Immanuel Kant

“ 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. ”

“ Obligation.—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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ And just as in a Metaphysic 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But as the material upon which to construct a Law is not furnished to it, it can only make 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Will as the Faculty of Practical Principles.—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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ Agent.—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 he previously knew the Law, in virtue of which an Obligation rested upon him.
Person; Imputation.—A Person is a Subject who is capable of having his actions imputed to him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 supersensible object—such as free-will is—intelligible ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. [2] But Reason commands how we ought to act, even although no example of such action were to be found ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ In fact, conceptions and judgments 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Moral Anthropology.—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 favour 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Moral Laws and Categorical Imperatives.—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 ”

“ It is only by Pure Reason, therefore, that Duty can and must be prescribed.
Practical Philosophy in relation to Art.—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. ”