1785
INTRODUCTION TO THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS
by Immanuel Kant
translated by W. Hastie
DIVISIONS
GENERAL DIVISIONS OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS
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I. DIVISION OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS AS A SYSTEM OF
DUTIES GENERALLY.
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1. All duties are either duties of right, that is, juridical
duties (officia juris), or duties of virtue, that is, ethical duties
(officia virtutis s. ethica). Juridical duties are such as may be
promulgated by external legislation; ethical duties are those for
which such legislation is not possible. The reason why the latter
cannot be properly made the subject of external legislation is because
they relate to an end or final purpose, which is itself, at the same
time, embraced in these duties, and which it is a duty for the
individual to have as such. But no external legislation can cause
any one to adopt a particular intention, or to propose to himself a
certain purpose; for this depends upon an internal condition or act of
the mind itself. However, external actions conducive to such a
mental condition may be commanded, without its being implied that
the individual will of necessity make them an end to himself.
But why, then, it may be asked, is the science of morals, or moral
philosophy, commonly entitled- especially by Cicero- the science of
duty and not also the science of right, since duties and rights
refer to each other? The reason is this. We know our own freedom- from
which all moral laws and consequently all rights as well as all duties
arise- only through the moral imperative, which is an immediate
injunction of duty; whereas the conception of right as a ground of
putting others under obligation has afterwards to be developed out
of it.
2. In the doctrine of duty, man may and ought to be represented in
accordance with the nature of his faculty of freedom, which is
entirely supra-sensible. He is, therefore, to be represented purely
according to his humanity as a personality independent of physical
determinations (homo noumenon), in distinction from the same person as
a man modified with these determinations (homo phenomenon). Hence
the conceptions of right and end when referred to duty, in view of
this twofold quality, give the following division:
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DIVISION OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS ACCORDING TO THE OBJECTIVE
RELATION OF THE LAW OF DUTY.
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I. The Right of Humanity.
I. Juridical Oneself in our own person (juridicial
Duties to or duties towards oneself) Perfect
Others Duty
II. The Right of Mankind.
in others (juridical duties
towards others.)
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III. The End of Humanity.
II. Ethical Oneself in our person (eithical duties
Duties to or towards oneself) Imperfect
Others Duty
IV. The End of Mankind.
in others (ethical duties
towards others.)
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II. DIVISION OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS ACCORDING TO RELATIONS
OF OBLIGATION.
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As the subjects between whom a relation of right and duty is
apprehended- whether it actually exists or not- admit of being
conceived in various juridical relations to each other, another
division may be proposed from this point of view, as follows:
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DIVISION POSSIBLE ACCORDING TO THE SUBJECTIVE RELATION OF
THOSE WHO BIND UNDER OBLIGATIONS, AND THOSE WHO ARE
BOUND UNDER OBLIGATIONS.
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1. The juridical relation of man to beings who have neither right
nor duty:
Vacat. There is no such relation, for such beings are irrational,
and they neither put us under obligation, nor can we be put under
obligation by them.
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2. The juridical relation of man to beings who have both rights
and duties:
Adest. There is such a relation, for it is the relation of men to
men.
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3. The juridical relation of man to beings who have only duties
and no rights:
Vacat. There is no such relation, for such beings would be men
without juridical personality, as slaves of bondsmen.
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4 The juridical relation of man to a being who has only rights and
no duties (God):
Vacat. There is no such relation in mere philosophy, because such
a being is not an object of possible experience.
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A real relation between right and duty is therefore found, in this
scheme, only in No. 2. The reason why such is not likewise found in
No. 4 is because it would constitute a transcendent duty, that is, one
to which no corresponding subject can be given that is external and
capable of imposing obligation. Consequently the relation from the
theoretical point of view is here merely ideal; that is, it is a
relation to an object of thought which we form for ourselves. But
the conception of this object is not entirely empty. On the
contrary, it is a fruitful conception in relation to ourselves and the
maxims of our inner morality, and therefore in relation to practice
generally. And it is in this bearing that all the duty involved and
practicable for us in such a merely ideal relation lies.
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III. DIVISION OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS AS A SYSTEM OF
DUTIES GENERALLY.
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According to the constituent principles and the method of the
system.
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I. Principles I. Duties of Right I. Private Right.
II. Public Right
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II. Duties of Virtue, etc.
And so on, including all that
refers not only to the
materials, but also to the
architectonic form of a
scientific system of morals,
when the metaphysical
investigation of the elements
has completely traced out the
universal principles constituting
the whole.
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II. Method I. Didactics
II. Ascetics
INTRODUCTION_TO_THE_METAPHYSIC_OF_MORALS
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS
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I. THE RELATION OF THE FACULTIES OF THE HUMAN MIND TO THE
MORAL LAWS.
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The active faculty of the human mind, as the faculty of desire in
its widest sense, is the power which man has, through his mental
representations, of becoming the cause of objects corresponding to
these representations. The capacity of a being to act in conformity
with his own representations is what constitutes the life of such a
being.
It is to be observed, first, that with desire or aversion there is
always connected pleasure or pain, the susceptibility for which is
called feeling. But the converse does not always hold; for there may
be a pleasure connected, not with the desire of an object, but with
a mere mental representation, it being indifferent whether an object
corresponding to the representation exist or not. And second, the
pleasure or pain connected with the object of desire does not always
precede the activity of desire; nor can it be regarded in every case
as the cause, but it may as well be the effect of that activity. The
capacity of experiencing pleasure or pain on the occasion of a
mental representation is called "feeling," because pleasure and pain
contain only what is subjective in the relations of our mental
activity. They do not involve any relation to an object that could
possibly furnish a knowledge of it as such; they cannot even give us a
knowledge of our own mental state. For even sensations,* considered
apart from the qualities which attach to them on account of the
modifications of the subject- as, for instance, in reference to red,
sweet, and such like- are referred as constituent elements of
knowledge to objects, whereas pleasure or pain felt in connection with
what is red or sweet express absolutely nothing that is in the object,
but merely a relation to the subject. And for the reason just
stated, pleasure and pain considered in themselves cannot be more
precisely defined. All that can be further done with regard to them is
merely to point out what consequences they may have in certain
relations, in order to make the knowledge of them available
practically.
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*The sensibility as the faculty of sense may be defined by reference
to the subjective nature of our representations generally. It is the
understanding that fir refers the subjective representations to an
object; it alone thinks anything by means of these representations.
Now, the subjective nature of our representations might be of such a
kind that they could be related to objects so as to furnish
knowledge of them, either in regard to their form or matter- in the
former relation by pure perception, in the latter by sensation proper.
In this case, the sense-faculty, as the capacity for receiving
objective representations, would be properly called sense
perception. But mere mental representation from its subjective
nature cannot, in fact, become a constituent of objective knowledge,
because it contains merely the relation of the representations to
the subject, and includes nothing that can be used for attaining a
knowledge of the object. In this case, then, this receptivity of the
mind for subjective representations is called feeling. It includes the
effect of the representations, whether sensible or intellectual,
upon the subject; and it belongs to the sensibility, although the
representation itself may belong to the understanding or the reason.
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The pleasure which is necessarily connected with the activity of
desire, when the representation of the object desired affects the
capacity of feeling, may be called practical pleasure. And this
designation is applicable whether the pleasure is the cause or the
effect of the desire. On the other hand, that pleasure which is not
necessarily connected with the desire of an object, and which,
therefore, is not a pleasure in the existence of the object, but is
merely attached to a mental representation alone, may be called
inactive complacency, or mere contemplative pleasure. The feeling of
this latter kind of pleasure is what is called taste. Hence, in a
system of practical philosophy, the contemplative pleasure of taste
will not be discussed as an essential constituent conception, but need
only be referred to incidentally or episodically. But as regards
practical pleasure, it is otherwise. For the determination of the
activity of the faculty of desire or appetency, which is necessarily
preceded by this pleasure as its cause, is what properly constitutes
desire in the strict sense of the term. Habitual desire, again,
constitutes inclination; and the connection of pleasure with the
activity of desire, in so far as this connection is judged by the
understanding to be valid according to a general rule holding good
at least for the individual, is what is called interest. Hence, in
such a case, the practical pleasure is an interest of the
inclination of the individual. On the other hand, if the pleasure
can only follow a preceding determination of the faculty of desire, it
is an intellectual pleasure, and the interest in the object must be
called a rational interest; for were the interest sensuous, and not
based only upon pure principles of reason, sensation would necessarily
be conjoined with the pleasure, and would thus determine the
activity of the desire. Where an entirely pure interest of reason must
be assumed, it is not legitimate to introduce into it an interest of
inclination surreptitiously. However, in order to conform so far
with the common phraseology, we may allow the application of the
term "inclination" even to that which can only be the object of an
"intellectual" pleasure in the sense of a habitual desire arising from
a pure interest of reason. But such inclination would have to be
viewed, not as the cause, but as the effect of the rational
interest; and we might call it the non-sensuous or rational
inclination (propensio intellectualis). Further, concupiscence is to
be distinguished from the activity of desire itself, as a stimulus
or incitement to its determination. It is always a sensuous state of
the mind, which does not itself attain to the definiteness of an act
of the power of desire.
The activity of the faculty of desire may proceed in accordance with
conceptions; and in so far as the principle thus determining it to
action is found in the mind, and not in its object it constitutes a
power acting or not acting according to liking. In so far as the
activity is accompanied with the consciousness of the power of the
action to produce the object, it forms an act of choice; if this
consciousness is not conjoined with it, the activity is called a wish.
The faculty of desire, in so far as its inner principle of
determination as the ground of its liking or predilection lies in
the reason of the subject, constitutes the will. The will is therefore
the faculty of active desire or appetency, viewed not so much in
relation to the action- which is the relation of the act of choice- as
rather in relation to the principle that determines the power of
choice to the action. It has, in itself, properly no special principle
of determination, but in so far as it may determine the voluntary
act of choice, it is the practical reason itself.
Under the will, taken generally, may be included the volitional
act of choice, and also the mere act of wish, in so far as reason
may determine the faculty of desire in its activity. The act of choice
that can be determined by pure reason constitutes the act of
free-will. That act which is determinable only by inclination as a
sensuous impulse or stimulus would be irrational brute choice
(arbitrium brutum). The human act of choice, however, as human, is
in fact affected by such impulses or stimuli, but is not determined by
them; and it is, therefore, not pure in itself when taken apart from
the acquired habit of determination by reason. But it may be
determined to action by the pure will. The freedom of the act of
volitional choice is its independence of being determined by
sensuous impulses or stimuli. This forms the negative conception of
the free-will. The positive conception of freedom is given by the fact
that the will is the capability of pure reason to be practical of
itself. But this is not possible otherwise than by the maxim of
every action being subjected to the condition of being practicable
as a universal law. Applied as pure reason to the act of choice, and
considered apart from its objects, it may be regarded as the faculty
of principles; and, in this connection, it is the source of
practical principles. Hence it is to be viewed as a law-giving
faculty. But as the material upon which to construct a law is not
furnished to it, it can only make the form of the form of the maxim of
the act of will, in so far as it is available as a universal law,
the supreme law and determining principle of the will. And as the
maxims, or rules of human action derived from subjective causes, do
not of themselves necessarily agree with those that are objective
and universal, reason can only prescribe this supreme law as an
absolute imperative of prohibition or command.
The laws of freedom, as distinguished from the laws of nature, are
moral laws. So far as they refer only to external actions and their
lawfulness, they are called juridical; but if they also require
that, as laws, they shall themselves be the determining principles
of our actions, they are ethical. The agreement of an action with
juridical laws is its legality; the agreement of an action with
ethical laws is its morality. The freedom to which the former laws
refer, can only be freedom in external practice; but the freedom to
which the latter laws refer is freedom in the internal as well as
the external exercise of the activity of the will in so far as it is
determined by laws of reason. So, in theoretical philosophy, it is
said that only the objects of the external senses are in space, but
all the objects both of internal and external sense are in time;
because the representations of both, as being representations, so
far belong all to the internal sense. In like manner, whether
freedom is viewed in reference to the external or the internal
action of the will, its laws, as pure practical laws of reason for the
free activity of the will generally, must at the same time be inner
principles for its determination, although they may not always be
considered in this relation.
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II. THE IDEA AND NECESSITY OF A METAPHYSIC OF MORALS.
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It has been shown in The Metaphysical Principles of the Science of
Nature that there must be principles a priori for the natural
science that has to deal with the objects of the external senses.
And it was further shown that it is possible, and even necessary, to
formulate a system of these principles under the name of a
"metaphysical science of nature," as a preliminary to experimental
physics regarded as natural science applied to particular objects of
experience. But this latter science, if care be taken to keep its
generalizations free from error, may accept many propositions as
universal on the evidence of experience, although if the term
"universal" be taken in its strict sense, these would necessarily have
to be deduced by the metaphysical science from principles a priori.
Thus Newton accepted the principle of the equality of action and
reaction as established by experience, and yet he extended it as a
universal law over the whole of material nature. The chemists go
even farther, grounding their most general laws regarding the
combination and decomposition of the materials of bodies wholly upon
experience; and yet they trust so completely to the universality and
necessity of those laws that they have no anxiety as to any error
being found in propositions founded upon experiments conducted in
accordance with them.
But it is otherwise with moral laws. These, in contradistinction
to natural laws, are only valid as laws, in so far as they can be
rationally established a priori and comprehended as necessary. In
fact, conceptions and judgements regarding ourselves and our conduct
have no moral significance, if they contain only what may be learned
from experience; and when any one is, so to speak, misled into
making a moral principle out of anything derived from this latter
source, he is already in danger of falling into the coarsest and
most fatal errors.
If the philosophy of morals were nothing more than a theory of
happiness (eudaemonism), it would be absurd to search after principles
a priori as a foundation for it. For however plausible it may sound to
say that reason, even prior to experience, can comprehend by what
means we may attain to a lasting enjoyment of the real pleasures of
life, yet all that is taught on this subject a priori is either
tautological, or is assumed wholly without foundation. It is only
experience that can show what will bring us enjoyment. The natural
impulses directed towards nourishment, the sexual instinct, or the
tendency to rest and motion, as well as the higher desires of
honour, the acquisition of knowledge, and such like, as developed with
our natural capacities, are alone capable of showing in what those
enjoyments are to be found. And, further, the knowledge thus
acquired is available for each individual merely in his own way; and
it is only thus he can learn the means by which be has to seek those
enjoyments. All specious rationalizing a priori, in this connection,
is nothing at bottom but carrying facts of experience up to
generalizations by induction (secundum principia generalia non
universalia); and the generality thus attained is still so limited
that numberless exceptions must be allowed to every individual in
order that he may adapt the choice of his mode of life to his own
Particular inclinations and his capacity for pleasure. And, after all,
the individual has really to acquire his prudence at the cost of his
own suffering or that of his neighbors the form
But it is quite otherwise with the principles of morality. They
lay down commands for every one without regard to his particular
inclinations, and merely because and so far as he is free, and has a
practical reason. Instruction in the laws of morality is not drawn
from observation of oneself or of our animal nature, nor from
perception of the course of the world in regard to what happens, or
how men act.* But reason commands how we ought to act, even although
no example of such action were to be found; nor does reason give any
regard to the advantage which may accrue to us by so acting, and which
experience could alone actually show. For, although reason allows us
to seek what is for our advantage in every possible way, and although,
founding upon the evidence of experience, it may further promise
that greater advantages will probably follow on the average from the
observance of her commands than from their transgression, especially
if prudence guides the conduct, yet the authority of her precepts as
commands does not rest on such considerations. They are used by reason
only as counsels, and by way of a counterpoise against seductions to
an opposite course, when adjusting beforehand the equilibrium of a
partial balance in the sphere of practical judgement, in order thereby
to secure the decision of this judgement, according to the due
weight of the a priori principles of a pure practical reason.
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*This holds notwithstanding the fact that the term morals," in Latin
mores, and in German sitten, signifies originally only manners or mode
of life.
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Metaphysics designates any system of knowledge a priori that
consists of pure conceptions. Accordingly, a practical philosophy
not having nature, but the freedom of the will for its object, will
presuppose and require a metaphysic of morals. It is even a duty to
have such a metaphysic; and every man does, indeed, possess it in
himself, although commonly but in an obscure way. For how could any
one believe that he has a source of universal law in himself,
without principles a priori? And just as in a metaphysics of nature
there must be principles regulating the application of the universal
supreme principles of nature to objects of experience, so there cannot
but be such principles in the metaphysic of morals; and we will
often have to deal objectively with the particular nature of man as
known only by experience, in order to show in it the consequences of
these universal moral principles. But this mode of dealing with
these principles in their particular applications will in no way
detract from their rational purity, or throw doubt on their a priori
origin. In other words, this amounts to saying that a metaphysic of
morals cannot be founded on anthropology as the empirical science of
man, but may be applied to it.
The counterpart of a metaphysic of morals, and the other member of
the division of practical philosophy, would be a moral anthropology,
as the empirical science of the moral nature of man. This science
would contain only the subjective conditions that hinder or favor
the realization in practice of the universal moral laws in human
nature, with the means of propagating, spreading, and strengthening
the moral principles- as by the education of the young and the
instruction of the people- and all other such doctrines and precepts
founded upon experience and indispensable in themselves, although they
must neither precede the metaphysical investigation of the
principles of reason, nor be mixed up with it. For, by doing so, there
would be a great danger of laying down false, or at least very
flexible moral laws, which would hold forth as unattainable what is
not attached only because the law has not been comprehended and
presented in its purity, in which also its strength consists. Or,
otherwise, spurious and mixed motives might be adopted instead of what
is dutiful and good in itself; and these would furnish no certain
moral principles either for the guidance of the judgement or for the
discipline of the heart in the practice of duty. It is only by pure
reason, therefore, that duty can and must be prescribed.
The higher division of philosophy, under which the division just
mentioned stands, is into theoretical philosophy and practical
philosophy. Practical philosophy is just moral philosophy in its
widest sense, as has been explained elsewhere.* All that is
practicable and possible, according to natural laws, is the special
subject of the activity of art, and its precepts and rules entirely
depend on the theory of nature. It is only what is practicable
according to laws of freedom that can have principles independent of
theory, for there is no theory in relation to what passes beyond the
determinations of nature. Philosophy therefore cannot embrace under
its practical division a technical theory, but only a morally
practical doctrine. But if the dexterity of the will in acting
according to laws of freedom, in contradistinction to nature, were
to be also called an art, it would necessarily indicate an art which
would make a system of freedom possible like the system of nature.
This would truly be a Divine art, if we were in a position by means of
it to realize completely what reason prescribes to us, and to put
the idea into practice.
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*In the Critique of Judgement (1790).
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III. THE DIVISION OF A METAPHYSIC OF MORALS.
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All legislation, whether relating to internal or external action,
and whether prescribed a priori by mere reason or laid down by the
will of another, involves two elements: First, a law which
represents the action that ought to happen as necessary objectively,
thus making the action a duty; second, a motive which connects the
principle determining the will to this action with the mental
representation of the law subjectively, so that the law makes duty the
motive of the action. By the first element, the action is
represented as a duty, in accordance with the mere theoretical
knowledge of the possibility of determining the activity of the will
by practical rules. By the second element, the obligation so to act is
connected in the subject with a determining principle of the will as
such. All legislation, therefore, may be differentiated by reference
to its motive-principle.* The legislation which makes an action a
duty, and this duty at the same time a motive, is ethical. That
legislation which does not include the motive-principle in the law,
and consequently admits another motive than the idea of duty itself,
is juridical. In respect of the latter, it is evident that the motives
distinct from the idea of duty, to which it may refer, must be drawn
from the subjective (pathological) influences of inclination and of
aversion, determining the voluntary activity, and especially from
the latter; because it is a legislation which has to be compulsory,
and not merely a mode of attracting or persuading. The agreement or
non-agreement of an action with the law, without reference to its
motive, is its legality; and that character of the action in which the
idea of duty arising from the law at the same time forms the motive of
the action, is its morality.
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*This ground of division will apply, although the action which it
makes a duty may coincide with another action that may be otherwise
looked at from another point of view. For instance, actions may in all
cases be classified as external.
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Duties specially in accord with a juridical legislation can only
be external duties. For this mode of legislation does not require that
the idea of the duty, which is internal, shall be of itself the
determining principle of the act of will; and as it requires a
motive suitable to the nature of its laws, it can only connect what is
external with the law. Ethical legislation, on the other hand, makes
internal actions also duties, but not to the exclusion of the
external, for it embraces everything which is of the nature of duty.
And just because just because ethical legislation includes within
its law the internal motive of the action as contained in the idea
of duty, it involves a characteristic which cannot at all enter into
the legislation that is external. Hence, ethical legislation cannot as
such be external, not even when proceeding from a Divine will,
although it may receive duties which rest on an external legislation
as duties, into the position of motives, within its own legislation.
From what has been said, it is evident that all duties, merely
because they are duties, belong to ethics; and yet the legislation
upon which they are founded is not on that account in all cases
contained in ethics. On the contrary, the law of many of them lies
outside of ethics. Thus ethics commands that I must fulfil a promise
entered into by contract, although the other party might not be able
to compel me to do so. It adopts the law (pacta sunt servanda) and the
duty corresponding to it, from jurisprudence or the science of
right, by which they are established. It is not in ethics,
therefore, but in jurisprudence, that the principle of the legislation
lies, that "promises made and accepted must be kept." Accordingly,
ethics specially teaches that if the motive-principle of external
compulsion which juridical legislation connects with a duty is even
let go, the idea of duty alone is sufficient of itself as a motive.
For were it not so, and were the legislation itself not juridical, and
consequently the duty arising from it not specially a duty of right as
distinguished from a duty of virtue, then fidelity in the
performance of acts, to which the individual may be bound by the terms
of a contract, would have to be classified with acts of benevolence
and the obligation that underlies them, which cannot be correct. To
keep one's promise is not properly a duty of virtue, but a duty of
right, and the performance of it can be enforced by external
compulsion. But to keep one's promise, even when no compulsion can
be applied to enforce it, is, at the same time, a virtuous action, and
a proof of virtue. jurisprudence as the science of right, and ethics
as the science of virtue, are therefore distinguished not so much by
their different duties, as rather by the difference Of the legislation
which connects the one or the other kind of motive with their laws.
Ethical legislation is that which cannot be external, although the
duties it prescribes may be external as well as internal. Juridical
legislation is that which may also be external. Thus it is an external
duty to keep a promise entered into by contract; but the injunction to
do this merely because it is a duty, without regard to any other
motive, belongs exclusively to the internal legislation. It does not
belong thus to the ethical sphere as being a particular kind of duty
or a particular mode of action to which we are bound- for it is an
external duty in ethics as well as in jurisprudence- but it is because
the legislation in the case referred to is internal, and cannot have
an external lawgiver, that the obligation is reckoned as belonging
to ethics. For the same reason, the duties of benevolence, although
they are external duties as obligations to external actions, are, in
like manner, reckoned as belonging to ethics, because they can only be
enjoined by legislation that is internal. Ethics has no doubt its
own peculiar duties- such as those towards oneself- but it bas also
duties in common with jurisprudence, only not under the same mode of
obligation. In short, the peculiarity of ethical legislation is to
enjoin the performance of certain actions merely because they are
duties, and to make the principle of duty itself- whatever be its
source or occasion- the sole sufficing motive of the activity of the
will. Thus, then, there are many ethical duties that are directly
such; and the inner legislation also makes the others- all and each of
them- indirectly ethical.
The deduction of the division of a system is the proof of its
completeness as well as of its continuity, so that there may be a
logical transition from the general conception divided to the
members of the division, and through the whole series of the
subdivisions without any break or leap in the arrangement (divisio per
saltum). Such a division is one of the most difficult conditions for
the architect of a system to fulfil. There is even some doubt as to
what is the highest conception that is primarily divided into right
and wrong (aut fas aut nefas). It is assuredly the conception of the
activity of the free-will in general. In like manner, the expounders
of ontology start from something and nothing, without perceiving
that these are already members of a division for which the highest
divided conception is awanting, and which can be no other than that of
thing in general.
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IV. GENERAL PRELIMINARY CONCEPTIONS DEFINED AND EXPLAINED.
(Philosophia practica universalis).
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The conception of freedom is a conception of pure reason. It is
therefore transcendent in so far as regards theoretical philosophy;
for it is a conception for which no corresponding instance or
example can be found or supplied in any possible experience.
Accordingly freedom is not presented as an object of any theoretical
knowledge that is possible for us. It is in no respect a constitutive,
but only a regulative conception; and it can be accepted by the
speculative reason as at most a merely negative principle. In the
practical sphere of reason, however, the reality of freedom may be
demonstrated by certain practical principles which, as laws, prove a
causality of the pure reason in the process of determining the
activity of the will that is independent of all empirical and sensible
conditions. And thus there is established the fact of a pure will
existing in us as the source of all moral conceptions and laws.
On this positive conception of freedom in the practical relation
certain unconditional practical laws are founded, and they specially
constitute moral laws. In relation to us as human beings, with an
activity of will modified by sensible influences so as not to be
conformable to the pure will, but as often contrary to it, these
laws appear as imperatives commanding or prohibiting certain
actions; and as such they are categorical or unconditional
imperatives. Their categorical and unconditional character
distinguishes them from the technical imperatives which express the
prescriptions of art, and which always command only conditionally.
According to these categorical imperatives, certain actions are
allowed or disallowed as being morally possible or impossible; and
certain of them or their opposites are morally necessary and
obligatory. Hence, in reference to such actions, there arises the
conception of a duty whose observance or transgression is
accompanied with a pleasure or pain of a peculiar kind, known as moral
feeling. We do not, however, take the moral feelings or sentiments
into account in considering the practical laws of reason. For they
do not form the foundation or principle of practical laws of reason,
but only the subjective effects that arise in the mind on the occasion
of our voluntary activity being determined by these laws. And while
they neither add to nor take from the objective validity or
influence of the moral laws in the judgement of reason, such
sentiments may vary according to the differences of the individuals
who experience them.
The following conceptions are common to jurisprudence and ethics
as the two main divisions of the metaphysic of morals.
Obligation is the necessity of a free action when viewed in relation
to a categorical imperative of reason. An imperative is a practical
rule by which an action, otherwise contingent in itself, is made
necessary. It is distinguished from a practical law in that such a
law, while likewise representing the action as necessary, does not
consider whether it is internally necessary as involved in the
nature of the agent- say as a holy being- or is contingent to him,
as in the case of man as we find him; for where the first condition
holds good, there is in fact no imperative. Hence an imperative is a
rule which not only represents but makes a subjectively contingent
action necessary; and it, accordingly, represents the subject as being
(morally) necessitated to act in accordance with this rule. A
categorical or unconditional imperative is one which does not
represent the action in any way immediately through the conception
of an end that is to be attained by it; but it presents the action
to the mind as objectively necessary by the mere representation of its
form as an action, and thus makes it necessary. Such imperatives
cannot be put forward by any other practical science than that which
prescribes obligations, and it is only the science of morals that does
this. All other imperatives are technical, and they are altogether
conditional. The ground of the possibility of categorical
imperatives lies in the fact that they refer to no determination of
the activity of the will by which a purpose might be assigned to it,
but solely to its freedom.
Every action is allowed (licitum) which is not contrary to
obligation; and this freedom not being limited by an opposing
imperative, constitutes a moral right as a warrant or title of
action (facultas moralis). From this it is at once evident what
actions are disallowed or illicit (illicita).
Duty is the designation of any action to which anyone is bound by an
obligation. It is therefore the subject-matter of all obligation. Duty
as regards the action concerned may be one and the same, and yet we
may be bound to it in various ways.
The categorical imperative, as expressing an obligation in respect
to certain actions, is a morally practical law. But because obligation
involves not merely practical necessity expressed in a law as such,
but also actual necessitation, the categorical imperative is a law
either of command or prohibition, according as the doing or not
doing of an action is represented as a duty. An action which is
neither commanded nor forbidden is merely allowed, because there is no
law restricting freedom, nor any duty in respect of it. Such an action
is said to be morally indifferent (indifferens, adiaphoron, res
merae facultatis). It may be asked whether there are such morally
indifferent actions; and if there are, whether in addition to the
preceptive and prohibitive law (lex praeceptiva et prohibitiva, lex
mandati et vetiti), there is also required a permissive law (lex
permissiva), in order that one may be free in such relations to act,
or to forbear from acting, at his pleasure? If it were so, the moral
right in question would not, in all cases, refer to actions that are
indifferent in themselves (adiaphora); for no special law would be
required to establish such a right, considered according to moral
laws.
An action is called an act- or moral deed- in so far as it is
subject to laws of obligation, and consequently in so far as the
subject of it is regarded with reference to the freedom of his
choice in the exercise of his will. The agent- as the actor or doer of
the deed- is regarded as, through the act, the author of its effect;
and this effect, along with the action itself, may be imputed to
him, if be previously knew the law in virtue of which an obligation
rested upon him.
A person is a subject who is capable of having his actions imputed
to him. Moral personality is, therefore, nothing but the freedom of
a rational being under moral laws; and it is to be distinguished
from psychological freedom as the mere faculty by which we become
conscious of ourselves in different states of the identity of our
existence. Hence it follows that a person is properly subject to no
other laws than those he lays down for himself, either alone or in
conjunction with others.
A thing is what is incapable of being the subject of imputation.
Every object of the free activity of the will, which is itself void of
freedom, is therefore called a thing (res corporealis).
Right or wrong applies, as a general quality, to an act (rectum
aut minus rectum), in so far as it is in accordance with duty or
contrary to duty (factum licitum aut illicitum), no matter what may be
the subject or origin of the duty itself. An act that is contrary to
duty is called a transgression (reatus).
An unintentional transgression of a duty, which is, nevertheless,
imputable to a person, is called a mere fault (culpa). An
intentional transgression- that is, an act accompanied with the
consciousness that it is a transgression- constitutes a crime (dolus).
Whatever is juridically in accordance with external laws is said
to be just (jus, instum); and whatever is not juridically in
accordance with external laws is unjust (unjustum).
A collision of duties or obligations (collisio officiorum s.
obligationum) would be the result of such a relation between them that
the one would annul the other, in whole or in part. Duty and
obligation, however, are conceptions which express the objective
practical necessity of certain actions, and two opposite rules
cannot be objective and necessary at the same time; for if it is a
duty to act according to one of them, it is not only no duty to act
according to an opposite rule, but to do so would even be contrary
to duty. Hence a collision of duties and obligations is entirely
inconceivable (obligationes non colliduntur). There may, however, be
two grounds of obligation (rationes obligandi), connected with an
individual under a rule prescribed for himself, and yet neither the
one nor the other may be sufficient to constitute an actual obligation
(rationes obligandi non obligantes); and in that case the one of
them is not a duty. If two such grounds of obligation are actually
in collision with each other, practical philosophy does not say that
the stronger obligation is to keep the upper hand (fortior obligatio
vincit), but that the stronger ground of obligation is to maintain its
place (fortior obligandi ratio vincit).
Obligatory Laws for which an external legislation is possible are
called generally external laws. Those external laws, the
obligatoriness of which can be recognised by reason a priori even
without an external legislation, are called natural laws. Those
laws, again, which are not obligatory without actual external
legislation, are called positive laws. An external legislation,
containing pure natural laws, is therefore conceivable; but in that
case a previous natural law must be presupposed to establish the
authority of the lawgiver by the right to subject others to obligation
through his own act of will.
The principle which makes a certain action a duty is a practical
law. The rule of the agent or actor, which he forms as a principle for
himself on subjective grounds, is called his maxim. Hence, even when
the law is one and invariable, the maxims of the agent may yet be very
different.
The categorical imperative only expresses generally what constitutes
obligation. It may be rendered by the following formula: "Act
according to a maxim which can be adopted at the same time as a
universal law." Actions must therefore be considered, in the first
place, according to their subjective principle; but whether this
principle is also valid objectively can only be known by the criterion
of the categorical imperative. For reason brings the principle or
maxim of any action to the test, by calling upon the agent to think of
himself in connection with it as at the same time laying down a
universal law, and to consider whether his action is so qualified as
to be fit for entering into such a universal legislation.
The simplicity of this law, in comparison with the great and
manifold consequences which may be drawn from it, as well as its
commanding authority and supremacy without the accompaniment of any
visible motive or sanction, must certainly at first appear very
surprising. And we may well wonder at the power of our reason to
determine the activity of the will by the mere idea of the
qualification of a maxim for the universality of a practical law,
especially when we are taught thereby that this practical moral law
first reveals a property of the will which the speculative reason
would never have come upon either by principles a priori, or from
any experience whatever; and even if it had ascertained the fact, it
could never have theoretically established its possibility. This
practical law, however, not only discovers the fact of that property
of the will, which is freedom, but irrefutably establishes it. Hence
it will be less surprising to find that the moral laws are
undemonstrable, and yet apodeictic, like the mathematical
postulates; and that they, at the same time, open up before us a whole
field of practical knowledge, from which reason, on its theoretical
side, must find itself entirely excluded with its speculative idea
of freedom and all such ideas of the supersensible generally.
The conformity of an action to the law of duty constitutes its
legality; the conformity of the maxim of the action with the law
constitutes its morality. A maxim is thus a subjective principle of
action, which the individual makes a rule for himself as to how in
fact he will act.
On the other hand, the principle of duty is what reason
absolutely, and therefore objectively and universally, lays down in
the form of a command to the individual, as to how he ought to act.
The supreme principle of the science of morals accordingly is
this: "Act according to a maxim which can likewise be valid as a
universal law." Every maxim which is not qualified according to this
condition is contrary to Morality.
Laws arise from the will, viewed generally as practical reason;
maxims spring from the activity of the will in the process of
choice. The latter in man is what constitutes free-will. The will
which refers to nothing else than mere law can neither be called
free nor not free, because it does not relate to actions
immediately, but to the giving of a law for the maxim of actions; it
is therefore the practical reason itself. Hence as a faculty, it is
absolutely necessary in itself, and is not subject to any external
necessitation. It is, therefore, only the act of choice in the
voluntary process that can be called free.
The freedom of the act of will, however, is not to be defined as a
liberty of indifference (libertas indifferentae), that, is, as a
capacity of choosing to act for or against the law. The voluntary
process, indeed, viewed as a phenomenal appearance, gives many
examples of this choosing in experience; and some have accordingly
so defined the free-will. For freedom, as it is first made knowable by
the moral law, is known only as a negative property in us, as
constituted by the fact of not being necessitated to act by sensible
principles of determination. Regarded as a noumenal reality,
however, in reference to man as a pure rational intelligence, the
act of the will cannot be at all theoretically exhibited; nor can it
therefore be explained how this power can act necessitatingly in
relation to the sensible activity in the process of choice, or
consequently in what the positive quality of freedom consists. Only
thus much we can see into and comprehend, that although man, as a
being belonging to the world of sense, exhibits- as experience
shows- a capacity of choosing not only conformably to the law but also
contrary to it, his freedom as a rational being belonging to the world
of intelligence cannot be defined by reference merely to sensible
appearances. For sensible phenomena cannot make a super-sensible
object- such as free-will is- intelligible; nor can freedom ever be
placed in the mere fact that the rational subject can make a choice in
conflict with his own law-giving reason, although experience may prove
that it happens often enough, notwithstanding our inability to
conceive how it is possible. For it is one thing to admit a
proposition as based on experience, and another thing to make it the
defining principle and the universal differentiating mark of the act
of free-will, in its distinction from the arbitrium brutum s.
servum; because the empirical proposition does not assert that any
particular characteristic necessarily belongs to the conception in
question, but this is requisite in the process of definition.
Freedom in relation to the internal legislation of reason can alone be
properly called a power; the possibility of diverging from the law
thus given is an incapacity or want of power. How then can the
former be defined by the latter? It could only be by a definition
which would add to the practical conception of the free-will, its
exercise as shown by experience; but this would be a hybrid definition
which would exhibit the conception in a false light.
A morally practical law is a proposition which contains a
categorical imperative or command. He who commands by a law (imperans)
is the lawgiver or legislator. He is the author of the obligation that
accompanies the law, but he is not always the author of the law
itself. In the latter case, the law would be positive, contingent, and
arbitrary. The law which is imposed upon us a priori and
unconditionally by our own reason may also be expressed as
proceeding from the will of a supreme lawgiver or the Divine will.
Such a will as supreme can consequently have only rights and not
duties; and it only indicates the idea of a moral being whose will
is law for all, without conceiving of him as the author of that will.
Imputation, in the moral sense, is the judgement by which anyone
is declared to be the author or free cause of an action which is
then regarded as his moral fact or deed, and is subjected to law. When
the judgement likewise lays down the juridical consequences of the
deed, it is judicial or valid (imputatio judiciaria s. valida);
otherwise it would be only adjudicative or declaratory (imputatio
dijudicatoria). That person- individual or collective- who is invested
with the right to impute actions judicially, is called a judge or a
court (judex s. forum).
When any one does, in conformity with duty, more than he can be
compelled to do by the law, it is said to be meritorious (meritum).
What is done only in exact conformity with the law, is what is due
(debitum). And when less is done than can be demanded to be done by
the law, the result is moral demerit (demeritum) or culpability.
The juridical effect or consequence of a culpable act of demerit
is punishment (paena); that of a meritorious act is reward (praemium),
assuming that this reward was promised in the law and that it formed
the motive of the action. The coincidence or exact conformity of
conduct to what is due has no juridical effect. Benevolent
remuneration (remuneratio s. repensio benefica) has no place in
juridical relations.
The good or bad consequences arising from the performance of an
obligated action- as also the consequences arising from failing to
perform a meritorious action- cannot be imputed to the agent (modus
imputation is tollens). The good consequences of a meritorious action-
as also the bad consequences of a wrongful action- may be imputed to
the agent (modus imputation is poneus).
The degree of the imputability of actions is to be reckoned
according to the magnitude of the hindrances or obstacles which it has
been necessary for them to overcome. The greater the natural
hindrances in the sphere of sense, and the less the moral hindrance of
duty, so much the more is a good deed imputed as meritorious. This may
be seen by considering such examples as rescuing a man who is an
entire stranger from great distress, and at very considerable
sacrifice. Conversely, the less the natural hindrance, and the greater
the hindrance on the ground of duty, so much the more is a
transgression imputable as culpable. Hence the state of mind of the
agent or doer of a deed makes a difference in imputing its
consequences, according as he did it in passion or performed it with
coolness and deliberation.
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