textfiles/etext/AUTHORS/KANT/p_of_m_m.txt

                                                                            
                                      1785                                  
                                                                            
               FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS           
                                                                            
                                by Immanuel Kant                            
                                                                            
                     translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott                  
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                         PREFACE                                            
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  Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: physics,        
ethics, and logic. This division is perfectly suitable to the nature        
of the thing; and the only improvement that can be made in it is to         
add the principle on which it is based, so that we may both satisfy         
ourselves of its completeness, and also be able to determine correctly      
the necessary subdivisions.                                                 
  All rational knowledge is either material or formal: the former           
considers some object, the latter is concerned only with the form of        
the understanding and of the reason itself, and with the universal          
laws of thought in general without distinction of its objects.              
Formal philosophy is called logic. Material philosophy, however, has        
to do with determinate objects and the laws to which they are subject,      
is again twofold; for these laws are either laws of nature or of            
freedom. The science of the former is physics, that of the latter,          
ethics; they are also called natural philosophy and moral philosophy        
respectively.                                                               
  Logic cannot have any empirical part; that is, a part in which the        
universal and necessary laws of thought should rest on grounds taken        
from experience; otherwise it would not be logic, i.e., a canon for         
the understanding or the reason, valid for all thought, and capable of      
demonstration. Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can each      
have their empirical part, since the former has to determine the            
laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter the laws of           
the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former,             
however, being laws according to which everything does happen; the          
latter, laws according to which everything ought to happen. Ethics,         
however, must also consider the conditions under which what ought to        
happen frequently does not.                                                 
  We may call all philosophy empirical, so far as it is based on            
grounds of experience: on the other band, that which delivers its           
doctrines from a priori principles alone we may call pure                   
philosophy. When the latter is merely formal it is logic; if it is          
restricted to definite objects of the understanding it is metaphysic.       
  In this way there arises the idea of a twofold metaphysic- a              
metaphysic of nature and a metaphysic of morals. Physics will thus          
have an empirical and also a rational part. It is the same with             
Ethics; but here the empirical part might have the special name of          
practical anthropology, the name morality being appropriated to the         
rational part.                                                              
  All trades, arts, and handiworks have gained by division of               
labour, namely, when, instead of one man doing everything, each             
confines himself to a certain kind of work distinct from others in the      
treatment it requires, so as to be able to perform it with greater          
facility and in the greatest perfection. Where the different kinds          
of work are not distinguished and divided, where everyone is a              
jack-of-all-trades, there manufactures remain still in the greatest         
barbarism. It might deserve to be considered whether pure philosophy        
in all its parts does not require a man specially devoted to it, and        
whether it would not be better for the whole business of science if         
those who, to please the tastes of the public, are wont to blend the        
rational and empirical elements together, mixed in all sorts of             
proportions unknown to themselves, and who call themselves independent      
thinkers, giving the name of minute philosophers to those who apply         
themselves to the rational part only- if these, I say, were warned not      
to carry on two employments together which differ widely in the             
treatment they demand, for each of which perhaps a special talent is        
required, and the combination of which in one person only produces          
bunglers. But I only ask here whether the nature of science does not        
require that we should always carefully separate the empirical from         
the rational part, and prefix to Physics proper (or empirical physics)      
a metaphysic of nature, and to practical anthropology a metaphysic          
of morals, which must be carefully cleared of everything empirical, so      
that we may know how much can be accomplished by pure reason in both        
cases, and from what sources it draws this its a priori teaching,           
and that whether the latter inquiry is conducted by all moralists           
(whose name is legion), or only by some who feel a calling thereto.         
  As my concern here is with moral philosophy, I limit the question         
suggested to this: Whether it is not of the utmost necessity to             
construct a pure thing which is only empirical and which belongs to         
anthropology? for that such a philosophy must be possible is evident        
from the common idea of duty and of the moral laws. Everyone must           
admit that if a law is to have moral force, i.e., to be the basis of        
an obligation, it must carry with it absolute necessity; that, for          
example, the precept, "Thou shalt not lie," is not valid for men            
alone, as if other rational beings had no need to observe it; and so        
with all the other moral laws properly so called; that, therefore, the      
basis of obligation must not be sought in the nature of man, or in the      
circumstances in the world in which he is placed, but a priori              
simply in the conception of pure reason; and although any other             
precept which is founded on principles of mere experience may be in         
certain respects universal, yet in as far as it rests even in the           
least degree on an empirical basis, perhaps only as to a motive,            
such a precept, while it may be a practical rule, can never be              
called a moral law.                                                         
  Thus not only are moral laws with their principles essentially            
distinguished from every other kind of practical knowledge in which         
there is anything empirical, but all moral philosophy rests wholly          
on its pure part. When applied to man, it does not borrow the least         
thing from the knowledge of man himself (anthropology), but gives laws      
a priori to him as a rational being. No doubt these laws require a          
judgement sharpened by experience, in order on the one hand to              
distinguish in what cases they are applicable, and on the other to          
procure for them access to the will of the man and effectual influence      
on conduct; since man is acted on by so many inclinations that, though      
capable of the idea of a practical pure reason, he is not so easily         
able to make it effective in concreto in his life.                          
  A metaphysic of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not          
merely for speculative reasons, in order to investigate the sources of      
the practical principles which are to be found a priori in our reason,      
but also because morals themselves are liable to all sorts of               
corruption, as long as we are without that clue and supreme canon by        
which to estimate them correctly. For in order that an action should        
be morally good, it is not enough that it conform to the moral law,         
but it must also be done for the sake of the law, otherwise that            
conformity is only very contingent and uncertain; since a principle         
which is not moral, although it may now and then produce actions            
conformable to the law, will also often produce actions which               
contradict it. Now it is only a pure philosophy that we can look for        
the moral law in its purity and genuineness (and, in a practical            
matter, this is of the utmost consequence): we must, therefore,             
begin with pure philosophy (metaphysic), and without it there cannot        
be any moral philosophy at all. That which mingles these pure               
principles with the empirical does not deserve the name of                  
philosophy (for what distinguishes philosophy from common rational          
knowledge is that it treats in separate sciences what the latter            
only comprehends confusedly); much less does it deserve that of             
moral philosophy, since by this confusion it even spoils the purity of      
morals themselves, and counteracts its own end.                             
  Let it not be thought, however, that what is here demanded is             
already extant in the propaedeutic prefixed by the celebrated Wolf          
to his moral philosophy, namely, his so-called general practical            
philosophy, and that, therefore, we have not to strike into an              
entirely new field. just because it was to be a general practical           
philosophy, it has not taken into consideration a will of any               
particular kind- say one which should be determined solely from a           
priori principles without any empirical motives, and which we might         
call a pure will, but volition in general, with all the actions and         
conditions which belong to it in this general signification. By this        
it is distinguished from a metaphysic of morals, just as general            
logic, which treats of the acts and canons of thought in general, is        
distinguished from transcendental philosophy, which treats of the           
particular acts and canons of pure thought, i.e., that whose                
cognitions are altogether a priori. For the metaphysic of morals has        
to examine the idea and the principles of a possible pure will, and         
not the acts and conditions of human volition generally, which for the      
most part are drawn from psychology. It is true that moral laws and         
duty are spoken of in the general moral philosophy (contrary indeed to      
all fitness). But this is no objection, for in this respect also the        
authors of that science remain true to their idea of it; they do not        
distinguish the motives which are prescribed as such by reason alone        
altogether a priori, and which are properly moral, from the                 
empirical motives which the understanding raises to general                 
conceptions merely by comparison of experiences; but, without noticing      
the difference of their sources, and looking on them all as                 
homogeneous, they consider only their greater or less amount. It is in      
this way they frame their notion of obligation, which, though anything      
but moral, is all that can be attained in a philosophy which passes no      
judgement at all on the origin of all possible practical concepts,          
whether they are a priori, or only a posteriori.                            
  Intending to publish hereafter a metaphysic of morals, I issue in         
the first instance these fundamental principles. Indeed there is            
properly no other foundation for it than the critical examination of a      
pure practical Reason; just as that of metaphysics is the critical          
examination of the pure speculative reason, already published. But          
in the first place the former is not so absolutely necessary as the         
latter, because in moral concerns human reason can easily be brought        
to a high degree of correctness and completeness, even in the               
commonest understanding, while on the contrary in its theoretic but         
pure use it is wholly dialectical; and in the second place if the           
critique of a pure practical reason is to be complete, it must be           
possible at the same time to show its identity with the speculative         
reason in a common principle, for it can ultimately be only one and         
the same reason which has to be distinguished merely in its                 
application. I could not, however, bring it to such completeness here,      
without introducing considerations of a wholly different kind, which        
would be perplexing to the reader. On this account I have adopted           
the title of Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals             
instead of that of a Critical Examination of the pure practical             
reason.                                                                     
  But in the third place, since a metaphysic of morals, in spite of         
the discouraging title, is yet capable of being presented in popular        
form, and one adapted to the common understanding, I find it useful to      
separate from it this preliminary treatise on its fundamental               
principles, in order that I may not hereafter have need to introduce        
these necessarily subtle discussions into a book of a more simple           
character.                                                                  
  The present treatise is, however, nothing more than the                   
investigation and establishment of the supreme principle of                 
morality, and this alone constitutes a study complete in itself and         
one which ought to be kept apart from every other moral investigation.      
No doubt my conclusions on this weighty question, which has hitherto        
been very unsatisfactorily examined, would receive much light from the      
application of the same principle to the whole system, and would be         
greatly confirmed by the adequacy which it exhibits throughout; but         
I must forego this advantage, which indeed would be after all more          
gratifying than useful, since the easy applicability of a principle         
and its apparent adequacy give no very certain proof of its soundness,      
but rather inspire a certain partiality, which prevents us from             
examining and estimating it strictly in itself and without regard to        
consequences.                                                               
  I have adopted in this work the method which I think most                 
suitable, proceeding analytically from common knowledge to the              
determination of its ultimate principle, and again descending               
synthetically from the examination of this principle and its sources        
to the common knowledge in which we find it employed. The division          
will, therefore, be as follows:                                             
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  1 FIRST SECTION. Transition from the common rational knowledge of         
morality to the philosophical.                                              
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  2 SECOND SECTION. Transition from popular moral philosophy to the         
metaphysic of morals.                                                       
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  3 THIRD SECTION. Final step from the metaphysic of morals to the          
critique of the pure practical reason.                                      
                                                                            
SEC_1                                                                       
                        FIRST SECTION                                       
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         TRANSITION FROM THE COMMON RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE                      
              OF MORALITY TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL                              
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  Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it,        
which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will.        
Intelligence, wit, judgement, and the other talents of the mind,            
however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as         
qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many        
respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad           
and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which,        
therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is         
the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even             
health, and the general well-being and contentment with one's               
condition which is called happiness, inspire pride, and often               
presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of        
these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle        
of acting and adapt it to its end. The sight of a being who is not          
adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying             
unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial                
rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the              
indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.                  
  There are even some qualities which are of service to this good will      
itself and may facilitate its action, yet which have no intrinsic           
unconditional value, but always presuppose a good will, and this            
qualifies the esteem that we justly have for them and does not              
permit us to regard them as absolutely good. Moderation in the              
affections and passions, self-control, and calm deliberation are not        
only good in many respects, but even seem to constitute part of the         
intrinsic worth of the person; but they are far from deserving to be        
called good without qualification, although they have been so               
unconditionally praised by the ancients. For without the principles of      
a good will, they may become extremely bad, and the coolness of a           
villain not only makes him far more dangerous, but also directly makes      
him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been without it.         
  A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects,           
not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply      
by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself, and               
considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can        
be brought about by it in favour of any inclination, nay even of the        
sum total of all inclinations. Even if it should happen that, owing to      
special disfavour of fortune, or the niggardly provision of a               
step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish      
its purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve             
nothing, and there should remain only the good will (not, to be             
sure, a mere wish, but the summoning of all means in our power), then,      
like a jewel, it would still shine by its own light, as a thing             
which has its whole value in itself. Its usefulness or fruitfulness         
can neither add nor take away anything from this value. It would be,        
as it were, only the setting to enable us to handle it the more             
conveniently in common commerce, or to attract to it the attention          
of those who are not yet connoisseurs, but not to recommend it to true      
connoisseurs, or to determine its value.                                    
  There is, however, something so strange in this idea of the absolute      
value of the mere will, in which no account is taken of its utility,        
that notwithstanding the thorough assent of even common reason to           
the idea, yet a suspicion must arise that it may perhaps really be the      
product of mere high-flown fancy, and that we may have misunderstood        
the purpose of nature in assigning reason as the governor of our will.      
Therefore we will examine this idea from this point of view.                
  In the physical constitution of an organized being, that is, a being      
adapted suitably to the purposes of life, we assume it as a                 
fundamental principle that no organ for any purpose will be found           
but what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose. Now in      
a being which has reason and a will, if the proper object of nature         
were its conservation, its welfare, in a word, its happiness, then          
nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the          
reason of the creature to carry out this purpose. For all the               
actions which the creature has to perform with a view to this purpose,      
and the whole rule of its conduct, would be far more surely prescribed      
to it by instinct, and that end would have been attained thereby            
much more certainly than it ever can be by reason. Should reason            
have been communicated to this favoured creature over and above, it         
must only have served it to contemplate the happy constitution of           
its nature, to admire it, to congratulate itself thereon, and to            
feel thankful for it to the beneficent cause, but not that it should        
subject its desires to that weak and delusive guidance and meddle           
bunglingly with the purpose of nature. In a word, nature would have         
taken care that reason should not break forth into practical exercise,      
nor have the presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for           
itself the plan of happiness, and of the means of attaining it. Nature      
would not only have taken on herself the choice of the ends, but            
also of the means, and with wise foresight would have entrusted both        
to instinct.                                                                
  And, in fact, we find that the more a cultivated reason applies           
itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness,      
so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction. And from this      
circumstance there arises in many, if they are candid enough to             
confess it, a certain degree of misology, that is, hatred of reason,        
especially in the case of those who are most experienced in the use of      
it, because after calculating all the advantages they derive, I do not      
say from the invention of all the arts of common luxury, but even from      
the sciences (which seem to them to be after all only a luxury of           
the understanding), they find that they have, in fact, only brought         
more trouble on their shoulders. rather than gained in happiness;           
and they end by envying, rather than despising, the more common             
stamp of men who keep closer to the guidance of mere instinct and do        
not allow their reason much influence on their conduct. And this we         
must admit, that the judgement of those who would very much lower           
the lofty eulogies of the advantages which reason gives us in regard        
to the happiness and satisfaction of life, or who would even reduce         
them below zero, is by no means morose or ungrateful to the goodness        
with which the world is governed, but that there lies at the root of        
these judgements the idea that our existence has a different and far        
nobler end, for which, and not for happiness, reason is properly            
intended, and which must, therefore, be regarded as the supreme             
condition to which the private ends of man must, for the most part, be      
postponed.                                                                  
  For as reason is not competent to guide the will with certainty in        
regard to its objects and the satisfaction of all our wants (which          
it to some extent even multiplies), this being an end to which an           
implanted instinct would have led with much greater certainty; and          
since, nevertheless, reason is imparted to us as a practical                
faculty, i.e., as one which is to have influence on the will,               
therefore, admitting that nature generally in the distribution of           
her capacities has adapted the means to the end, its true                   
destination must be to produce a will, not merely good as a means to        
something else, but good in itself, for which reason was absolutely         
necessary. This will then, though not indeed the sole and complete          
good, must be the supreme good and the condition of every other,            
even of the desire of happiness. Under these circumstances, there is        
nothing inconsistent with the wisdom of nature in the fact that the         
cultivation of the reason, which is requisite for the first and             
unconditional purpose, does in many ways interfere, at least in this        
life, with the attainment of the second, which is always                    
conditional, namely, happiness. Nay, it may even reduce it to nothing,      
without nature thereby failing of her purpose. For reason recognizes        
the establishment of a good will as its highest practical destination,      
and in attaining this purpose is capable only of a satisfaction of its      
own proper kind, namely that from the attainment of an end, which           
end again is determined by reason only, notwithstanding that this           
may involve many a disappointment to the ends of inclination.               
  We have then to develop the notion of a will which deserves to be         
highly esteemed for itself and is good without a view to anything           
further, a notion which exists already in the sound natural                 
understanding, requiring rather to be cleared up than to be taught,         
and which in estimating the value of our actions always takes the           
first place and constitutes the condition of all the rest. In order to      
do this, we will take the notion of duty, which includes that of a          
good will, although implying certain subjective restrictions and            
hindrances. These, however, far from concealing it, or rendering it         
unrecognizable, rather bring it out by contrast and make it shine           
forth so much the brighter.                                                 
  I omit here all actions which are already recognized as inconsistent      
with duty, although they may be useful for this or that purpose, for        
with these the question whether they are done from duty cannot arise        
at all, since they even conflict with it. I also set aside those            
actions which really conform to duty, but to which men have no              
direct inclination, performing them because they are impelled               
thereto by some other inclination. For in this case we can readily          
distinguish whether the action which agrees with duty is done from          
duty, or from a selfish view. It is much harder to make this                
distinction when the action accords with duty and the subject has           
besides a direct inclination to it. For example, it is always a matter      
of duty that a dealer should not over charge an inexperienced               
purchaser; and wherever there is much commerce the prudent tradesman        
does not overcharge, but keeps a fixed price for everyone, so that a        
child buys of him as well as any other. Men are thus honestly               
served; but this is not enough to make us believe that the tradesman        
has so acted from duty and from principles of honesty: his own              
advantage required it; it is out of the question in this case to            
suppose that he might besides have a direct inclination in favour of        
the buyers, so that, as it were, from love he should give no advantage      
to one over another. Accordingly the action was done neither from duty      
nor from direct inclination, but merely with a selfish view.                
  On the other hand, it is a duty to maintain one's life; and, in           
addition, everyone has also a direct inclination to do so. But on this      
account the of anxious care which most men take for it has no               
intrinsic worth, and their maxim has no moral import. They preserve         
their life as duty requires, no doubt, but not because duty                 
requires. On the other band, if adversity and hopeless sorrow have          
completely taken away the relish for life; if the unfortunate one,          
strong in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or             
dejected, wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without              
loving it- not from inclination or fear, but from duty- then his maxim      
has a moral worth.                                                          
  To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there           
are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any             
other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in            
spreading joy around them and can take delight in the satisfaction          
of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in            
such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it      
may be, bas nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with        
other inclinations, e.g., the inclination to honour, which, if it is        
happily directed to that which is in fact of public utility and             
accordant with duty and consequently honourable, deserves praise and        
encouragement, but not esteem. For the maxim lacks the moral import,        
namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination. Put      
the case that the mind of that philanthropist were clouded by sorrow        
of his own, extinguishing all sympathy with the lot of others, and          
that, while he still has the power to benefit others in distress, he        
is not touched by their trouble because he is absorbed with his own;        
and now suppose that he tears himself out of this dead                      
insensibility, and performs the action without any inclination to           
it, but simply from duty, then first has his action its genuine             
moral worth. Further still; if nature bas put little sympathy in the        
heart of this or that man; if he, supposed to be an upright man, is by      
temperament cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others,               
perhaps because in respect of his own he is provided with the               
special gift of patience and fortitude and supposes, or even requires,      
that others should have the same- and such a man would certainly not        
be the meanest product of nature- but if nature had not specially           
framed him for a philanthropist, would he not still find in himself         
a source from whence to give himself a far higher worth than that of a      
good-natured temperament could be? Unquestionably. It is just in            
this that the moral worth of the character is brought out which is          
incomparably the highest of all, namely, that he is beneficent, not         
from inclination, but from duty.                                            
  To secure one's own happiness is a duty, at least indirectly; for         
discontent with one's condition, under a pressure of many anxieties         
and amidst unsatisfied wants, might easily become a great temptation        
to transgression of duty. But here again, without looking to duty, all      
men have already the strongest and most intimate inclination to             
happiness, because it is just in this idea that all inclinations are        
combined in one total. But the precept of happiness is often of such a      
sort that it greatly interferes with some inclinations, and yet a           
man cannot form any definite and certain conception of the sum of           
satisfaction of all of them which is called happiness. It is not            
then to be wondered at that a single inclination, definite both as          
to what it promises and as to the time within which it can be               
gratified, is often able to overcome such a fluctuating idea, and that      
a gouty patient, for instance, can choose to enjoy what he likes,           
and to suffer what he may, since, according to his calculation, on          
this occasion at least, be has not sacrificed the enjoyment of the          
present moment to a possibly mistaken expectation of a happiness which      
is supposed to be found in health. But even in this case, if the            
general desire for happiness did not influence his will, and supposing      
that in his particular case health was not a necessary element in this      
calculation, there yet remains in this, as in all other cases, this         
law, namely, that he should promote his happiness not from inclination      
but from duty, and by this would his conduct first acquire true             
moral worth.                                                                
  It is in this manner, undoubtedly, that we are to understand those        
passages of Scripture also in which we are commanded to love our            
neighbour, even our enemy. For love, as an affection, cannot be             
commanded, but beneficence for duty's sake may; even though we are not      
impelled to it by any inclination- nay, are even repelled by a natural      
and unconquerable aversion. This is practical love and not                  
pathological- a love which is seated in the will, and not in the            
propensions of sense- in principles of action and not of tender             
sympathy; and it is this love alone which can be commanded.                 
  The second proposition is: That an action done from duty derives its      
moral worth, not from the purpose which is to be attained by it, but        
from the maxim by which it is determined, and therefore does not            
depend on the realization of the object of the action, but merely on        
the principle of volition by which the action has taken place, without      
regard to any object of desire. It is clear from what precedes that         
the purposes which we may have in view in our actions, or their             
effects regarded as ends and springs of the will, cannot give to            
actions any unconditional or moral worth. In what, then, can their          
worth lie, if it is not to consist in the will and in reference to its      
expected effect? It cannot lie anywhere but in the principle of the         
will without regard to the ends which can be attained by the action.        
For the will stands between its a priori principle, which is formal,        
and its a posteriori spring, which is material, as between two              
roads, and as it must be determined by something, it that it must be        
determined by the formal principle of volition when an action is            
done from duty, in which case every material principle has been             
withdrawn from it.                                                          
  The third proposition, which is a consequence of the two                  
preceding, I would express thus Duty is the necessity of acting from        
respect for the law. I may have inclination for an object as the            
effect of my proposed action, but I cannot have respect for it, just        
for this reason, that it is an effect and not an energy of will.            
Similarly I cannot have respect for inclination, whether my own or          
another's; I can at most, if my own, approve it; if another's,              
sometimes even love it; i.e., look on it as favourable to my own            
interest. It is only what is connected with my will as a principle, by      
no means as an effect- what does not subserve my inclination, but           
overpowers it, or at least in case of choice excludes it from its           
calculation- in other words, simply the law of itself, which can be an      
object of respect, and hence a command. Now an action done from duty        
must wholly exclude the influence of inclination and with it every          
object of the will, so that nothing remains which can determine the         
will except objectively the law, and subjectively pure respect for          
this practical law, and consequently the maxim* that I should follow        
this law even to the thwarting of all my inclinations.                      
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  *A maxim is the subjective principle of volition. The objective           
principle (i.e., that which would also serve subjectively as a              
practical principle to all rational beings if reason had full power         
over the faculty of desire) is the practical law.                           
-                                                                           
  Thus the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect              
expected from it, nor in any principle of action which requires to          
borrow its motive from this expected effect. For all these effects-         
agreeableness of one's condition and even the promotion of the              
happiness of others- could have been also brought about by other            
causes, so that for this there would have been no need of the will          
of a rational being; whereas it is in this alone that the supreme           
and unconditional good can be found. The pre-eminent good which we          
call moral can therefore consist in nothing else than the conception        
of law in itself, which certainly is only possible in a rational            
being, in so far as this conception, and not the expected effect,           
determines the will. This is a good which is already present in the         
person who acts accordingly, and we have not to wait for it to              
appear first in the result.*                                                
-                                                                           
  *It might be here objected to me that I take refuge behind the            
word respect in an obscure feeling, instead of giving a distinct            
solution of the question by a concept of the reason. But although           
respect is a feeling, it is not a feeling received through                  
influence, but is self-wrought by a rational concept, and,                  
therefore, is specifically distinct from all feelings of the former         
kind, which may be referred either to inclination or fear, What I           
recognise immediately as a law for me, I recognise with respect.            
This merely signifies the consciousness that my will is subordinate to      
a law, without the intervention of other influences on my sense. The        
immediate determination of the will by the law, and the                     
consciousness of this, is called respect, so that this is regarded          
as an effect of the law on the subject, and not as the cause of it.         
Respect is properly the conception of a worth which thwarts my              
self-love. Accordingly it is something which is considered neither          
as an object of inclination nor of fear, although it has something          
analogous to both. The object of respect is the law only, and that the      
law which we impose on ourselves and yet recognise as necessary in          
itself. As a law, we are subjected too it without consulting                
self-love; as imposed by us on ourselves, it is a result of our             
will. In the former aspect it has an analogy to fear, in the latter to      
inclination. Respect for a person is properly only respect for the law      
(of honesty, etc.) of which he gives us an example. Since we also look      
on the improvement of our talents as a duty, we consider that we see        
in a person of talents, as it were, the example of a law (viz., to          
become like him in this by exercise), and this constitutes our              
respect. All so-called moral interest consists simply in respect for        
the law.                                                                    
-                                                                           
  But what sort of law can that be, the conception of which must            
determine the will, even without paying any regard to the effect            
expected from it, in order that this will may be called good                
absolutely and without qualification? As I have deprived the will of        
every impulse which could arise to it from obedience to any law, there      
remains nothing but the universal conformity of its actions to law          
in general, which alone is to serve the will as a principle, i.e., I        
am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim      
should become a universal law. Here, now, it is the simple                  
conformity to law in general, without assuming any particular law           
applicable to certain actions, that serves the will as its principle        
and must so serve it, if duty is not to be a vain delusion and a            
chimerical notion. The common reason of men in its practical                
judgements perfectly coincides with this and always has in view the         
principle here suggested. Let the question be, for example: May I when      
in distress make a promise with the intention not to keep it? I             
readily distinguish here between the two significations which the           
question may have: Whether it is prudent, or whether it is right, to        
make a false promise? The former may undoubtedly of be the case. I see      
clearly indeed that it is not enough to extricate myself from a             
present difficulty by means of this subterfuge, but it must be well         
considered whether there may not hereafter spring from this lie much        
greater inconvenience than that from which I now free myself, and           
as, with all my supposed cunning, the consequences cannot be so easily      
foreseen but that credit once lost may be much more injurious to me         
than any mischief which I seek to avoid at present, it should be            
considered whether it would not be more prudent to act herein               
according to a universal maxim and to make it a habit to promise            
nothing except with the intention of keeping it. But it is soon             
clear to me that such a maxim will still only be based on the fear          
of consequences. Now it is a wholly different thing to be truthful          
from duty and to be so from apprehension of injurious consequences. In      
the first case, the very notion of the action already implies a law         
for me; in the second case, I must first look about elsewhere to see        
what results may be combined with it which would affect myself. For to      
deviate from the principle of duty is beyond all doubt wicked; but          
to be unfaithful to my maxim of prudence may often be very                  
advantageous to me, although to abide by it is certainly safer. The         
shortest way, however, and an unerring one, to discover the answer          
to this question whether a lying promise is consistent with duty, is        
to ask myself, "Should I be content that my maxim (to extricate myself      
from difficulty by a false promise) should hold good as a universal         
law, for myself as well as for others? and should I be able to say          
to myself, "Every one may make a deceitful promise when he finds            
himself in a difficulty from which he cannot otherwise extricate            
himself?" Then I presently become aware that while I can will the lie,      
I can by no means will that lying should be a universal law. For            
with such a law there would be no promises at all, since it would be        
in vain to allege my intention in regard to my future actions to those      
who would not believe this allegation, or if they over hastily did          
so would pay me back in my own coin. Hence my maxim, as soon as it          
should be made a universal law, would necessarily destroy itself.           
  I do not, therefore, need any far-reaching penetration to discern         
what I have to do in order that my will may be morally good.                
Inexperienced in the course of the world, incapable of being                
prepared for all its contingencies, I only ask myself: Canst thou also      
will that thy maxim should be a universal law? If not, then it must be      
rejected, and that not because of a disadvantage accruing from it to        
myself or even to others, but because it cannot enter as a principle        
into a possible universal legislation, and reason extorts from me           
immediate respect for such legislation. I do not indeed as yet discern      
on what this respect is based (this the philosopher may inquire),           
but at least I understand this, that it is an estimation of the             
worth which far outweighs all worth of what is recommended by               
inclination, and that the necessity of acting from pure respect for         
the practical law is what constitutes duty, to which every other            
motive must give place, because it is the condition of a will being         
good in itself, and the worth of such a will is above everything.           
  Thus, then, without quitting the moral knowledge of common human          
reason, we have arrived at its principle. And although, no doubt,           
common men do not conceive it in such an abstract and universal             
form, yet they always have it really before their eyes and use it as        
the standard of their decision. Here it would be easy to show how,          
with this compass in hand, men are well able to distinguish, in             
every case that occurs, what is good, what bad, conformably to duty or      
inconsistent with it, if, without in the least teaching them                
anything new, we only, like Socrates, direct their attention to the         
principle they themselves employ; and that, therefore, we do not            
need science and philosophy to know what we should do to be honest and      
good, yea, even wise and virtuous. Indeed we might well have                
conjectured beforehand that the knowledge of what every man is bound        
to do, and therefore also to know, would be within the reach of             
every man, even the commonest. Here we cannot forbear admiration            
when we see how great an advantage the practical judgement has over         
the theoretical in the common understanding of men. In the latter,          
if common reason ventures to depart from the laws of experience and         
from the perceptions of the senses, it falls into mere                      
inconceivabilities and self-contradictions, at least into a chaos of        
uncertainty, obscurity, and instability. But in the practical sphere        
it is just when the common understanding excludes all sensible springs      
from practical laws that its power of judgement begins to show              
itself to advantage. It then becomes even subtle, whether it be that        
it chicanes with its own conscience or with other claims respecting         
what is to be called right, or whether it desires for its own               
instruction to determine honestly the worth of actions; and, in the         
latter case, it may even have as good a hope of hitting the mark as         
any philosopher whatever can promise himself. Nay, it is almost more        
sure of doing so, because the philosopher cannot have any other             
principle, while he may easily perplex his judgement by a multitude of      
considerations foreign to the matter, and so turn aside from the right      
way. Would it not therefore be wiser in moral concerns to acquiesce in      
the judgement of common reason, or at most only to call in                  
philosophy for the purpose of rendering the system of morals more           
complete and intelligible, and its rules more convenient for use            
(especially for disputation), but not so as to draw off the common          
understanding from its happy simplicity, or to bring it by means of         
philosophy into a new path of inquiry and instruction?                      
  Innocence is indeed a glorious thing; only, on the other hand, it is      
very sad that it cannot well maintain itself and is easily seduced. On      
this account even wisdom- which otherwise consists more in conduct          
than in knowledge- yet has need of science, not in order to learn from      
it, but to secure for its precepts admission and permanence. Against        
all the commands of duty which reason represents to man as so               
deserving of respect, he feels in himself a powerful counterpoise in        
his wants and inclinations, the entire satisfaction of which he sums        
up under the name of happiness. Now reason issues its commands              
unyieldingly, without promising anything to the inclinations, and,          
as it were, with disregard and contempt for these claims, which are so      
impetuous, and at the same time so plausible, and which will not allow      
themselves to be suppressed by any command. Hence there arises a            
natural dialectic, i.e., a disposition, to argue against these              
strict laws of duty and to question their validity, or at least             
their purity and strictness; and, if possible, to make them more            
accordant with our wishes and inclinations, that is to say, to corrupt      
them at their very source, and entirely to destroy their worth- a           
thing which even common practical reason cannot ultimately call good.       
  Thus is the common reason of man compelled to go out of its               
sphere, and to take a step into the field of a practical philosophy,        
not to satisfy any speculative want (which never occurs to it as            
long as it is content to be mere sound reason), but even on                 
practical grounds, in order to attain in it information and clear           
instruction respecting the source of its principle, and the correct         
determination of it in opposition to the maxims which are based on          
wants and inclinations, so that it may escape from the perplexity of        
opposite claims and not run the risk of losing all genuine moral            
principles through the equivocation into which it easily falls.             
Thus, when practical reason cultivates itself, there insensibly arises      
in it a dialetic which forces it to seek aid in philosophy, just as         
happens to it in its theoretic use; and in this case, therefore, as         
well as in the other, it will find rest nowhere but in a thorough           
critical examination of our reason.                                         
                                                                            
SEC_2                                                                       
                     SECOND SECTION                                         
-                                                                           
         TRANSITION FROM POPULAR MORAL PHILOSOPHY                           
              TO THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS                                   
-                                                                           
  If we have hitherto drawn our notion of duty from the common use          
of our practical reason, it is by no means to be inferred that we have      
treated it as an empirical notion. On the contrary, if we attend to         
the experience of men's conduct, we meet frequent and, as we ourselves      
allow, just complaints that one cannot find a single certain example        
of the disposition to act from pure duty. Although many things are          
done in conformity with what duty prescribes, it is nevertheless            
always doubtful whether they are done strictly from duty, so as to          
have a moral worth. Hence there have at all times been philosophers         
who have altogether denied that this disposition actually exists at         
all in human actions, and have ascribed everything to a more or less        
refined self-love. Not that they have on that account questioned the        
soundness of the conception of morality; on the contrary, they spoke        
with sincere regret of the frailty and corruption of human nature,          
which, though noble enough to take its rule an idea so worthy of            
respect, is yet weak to follow it and employs reason which ought to         
give it the law only for the purpose of providing for the interest          
of the inclinations, whether singly or at the best in the greatest          
possible harmony with one another.                                          
  In fact, it is absolutely impossible to make out by experience            
with complete certainty a single case in which the maxim of an action,      
however right in itself, rested simply on moral grounds and on the          
conception of duty. Sometimes it happens that with the sharpest             
self-examination we can find nothing beside the moral principle of          
duty which could have been powerful enough to move us to this or            
that action and to so great a sacrifice; yet we cannot from this infer      
with certainty that it was not really some secret impulse of                
self-love, under the false appearance of duty, that was the actual          
determining cause of the will. We like them to flatter ourselves by         
falsely taking credit for a more noble motive; whereas in fact we           
can never, even by the strictest examination, get completely behind         
the secret springs of action; since, when the question is of moral          
worth, it is not with the actions which we see that we are                  
concerned, but with those inward principles of them which we do not         
see.                                                                        
  Moreover, we cannot better serve the wishes of those who ridicule         
all morality as a mere chimera of human imagination over stepping           
itself from vanity, than by conceding to them that notions of duty          
must be drawn only from experience (as from indolence, people are           
ready to think is also the case with all other notions); for or is          
to prepare for them a certain triumph. I am willing to admit out of         
love of humanity that even most of our actions are correct, but if          
we look closer at them we everywhere come upon the dear self which          
is always prominent, and it is this they have in view and not the           
strict command of duty which would often require self-denial.               
Without being an enemy of virtue, a cool observer, one that does not        
mistake the wish for good, however lively, for its reality, may             
sometimes doubt whether true virtue is actually found anywhere in           
the world, and this especially as years increase and the judgement          
is partly made wiser by experience and partly, also, more acute in          
observation. This being so, nothing can secure us from falling away         
altogether from our ideas of duty, or maintain in the soul a                
well-grounded respect for its law, but the clear conviction that            
although there should never have been actions which really sprang from      
such pure sources, yet whether this or that takes place is not at           
all the question; but that reason of itself, independent on all             
experience, ordains what ought to take place, that accordingly actions      
of which perhaps the world has hitherto never given an example, the         
feasibility even of which might be very much doubted by one who founds      
everything on experience, are nevertheless inflexibly commanded by          
reason; that, e.g., even though there might never yet have been a           
sincere friend, yet not a whit the less is pure sincerity in                
friendship required of every man, because, prior to all experience,         
this duty is involved as duty in the idea of a reason determining           
the will by a priori principles.                                            
  When we add further that, unless we deny that the notion of morality      
has any truth or reference to any possible object, we must admit            
that its law must be valid, not merely for men but for all rational         
creatures generally, not merely under certain contingent conditions or      
with exceptions but with absolute necessity, then it is clear that          
no experience could enable us to infer even the possibility of such         
apodeictic laws. For with what right could we bring into unbounded          
respect as a universal precept for every rational nature that which         
perhaps holds only under the contingent conditions of humanity? Or how      
could laws of the determination of our will be regarded as laws of the      
determination of the will of rational beings generally, and for us          
only as such, if they were merely empirical and did not take their          
origin wholly a priori from pure but practical reason?                      
  Nor could anything be more fatal to morality than that we should          
wish to derive it from examples. For every example of it that is set        
before me must be first itself tested by principles of morality,            
whether it is worthy to serve as an original example, i.e., as a            
pattern; but by no means can it authoritatively furnish the conception      
of morality. Even the Holy One of the Gospels must first be compared        
with our ideal of moral perfection before we can recognise Him as           
such; and so He says of Himself, "Why call ye Me (whom you see)             
good; none is good (the model of good) but God only (whom ye do not         
see)?" But whence have we the conception of God as the supreme good?        
Simply from the idea of moral perfection, which reason frames a priori      
and connects inseparably with the notion of a free will. Imitation          
finds no place at all in morality, and examples serve only for              
encouragement, i.e., they put beyond doubt the feasibility of what the      
law commands, they make visible that which the practical rule               
expresses more generally, but they can never authorize us to set aside      
the true original which lies in reason and to guide ourselves by            
examples.                                                                   
  If then there is no genuine supreme principle of morality but what        
must rest simply on pure reason, independent of all experience, I           
think it is not necessary even to put the question whether it is            
good to exhibit these concepts in their generality (in abstracto) as        
they are established a priori along with the principles belonging to        
them, if our knowledge is to be distinguished from the vulgar and to        
be called philosophical.                                                    
  In our times indeed this might perhaps be necessary; for if we            
collected votes whether pure rational knowledge separated from              
everything empirical, that is to say, metaphysic of morals, or whether      
popular practical philosophy is to be preferred, it is easy to guess        
which side would preponderate.                                              
  This descending to popular notions is certainly very commendable, if      
the ascent to the principles of pure reason has first taken place           
and been satisfactorily accomplished. This implies that we first found      
ethics on metaphysics, and then, when it is firmly established,             
procure a hearing for it by giving it a popular character. But it is        
quite absurd to try to be popular in the first inquiry, on which the        
soundness of the principles depends. It is not only that this               
proceeding can never lay claim to the very rare merit of a true             
philosophical popularity, since there is no art in being                    
intelligible if one renounces all thoroughness of insight; but also it      
produces a disgusting medley of compiled observations and                   
half-reasoned principles. Shallow pates enjoy this because it can be        
used for every-day chat, but the sagacious find in it only                  
confusion, and being unsatisfied and unable to help themselves, they        
turn away their eyes, while philosophers, who see quite well through        
this delusion, are little listened to when they call men off for a          
time from this pretended popularity, in order that they might be            
rightfully popular after they have attained a definite insight.             
  We need only look at the attempts of moralists in that favourite          
fashion, and we shall find at one time the special constitution of          
human nature (including, however, the idea of a rational nature             
generally), at one time perfection, at another happiness, here moral        
sense, there fear of God. a little of this, and a little of that, in        
marvellous mixture, without its occurring to them to ask whether the        
principles of morality are to be sought in the knowledge of human           
nature at all (which we can have only from experience); or, if this is      
not so, if these principles are to be found altogether a priori,            
free from everything empirical, in pure rational concepts only and          
nowhere else, not even in the smallest degree; then rather to adopt         
the method of making this a separate inquiry, as pure practical             
philosophy, or (if one may use a name so decried) as metaphysic of          
morals,* to bring it by itself to completeness, and to require the          
public, which wishes for popular treatment, to await the issue of this      
undertaking.                                                                
-                                                                           
  *Just as pure mathematics are distinguished from applied, pure logic      
from applied, so if we choose we may also distinguish pure                  
philosophy of morals (metaphysic) from applied (viz., applied to human      
nature). By this designation we are also at once reminded that moral        
principles are not based on properties of human nature, but must            
subsist a priori of themselves, while from such principles practical        
rules must be capable of being deduced for every rational nature,           
and accordingly for that of man.                                            
-                                                                           
  Such a metaphysic of morals, completely isolated, not mixed with any      
anthropology, theology, physics, or hyperphysics, and still less            
with occult qualities (which we might call hypophysical), is not            
only an indispensable substratum of all sound theoretical knowledge of      
duties, but is at the same time a desideratum of the highest                
importance to the actual fulfilment of their precepts. For the pure         
conception of duty, unmixed with any foreign addition of empirical          
attractions, and, in a word, the conception of the moral law,               
exercises on the human heart, by way of reason alone (which first           
becomes aware with this that it can of itself be practical), an             
influence so much more powerful than all other springs* which may be        
derived from the field of experience, that, in the consciousness of         
its worth, it despises the latter, and can by degrees become their          
master; whereas a mixed ethics, compounded partly of motives drawn          
from feelings and inclinations, and partly also of conceptions of           
reason, must make the mind waver between motives which cannot be            
brought under any principle, which lead to good only by mere                
accident and very often also to evil.                                       
-                                                                           
  *I have a letter from the late excellent Sulzer, in which he asks me      
what can be the reason that moral instruction, although containing          
much that is convincing for the reason, yet accomplishes so little? My      
answer was postponed in order that I might make it complete. But it is      
simply this: that the teachers themselves have not got their own            
notions clear, and when they endeavour to make up for this by raking        
up motives of moral goodness from every quarter, trying to make             
their physic right strong, they spoil it. For the commonest                 
understanding shows that if we imagine, on the one hand, an act of          
honesty done with steadfast mind, apart from every view to advantage        
of any kind in this world or another, and even under the greatest           
temptations of necessity or allurement, and, on the other hand, a           
similar act which was affected, in however low a degree, by a               
foreign motive, the former leaves far behind and eclipses the               
second; it elevates the soul and inspires the wish to be able to act        
in like manner oneself. Even moderately young children feel this            
impression, ana one should never represent duties to them in any other      
light.                                                                      
-                                                                           
  From what has been said, it is clear that all moral conceptions have      
their seat and origin completely a priori in the reason, and that,          
moreover, in the commonest reason just as truly as in that which is in      
the highest degree speculative; that they cannot be obtained by             
abstraction from any empirical, and therefore merely contingent,            
knowledge; that it is just this purity of their origin that makes them      
worthy to serve as our supreme practical principle, and that just in        
proportion as we add anything empirical, we detract from their genuine      
influence and from the absolute value of actions; that it is not            
only of the greatest necessity, in a purely speculative point of view,      
but is also of the greatest practical importance, to derive these           
notions and laws from pure reason, to present them pure and unmixed,        
and even to determine the compass of this practical or pure rational        
knowledge, i.e., to determine the whole faculty of pure practical           
reason; and, in doing so, we must not make its principles dependent on      
the particular nature of human reason, though in speculative                
philosophy this may be permitted, or may even at times be necessary;        
but since moral laws ought to hold good for every rational creature,        
we must derive them from the general concept of a rational being. In        
this way, although for its application to man morality has need of          
anthropology, yet, in the first instance, we must treat it                  
independently as pure philosophy, i.e., as metaphysic, complete in          
itself (a thing which in such distinct branches of science is easily        
done); knowing well that unless we are in possession of this, it would      
not only be vain to determine the moral element of duty in right            
actions for purposes of speculative criticism, but it would be              
impossible to base morals on their genuine principles, even for common      
practical purposes, especially of moral instruction, so as to               
produce pure moral dispositions, and to engraft them on men's minds to      
the promotion of the greatest possible good in the world.                   
  But in order that in this study we may not merely advance by the          
natural steps from the common moral judgement (in this case very            
worthy of respect) to the philosophical, as has been already done, but      
also from a popular philosophy, which goes no further than it can           
reach by groping with the help of examples, to metaphysic (which            
does allow itself to be checked by anything empirical and, as it            
must measure the whole extent of this kind of rational knowledge, goes      
as far as ideal conceptions, where even examples fail us), we must          
follow and clearly describe the practical faculty of reason, from           
the general rules of its determination to the point where the notion        
of duty springs from it.                                                    
  Everything in nature works according to laws. Rational beings             
alone have the faculty of acting according to the conception of             
laws, that is according to principles, i.e., have a will. Since the         
deduction of actions from principles requires reason, the will is           
nothing but practical reason. If reason infallibly determines the           
will, then the actions of such a being which are recognised as              
objectively necessary are subjectively necessary also, i.e., the            
will is a faculty to choose that only which reason independent of           
inclination recognises as practically necessary, i.e., as good. But if      
reason of itself does not sufficiently determine the will, if the           
latter is subject also to subjective conditions (particular                 
impulses) which do not always coincide with the objective                   
conditions; in a word, if the will does not in itself completely            
accord with reason (which is actually the case with men), then the          
actions which objectively are recognised as necessary are subjectively      
contingent, and the determination of such a will according to               
objective laws is obligation, that is to say, the relation of the           
objective laws to a will that is not thoroughly good is conceived as        
the determination of the will of a rational being by principles of          
reason, but which the will from its nature does not of necessity            
follow.                                                                     
  The conception of an objective principle, in so far as it is              
obligatory for a will, is called a command (of reason), and the             
formula of the command is called an imperative.                             
  All imperatives are expressed by the word ought [or shall], and           
thereby indicate the relation of an objective law of reason to a will,      
which from its subjective constitution is not necessarily determined        
by it (an obligation). They say that something would be good to do          
or to forbear, but they say it to a will which does not always do a         
thing because it is conceived to be good to do it. That is practically      
good, however, which determines the will by means of the conceptions        
of reason, and consequently not from subjective causes, but                 
objectively, that is on principles which are valid for every                
rational being as such. It is distinguished from the pleasant, as that      
which influences the will only by means of sensation from merely            
subjective causes, valid only for the sense of this or that one, and        
not as a principle of reason, which holds for every one.*                   
-                                                                           
  *The dependence of the desires on sensations is called                    
inclination, and this accordingly always indicates a want. The              
dependence of a contingently determinable will on principles of reason      
is called an interest. This therefore, is found only in the case of         
a dependent will which does not always of itself conform to reason; in      
the Divine will we cannot conceive any interest. But the human will         
can also take an interest in a thing without therefore acting from          
interest. The former signifies the practical interest in the action,        
the latter the pathological in the object of the action. The former         
indicates only dependence of the will on principles of reason in            
themselves; the second, dependence on principles of reason for the          
sake of inclination, reason supplying only the practical rules how the      
requirement of the inclination may be satisfied. In the first case the      
action interests me; in the second the object of the action (because        
it is pleasant to me). We have seen in the first section that in an         
action done from duty we must look not to the interest in the               
object, but only to that in the action itself, and in its rational          
principle (viz., the law).                                                  
-                                                                           
  A perfectly good will would therefore be equally subject to               
objective laws (viz., laws of good), but could not be conceived as          
obliged thereby to act lawfully, because of itself from its subjective      
constitution it can only be determined by the conception of good.           
Therefore no imperatives hold for the Divine will, or in general for a      
holy will; ought is here out of place, because the volition is already      
of itself necessarily in unison with the law. Therefore imperatives         
are only formulae to express the relation of objective laws of all          
volition to the subjective imperfection of the will of this or that         
rational being, e.g., the human will.                                       
  Now all imperatives command either hypothetically or                      
categorically. The former represent the practical necessity of a            
possible action as means to something else that is willed (or at least      
which one might possibly will). The categorical imperative would be         
that which represented an action as necessary of itself without             
reference to another end, i.e., as objectively necessary.                   
  Since every practical law represents a possible action as good            
and, on this account, for a subject who is practically determinable by      
reason, necessary, all imperatives are formulae determining an              
action which is necessary according to the principle of a will good in      
some respects. If now the action is good only as a means to                 
something else, then the imperative is hypothetical; if it is               
conceived as good in itself and consequently as being necessarily           
the principle of a will which of itself conforms to reason, then it is      
categorical.                                                                
  Thus the imperative declares what action possible by me would be          
good and presents the practical rule in relation to a will which            
does not forthwith perform an action simply because it is good,             
whether because the subject does not always know that it is good, or        
because, even if it know this, yet its maxims might be opposed to           
the objective principles of practical reason.                               
  Accordingly the hypothetical imperative only says that the action is      
good for some purpose, possible or actual. In the first case it is a        
problematical, in the second an assertorial practical principle. The        
categorical imperative which declares an action to be objectively           
necessary in itself without reference to any purpose, i.e., without         
any other end, is valid as an apodeictic (practical) principle.             
  Whatever is possible only by the power of some rational being may         
also be conceived as a possible purpose of some will; and therefore         
the principles of action as regards the means necessary to attain some      
possible purpose are in fact infinitely numerous. All sciences have         
a practical part, consisting of problems expressing that some end is        
possible for us and of imperatives directing how it may be attained.        
These may, therefore, be called in general imperatives of skill.            
Here there is no question whether the end is rational and good, but         
only what one must do in order to attain it. The precepts for the           
physician to make his patient thoroughly healthy, and for a poisoner        
to ensure certain death, are of equal value in this respect, that each      
serves to effect its purpose perfectly. Since in early youth it cannot      
be known what ends are likely to occur to us in the course of life,         
parents seek to have their children taught a great many things, and         
provide for their skill in the use of means for all sorts of arbitrary      
ends, of none of which can they determine whether it may not perhaps        
hereafter be an object to their pupil, but which it is at all events        
possible that he might aim at; and this anxiety is so great that            
they commonly neglect to form and correct their judgement on the value      
of the things which may be chosen as ends.                                  
  There is one end, however, which may be assumed to be actually            
such to all rational beings (so far as imperatives apply to them,           
viz., as dependent beings), and, therefore, one purpose which they not      
merely may have, but which we may with certainty assume that they           
all actually have by a natural necessity, and this is happiness. The        
hypothetical imperative which expresses the practical necessity of          
an action as means to the advancement of happiness is assertorial.          
We are not to present it as necessary for an uncertain and merely           
possible purpose, but for a purpose which we may presuppose with            
certainty and a priori in every man, because it belongs to his              
being. Now skill in the choice of means to his own greatest well-being      
may be called prudence,* in the narrowest sense. And thus the               
imperative which refers to the choice of means to one's own happiness,      
i.e., the precept of prudence, is still always hypothetical; the            
action is not commanded absolutely, but only as means to another            
purpose.                                                                    
-                                                                           
  *The word prudence is taken in two senses: in the one it may bear         
the name of knowledge of the world, in the other that of private            
prudence. The former is a man's ability to influence others so as to        
use them for his own purposes. The latter is the sagacity to combine        
all these purposes for his own lasting benefit. This latter is              
properly that to which the value even of the former is reduced, and         
when a man is prudent in the former sense, but not in the latter, we        
might better say of him that he is clever and cunning, but, on the          
whole, imprudent.                                                           
-                                                                           
  Finally, there is an imperative which commands a certain conduct          
immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be        
attained by it. This imperative is categorical. It concerns not the         
matter of the action, or its intended result, but its form and the          
principle of which it is itself a result; and what is essentially good      
in it consists in the mental disposition, let the consequence be            
what it may. This imperative may be called that of morality.                
  There is a marked distinction also between the volitions on these         
three sorts of principles in the dissimilarity of the obligation of         
the will. In order to mark this difference more clearly, I think            
they would be most suitably named in their order if we said they are        
either rules of skill, or counsels of prudence, or commands (laws)          
of morality. For it is law only that involves the conception of an          
unconditional and objective necessity, which is consequently                
universally valid; and commands are laws which must be obeyed, that         
is, must be followed, even in opposition to inclination. Counsels,          
indeed, involve necessity, but one which can only hold under a              
contingent subjective condition, viz., they depend on whether this          
or that man reckons this or that as part of his happiness; the              
categorical imperative, on the contrary, is not limited by any              
condition, and as being absolutely, although practically, necessary,        
may be quite properly called a command. We might also call the first        
kind of imperatives technical (belonging to art), the second                
pragmatic* (to welfare), the third moral (belonging to free conduct         
generally, that is, to morals).                                             
-                                                                           
  *It seems to me that the proper signification of the word                 
pragmatic may be most accurately defined in this way. For sanctions         
are called pragmatic which flow properly not from the law of the            
states as necessary enactments, but from precaution for the general         
welfare. A history is composed pragmatically when it teaches prudence,      
i.e., instructs the world how it can provide for its interests better,      
or at least as well as, the men of former time.                             
-                                                                           
  Now arises the question, how are all these imperatives possible?          
This question does not seek to know how we can conceive the                 
accomplishment of the action which the imperative ordains, but              
merely how we can conceive the obligation of the will which the             
imperative expresses. No special explanation is needed to show how          
an imperative of skill is possible. Whoever wills the end, wills            
also (so far as reason decides his conduct) the means in his power          
which are indispensably necessary thereto. This proposition is, as          
regards the volition, analytical; for, in willing an object as my           
effect, there is already thought the causality of myself as an              
acting cause, that is to say, the use of the means; and the imperative      
educes from the conception of volition of an end the conception of          
actions necessary to this end. Synthetical propositions must no             
doubt be employed in defining the means to a proposed end; but they do      
not concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and its      
realization. E.g., that in order to bisect a line on an unerring            
principle I must draw from its extremities two intersecting arcs; this      
no doubt is taught by mathematics only in synthetical propositions;         
but if I know that it is only by this process that the intended             
operation can be performed, then to say that, if I fully will the           
operation, I also will the action required for it, is an analytical         
proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something as      
an effect which I can produce in a certain way, and to conceive myself      
as acting in this way.                                                      
  If it were only equally easy to give a definite conception of             
happiness, the imperatives of prudence would correspond exactly with        
those of skill, and would likewise be analytical. For in this case          
as in that, it could be said: "Whoever wills the end, wills also            
(according to the dictate of reason necessarily) the indispensable          
means thereto which are in his power." But, unfortunately, the              
notion of happiness is so indefinite that although every man wishes to      
at. it, yet he never can say definitely and consistently what it is         
that he really wishes and wills. The reason of this is that all the         
elements which belong to the notion of happiness are altogether             
empirical, i.e., they must be borrowed from experience, and                 
nevertheless the idea of happiness requires an absolute whole, a            
maximum of welfare in my present and all future circumstances. Now          
it is impossible that the most clear-sighted and at the same time most      
powerful being (supposed finite) should frame to himself a definite         
conception of what he really wills in this. Does he will riches, how        
much anxiety, envy, and snares might he not thereby draw upon his           
shoulders? Does he will knowledge and discernment, perhaps it might         
prove to be only an eye so much the sharper to show him so much the         
more fearfully the evils that are now concealed from him, and that          
cannot be avoided, or to impose more wants on his desires, which            
already give him concern enough. Would he have long life? who               
guarantees to him that it would not be a long misery? would he at           
least have health? how often has uneasiness of the body restrained          
from excesses into which perfect health would have allowed one to           
fall? and so on. In short, he is unable, on any principle, to               
determine with certainty what would make him truly happy; because to        
do so he would need to be omniscient. We cannot therefore act on any        
definite principles to secure happiness, but only on empirical              
counsels, e.g. of regimen, frugality, courtesy, reserve, etc., which        
experience teaches do, on the average, most promote well-being.             
Hence it follows that the imperatives of prudence do not, strictly          
speaking, command at all, that is, they cannot present actions              
objectively as practically necessary; that they are rather to be            
regarded as counsels (consilia) than precepts precepts of reason, that      
the problem to determine certainly and universally what action would        
promote the happiness of a rational being is completely insoluble, and      
consequently no imperative respecting it is possible which should,          
in the strict sense, command to do what makes happy; because happiness      
is not an ideal of reason but of imagination, resting solely on             
empirical grounds, and it is vain to expect that these should define        
an action by which one could attain the totality of a series of             
consequences which is really endless. This imperative of prudence           
would however be an analytical proposition if we assume that the means      
to happiness could be certainly assigned; for it is distinguished from      
the imperative of skill only by this, that in the latter the end is         
merely possible, in the former it is given; as however both only            
ordain the means to that which we suppose to be willed as an end, it        
follows that the imperative which ordains the willing of the means          
to him who wills the end is in both cases analytical. Thus there is no      
difficulty in regard to the possibility of an imperative of this            
kind either.                                                                
  On the other hand, the question how the imperative of morality is         
possible, is undoubtedly one, the only one, demanding a solution, as        
this is not at all hypothetical, and the objective necessity which          
it presents cannot rest on any hypothesis, as is the case with the          
hypothetical imperatives. Only here we must never leave out of              
consideration that we cannot make out by any example, in other words        
empirically, whether there is such an imperative at all, but it is          
rather to be feared that all those which seem to be categorical may         
yet be at bottom hypothetical. For instance, when the precept is:           
"Thou shalt not promise deceitfully"; and it is assumed that the            
necessity of this is not a mere counsel to avoid some other evil, so        
that it should mean: "Thou shalt not make a lying promise, lest if          
it become known thou shouldst destroy thy credit," but that an              
action of this kind must be regarded as evil in itself, so that the         
imperative of the prohibition is categorical; then we cannot show with      
certainty in any example that the will was determined merely by the         
law, without any other spring of action, although it may appear to          
be so. For it is always possible that fear of disgrace, perhaps also        
obscure dread of other dangers, may have a secret influence on the          
will. Who can prove by experience the non-existence of a cause when         
all that experience tells us is that we do not perceive it? But in          
such a case the so-called moral imperative, which as such appears to        
be categorical and unconditional, would in reality be only a pragmatic      
precept, drawing our attention to our own interests and merely              
teaching us to take these into consideration.                               
  We shall therefore have to investigate a priori the possibility of a      
categorical imperative, as we have not in this case the advantage of        
its reality being given in experience, so that [the elucidation of]         
its possibility should be requisite only for its explanation, not           
for its establishment. In the meantime it may be discerned                  
beforehand that the categorical imperative alone has the purport of         
a practical law; all the rest may indeed be called principles of the        
will but not laws, since whatever is only necessary for the attainment      
of some arbitrary purpose may be considered as in itself contingent,        
and we can at any time be free from the precept if we give up the           
purpose; on the contrary, the unconditional command leaves the will no      
liberty to choose the opposite; consequently it alone carries with          
it that necessity which we require in a law.                                
  Secondly, in the case of this categorical imperative or law of            
morality, the difficulty (of discerning its possibility) is a very          
profound one. It is an a priori synthetical practical proposition;*         
and as there is so much difficulty in discerning the possibility of         
speculative propositions of this kind, it may readily be supposed that      
the difficulty will be no less with the practical.                          
-                                                                           
  *I connect the act with the will without presupposing any                 
condition resulting from any inclination, but a priori, and                 
therefore necessarily (though only objectively, i.e., assuming the          
idea of a reason possessing full power over all subjective motives).        
This is accordingly a practical proposition which does not deduce           
the willing of an action by mere analysis from another already              
presupposed (for we have not such a perfect will), but connects it          
immediately with the conception of the will of a rational being, as         
something not contained in it.                                              
-                                                                           
  In this problem we will first inquire whether the mere conception of      
a categorical imperative may not perhaps supply us also with the            
formula of it, containing the proposition which alone can be a              
categorical imperative; for even if we know the tenor of such an            
absolute command, yet how it is possible will require further               
special and laborious study, which we postpone to the last section.         
  When I conceive a hypothetical imperative, in general I do not            
know beforehand what it will contain until I am given the condition.        
But when I conceive a categorical imperative, I know at once what it        
contains. For as the imperative contains besides the law only the           
necessity that the maxims* shall conform to this law, while the law         
contains no conditions restricting it, there remains nothing but the        
general statement that the maxim of the action should conform to a          
universal law, and it is this conformity alone that the imperative          
properly represents as necessary.                                           
-                                                                           
  *A maxim is a subjective principle of action, and must be                 
distinguished from the objective principle, namely, practical law. The      
former contains the practical rule set by reason according to the           
conditions of the subject (often its ignorance or its inclinations),        
so that it is the principle on which the subject acts; but the law          
is the objective principle valid for every rational being, and is           
the principle on which it ought to act that is an imperative.               
-                                                                           
  There is therefore but one categorical imperative, namely, this: Act      
only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it         
should become a universal law.                                              
  Now if all imperatives of duty can be deduced from this one               
imperative as from their principle, then, although it should remain         
undecided what is called duty is not merely a vain notion, yet at           
least we shall be able to show what we understand by it and what            
this notion means.                                                          
  Since the universality of the law according to which effects are          
produced constitutes what is properly called nature in the most             
general sense (as to form), that is the existence of things so far          
as it is determined by general laws, the imperative of duty may be          
expressed thus: Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by         
thy will a universal law of nature.                                         
  We will now enumerate a few duties, adopting the usual division of        
them into duties to ourselves and ourselves and to others, and into         
perfect and imperfect duties.*                                              
-                                                                           
  *It must be noted here that I reserve the division of duties for a        
future metaphysic of morals; so that I give it here only as an              
arbitrary one (in order to arrange my examples). For the rest, I            
understand by a perfect duty one that admits no exception in favour of      
inclination and then I have not merely external but also internal           
perfect duties. This is contrary to the use of the word adopted in the      
schools; but I do not intend to justify there, as it is all one for my      
purpose whether it is admitted or not.                                      
-                                                                           
  1. A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels wearied      
of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can        
ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to      
take his own life. Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action          
could become a universal law of nature. His maxim is: "From                 
self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten my life when its longer      
duration is likely to bring more evil than satisfaction." It is             
asked then simply whether this principle founded on self-love can           
become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a system          
of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of           
the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the                 
improvement of life would contradict itself and, therefore, could           
not exist as a system of nature; hence that maxim cannot possibly           
exist as a universal law of nature and, consequently, would be              
wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty.                 
  2. Another finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. He          
knows that he will not be able to repay it, but sees also that nothing      
will be lent to him unless he promises stoutly to repay it in a             
definite time. He desires to make this promise, but he has still so         
much conscience as to ask himself: "Is it not unlawful and                  
inconsistent with duty to get out of a difficulty in this way?"             
Suppose however that he resolves to do so: then the maxim of his            
action would be expressed thus: "When I think myself in want of money,      
I will borrow money and promise to repay it, although I know that I         
never can do so." Now this principle of self-love or of one's own           
advantage may perhaps be consistent with my whole future welfare;           
but the question now is, "Is it right?" I change then the suggestion        
of self-love into a universal law, and state the question thus: "How        
would it be if my maxim were a universal law?" Then I see at once that      
it could never hold as a universal law of nature, but would                 
necessarily contradict itself. For supposing it to be a universal           
law that everyone when he thinks himself in a difficulty should be          
able to promise whatever he pleases, with the purpose of not keeping        
his promise, the promise itself would become impossible, as well as         
the end that one might have in view in it, since no one would consider      
that anything was promised to him, but would ridicule all such              
statements as vain pretences.                                               
  3. A third finds in himself a talent which with the help of some          
culture might make him a useful man in many respects. But he finds          
himself in comfortable circumstances and prefers to indulge in              
pleasure rather than to take pains in enlarging and improving his           
happy natural capacities. He asks, however, whether his maxim of            
neglect of his natural gifts, besides agreeing with his inclination to      
indulgence, agrees also with what is called duty. He sees then that         
a system of nature could indeed subsist with such a universal law           
although men (like the South Sea islanders) should let their talents        
rest and resolve to devote their lives merely to idleness,                  
amusement, and propagation of their species- in a word, to                  
enjoyment; but he cannot possibly will that this should be a universal      
law of nature, or be implanted in us as such by a natural instinct.         
For, as a rational being, he necessarily wills that his faculties be        
developed, since they serve him and have been given him, for all sorts      
of possible purposes.                                                       
  4. A fourth, who is in prosperity, while he sees that others have to      
contend with great wretchedness and that he could help them, thinks:        
"What concern is it of mine? Let everyone be as happy as Heaven             
pleases, or as be can make himself; I will take nothing from him nor        
even envy him, only I do not wish to contribute anything to his             
welfare or to his assistance in distress!" Now no doubt if such a mode      
of thinking were a universal law, the human race might very well            
subsist and doubtless even better than in a state in which everyone         
talks of sympathy and good-will, or even takes care occasionally to         
put it into practice, but, on the other side, also cheats when he can,      
betrays the rights of men, or otherwise violates them. But although it      
is possible that a universal law of nature might exist in accordance        
with that maxim, it is impossible to will that such a principle should      
have the universal validity of a law of nature. For a will which            
resolved this would contradict itself, inasmuch as many cases might         
occur in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others,      
and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he         
would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires.                    
  These are a few of the many actual duties, or at least what we            
regard as such, which obviously fall into two classes on the one            
principle that we have laid down. We must be able to will that a maxim      
of our action should be a universal law. This is the canon of the           
moral appreciation of the action generally. Some actions are of such a      
character that their maxim cannot without contradiction be even             
conceived as a universal law of nature, far from it being possible          
that we should will that it should be so. In others this intrinsic          
impossibility is not found, but still it is impossible to will that         
their maxim should be raised to the universality of a law of nature,        
since such a will would contradict itself It is easily seen that the        
former violate strict or rigorous (inflexible) duty; the latter only        
laxer (meritorious) duty. Thus it has been completely shown how all         
duties depend as regards the nature of the obligation (not the              
object of the action) on the same principle.                                
  If now we attend to ourselves on occasion of any transgression of         
duty, we shall find that we in fact do not will that our maxim              
should be a universal law, for that is impossible for us; on the            
contrary, we will that the opposite should remain a universal law,          
only we assume the liberty of making an exception in our own favour or      
(just for this time only) in favour of our inclination. Consequently        
if we considered all cases from one and the same point of view,             
namely, that of reason, we should find a contradiction in our own           
will, namely, that a certain principle should be objectively necessary      
as a universal law, and yet subjectively should not be universal,           
but admit of exceptions. As however we at one moment regard our action      
from the point of view of a will wholly conformed to reason, and            
then again look at the same action from the point of view of a will         
affected by inclination, there is not really any contradiction, but an      
antagonism of inclination to the precept of reason, whereby the             
universality of the principle is changed into a mere generality, so         
that the practical principle of reason shall meet the maxim half            
way. Now, although this cannot be justified in our own impartial            
judgement, yet it proves that we do really recognise the validity of        
the categorical imperative and (with all respect for it) only allow         
ourselves a few exceptions, which we think unimportant and forced from      
us.                                                                         
  We have thus established at least this much, that if duty is a            
conception which is to have any import and real legislative                 
authority for our actions, it can only be expressed in categorical and      
not at all in hypothetical imperatives. We have also, which is of           
great importance, exhibited clearly and definitely for every practical      
application the content of the categorical imperative, which must           
contain the principle of all duty if there is such a thing at all.          
We have not yet, however, advanced so far as to prove a priori that         
there actually is such an imperative, that there is a practical law         
which commands absolutely of itself and without any other impulse, and      
that the following of this law is duty.                                     
  With the view of attaining to this, it is of extreme importance to        
remember that we must not allow ourselves to think of deducing the          
reality of this principle from the particular attributes of human           
nature. For duty is to be a practical, unconditional necessity of           
action; it must therefore hold for all rational beings (to whom an          
imperative can apply at all), and for this reason only be also a law        
for all human wills. On the contrary, whatever is deduced from the          
particular natural characteristics of humanity, from certain                
feelings and propensions, nay, even, if possible, from any                  
particular tendency proper to human reason, and which need not              
necessarily hold for the will of every rational being; this may indeed      
supply us with a maxim, but not with a law; with a subjective               
principle on which we may have a propension and inclination to act,         
but not with an objective principle on which we should be enjoined          
to act, even though all our propensions, inclinations, and natural          
dispositions were opposed to it. In fact, the sublimity and                 
intrinsic dignity of the command in duty are so much the more evident,      
the less the subjective impulses favour it and the more they oppose         
it, without being able in the slightest degree to weaken the                
obligation of the law or to diminish its validity.                          
  Here then we see philosophy brought to a critical position, since it      
has to be firmly fixed, notwithstanding that it has nothing to support      
it in heaven or earth. Here it must show its purity as absolute             
director of its own laws, not the herald of those which are                 
whispered to it by an implanted sense or who knows what tutelary            
nature. Although these may be better than nothing, yet they can             
never afford principles dictated by reason, which must have their           
source wholly a priori and thence their commanding authority,               
expecting everything from the supremacy of the law and the due respect      
for it, nothing from inclination, or else condemning the man to             
self-contempt and inward abhorrence.                                        
  Thus every empirical element is not only quite incapable of being an      
aid to the principle of morality, but is even highly prejudicial to         
the purity of morals, for the proper and inestimable worth of an            
absolutely good will consists just in this, that the principle of           
action is free from all influence of contingent grounds, which alone        
experience can furnish. We cannot too much or too often repeat our          
warning against this lax and even mean habit of thought which seeks         
for its principle amongst empirical motives and laws; for human reason      
in its weariness is glad to rest on this pillow, and in a dream of          
sweet illusions (in which, instead of Juno, it embraces a cloud) it         
substitutes for morality a bastard patched up from limbs of various         
derivation, which looks like anything one chooses to see in it, only        
not like virtue to one who has once beheld her in her true form.*           
-                                                                           
  *To behold virtue in her proper form is nothing else but to               
contemplate morality stripped of all admixture of sensible things           
and of every spurious ornament of reward or self-love. How much she         
then eclipses everything else that appears charming to the affections,      
every one may readily perceive with the least exertion of his               
reason, if it be not wholly spoiled for abstraction.                        
-                                                                           
  The question then is this: "Is it a necessary law for all rational        
beings that they should always judge of their actions by maxims of          
which they can themselves will that they should serve as universal          
laws?" If it is so, then it must be connected (altogether a priori)         
with the very conception of the will of a rational being generally.         
But in order to discover this connexion we must, however                    
reluctantly, take a step into metaphysic, although into a domain of it      
which is distinct from speculative philosophy, namely, the                  
metaphysic of morals. In a practical philosophy, where it is not the        
reasons of what happens that we have to ascertain, but the laws of          
what ought to happen, even although it never does, i.e., objective          
practical laws, there it is not necessary to inquire into the               
reasons why anything pleases or displeases, how the pleasure of mere        
sensation differs from taste, and whether the latter is distinct            
from a general satisfaction of reason; on what the feeling of pleasure      
or pain rests, and how from it desires and inclinations arise, and          
from these again maxims by the co-operation of reason: for all this         
belongs to an empirical psychology, which would constitute the              
second part of physics, if we regard physics as the philosophy of           
nature, so far as it is based on empirical laws. But here we are            
concerned with objective practical laws and, consequently, with the         
relation of the will to itself so far as it is determined by reason         
alone, in which case whatever has reference to anything empirical is        
necessarily excluded; since if reason of itself alone determines the        
conduct (and it is the possibility of this that we are now                  
investigating), it must necessarily do so a priori.                         
  The will is conceived as a faculty of determining oneself to              
action in accordance with the conception of certain laws. And such a        
faculty can be found only in rational beings. Now that which serves         
the will as the objective ground of its self-determination is the end,      
and, if this is assigned by reason alone, it must hold for all              
rational beings. On the other hand, that which merely contains the          
ground of possibility of the action of which the effect is the end,         
this is called the means. The subjective ground of the desire is the        
spring, the objective ground of the volition is the motive; hence           
the distinction between subjective ends which rest on springs, and          
objective ends which depend on motives valid for every rational being.      
Practical principles are formal when they abstract from all subjective      
ends; they are material when they assume these, and therefore               
particular springs of action. The ends which a rational being proposes      
to himself at pleasure as effects of his actions (material ends) are        
all only relative, for it is only their relation to the particular          
desires of the subject that gives them their worth, which therefore         
cannot furnish principles universal and necessary for all rational          
beings and for every volition, that is to say practical laws. Hence         
all these relative ends can give rise only to hypothetical                  
imperatives.                                                                
  Supposing, however, that there were something whose existence has in      
itself an absolute worth, something which, being an end in itself,          
could be a source of definite laws; then in this and this alone             
would lie the source of a possible categorical imperative, i.e., a          
practical law.                                                              
  Now I say: man and generally any rational being exists as an end          
in himself, not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or         
that will, but in all his actions, whether they concern himself or          
other rational beings, must be always regarded at the same time as          
an end. All objects of the inclinations have only a conditional worth,      
for if the inclinations and the wants founded on them did not exist,        
then their object would be without value. But the inclinations,             
themselves being sources of want, are so far from having an absolute        
worth for which they should be desired that on the contrary it must be      
the universal wish of every rational being to be wholly free from           
them. Thus the worth of any object which is to be acquired by our           
action is always conditional. Beings whose existence depends not on         
our will but on nature's, have nevertheless, if they are irrational         
beings, only a relative value as means, and are therefore called            
things; rational beings, on the contrary, are called persons,               
because their very nature points them out as ends in themselves,            
that is as something which must not be used merely as means, and so         
far therefore restricts freedom of action (and is an object of              
respect). These, therefore, are not merely subjective ends whose            
existence has a worth for us as an effect of our action, but objective      
ends, that is, things whose existence is an end in itself; an end           
moreover for which no other can be substituted, which they should           
subserve merely as means, for otherwise nothing whatever would possess      
absolute worth; but if all worth were conditioned and therefore             
contingent, then there would be no supreme practical principle of           
reason whatever.                                                            
  If then there is a supreme practical principle or, in respect of the      
human will, a categorical imperative, it must be one which, being           
drawn from the conception of that which is necessarily an end for           
everyone because it is an end in itself, constitutes an objective           
principle of will, and can therefore serve as a universal practical         
law. The foundation of this principle is: rational nature exists as an      
end in itself. Man necessarily conceives his own existence as being         
so; so far then this is a subjective principle of human actions. But        
every other rational being regards its existence similarly, just on         
the same rational principle that holds for me:* so that it is at the        
same time an objective principle, from which as a supreme practical         
law all laws of the will must be capable of being deduced. Accordingly      
the practical imperative will be as follows: So act as to treat             
humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in           
every case as an end withal, never as means only. We will now               
inquire whether this can be practically carried out.                        
-                                                                           
  *This proposition is here stated as a postulate. The ground of it         
will be found in the concluding section.                                    
-                                                                           
  To abide by the previous examples:                                        
  Firstly, under the head of necessary duty to oneself: He who              
contemplates suicide should ask himself whether his action can be           
consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself. If he             
destroys himself in order to escape from painful circumstances, he          
uses a person merely as a mean to maintain a tolerable condition up to      
the end of life. But a man is not a thing, that is to say, something        
which can be used merely as means, but must in all his actions be           
always considered as an end in himself. I cannot, therefore, dispose        
in any way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to              
damage or kill him. (It belongs to ethics proper to define this             
principle more precisely, so as to avoid all misunderstanding, e.           
g., as to the amputation of the limbs in order to preserve myself,          
as to exposing my life to danger with a view to preserve it, etc. This      
question is therefore omitted here.)                                        
  Secondly, as regards necessary duties, or those of strict                 
obligation, towards others: He who is thinking of making a lying            
promise to others will see at once that he would be using another           
man merely as a mean, without the latter containing at the same time        
the end in himself. For he whom I propose by such a promise to use for      
my own purposes cannot possibly assent to my mode of acting towards         
him and, therefore, cannot himself contain the end of this action.          
This violation of the principle of humanity in other men is more            
obvious if we take in examples of attacks on the freedom and                
property of others. For then it is clear that he who transgresses           
the rights of men intends to use the person of others merely as a           
means, without considering that as rational beings they ought always        
to be esteemed also as ends, that is, as beings who must be capable of      
containing in themselves the end of the very same action.*                  
-                                                                           
  *Let it not be thought that the common "quod tibi non vis fieri,          
etc." could serve here as the rule or principle. For it is only a           
deduction from the former, though with several limitations; it              
cannot be a universal law, for it does not contain the principle of         
duties to oneself, nor of the duties of benevolence to others (for          
many a one would gladly consent that others should not benefit him,         
provided only that he might be excused from showing benevolence to          
them), nor finally that of duties of strict obligation to one another,      
for on this principle the criminal might argue against the judge who        
punishes him, and so on.                                                    
-                                                                           
  Thirdly, as regards contingent (meritorious) duties to oneself: It        
is not enough that the action does not violate humanity in our own          
person as an end in itself, it must also harmonize with it. Now             
there are in humanity capacities of greater perfection, which belong        
to the end that nature has in view in regard to humanity in                 
ourselves as the subject: to neglect these might perhaps be consistent      
with the maintenance of humanity as an end in itself, but not with the      
advancement of this end.                                                    
  Fourthly, as regards meritorious duties towards others: The               
natural end which all men have is their own happiness. Now humanity         
might indeed subsist, although no one should contribute anything to         
the happiness of others, provided he did not intentionally withdraw         
anything from it; but after all this would only harmonize negatively        
not positively with humanity as an end in itself, if every one does         
not also endeavour, as far as in him lies, to forward the ends of           
others. For the ends of any subject which is an end in himself ought        
as far as possible to be my ends also, if that conception is to have        
its full effect with me.                                                    
  This principle, that humanity and generally every rational nature is      
an end in itself (which is the supreme limiting condition of every          
man's freedom of action), is not borrowed from experience, firstly,         
because it is universal, applying as it does to all rational beings         
whatever, and experience is not capable of determining anything             
about them; secondly, because it does not present humanity as an end        
to men (subjectively), that is as an object which men do of themselves      
actually adopt as an end; but as an objective end, which must as a law      
constitute the supreme limiting condition of all our subjective             
ends, let them be what we will; it must therefore spring from pure          
reason. In fact the objective principle of all practical legislation        
lies (according to the first principle) in the rule and its form of         
universality which makes it capable of being a law (say, e. g., a           
law of nature); but the subjective principle is in the end; now by the      
second principle the subject of all ends is each rational being,            
inasmuch as it is an end in itself. Hence follows the third                 
practical principle of the will, which is the ultimate condition of         
its harmony with universal practical reason, viz.: the idea of the          
will of every rational being as a universally legislative will.             
  On this principle all maxims are rejected which are inconsistent          
with the will being itself universal legislator. Thus the will is           
not subject simply to the law, but so subject that it must be regarded      
as itself giving the law and, on this ground only, subject to the           
law (of which it can regard itself as the author).                          
  In the previous imperatives, namely, that based on the conception of      
the conformity of actions to general laws, as in a physical system          
of nature, and that based on the universal prerogative of rational          
beings as ends in themselves- these imperatives, just because they          
were conceived as categorical, excluded from any share in their             
authority all admixture of any interest as a spring of action; they         
were, however, only assumed to be categorical, because such an              
assumption was necessary to explain the conception of duty. But we          
could not prove independently that there are practical propositions         
which command categorically, nor can it be proved in this section; one      
thing, however, could be done, namely, to indicate in the imperative        
itself, by some determinate expression, that in the case of volition        
from duty all interest is renounced, which is the specific criterion        
of categorical as distinguished from hypothetical imperatives. This is      
done in the present (third) formula of the principle, namely, in the        
idea of the will of every rational being as a universally                   
legislating will.                                                           
  For although a will which is subject to laws may be attached to this      
law by means of an interest, yet a will which is itself a supreme           
lawgiver so far as it is such cannot possibly depend on any                 
interest, since a will so dependent would itself still need another         
law restricting the interest of its self-love by the condition that it      
should be valid as universal law.                                           
  Thus the principle that every human will is a will which in all           
its maxims gives universal laws,* provided it be otherwise                  
justified, would be very well adapted to be the categorical                 
imperative, in this respect, namely, that just because of the idea          
of universal legislation it is not based on interest, and therefore it      
alone among all possible imperatives can be unconditional. Or still         
better, converting the proposition, if there is a categorical               
imperative (i.e., a law for the will of every rational being), it           
can only command that everything be done from maxims of one's will          
regarded as a will which could at the same time will that it should         
itself give universal laws, for in that case only the practical             
principle and the imperative which it obeys are unconditional, since        
they cannot be based on any interest.                                       
-                                                                           
  *I may be excused from adducing examples to elucidate this                
principle, as those which have already been used to elucidate the           
categorical imperative and its formula would all serve for the like         
purpose here.                                                               
-                                                                           
  Looking back now on all previous attempts to discover the                 
principle of morality, we need not wonder why they all failed. It           
was seen that man was bound to laws by duty, but it was not observed        
that the laws to which he is subject are only those of his own giving,      
though at the same time they are universal, and that he is only             
bound to act in conformity with his own will; a will, however, which        
is designed by nature to give universal laws. For when one has              
conceived man only as subject to a law (no matter what), then this law      
required some interest, either by way of attraction or constraint,          
since it did not originate as a law from his own will, but this will        
was according to a law obliged by something else to act in a certain        
manner. Now by this necessary consequence all the labour spent in           
finding a supreme principle of duty was irrevocably lost. For men           
never elicited duty, but only a necessity of acting from a certain          
interest. Whether this interest was private or otherwise, in any            
case the imperative must be conditional and could not by any means          
be capable of being a moral command. I will therefore call this the         
principle of autonomy of the will, in contrast with every other             
which I accordingly reckon as heteronomy.                                   
  The conception of the will of every rational being as one which must      
consider itself as giving in all the maxims of its will universal           
laws, so as to judge itself and its actions from this point of view-        
this conception leads to another which depends on it and is very            
fruitful, namely that of a kingdom of ends.                                 
  By a kingdom I understand the union of different rational beings          
in a system by common laws. Now since it is by laws that ends are           
determined as regards their universal validity, hence, if we                
abstract from the personal differences of rational beings and likewise      
from all the content of their private ends, we shall be able to             
conceive all ends combined in a systematic whole (including both            
rational beings as ends in themselves, and also the special ends which      
each may propose to himself), that is to say, we can conceive a             
kingdom of ends, which on the preceding principles is possible.             
  For all rational beings come under the law that each of them must         
treat itself and all others never merely as means, but in every case        
at the same time as ends in themselves. Hence results a systematic          
union of rational being by common objective laws, i.e., a kingdom           
which may be called a kingdom of ends, since what these laws have in        
view is just the relation of these beings to one another as ends and        
means. It is certainly only an ideal.                                       
  A rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when,         
although giving universal laws in it, he is also himself subject to         
these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign when, while giving laws,          
he is not subject to the will of any other.                                 
  A rational being must always regard himself as giving laws either as      
member or as sovereign in a kingdom of ends which is rendered possible      
by the freedom of will. He cannot, however, maintain the latter             
position merely by the maxims of his will, but only in case he is a         
completely independent being without wants and with unrestricted power      
adequate to his will.                                                       
  Morality consists then in the reference of all action to the              
legislation which alone can render a kingdom of ends possible. This         
legislation must be capable of existing in every rational being and of      
emanating from his will, so that the principle of this will is never        
to act on any maxim which could not without contradiction be also a         
universal law and, accordingly, always so to act that the will could        
at the same time regard itself as giving in its maxims universal laws.      
If now the maxims of rational beings are not by their own nature            
coincident with this objective principle, then the necessity of acting      
on it is called practical necessitation, i.e., duty. Duty does not          
apply to the sovereign in the kingdom of ends, but it does to every         
member of it and to all in the same degree.                                 
  The practical necessity of acting on this principle, i.e., duty,          
does not rest at all on feelings, impulses, or inclinations, but            
solely on the relation of rational beings to one another, a relation        
in which the will of a rational being must always be regarded as            
legislative, since otherwise it could not be conceived as an end in         
itself. Reason then refers every maxim of the will, regarding it as         
legislating universally, to every other will and also to every              
action towards oneself; and this not on account of any other practical      
motive or any future advantage, but from the idea of the dignity of         
a rational being, obeying no law but that which he himself also gives.      
  In the kingdom of ends everything has either value or dignity.            
Whatever has a value can be replaced by something else which is             
equivalent; whatever, on the other hand, is above all value, and            
therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity.                           
  Whatever has reference to the general inclinations and wants of           
mankind has a market value; whatever, without presupposing a want,          
corresponds to a certain taste, that is to a satisfaction in the            
mere purposeless play of our faculties, has a fancy value; but that         
which constitutes the condition under which alone anything can be an        
end in itself, this has not merely a relative worth, i.e., value,           
but an intrinsic worth, that is, dignity.                                   
  Now morality is the condition under which alone a rational being can      
be an end in himself, since by this alone is it possible that he            
should be a legislating member in the kingdom of ends. Thus                 
morality, and humanity as capable of it, is that which alone has            
dignity. Skill and diligence in labour have a market value; wit,            
lively imagination, and humour, have fancy value; on the other hand,        
fidelity to promises, benevolence from principle (not from                  
instinct), have an intrinsic worth. Neither nature nor art contains         
anything which in default of these it could put in their place, for         
their worth consists not in the effects which spring from them, not in      
the use and advantage which they secure, but in the disposition of          
mind, that is, the maxims of the will which are ready to manifest           
themselves in such actions, even though they should not have the            
desired effect. These actions also need no recommendation from any          
subjective taste or sentiment, that they may be looked on with              
immediate favour and satisfaction: they need no immediate propension        
or feeling for them; they exhibit the will that performs them as an         
object of an immediate respect, and nothing but reason is required          
to impose them on the will; not to flatter it into them, which, in the      
case of duties, would be a contradiction. This estimation therefore         
shows that the worth of such a disposition is dignity, and places it        
infinitely above all value, with which it cannot for a moment be            
brought into comparison or competition without as it were violating         
its sanctity.                                                               
  What then is it which justifies virtue or the morally good                
disposition, in making such lofty claims? It is nothing less than           
the privilege it secures to the rational being of participating in the      
giving of universal laws, by which it qualifies him to be a member          
of a possible kingdom of ends, a privilege to which he was already          
destined by his own nature as being an end in himself and, on that          
account, legislating in the kingdom of ends; free as regards all            
laws of physical nature, and obeying those only which he himself            
gives, and by which his maxims can belong to a system of universal          
law, to which at the same time he submits himself. For nothing has any      
worth except what the law assigns it. Now the legislation itself which      
assigns the worth of everything must for that very reason possess           
dignity, that is an unconditional incomparable worth; and the word          
respect alone supplies a becoming expression for the esteem which a         
rational being must have for it. Autonomy then is the basis of the          
dignity of human and of every rational nature.                              
  The three modes of presenting the principle of morality that have         
been adduced are at bottom only so many formulae of the very same law,      
and each of itself involves the other two. There is, however, a             
difference in them, but it is rather subjectively than objectively          
practical, intended namely to bring an idea of the reason nearer to         
intuition (by means of a certain analogy) and thereby nearer to             
feeling. All maxims, in fact, have:                                         
  1. A form, consisting in universality; and in this view the               
formula of the moral imperative is expressed thus, that the maxims          
must be so chosen as if they were to serve as universal laws of             
nature.                                                                     
  2. A matter, namely, an end, and here the formula says that the           
rational being, as it is an end by its own nature and therefore an end      
in itself, must in every maxim serve as the condition limiting all          
merely relative and arbitrary ends.                                         
  3. A complete characterization of all maxims by means of that             
formula, namely, that all maxims ought by their own legislation to          
harmonize with a possible kingdom of ends as with a kingdom of              
nature.* There is a progress here in the order of the categories of         
unity of the form of the will (its universality), plurality of the          
matter (the objects, i.e., the ends), and totality of the system of         
these. In forming our moral judgement of actions, it is better to           
proceed always on the strict method and start from the general formula      
of the categorical imperative: Act according to a maxim which can at        
the same time make itself a universal law. If, however, we wish to          
gain an entrance for the moral law, it is very useful to bring one and      
the same action under the three specified conceptions, and thereby          
as far as possible to bring it nearer to intuition.                         
-                                                                           
  *Teleology considers nature as a kingdom of ends; ethics regards a        
possible kingdom of ends as a kingdom nature. In the first case, the        
kingdom of ends is a theoretical idea, adopted to explain what              
actually is. In the latter it is a practical idea, adopted to bring         
about that which is not yet, but which can be realized by our conduct,      
namely, if it conforms to this idea.                                        
-                                                                           
  We can now end where we started at the beginning, namely, with the        
conception of a will unconditionally good. That will is absolutely          
good which cannot be evil- in other words, whose maxim, if made a           
universal law, could never contradict itself. This principle, then, is      
its supreme law: "Act always on such a maxim as thou canst at the same      
time will to be a universal law"; this is the sole condition under          
which a will can never contradict itself; and such an imperative is         
categorical. Since the validity of the will as a universal law for          
possible actions is analogous to the universal connexion of the             
existence of things by general laws, which is the formal notion of          
nature in general, the categorical imperative can also be expressed         
thus: Act on maxims which can at the same time have for their object        
themselves as universal laws of nature. Such then is the formula of an      
absolutely good will.                                                       
  Rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by this,         
that it sets before itself an end. This end would be the matter of          
every good will. But since in the idea of a will that is absolutely         
good without being limited by any condition (of attaining this or that      
end) we must abstract wholly from every end to be effected (since this      
would make every will only relatively good), it follows that in this        
case the end must be conceived, not as an end to be effected, but as        
an independently existing end. Consequently it is conceived only            
negatively, i.e., as that which we must never act against and which,        
therefore, must never be regarded merely as means, but must in every        
volition be esteemed as an end likewise. Now this end can be nothing        
but the subject of all possible ends, since this is also the subject        
of a possible absolutely good will; for such a will cannot without          
contradiction be postponed to any other object. The principle: "So act      
in regard to every rational being (thyself and others), that he may         
always have place in thy maxim as an end in himself," is accordingly        
essentially identical with this other: "Act upon a maxim which, at the      
same time, involves its own universal validity for every rational           
being." For that in using means for every end I should limit my             
maxim by the condition of its holding good as a law for every subject,      
this comes to the same thing as that the fundamental principle of           
all maxims of action must be that the subject of all ends, i.e., the        
rational being himself, be never employed merely as means, but as           
the supreme condition restricting the use of all means, that is in          
every case as an end likewise.                                              
  It follows incontestably that, to whatever laws any rational being        
may be subject, he being an end in himself must be able to regard           
himself as also legislating universally in respect of these same laws,      
since it is just this fitness of his maxims for universal                   
legislation that distinguishes him as an end in himself; also it            
follows that this implies his dignity (prerogative) above all mere          
physical beings, that he must always take his maxims from the point of      
view which regards himself and, likewise, every other rational being        
as law-giving beings (on which account they are called persons). In         
this way a world of rational beings (mundus intelligibilis) is              
possible as a kingdom of ends, and this by virtue of the legislation        
proper to all persons as members. Therefore every rational being            
must so act as if he were by his maxims in every case a legislating         
member in the universal kingdom of ends. The formal principle of these      
maxims is: "So act as if thy maxim were to serve likewise as the            
universal law (of all rational beings)." A kingdom of ends is thus          
only possible on the analogy of a kingdom of nature, the former             
however only by maxims, that is self-imposed rules, the latter only by      
the laws of efficient causes acting under necessitation from                
without. Nevertheless, although the system of nature is looked upon as      
a machine, yet so far as it has reference to rational beings as its         
ends, it is given on this account the name of a kingdom of nature. Now      
such a kingdom of ends would be actually realized by means of maxims        
conforming to the canon which the categorical imperative prescribes to      
all rational beings, if they were universally followed. But although a      
rational being, even if he punctually follows this maxim himself,           
cannot reckon upon all others being therefore true to the same, nor         
expect that the kingdom of nature and its orderly arrangements shall        
be in harmony with him as a fitting member, so as to form a kingdom of      
ends to which he himself contributes, that is to say, that it shall         
favour his expectation of happiness, still that law: "Act according to      
the maxims of a member of a merely possible kingdom of ends                 
legislating in it universally," remains in its full force, inasmuch as      
it commands categorically. And it is just in this that the paradox          
lies; that the mere dignity of man as a rational creature, without any      
other end or advantage to be attained thereby, in other words, respect      
for a mere idea, should yet serve as an inflexible precept of the           
will, and that it is precisely in this independence of the maxim on         
all such springs of action that its sublimity consists; and it is this      
that makes every rational subject worthy to be a legislative member in      
the kingdom of ends: for otherwise he would have to be conceived            
only as subject to the physical law of his wants. And although we           
should suppose the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of ends to be          
united under one sovereign, so that the latter kingdom thereby              
ceased to be a mere idea and acquired true reality, then it would no        
doubt gain the accession of a strong spring, but by no means any            
increase of its intrinsic worth. For this sole absolute lawgiver must,      
notwithstanding this, be always conceived as estimating the worth of        
rational beings only by their disinterested behaviour, as prescribed        
to themselves from that idea [the dignity of man] alone. The essence        
of things is not altered by their external relations, and that              
which, abstracting from these, alone constitutes the absolute worth of      
man, is also that by which he must be judged, whoever the judge may         
be, and even by the Supreme Being. Morality, then, is the relation          
of actions to the relation of actions will, that is, to the autonomy        
of potential universal legislation by its maxims. An action that is         
consistent with the autonomy of the will is permitted; one that does        
not agree therewith is forbidden. A will whose maxims necessarily           
coincide with the laws of autonomy is a holy will, good absolutely.         
The dependence of a will not absolutely good on the principle of            
autonomy (moral necessitation) is obligation. This, then, cannot be         
applied to a holy being. The objective necessity of actions from            
obligation is called duty.                                                  
  From what has just been said, it is easy to see how it happens that,      
although the conception of duty implies subjection to the law, we           
yet ascribe a certain dignity and sublimity to the person who               
fulfils all his duties. There is not, indeed, any sublimity in him, so      
far as he is subject to the moral law; but inasmuch as in regard to         
that very law he is likewise a legislator, and on that account alone        
subject to it, he has sublimity. We have also shown above that neither      
fear nor inclination, but simply respect for the law, is the spring         
which can give actions a moral worth. Our own will, so far as we            
suppose it to act only under the condition that its maxims are              
potentially universal laws, this ideal will which is possible to us is      
the proper object of respect; and the dignity of humanity consists          
just in this capacity of being universally legislative, though with         
the condition that it is itself subject to this same legislation.           
-                                                                           
  The Autonomy of the Will as the Supreme Principle of Morality             
-                                                                           
  Autonomy of the will is that property of it by which it is a law          
to itself (independently of any property of the objects of                  
volition). The principle of autonomy then is: "Always so to choose          
that the same volition shall comprehend the maxims of our choice as         
a universal law." We cannot prove that this practical rule is an            
imperative, i.e., that the will of every rational being is necessarily      
bound to it as a condition, by a mere analysis of the conceptions           
which occur in it, since it is a synthetical proposition; we must           
advance beyond the cognition of the objects to a critical                   
examination of the subject, that is, of the pure practical reason, for      
this synthetic proposition which commands apodeictically must be            
capable of being cognized wholly a priori. This matter, however,            
does not belong to the present section. But that the principle of           
autonomy in question is the sole principle of morals can be readily         
shown by mere analysis of the conceptions of morality. For by this          
analysis we find that its principle must be a categorical imperative        
and that what this commands is neither more nor less than this very         
autonomy.                                                                   
-                                                                           
  Heteronomy of the Will as the Source of all spurious Principles           
                          of Morality                                       
-                                                                           
  If the will seeks the law which is to determine it anywhere else          
than in the fitness of its maxims to be universal laws of its own           
dictation, consequently if it goes out of itself and seeks this law in      
the character of any of its objects, there always results                   
heteronomy. The will in that case does not give itself the law, but it      
is given by the object through its relation to the will. This               
relation, whether it rests on inclination or on conceptions of reason,      
only admits of hypothetical imperatives: "I ought to do something           
because I wish for something else." On the contrary, the moral, and         
therefore categorical, imperative says: "I ought to do so and so, even      
though I should not wish for anything else." E.g., the former says: "I      
ought not to lie, if I would retain my reputation"; the latter says:        
"I ought not to lie, although it should not bring me the least              
discredit." The latter therefore must so far abstract from all objects      
that they shall have no influence on the will, in order that practical      
reason (will) may not be restricted to administering an interest not        
belonging to it, but may simply show its own commanding authority as        
the supreme legislation. Thus, e.g., I ought to endeavour to promote        
the happiness of others, not as if its realization involved any             
concern of mine (whether by immediate inclination or by any                 
satisfaction indirectly gained through reason), but simply because a        
maxim which excludes it cannot be comprehended as a universal law in        
one and the same volition.                                                  
-                                                                           
    Classification of all Principles of Morality which can be               
           founded on the Conception of Heteronomy                          
-                                                                           
  Here as elsewhere human reason in its pure use, so long as it was         
not critically examined, has first tried all possible wrong ways            
before it succeeded in finding the one true way.                            
  All principles which can be taken from this point of view are either      
empirical or rational. The former, drawn from the principle of              
happiness, are built on physical or moral feelings; the latter,             
drawn from the principle of perfection, are built either on the             
rational conception of perfection as a possible effect, or on that          
of an independent perfection (the will of God) as the determining           
cause of our will.                                                          
  Empirical principles are wholly incapable of serving as a foundation      
for moral laws. For the universality with which these should hold           
for all rational beings without distinction, the unconditional              
practical necessity which is thereby imposed on them, is lost when          
their foundation is taken from the particular constitution of human         
nature, or the accidental circumstances in which it is placed. The          
principle of private happiness, however, is the most objectionable,         
not merely because it is false, and experience contradicts the              
supposition that prosperity is always proportioned to good conduct,         
nor yet merely because it contributes nothing to the establishment          
of morality- since it is quite a different thing to make a                  
prosperous man and a good man, or to make one prudent and                   
sharp-sighted for his own interests and to make him virtuous- but           
because the springs it provides for morality are such as rather             
undermine it and destroy its sublimity, since they put the motives          
to virtue and to vice in the same class and only teach us to make a         
better calculation, the specific difference between virtue and vice         
being entirely extinguished. On the other hand, as to moral feeling,        
this supposed special sense,* the appeal to it is indeed superficial        
when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out,        
even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings, which            
naturally differ infinitely in degree, cannot furnish a uniform             
standard of good and evil, nor has anyone a right to form judgements        
for others by his own feelings: nevertheless this moral feeling is          
nearer to morality and its dignity in this respect, that it pays            
virtue the honour of ascribing to her immediately the satisfaction and      
esteem we have for her and does not, as it were, tell her to her            
face that we are not attached to her by her beauty but by profit.           
-                                                                           
  *I class the principle of moral feeling under that of happiness,          
because every empirical interest promises to contribute to our              
well-being by the agreeableness that a thing affords, whether it be         
immediately and without a view to profit, or whether profit be              
regarded. We must likewise, with Hutcheson, class the principle of          
sympathy with the happiness of others under his assumed moral sense.        
-                                                                           
  Amongst the rational principles of morality, the ontological              
conception of perfection, notwithstanding its defects, is better            
than the theological conception which derives morality from a Divine        
absolutely perfect will. The former is, no doubt, empty and indefinite      
and consequently useless for finding in the boundless field of              
possible reality the greatest amount suitable for us; moreover, in          
attempting to distinguish specifically the reality of which we are now      
speaking from every other, it inevitably tends to turn in a circle and      
cannot avoid tacitly presupposing the morality which it is to explain;      
it is nevertheless preferable to the theological view, first,               
because we have no intuition of the divine perfection and can only          
deduce it from our own conceptions, the most important of which is          
that of morality, and our explanation would thus be involved in a           
gross circle; and, in the next place, if we avoid this, the only            
notion of the Divine will remaining to us is a conception made up of        
the attributes of desire of glory and dominion, combined with the           
awful conceptions of might and vengeance, and any system of morals          
erected on this foundation would be directly opposed to morality.           
  However, if I had to choose between the notion of the moral sense         
and that of perfection in general (two systems which at least do not        
weaken morality, although they are totally incapable of serving as its      
foundation), then I should decide for the latter, because it at             
least withdraws the decision of the question from the sensibility           
and brings it to the court of pure reason; and although even here it        
decides nothing, it at all events preserves the indefinite idea (of         
a will good in itself free from corruption, until it shall be more          
precisely defined.                                                          
  For the rest I think I may be excused here from a detailed                
refutation of all these doctrines; that would only be superfluous           
labour, since it is so easy, and is probably so well seen even by           
those whose office requires them to decide for one of these theories        
(because their hearers would not tolerate suspension of judgement).         
But what interests us more here is to know that the prime foundation        
of morality laid down by all these principles is nothing but                
heteronomy of the will, and for this reason they must necessarily miss      
their aim.                                                                  
  In every case where an object of the will has to be supposed, in          
order that the rule may be prescribed which is to determine the             
will, there the rule is simply heteronomy; the imperative is                
conditional, namely, if or because one wishes for this object, one          
should act so and so: hence it can never command morally, that is,          
categorically. Whether the object determines the will by means of           
inclination, as in the principle of private happiness, or by means          
of reason directed to objects of our possible volition generally, as        
in the principle of perfection, in either case the will never               
determines itself immediately by the conception of the action, but          
only by the influence which the foreseen effect of the action has on        
the will; I ought to do something, on this account, because I wish for      
something else; and here there must be yet another law assumed in me        
as its subject, by which I necessarily will this other thing, and this      
law again requires an imperative to restrict this maxim. For the            
influence which the conception of an object within the reach of our         
faculties can exercise on the will of the subject, in consequence of        
its natural properties, depends on the nature of the subject, either        
the sensibility (inclination and taste), or the understanding and           
reason, the employment of which is by the peculiar constitution of          
their nature attended with satisfaction. It follows that the law would      
be, properly speaking, given by nature, and, as such, it must be known      
and proved by experience and would consequently be contingent and           
therefore incapable of being an apodeictic practical rule, such as the      
moral rule must be. Not only so, but it is inevitably only heteronomy;      
the will does not give itself the law, but is given by a foreign            
impulse by means of a particular natural constitution of the subject        
adapted to receive it. An absolutely good will, then, the principle of      
which must be a categorical imperative, will be indeterminate as            
regards all objects and will contain merely the form of volition            
generally, and that as autonomy, that is to say, the capability of the      
maxims of every good will to make themselves a universal law, is            
itself the only law which the will of every rational being imposes          
on itself, without needing to assume any spring or interest as a            
foundation.                                                                 
  How such a synthetical practical a priori proposition is possible,        
and why it is necessary, is a problem whose solution does not lie           
within the bounds of the metaphysic of morals; and we have not here         
affirmed its truth, much less professed to have a proof of it in our        
power. We simply showed by the development of the universally received      
notion of morality that an autonomy of the will is inevitably               
connected with it, or rather is its foundation. Whoever then holds          
morality to be anything real, and not a chimerical idea without any         
truth, must likewise admit the principle of it that is here                 
assigned. This section then, like the first, was merely analytical.         
Now to prove that morality is no creation of the brain, which it            
cannot be if the categorical imperative and with it the autonomy of         
the will is true, and as an a priori principle absolutely necessary,        
this supposes the possibility of a synthetic use of pure practical          
reason, which however we cannot venture on without first giving a           
critical examination of this faculty of reason. In the concluding           
section we shall give the principal outlines of this critical               
examination as far as is sufficient for our purpose.                        
                                                                            
SEC_3                                                                       
                       THIRD SECTION                                        
-                                                                           
        TRANSITION FROM THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS TO THE                     
             CRITIQUE OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON                              
-                                                                           
  The Concept of Freedom is the Key that explains the Autonomy of           
the Will                                                                    
-                                                                           
  The will is a kind of causality belonging to living beings in so far      
as they are rational, and freedom would be this property of such            
causality that it can be efficient, independently of foreign causes         
determining it; just as physical necessity is the property that the         
causality of all irrational beings has of being determined to activity      
by the influence of foreign causes.                                         
  The preceding definition of freedom is negative and therefore             
unfruitful for the discovery of its essence, but it leads to a              
positive conception which is so much the more full and fruitful.            
  Since the conception of causality involves that of laws, according        
to which, by something that we call cause, something else, namely           
the effect, must be produced; hence, although freedom is not a              
property of the will depending on physical laws, yet it is not for          
that reason lawless; on the contrary it must be a causality acting          
according to immutable laws, but of a peculiar kind; otherwise a            
free will would be an absurdity. Physical necessity is a heteronomy of      
the efficient causes, for every effect is possible only according to        
this law, that something else determines the efficient cause to             
exert its causality. What else then can freedom of the will be but          
autonomy, that is, the property of the will to be a law to itself? But      
the proposition: "The will is in every action a law to itself," only        
expresses the principle: "To act on no other maxim than that which can      
also have as an object itself as a universal law." Now this is              
precisely the formula of the categorical imperative and is the              
principle of morality, so that a free will and a will subject to moral      
laws are one and the same.                                                  
  On the hypothesis, then, of freedom of the will, morality together        
with its principle follows from it by mere analysis of the conception.      
However, the latter is a synthetic proposition; viz., an absolutely         
good will is that whose maxim can always include itself regarded as         
a universal law; for this property of its maxim can never be                
discovered by analysing the conception of an absolutely good will. Now      
such synthetic propositions are only possible in this way: that the         
two cognitions are connected together by their union with a third in        
which they are both to be found. The positive concept of freedom            
furnishes this third cognition, which cannot, as with physical causes,      
be the nature of the sensible world (in the concept of which we find        
conjoined the concept of something in relation as cause to something        
else as effect). We cannot now at once show what this third is to           
which freedom points us and of which we have an idea a priori, nor can      
we make intelligible how the concept of freedom is shown to be              
legitimate from principles of pure practical reason and with it the         
possibility of a categorical imperative; but some further                   
preparation is required.                                                    
-                                                                           
     Freedom must be presupposed as a Property of the Will                  
                   of all Rational Beings                                   
-                                                                           
  It is not enough to predicate freedom of our own will, from Whatever      
reason, if we have not sufficient grounds for predicating the same          
of all rational beings. For as morality serves as a law for us only         
because we are rational beings, it must also hold for all rational          
beings; and as it must be deduced simply from the property of freedom,      
it must be shown that freedom also is a property of all rational            
beings. It is not enough, then, to prove it from certain supposed           
experiences of human nature (which indeed is quite impossible, and          
it can only be shown a priori), but we must show that it belongs to         
the activity of all rational beings endowed with a will. Now I say          
every being that cannot act except under the idea of freedom is just        
for that reason in a practical point of view really free, that is to        
say, all laws which are inseparably connected with freedom have the         
same force for him as if his will had been shown to be free in              
itself by a proof theoretically conclusive.* Now I affirm that we must      
attribute to every rational being which has a will that it has also         
the idea of freedom and acts entirely under this idea. For in such a        
being we conceive a reason that is practical, that is, has causality        
in reference to its objects. Now we cannot possibly conceive a              
reason consciously receiving a bias from any other quarter with             
respect to its judgements, for then the subject would ascribe the           
determination of its judgement not to its own reason, but to an             
impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its principles              
independent of foreign influences. Consequently as practical reason or      
as the will of a rational being it must regard itself as free, that is      
to say, the will of such a being cannot be a will of its own except         
under the idea of freedom. This idea must therefore in a practical          
point of view be ascribed to every rational being.                          
-                                                                           
  *I adopt this method of assuming freedom merely as an idea which          
rational beings suppose in their actions, in order to avoid the             
necessity of proving it in its theoretical aspect also. The former          
is sufficient for my purpose; for even though the speculative proof         
should not be made out, yet a being that cannot act except with the         
idea of freedom is bound by the same laws that would oblige a being         
who was actually free. Thus we can escape here from the onus which          
presses on the theory.                                                      
-                                                                           
      Of the Interest attaching to the Ideas of Morality                    
-                                                                           
  We have finally reduced the definite conception of morality to the        
idea of freedom. This latter, however, we could not prove to be             
actually a property of ourselves or of human nature; only we saw            
that it must be presupposed if we would conceive a being as rational        
and conscious of its causality in respect of its actions, i.e., as          
endowed with a will; and so we find that on just the same grounds we        
must ascribe to every being endowed with reason and will this               
attribute of determining itself to action under the idea of its             
freedom.                                                                    
  Now it resulted also from the presupposition of these ideas that          
we became aware of a law that the subjective principles of action,          
i.e., maxims, must always be so assumed that they can also hold as          
objective, that is, universal principles, and so serve as universal         
laws of our own dictation. But why then should I subject myself to          
this principle and that simply as a rational being, thus also               
subjecting to it all other being endowed with reason? I will allow          
that no interest urges me to this, for that would not give a                
categorical imperative, but I must take an interest in it and               
discern how this comes to pass; for this properly an "I ought" is           
properly an "I would," valid for every rational being, provided only        
that reason determined his actions without any hindrance. But for           
beings that are in addition affected as we are by springs of a              
different kind, namely, sensibility, and in whose case that is not          
always done which reason alone would do, for these that necessity is        
expressed only as an "ought," and the subjective necessity is               
different from the objective.                                               
  It seems then as if the moral law, that is, the principle of              
autonomy of the will, were properly speaking only presupposed in the        
idea of freedom, and as if we could not prove its reality and               
objective necessity independently. In that case we should still have        
gained something considerable by at least determining the true              
principle more exactly than had previously been done; but as regards        
its validity and the practical necessity of subjecting oneself to           
it, we should not have advanced a step. For if we were asked why the        
universal validity of our maxim as a law must be the condition              
restricting our actions, and on what we ground the worth which we           
assign to this manner of acting- a worth so great that there cannot be      
any higher interest; and if we were asked further how it happens            
that it is by this alone a man believes he feels his own personal           
worth, in comparison with which that of an agreeable or disagreeable        
condition is to be regarded as nothing, to these questions we could         
give no satisfactory answer.                                                
  We find indeed sometimes that we can take an interest in a                
personal quality which does not involve any interest of external            
condition, provided this quality makes us capable of participating          
in the condition in case reason were to effect the allotment; that          
is to say, the mere being worthy of happiness can interest of itself        
even without the motive of participating in this happiness. This            
judgement, however, is in fact only the effect of the importance of         
the moral law which we before presupposed (when by the idea of freedom      
we detach ourselves from every empirical interest); but that we             
ought to detach ourselves from these interests, i.e., to consider           
ourselves as free in action and yet as subject to certain laws, so          
as to find a worth simply in our own person which can compensate us         
for the loss of everything that gives worth to our condition; this          
we are not yet able to discern in this way, nor do we see how it is         
possible so to act- in other words, whence the moral law derives its        
obligation.                                                                 
  It must be freely admitted that there is a sort of circle here            
from which it seems impossible to escape. In the order of efficient         
causes we assume ourselves free, in order that in the order of ends we      
may conceive ourselves as subject to moral laws: and we afterwards          
conceive ourselves as subject to these laws, because we have                
attributed to ourselves freedom of will: for freedom and                    
self-legislation of will are both autonomy and, therefore, are              
reciprocal conceptions, and for this very reason one must not be            
used to explain the other or give the reason of it, but at most only        
logical purposes to reduce apparently different notions of the same         
object to one single concept (as we reduce different fractions of           
the same value to the lowest terms).                                        
  One resource remains to us, namely, to inquire whether we do not          
occupy different points of view when by means of freedom we think           
ourselves as causes efficient a priori, and when we form our                
conception of ourselves from our actions as effects which we see            
before our eyes.                                                            
  It is a remark which needs no subtle reflection to make, but which        
we may assume that even the commonest understanding can make, although      
it be after its fashion by an obscure discernment of judgement which        
it calls feeling, that all the "ideas" that come to us involuntarily        
(as those of the senses) do not enable us to know objects otherwise         
than as they affect us; so that what they may be in themselves remains      
unknown to us, and consequently that as regards "ideas" of this kind        
even with the closest attention and clearness that the understanding        
can apply to them, we can by them only attain to the knowledge of           
appearances, never to that of things in themselves. As soon as this         
distinction has once been made (perhaps merely in consequence of the        
difference observed between the ideas given us from without, and in         
which we are passive, and those that we produce simply from ourselves,      
and in which we show our own activity), then it follows of itself that      
we must admit and assume behind the appearance something else that          
is not an appearance, namely, the things in themselves; although we         
must admit that as they can never be known to us except as they affect      
us, we can come no nearer to them, nor can we ever know what they           
are in themselves. This must furnish a distinction, however crude,          
between a world of sense and the world of understanding, of which           
the former may be different according to the difference of the              
sensuous impressions in various observers, while the second which is        
its basis always remains the same, Even as to himself, a man cannot         
pretend to know what he is in himself from the knowledge he has by          
internal sensation. For as he does not as it were create himself,           
and does not come by the conception of himself a priori but                 
empirically, it naturally follows that he can obtain his knowledge          
even of himself only by the inner sense and, consequently, only             
through the appearances of his nature and the way in which his              
consciousness is affected. At the same time beyond these                    
characteristics of his own subject, made up of mere appearances, he         
must necessarily suppose something else as their basis, namely, his         
ego, whatever its characteristics in itself may be. Thus in respect to      
mere perception and receptivity of sensations he must reckon himself        
as belonging to the world of sense; but in respect of whatever there        
may be of pure activity in him (that which reaches consciousness            
immediately and not through affecting the senses), he must reckon           
himself as belonging to the intellectual world, of which, however,          
he has no further knowledge. To such a conclusion the reflecting man        
must come with respect to all the things which can be presented to          
him: it is probably to be met with even in persons of the commonest         
understanding, who, as is well known, are very much inclined to             
suppose behind the objects of the senses something else invisible           
and acting of itself. They spoil it, however, by presently                  
sensualizing this invisible again; that is to say, wanting to make          
it an object of intuition, so that they do not become a whit the            
wiser.                                                                      
  Now man really finds in himself a faculty by which he                     
distinguishes himself from everything else, even from himself as            
affected by objects, and that is reason. This being pure spontaneity        
is even elevated above the understanding. For although the latter is a      
spontaneity and does not, like sense, merely contain intuitions that        
arise when we are affected by things (and are therefore passive),           
yet it cannot produce from its activity any other conceptions than          
those which merely serve to bring the intuitions of sense under             
rules and, thereby, to unite them in one consciousness, and without         
this use of the sensibility it could not think at all; whereas, on the      
contrary, reason shows so pure a spontaneity in the case of what I          
call ideas [ideal conceptions] that it thereby far transcends               
everything that the sensibility can give it, and exhibits its most          
important function in distinguishing the world of sense from that of        
understanding, and thereby prescribing the limits of the understanding      
itself.                                                                     
  For this reason a rational being must regard himself qua                  
intelligence (not from the side of his lower faculties) as belonging        
not to the world of sense, but to that of understanding; hence he           
has two points of view from which he can regard himself, and recognise      
laws of the exercise of his faculties, and consequently of all his          
actions: first, so far as he belongs to the world of sense, he finds        
himself subject to laws of nature (heteronomy); secondly, as belonging      
to the intelligible world, under laws which being independent of            
nature have their foundation not in experience but in reason alone.         
  As a rational being, and consequently belonging to the                    
intelligible world, man can never conceive the causality of his own         
will otherwise than on condition of the idea of freedom, for                
independence of the determinate causes of the sensible world (an            
independence which reason must always ascribe to itself) is freedom.        
Now the idea of freedom is inseparably connected with the conception        
of autonomy, and this again with the universal principle of morality        
which is ideally the foundation of all actions of rational beings,          
just as the law of nature is of all phenomena.                              
  Now the suspicion is removed which we raised above, that there was a      
latent circle involved in our reasoning from freedom to autonomy,           
and from this to the moral law, viz.: that we laid down the idea of         
freedom because of the moral law only that we might afterwards in turn      
infer the latter from freedom, and that consequently we could assign        
no reason at all for this law, but could only [present] it as a             
petitio principii which well disposed minds would gladly concede to         
us, but which we could never put forward as a provable proposition.         
For now we see that, when we conceive ourselves as free, we transfer        
ourselves into the world of understanding as members of it and              
recognise the autonomy of the will with its consequence, morality;          
whereas, if we conceive ourselves as under obligation, we consider          
ourselves as belonging to the world of sense and at the same time to        
the world of understanding.                                                 
-                                                                           
           How is a Categorical Imperative Possible?                        
-                                                                           
  Every rational being reckons himself qua intelligence as belonging        
to the world of understanding, and it is simply as an efficient             
cause belonging to that world that he calls his causality a will. On        
the other side he is also conscious of himself as a part of the             
world of sense in which his actions, which are mere appearances             
[phenomena] of that causality, are displayed; we cannot, however,           
discern how they are possible from this causality which we do not           
know; but instead of that, these actions as belonging to the                
sensible world must be viewed as determined by other phenomena,             
namely, desires and inclinations. If therefore I were only a member of      
the world of understanding, then all my actions would perfectly             
conform to the principle of autonomy of the pure will; if I were            
only a part of the world of sense, they would necessarily be assumed        
to conform wholly to the natural law of desires and inclinations, in        
other words, to the heteronomy of nature. (The former would rest on         
morality as the supreme principle, the latter on happiness.) Since,         
however, the world of understanding contains the foundation of the          
world of sense, and consequently of its laws also, and accordingly          
gives the law to my will (which belongs wholly to the world of              
understanding) directly, and must be conceived as doing so, it follows      
that, although on the one side I must regard myself as a being              
belonging to the world of sense, yet on the other side I must               
recognize myself as subject as an intelligence to the law of the world      
of understanding, i.e., to reason, which contains this law in the idea      
of freedom, and therefore as subject to the autonomy of the will:           
consequently I must regard the laws of the world of understanding as        
imperatives for me and the actions which conform to them as duties.         
  And thus what makes categorical imperatives possible is this, that        
the idea of freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world, in          
consequence of which, if I were nothing else, all my actions would          
always conform to the autonomy of the will; but as I at the same            
time intuite myself as a member of the world of sense, they ought so        
to conform, and this categorical "ought" implies a synthetic a              
priori proposition, inasmuch as besides my will as affected by              
sensible desires there is added further the idea of the same will           
but as belonging to the world of the understanding, pure and practical      
of itself, which contains the supreme condition according to reason of      
the former will; precisely as to the intuitions of sense there are          
added concepts of the understanding which of themselves signify             
nothing but regular form in general and in this way synthetic a priori      
propositions become possible, on which all knowledge of physical            
nature rests.                                                               
  The practical use of common human reason confirms this reasoning.         
There is no one, not even the most consummate villain, provided only        
that be is otherwise accustomed to the use of reason, who, when we set      
before him examples of honesty of purpose, of steadfastness in              
following good maxims, of sympathy and general benevolence (even            
combined with great sacrifices of advantages and comfort), does not         
wish that he might also possess these qualities. Only on account of         
his inclinations and impulses he cannot attain this in himself, but at      
the same time he wishes to be free from such inclinations which are         
burdensome to himself. He proves by this that he transfers himself          
in thought with a will free from the impulses of the sensibility            
into an order of things wholly different from that of his desires in        
the field of the sensibility; since he cannot expect to obtain by that      
wish any gratification of his desires, nor any position which would         
satisfy any of his actual or supposable inclinations (for this would        
destroy the pre-eminence of the very idea which wrests that wish            
from him): he can only expect a greater intrinsic worth of his own          
person. This better person, however, he imagines himself to be when be      
transfers himself to the point of view of a member of the world of the      
understanding, to which he is involuntarily forced by the idea of           
freedom, i.e., of independence on determining causes of the world of        
sense; and from this point of view he is conscious of a good will,          
which by his own confession constitutes the law for the bad will            
that he possesses as a member of the world of sense- a law whose            
authority he recognizes while transgressing it. What he morally             
"ought" is then what he necessarily "would," as a member of the             
world of the understanding, and is conceived by him as an "ought" only      
inasmuch as he likewise considers himself as a member of the world          
of sense.                                                                   
-                                                                           
       Of the Extreme Limits of all Practical Philosophy.                   
-                                                                           
  All men attribute to themselves freedom of will. Hence come all           
judgements upon actions as being such as ought to have been done,           
although they have not been done. However, this freedom is not a            
conception of experience, nor can it be so, since it still remains,         
even though experience shows the contrary of what on supposition of         
freedom are conceived as its necessary consequences. On the other side      
it is equally necessary that everything that takes place should be          
fixedly determined according to laws of nature. This necessity of           
nature is likewise not an empirical conception, just for this               
reason, that it involves the motion of necessity and consequently of a      
priori cognition. But this conception of a system of nature is              
confirmed by experience; and it must even be inevitably presupposed if      
experience itself is to be possible, that is, a connected knowledge of      
the objects of sense resting on general laws. Therefore freedom is          
only an idea of reason, and its objective reality in itself is              
doubtful; while nature is a concept of the understanding which proves,      
and must necessarily prove, its reality in examples of experience.          
  There arises from this a dialectic of reason, since the freedom           
attributed to the will appears to contradict the necessity of               
nature, and placed between these two ways reason for speculative            
purposes finds the road of physical necessity much more beaten and          
more appropriate than that of freedom; yet for practical purposes           
the narrow footpath of freedom is the only one on which it is possible      
to make use of reason in our conduct; hence it is just as impossible        
for the subtlest philosophy as for the commonest reason of men to           
argue away freedom. Philosophy must then assume that no real                
contradiction will be found between freedom and physical necessity          
of the same human actions, for it cannot give up the conception of          
nature any more than that of freedom.                                       
  Nevertheless, even though we should never be able to comprehend           
how freedom is possible, we must at least remove this apparent              
contradiction in a convincing manner. For if the thought of freedom         
contradicts either itself or nature, which is equally necessary, it         
must in competition with physical necessity be entirely given up.           
  It would, however, be impossible to escape this contradiction if the      
thinking subject, which seems to itself free, conceived itself in           
the same sense or in the very same relation when it calls itself            
free as when in respect of the same action it assumes itself to be          
subject to the law of nature. Hence it is an indispensable problem          
of speculative philosophy to show that its illusion respecting the          
contradiction rests on this, that we think of man in a different sense      
and relation when we call him free and when we regard him as subject        
to the laws of nature as being part and parcel of nature. It must           
therefore show that not only can both these very well co-exist, but         
that both must be thought as necessarily united in the same subject,        
since otherwise no reason could be given why we should burden reason        
with an idea which, though it may possibly without contradiction be         
reconciled with another that is sufficiently established, yet               
entangles us in a perplexity which sorely embarrasses reason in its         
theoretic employment. This duty, however, belongs only to                   
speculative philosophy. The philosopher then has no option whether          
he will remove the apparent contradiction or leave it untouched; for        
in the latter case the theory respecting this would be bonum vacans,        
into the possession of which the fatalist would have a right to             
enter and chase all morality out of its supposed domain as occupying        
it without title.                                                           
  We cannot however as yet say that we are touching the bounds of           
practical philosophy. For the settlement of that controversy does           
not belong to it; it only demands from speculative reason that it           
should put an end to the discord in which it entangles itself in            
theoretical questions, so that practical reason may have rest and           
security from external attacks which might make the ground debatable        
on which it desires to build.                                               
  The claims to freedom of will made even by common reason are founded      
on the consciousness and the admitted supposition that reason is            
independent of merely subjectively determined causes which together         
constitute what belongs to sensation only and which consequently            
come under the general designation of sensibility. Man considering          
himself in this way as an intelligence places himself thereby in a          
different order of things and in a relation to determining grounds          
of a wholly different kind when on the one hand he thinks of himself        
as an intelligence endowed with a will, and consequently with               
causality, and when on the other he perceives himself as a                  
phenomenon in the world of sense (as he really is also), and affirms        
that his causality is subject to external determination according to        
laws of nature. Now he soon becomes aware that both can hold good,          
nay, must hold good at the same time. For there is not the smallest         
contradiction in saying that a thing in appearance (belonging to the        
world of sense) is subject to certain laws, of which the very same          
as a thing or being in itself is independent, and that he must              
conceive and think of himself in this twofold way, rests as to the          
first on the consciousness of himself as an object affected through         
the senses, and as to the second on the consciousness of himself as an      
intelligence, i.e., as independent on sensible impressions in the           
employment of his reason (in other words as belonging to the world          
of understanding).                                                          
  Hence it comes to pass that man claims the possession of a will           
which takes no account of anything that comes under the head of             
desires and inclinations and, on the contrary, conceives actions as         
possible to him, nay, even as necessary which can only be done by           
disregarding all desires and sensible inclinations. The causality of        
such actions lies in him as an intelligence and in the laws of effects      
and actions [which depend] on the principles of an intelligible world,      
of which indeed he knows nothing more than that in it pure reason           
alone independent of sensibility gives the law; moreover since it is        
only in that world, as an intelligence, that he is his proper self          
(being as man only the appearance of himself), those laws apply to him      
directly and categorically, so that the incitements of inclinations         
and appetites (in other words the whole nature of the world of              
sense) cannot impair the laws of his volition as an intelligence. Nay,      
he does not even hold himself responsible for the former or ascribe         
them to his proper self, i.e., his will: he only ascribes to his            
will any indulgence which he might yield them if he allowed them to         
influence his maxims to the prejudice of the rational laws of the           
will.                                                                       
  When practical reason thinks itself into a world of understanding,        
it does not thereby transcend its own limits, as it would if it             
tried to enter it by intuition or sensation. The former is only a           
negative thought in respect of the world of sense, which does not give      
any laws to reason in determining the will and is positive only in          
this single point that this freedom as a negative characteristic is at      
the same time conjoined with a (positive) faculty and even with a           
causality of reason, which we designate a will, namely a faculty of so      
acting that the principle of the actions shall conform to the               
essential character of a rational motive, i.e., the condition that the      
maxim have universal validity as a law. But were it to borrow an            
object of will, that is, a motive, from the world of understanding,         
then it would overstep its bounds and pretend to be acquainted with         
something of which it knows nothing. The conception of a world of           
the understanding is then only a point of view which reason finds           
itself compelled to take outside the appearances in order to                
conceive itself as practical, which would not be possible if the            
influences of the sensibility had a determining power on man, but           
which is necessary unless he is to be denied the consciousness of           
himself as an intelligence and, consequently, as a rational cause,          
energizing by reason, that is, operating freely. This thought               
certainly involves the idea of an order and a system of laws different      
from that of the mechanism of nature which belongs to the sensible          
world; and it makes the conception of an intelligible world                 
necessary (that is to say, the whole system of rational beings as           
things in themselves). But it does not in the least authorize us to         
think of it further than as to its formal condition only, that is, the      
universality of the maxims of the will as laws, and consequently the        
autonomy of the latter, which alone is consistent with its freedom;         
whereas, on the contrary, all laws that refer to a definite object          
give heteronomy, which only belongs to laws of nature and can only          
apply to the sensible world.                                                
  But reason would overstep all its bounds if it undertook to               
explain how pure reason can be practical, which would be exactly the        
same problem as to explain how freedom is possible.                         
  For we can explain nothing but that which we can reduce to laws, the      
object of which can be given in some possible experience. But               
freedom is a mere idea, the objective reality of which can in no            
wise be shown according to laws of nature, and consequently not in any      
possible experience; and for this reason it can never be                    
comprehended or understood, because we cannot support it by any sort        
of example or analogy. It holds good only as a necessary hypothesis of      
reason in a being that believes itself conscious of a will, that is,        
of a faculty distinct from mere desire (namely, a faculty of                
determining itself to action as an intelligence, in other words, by         
laws of reason independently on natural instincts). Now where               
determination according to laws of nature ceases, there all                 
explanation ceases also, and nothing remains but defence, i.e., the         
removal of the objections of those who pretend to have seen deeper          
into the nature of things, and thereupon boldly declare freedom             
impossible. We can only point out to them that the supposed                 
contradiction that they have discovered in it arises only from this,        
that in order to be able to apply the law of nature to human                
actions, they must necessarily consider man as an appearance: then          
when we demand of them that they should also think of him qua               
intelligence as a thing in itself, they still persist in considering        
him in this respect also as an appearance. In this view it would no         
doubt be a contradiction to suppose the causality of the same               
subject (that is, his will) to be withdrawn from all the natural            
laws of the sensible world. But this contradiction disappears, if they      
would only bethink themselves and admit, as is reasonable, that behind      
the appearances there must also lie at their root (although hidden)         
the things in themselves, and that we cannot expect the laws of             
these to be the same as those that govern their appearances.                
  The subjective impossibility of explaining the freedom of the will        
is identical with the impossibility of discovering and explaining an        
interest* which man can take in the moral law. Nevertheless he does         
actually take an interest in it, the basis of which in us we call           
the moral feeling, which some have falsely assigned as the standard of      
our moral judgement, whereas it must rather be viewed as the                
subjective effect that the law exercises on the will, the objective         
principle of which is furnished by reason alone.                            
-                                                                           
  *Interest is that by which reason becomes practical, i.e., a cause        
determining the will. Hence we say of rational beings only that they        
take an interest in a thing; irrational beings only feel sensual            
appetites. Reason takes a direct interest in action then only when the      
universal validity of its maxims is alone sufficient to determine           
the will. Such an interest alone is pure. But if it can determine           
the will only by means of another object of desire or on the                
suggestion of a particular feeling of the subject, then reason takes        
only an indirect interest in the action, and, as reason by itself           
without experience cannot discover either objects of the will or a          
special feeling actuating it, this latter interest would only be            
empirical and not a pure rational interest. The logical interest of         
reason (namely, to extend its insight) is never direct, but                 
presupposes purposes for which reason is employed.                          
-                                                                           
  In order indeed that a rational being who is also affected through        
the senses should will what reason alone directs such beings that they      
ought to will, it is no doubt requisite that reason should have a           
power to infuse a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction in the                
fulfilment of duty, that is to say, that it should have a causality by      
which it determines the sensibility according to its own principles.        
But it is quite impossible to discern, i.e., to make it intelligible a      
priori, how a mere thought, which itself contains nothing sensible,         
can itself produce a sensation of pleasure or pain; for this is a           
particular kind of causality of which as of every other causality we        
can determine nothing whatever a priori; we must only consult               
experience about it. But as this cannot supply us with any relation of      
cause and effect except between two objects of experience, whereas          
in this case, although indeed the effect produced lies within               
experience, yet the cause is supposed to be pure reason acting through      
mere ideas which offer no object to experience, it follows that for us      
men it is quite impossible to explain how and why the universality          
of the maxim as a law, that is, morality, interests. This only is           
certain, that it is not because it interests us that it has validity        
for us (for that would be heteronomy and dependence of practical            
reason on sensibility, namely, on a feeling as its principle, in which      
case it could never give moral laws), but that it interests us because      
it is valid for us as men, inasmuch as it had its source in our will        
as intelligences, in other words, in our proper self, and what belongs      
to mere appearance is necessarily subordinated by reason to the nature      
of the thing in itself.                                                     
  The question then, "How a categorical imperative is possible," can        
be answered to this extent, that we can assign the only hypothesis          
on which it is possible, namely, the idea of freedom; and we can            
also discern the necessity of this hypothesis, and this is                  
sufficient for the practical exercise of reason, that is, for the           
conviction of the validity of this imperative, and hence of the             
moral law; but how this hypothesis itself is possible can never be          
discerned by any human reason. On the hypothesis, however, that the         
will of an intelligence is free, its autonomy, as the essential formal      
condition of its determination, is a necessary consequence.                 
Moreover, this freedom of will is not merely quite possible as a            
hypothesis (not involving any contradiction to the principle of             
physical necessity in the connexion of the phenomena of the sensible        
world) as speculative philosophy can show: but further, a rational          
being who is conscious of causality through reason, that is to say, of      
a will (distinct from desires), must of necessity make it practically,      
that is, in idea, the condition of all his voluntary actions. But to        
explain how pure reason can be of itself practical without the aid          
of any spring of action that could be derived from any other source,        
i.e., how the mere principle of the universal validity of all its           
maxims as laws (which would certainly be the form of a pure                 
practical reason) can of itself supply a spring, without any matter         
(object) of the will in which one could antecedently take any               
interest; and how it can produce an interest which would be called          
purely moral; or in other words, how pure reason can be practical-          
to explain this is beyond the power of human reason, and all the            
labour and pains of seeking an explanation of it are lost an                
  It is just the same as if I sought to find out how freedom itself is      
possible as the causality of a will. For then I quit the ground of          
philosophical explanation, and I have no other to go upon. I might          
indeed revel in the world of intelligences which still remains to           
me, but although I have an idea of it which is well founded, yet I          
have not the least knowledge of it, nor an I ever attain to such            
knowledge with all the efforts of my natural faculty of reason. It          
signifies only a something that remains over when I have eliminated         
everything belonging to the world of sense from the actuating               
principles of my will, serving merely to keep in bounds the                 
principle of motives taken from the field of sensibility; fixing its        
limits and showing that it does not contain all in all within               
itself, but that there is more beyond it; but this something more I         
know no further. Of pure reason which frames this ideal, there remains      
after the abstraction of all matter, i.e., knowledge of objects,            
nothing but the form, namely, the practical law of the universality of      
the maxims, and in conformity with this conception of reason in             
reference to a pure world of understanding as a possible efficient          
cause, that is a cause determining the will. There must here be a           
total absence of springs; unless this idea of an intelligible world is      
itself the spring, or that in which reason primarily takes an               
interest; but to make this intelligible is precisely the problem            
that we cannot solve.                                                       
  Here now is the extreme limit of all moral inquiry, and it is of          
great importance to determine it even on this account, in order that        
reason may not on the one band, to the prejudice of morals, seek about      
in the world of sense for the supreme motive and an interest                
comprehensible but empirical; and on the other hand, that it may not        
impotently flap its wings without being able to move in the (for it)        
empty space of transcendent concepts which we call the intelligible         
world, and so lose itself amidst chimeras. For the rest, the idea of a      
pure world of understanding as a system of all intelligences, and to        
which we ourselves as rational beings belong (although we are likewise      
on the other side members of the sensible world), this remains              
always a useful and legitimate idea for the purposes of rational            
belief, although all knowledge stops at its threshold, useful, namely,      
to produce in us a lively interest in the moral law by means of the         
noble ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves (rational          
beings), to which we can belong as members then only when we carefully      
conduct ourselves according to the maxims of freedom as if they were        
laws of nature.                                                             
-                                                                           
                     Concluding Remark                                      
-                                                                           
  The speculative employment of reason with respect to nature leads to      
the absolute necessity of some supreme cause of the world: the              
practical employment of reason with a view to freedom leads also to         
absolute necessity, but only of the laws of the actions of a                
rational being as such. Now it is an essential principle of reason,         
however employed, to push its knowledge to a consciousness of its           
necessity (without which it would not be rational knowledge). It is,        
however, an equally essential restriction of the same reason that it        
can neither discern the necessity of what is or what happens, nor of        
what ought to happen, unless a condition is supposed on which it is or      
happens or ought to happen. In this way, however, by the constant           
inquiry for the condition, the satisfaction of reason is only               
further and further postponed. Hence it unceasingly seeks the               
unconditionally necessary and finds itself forced to assume it,             
although without any means of making it comprehensible to itself,           
happy enough if only it can discover a conception which agrees with         
this assumption. It is therefore no fault in our deduction of the           
supreme principle of morality, but an objection that should be made to      
human reason in general, that it cannot enable us to conceive the           
absolute necessity of an unconditional practical law (such as the           
categorical imperative must be). It cannot be blamed for refusing to        
explain this necessity by a condition, that is to say, by means of          
some interest assumed as a basis, since the law would then cease to be      
a supreme law of reason. And thus while we do not comprehend the            
practical unconditional necessity of the moral imperative, we yet           
comprehend its incomprehensibility, and this is all that can be fairly      
demanded of a philosophy which strives to carry its principles up to        
the very limit of human reason.                                             
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                             -THE END-