as this law is something positive
in itself, namely, the form of an intellectual causality, that is, of freedom,
it must be an object of respect; for, by opposing the subjective antagonism of
the inclinations, it weakens self-conceit; and since it even breaks down, that
is, humiliates, this conceit, it is an object of the highest respect and,
consequently, is the foundation of a positive feeling which is not of
empirical origin, but is known a priori. Therefore respect for the moral law
is a feeling which is produced by an intellectual cause, and this feeling is
the only one that we know quite a priori and the necessity of which we can
perceive.
In
the preceding chapter we have seen that everything that presents itself as an
object of the will prior to the moral law is by that law itself, which is the
supreme condition of practical reason, excluded from the determining
principles of the will which we have called the unconditionally good; and that
the mere practical form which consists in the adaptation of the maxims to
universal legislation first determines what is good in itself and absolutely,
and is the basis of the maxims of a pure will, which alone is good in every
respect. However, we find that our nature as sensible beings is such that the
matter of desire (objects of inclination, whether of hope or fear) first
presents itself to us; and our pathologically affected self, although it is in
its maxims quite unfit for universal legislation; yet, just as if it
constituted our entire self, strives to put its pretensions forward first, and
to have them acknowledged as the first and original. This propensity to make
ourselves in the subjective determining principles of our choice serve as the
objective determining principle of the will generally may be called self-love;
and if this pretends to be legislative as an unconditional practical principle
it may be called self-conceit. Now the moral law, which alone is truly
objective (namely, in every respect), entirely excludes the influence of
self-love on the supreme practical principle, and indefinitely checks the
self-conceit that prescribes the subjective conditions of the former as laws.
Now whatever checks our self-conceit in our own judgement humiliates;
therefore the moral law inevitably humbles every man when he compares with it
the physical propensities of his nature.
That, the idea of which as a determining principle of our will humbles
us in our self-consciousness, awakes respect for itself, so far as it is
itself positive and a determining principle. Therefore the moral law is even
subjectively a cause of respect. Now since everything that enters into
self-love belongs to inclination, and all inclination rests on feelings, and
consequently whatever checks all the feelings together in self-love has
necessarily, by this very circumstance, an influence on feeling; hence we
comprehend how it is possible to perceive a priori that the moral law can
produce an effect on feeling, in that it excludes the inclinations and the
propensity to make them the supreme practical condition, i.e., self-love, from
all participation in the supreme legislation. This effect is on one side
merely negative, but on the other side, relatively to the restricting
principle of pure practical reason, it is positive. No special kind of feeling
need be assumed for this under the name of a practical or moral feeling as
antecedent to the moral law and serving as its foundation.
The
negative effect on feeling (unpleasantness) is pathological, like every
influence on feeling and like every feeling generally.
But as an effect of the consciousness of the moral law, and
consequently in relation to a supersensible cause, namely, the subject of pure
practical reason which is the supreme lawgiver, this feeling of a rational
being affected by inclinations is called humiliation (intellectual
self-depreciation); but with reference to the positive source of this
humiliation, the law, it is respect for it. There is indeed no feeling for
this law; but inasmuch as it removes the resistance out of the way, this
removal of an obstacle is, in the judgement of reason, esteemed equivalent to
a positive help to its causality. Therefore this feeling may also be called a
feeling of respect for the moral law, and for both reasons together a moral
feeling.
While
the moral law, therefore, is a formal determining principle of action by
practical pure reason, and is moreover a material though only objective
determining principle of the objects of action as called good and evil, it is
also a subjective determining principle, that is, a motive to this action,
inasmuch as it has influence on the morality of the subject and produces a
feeling conducive to the influence of the law on the will. There is here in
the subject no antecedent feeling tending to morality. For this is impossible,
since every feeling is sensible, and the motive of moral intention must be
free from all sensible conditions. On the contrary, while the sensible feeling
which is at the bottom of all our inclinations is the condition of that
impression which we call respect, the cause that determines it lies in the
pure practical reason; and this impression therefore, on account of its
origin, must be called, not a pathological but a practical effect. For by the
fact that the conception of the moral law deprives self-love of its influence,
and self-conceit of its illusion, it lessens the obstacle to pure practical
reason and produces the conception of the superiority of its objective law to
the impulses of the sensibility; and thus, by removing the counterpoise, it
gives relatively greater weight to the law in the judgement of reason (in the
case of a will affected by the aforesaid impulses). Thus the respect for the
law is not a motive to morality, but is morality itself subjectively
considered as a motive, inasmuch as pure practical reason, by rejecting all
the rival pretensions of selflove, gives authority to the law, which now alone
has influence. Now it is to be observed that as respect is an effect on
feeling, and therefore on the sensibility, of a rational being, it presupposes
this sensibility, and therefore also the finiteness of such beings on whom the
moral law imposes respect; and that respect for the law cannot be attributed
to a supreme being, or to any being free from all sensibility, in whom,
therefore, this sensibility cannot be an obstacle to practical reason.
This
feeling (which we call the moral feeling) is therefore produced simply by
reason. It does not serve for the estimation of actions nor for the foundation
of the objective moral law itself, but merely as a motive to make this of
itself a maxim. But what name could we more suitably apply to this singular
feeling which cannot be compared to any pathological feeling? It is of such a
peculiar kind that it seems to be at the disposal of reason only, and that
pure practical reason.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 10}
Respect
applies always to persons only- not to things. The latter may arouse
inclination, and if they are animals (e.g., horses, dogs, etc.), even love or
fear, like the sea, a volcano, a beast of prey; but never respect. Something
that comes nearer to this feeling is admiration, and this, as an affection,
astonishment, can apply to things also, e.g., lofty mountains, the magnitude,
number, and distance of the heavenly bodies, the strength and swiftness of
many animals, etc. But all this is not respect. A man also may be an object to
me of love, fear, or admiration, even to astonishment, and yet not be an
object of respect. His jocose humour, his courage and strength, his power from
the rank be has amongst others, may inspire me with sentiments of this kind,
but still inner respect for him is wanting. Fontenelle says, “I bow before a
great man, but my mind does not bow.” I would add, before an humble plain
man, in whom I perceive uprightness of character in a higher degree than I am
conscious of in myself,- my mind bows whether I choose it or not, and though I
bear my head never so high that he may not forget my superior rank. Why is
this? Because his example exhibits to me a law that humbles my self-conceit
when I compare it with my conduct: a law, the practicability of obedience to
which I see proved by fact before my eyes. Now, I may even be conscious of a
like degree of uprightness, and yet the respect remains. For since in man all
good is defective, the law made visible by an example still humbles my pride,
my standard being furnished by a man whose imperfections, whatever they may
be, are not known to me as my own are, and who therefore appears to me in a
more favourable light. Respect is a tribute which we cannot refuse to merit,
whether we will or not; we may indeed outwardly withhold it, but we cannot
help feeling it inwardly.
Respect
is so far from being a feeling of pleasure that we only reluctantly give way
to it as regards a man. We try to find out something that may lighten the
burden of it, some fault to compensate us for the humiliation which such which
such an example causes. Even the dead are not always secure from this
criticism, especially if their example appears inimitable. Even the moral law
itself in its solemn majesty is exposed to this endeavour to save oneself from
yielding it respect. Can it be thought that it is for any other reason that we
are so ready to reduce it to the level of our familiar inclination, or that it
is for any other reason that we all take such trouble to make it out to be the
chosen precept of our own interest well understood, but that we want to be
free from the deterrent respect which shows us our own unworthiness with such
severity? Nevertheless, on the other hand, so little is there pain in it that
if once one has laid aside self-conceit and allowed practical influence to
that respect, he can never be satisfied with contemplating the majesty of this
law, and the soul believes itself elevated in proportion as it sees the holy
law elevated above it and its frail nature. No doubt great talents and
activity proportioned to them may also occasion respect or an analogous
feeling. It is very proper to yield it to them, and then it appears as if this
sentiment were the same thing as admiration. But if we look closer we shall
observe that it is always uncertain how much of the ability is due to native
talent, and how much to diligence in cultivating it. Reason represents it to
us as probably the fruit of cultivation, and therefore as meritorious, and
this notably reduces our self-conceit, and either casts a reproach on us or
urges us to follow such an example in the way that is suitable to us. This
respect, then, which we show to such a person (properly speaking, to the law
that his example exhibits) is not mere admiration; and this is confirmed also
by the fact that when the common run of admirers think they have learned from
any source the badness of such a man’s character (for instance Voltaire’s)
they give up all respect for him; whereas the true scholar still feels it at
least with regard to his talents, because he is himself engaged in a business
and a vocation which make imitation of such a man in some degree a law.
Respect
for the moral law is, therefore, the only and the undoubted moral motive, and
this feeling is directed to no object, except on the ground of this law. The
moral law first determines the will objectively and directly in the judgement
of reason; and freedom, whose causality can be determined only by the law,
consists just in this, that it restricts all inclinations, and consequently
self-esteem, by the condition of obedience to its pure law. This restriction
now has an effect on feeling, and produces the impression of displeasure which
can be known a priori from the moral law. Since it is so far only a negative
effect which, arising from the influence of pure practical reason, checks the
activity of the subject, so far as it is determined by inclinations, and hence
checks the opinion of his personal worth (which, in the absence of agreement
with the moral law, is reduced to nothing); hence, the effect of this law on
feeling is merely humiliation. We can, therefore, perceive this a priori, but
cannot know by it the force of the pure practical law as a motive, but only
the resistance to motives of the sensibility. But since the same law is
objectively, that is, in the conception of pure reason, an immediate principle
of determination of the will, and consequently this humiliation takes place
only relatively to the purity of the law; hence, the lowering of the
pretensions of moral self-esteem, that is, humiliation on the sensible side,
is an elevation of the moral, i.e., practical, esteem for the law itself on
the intellectual side; in a word, it is respect for the law, and therefore, as
its cause is intellectual, a positive feeling which can be known a priori. For
whatever diminishes the obstacles to an activity furthers this activity
itself. Now the recognition of
the moral law is the consciousness of an activity of practical reason from
objective principles, which only fails to reveal its effect in actions because
subjective (pathological) causes hinder it. Respect for the moral law then
must be regarded as a positive, though indirect, effect of it on feeling,
inasmuch as this respect weakens the impeding influence of inclinations by
humiliating selfesteem; and hence also as a subjective principle of activity,
that is, as a motive to obedience to the law, and as a principle of the maxims
of a life conformable to it. From the notion of a motive arises that of an
interest, which can never be attributed to any being unless it possesses
reason, and which signifies a motive of the will in so far as it is conceived
by the reason. Since in a morally good will the law itself must be the motive,
the moral interest is a pure interest of practical reason alone, independent
of sense. On the notion of an interest is based that of a maxim. This,
therefore, is morally good only in case it rests simply on the interest taken
in obedience to the law. All three notions, however, that of a motive, of an
interest, and of a maxim, can be applied only to finite beings. For they all
suppose a limitation of the nature of the being, in that the subjective
character of his choice does not of itself agree with the objective law of a
practical reason; they suppose that the being requires to be impelled to
action by something, because an internal obstacle opposes itself. Therefore
they cannot be applied to the Divine will.
There
is something so singular in the unbounded esteem for the pure moral law, apart
from all advantage, as it is presented for our obedience by practical reason,
the voice of which makes even the boldest sinner tremble and compels him to
hide himself from it, that we cannot wonder if we find this influence of a
mere intellectual idea on the feelings quite incomprehensible to speculative
reason and have to be satisfied with seeing so much of this a priori that such
a feeling is inseparably connected with the conception of the moral law in
every finite rational being. If this feeling of respect were pathological, and
therefore were a feeling of pleasure based on the inner sense, it would be in
vain to try to discover a connection of it with any idea a priori. But [it] is
a feeling that applies merely to what is practical, and depends on the
conception of a law, simply as to its form, not on account of any object, and
therefore cannot be reckoned either as pleasure or pain, and yet produces an
interest in obedience to the law, which we call the moral interest, just as
the capacity of taking such an interest in the law (or respect for the moral
law itself) is properly the moral feeling.
The
consciousness of a free submission of the will to the law, yet combined with
an inevitable constraint put upon all inclinations, though only by our own
reason, is respect for the law. The law that demands this respect and inspires
it is clearly no other than the moral (for no other precludes all inclinations
from exercising any direct influence on the will). An action which is
objectively practical according to this law, to the exclusion of every
determining principle of inclination, is duty, and this by reason of that
exclusion includes in its concept practical obligation, that is, a
determination to actions, however reluctantly they may be done. The feeling
that arises from the consciousness of this obligation is not pathological, as
would be a feeling produced by an object of the senses, but practical only,
that is, it is made possible by a preceding (objective) determination of the
will and a causality of the reason. As submission to the law, therefore, that
is, as a command (announcing constraint for the sensibly affected subject), it
contains in it no pleasure, but on the contrary, so far, pain in the action.
On the other hand, however, as this constraint is exercised merely by the
legislation of our own reason, it also contains something elevating, and this
subjective effect on feeling, inasmuch as pure practical reason is the sole
cause of it, may be called in this respect self-approbation, since we
recognize ourselves as determined thereto solely by the law without any
interest, and are now conscious of a quite different interest subjectively
produced thereby, and which is purely practical and free; and our taking this
interest in an action of duty is not suggested by any inclination, but is
commanded and actually brought about by reason through the practical law;
whence this feeling obtains a special name, that of respect.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 15}
The
notion of duty, therefore, requires in the action,
objectively,
agreement with the law, and, subjectively in its maxim,
that
respect for the law shall be the sole mode in which the will is
determined
thereby. And on this rests the distinction between the
consciousness
of having acted according to duty and from duty, that
is,
from respect for the law. The former (legality) is possible even
if
inclinations have been the determining principles of the will;
but
the latter (morality), moral worth, can be placed only in this,
that
the action is done from duty, that is, simply for the sake of the
law.
*
·
If we examine
accurately the notion of respect for persons as it has been already laid down,
we shall perceive that it always rests on the consciousness of a duty which an
example shows us, and that respect, therefore. can never have any but a moral
ground, and that it is very good and even, in a psychological point of view,
very useful for the knowledge of mankind, that whenever we use this expression
we should attend to this secret and marvellous, yet often recurring, regard
which men in their judgement pay to the moral law.
It
is of the greatest importance to attend with the utmost exactness in all moral
judgements to the subjective principle of all maxims, that all the morality of
actions may be placed in the necessity of acting from duty and from respect
for the law, not from love and inclination for that which the actions are to
produce. For men and all created rational beings moral necessity is
constraint, that is obligation, and every action based on it is to be
conceived as a duty, not as a proceeding previously pleasing, or likely to be
Pleasing to us of our own accord. As if indeed we could ever bring it about
that without respect for the law, which implies fear, or at least apprehension
of transgression, we of ourselves, like the independent Deity, could ever come
into possession of holiness of will by the coincidence of our will with the
pure moral law becoming as it were part of our nature, never to be shaken (in
which case the law would cease to be a command for us, as we could never be
tempted to be untrue to it).
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 20}
The
moral law is in fact for the will of a perfect being a law of holiness, but
for the will of every finite rational being a law of duty, of moral
constraint, and of the determination of its actions by respect for this law
and reverence for its duty. No other subjective principle must be assumed as a
motive, else while the action might chance to be such as the law prescribes,
yet, as does not proceed from duty, the intention, which is the thing properly
in question in this legislation, is not moral.
It
is a very beautiful thing to do good to men from love to them and from
sympathetic good will, or to be just from love of order; but this is not yet
the true moral maxim of our conduct which is suitable to our position amongst
rational beings as men, when we pretend with fanciful pride to set ourselves
above the thought of duty, like volunteers, and, as if we were independent on
the command, to want to do of our own good pleasure what we think we need no
command to do. We stand under a
discipline of reason and in all our maxims must not forget our subjection to
it, nor withdraw anything therefrom, or by an egotistic presumption diminish
aught of the authority of the law (although our own reason gives it) so as to
set the determining principle of our will, even though the law be conformed
to, anywhere else but in the law itself and in respect for this law. Duty and
obligation are the only names that we must give to our relation to the moral
law. We are indeed legislative members of a moral kingdom rendered possible by
freedom, and presented to us by reason as an object of respect; but yet we are
subjects in it, not the sovereign, and to mistake our inferior position as
creatures, and presumptuously to reject the authority of the moral law, is
already to revolt from it in spirit, even though the letter of it is
fulfilled.
With
this agrees very well the possibility of such a command as:
Love
God above everything, and thy neighbour as thyself. * For as a command it
requires respect for a law which commands love and does not leave it to our
own arbitrary choice to make this our principle.
Love to God, however, considered as an inclination (pathological love),
is impossible, for He is not an object of the senses. The same affection
towards men is possible no doubt, but cannot be commanded, for it is not in
the power of any man to love anyone at command; therefore it is only practical
love that is meant in that pith of all laws. To love God means, in this sense,
to like to do His commandments; to love one’s neighbour means to like to
practise all duties towards him. But the command that makes this a rule cannot
command us to have this disposition in actions conformed to duty, but only to
endeavour after it. For a command to like to do a thing is in itself
contradictory, because if we already know of ourselves what we are bound to
do, and if further we are conscious of liking to do it, a command would be
quite needless; and if we do it not willingly, but only out of respect for the
law, a command that makes this respect the motive of our maxim would directly
counteract the disposition commanded. That law of all laws, therefore, like
all the moral precepts of the Gospel, exhibits the moral disposition in all
its perfection, in which, viewed as an ideal of holiness, it is not attainable
by any creature, but yet is the pattern which we should strive to approach,
and in an uninterrupted but infinite progress become like to. In fact, if a
rational creature could ever reach this point, that he thoroughly likes to do
all moral laws, this would mean that there does not exist in him even the
possibility of a desire that would tempt him to deviate from them; for to
overcome such a desire always costs the subject some sacrifice and therefore
requires self-compulsion, that is, inward constraint to something that one
does not quite like to do; and no creature can ever reach this stage of moral
disposition. For, being a creature, and therefore always dependent with
respect to what be requires for complete satisfaction, he can never be quite
free from desires and inclinations, and as these rest on physical causes, they
can never of themselves coincide with the moral law, the sources of which are
quite different; and therefore they make it necessary to found the mental
disposition of one’s maxims on moral obligation, not on ready inclination,
but on respect, which demands obedience to the law, even though one may not
like it; not on love, which apprehends no inward reluctance of the will
towards the law. Nevertheless, this latter, namely, love to the law (which
would then cease to be a command, and then morality, which would have passed
subjectively into holiness, would cease to be virtue) must be the constant
though unattainable goal of his endeavours. For in the case of what we highly
esteem, but yet (on account of the consciousness of our weakness) dread, the
increased facility of satisfying it changes the most reverential awe into
inclination, and respect into love; at least this would be the perfection of a
disposition devoted to the law, if it were possible for a creature to attain
it.
·
This law is in
striking contrast with the principle of private happiness which some make the
supreme principle of morality. This would be expressed thus: Love thyself
above everything, and God and thy neighbour for thine own sake.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 25}
This
reflection is intended not so much to clear up the evangelical command just
cited, in order to prevent religious fanaticism in regard to love of God, but
to define accurately the moral disposition with regard directly to our duties
towards men, and to check, or if possible prevent, a merely moral fanaticism
which infects many persons. The stage of morality on which man (and, as far as
we can see, every rational creature) stands is respect for the moral law. The
disposition that he ought to have in obeying this is to obey it from duty, not
from spontaneous inclination, or from an endeavour taken up from liking and
unbidden; and this proper moral condition in which he can always be is virtue,
that is, moral disposition militant, and not holiness in the fancied
possession of a perfect purity of the disposition of the will. It is nothing
but moral fanaticism and exaggerated self-conceit that is infused into the
mind by exhortation to actions as noble, sublime, and magnanimous, by which
men are led into the delusion that it is not duty, that is, respect for the
law, whose yoke (an easy yoke indeed, because reason itself imposes it on us)
they must bear, whether they like it or not, that constitutes the determining
principle of their actions, and which always humbles them while they obey it;
fancying that those actions are expected from them, not from duty, but as pure
merit. For not only would they, in imitating such deeds from such a principle,
not have fulfilled the spirit of the law in the least, which consists not in
the legality of the action (without regard to principle), but in the
subjection of the mind to the law; not only do they make the motives
pathological (seated in sympathy or self-love), not moral (in the law), but
they produce in this way a vain, high-flying, fantastic way of thinking,
flattering themselves with a spontaneous goodness of heart that needs neither
spur nor bridle, for which no command is needed, and thereby forgetting their
obligation, which they ought to think of rather than merit. Indeed actions of
others which are done with great sacrifice, and merely for the sake of duty,
may be praised as noble and sublime, but only so far as there are traces which
suggest that they were done wholly out of respect for duty and not from
excited feelings. If these, however, are set before anyone as examples to be
imitated, respect for duty (which is the only true moral feeling) must be
employed as the motive- this severe holy precept which never allows our vain
self-love to dally with pathological impulses (however analogous they may be
to morality), and to take a pride in meritorious worth. Now if we search we
shall find for all actions that are worthy of praise a law of duty which
commands, and does not leave us to choose what may be agreeable to our
inclinations. This is the only way of representing things that can give a
moral training to the soul, because it alone is capable of solid and
accurately defined principles.
If
fanaticism in its most general sense is a deliberate over stepping of the
limits of human reason, then moral fanaticism is such an over stepping of the
bounds that practical pure reason sets to mankind, in that it forbids us to
place the subjective determining principle of correct actions, that is, their
moral motive, in anything but the law itself, or to place the disposition
which is thereby brought into the maxims in anything but respect for this law,
and hence commands us to take as the supreme vital principle of all morality
in men the thought of duty, which strikes down all arrogance as well as vain
self-love.
If
this is so, it is not only writers of romance or sentimental educators
(although they may be zealous opponents of sentimentalism), but sometimes even
philosophers, nay, even the severest of all, the Stoics, that have brought in
moral fanaticism instead of a sober but wise moral discipline, although the
fanaticism of the latter was more heroic, that of the former of an insipid,
effeminate character; and we may, without hypocrisy, say of the moral teaching
of the Gospel, that it first, by the purity of its moral principle, and at the
same time by its suitability to the limitations of finite beings, brought all
the good conduct of men under the discipline of a duty plainly set before
their eyes, which does not permit them to indulge in dreams of imaginary moral
perfections; and that it also set the bounds of humility (that is,
self-knowledge) to self-conceit as well as to self-love, both which are ready
to mistake their limits.
Duty!
Thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace nothing charming or
insinuating, but requirest submission, and yet seekest not to move the will by
threatening aught that would arouse natural aversion or terror, but merely
holdest forth a law which of itself finds entrance into the mind, and yet
gains reluctant reverence (though not always obedience), a law before which
all inclinations are dumb, even though they secretly counter-work it; what
origin is there worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble
descent which proudly rejects all kindred with the inclinations; a root to be
derived from which is the indispensable condition of the only worth which men
can give themselves?
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 30}
It
can be nothing less than a power which elevates man above himself (as a part
of the world of sense), a power which connects him with an order of things
that only the understanding can conceive, with a world which at the same time
commands the whole sensible world, and with it the empirically determinable
existence of man in time, as well as the sum total of all ends (which totality
alone suits such unconditional practical laws as the moral). This power is
nothing but personality, that is, freedom and independence on the mechanism of
nature, yet, regarded also as a faculty of a being which is subject to special
laws, namely, pure practical laws given by its own reason; so that the person
as belonging to the sensible world is subject to his own personality as
belonging to the intelligible [supersensible] world. It is then not to be
wondered at that man, as belonging to both worlds, must regard his own nature
in reference to its second and highest characteristic only with reverence, and
its laws with the highest respect.
On
this origin are founded many expressions which designate the worth of objects
according to moral ideas. The moral law is holy (inviolable). Man is indeed
unholy enough, but he must regard humanity in his own person as holy. In all
creation every thing one chooses and over which one has any power, may be used
merely as means; man alone, and with him every rational creature, is an end in
himself. By virtue of the
autonomy of his freedom he is the subject of the moral law, which is holy.
just for this reason every will, even every person’s own individual will, in
relation to itself, is restricted to the condition of agreement with the
autonomy of the rational being, that is to say, that it is not to be subject
to any purpose which cannot accord with a law which might arise from the will
of the passive subject himself; the latter is, therefore, never to be employed
merely as means, but as itself also, concurrently, an end.
We justly attribute this condition even to the Divine will, with regard
to the rational beings in the world, which are His creatures, since it rests
on their personality, by which alone they are ends in themselves.
This
respect-inspiring idea of personality which sets before our eyes the sublimity
of our nature (in its higher aspect), while at the same time it shows us the
want of accord of our conduct with it and thereby strikes down self-conceit,
is even natural to the commonest reason and easily observed. Has not every
even moderately honourable man sometimes found that, where by an otherwise
inoffensive lie he might either have withdrawn himself from an unpleasant
business, or even have procured some advantages for a loved and well-deserving
friend, he has avoided it solely lest he should despise himself secretly in
his own eyes? When an upright man is in the greatest distress, which he might
have avoided if he could only have disregarded duty, is he not sustained by
the consciousness that he has maintained humanity in its proper dignity in his
own person and honoured it, that he has no reason to be ashamed of himself in
his own sight, or to dread the inward glance of self-examination? This
consolation is not happiness, it is not even the smallest part of it, for no
one would wish to have occasion for it, or would, perhaps, even desire a life
in such circumstances. But he lives, and he cannot endure that he should be in
his own eyes unworthy of life. This
inward peace is therefore merely negative as regards what can make life
pleasant; it is, in fact, only the escaping the danger of sinking in personal
worth, after everything else that is valuable has been lost. It is the effect
of a respect for something quite different from life, something in comparison
and contrast with which life with all its enjoyment has no value. He still
lives only because it is his duty, not because he finds anything pleasant in
life.
Such
is the nature of the true motive of pure practical reason; it is no other than
the pure moral law itself, inasmuch as it makes us conscious of the sublimity
of our own supersensible existence and subjectively produces respect for their
higher nature in men who are also conscious of their sensible existence and of
the consequent dependence of their pathologically very susceptible nature. Now
with this motive may be combined so many charms and satisfactions of life that
even on this account alone the most prudent choice of a rational Epicurean
reflecting on the greatest advantage of life would declare itself on the side
of moral conduct, and it may even be advisable to join this prospect of a
cheerful enjoyment of life with that supreme motive which is already
sufficient of itself; but only as a counterpoise to the attractions which vice
does not fail to exhibit on the opposite side, and not so as, even in the
smallest degree, to place in this the proper moving power when duty is in
question. For that would be just the same as to wish to taint the purity of
the moral disposition in its source. The majesty of duty has nothing to do
with enjoyment of life; it has its special law and its special tribunal, and
though the two should be never so well shaken together to be given well mixed,
like medicine, to the sick soul, yet they will soon separate of themselves;
and if they do not, the former will not act; and although physical life might
gain somewhat in force, the moral life would fade away irrecoverably.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 35}
Critical
Examination of the Analytic of Pure Practical Reason.
By
the critical examination of a science, or of a portion of it, which
constitutes a system by itself, I understand the inquiry and proof why it must
have this and no other systematic form, when we compare it with another system
which is based on a similar faculty of knowledge. Now practical and
speculative reason are based on the same faculty, so far as both are pure
reason. Therefore the difference in their systematic form must be determined
by the comparison of both, and the ground of this must be assigned.
The
Analytic of pure theoretic reason had to do with the knowledge of such objects
as may have been given to the understanding, and was obliged therefore to
begin from intuition and consequently (as this is always sensible) from
sensibility; and only after that could advance to concepts (of the objects of
this intuition), and could only end with principles after both these had
preceded. On the contrary, since practical reason has not to do with objects
so as to know them, but with its own faculty of realizing them (in accordance
with the knowledge of them), that is, with a will which is a causality,
inasmuch as reason contains its determining principle; since, consequently, it
has not to furnish an object of intuition, but as practical reason has to
furnish only a law (because the notion of causality always implies the
reference to a law which determines the existence of the many in relation to
one another); hence a critical examination of the Analytic of reason, if this
is to be practical reason (and this is properly the problem), must begin with
the possibility of practical principles a priori. Only after that can it
proceed to concepts of the objects of a practical reason, namely, those of
absolute good and evil, in order to assign them in accordance with those
principles (for prior to those principles they cannot possibly be given as
good and evil by any faculty of knowledge), and only then could the section be
concluded with the last chapter, that, namely, which treats of the relation of
the pure practical reason to the sensibility and of its necessary influence
thereon, which is a priori cognisable, that is, of the moral sentiment. Thus
the Analytic of the practical pure reason has the whole extent of the
conditions of its use in common with the theoretical, but in reverse order.
The Analytic of pure theoretic reason was divided into transcendental
Aesthetic and transcendental Logic, that of the practical reversely into Logic
and Aesthetic of pure practical reason (if I may, for the sake of analogy
merely, use these designations, which are not quite suitable). This logic
again was there divided into the Analytic of concepts and that of principles:
here into that of principles and concepts. The Aesthetic also had in the
former case two parts, on account of the two kinds of sensible intuition; here
the sensibility is not considered as a capacity of intuition at all, but
merely as feeling (which can be a subjective ground of desire), and in regard
to it pure practical reason admits no further division.
It
is also easy to see the reason why this division into two parts with its
subdivision was not actually adopted here (as one might have been induced to
attempt by the example of the former critique). For since it is pure reason that is here considered in its
practical use, and consequently as proceeding from a priori principles, and
not from empirical principles of determination, hence the division of the
analytic of pure practical reason must resemble that of a syllogism; namely,
proceeding from the universal in the major premiss (the moral principle),
through a minor premiss containing a subsumption of possible actions (as good
or evil) under the former, to the conclusion, namely, the subjective
determination of the will (an interest in the possible practical good, and in
the maxim founded on it). He who has been able to convince himself of the
truth of the positions occurring in the Analytic will take pleasure in such
comparisons; for they justly suggest the expectation that we may perhaps some
day be able to discern the unity of the whole faculty of reason (theoretical
as well as practical) and be able to derive all from one principle, which, is
what human reason inevitably demands, as it finds complete satisfaction only
in a perfectly systematic unity of its knowledge.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 40}
If
now we consider also the contents of the knowledge that we can have of a pure
practical reason, and by means of it, as shown by the Analytic, we find, along
with a remarkable analogy between it and the theoretical, no less remarkable
differences. As regards the theoretical, the faculty of a pure rational
cognition a priori could be easily and evidently proved by examples from
sciences (in which, as they put their principles to the test in so many ways
by methodical use, there is not so much reason as in common knowledge to fear
a secret mixture of empirical principles of cognition). But, that pure reason
without the admixture of any empirical principle is practical of itself, this
could only be shown from the commonest practical use of reason, by verifying
the fact, that every man’s natural reason acknowledges the supreme practical
principle as the supreme law of his will- a law completely a priori and not
depending on any sensible data. It was necessary first to establish and verify
the purity of its origin, even in the judgement of this common reason, before
science could take it in hand to make use of it, as a fact, that is, prior to
all disputation about its possibility, and all the consequences that may be
drawn from it. But this circumstance may be readily explained from what has
just been said; because practical pure reason must necessarily begin with
principles, which therefore must be the first data, the foundation of all
science, and cannot be derived from it. It was possible to effect this
verification of moral principles as principles of a pure reason quite well,
and with sufficient certainty, by a single appeal to the judgement of common
sense, for this reason, that anything empirical which might slip into our
maxims as a determining principle of the will can be detected at once by the
feeling of pleasure or pain which necessarily attaches to it as exciting
desire; whereas pure practical reason positively refuses to admit this feeling
into its principle as a condition. The heterogeneity of the determining
principles (the empirical and rational) is clearly detected by this resistance
of a practically legislating reason against every admixture of inclination,
and by a peculiar kind of sentiment, which, however, does not precede the
legislation of the practical reason, but, on the contrary, is produced by this
as a constraint, namely, by the feeling of a respect such as no man has for
inclinations of whatever kind but for the law only; and it is detected in so
marked and prominent a manner that even the most uninstructed cannot fail to
see at once in an example presented to him, that empirical principles of
volition may indeed urge him to follow their attractions, but that he can
never be expected to obey anything but the pure practical law of reason alone.
The
distinction between the doctrine of happiness and the doctrine of morality, in
the former of which empirical principles constitute the entire foundation,
while in the second they do not form the smallest part of it, is the first and
most important office of the Analytic of pure practical reason; and it must
proceed in it with as much exactness and, so to speak, scrupulousness, as any
geometer in his work. The philosopher, however, has greater difficulties to
contend with here (as always in rational cognition by means of concepts merely
without construction), because he cannot take any intuition as a foundation
(for a pure noumenon). He has, however, this advantage that, like the chemist,
he can at any time make an experiment with every man’s practical reason for
the purpose of distinguishing the moral (pure) principle of determination from
the empirical; namely, by adding the moral law (as a determining principle) to
the empirically affected will (e.g., that of the man who would be ready to lie
because he can gain something thereby). It is as if the analyst added alkali
to a solution of lime in hydrochloric acid, the acid at once forsakes the
lime, combines with the alkali, and the lime is precipitated. just in the same
way, if to a man who is otherwise honest (or who for this occasion places
himself only in thought in the position of an honest man), we present the
moral law by which he recognises the worthlessness of the liar, his practical
reason (in forming a judgement of what ought to be done) at once forsakes the
advantage, combines with that which maintains in him respect for his own
person (truthfulness), and the advantage after it has been separated and
washed from every particle of reason (which is altogether on the side of duty)
is easily weighed by everyone, so that it can enter into combination with
reason in other cases, only not where it could be opposed to the moral law,
which reason never forsakes, but most closely unites itself with.
But
it does not follow that this distinction between the principle of happiness
and that of morality is an opposition between them, and pure practical reason
does not require that we should renounce all claim to happiness, but only that
the moment duty is in question we should take no account of happiness. It may
even in certain respects be a duty to provide for happiness; partly, because
(including skill, wealth, riches) it contains means for the fulfilment of our
duty; partly, because the absence of it (e.g., poverty) implies temptations to
transgress our duty. But it can never be an immediate duty to promote our
happiness, still less can it be the principle of all duty. Now, as all
determining principles of the will, except the law of pure practical reason
alone (the moral law), are all empirical and, therefore, as such, belong to
the principle of happiness, they must all be kept apart from the supreme
principle of morality and never be incorporated with it as a condition; since
this would be to destroy all moral worth just as much as any empirical
admixture with geometrical principles would destroy the certainty of
mathematical evidence, which in Plato’s opinion is the most excellent thing
in mathematics, even surpassing their utility.
Instead,
however, of the deduction of the supreme principle of pure practical reason,
that is, the explanation of the possibility of such a knowledge a priori, the
utmost we were able to do was to show that if we saw the possibility of the
freedom of an efficient cause, we should also see not merely the possibility,
but even the necessity, of the moral law as the supreme practical law of
rational beings, to whom we attribute freedom of causality of their will;
because both concepts are so inseparably united that we might define practical
freedom as independence of the will on anything but the moral law. But we
cannot perceive the possibility of the freedom of an efficient cause,
especially in the world of sense; we are fortunate if only we can be
sufficiently assured that there is no proof of its impossibility, and are now,
by the moral law which postulates it, compelled and therefore authorized to
assume it. However, there are still many who think that they can explain this
freedom on empirical principles, like any other physical faculty, and treat it
as a psychological property, the explanation of which only requires a more
exact study of the nature of the soul and of the motives of the will, and not
as a transcendental predicate of the causality of a being that belongs to the
world of sense (which is really the point). They thus deprive us of the grand
revelation which we obtain through practical reason by means of the moral law,
the revelation, namely, of a supersensible world by the realization of the
otherwise transcendent concept of freedom, and by this deprive us also of the
moral law itself, which admits no empirical principle of determination.
Therefore it will be necessary to add something here as a protection against
this delusion and to exhibit empiricism in its naked superficiality.
The
notion of causality as physical necessity, in opposition to the same notion as
freedom, concerns only the existence of things so far as it is determinable in
time, and, consequently, as phenomena, in opposition to their causality as
things in themselves. Now if we take the attributes of existence of things in
time for attributes of things in themselves (which is the common view), then
it is impossible to reconcile the necessity of the causal relation with
freedom; they are contradictory. For from the former it follows that every
event, and consequently every action that takes place at a certain point of
time, is a necessary result of what existed in time preceding. Now as time
past is no longer in my power, hence every action that I perform must be the
necessary result of certain determining grounds which are not in my power,
that is, at the moment in which I am acting I am never free. Nay, even if I
assume that my whole existence is independent on any foreign cause (for
instance, God), so that the determining principles of my causality, and even
of my whole existence, were not outside myself, yet this would not in the
least transform that physical necessity into freedom. For at every moment of
time I am still under the necessity of being determined to action by that
which is not in my power, and the series of events infinite a parte priori,
which I only continue according to a pre-determined order and could never
begin of myself, would be a continuous physical chain, and therefore my
causality would never be freedom.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 45}
If,
then, we would attribute freedom to a being whose existence is determined in
time, we cannot except him from the law of necessity as to all events in his
existence and, consequently, as to his actions also; for that would be to hand
him over to blind chance. Now as this law inevitably applies to all the
causality of things, so far as their existence is determinable in time, it
follows that if this were the mode in which we had also to conceive the
existence of these things in themselves, freedom must be rejected as a vain
and impossible conception. Consequently, if we would still save it, no other
way remains but to consider that the existence of a thing, so far as it is
determinable in time, and therefore its causality, according to the law of
physical necessity, belong to appearance, and to attribute freedom to the same
being as a thing in itself. This
is certainly inevitable, if we would retain both these contradictory concepts
together; but in application, when we try to explain their combination in one
and the same action, great difficulties present themselves which seem to
render such a combination impracticable.
When
I say of a man who commits a theft that, by the law of causality, this deed is
a necessary result of the determining causes in preceding time, then it was
impossible that it could not have happened; how then can the judgement,
according to the moral law, make any change, and suppose that it could have
been omitted, because the law says that it ought to have been omitted; that
is, how can a man be called quite free at the same moment, and with respect to
the same action in which he is subject to an inevitable physical necessity?
Some try to evade this by saying that the causes that determine his
causality are of such a kind as to agree with a comparative notion of freedom.
According to this, that is sometimes called a free effect, the determining
physical cause of which lies within the acting thing itself, e.g., that which
a projectile performs when it is in free motion, in which case we use the word
freedom, because while it is in flight it is not urged by anything external;
or as we call the motion of a clock a free motion, because it moves its hands
itself, which therefore do not require to be pushed by external force; so
although the actions of man are necessarily determined by causes which precede
in time, we yet call them free, because these causes are ideas produced by our
own faculties, whereby desires are evoked on occasion of circumstances, and
hence actions are wrought according to our own pleasure. This is a wretched
subterfuge with which some persons still let themselves be put off, and so
think they have solved, with a petty word- jugglery, that difficult problem,
at the solution of which centuries have laboured in vain, and which can
therefore scarcely be found so completely on the surface. In fact, in the
question about the freedom which must be the foundation of all moral laws and
the consequent responsibility, it does not matter whether the principles which
necessarily determine causality by a physical law reside within the subject or
without him, or in the former case whether these principles are instinctive or
are conceived by reason, if, as is admitted by these men themselves, these
determining ideas have the ground of their existence in time and in the
antecedent state, and this again in an antecedent, etc. Then it matters not
that these are internal; it matters not that they have a psychological and not
a mechanical causality, that is, produce actions by means of ideas and not by
bodily movements; they are still determining principles of the causality of a
being whose existence is determinable in time, and therefore under the
necessitation of conditions of past time, which therefore, when the subject
has to act, are no longer in his power. This may imply psychological freedom
(if we choose to apply this term to a merely internal chain of ideas in the
mind), but it involves physical necessity and, therefore, leaves no room for
transcendental freedom, which must be conceived as independence on everything
empirical, and, consequently, on nature generally, whether it is an object of
the internal sense considered in time only, or of the external in time and
space. Without this freedom (in the latter and true sense), which alone is
practical a priori, no moral law and no moral imputation are possible. just
for this reason the necessity of events in time, according to the physical law
of causality, may be called the mechanism of nature, although we do not mean
by this that things which are subject to it must be really material machines.
We look here only to the necessity of the connection of events in a
time-series as it is developed according to the physical law, whether the
subject in which this development takes place is called automaton materiale
when the mechanical being is moved by matter, or with Leibnitz spirituale when
it is impelled by ideas; and if the freedom of our will were no other than the
latter (say the psychological and comparative, not also transcendental, that
is, absolute), then it would at bottom be nothing better than the freedom of a
turnspit, which, when once it is wound up, accomplishes its motions of itself.
Now,
in order to remove in the supposed case the apparent contradiction between
freedom and the mechanism of nature in one and the same action, we must
remember what was said in the Critique of Pure Reason, or what follows
therefrom; viz., that the necessity of nature, which cannot co-exist with the
freedom of the subject, appertains only to the attributes of the thing that is
subject to time-conditions, consequently only to those of the acting subject
as a phenomenon; that therefore in this respect the determining principles of
every action of the same reside in what belongs to past time and is no longer
in his power (in which must be included his own past actions and the character
that these may determine for him in his own eyes as a phenomenon). But the
very same subject, being on the other side conscious of himself as a thing in
himself, considers his existence also in so far as it is not subject to
time-conditions, and regards himself as only determinable by laws which he
gives himself through reason; and in this his existence nothing is antecedent
to the determination of his will, but every action, and in general every
modification of his existence, varying according to his internal sense, even
the whole series of his existence as a sensible being is in the consciousness
of his supersensible existence nothing but the result, and never to be
regarded as the determining principle, of his causality as a noumenon. In this
view now the rational being can justly say of every unlawful action that he
performs, that he could very well have left it undone; although as appearance
it is sufficiently determined in the past, and in this respect is absolutely
necessary; for it, with all the past which determines it, belongs to the one
single phenomenon of his character which he makes for himself, in consequence
of which he imputes the causality of those appearances to himself as a cause
independent of sensibility.
With
this agree perfectly the judicial sentences of that wonderful faculty in us
which we call conscience. A man may use as much art as he likes in order to
paint to himself an unlawful act, that he remembers, as an unintentional
error, a mere oversight, such as one can never altogether avoid, and therefore
as something in which he was carried away by the stream of physical necessity,
and thus to make himself out innocent, yet he finds that the advocate who
speaks in his favour can by no means silence the accuser within, if only he is
conscious that at the time when he did this wrong he was in his senses, that
is, in possession of his freedom; and, nevertheless, he accounts for his error
from some bad habits, which by gradual neglect of attention he has allowed to
grow upon him to such a degree that he can regard his error as its natural
consequence, although this cannot protect him from the blame and reproach
which he casts upon himself. This is also the ground of repentance for a long
past action at every recollection of it; a painful feeling produced by the
moral sentiment, and which is practically void in so far as it cannot serve to
undo what has been done. (Hence Priestley, as a true and consistent fatalist,
declares it absurd, and he deserves to be commended for this candour more than
those who, while they maintain the mechanism of the will in fact, and its
freedom in words only, yet wish it to be thought that they include it in their
system of compromise, although they do not explain the possibility of such
moral imputation.) But the pain is quite legitimate, because when the law of
our intelligible [supersensible] existence (the moral law) is in question,
reason recognizes no distinction of time, and only asks whether the event
belongs to me, as my act, and then always morally connects the same feeling
with it, whether it has happened just now or long ago. For in reference to the
supersensible consciousness of its existence (i.e., freedom) the life of sense
is but a single phenomenon, which, inasmuch as it contains merely
manifestations of the mental disposition with regard to the moral law (i.e.,
of the character), must be judged not according to the physical necessity that
belongs to it as phenomenon, but according to the absolute spontaneity of
freedom. It may therefore be admitted that, if it were possible to have so
profound an insight into a man’s mental character as shown by internal as
well as external actions as to know all its motives, even the smallest, and
likewise all the external occasions that can influence them, we could
calculate a man’s conduct for the future with as great certainty as a lunar
or solar eclipse; and nevertheless we may maintain that the man is free. In
fact, if we were capable of a further glance, namely, an intellectual
intuition of the same subject (which indeed is not granted to us, and instead
of it we have only the rational concept), then we should perceive that this
whole chain of appearances in regard to all that concerns the moral laws
depends on the spontaneity of the subject as a thing in itself, of the
determination of which no physical explanation can be given. In default of
this intuition, the moral law assures us of this distinction between the
relation of our actions as appearance to our sensible nature, and the relation
of this sensible nature to the supersensible substratum in us. In this view,
which is natural to our reason, though inexplicable, we can also justify some
judgements which we passed with all conscientiousness, and which yet at first
sight seem quite opposed to all equity. There are cases in which men, even
with the same education which has been profitable to others, yet show such
early depravity, and so continue to progress in it to years of manhood, that
they are thought to be born villains, and their character altogether incapable
of improvement; and nevertheless they are judged for what they do or leave
undone, they are reproached for their faults as guilty; nay, they themselves
(the children) regard these reproaches as well founded, exactly as if in spite
of the hopeless natural quality of mind ascribed to them, they remained just
as responsible as any other man. This could not happen if we did not suppose
that whatever springs from a man’s choice (as every action intentionally
performed undoubtedly does) has as its foundation a free causality, which from
early youth expresses its character in its manifestations (i.e., actions).
These, on account of the uniformity of conduct, exhibit a natural connection,
which however does not make the vicious quality of the will necessary, but on
the contrary, is the consequence of the evil principles voluntarily adopted
and unchangeable, which only make it so much the more culpable and deserving
of punishment. There still remains a difficulty in the combination of freedom
with the mechanism of nature in a being belonging to the world of sense; a
difficulty which, even after all the foregoing is admitted, threatens freedom
with complete destruction. But with this danger there is also a circumstance
that offers hope of an issue still favourable to freedom; namely, that the
same difficulty presses much more strongly (in fact as we shall presently see,
presses only) on the system that holds the existence determinable in time and
space to be the existence of things in themselves; it does not therefore
oblige us to give up our capital supposition of the ideality of time as a mere
form of sensible intuition, and consequently as a mere manner of
representation which is proper to the subject as belonging to the world of
sense; and therefore it only requires that this view be reconciled with this
idea.
The
difficulty is as follows: Even if it is admitted that the supersensible
subject can be free with respect to a given action, although, as a subject
also belonging to the world of sense, he is under mechanical conditions with
respect to the same action, still, as soon as we allow that God as universal
first cause is also the cause of the existence of substance (a proposition
which can never be given up without at the same time giving up the notion of
God as the Being of all beings, and therewith giving up his all sufficiency,
on which everything in theology depends), it seems as if we must admit that a
man’s actions have their determining principle in something which is wholly
out of his power- namely, in the causality of a Supreme Being distinct from
himself and on whom his own existence and the whole determination of his
causality are absolutely dependent. In
point of fact, if a man’s actions as belonging to his modifications in time
were not merely modifications of him as appearance, but as a thing in itself,
freedom could not be saved. Man would be a marionette or an automaton, like
Vaucanson’s, prepared and wound up by the Supreme Artist. Self-consciousness
would indeed make him a thinking automaton; but the consciousness of his own
spontaneity would be mere delusion if this were mistaken for freedom, and it
would deserve this name only in a comparative sense, since, although the
proximate determining causes of its motion and a long series of their
determining causes are internal, yet the last and highest is found in a
foreign hand. Therefore I do not see how those who still insist on regarding
time and space as attributes belonging to the existence of things in
themselves, can avoid admitting the fatality of actions; or if (like the
otherwise acute Mendelssohn) they allow them to be conditions necessarily
belonging to the existence of finite and derived beings, but not to that of
the infinite Supreme Being, I do not see on what ground they can justify such
a distinction, or, indeed, how they can avoid the contradiction that meets
them, when they hold that existence in time is an attribute necessarily
belonging to finite things in themselves, whereas God is the cause of this
existence, but cannot be the cause of time (or space) itself (since this must
be presupposed as a necessary a priori condition of the existence of things);
and consequently as regards the existence of these things. His causality must
be subject to conditions and even to the condition of time; and this would
inevitably bring in everything contradictory to the notions of His infinity
and independence. On the other hand, it is quite easy for us to draw the
distinction between the attribute of the divine existence of being independent
on all time-conditions, and that of a being of the world of sense, the
distinction being that between the existence of a being in itself and that of
a thing in appearance. Hence, if this ideality of time and space is not
adopted, nothing remains but Spinozism, in which space and time are essential
attributes of the Supreme Being Himself, and the things dependent on Him
(ourselves, therefore, included) are not substances, but merely accidents
inhering in Him; since, if these things as His effects exist in time only,
this being the condition of their existence in themselves, then the actions of
these beings must be simply His actions which He performs in some place and
time. Thus, Spinozism, in spite of the absurdity of its fundamental idea,
argues more consistently than the creation theory can, when beings assumed to
be substances, and beings in themselves existing in time, are regarded as
effects of a Supreme Cause, and yet as not [belonging] to Him and His action,
but as separate substances.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3
^paragraph 50}
The
above-mentioned difficulty is resolved briefly and clearly as follows: If
existence in time is a mere sensible mode of representation belonging to
thinking beings in the world and consequently does not apply to them as things
in themselves, then the creation of these beings is a creation of things in
themselves, since the notion of creation does not belong to the sensible form
of representation of existence or to causality, but can only be referred to
noumena. Consequently, when I say of beings in the world of sense that they
are created, I so far regard them as noumena. As it would be a contradiction,
therefore, to say that God is a creator of appearances, so also it is a
contradiction to say that as creator He is the cause of actions in the world
of sense, and therefore as appearances, although He is the cause of the
existence of the acting beings (which are noumena). If now it is possible to
affirm freedom in spite of the natural mechanism of actions as appearances (by
regarding existence in time as something that belongs only to appearances, not
to things in themselves), then the circumstance that the acting beings are
creatures cannot make the slightest difference, since creation concerns their
supersensible and not their sensible existence, and, therefore, cannot be
regarded as the determining principle of the appearances. It would be quite
different if the beings in the world as things in themselves existed in time,
since in that case the creator of substance would be at the same time the
author of the whole mechanism of this substance.
Of
so great importance is the separation of time (as well as space) from the
existence of things in themselves which was effected in the Critique of the
Pure Speculative Reason.
It
may be said that the solution here proposed involves great difficulty in
itself and is scarcely susceptible of a lucid exposition. But is any other
solution that has been attempted, or that may be attempted, easier and more
intelligible? Rather might we say that the dogmatic teachers of metaphysics
have shown more shrewdness than candour in keeping this difficult point out of
sight as much as possible, in the hope that if they said nothing about it,
probably no one would think of it. If science is to be advanced, all
difficulties must be laid open, and we must even search for those that are
hidden, for every difficulty calls forth a remedy, which cannot be discovered
without science gaining either in extent or in exactness; and thus even
obstacles become means of increasing the thoroughness of science. On the other
hand, if the difficulties are intentionally concealed, or merely removed by
palliatives, then sooner or later they burst out into incurable mischiefs,
which bring science to ruin in an absolute scepticism.
Since
it is, properly speaking, the notion of freedom alone amongst all the ideas of
pure speculative reason that so greatly enlarges our knowledge in the sphere
of the supersensible, though only of our practical knowledge, I ask myself why
it exclusively possesses so great fertility, whereas the others only designate
the vacant space for possible beings of the pure understanding, but are unable
by any means to define the concept of them. I presently find that as I cannot
think anything without a category, I must first look for a category for the
rational idea of freedom with which I am now concerned; and this is the
category of causality; and although freedom, a concept of the reason, being a
transcendent concept, cannot have any intuition corresponding to it, yet the
concept of the understanding- for the synthesis of which the former demands
the unconditioned- (namely, the concept of causality) must have a sensible
intuition given, by which first its objective reality is assured. Now, the
categories are all divided into two classes- the mathematical, which concern
the unity of synthesis in the conception of objects, and the dynamical, which
refer to the unity of synthesis in the conception of the existence of objects.
The former (those of magnitude and quality) always contain a synthesis of the
homogeneous, and it is not possible to find in this the unconditioned
antecedent to what is given in sensible intuition as conditioned in space and
time, as this would itself have to belong to space and time, and therefore be
again still conditioned. Whence it resulted in the Dialectic of Pure Theoretic
Reason that the opposite methods of attaining the unconditioned and the
totality of the conditions were both wrong.
The categories of the second class (those of causality and of the
necessity of a thing) did not require this homogeneity (of the conditioned and
the condition in synthesis), since here what we have to explain is not how the
intuition is compounded from a manifold in it, but only how the existence of
the conditioned object corresponding to it is added to the existence of the
condition (added, namely, in the understanding as connected therewith); and in
that case it was allowable to suppose in the supersensible world the
unconditioned antecedent to the altogether conditioned in the world of sense
(both as regards the causal connection and the contingent existence of things
themselves), although this unconditioned remained indeterminate, and to make
the synthesis transcendent. Hence, it was found in the Dialectic of the Pure
Speculative Reason that the two apparently opposite methods of obtaining for
the conditioned the unconditioned were not really contradictory, e.g., in the
synthesis of causality to conceive for the conditioned in the series of causes
and effects of the sensible world, a causality which has no sensible
condition, and that the same action which, as belonging to the world of sense,
is always sensibly conditioned, that is, mechanically necessary, yet at the
same time may be derived from a causality not sensibly conditioned- being the
causality of the acting being as belonging to the supersensible world- and may
consequently be conceived as free. Now, the only point in question was to
change this may be into is; that is, that we should be able to show in an
actual case, as it were by a fact, that certain actions imply such a causality
(namely, the intellectual, sensibly unconditioned), whether they are actual or
only commanded, that is, objectively necessary in a practical sense. We could
not hope to find this connections in actions actually given in experience as
events of the sensible world, since causality with freedom must always be
sought outside the world of sense in the world of intelligence. But things of
sense of sense in the world of intelligence. But things of sense are the only
things offered to our perception and observation. Hence, nothing remained but
to find an incontestable objective principle of causality which excludes all
sensible conditions: that is, a principle in which reason does not appeal
further to something else as a determining ground of its causality, but
contains this determining ground itself by means of that principle, and in
which therefore it is itself as pure reason practical. Now, this principle had
not to be searched for or discovered; it had long been in the reason of all
men, and incorporated in their nature, and is the principle of morality.
Therefore, that unconditioned causality, with the faculty of it,
namely, freedom, is no longer merely indefinitely and problematically thought
(this speculative reason could prove to be feasible), but is even as regards
the law of its causality definitely and assertorially known; and with it the
fact that a being (I myself), belonging to the world of sense, belongs also to
the supersensible world, this is also positively known, and thus the reality
of the supersensible world is established and in practical respects definitely
given, and this definiteness, which for theoretical purposes would be
transcendent, is for practical purposes immanent. We could not, however, make
a similar step as regards the second dynamical idea, namely, that of a
necessary being. We could not rise to it from the sensible world without the
aid of the first dynamical idea. For if we attempted to do so, we should have
ventured to leave at a bound all that is given to us, and to leap to that of
which nothing is given us that can help us to effect the connection of such a
supersensible being with the world of sense (since the necessary being would
have to be known as given outside ourselves). On the other hand, it is now
obvious that this connection is quite possible in relation to our own subject,
inasmuch as I know myself to be on the one side as an intelligible
[supersensible] being determined by the moral law (by means of freedom), and
on the other side as acting in the world of sense. It is the concept of
freedom alone that enables us to find the unconditioned and intelligible for
the conditioned and sensible without going out of ourselves. For it is our own
reason that by means of the supreme and unconditional practical law knows that
itself and the being that is conscious of this law (our own person) belong to
the pure world of understanding, and moreover defines the manner in which, as
such, it can be active. In this way it can be understood why in the whole
faculty of reason it is the practical reason only that can help us to pass
beyond the world of sense and give us knowledge of a supersensible order and
connection, which, however, for this very reason cannot be extended further
than is necessary for pure practical purposes.
Let
me be permitted on this occasion to make one more remark, namely, that every
step that we make with pure reason, even in the practical sphere where no
attention is paid to subtle speculation, nevertheless accords with all the
material points of the Critique of the Theoretical Reason as closely and
directly as if each step had been thought out with deliberate purpose to
establish this confirmation. Such a thorough agreement, wholly unsought for
and quite obvious (as anyone can convince himself, if he will only carry moral
inquiries up to their principles), between the most important proposition of
practical reason and the often seemingly too subtle and needless remarks of
the Critique of the Speculative Reason, occasions surprise and astonishment,
and confirms the maxim already recognized and praised by others, namely, that
in every scientific inquiry we should pursue our way steadily with all
possible exactness and frankness, without caring for any objections that may
be raised from outside its sphere, but, as far as we can, to carry out our
inquiry truthfully and completely by itself. Frequent observation has
convinced me that, when such researches are concluded, that which in one part
of them appeared to me very questionable, considered in relation to other
extraneous doctrines, when I left this doubtfulness out of sight for a time
and only attended to the business in hand until it was completed, at last was
unexpectedly found to agree perfectly with what had been discovered separately
without the least regard to those doctrines, and without any partiality or
prejudice for them. Authors would save themselves many errors and much labour
lost (because spent on a delusion) if they could only resolve to go to work
with more frankness.
BOOK
II. Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason.
CHAPTER
I. Of a Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason Generally.
Pure
reason always has its dialetic, whether it is considered in its speculative or
its practical employment; for it requires the absolute totality of the ‘conditions
of what is given conditioned, and this can only be found in things in
themselves. But as all conceptions of things in themselves must be referred to
intuitions, and with us men these can never be other than sensible and hence
can never enable us to know objects as things in themselves but only as
appearances, and since the unconditioned can never be found in this chain of
appearances which consists only of conditioned and conditions; thus from
applying this rational idea of the totality of the conditions (in other words
of the unconditioned) to appearances, there arises an inevitable illusion, as
if these latter were things in themselves (for in the absence of a warning
critique they are always regarded as such). This illusion would never be
noticed as delusive if it did not betray itself by a conflict of reason with
itself, when it applies to appearances its fundamental principle of
presupposing the unconditioned to everything conditioned. By this, however,
reason is compelled to trace this illusion to its source, and search how it
can be removed, and this can only be done by a complete critical examination
of the whole pure faculty of reason; so that the antinomy of the pure reason
which is manifest in its dialectic is in fact the most beneficial error into
which human reason could ever have fallen, since it at last drives us to
search for the key to escape from this labyrinth; and when this key is found,
it further discovers that which we did not seek but yet had need of, namely, a
view into a higher and an immutable order of things, in which we even now are,
and in which we are thereby enabled by definite precepts to continue to live
according to the highest dictates of reason.
It
may be seen in detail in the Critique of Pure Reason how in its speculative
employment this natural dialectic is to be solved, and how the error which
arises from a very natural illusion may be guarded against. But reason in its
practical use is not a whit better off. As
pure practical reason, it likewise seeks to find the unconditioned for the
practically conditioned (which rests on inclinations and natural wants), and
this is not as the determining principle of the will, but even when this is
given (in the moral law) it seeks the unconditioned totality of the object of
pure practical reason under the name of the summum bonum.
To
define this idea practically, i.e., sufficiently for the maxims of our
rational conduct, is the business of practical wisdom, and this again as a
science is philosophy, in the sense in which the word was understood by the
ancients, with whom it meant instruction in the conception in which the summum
bonum was to be placed, and the conduct by which it was to be obtained. It
would be well to leave this word in its ancient signification as a doctrine of
the summum bonum, so far as reason endeavours to make this into a science. For
on the one band the restriction annexed would suit the Greek expression (which
signifies the love of wisdom), and yet at the same time would be sufficient to
embrace under the name of philosophy the love of science: that is to say, of
all speculative rational knowledge, so far as it is serviceable to reason,
both for that conception and also for the practical principle determining our
conduct, without letting out of sight the main end, on account of which alone
it can be called a doctrine of practical wisdom. On the other hand, it would
be no harm to deter the self-conceit of one who ventures to claim the title of
philosopher by holding before him in the very definition a standard of
self-estimation which would very much lower his pretensions. For a teacher of
wisdom would mean something more than a scholar who has not come so far as to
guide himself, much less to guide others, with certain expectation of
attaining so high an end: it would mean a master in the knowledge of wisdom,
which implies more than a modest man would claim for himself. Thus philosophy
as well as wisdom would always remain an ideal, which objectively is presented
complete in reason alone, while subjectively for the person it is only the
goal of his unceasing endeavours; and no one would be justified in professing
to be in possession of it so as to assume the name of philosopher who could
not also show its infallible effects in his own person as an example (in his
self-mastery and the unquestioned interest that he takes pre-eminently in the
general good), and this the ancients also required as a condition of deserving
that honourable title.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_1
^paragraph 5}
We
have another preliminary remark to make respecting the dialectic of the pure
practical reason, on the point of the definition of the summum bonum (a
successful solution of which dialectic would lead us to expect, as in case of
that of the theoretical reason, the most beneficial effects, inasmuch as the
self-contradictions of pure practical reason honestly stated, and not
concealed, force us to undertake a complete critique of this faculty).
The
moral law is the sole determining principle of a pure will.
But since this is merely formal (viz., as prescribing only the form of
the maxim as universally legislative), it abstracts as a determining principle
from all matter that is to say, from every object of volition. Hence, though
the summum bonum may be the whole object of a pure practical reason, i.e., a
pure will, yet it is not on that account to be regarded as its determining
principle; and the moral law alone must be regarded as the principle on which
that and its realization or promotion are aimed at. This remark is important
in so delicate a case as the determination of moral principles, where the
slightest misinterpretation perverts men’s minds. For it will have been seen
from the Analytic that, if we assume any object under the name of a good as a
determining principle of the will prior to the moral law and then deduce from
it the supreme practical principle, this would always introduce heteronomy and
crush out the moral principle.
It
is, however, evident that if the notion of the summum bonum includes that of
the moral law as its supreme condition, then the summum bonum would not merely
be an object, but the notion of it and the conception of its existence as
possible by our own practical reason would likewise be the determining
principle of the will, since in that case the will is in fact determined by
the moral law which is already included in this conception, and by no other
object, as the principle of autonomy requires. This order of the conceptions
of determination of the will must not be lost sight of, as otherwise we should
misunderstand ourselves and think we had fallen into a contradiction, while
everything remains in perfect harmony.
Conception
of the “Summum Bonum”.
The
conception of the summum itself contains an ambiguity which might occasion
needless disputes if we did not attend to it. The summum may mean either the
supreme (supremum) or the perfect (consummatum). The former is that condition
which is itself unconditioned, i.e., is not subordinate to any other
(originarium); the second is that whole which is not a part of a greater whole
of the same kind (perfectissimum). It has been shown in the Analytic that
virtue (as worthiness to be happy) is the supreme condition of all that can
appear to us desirable, and consequently of all our pursuit of happiness, and
is therefore the supreme good. But it does not follow that it is the whole and
perfect good as the object of the desires of rational finite beings; for this
requires happiness also, and that not merely in the partial eyes of the person
who makes himself an end, but even in the judgement of an impartial reason,
which regards persons in general as ends in themselves. For to need happiness,
to deserve it, and yet at the same time not to participate in it, cannot be
consistent with the perfect volition of a rational being possessed at the same
time of all power, if, for the sake of experiment, we conceive such a being.
Now inasmuch as virtue and happiness together constitute the possession of the
summum bonum in a person, and the distribution of happiness in exact
proportion to morality (which is the worth of the person, and his worthiness
to be happy) constitutes the summum bonum of a possible world; hence this
summum bonum expresses the whole, the perfect good, in which, however, virtue
as the condition is always the supreme good, since it has no condition above
it; whereas happiness, while it is pleasant to the possessor of it, is not of
itself absolutely and in all respects good, but always presupposes morally
right behaviour as its condition.
When
two elements are necessarily united in one concept, they must be connected as
reason and consequence, and this either so that their unity is considered as
analytical (logical connection), or as synthetical (real connection) the
former following the law of identity, the latter that of causality. The
connection of virtue and happiness may therefore be understood in two ways:
either the endeavour to be virtuous and the rational pursuit of happiness are
not two distinct actions, but absolutely identical, in which case no maxim
need be made the principle of the former, other than what serves for the
latter; or the connection consists in this, that virtue produces happiness as
something distinct from the consciousness of virtue, as a cause produces an
effect.
The
ancient Greek schools were, properly speaking, only two, and in determining
the conception of the summum bonum these followed in fact one and the same
method, inasmuch as they did not allow virtue and happiness to be regarded as
two distinct elements of the summum bonum, and consequently sought the unity
of the principle by the rule of identity; but they differed as to which of the
two was to be taken as the fundamental notion. The Epicurean said: “To be
conscious that one’s maxims lead to happiness is virtue”; the Stoic said:
“To be conscious of one’s virtue is happiness.” With the former,
Prudence was equivalent to morality; with the latter, who chose a higher
designation for virtue, morality alone was true wisdom.
While
we must admire the men who in such early times tried all imaginable ways of
extending the domain of philosophy, we must at the same time lament that their
acuteness was unfortunately misapplied in trying to trace out identity between
two extremely heterogeneous notions, those of happiness and virtue. But it
agrees with the dialectical spirit of their times (and subtle minds are even
now sometimes misled in the same way) to get rid of irreconcilable differences
in principle by seeking to change them into a mere contest about words, and
thus apparently working out the identity of the notion under different names,
and this usually occurs in cases where the combination of heterogeneous
principles lies so deep or so high, or would require so complete a
transformation of the doctrines assumed in the rest of the philosophical
system, that men are afraid to penetrate deeply into the real difference and
prefer treating it as a difference in questions of form.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 5}
While
both schools sought to trace out the identity of the practical principles of
virtue and happiness, they were not agreed as to the way in which they tried
to force this identity, but were separated infinitely from one another, the
one placing its principle on the side of sense, the other on that of reason;
the one in the consciousness of sensible wants, the other in the independence
of practical reason on all sensible grounds of determination. According to the
Epicurean, the notion of virtue was already involved in the maxim: “To
promote one’s own happiness”; according to the Stoics, on the other hand,
the feeling of happiness was already contained in the consciousness of virtue.
Now whatever is contained in another notion is identical with part of the
containing notion, but not with the whole, and moreover two wholes may be
specifically distinct, although they consist of the same parts; namely if the
parts are united into a whole in totally different ways. The Stoic maintained
that the virtue was the whole summum bonum, and happiness only the
consciousness of possessing it, as making part of the state of the subject.
The Epicurean maintained that happiness was the whole summum bonum, and virtue
only the form of the maxim for its pursuit; viz., the rational use of the
means for attaining it.
Now
it is clear from the Analytic that the maxims of virtue and those of private
happiness are quite heterogeneous as to their supreme practical principle,
and, although they belong to one summum bonum which together they make
possible, yet they are so far from coinciding that they restrict and check one
another very much in the same subject. Thus the question: “How is the summum
bonum practically possible?” still remains an unsolved problem,
notwithstanding all the attempts at coalition that have hitherto been made.
The Analytic has, however, shown what it is that makes the problem difficult
to solve; namely, that happiness and morality are two specifically distinct
elements of the summum bonum and, therefore, their combination cannot be
analytically cognised (as if the man that seeks his own happiness should find
by mere analysis of his conception that in so acting he is virtuous, or as if
the man that follows virtue should in the consciousness of such conduct find
that he is already happy ipso facto), but must be a synthesis of concepts. Now
since this combination is recognised as a priori, and therefore as practically
necessary, and consequently not as derived from experience, so that the
possibility of the summum bonum does not rest on any empirical principle, it
follows that the deduction [legitimation] of this concept must be
transcendental. It is a priori (morally) necessary to produce the summum bonum
by freedom of will: therefore the condition of its possibility must rest
solely on a priori principles of cognition.
I.
The Antinomy of Practical Reason.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 10}
In
the summum bonum which is practical for us, i.e., to be realized by our will,
virtue and happiness are thought as necessarily combined, so that the one
cannot be assumed by pure practical reason without the other also being
attached to it. Now this combination (like every other) is either analytical
or synthetical. It has been shown that it cannot be analytical; it must then
be synthetical and, more particularly, must be conceived as the connection of
cause and effect, since it concerns a practical good, i.e., one that is
possible by means of action; consequently either the desire of happiness must
be the motive to maxims of virtue, or the maxim of virtue must be the
efficient cause of happiness. The first is absolutely impossible, because (as
was proved in the Analytic) maxims which place the determining principle of
the will in the desire of personal happiness are not moral at all, and no
virtue can be founded on them. But the second is also impossible, because the
practical connection of causes and effects in the world, as the result of the
determination of the will, does not depend upon the moral dispositions of the
will, but on the knowledge of the laws of nature and the physical power to use
them for one’s purposes; consequently we cannot expect in the world by the
most punctilious observance of the moral laws any necessary connection of
happiness with virtue adequate to the summum bonum. Now, as the promotion of
this summum bonum, the conception of which contains this connection, is a
priori a necessary object of our will and inseparably attached to the moral
law, the impossibility of the former must prove the falsity of the latter. If
then the supreme good is not possible by practical rules, then the moral law
also which commands us to promote it is directed to vain imaginary ends and
must consequently be false.
II.
Critical Solution of the Antinomy of Practical Reason.
The
antinomy of pure speculative reason exhibits a similar conflict between
freedom and physical necessity in the causality of events in the world. It was
solved by showing that there is no real contradiction when the events and even
the world in which they occur are regarded (as they ought to be) merely as
appearances; since one and the same acting being, as an appearance (even to
his own inner sense), has a causality in the world of sense that always
conforms to the mechanism of nature, but with respect to the same events, so
far as the acting person regards himself at the same time as a noumenon (as
pure intelligence in an existence not dependent on the condition of time), he
can contain a principle by which that causality acting according to laws of
nature is determined, but which is itself free from all laws of nature.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 15}
It
is just the same with the foregoing antinomy of pure practical reason. The
first of the two propositions, “That the endeavour after happiness produces
a virtuous mind,” is absolutely false; but the second, “That a virtuous
mind necessarily produces happiness,” is not absolutely false, but only in
so far as virtue is considered as a form of causality in the sensible world,
and consequently only if I suppose existence in it to be the only sort of
existence of a rational being; it is then only conditionally false. But as I
am not only justified in thinking that I exist also as a noumenon in a world
of the understanding, but even have in the moral law a purely intellectual
determining principle of my causality (in the sensible world), it is not
impossible that morality of mind should have a connection as cause with
happiness (as an effect in the sensible world) if not immediate yet mediate
(viz., through an intelligent author of nature), and moreover necessary; while
in a system of nature which is merely an object of the senses, this
combination could never occur except contingently and, therefore, could not
suffice for the summum bonum.
Thus,
notwithstanding this seeming conflict of practical reason with itself, the
summum bonum, which is the necessary supreme end of a will morally determined,
is a true object thereof; for it is practically possible, and the maxims of
the will which as regards their matter refer to it have objective reality,
which at first was threatened by the antinomy that appeared in the connection
of morality with happiness by a general law; but this was merely from a
misconception, because the relation between appearances was taken for a
relation of the things in themselves to these appearances.
When
we find ourselves obliged to go so far, namely, to the connection with an
intelligible world, to find the possibility of the summum bonum, which reason
points out to all rational beings as the goal of all their moral wishes, it
must seem strange that, nevertheless, the philosophers both of ancient and
modern times have been able to find happiness in accurate proportion to virtue
even in this life (in the sensible world), or have persuaded themselves that
they were conscious thereof. For Epicurus as well as the Stoics extolled above
everything the happiness that springs from the consciousness of living
virtuously; and the former was not so base in his practical precepts as one
might infer from the principles of his theory, which he used for explanation
and not for action, or as they were interpreted by many who were misled by his
using the term pleasure for contentment; on the contrary, he reckoned the most
disinterested practice of good amongst the ways of enjoying the most intimate
delight, and his scheme of pleasure (by which he meant constant cheerfulness
of mind) included the moderation and control of the inclinations, such as the
strictest moral philosopher might require. He differed from the Stoics chiefly
in making this pleasure the motive, which they very rightly refused to do.
For, on the one hand, the virtuous Epicurus, like many well-intentioned men of
this day who do not reflect deeply enough on their principles, fell into the
error of presupposing the virtuous disposition in the persons for whom he
wished to provide the springs to virtue (and indeed the upright man cannot be
happy if he is not first conscious of his uprightness; since with such a
character the reproach that his habit of thought would oblige him to make
against himself in case of transgression and his moral self-condemnation would
rob him of all enjoyment of the pleasantness which his condition might
otherwise contain). But the question is: How is such a disposition possible in
the first instance, and such a habit of thought in estimating the worth of one’s
existence, since prior to it there can be in the subject no feeling at all for
moral worth? If a man is virtuous without being conscious of his integrity in
every action, he will certainly not enjoy life, however favourable fortune may
be to him in its physical circumstances; but can we make him virtuous in the
first instance, in other words, before he esteems the moral worth of his
existence so highly, by praising to him the peace of mind that would result
from the consciousness of an integrity for which he has no sense?
On
the other hand, however, there is here an occasion of a vitium subreptionis,
and as it were of an optical illusion, in the self-consciousness of what one
does as distinguished from what one feels- an illusion which even the most
experienced cannot altogether avoid. The moral disposition of mind is
necessarily combined with a consciousness that the will is determined directly
by the law. Now the consciousness of a determination of the faculty of desire
is always the source of a satisfaction in the resulting action; but this
pleasure, this satisfaction in oneself, is not the determining principle of
the action; on the contrary, the determination of the will directly by reason
is the source of the feeling of pleasure, and this remains a pure practical
not sensible determination of the faculty of desire. Now as this determination
has exactly the same effect within in impelling to activity, that a feeling of
the pleasure to be expected from the desired action would have had, we easily
look on what we ourselves do as something which we merely passively feel, and
take the moral spring for a sensible impulse, just as it happens in the
so-called illusion of the senses (in this case the inner sense). It is a
sublime thing in human nature to be determined to actions immediately by a
purely rational law; sublime even is the illusion that regards the subjective
side of this capacity of intellectual determination as something sensible and
the effect of a special sensible feeling (for an intellectual feeling would be
a contradiction). It is also of great importance to attend to this property of
our personality and as much as possible to cultivate the effect of reason on
this feeling. But we must beware lest by falsely extolling this moral
determining principle as a spring, making its source lie in particular
feelings of pleasure (which are in fact only results), we degrade and
disfigure the true genuine spring, the law itself, by putting as it were a
false foil upon it. Respect, not pleasure or enjoyment of happiness, is
something for which it is not possible that reason should have any antecedent
feeling as its foundation (for this would always be sensible and
pathological); and consciousness of immediate obligation of the will by the
law is by no means analogous to the feeling of pleasure, although in relation
to the faculty of desire it produces the same effect, but from different
sources: it is only by this mode of conception, however, that we can attain
what we are seeking, namely, that actions be done not merely in accordance
with duty (as a result of pleasant feelings), but from duty, which must be the
true end of all moral cultivation.
Have
we not, however, a word which does not express enjoyment, as happiness does,
but indicates a satisfaction in one’s existence, an analogue of the
happiness which must necessarily accompany the consciousness of virtue? Yes
this word is self-contentment which in its proper signification always
designates only a negative satisfaction in one’s existence, in which one is
conscious of needing nothing. Freedom and the consciousness of it as a faculty
of following the moral law with unyielding resolution is independence of
inclinations, at least as motives determining (though not as affecting) our
desire, and so far as I am conscious of this freedom in following my moral
maxims, it is the only source of an unaltered contentment which is necessarily
connected with it and rests on no special feeling. This may be called
intellectual contentment. The sensible contentment (improperly so-called)
which rests on the satisfaction of the inclinations, however delicate they may
be imagined to be, can never be adequate to the conception of it. For the
inclinations change, they grow with the indulgence shown them, and always
leave behind a still greater void than we had thought to fill. Hence they are
always burdensome to a rational being, and, although he cannot lay them aside,
they wrest from him the wish to be rid of them. Even an inclination to what is
right (e.g., to beneficence), though it may much facilitate the efficacy of
the moral maxims, cannot produce any. For in these all must be directed to the
conception of the law as a determining principle, if the action is to contain
morality and not merely legality. Inclination is blind and slavish, whether it
be of a good sort or not, and, when morality is in question, reason must not
play the part merely of guardian to inclination, but disregarding it
altogether must attend simply to its own interest as pure practical reason.
This very feeling of compassion and tender sympathy, if it precedes the
deliberation on the question of duty and becomes a determining principle, is
even annoying to right thinking persons, brings their deliberate maxims into
confusion, and makes them wish to be delivered from it and to be subject to
lawgiving reason alone.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 20}
From
this we can understand how the consciousness of this faculty of a pure
practical reason produces by action (virtue) a consciousness of mastery over
one’s inclinations, and therefore of independence of them, and consequently
also of the discontent that always accompanies them, and thus a negative
satisfaction with one’s state, i.e., contentment, which is primarily
contentment with one’s own person. Freedom itself becomes in this way
(namely, indirectly) capable of an enjoyment which cannot be called happiness,
because it does not depend on the positive concurrence of a feeling, nor is
it, strictly speaking, bliss, since it does not include complete independence
of inclinations and wants, but it resembles bliss in so far as the
determination of one’s will at least can hold itself free from their
influence; and thus, at least in its origin, this enjoyment is analogous to
the self-sufficiency which we can ascribe only to the Supreme Being.
From
this solution of the antinomy of practical pure reason, it follows that in
practical principles we may at least conceive as possible a natural and
necessary connection between the consciousness of morality and the expectation
of a proportionate happiness as its result, though it does not follow that we
can know or perceive this connection; that, on the other hand, principles of
the pursuit of happiness cannot possibly produce morality; that, therefore,
morality is the supreme good (as the first condition of the summum bonum),
while happiness constitutes its second element, but only in such a way that it
is the morally conditioned, but necessary consequence of the former. Only with
this subordination is the summum bonum the whole object of pure practical
reason, which must necessarily conceive it as possible, since it commands us
to contribute to the utmost of our power to its realization. But since the
possibility of such connection of the conditioned with its condition belongs
wholly to the supersensual relation of things and cannot be given according to
the laws of the world of sense, although the practical consequences of the
idea belong to the world of sense, namely, the actions that aim at realizing
the summum bonum; we will therefore endeavour to set forth the grounds of that
possibility, first, in respect of what is immediately in our power, and then,
secondly, in that which is not in our power, but which reason presents to us
as the supplement of our impotence, for the realization of the summum bonum
(which by practical principles is necessary).
III.
Of the Primacy of Pure Practical Reason in its
Union
with the Speculative Reason.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 25}
By
primacy between two or more things connected by reason, I understand the
prerogative, belonging to one, of being the first determining principle in the
connection with all the rest. In a narrower practical sense it means the
prerogative of the interest of one in so far as the interest of the other is
subordinated to it, while it is not postponed to any other. To every faculty
of the mind we can attribute an interest, that is, a principle, that contains
the condition on which alone the former is called into exercise. Reason, as the faculty of principles, determines the interest
of all the powers of the mind and is determined by its own. The interest of
its speculative employment consists in the cognition of the object pushed to
the highest a priori principles: that of its practical employment, in the
determination of the will in respect of the final and complete end. As to what
is necessary for the possibility of any employment of reason at all, namely,
that its principles and affirmations should not contradict one another, this
constitutes no part of its interest, but is the condition of having reason at
all; it is only its development, not mere consistency with itself, that is
reckoned as its interest.
If
practical reason could not assume or think as given anything further than what
speculative reason of itself could offer it from its own insight, the latter
would have the primacy. But supposing that it had of itself original a priori
principles with which certain theoretical positions were inseparably
connected, while these were withdrawn from any possible insight of speculative
reason (which, however, they must not contradict); then the question is: Which
interest is the superior (not which must give way, for they are not
necessarily conflicting), whether speculative reason, which knows nothing of
all that the practical offers for its acceptance, should take up these
propositions and (although they transcend it) try to unite them with its own
concepts as a foreign possession handed over to it, or whether it is justified
in obstinately following its own separate interest and, according to the
canonic of Epicurus, rejecting as vain subtlety everything that cannot
accredit its objective reality by manifest examples to be shown in experience,
even though it should be never so much interwoven with the interest of the
practical (pure) use of reason, and in itself not contradictory to the
theoretical, merely because it infringes on the interest of the speculative
reason to this extent, that it removes the bounds which this latter had set to
itself, and gives it up to every nonsense or delusion of imagination?
In
fact, so far as practical reason is taken as dependent on pathological
conditions, that is, as merely regulating the inclinations under the sensible
principle of happiness, we could not require speculative reason to take its
principles from such a source. Mohammed’s paradise, or the absorption into
the Deity of the theosophists and mystics would press their monstrosities on
the reason according to the taste of each, and one might as well have no
reason as surrender it in such fashion to all sorts of dreams. But if pure
reason of itself can be practical and is actually so, as the consciousness of
the moral law proves, then it is still only one and the same reason which,
whether in a theoretical or a practical point of view, judges according to a
priori principles; and then it is clear that although it is in the first point
of view incompetent to establish certain propositions positively, which,
however, do not contradict it, then, as soon as these propositions are
inseparably attached to the practical interest of pure reason, it must accept
them, though it be as something offered to it from a foreign source, something
that has not grown on its own ground, but yet is sufficiently authenticated;
and it must try to compare and connect them with everything that it has in its
power as speculative reason. It
must remember, however, that these are not additions to its insight, but yet
are extensions of its employment in another, namely, a practical aspect; and
this is not in the least opposed to its interest, which consists in the
restriction of wild speculation.
Thus,
when pure speculative and pure practical reason are combined in one cognition,
the latter has the primacy, provided, namely, that this combination is not
contingent and arbitrary, but founded a priori on reason itself and therefore
necessary. For without this subordination there would arise a conflict of
reason with itself; since, if they were merely co-ordinate, the former would
close its boundaries strictly and admit nothing from the latter into its
domain, while the latter would extend its bounds over everything and when its
needs required would seek to embrace the former within them. Nor could we
reverse the order and require pure practical reason to be subordinate to the
speculative, since all interest is ultimately practical, and even that of
speculative reason is conditional, and it is only in the practical employment
of reason that it is complete.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 30}
IV.
The Immortality of the Soul as a Postulate of
Pure
Practical Reason.
The
realization of the summum bonum in the world is the necessary object of a will
determinable by the moral law. But in this will the perfect accordance of the
mind with the moral law is the supreme condition of the summum bonum. This
then must be possible, as well as its object, since it is contained in the
command to promote the latter. Now, the perfect accordance of the will with
the moral law is holiness, a perfection of which no rational being of the
sensible world is capable at any moment of his existence. Since, nevertheless,
it is required as practically necessary, it can only be found in a progress in
infinitum towards that perfect accordance, and on the principles of pure
practical reason it is necessary to assume such a practical progress as the
real object of our will.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 35}
Now,
this endless progress is only possible on the supposition of an endless
duration of the existence and personality of the same rational being (which is
called the immortality of the soul). The summum bonum, then, practically is
only possible on the supposition of the immortality of the soul; consequently
this immortality, being inseparably connected with the moral law, is a
postulate of pure practical reason (by which I mean a theoretical proposition,
not demonstrable as such, but which is an inseparable result of an
unconditional a priori practical law.
This
principle of the moral destination of our nature, namely, that it is only in
an endless progress that we can attain perfect accordance with the moral law,
is of the greatest use, not merely for the present purpose of supplementing
the impotence of speculative reason, but also with respect to religion. In
default of it, either the moral law is quite degraded from its holiness, being
made out to be indulgent and conformable to our convenience, or else men
strain their notions of their vocation and their expectation to an
unattainable goal, hoping to acquire complete holiness of will, and so they
lose themselves in fanatical theosophic dreams, which wholly contradict
self-knowledge. In both cases the unceasing effort to obey punctually and
thoroughly a strict and inflexible command of reason, which yet is not ideal
but real, is only hindered. For a rational but finite being, the only thing
possible is an endless progress from the lower to higher degrees of moral
perfection. The Infinite Being, to whom the condition of time is nothing, sees
in this to us endless succession a whole of accordance with the moral law; and
the holiness which his command inexorably requires, in order to be true to his
justice in the share which He assigns to each in the summum bonum, is to be
found in a single intellectual intuition of the whole existence of rational
beings. All that can be expected of the creature in respect of the hope of
this participation would be the consciousness of his tried character, by which
from the progress he has hitherto made from the worse to the morally better,
and the immutability of purpose which has thus become known to him, he may
hope for a further unbroken continuance of the same, however long his
existence may last, even beyond this life, * and thus he may hope, not indeed
here, nor in any imaginable point of his future existence, but only in the
endlessness of his duration (which God alone can survey) to be perfectly
adequate to his will (without indulgence or excuse, which do not harmonize
with justice).
·
It seems,
nevertheless, impossible for a creature to have the conviction of his
unwavering firmness of mind in the progress towards goodness. On this account
the Christian religion makes it come only from the same Spirit that works
sanctification, that is, this firm purpose, and with it the consciousness of
steadfastness in the moral progress. But naturally one who is conscious that
he has persevered through a long portion of his life up to the end in the
progress to the better, and this genuine moral motives, may well have the
comforting hope, though not the certainty, that even in an existence prolonged
beyond this life he will continue in these principles; and although he is
never justified here in his own eyes, nor can ever hope to be so in the
increased perfection of his nature, to which he looks forward, together with
an increase of duties, nevertheless in this progress which, though it is
directed to a goal infinitely remote, yet is in God’s sight regarded as
equivalent to possession, he may have a prospect of a blessed future; for this
is the word that reason employs to designate perfect well-being independent of
all contingent causes of the world, and which, like holiness, is an idea that
can be contained only in an endless progress and its totality, and
consequently is never fully attained by a creature.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 40}
V.
The Existence of God as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason.
In
the foregoing analysis the moral law led to a practical problem which is
prescribed by pure reason alone, without the aid of any sensible motives,
namely, that of the necessary completeness of the first and principle element
of the summum bonum, viz., morality; and, as this can be perfectly solved only
in eternity, to the postulate of immortality. The same law must also lead us
to affirm the possibility of the second element of the summum bonum, viz.,
happiness proportioned to that morality, and this on grounds as disinterested
as before, and solely from impartial reason; that is, it must lead to the
supposition of the existence of a cause adequate to this effect; in other
words, it must postulate the existence of God, as the necessary condition of
the possibility of the summum bonum (an object of the will which is
necessarily connected with the moral legislation of pure reason). We proceed
to exhibit this connection in a convincing manner.
Happiness
is the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything goes
according to his wish and will; it rests, therefore, on the harmony of
physical nature with his whole end and likewise with the essential determining
principle of his will. Now the moral law as a law of freedom commands by
determining principles, which ought to be quite independent of nature and of
its harmony with our faculty of desire (as springs). But the acting rational
being in the world is not the cause of the world and of nature itself. There
is not the least ground, therefore, in the moral law for a necessary
connection between morality and proportionate happiness in a being that
belongs to the world as part of it, and therefore dependent on it, and which
for that reason cannot by his will be a cause of this nature, nor by his own
power make it thoroughly harmonize, as far as his happiness is concerned, with
his practical principles. Nevertheless,
in the practical problem of pure reason, i.e., the necessary pursuit of the
summum bonum, such a connection is postulated as necessary: we ought to
endeavour to promote the summum bonum, which, therefore, must be possible.
Accordingly, the existence of a cause of all nature, distinct from nature
itself and containing the principle of this connection, namely, of the exact
harmony of happiness with morality, is also postulated. Now this supreme cause
must contain the principle of the harmony of nature, not merely with a law of
the will of rational beings, but with the conception of this law, in so far as
they make it the supreme determining principle of the will, and consequently
not merely with the form of morals, but with their morality as their motive,
that is, with their moral character. Therefore, the summum bonum is possible
in the world only on the supposition of a Supreme Being having a causality
corresponding to moral character. Now a being that is capable of acting on the
conception of laws is an intelligence (a rational being), and the causality of
such a being according to this conception of laws is his will; therefore the
supreme cause of nature, which must be presupposed as a condition of the
summum bonum is a being which is the cause of nature by intelligence and will,
consequently its author, that is God. It follows that the postulate of the
possibility of the highest derived good (the best world) is likewise the
postulate of the reality of a highest original good, that is to say, of the
existence of God. Now it was seen to be a duty for us to promote the summum
bonum; consequently it is not merely allowable, but it is a necessity
connected with duty as a requisite, that we should presuppose the possibility
of this summum bonum; and as this is possible only on condition of the
existence of God, it inseparably connects the supposition of this with duty;
that is, it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God.
It
must be remarked here that this moral necessity is subjective, that is, it is
a want, and not objective, that is, itself a duty, for there cannot be a duty
to suppose the existence of anything (since this concerns only the theoretical
employment of reason). Moreover, it is not meant by this that it is necessary
to suppose the existence of God as a basis of all obligation in general (for
this rests, as has been sufficiently proved, simply on the autonomy of reason
itself).
What
belongs to duty here is only the endeavour to realize and promote
the
summum bonum in the world, the possibility of which can
therefore
be postulated; and as our reason finds it not conceivable
except
on the supposition of a supreme intelligence, the admission
of
this existence is therefore connected with the consciousness of our
duty,
although the admission itself belongs to the domain of
speculative
reason. Considered in respect of this alone, as a
principle
of explanation, it may be called a hypothesis, but in
reference
to the intelligibility of an object given us by the moral
law
(the summum bonum), and consequently of a requirement for practical purposes,
it may be called faith, that is to say a pure rational faith, since pure
reason (both in its theoretical and practical use) is the sole source from
which it springs.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 45}
From
this deduction it is now intelligible why the Greek schools could never attain
the solution of their problem of the practical possibility of the summum
bonum, because they made the rule of the use which the will of man makes of
his freedom the sole and sufficient ground of this possibility, thinking that
they had no need for that purpose of the existence of God. No doubt they were
so far right that they established the principle of morals of itself
independently of this postulate, from the relation of reason only to the will,
and consequently made it the supreme practical condition of the summum bonum;
but it was not therefore the whole condition of its possibility. The
Epicureans had indeed assumed as the supreme principle of morality a wholly
false one, namely that of happiness, and had substituted for a law a maxim of
arbitrary choice according to every man’s inclination; they proceeded,
however, consistently enough in this, that they degraded their summum bonum
likewise, just in proportion to the meanness of their fundamental principle,
and looked for no greater happiness than can be attained by human prudence
(including temperance and moderation of the inclinations), and this as we know
would be scanty enough and would be very different according to circumstances;
not to mention the exceptions that their maxims must perpetually admit and
which make them incapable of being laws. The Stoics, on the contrary, had
chosen their supreme practical principle quite rightly, making virtue the
condition of the summum bonum; but when they represented the degree of virtue
required by its pure law as fully attainable in this life, they not only
strained the moral powers of the man whom they called the wise beyond all the
limits of his nature, and assumed a thing that contradicts all our knowledge
of men, but also and principally they would not allow the second element of
the summum bonum, namely, happiness, to be properly a special object of human
desire, but made their wise man, like a divinity in his consciousness of the
excellence of his person, wholly independent of nature (as regards his own
contentment); they exposed him indeed to the evils of life, but made him not
subject to them (at the same time representing him also as free from moral
evil). They thus, in fact, left out the second element of the summum bonum
namely, personal happiness, placing it solely in action and satisfaction with
one’s own personal worth, thus including it in the consciousness of being
morally minded, in which they Might have been sufficiently refuted by the
voice of their own nature.
The
doctrine of Christianity, * even if we do not yet consider it as a religious
doctrine, gives, touching this point, a conception of the summum bonum (the
kingdom of God), which alone satisfies the strictest demand of practical
reason. The moral law is holy (unyielding) and demands holiness of morals,
although all the moral perfection to which man can attain is still only
virtue, that is, a rightful disposition arising from respect for the law,
implying consciousness of a constant propensity to transgression, or at least
a want of purity, that is, a mixture of many spurious (not moral) motives of
obedience to the law, consequently a self-esteem combined with humility. In
respect, then, of the holiness which the Christian law requires, this leaves
the creature nothing but a progress in infinitum, but for that very reason it
justifies him in hoping for an endless duration of his existence. The worth of
a character perfectly accordant with the moral law is infinite, since the only
restriction on all possible happiness in the judgement of a wise and all
powerful distributor of it is the absence of conformity of rational beings to
their duty. But the moral law of itself does not promise any happiness, for
according to our conceptions of an order of nature in general, this is not
necessarily connected with obedience to the law. Now Christian morality
supplies this defect (of the second indispensable element of the summum bonum)
by representing the world in which rational beings devote themselves with all
their soul to the moral law, as a kingdom of God, in which nature and morality
are brought into a harmony foreign to each of itself, by a holy Author who
makes the derived summum bonum possible. Holiness of life is prescribed to
them as a rule even in this life, while the welfare proportioned to it,
namely, bliss, is represented as attainable only in an eternity; because the
former must always be the pattern of their conduct in every state, and
progress towards it is already possible and necessary in this life; while the
latter, under the name of happiness, cannot be attained at all in this world
(so far as our own power is concerned), and therefore is made simply an object
of hope. Nevertheless, the Christian principle of morality itself is not
theological (so as to be heteronomy), but is autonomy of pure practical
reason, since it does not make the knowledge of God and His will the
foundation of these laws, but only of the attainment of the summum bonum, on
condition of following these laws, and it does not even place the proper
spring of this obedience in the desired results, but solely in the conception
of duty, as that of which the faithful observance alone constitutes the
worthiness to obtain those happy consequences.
·
It is commonly
held that the Christian precept of morality has no advantage in respect of
purity over the moral conceptions of the Stoics; the distinction between them
is, however, very obvious. The Stoic system made the consciousness of strength
of mind the pivot on which all moral dispositions should turn; and although
its disciples spoke of duties and even defined them very well, yet they placed
the spring and proper determining principle of the will in an elevation of the
mind above the lower springs of the senses, which owe their power only to
weakness of mind. With them therefore, virtue was a sort of heroism in the
wise man raising himself above the animal nature of man, is sufficient for
Himself, and, while he prescribes duties to others, is himself raised above
them, and is not subject to any temptation to transgress the moral law. All
this, however, they could not have done if they had conceived this law in all
its purity and strictness, as the precept of the Gospel does. When I give the
name idea to a perfection to which nothing adequate can be given in
experience, it does not follow that the moral ideas are thing transcendent,
that is something of which we could not even determine the concept adequately,
or of which it is uncertain whether there is any object corresponding to it at
all, as is the case with the ideas of speculative reason; on the contrary,
being types of practical perfection, they serve as the indispensable rule of
conduct and likewise as the standard of comparison. Now if I consider
Christian morals on their philosophical side, then compared with the ideas of
the Greek schools, they would appear as follows: the ideas of the Cynics, the
Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Christians are: simplicity of nature,
prudence, wisdom, and holiness. In respect of the way of attaining them, the
Greek schools were distinguished from one another thus that the Cynics only
required common sense, the others the path of science, but both found the mere
use of natural powers sufficient for the purpose. Christian morality, because
its precept is framed (as a moral precept must be) so pure and unyielding,
takes from man all confidence that be can be fully adequate to it, at least in
this life, but again sets it up by enabling us to hope that if we act as well
as it is in our power to do, then what is not in our power will come in to our
aid from another source, whether we know how this may be or not. Aristotle and
Plato differed only as to the origin of our moral conceptions.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 50}
In
this manner, the moral laws lead through the conception of the summum bonum as
the object and final end of pure practical reason to religion, that is, to the
recognition of all duties as divine commands, not as sanctions, that is to
say, arbitrary ordinances of a foreign and contingent in themselves, but as
essential laws of every free will in itself, which, nevertheless, must be
regarded as commands of the Supreme Being, because it is only from a morally
perfect (holy and good) and at the same time all-powerful will, and
consequently only through harmony with this will, that we can hope to attain
the summum bonum which the moral law makes it our duty to take as the object
of our endeavours. Here again, then, all remains disinterested and founded
merely on duty; neither fear nor hope being made the fundamental springs,
which if taken as principles would destroy the whole moral worth of actions.
The moral law commands me to make the highest possible good in a world the
ultimate object of all my conduct. But I cannot hope to effect this otherwise
than by the harmony of my will with that of a holy and good Author of the
world; and although the conception of the summum bonum as a whole, in which
the greatest happiness is conceived as combined in the most exact proportion
with the highest degree of moral perfection (possible in creatures), includes
my own happiness, yet it is not this that is the determining principle of the
will which is enjoined to promote the summum bonum, but the moral law, which,
on the contrary, limits by strict conditions my unbounded desire of happiness.
Hence
also morality is not properly the doctrine how we should make ourselves happy,
but how we should become worthy of happiness. It is only when religion is
added that there also comes in the hope of participating some day in happiness
in proportion as we have endeavoured to be not unworthy of it.
A
man is worthy to possess a thing or a state when his possession of it is in
harmony with the summum bonum. We can now easily see that all worthiness
depends on moral conduct, since in the conception of the summum bonum this
constitutes the condition of the rest (which belongs to one’s state),
namely, the participation of happiness. Now it follows from this that morality
should never be treated as a doctrine of happiness, that is, an instruction
how to become happy; for it has to do simply with the rational condition
(conditio sine qua non) of happiness, not with the means of attaining it. But
when morality has been completely expounded (which merely imposes duties
instead of providing rules for selfish desires), then first, after the moral
desire to promote the summum bonum (to bring the kingdom of God to us) has
been awakened, a desire founded on a law, and which could not previously arise
in any selfish mind, and when for the behoof of this desire the step to
religion has been taken, then this ethical doctrine may be also called a
doctrine of happiness because the hope of happiness first begins with religion
only.
We
can also see from this that, when we ask what is God’s ultimate end in
creating the world, we must not name the happiness of the rational beings in
it, but the summum bonum, which adds a further condition to that wish of such
beings, namely, the condition of being worthy of happiness, that is, the
morality of these same rational beings, a condition which alone contains the
rule by which only they can hope to share in the former at the hand of a wise
Author. For as wisdom, theoretically considered, signifies the knowledge of
the summum bonum and, practically, the accordance of the will with the summum
bonum, we cannot attribute to a supreme independent wisdom an end based merely
on goodness. For we cannot conceive the action of this goodness (in respect of
the happiness of rational beings) as suitable to the highest original good,
except under the restrictive conditions of harmony with the holiness * of his
will. Therefore, those who placed the end of creation in the glory of God
(provided that this is not conceived anthropomorphically as a desire to be
praised) have perhaps hit upon the best expression. For nothing glorifies God
more than that which is the most estimable thing in the world, respect for his
command, the observance of the holy duty that his law imposes on us, when
there is added thereto his glorious plan of crowning such a beautiful order of
things with corresponding happiness. If the latter (to speak humanly) makes
Him worthy of love, by the former He is an object of adoration. Even men can
never acquire respect by benevolence alone, though they may gain love, so that
the greatest beneficence only procures them honour when it is regulated by
worthiness.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 55}
·
In order to make
these characteristics of these conceptions clear, I add the remark that whilst
we ascribe to God various attributes, the quality of which we also find
applicable to creatures, only that in Him they are raised to the highest
degree, e.g., power, knowledge, presence, goodness, etc., under the
designations of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc., there are three
that are ascribed to God exclusively, and yet without the addition of
greatness, and which are all moral He is the only holy, the only blessed, the
only wise, because these conceptions already imply the absence of limitation.
In the order of these attributes He is also the holy lawgiver (and creator),
the good governor (and preserver) and the just judge, three attributes which
include everything by which God is the object of religion, and in conformity
with which the metaphysical perfections are added of themselves in the reason.
That
in the order of ends, man (and with him every rational being) is an end in
himself, that is, that he can never be used merely as a means by any (not even
by God) without being at the same time an end also himself, that therefore
humanity in our person must be holy to ourselves, this follows now of itself
because he is the subject of the moral law, in other words, of that which is
holy in itself, and on account of which and in agreement with which alone can
anything be termed holy. For this moral law is founded on the autonomy of his
will, as a free will which by its universal laws must necessarily be able to
agree with that to which it is to submit itself.
VI.
Of the Postulates of Pure Practical Reason Generally.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 60}
They
all proceed from the principle of morality, which is not a postulate but a
law, by which reason determines the will directly, which will, because it is
so determined as a pure will, requires these necessary conditions of obedience
to its precept. These postulates are not theoretical dogmas but, suppositions
practically necessary; while then they do [not] extend our speculative
knowledge, they give objective reality to the ideas of speculative reason in
general (by means of their reference to what is practical), and give it a
right to concepts, the possibility even of which it could not otherwise
venture to affirm.
These
postulates are those of immortality, freedom positively considered (as the
causality of a being so far as he belongs to the intelligible world), and the
existence of God. The first results from the practically necessary condition
of a duration adequate to the complete fulfilment of the moral law; the second
from the necessary supposition of independence of the sensible world, and of
the faculty of determining one’s will according to the law of an
intelligible world, that is, of freedom; the third from the necessary
condition of the existence of the summum bonum in such an intelligible world,
by the supposition of the supreme independent good, that is, the existence of
God.
Thus
the fact that respect for the moral law necessarily makes the summum bonum an
object of our endeavours, and the supposition thence resulting of its
objective reality, lead through the postulates of practical reason to
conceptions which speculative reason might indeed present as problems, but
could never solve. Thus it leads: 1. To
that one in the solution of which the latter could do nothing but commit
paralogisms (namely, that of immortality), because it could not lay hold of
the character of permanence, by which to complete the psychological conception
of an ultimate subject necessarily ascribed to the soul in self-consciousness,
so as to make it the real conception of a substance, a character which
practical reason furnishes by the postulate of a duration required for
accordance with the moral law in the summum bonum, which is the whole end of
practical reason. 2. It leads to that of which speculative reason contained
nothing but antinomy, the solution of which it could only found on a notion
Problematically conceivable indeed, but whose objective reality it could not
prove or determine, namely, the cosmological idea of an intelligible world and
the consciousness of our existence in it, by means of the postulate of freedom
(the reality of which it lays down by virtue of the moral law), and with it
likewise the law of an intelligible world, to which speculative reason could
only point, but could not define its conception. 3. What speculative reason
was able to think, but was obliged to leave undetermined as a mere
transcendental ideal, viz., the theological conception of the first Being, to
this it gives significance (in a practical view, that is, as a condition of
the possibility of the object of a will determined by that law), namely, as
the supreme principle of the summum bonum in an intelligible world, by means
of moral legislation in it invested with sovereign power.
Is
our knowledge, however, actually extended in this way by pure practical
reason, and is that immanent in practical reason which for the speculative was
only transcendent? Certainly, but only in a practical point of view. For we do
not thereby take knowledge of the nature of our souls, nor of the intelligible
world, nor of the Supreme Being, with respect to what they are in themselves,
but we have merely combined the conceptions of them in the practical concept
of the summum bonum as the object of our will, and this altogether a priori,
but only by means of the moral law, and merely in reference to it, in respect
of the object which it commands. But how freedom is possible, and how we are
to conceive this kind of causality theoretically and positively, is not
thereby discovered; but only that there is such a causality is postulated by
the moral law and in its behoof. It is the same with the remaining ideas, the
possibility of which no human intelligence will ever fathom, but the truth of
which, on the other hand, no sophistry will ever wrest from the conviction
even of the commonest man.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 65}
VII.
How is it possible to conceive an Extension of Pure
Reason
in a Practical point of view, without its
Knowledge
as Speculative being enlarged at
the
same time?
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 70}
In
order not to be too abstract, we will answer this question at once in its
application to the present case. In order to extend a pure cognition
practically, there must be an a priori purpose given, that is, an end as
object (of the will), which independently of all theological principle is
presented as practically necessary by an imperative which determines the will
directly (a categorical imperative), and in this case that is the summum
bonum. This, however, is not possible without presupposing three theoretical
conceptions (for which, because they are mere conceptions of pure reason, no
corresponding intuition can be found, nor consequently by the path of theory
any objective reality); namely, freedom, immortality, and God. Thus by the
practical law which commands the existence of the highest good possible in a
world, the possibility of those objects of pure speculative reason is
postulated, and the objective reality which the latter could not assure them.
By this the theoretical knowledge of pure reason does indeed obtain an
accession; but it consists only in this, that those concepts which otherwise
it had to look upon as problematical (merely thinkable) concepts, are now
shown assertorially to be such as actually have objects; because practical
reason indispensably requires their existence for the possibility of its
object, the summum bonum, which practically is absolutely necessary, and this
justifies theoretical reason in assuming them. But this extension of
theoretical reason is no extension of speculative, that is, we cannot make any
positive use of it in a theoretical point of view. For as nothing is
accomplished in this by practical reason, further than that these concepts are
real and actually have their (possible) objects, and nothing in the way of
intuition of them is given thereby (which indeed could not be demanded), hence
the admission of this reality does not render any synthetical proposition
possible. Consequently, this discovery does not in the least help us to extend
this knowledge of ours in a speculative point of view, although it does in
respect of the practical employment of pure reason. The above three ideas of
speculative reason are still in themselves not cognitions; they are however
(transcendent) thoughts, in which there is nothing impossible. Now, by help of an apodeictic practical law, being necessary
conditions of that which it commands to be made an object, they acquire
objective reality; that is, we learn from it that they have objects, without
being able to point out how the conception of them is related to an object,
and this, too, is still not a cognition of these objects; for we cannot
thereby form any synthetical judgement about them, nor determine their
application theoretically; consequently, we can make no theoretical rational
use of them at all, in which use all speculative knowledge of reason consists.
Nevertheless, the theoretical knowledge, not indeed of these objects, but of
reason generally, is so far enlarged by this, that by the practical postulates
objects were given to those ideas, a merely problematical thought having by
this means first acquired objective reality. There is therefore no extension
of the knowledge of given supersensible objects, but an extension of
theoretical reason and of its knowledge in respect of the supersensible
generally; inasmuch as it is compelled to admit that there are such objects,
although it is not able to define them more closely, so as itself to extend
this knowledge of the objects (which have now been given it on practical
grounds, and only for practical use). For this accession, then, pure
theoretical reason, for which all those ideas are transcendent and without
object, has simply to thank its practical faculty. In this they become
immanent and constitutive, being the source of the possibility of realizing
the necessary object of pure practical reason (the summum bonum); whereas
apart from this they are transcendent, and merely regulative principles of
speculative reason, which do not require it to assume a new object beyond
experience, but only to bring its use in experience nearer to completeness.
But when once reason is in possession of this accession, it will go to work
with these ideas as speculative reason (properly only to assure the certainty
of its practical use) in a negative manner: that is, not extending but
clearing up its knowledge so as on one side to keep off anthropomorphism, as
the source of superstition, or seeming extension of these conceptions by
supposed experience; and on the other side fanaticism, which promises the same
by means of supersensible intuition or feelings of the like kind. All these
are hindrances to the practical use of pure reason, so that the removal of
them may certainly be considered an extension of our knowledge in a practical
point of view, without contradicting the admission that for speculative
purposes reason has not in the least gained by this.
Every
employment of reason in respect of an object requires pure concepts of the
understanding (categories), without which no object can be conceived. These
can be applied to the theoretical employment of reason, i.e., to that kind of
knowledge, only in case an intuition (which is always sensible) is taken as a
basis, and therefore merely in order to conceive by means of- them an object
of possible experience. Now here what have to be thought by means of the
categories in order to be known are ideas of reason, which cannot be given in
any experience. Only we are not here concerned with the theoretical knowledge
of the objects of these ideas, but only with this, whether they have objects
at all. This reality is supplied by pure practical reason, and theoretical
reason has nothing further to do in this but to think those objects by means
of categories. This, as we have elsewhere clearly shown, can be done well
enough without needing any intuition (either sensible or supersensible)
because the categories have their seat and origin in the pure understanding,
simply as the faculty of thought, before and independently of any intuition,
and they always only signify an object in general, no matter in what way it
may be given to us. Now when the categories are to be applied to these ideas,
it is not possible to give them any object in intuition; but that such an
object actually exists, and consequently that the category as a mere form of
thought is here not empty but has significance, this is sufficiently assured
them by an object which practical reason presents beyond doubt in the concept
of the summum bonum, the reality of the conceptions which are required for the
possibility of the summum bonum; without, however, effecting by this accession
the least extension of our knowledge on theoretical principles.
When
these ideas of God, of an intelligible world (the kingdom of God), and of
immortality are further determined by predicates taken from our own nature, we
must not regard this determination as a sensualizing of those pure rational
ideas (anthropomorphism), nor as a transcendent knowledge of supersensible
objects; for these predicates are no others than understanding and will,
considered too in the relation to each other in which they must be conceived
in the moral law, and therefore, only so far as a pure practical use is made
of them. As to all the rest that belongs to these conceptions psychologically,
that is, so far as we observe these faculties of ours empirically in their
exercise (e.g., that the understanding of man is discursive, and its notions
therefore not intuitions but thoughts, that these follow one another in time,
that his will has its satisfaction always dependent on the existence of its
object, etc., which cannot be the case in the Supreme Being), from all this we
abstract in that case, and then there remains of the notions by which we
conceive a pure intelligence nothing more than just what is required for the
possibility of conceiving a moral law. There is then a knowledge of God
indeed, but only for practical purposes, and, if we attempt to extend it to a
theoretical knowledge, we find an understanding that has intuitions, not
thoughts, a will that is directed to objects on the existence of which its
satisfaction does not in the least depend (not to mention the transcendental
predicates, as, for example, a magnitude of existence, that is duration,
which, however, is not in time, the only possible means we have of conceiving
existence as magnitude). Now these are all attributes of which we can form no
conception that would help to the knowledge of the object, and we learn from
this that they can never be used for a theory of supersensible beings, so that
on this side they are quite incapable of being the foundation of a speculative
knowledge, and their use is limited simply to the practice of the moral law.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 75}
This
last is so obvious, and can be proved so clearly by fact, that we may
confidently challenge all pretended natural theologians (a singular name) * to
specify (over and above the merely ontological predicates) one single
attribute, whether of the understanding or of the will, determining this
object of theirs, of which we could not show incontrovertibly that, if we
abstract from it everything anthropomorphic, nothing would remain to us but
the mere word, without our being able to connect with it the smallest notion
by which we could hope for an extension of theoretical knowledge. But as to
the practical, there still remains to us of the attributes of understanding
and will the conception of a relation to which objective reality is given by
the practical law (which determines a priori precisely this relation of the
understanding to the will). When once this is done, then reality is given to
the conception of the object of a will morally determined (the conception of
the summum bonum), and with it to the conditions of its possibility, the ideas
of God, freedom, and immortality, but always only relatively to the practice
of the moral law (and not for any speculative purpose).
·
Learning is
properly only the whole content of the historical sciences. Consequently it is
only the teacher of revealed theology that can be called a learned theologian.
If, however, we choose to call a man learned who is in possession of the
rational sciences (mathematics and philosophy), although even this would be
contrary to the signification of the word (which always counts as learning
only that which one must be “learned” and which, therefore, he cannot
discover of himself by reason), even in that case the philosopher would make
too poor a figure with his knowledge of God as a positive science to let
himself be called on that account a learned man.
According
to these remarks it is now easy to find the answer to the weighty question
whether the notion of God is one belonging to physics (and therefore also to
metaphysics, which contains the pure a priori principles of the former in
their universal import) or to morals. If we have recourse to God as the Author
of all things, in order to explain the arrangements of nature or its changes,
this is at least not a physical explanation, and is a complete confession that
our philosophy has come to an end, since we are obliged to assume something of
which in itself we have otherwise no conception, in order to be able to frame
a conception of the possibility of what we see before our eyes. Metaphysics,
however, cannot enable us to attain by certain inference from the knowledge of
this world to the conception of God and to the proof of His existence, for
this reason, that in order to say that this world could be produced only by a
God (according to the conception implied by this word) we should know this
world as the most perfect whole possible; and for this purpose should also
know all possible worlds (in order to be able to compare them with this); in
other words, we should be omniscient. It is absolutely impossible, however, to
know the existence of this Being from mere concepts, because every existential
proposition, that is, every proposition that affirms the existence of a being
of which I frame a concept, is a synthetic proposition, that is, one by which
I go beyond that conception and affirm of it more than was thought in the
conception itself; namely, that this concept in the understanding has an
object corresponding to it outside the understanding, and this it is obviously
impossible to elicit by any reasoning. There remains, therefore, only one
single process possible for reason to attain this knowledge, namely, to start
from the supreme principle of its pure practical use (which in every case is
directed simply to the existence of something as a consequence of reason) and
thus determine its object. Then its inevitable problem, namely, the necessary
direction of the will to the summum bonum, discovers to us not only the
necessity of assuming such a First Being in reference to the possibility of
this good in the world, but, what is most remarkable, something which reason
in its progress on the path of physical nature altogether failed to find,
namely, an accurately defined conception of this First Being. As we can know
only a small part of this world, and can still less compare it with all
possible worlds, we may indeed from its order, design, and greatness, infer a
wise, good, powerful, etc., Author of it, but not that He is all-wise,
all-good, all-powerful, etc. It may indeed very well be granted that we should
be justified in supplying this inevitable defect by a legitimate and
reasonable hypothesis; namely, that when wisdom, goodness, etc, are displayed
in all the parts that offer themselves to our nearer knowledge, it is just the
same in all the rest, and that it would therefore be reasonable to ascribe all
possible perfections to the Author of the world, but these are not strict
logical inferences in which we can pride ourselves on our insight, but only
permitted conclusions in which we may be indulged and which require further
recommendation before we can make use of them. On the path of empirical
inquiry then (physics), the conception of God remains always a conception of
the perfection of the First Being not accurately enough determined to be held
adequate to the conception of Deity. (With metaphysic in its transcendental
part nothing whatever can be accomplished.)
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 80}
When
I now try to test this conception by reference to the object of practical
reason, I find that the moral principle admits as possible only the conception
of an Author of the world possessed of the highest perfection. He must be
omniscient, in order to know my conduct up to the inmost root of my mental
state in all possible cases and into all future time; omnipotent, in order to
allot to it its fitting consequences; similarly He must be omnipresent,
eternal, etc. Thus the moral law, by means of the conception of the summum
bonum as the object of a pure practical reason, determines the concept of the
First Being as the Supreme Being; a thing which the physical (and in its
higher development the metaphysical), in other words, the whole speculative
course of reason, was unable to effect. The conception of God, then, is one
that belongs originally not to physics, i.e., to speculative reason, but to
morals. The same may be said of the other conceptions of reason of which we
have treated above as postulates of it in its practical use.
In
the history of Grecian philosophy we find no distinct traces of a pure
rational theology earlier than Anaxagoras; but this is not because the older
philosophers had not intelligence or penetration enough to raise themselves to
it by the path of speculation, at least with the aid of a thoroughly
reasonable hypothesis. What could have been easier, what more natural, than
the thought which of itself occurs to everyone, to assume instead of several
causes of the world, instead of an indeterminate degree of perfection, a
single rational cause having all perfection? But the evils in the world seemed
to them to be much too serious objections to allow them to feel themselves
justified in such a hypothesis. They showed intelligence and penetration then
in this very point, that they did not allow themselves to adopt it, but on the
contrary looked about amongst natural causes to see if they could not find in
them the qualities and power required for a First Being. But when this acute
people had advanced so far in their investigations of nature as to treat even
moral questions philosophically, on which other nations had never done
anything but talk, then first they found a new and practical want, which did
not fail to give definiteness to their conception of the First Being: and in
this the speculative reason played the part of spectator, or at best had the
merit of embellishing a conception that had not grown on its own ground, and
of applying a series of confirmations from the study of nature now brought
forward for the first time, not indeed to strengthen the authority of this
conception (which was already established), but rather to make a show with a
supposed discovery of theoretical reason.
From
these remarks, the reader of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason will be
thoroughly convinced how highly necessary that laborious deduction of the
categories was, and how fruitful for theology and morals. For if, on the one
hand, we place them in pure understanding, it is by this deduction alone that
we can be prevented from regarding them, with Plato, as innate, and founding
on them extravagant pretensions to theories of the supersensible, to which we
can see no end, and by which we should make theology a magic lantern of
chimeras; on the other hand, if we regard them as acquired, this deduction
saves us from restricting, with Epicurus, all and every use of them, even for
practical purposes, to the objects and motives of the senses. But now that the
Critique has shown by that deduction, first, that they are not of empirical
origin, but have their seat and source a priori in the pure understanding;
secondly, that as they refer to objects in general independently of the
intuition of them, hence, although they cannot effect theoretical knowledge,
except in application to empirical objects, yet when applied to an object
given by pure practical reason they enable us to conceive the supersensible
definitely, only so far, however, as it is defined by such predicates as are
necessarily connected with the pure practical purpose given a priori and with
its possibility. The speculative restriction of pure reason and its practical
extension bring it into that relation of equality in which reason in general
can be employed suitably to its end, and this example proves better than any
other that the path to wisdom, if it is to be made sure and not to be
impassable or misleading, must with us men inevitably pass through science;
but it is not till this is complete that we can be convinced that it leads to
this goal.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 85}
VIII.
Of Belief from a Requirement of Pure Reason.
A
want or requirement of pure reason in its speculative use leads only to a
hypothesis; that of pure practical reason to a postulate; for in the former
case I ascend from the result as high as I please in the series of causes, not
in order to give objective reality to the result (e.g., the causal connection
of things and changes in the world), but in order thoroughly to satisfy my
inquiring reason in respect of it. Thus I see before me order and design in
nature, and need not resort to speculation to assure myself of their reality,
but to explain them I have to presuppose a Deity as their cause; and then
since the inference from an effect to a definite cause is always uncertain and
doubtful, especially to a cause so precise and so perfectly defined as we have
to conceive in God, hence the highest degree of certainty to which this
pre-supposition can be brought is that it is the most rational opinion for us
men. * On the other hand, a requirement of pure practical reason is based on a
duty, that of making something (the summum bonum) the object of my will so as
to promote it with all my powers; in which case I must suppose its possibility
and, consequently, also the conditions necessary thereto, namely, God,
freedom, and immortality; since I cannot prove these by my speculative reason,
although neither can I refute them. This
duty is founded on something that is indeed quite independent of these
suppositions and is of itself apodeictically certain, namely, the moral law;
and so far it needs no further support by theoretical views as to the inner
constitution of things, the secret final aim of the order of the world, or a
presiding ruler thereof, in order to bind me in the most perfect manner to act
in unconditional conformity to the law. But the subjective effect of this law,
namely, the mental disposition conformed to it and made necessary by it, to
promote the practically possible summum bonum, this pre-supposes at least that
the latter is possible, for it would be practically impossible to strive after
the object of a conception which at bottom was empty and had no object. Now
the above-mentioned postulates concern only the physical or metaphysical
conditions of the possibility of the summum bonum; in a word, those which lie
in the nature of things; not, however, for the sake of an arbitrary
speculative purpose, but of a practically necessary end of a pure rational
will, which in this case does not choose, but obeys an inexorable command of
reason, the foundation of which is objective, in the constitution of things as
they must be universally judged by pure reason, and is not based on
inclination; for we are in nowise justified in assuming, on account of what we
wish on merely subjective grounds, that the means thereto are possible or that
its object is real. This, then, is an absolutely necessary requirement, and
what it pre-supposes is not merely justified as an allowable hypothesis, but
as a postulate in a practical point of view; and admitting that the pure moral
law inexorably binds every man as a command (not as a rule of prudence), the
righteous man may say: “I will that there be a God, that my existence in
this world be also an existence outside the chain of physical causes and in a
pure world of the understanding, and lastly, that my duration be endless; I
firmly abide by this, and will not let this faith be taken from me; for in
this instance alone my interest, because I must not relax anything of it,
inevitably determines my judgement, without regarding sophistries, however
unable I may be to answer them or to oppose them with others more plausible.
*(2)
·
But even here we
should not be able to allege a requirement of reason, if we had not before our
eyes a problematical, but yet inevitable, conception of reason, namely, that
of an absolutely necessary being. This conception now seeks to be defined, and
this, in addition to the tendency to extend itself, is the objective ground of
a requirement of speculative reason, namely, to have a more precise definition
of the conception of a necessary being which is to serve as the first cause of
other beings, so as to make these latter knowable by some means. Without such
antecedent necessary problems there are no requirements- at least not of pure
reason- the rest are requirements of inclination.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 90}
*(2)
In the Deutsches Museum, February, 1787, there is a dissertation by a very
subtle and clear-headed man, the late Wizenmann, whose early death is to be
lamented, in which he disputes the right to argue from a want to the objective
reality of its object, and illustrates the point by the example of a man in
love, who having fooled himself into an idea of beauty, which is merely a
chimera of his own brain, would fain conclude that such an object really
exists somewhere. I quite agree with him in this, in all cases where the want
is founded on inclination, which cannot necessarily postulate the existence of
its object even for the man that is affected by it, much less can it contain a
demand valid for everyone, and therefore it is merely a subjective ground of
the wish. But in the present case we have a want of reason springing from an
objective determining principle of the will, namely, the moral law, which
necessarily binds every rational being, and therefore justifies him in
assuming a priori in nature the conditions proper for it, and makes the latter
inseparable from the complete practical use of reason. It is a duty to realize
the summum bonum to the utmost of our power, therefore it must be possible,
consequently it is unavoidable for every rational being in the world to assume
what is necessary for its objective possibility. The assumption is as
necessary as the moral law, in connection with which alone it is valid.
In
order to prevent misconception in the use of a notion as yet so unusual as
that of a faith of pure practical reason, let me be permitted to add one more
remark. It might almost seem as if this rational faith were here announced as
itself a command, namely, that we should assume the summum bonum as possible.
But a faith that is commanded is nonsense. Let the preceding analysis,
however, be remembered of what is required to be supposed in the conception of
the summum bonum, and it will be seen that it cannot be commanded to assume
this possibility, and no practical disposition of mind is required to admit
it; but that speculative reason must concede it without being asked, for no
one can affirm that it is impossible in itself that rational beings in the
world should at the same time be worthy of happiness in conformity with the
moral law and also possess this happiness proportionately. Now in respect of
the first element of the summum bonum, namely, that which concerns morality,
the moral law gives merely a command, and to doubt the possibility of that
element would be the same as to call in question the moral law itself.
But as regards the second element of that object, namely, happiness
perfectly proportioned to that worthiness, it is true that there is no need of
a command to admit its possibility in general, for theoretical reason has
nothing to say against it; but the manner in which we have to conceive this
harmony of the laws of nature with those of freedom has in it something in
respect of which we have a choice, because theoretical reason decides nothing
with apodeictic certainty about it, and in respect of this there may be a
moral interest which turns the scale.
I
had said above that in a mere course of nature in the world an accurate
correspondence between happiness and moral worth is not to be expected and
must be regarded as impossible, and that therefore the possibility of the
summum bonum cannot be admitted from this side except on the supposition of a
moral Author of the world. I purposely reserved the restriction of this
judgement to the subjective conditions of our reason, in order not to make use
of it until the manner of this belief should be defined more precisely. The
fact is that the impossibility referred to is merely subjective, that is, our
reason finds it impossible for it to render conceivable in the way of a mere
course of nature a connection so exactly proportioned and so thoroughly
adapted to an end, between two sets of events happening according to such
distinct laws; although, as with everything else in nature that is adapted to
an end, it cannot prove, that is, show by sufficient objective reason, that it
is not possible by universal laws of nature.
Now,
however, a deciding principle of a different kind comes into play to turn the
scale in this uncertainty of speculative reason. The command to promote the summum bonum is established on an
objective basis (in practical reason); the possibility of the same in general
is likewise established on an objective basis (in theoretical reason, which
has nothing to say against it). But reason cannot decide objectively in what
way we are to conceive this possibility; whether by universal laws of nature
without a wise Author presiding over nature, or only on supposition of such an
Author. Now here there comes in a subjective condition of reason, the only way
theoretically possible for it, of conceiving the exact harmony of the kingdom
of nature with the kingdom of morals, which is the condition of the
possibility of the summum bonum; and at the same time the only one conducive
to morality (which depends on an objective law of reason).
Now since the promotion of this summum bonum, and therefore the
supposition of its possibility, are objectively necessary (though only as a
result of practical reason), while at the same time the manner in which we
would conceive it rests with our own choice, and in this choice a free
interest of pure practical reason decides for the assumption of a wise Author
of the world; it is clear that the principle that herein determines our
judgement, though as a want it is subjective, yet at the same time being the
means of promoting what is objectively (practically) necessary, is the
foundation of a maxim of belief in a moral point of view, that is, a faith of
pure practical reason. This, then, is not commanded, but being a voluntary
determination of our judgement, conducive to the moral (commanded) purpose,
and moreover harmonizing with the theoretical requirement of reason, to assume
that existence and to make it the foundation of our further employment of
reason, it has itself sprung from the moral disposition of mind; it may
therefore at times waver even in the well-disposed, but can never be reduced
to unbelief.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 95}
IX.
Of the Wise Adaptation of Man’s Cognitive Faculties
to
his Practical Destination.
If
human nature is destined to endeavour after the summum bonum, we must suppose
also that the measure of its cognitive faculties, and particularly their
relation to one another, is suitable to this end. Now the Critique of Pure
Speculative Reason proves that this is incapable of solving satisfactorily the
most weighty problems that are proposed to it, although it does not ignore the
natural and important hints received from the same reason, nor the great steps
that it can make to approach to this great goal that is set before it, which,
however, it can never reach of itself, even with the help of the greatest
knowledge of nature. Nature then seems here to have provided us only in a
stepmotherly fashion with the faculty required for our end.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2
^paragraph 100}
Suppose,
now, that in this matter nature had conformed to our wish and had given us
that capacity of discernment or that enlightenment which we would gladly
possess, or which some imagine they actually possess, what would in all
probability be the consequence? Unless our whole nature were at the same time
changed, our inclinations, which always have the first word, would first of
all demand their own satisfaction, and, joined with rational reflection, the
greatest possible and most lasting satisfaction, under the name of happiness;
the moral law would afterwards speak, in order to keep them within their
proper bounds, and even to subject them all to a higher end, which has no
regard to inclination. But instead of the conflict that the moral disposition
has now to carry on with the inclinations, in which, though after some
defeats, moral strength of mind may be gradually acquired, God and eternity
with their awful majesty would stand unceasingly before our eyes (for what we
can prove perfectly is to us as certain as that of which we are assured by the
sight of our eyes). Transgression of the law, would, no doubt, be avoided;
what is commanded would be done; but the mental disposition, from which
actions ought to proceed, cannot be infused by any command, and in this case
the spur of action is ever active and external, so that reason has no need to
exert itself in order to gather strength to resist the inclinations by a
lively representation of the dignity of the law: hence most of the actions
that conformed to the law would be done from fear, a few only from hope, and
none at all from duty, and the moral worth of actions, on which alone in the
eyes of supreme wisdom the worth of the person and even that of the world
depends, would cease to exist. As long as the nature of man remains what it
is, his conduct would thus be changed into mere mechanism, in which, as in a
puppet-show, everything would gesticulate well, but there would be no life in
the figures. Now, when it is quite otherwise with us, when with all the effort
of our reason we have only a very obscure and doubtful view into the future,
when the Governor of the world allows us only to conjecture his existence and
his majesty, not to behold them or prove them clearly; and on the other hand,
the moral law within us, without promising or threatening anything with
certainty, demands of us disinterested respect; and only when this respect has
become active and dominant, does it allow us by means of it a prospect into
the world of the supersensible, and then only with weak glances: all this
being so, there is room for true moral disposition, immediately devoted to the
law, and a rational creature can become worthy of sharing in the summum bonum
that corresponds to the worth of his person and not merely to his actions.
Thus what the study of nature and of man teaches us sufficiently elsewhere may
well be true here also; that the unsearchable wisdom by which we exist is not
less worthy of admiration in what it has denied than in what it has granted.
SECOND
PART.
Methodology
of Pure Practical Reason.
By
the methodology of pure practical reason we are not to understand the mode of
proceeding with pure practical principles (whether in study or in exposition),
with a view to a scientific knowledge of them, which alone is what is properly
called method elsewhere in theoretical philosophy (for popular knowledge
requires a manner, science a method, i.e., a process according to principles
of reason by which alone the manifold of any branch of knowledge can become a
system). On the contrary, by this methodology is understood the mode in which
we can give the laws of pure practical reason access to the human mind and
influence on its maxims, that is, by which we can make the objectively
practical reason subjectively practical also.
Now
it is clear enough that those determining principles of the will which alone
make maxims properly moral and give them a moral worth, namely, the direct
conception of the law and the objective necessity of obeying it as our duty,
must be regarded as the proper springs of actions, since otherwise legality of
actions might be produced, but not morality of character. But it is not so
clear; on the contrary, it must at first sight seem to every one very
improbable that even subjectively that exhibition of pure virtue can have more
power over the human mind, and supply a far stronger spring even for effecting
that legality of actions, and can produce more powerful resolutions to prefer
the law, from pure respect for it, to every other consideration, than all the
deceptive allurements of pleasure or of all that may be reckoned as happiness,
or even than all threatenings of pain and misfortune. Nevertheless, this is
actually the case, and if human nature were not so constituted, no mode of
presenting the law by roundabout ways and indirect recommendations would ever
produce morality of character. All would be simple hypocrisy; the law would be
hated, or at least despised, while it was followed for the sake of one’s own
advantage. The letter of the law (legality) would be found in our actions, but
not the spirit of it in our minds (morality); and as with all our efforts we
could not quite free ourselves from reason in our judgement, we must
inevitably appear in our own eyes worthless, depraved men, even though we
should seek to compensate ourselves for this mortification before the inner
tribunal, by enjoying the pleasure that a supposed natural or divine law might
be imagined to have connected with it a sort of police machinery, regulating
its operations by what was done without troubling itself about the motives for
doing it.
It
cannot indeed be denied that in order to bring an uncultivated or degraded
mind into the track of moral goodness some preparatory guidance is necessary,
to attract it by a view of its own advantage, or to alarm it by fear of loss;
but as soon as this mechanical work, these leading-strings have produced some
effect, then we must bring before the mind the pure moral motive, which, not
only because it is the only one that can be the foundation of a character (a
practically consistent habit of mind with unchangeable maxims), but also
because it teaches a man to feel his own dignity, gives the mind a power
unexpected even by himself, to tear himself from all sensible attachments so
far as they would fain have the rule, and to find a rich compensation for the
sacrifice he offers, in the independence of his rational nature and the
greatness of soul to which he sees that he is destined. We will therefore
show, by such observations as every one can make, that this property of our
minds, this receptivity for a pure moral interest, and consequently the moving
force of the pure conception of virtue, when it is properly applied to the
human heart, is the most powerful spring and, when a continued and punctual
observance of moral maxims is in question, the only spring of good conduct. It
must, however, be remembered that if these observations only prove the reality
of such a feeling, but do not show any moral improvement brought about by it,
this is no argument against the only method that exists of making the
objectively practical laws of pure reason subjectively practical, through the
mere force of the conception of duty; nor does it prove that this method is a
vain delusion. For as it has never yet come into vogue, experience can say
nothing of its results; one can only ask for proofs of the receptivity for
such springs, and these I will now briefly present, and then sketch the method
of founding and cultivating genuine moral dispositions.
{PART_2|METHODOLOGY
^paragraph 5}
When
we attend to the course of conversation in mixed companies, consisting not
merely of learned persons and subtle reasoners, but also of men of business or
of women, we observe that, besides story-telling and jesting, another kind of
entertainment finds a place in them, namely, argument; for stories, if they
are to have novelty and interest, are soon exhausted, and jesting is likely to
become insipid. Now of all argument there is none in which persons are more
ready to join who find any other subtle discussion tedious, none that brings
more liveliness into the company, than that which concerns the moral worth of
this or that action by which the character of some person is to be made out.
Persons, to whom in other cases anything subtle and speculative in theoretical
questions is dry and irksome, presently join in when the question is to make
out the moral import of a good or bad action that has been related, and they
display an exactness, a refinement, a subtlety, in excogitating everything
that can lessen the purity of purpose, and consequently the degree of virtue
in it, which we do not expect from them in any other kind of speculation. In
these criticisms, persons who are passing judgement on others often reveal
their own character: some, in exercising their judicial office, especially
upon the dead, seem inclined chiefly to defend the goodness that is related of
this or that deed against all injurious charges of insincerity, and ultimately
to defend the whole moral worth of the person against the reproach of
dissimulation and secret wickedness; others, on the contrary, turn their
thoughts more upon attacking this worth by accusation and fault finding. We
cannot always, however, attribute to these latter the intention of arguing
away virtue altogether out of all human examples in order to make it an empty
name; often, on the contrary, it is only well-meant strictness in determining
the true moral import of actions according to an uncompromising law.
Comparison with such a law, instead of with examples, lowers self-conceit in
moral matters very much, and not merely teaches humility, but makes every one
feel it when he examines himself closely. Nevertheless, we can for the most
part observe, in those who defend the purity of purpose in giving examples
that where there is the presumption of uprightness they are anxious to remove
even the least spot, lest, if all examples had their truthfulness disputed,
and if the purity of all human virtue were denied, it might in the end be
regarded as a mere phantom, and so all effort to attain it be made light of as
vain affectation and delusive conceit.
I
do not know why the educators of youth have not long since made
use
of this propensity of reason to enter with pleasure upon the
most
subtle examination of the practical questions that are thrown up;
and
why they have not, after first laying the foundation of a purely
moral
catechism, searched through the biographies of ancient and
modern
times with the view of having at hand instances of the duties
laid
down, in which, especially by comparison of similar actions under
different
circumstances, they might exercise the critical judgement of
their
scholars in remarking their greater or less moral
significance.
This is a thing in which they would find that even early
youth,
which is still unripe for speculation of other kinds, would
soon
Become very acute and not a little interested, because it feels
the
progress of its faculty of judgement; and, what is most important,
they
could hope with confidence that the frequent practice of
knowing
and approving good conduct in all its purity, and on the other
hand
of remarking with regret or contempt the least deviation from it,
although
it may be pursued only as a sport in which children may
compete
with one another, yet will leave a lasting impression of
esteem
on the one hand and disgust on the other; and so, by the mere
habit
of looking on such actions as deserving approval or blame, a
good
foundation would be laid for uprightness in the future course
of
life. Only I wish they would spare them the example of so-called
noble
(supermeritorious) actions, in which our sentimental books so
much
abound, and would refer all to duty merely, and to the worth that
a
man can and must give himself in his own eyes by the consciousness
of
not having transgressed it, since whatever runs up into empty
wishes
and longings after inaccessible perfection produces mere heroes
of
romance, who, while they pique themselves on their feeling for
transcendent
greatness, release themselves in return from the
observance
of common and every-day obligations, which then seem to
them
petty and insignificant. *
·
It is quite proper
to extol actions that display a great, unselfish, sympathizing mind or
humanity. But, in this case, we must fix attention not so much on the
elevation of soul, which is very fleeting and transitory, as on the subjection
of the heart to duty, from which a more enduring impression may be expected,
because this implies principle (whereas the former only implies ebullitions).
One need only reflect a little and he will always find a debt that he has by
some means incurred towards the human race (even if it were only this, by the
inequality of men in the civil constitution, enjoys advantages on account of
which others must be the more in want), which will prevent the thought of duty
from being repressed by the self-complacent imagination of merit.
{PART_2|METHODOLOGY
^paragraph 10}
But
if it is asked: “What, then, is really pure morality, by which as a
touchstone we must test the moral significance of every action,” then I must
admit that it is only philosophers that can make the decision of this question
doubtful, for to common sense it has been decided long ago, not indeed by
abstract general formulae, but by habitual use, like the distinction between
the right and left hand. We will then point out the criterion of pure virtue
in an example first, and, imagining that it is set before a boy, of say ten
years old, for his judgement, we will see whether he would necessarily judge
so of himself without being guided by his teacher.
Tell him the history of an honest man whom men want to persuade to join
the calumniators of an innocent and powerless person (say Anne Boleyn, accused
by Henry VIII of England). He is offered advantages, great gifts, or high
rank; he rejects them. This will excite mere approbation and applause in the
mind of the hearer. Now begins the threatening of loss. Amongst these
traducers are his best friends, who now renounce his friendship; near
kinsfolk, who threaten to disinherit him (he being without fortune); powerful
persons, who can persecute and harass him in all places and circumstances; a
prince, who threatens him with loss of freedom, yea, loss of life. Then to
fill the measure of suffering, and that he may feel the pain that only the
morally good heart can feel very deeply, let us conceive his family threatened
with extreme distress and want, entreating him to yield; conceive himself,
though upright, yet with feelings not hard or insensible either to compassion
or to his own distress; conceive him, I say, at the moment when he wishes that
he had never lived to see the day that exposed him to such unutterable
anguish, yet remaining true to his uprightness of purpose, without wavering or
even doubting; then will my youthful hearer be raised gradually from mere
approval to admiration, from that to amazement, and finally to the greatest
veneration, and a lively wish that be himself could be such a man (though
certainly not in such circumstances). Yet virtue is here worth so much only
because it costs so much, not because it brings any profit. All the
admiration, and even the endeavour to resemble this character, rest wholly on
the purity of the moral principle, which can only be strikingly shown by
removing from the springs of action everything that men may regard as part of
happiness. Morality, then, must have the more power over the human heart the
more purely it is exhibited. Whence it follows that, if the law of morality
and the image of holiness and virtue are to exercise any influence at all on
our souls, they can do so only so far as they are laid to heart in their
purity as motives, unmixed with any view to prosperity, for it is in suffering
that they display themselves most nobly. Now that whose removal strengthens
the effect of a moving force must have been a hindrance, consequently every
admixture of motives taken from our own happiness is a hindrance to the
influence of the moral law on the heart. I affirm further that even in that
admired action, if the motive from which it was done was a high regard for
duty, then it is just this respect for the law that has the greatest influence
on the mind of the spectator, not any pretension to a supposed inward
greatness of mind or noble meritorious sentiments; consequently duty, not
merit, must have not only the most definite, but, when it is represented in
the true light of its inviolability, the most penetrating, influence on the
mind.
It
is more necessary than ever to direct attention to this method in our times,
when men hope to produce more effect on the mind with soft, tender feelings,
or high-flown, puffing-up pretensions, which rather wither the heart than
strengthen it, than by a plain and earnest representation of duty, which is
more suited to human imperfection and to progress in goodness. To set before
children, as a pattern, actions that are called noble, magnanimous,
meritorious, with the notion of captivating them by infusing enthusiasm for
such actions, is to defeat our end. For as they are still so backward in the
observance of the commonest duty, and even in the correct estimation of it,
this means simply to make them fantastical romancers betimes. But, even with
the instructed and experienced part of mankind, this supposed spring has, if
not an injurious, at least no genuine, moral effect on the heart, which,
however, is what it was desired to produce.
All
feelings, especially those that are to produce unwonted exertions, must
accomplish their effect at the moment they are at their height and before the
calm down; otherwise they effect nothing; for as there was nothing to
strengthen the heart, but only to excite it, it naturally returns to its
normal moderate tone and, thus, falls back into its previous languor.
Principles must be built on conceptions; on any other basis there can only be
paroxysms, which can give the person no moral worth, nay, not even confidence
in himself, without which the highest good in man, consciousness of the
morality of his mind and character, cannot exist. Now if these conceptions are
to become subjectively practical, we must not rest satisfied with admiring the
objective law of morality, and esteeming it highly in reference to humanity,
but we must consider the conception of it in relation to man as an individual,
and then this law appears in a form indeed that is highly deserving of
respect, but not so pleasant as if it belonged to the element to which he is
naturally accustomed; but on the contrary as often compelling him to quit this
element, not without self-denial, and to betake himself to a higher, in which
he can only maintain himself with trouble and with unceasing apprehension of a
relapse. In a word, the moral law demands obedience, from duty not from
predilection, which cannot and ought not to be presupposed at all.
Let
us now see, in an example, whether the conception of an action, as a noble and
magnanimous one, has more subjective moving power than if the action is
conceived merely as duty in relation to the solemn law of morality. The action
by which a man endeavours at the greatest peril of life to rescue people from
shipwreck, at last losing his life in the attempt, is reckoned on one side as
duty, but on the other and for the most part as a meritorious action, but our
esteem for it is much weakened by the notion of duty to himself which seems in
this case to be somewhat infringed. More decisive is the magnanimous sacrifice
of life for the safety of one’s country; and yet there still remains some
scruple whether it is a perfect duty to devote one’s self to this purpose
spontaneously and unbidden, and the action has not in itself the full force of
a pattern and impulse to imitation. But if an indispensable duty be in
question, the transgression of which violates the moral law itself, and
without regard to the welfare of mankind, and as it were tramples on its
holiness (such as are usually called duties to God, because in Him we conceive
the ideal of holiness in substance), then we give our most perfect esteem to
the pursuit of it at the sacrifice of all that can have any value for the
dearest inclinations, and we find our soul strengthened and elevated by such
an example, when we convince ourselves by contemplation of it that human
nature is capable of so great an elevation above every motive that nature can
oppose to it. Juvenal describes
such an example in a climax which makes the reader feel vividly the force of
the spring that is contained in the pure law of duty, as duty:
{PART_2|METHODOLOGY
^paragraph 15}
Esto
bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem
Integer;
ambiguae si quando citabere testis
Incertaeque
rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis
Falsus,
et admoto dictet periuria tauro,
Summum
crede nefas animam praeferre pudori,
{PART_2|METHODOLOGY
^paragraph 20}
Et
propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. *
*
[Juvenal, Satirae, “Be you a good soldier, a faithful tutor, an uncorrupted
umpire also; if you are summoned as a witness in a doubtful and uncertain
thing, though Phalaris should command that you should be false, and should
dictate perjuries with the bull brought to you, believe it the highest impiety
to prefer life to reputation, and for the sake of life, to lose the causes of
living.”]
When
we can bring any flattering thought of merit into our action, then the motive
is already somewhat alloyed with self-love and has therefore some assistance
from the side of the sensibility. But to postpone everything to the holiness
of duty alone, and to be conscious that we can because our own reason
recognises this as its command and says that we ought to do it, this is, as it
were, to raise ourselves altogether above the world of sense, and there is
inseparably involved in the same a consciousness of the law, as a spring of a
faculty that controls the sensibility; and although this is not always
attended with effect, yet frequent engagement with this spring, and the at
first minor attempts at using it, give hope that this effect may be wrought,
and that by degrees the greatest, and that a purely moral interest in it may
be produced in us.
{PART_2|METHODOLOGY
^paragraph 25}
The
method then takes the following course. At first we are only concerned to make
the judging of actions by moral laws a natural employment accompanying all our
own free actions, as well as the observation of those of others, and to make
it as it were a habit, and to sharpen this judgement, asking first whether the
action conforms objectively to the moral law, and to what law; and we
distinguish the law that merely furnishes a principle of obligation from that
which is really obligatory (leges obligandi a legibus obligantibus); as, for
instance, the law of what men’s wants require from me, as contrasted with
that which their rights demand, the latter of which prescribes essential, the
former only non-essential duties; and thus we teach how to distinguish
different kinds of duties which meet in the same action. The other point to
which attention must be directed is the question whether the action was also
(subjectively) done for the sake of the moral law, so that it not only is
morally correct as a deed, but also, by the maxim from which it is done, has
moral worth as a disposition. Now there is no doubt that this practice, and
the resulting culture of our reason in judging merely of the practical, must
gradually produce a certain interest even in the law of reason, and
consequently in morally good actions. For we ultimately take a liking for a
thing, the contemplation of which makes us feel that the use of our cognitive
faculties is extended; and this extension is especially furthered by that in
which we find moral correctness, since it is only in such an order of things
that reason, with its faculty of determining a priori on principle what ought
to be done, can find satisfaction. An observer of nature takes liking at last
to objects that at first offended his senses, when he discovers in them the
great adaptation of their organization to design, so that his reason finds
food in its contemplation. So Leibnitz spared an insect that he had carefully
examined with the microscope, and replaced it on its leaf, because he had
found himself instructed by the view of it and had, as it were, received a
benefit from it.
But
this employment of the faculty of judgement, which makes us feel our own
cognitive powers, is not yet the interest in actions and in their morality
itself. It merely causes us to take pleasure in engaging in such criticism,
and it gives to virtue or the disposition that conforms to moral laws a form
of beauty, which is admired, but not on that account sought after (laudatur et
alget); as everything the contemplation of which produces a consciousness of
the harmony of our powers of conception, and in which we feel the whole of our
faculty of knowledge (understanding and imagination) strengthened, produces a
satisfaction, which may also be communicated to others, while nevertheless the
existence of the object remains indifferent to us, being only regarded as the
occasion of our becoming aware of the capacities in us which are elevated
above mere animal nature. Now, however, the second exercise comes in, the
living exhibition of morality of character by examples, in which attention is
directed to purity of will, first only as a negative perfection, in so far as
in an action done from duty no motives of inclination have any influence in
determining it. By this the pupil’s attention is fixed upon the
consciousness of his freedom, and although this renunciation at first excites
a feeling of pain, nevertheless, by its withdrawing the pupil from the
constraint of even real wants, there is proclaimed to him at the same time a
deliverance from the manifold dissatisfaction in which all these wants
entangle him, and the mind is made capable of receiving the sensation of
satisfaction from other sources. The heart is freed and lightened of a burden
that always secretly presses on it, when instances of pure moral resolutions
reveal to the man an inner faculty of which otherwise he has no right
knowledge, the inward freedom to release himself from the boisterous
importunity of inclinations, to such a degree that none of them, not even the
dearest, shall have any influence on a resolution, for which we are now to
employ our reason. Suppose a case where I alone know that the wrong is on my
side, and although a free confession of it and the offer of satisfaction are
so strongly opposed by vanity, selfishness, and even an otherwise not
illegitimate antipathy to the man whose rights are impaired by me, I am
nevertheless able to discard all these considerations; in this there is
implied a consciousness of independence on inclinations and circumstances, and
of the possibility of being sufficient for myself, which is salutary to me in
general for other purposes also. And now the law of duty, in consequence of
the positive worth which obedience to it makes us feel, finds easier access
through the respect for ourselves in the consciousness of our freedom. When
this is well established, when a man dreads nothing more than to find himself,
on self-examination, worthless and contemptible in his own eyes, then every
good moral disposition can be grafted on it, because this is the best, nay,
the only guard that can keep off from the mind the pressure of ignoble and
corrupting motives.
I
have only intended to point out the most general maxims of the methodology of
moral cultivation and exercise. As the manifold variety of duties requires
special rules for each kind, and this would be a prolix affair, I shall be
readily excused if in a work like this, which is only preliminary, I content
myself with these outlines.
CONCLUSION.
Two
things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the
oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and
the moral law within. I have not to search for them and conjecture them as
though they were veiled in darkness or were in the transcendent region beyond
my horizon; I see them before me and connect them directly with the
consciousness of my existence. The
former begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense, and
enlarges my connection therein to an unbounded extent with worlds upon worlds
and systems of systems, and moreover into limitless times of their periodic
motion, its beginning and continuance. The second begins from my invisible
self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but
which is traceable only by the understanding, and with which I discern that I
am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary connection, as
I am also thereby with all those visible worlds. The former view of a
countless multitude of worlds annihilates as it were my importance as an
animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital
power, one knows not how, must again give back the matter of which it was
formed to the planet it inhabits (a mere speck in the universe). The second,
on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth as an intelligence by my
personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of
animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as may be
inferred from the destination assigned to my existence by this law, a
destination not restricted to conditions and limits of this life, but reaching
into the infinite.
But
though admiration and respect may excite to inquiry, they cannot supply the
want of it. What, then, is to be done in order to enter on this in a useful
manner and one adapted to the loftiness of the subject? Examples may serve in
this as a warning and also for imitation. The contemplation of the world began
from the noblest spectacle that the human senses present to us, and that our
understanding can bear to follow in their vast reach; and it ended- in
astrology. Morality began with the noblest attribute of human nature, the
development and cultivation of which give a prospect of infinite utility; and
ended- in fanaticism or superstition. So it is with all crude attempts where
the principal part of the business depends on the use of reason, a use which
does not come of itself, like the use of the feet, by frequent exercise,
especially when attributes are in question which cannot be directly exhibited
in common experience. But after the maxim had come into vogue, though late, to
examine carefully beforehand all the steps that reason purposes to take, and
not to let it proceed otherwise than in the track of a previously well
considered method, then the study of the structure of the universe took quite
a different direction, and thereby attained an incomparably happier result.
The fall of a stone, the motion of a sling, resolved into their elements and
the forces that are manifested in them, and treated mathematically, produced
at last that clear and henceforward unchangeable insight into the system of
the world which, as observation is continued, may hope always to extend
itself, but need never fear to be compelled to retreat.
This
example may suggest to us to enter on the same path in treating of the moral
capacities of our nature, and may give us hope of a like good result. We have
at hand the instances of the moral judgement of reason. By analysing these
into their elementary conceptions, and in default of mathematics adopting a
process similar to that of chemistry, the separation of the empirical from the
rational elements that may be found in them, by repeated experiments on common
sense, we may exhibit both pure, and learn with certainty what each part can
accomplish of itself, so as to prevent on the one hand the errors of a still
crude untrained judgement, and on the other hand (what is far more necessary)
the extravagances of genius, by which, as by the adepts of the philosopher’s
stone, without any methodical study or knowledge of nature, visionary
treasures are promised and the true are thrown away. In one word, science
(critically undertaken and methodically directed) is the narrow gate that
leads to the true doctrine of practical wisdom, if we understand by this not
merely what one ought to do, but what ought to serve teachers as a guide to
construct well and clearly the road to wisdom which everyone should travel,
and to secure others from going astray. Philosophy must always continue to be
the guardian of this science; and although the public does not take any
interest in its subtle investigations, it must take an interest in the
resulting doctrines, which such an examination first puts in a clear light.
***
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