The Critique of Practical Reason......................................................................................................................1

Immanuel Kant .........................................................................................................................................1

PREFACE. ..............................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION. Of the Idea of a Critique of Practical Reason. ........................................................7

FIRST PART. ELEMENTS OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON. .........................................................7

CHAPTER I. Of the Principles of Pure Practical Reason......................................................................7

CHAPTER II. Of the Concept of an Object of Pure Practical Reason. .................................................27

CHAPTER III. Of the Motives of Pure Practical Reason. ....................................................................34

BOOK II. Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason. ......................................................................................50

CHAPTER I. Of a Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason Generally.........................................................50

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum

Bonum"..................................................................................................................................................52

CONCLUSION. ....................................................................................................................................75

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum"

This work is called the Critique of Practical Reason, not of the pure practical reason, although its parallelism

with the speculative critique would seem to require the latter term. The reason of this appears sufficiently

from the treatise itself. Its business is to show that there is pure practical reason, and for this purpose it

criticizes the entire practical faculty of reason. If it succeeds in this, it has no need to criticize the pure faculty

itself in order to see whether reason in making such a claim does not presumptuously overstep itself (as is the

case with the speculative reason). For if, as pure reason, it is actually practical, it proves its own reality and

that of its concepts by fact, and all disputation against the possibility of its being real is futile.

With this faculty, transcendental freedom is also established; freedom, namely, in that absolute sense in

which speculative reason required it in its use of the concept of causality in order to escape the antinomy into

which it inevitably falls, when in the chain of cause and effect it tries to think the unconditioned. Speculative

reason could only exhibit this concept (of freedom) problematically as not impossible to thought, without

assuring it any objective reality, and merely lest the supposed impossibility of what it must at least allow to

be thinkable should endanger its very being and plunge it into an abyss of scepticism.

Inasmuch as the reality of the concept of freedom is proved by an apodeictic law of practical reason, it is the

keystone of the whole system of pure reason, even the speculative, and all other concepts (those of God and

immortality) which, as being mere ideas, remain in it unsupported, now attach themselves to this concept, and

by it obtain consistence and objective reality; that is to say, their possibility is proved by the fact that freedom

Freedom, however, is the only one of all the ideas of the speculative reason of which we know the possibility

a priori (without, however, understanding it), because it is the condition of the moral law which we know.*

The ideas of God and immortality, however, are not conditions of the moral law, but only conditions of the

necessary object of a will determined by this law; that is to say, conditions of the practical use of our pure

reason. Hence, with respect to these ideas, we cannot affirm that we know and understand, I will not say the

actuality, but even the possibility of them. However they are the conditions of the application of the morally

determined will to its object, which is given to it a priori, viz., the summum bonum. Consequently in this

practical point of view their possibility must be assumed, although we cannot theoretically know and

understand it. To justify this assumption it is sufficient, in a practical point of view, that they contain no

intrinsic impossibility (contradiction). Here we have what, as far as speculative reason is concerned, is a

merely subjective principle of assent, which, however, is objectively valid for a reason equally pure but

practical, and this principle, by means of the concept of freedom, assures objective reality and authority to the

ideas of God and immortality. Nay, there is a subjective necessity (a need of pure reason) to assume them.

Nevertheless the theoretical knowledge of reason is not hereby enlarged, but only the possibility is given,

which heretofore was merely a problem and now becomes assertion, and thus the practical use of reason is

connected with the elements of theoretical reason. And this need is not a merely hypothetical one for the

arbitrary purposes of speculation, that we must assume something if we wish in speculation to carry reason to

its utmost limits, but it is a need which has the force of law to assume something without which that cannot

*Lest any one should imagine that he finds an inconsistency here when I call freedom the condition of the

moral law, and hereafter maintain in the treatise itself that the moral law is the condition under which we can

first become conscious of freedom, I will merely remark that freedom is the ratio essendi of the moral law,

while the moral law is the ratio cognoscendi of freedom. For Pad not the moral law been previously distinctly

thought in our reason, we should never consider ourselves justified in assuming such a thing as freedom,

although it be not contradictory. But were there no freedom it would be impossible to trace the moral law in

It would certainly be more satisfactory to our speculative reason if it could solve these problems for itself

without this circuit and preserve the solution for practical use as a thing to be referred to, but in fact our

faculty of speculation is not so well provided. Those who boast of such high knowledge ought not to keep it

back, but to exhibit it publicly that it may be tested and appreciated. They want to prove: very good, let them

prove; and the critical philosophy lays its arms at their feet as the victors. Quid statis? Nolint. Atqui licet esse

beatis. As they then do not in fact choose to do so, probably because they cannot, we must take up these arms

again in order to seek in the mortal use of reason, and to base on this, the notions of God, freedom, and

Here first is explained the enigma of the critical philosophy, viz.: how we deny objective reality to the

supersensible use of the categories in speculation and yet admit this reality with respect to the objects of pure

practical reason. This must at first seem inconsistent as long as this practical use is only nominally known.

But when, by a thorough analysis of it, one becomes aware that the reality spoken of does not imply any

theoretical determination of the categories and extension of our knowledge to the supersensible; but that what

is meant is that in this respect an object belongs to them, because either they are contained in the necessary

determination of the will a priori, or are inseparably connected with its object; then this inconsistency

disappears, because the use we make of these concepts is different from what speculative reason requires. On

the other hand, there now appears an unexpected and very satisfactory proof of the consistency of the

speculative critical philosophy. For whereas it insisted that the objects of experience as such, including our

own subject, have only the value of phenomena, while at the same time things in themselves must be

supposed as their basis, so that not everything supersensible was to be regarded as a fiction and its concept as

empty; so now practical reason itself, without any concert with the speculative, assures reality to a

supersensible object of the category of causality, viz., freedom, although (as becomes a practical concept)

only for practical use; and this establishes on the evidence of a fact that which in the former case could only

be conceived. By this the strange but certain doctrine of the speculative critical philosophy, that the thinking

subject is to itself in internal intuition only a phenomenon, obtains in the critical examination of the practical

reason its full confirmation, and that so thoroughly that we should be compelled to adopt this doctrine, even if

*The union of causality as freedom with causality as rational mechanism, the former established by the moral

law, the latter by the law of nature in the same subject, namely, man, is impossible, unless we conceive him

with reference to the former as a being in himself, and with reference to the latter as a phenomenon the

former in pure consciousness, the latter in empirical consciousness. Otherwise reason inevitably contradicts

By this also I can understand why the most considerable objections which I have as yet met with against the

Critique turn about these two points, namely, on the one side, the objective reality of the categories as applied

to noumena, which is in the theoretical department of knowledge denied, in the practical affirmed; and on the

other side, the paradoxical demand to regard oneself qua subject of freedom as a noumenon, and at the same

time from the point of view of physical nature as a phenomenon in one's own empirical consciousness; for as

long as one has formed no definite notions of morality and freedom, one could not conjecture on the one side

what was intended to be the noumenon, the basis of the alleged phenomenon, and on the other side it seemed

doubtful whether it was at all possible to form any notion of it, seeing that we had previously assigned all the

notions of the pure understanding in its theoretical use exclusively to phenomena. Nothing but a detailed

criticism of the practical reason can remove all this misapprehension and set in a clear light the consistency

So much by way of justification of the proceeding by which, in this work, the notions and principles of pure

speculative reason which have already undergone their special critical examination are, now and then, again

subjected to examination. This would not in other cases be in accordance with the systematic process by

which a science is established, since matters which have been decided ought only to be cited and not again

discussed. In this case, however, it was not only allowable but necessary, because reason is here considered in

transition to a different use of these concepts from what it had made of them before. Such a transition

necessitates a comparison of the old and the new usage, in order to distinguish well the new path from the old

one and, at the same time, to allow their connection to be observed. Accordingly considerations of this kind,

including those which are once more directed to the concept of freedom in the practical use of the pure

reason, must not be regarded as an interpolation serving only to fill up the gaps in the critical system of

speculative reason (for this is for its own purpose complete), or like the props and buttresses which in a

hastily constructed building are often added afterwards; but as true members which make the connexion of

the system plain, and show us concepts, here presented as real, which there could only be presented

problematically. This remark applies especially to the concept of freedom, respecting which one cannot but

observe with surprise that so many boast of being able to understand it quite well and to explain its

possibility, while they regard it only psychologically, whereas if they had studied it in a transcendental point

of view, they must have recognized that it is not only indispensable as a problematical concept, in the

complete use of speculative reason, but also quite incomprehensible; and if they afterwards came to consider

its practical use, they must needs have come to the very mode of determining the principles of this, to which

they are now so loth to assent. The concept of freedom is the stone of stumbling for all empiricists, but at the

same time the key to the loftiest practical principles for critical moralists, who perceive by its means that they

must necessarily proceed by a rational method. For this reason I beg the reader not to pass lightly over what is

I must leave it to those who are acquainted with works of this kind to judge whether such a system as that of

the practical reason, which is here developed from the critical examination of it, has cost much or little

trouble, especially in seeking not to miss the true point of view from which the whole can be rightly sketched.

It presupposes, indeed, the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, but only in so far as this

gives a preliminary acquaintance with the principle of duty, and assigns and justifies a definite formula

thereof; in other respects it is independent.* It results from the nature of this practical faculty itself that the

complete classification of all practical sciences cannot be added, as in the critique of the speculative reason.

For it is not possible to define duties specially, as human duties, with a view to their classification, until the

subject of this definition (viz., man) is known according to his actual nature, at least so far as is necessary

with respect to duty; this, however, does not belong to a critical examination of the practical reason, the

business of which is only to assign in a complete manner the principles of its possibility, extent, and limits,

without special reference to human nature. The classification then belongs to the system of science, not to the

*A reviewer who wanted to find some fault with this work has hit the truth better, perhaps, than he thought,

when he says that no new principle of morality is set forth in it, but only a new formula. But who would think

of introducing a new principle of all morality and making himself as it were the first discoverer of it, just as if

all the world before him were ignorant what duty was or had been in thoroughgoing error? But whoever

knows of what importance to a mathematician a formula is, which defines accurately what is to be done to

work a problem, will not think that a formula is insignificant and useless which does the same for all duty in

In the second part of the Analytic I have given, as I trust, a sufficient answer to the objection of a

truthloving and acute critic* of the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals a critic always

worthy of respect the objection, namely, that the notion of good was not established before the moral

principle, as be thinks it ought to have been.*[2] I have also had regard to many of the objections which have

reached me from men who show that they have at heart the discovery of the truth, and I shall continue to do

so (for those who have only their old system before their eyes, and who have already settled what is to be

approved or disapproved, do not desire any explanation which might stand in the way of their own private

*[See Kant's "Das mag in der Theoric ricktig seyn," etc. Werke, vol. vii, p. 182.]

*[2] It might also have been objected to me that I have not first defined the notion of the faculty of desire, or

of the feeling of Pleasure, although this reproach would be unfair, because this definition might reasonably be

presupposed as given in psychology. However, the definition there given might be such as to found the

determination of the faculty of desire on the feeling of pleasure (as is commonly done), and thus the supreme

principle of practical philosophy would be necessarily made empirical, which, however, remains to be proved

and in this critique is altogether refuted. It will, therefore, give this definition here in such a manner as it

ought to be given, in order to leave this contested point open at the beginning, as it should be. LIFE is the

faculty a being has of acting according to laws of the faculty of desire. The faculty of DESIRE is the being's

faculty of becoming by means of its ideas the cause of the actual existence of the objects of these ideas.

PLEASURE is the idea of the agreement of the object, or the action with the subjective conditions of life, i.e.,

with the faculty of causality of an idea in respect of the actuality of its object (or with the determination of the

forces of the subject to action which produces it). I have no further need for the purposes of this critique of

notions borrowed from psychology; the critique itself supplies the rest. It is easily seen that the question

whether the faculty of desire is always based on pleasure, or whether under certain conditions pleasure only

follows the determination of desire, is by this definition left undecided, for it is composed only of terms

belonging to the pure understanding, i.e., of categories which contain nothing empirical. Such precaution is

very desirable in all philosophy and yet is often neglected; namely, not to prejudge questions by adventuring

definitions before the notion has been completely analysed, which is often very late. It may be observed

through the whole course of the critical philosophy (of the theoretical as well as the practical reason) that

frequent opportunity offers of supplying defects in the old dogmatic method of philosophy, and of correcting

errors which are not observed until we make such rational use of these notions viewing them as a whole.

When we have to study a particular faculty of the human mind in its sources, its content, and its limits; then

from the nature of human knowledge we must begin with its parts, with an accurate and complete exposition

of them; complete, namely, so far as is possible in the present state of our knowledge of its elements. But

there is another thing to be attended to which is of a more philosophical and architectonic character, namely,

to grasp correctly the idea of the whole, and from thence to get a view of all those parts as mutually related by

the aid of pure reason, and by means of their derivation from the concept of the whole. This is only possible

through the most intimate acquaintance with the system; and those who find the first inquiry too troublesome,

and do not think it worth their while to attain such an acquaintance, cannot reach the second stage, namely,

the general view, which is a synthetical return to that which had previously been given analytically. It is no

wonder then if they find inconsistencies everywhere, although the gaps which these indicate are not in the

I have no fear, as regards this treatise, of the reproach that I wish to introduce a new language, since the sort

of knowledge here in question has itself somewhat of an everyday character. Nor even in the case of the

former critique could this reproach occur to anyone who had thought it through and not merely turned over

the leaves. To invent new words where the language has no lack of expressions for given notions is a childish

effort to distinguish oneself from the crowd, if not by new and true thoughts, yet by new patches on the old

garment. If, therefore, the readers of that work know any more familiar expressions which are as suitable to

the thought as those seem to me to be, or if they think they can show the futility of these thoughts themselves

and hence that of the expression, they would, in the first case, very much oblige me, for I only desire to be

understood: and, in the second case, they would deserve well of philosophy. But, as long as these thoughts

stand, I very much doubt that suitable and yet more common expressions for them can be found.*

*I am more afraid in the present treatise of occasional misconception in respect of some expressions which I

have chosen with the greatest care in order that the notion to which they point may not be missed. Thus, in

the table of categories of the Practical reason under the title of Modality, the Permitted, and forbidden (in a

practical objective point of view, possible and impossible) have almost the same meaning in common

language as the next category, duty and contrary to duty. Here, however, the former means what coincides

with, or contradicts, a merely possible practical precept (for example, the solution of all problems of

geometry and mechanics); the latter, what is similarly related to a law actually present in the reason; and this

distinction is not quite foreign even to common language, although somewhat unusual. For example, it is

forbidden to an orator, as such, to forge new words or constructions; in a certain degree this is permitted to a

poet; in neither case is there any question of duty. For if anyone chooses to forfeit his reputation as an orator,

no one can prevent him. We have here only to do with the distinction of imperatives into problematical,

assertorial, and apodeictic. Similarly in the note in which I have pared the moral ideas of practical perfection

in different philosophical schools, I have distinguished the idea of wisdom from that of holiness, although I

have stated that essentially and objectively they are the same. But in that place I understand by the former

only that wisdom to which man (the Stoic) lays claim; therefore I take it subjectively as an attribute alleged to

belong to man. (Perhaps the expression virtue, with which also the made great show, would better mark the

characteristic of his school.) The expression of a postulate of pure practical reason might give most occasion

to misapprehension in case the reader confounded it with the signification of the postulates in pure

mathematics, which carry apodeictic certainty with them. These, however, postulate the possibility of an

action, the object of which has been previously recognized a priori in theory as possible, and that with perfect

certainty. But the former postulates the possibility of an object itself (God and the immortality of the soul)

from apodeictic practical laws, and therefore only for the purposes of a practical reason. This certainty of the

postulated possibility then is not at all theoretic, and consequently not apodeictic; that is to say, it is not a

known necessity as regards the object, but a necessary supposition as regards the subject, necessary for the

obedience to its objective but practical laws. It is, therefore, merely a necessary hypothesis. I could find no

better expression for this rational necessity, which is subjective, but yet true and unconditional.

In this manner, then, the a priori principles of two faculties of the mind, the faculty of cognition and that of

desire, would be found and determined as to the conditions, extent, and limits of their use, and thus a sure

foundation be paid for a scientific system of philosophy, both theoretic and practical.

Nothing worse could happen to these labours than that anyone should make the unexpected discovery that

there neither is, nor can be, any a priori knowledge at all. But there is no danger of this. This would be the

same thing as if one sought to prove by reason that there is no reason. For we only say that we know

something by reason, when we are conscious that we could have known it, even if it had not been given to us

in experience; hence rational knowledge and knowledge a priori are one and the same. It is a clear

contradiction to try to extract necessity from a principle of experience (ex pumice aquam), and to try by this

to give a judgement true universality (without which there is no rational inference, not even inference from

analogy, which is at least a presumed universality and objective necessity). To substitute subjective necessity,

that is, custom, for objective, which exists only in a priori judgements, is to deny to reason the power of

judging about the object, i.e., of knowing it, and what belongs to it. It implies, for example, that we must not

say of something which often or always follows a certain antecedent state that we can conclude from this to

that (for this would imply objective necessity and the notion of an a priori connexion), but only that we may

expect similar cases (just as animals do), that is that we reject the notion of cause altogether as false and a

mere delusion. As to attempting to remedy this want of objective and consequently universal validity by

saying that we can see no ground for attributing any other sort of knowledge to other rational beings, if this

reasoning were valid, our ignorance would do more for the enlargement of our knowledge than all our

meditation. For, then, on this very ground that we have no knowledge of any other rational beings besides

man, we should have a right to suppose them to be of the same nature as we know ourselves to be: that is, we

should really know them. I omit to mention that universal assent does not prove the objective validity of a

judgement (i.e., its validity as a cognition), and although this universal assent should accidentally happen, it

could furnish no proof of agreement with the object; on the contrary, it is the objective validity which alone

Hume would be quite satisfied with this system of universal empiricism, for, as is well known, he desired

nothing more than that, instead of ascribing any objective meaning to the necessity in the concept of cause, a

merely subjective one should be assumed, viz., custom, in order to deny that reason could judge about God,

freedom, and immortality; and if once his principles were granted, he was certainly well able to deduce his

conclusions therefrom, with all logical coherence. But even Hume did not make his empiricism so universal

as to include mathematics. He holds the principles of mathematics to be analytical; and if his were correct,

they would certainly be apodeictic also: but we could not infer from this that reason has the faculty of

forming apodeictic judgements in philosophy also that is to say, those which are synthetical judgements,

like the judgement of causality. But if we adopt a universal empiricism, then mathematics will be included.

Now if this science is in contradiction with a reason that admits only empirical principles, as it inevitably is in

the antinomy in which mathematics prove the infinite divisibility of space, which empiricism cannot admit;

then the greatest possible evidence of demonstration is in manifest contradiction with the alleged conclusions

from experience, and we are driven to ask, like Cheselden's blind patient, "Which deceives me, sight or

touch?" (for empiricism is based on a necessity felt, rationalism on a necessity seen). And thus universal

empiricism reveals itself as absolute scepticism. It is erroneous to attribute this in such an unqualified sense

to Hume,* since he left at least one certain touchstone (which can only be found in a priori principles),

*Names that designate the followers of a sect have always been accompanied with much injustice; just as if

one said, "N is an Idealist." For although he not only admits, but even insists, that our ideas of external things

have actual objects of external things corresponding to them, yet he holds that the form of the intuition does

However, as in this philosophical and critical age such empiricism can scarcely be serious, and it is probably

put forward only as an intellectual exercise and for the purpose of putting in a clearer light, by contrast, the

necessity of rational a priori principles, we can only be grateful to those who employ themselves in this

The theoretical use of reason was concerned with objects of the cognitive faculty only, and a critical

examination of it with reference to this use applied properly only to the pure faculty of cognition; because

this raised the suspicion, which was afterwards confirmed, that it might easily pass beyond its limits, and be

lost among unattainable objects, or even contradictory notions. It is quite different with the practical use of

reason. In this, reason is concerned with the grounds of determination of the will, which is a faculty either to

produce objects corresponding to ideas, or to determine ourselves to the effecting of such objects (whether

the physical power is sufficient or not); that is, to determine our causality. For here, reason can at least attain

so far as to determine the will, and has always objective reality in so far as it is the volition only that is in

question. The first question here then is whether pure reason of itself alone suffices to determine the will, or

whether it can be a ground of determination only as dependent on empirical conditions. Now, here there

comes in a notion of causality justified by the critique of the pure reason, although not capable of being

presented empirically, viz., that of freedom; and if we can now discover means of proving that this property

does in fact belong to the human will (and so to the will of all rational beings), then it will not only be shown

that pure reason can be practical, but that it alone, and not reason empirically limited, is indubitably practical;

consequently, we shall have to make a critical examination, not of pure practical reason, but only of practical

reason generally. For when once pure reason is shown to exist, it needs no critical examination. For reason

itself contains the standard for the critical examination of every use of it. The critique, then, of practical

reason generally is bound to prevent the empirically conditioned reason from claiming exclusively to furnish

the ground of determination of the will. If it is proved that there is a [practical] reason, its employment is

alone immanent; the empirically conditioned use, which claims supremacy, is on the contrary transcendent

and expresses itself in demands and precepts which go quite beyond its sphere. This is just the opposite of

However, as it is still pure reason, the knowledge of which is here the foundation of its practical employment,

the general outline of the classification of a critique of practical reason must be arranged in accordance with

that of the speculative. We must, then, have the Elements and the Methodology of it; and in the former an

Analytic as the rule of truth, and a Dialectic as the exposition and dissolution of the illusion in the judgements

of practical reason. But the order in the subdivision of the Analytic will be the reverse of that in the critique

of the pure speculative reason. For, in the present case, we shall commence with the principles and proceed to

the concepts, and only then, if possible, to the senses; whereas in the case of the speculative reason we began

with the senses and had to end with the principles. The reason of this lies again in this: that now we have to

do with a will, and have to consider reason, not in its relation to objects, but to this will and its causality. We

must, then, begin with the principles of a causality not empirically conditioned, after which the attempt can

be made to establish our notions of the determining grounds of such a will, of their application to objects, and

finally to the subject and its sense faculty. We necessarily begin with the law of causality from freedom, that

is, with a pure practical principle, and this determines the objects to which alone it can be applied.

Practical principles are propositions which contain a general determination of the will, having under it several

practical rules. They are subjective, or maxims, when the condition is regarded by the subject as valid only

for his own will, but are objective, or practical laws, when the condition is recognized as objective, that is,

Supposing that pure reason contains in itself a practical motive, that is, one adequate to determine the will,

then there are practical laws; otherwise all practical principles will be mere maxims. In case the will of a

rational being is pathologically affected, there may occur a conflict of the maxims with the practical laws

recognized by itself. For example, one may make it his maxim to let no injury pass unrevenged, and yet he

may see that this is not a practical law, but only his own maxim; that, on the contrary, regarded as being in

one and the same maxim a rule for the will of every rational being, it must contradict itself. In natural

philosophy the principles of what happens, e.g., the principle of equality of action and reaction in the

communication of motion) are at the same time laws of nature; for the use of reason there is theoretical and

determined by the nature of the object. In practical philosophy, i.e., that which has to do only with the

grounds of determination of the will, the principles which a man makes for himself are not laws by which one

is inevitably bound; because reason in practical matters has to do with the subject, namely, with the faculty of

desire, the special character of which may occasion variety in the rule. The practical rule is always a product

of reason, because it prescribes action as a means to the effect. But in the case of a being with whom reason

does not of itself determine the will, this rule is an imperative, i.e., a rule characterized by "shall," which

expresses the objective necessitation of the action and signifies that, if reason completely determined the will,

the action would inevitably take place according to this rule. Imperatives, therefore, are objectively valid, and

are quite distinct from maxims, which are subjective principles. The former either determine the conditions of

the causality of the rational being as an efficient cause, i.e., merely in reference to the effect and the means of

attaining it; or they determine the will only, whether it is adequate to the effect or not. The former would be

hypothetical imperatives, and contain mere precepts of skill; the latter, on the contrary, would be categorical,

and would alone be practical laws. Thus maxims are principles, but not imperatives. Imperatives themselves,

however, when they are conditional (i.e., do not determine the will simply as will, but only in respect to a

desired effect, that is, when they are hypothetical imperatives), are practical precepts but not laws. Laws must

be sufficient to determine the will as will, even before I ask whether I have power sufficient for a desired

effect, or the means necessary to produce it; hence they are categorical: otherwise they are not laws at all,

because the necessity is wanting, which, if it is to be practical, must be independent of conditions which are

pathological and are therefore only contingently connected with the will. Tell a man, for example, that he

must be industrious and thrifty in youth, in order that he may not want in old age; this is a correct and

important practical precept of the will. But it is easy to see that in this case the will is directed to something

else which it is presupposed that it desires; and as to this desire, we must leave it to the actor himself whether

he looks forward to other resources than those of his own acquisition, or does not expect to be old, or thinks

that in case of future necessity he will be able to make shift with little. Reason, from which alone can spring a

rule involving necessity, does, indeed, give necessity to this precept (else it would not be an imperative), but

this is a necessity dependent on subjective conditions, and cannot be supposed in the same degree in all

subjects. But that reason may give laws it is necessary that it should only need to presuppose itself, because

rules are objectively and universally valid only when they hold without any contingent subjective conditions,

which distinguish one rational being from another. Now tell a man that he should never make a deceitful

promise, this is a rule which only concerns his will, whether the purposes he may have can be attained

thereby or not; it is the volition only which is to be determined a priori by that rule. If now it is found that this

rule is practically right, then it is a law, because it is a categorical imperative. Thus, practical laws refer to the

will only, without considering what is attained by its causality, and we may disregard this latter (as belonging

All practical principles which presuppose an object (matter) of the faculty of desire as the ground of

By the matter of the faculty of desire I mean an object the realization of which is desired. Now, if the desire

for this object precedes the practical rule and is the condition of our making it a principle, then I say (in the

first place) this principle is in that case wholly empirical, for then what determines the choice is the idea of an

object and that relation of this idea to the subject by which its faculty of desire is determined to its realization.

Such a relation to the subject is called the pleasure in the realization of an object. This, then, must be

presupposed as a condition of the possibility of determination of the will. But it is impossible to know a priori

of any idea of an object whether it will be connected with pleasure or pain, or be indifferent. In such cases,

therefore, the determining principle of the choice must be empirical and, therefore, also the practical material

In the second place, since susceptibility to a pleasure or pain can be known only empirically and cannot hold

in the same degree for all rational beings, a principle which is based on this subjective condition may serve

indeed as a maxim for the subject which possesses this susceptibility, but not as a law even to him (because it

is wanting in objective necessity, which must be recognized a priori); it follows, therefore, that such a

All material practical principles as such are of one and the same kind and come under the general principle of

Pleasure arising from the idea of the idea of the existence of a thing, in so far as it is to determine the desire

of this thing, is founded on the susceptibility of the subject, since it depends on the presence of an object;

hence it belongs to sense (feeling), and not to understanding, which expresses a relation of the idea to an

object according to concepts, not to the subject according to feelings. It is, then, practical only in so far as the

faculty of desire is determined by the sensation of agreeableness which the subject expects from the actual

existence of the object. Now, a rational being's consciousness of the pleasantness of life uninterruptedly

accompanying his whole existence is happiness; and the principle which makes this the supreme ground of

determination of the will is the principle of selflove. All material principles, then, which place the

determining ground of the will in the pleasure or pain to be received from the existence of any object are all

of the same kind, inasmuch as they all belong to the principle of selflove or private happiness.

All material practical rules place the determining principle of the will in the lower desires; and if there were

no purely formal laws of the will adequate to determine it, then we could not admit any higher desire at all.

It is surprising that men, otherwise acute, can think it possible to distinguish between higher and lower

desires, according as the ideas which are connected with the feeling of pleasure have their origin in the senses

or in the understanding; for when we inquire what are the determining grounds of desire, and place them in

some expected pleasantness, it is of no consequence whence the idea of this pleasing object is derived, but

only how much it pleases. Whether an idea has its seat and source in the understanding or not, if it can only

determine the choice by presupposing a feeling of pleasure in the subject, it follows that its capability of

determining the choice depends altogether on the nature of the inner sense, namely, that this can be agreeably

affected by it. However dissimilar ideas of objects may be, though they be ideas of the understanding, or even

of the reason in contrast to ideas of sense, yet the feeling of pleasure, by means of which they constitute the

determining principle of the will (the expected satisfaction which impels the activity to the production of the

object), is of one and the same kind, not only inasmuch as it can only be known empirically, but also

inasmuch as it affects one and the same vital force which manifests itself in the faculty of desire, and in this

respect can only differ in degree from every other ground of determination. Otherwise, how could we

compare in respect of magnitude two principles of determination, the ideas of which depend upon different

faculties, so as to prefer that which affects the faculty of desire in the highest degree. The same man may

return unread an instructive book which he cannot again obtain, in order not to miss a hunt; he may depart in

the midst of a fine speech, in order not to be late for dinner; he may leave a rational conversation, such as he

otherwise values highly, to take his place at the gamingtable; he may even repulse a poor man whom he at

other times takes pleasure in benefiting, because he has only just enough money in his pocket to pay for his

admission to the theatre. If the determination of his will rests on the feeling of the agreeableness or

disagreeableness that he expects from any cause, it is all the same to him by what sort of ideas he will be

affected. The only thing that concerns him, in order to decide his choice, is, how great, how long continued,

how easily obtained, and how often repeated, this agreeableness is. just as to the man who wants money to

spend, it is all the same whether the gold was dug out of the mountain or washed out of the sand, provided it

is everywhere accepted at the same value; so the man who cares only for the enjoyment of life does not ask

whether the ideas are of the understanding or the senses, but only how much and how great pleasure they will

give for the longest time. It is only those that would gladly deny to pure reason the power of determining the

will, without the presupposition of any feeling, who could deviate so far from their own exposition as to

describe as quite heterogeneous what they have themselves previously brought under one and the same

principle. Thus, for example, it is observed that we can find pleasure in the mere exercise of power, in the

consciousness of our strength of mind in overcoming obstacles which are opposed to our designs, in the

culture of our mental talents, etc.; and we justly call these more refined pleasures and enjoyments, because

they are more in our power than others; they do not wear out, but rather increase the capacity for further

enjoyment of them, and while they delight they at the same time cultivate. But to say on this account that they

determine the will in a different way and not through sense, whereas the possibility of the pleasure

presupposes a feeling for it implanted in us, which is the first condition of this satisfaction; this is just as

when ignorant persons that like to dabble in metaphysics imagine matter so subtle, so supersubtle that they

almost make themselves giddy with it, and then think that in this way they have conceived it as a spiritual and

yet extended being. If with Epicurus we make virtue determine the will only by means of the pleasure it

promises, we cannot afterwards blame him for holding that this pleasure is of the same kind as those of the

coarsest senses. For we have no reason whatever to charge him with holding that the ideas by which this

feeling is excited in us belong merely to the bodily senses. As far as can be conjectured, he sought the source

of many of them in the use of the higher cognitive faculty, but this did not prevent him, and could not prevent

him, from holding on the principle above stated, that the pleasure itself which those intellectual ideas give us,

and by which alone they can determine the will, is just of the same kind. Consistency is the highest obligation

of a philosopher, and yet the most rarely found. The ancient Greek schools give us more examples of it than

we find in our syncretistic age, in which a certain shallow and dishonest system of compromise of

contradictory principles is devised, because it commends itself better to a public which is content to know

The principle of private happiness, however much understanding and reason may be used in it, cannot contain

any other determining principles for the will than those which belong to the lower desires; and either there are

no [higher] desires at all, or pure reason must of itself alone be practical; that is, it must be able to determine

the will by the mere form of the practical rule without supposing any feeling, and consequently without any

idea of the pleasant or unpleasant, which is the matter of the desire, and which is always an empirical

condition of the principles. Then only, when reason of itself determines the will (not as the servant of the

inclination), it is really a higher desire to which that which is pathologically determined is subordinate, and is

really, and even specifically, distinct from the latter, so that even the slightest admixture of the motives of the

latter impairs its strength and superiority; just as in a mathematical demonstration the least empirical

condition would degrade and destroy its force and value. Reason, with its practical law, determines the will

immediately, not by means of an intervening feeling of pleasure or pain, not even of pleasure in the law itself,

and it is only because it can, as pure reason, be practical, that it is possible for it to be legislative.

To be happy is necessarily the wish of every finite rational being, and this, therefore, is inevitably a

determining principle of its faculty of desire. For we are not in possession originally of satisfaction with our

whole existence a bliss which would imply a consciousness of our own independent selfsufficiency this is

a problem imposed upon us by our own finite nature, because we have wants and these wants regard the

matter of our desires, that is, something that is relative to a subjective feeling of pleasure or pain, which

determines what we need in order to be satisfied with our condition. But just because this material principle

of determination can only be empirically known by the subject, it is impossible to regard this problem as a

law; for a law being objective must contain the very same principle of determination of the will in all cases

and for all rational beings. For, although the notion of happiness is in every case the foundation of practical

relation of the objects to the desires, yet it is only a general name for the subjective determining principles,

and determines nothing specifically; whereas this is what alone we are concerned with in this practical

problem, which cannot be solved at all without such specific determination. For it is every man's own special

feeling of pleasure and pain that decides in what he is to place his happiness, and even in the same subject

this will vary with the difference of his wants according as this feeling changes, and thus a law which is

subjectively necessary (as a law of nature) is objectively a very contingent practical principle, which can and

must be very different in different subjects and therefore can never furnish a law; since, in the desire for

happiness it is not the form (of conformity to law) that is decisive, but simply the matter, namely, whether I

am to expect pleasure in following the law, and how much. Principles of selflove may, indeed, contain

universal precepts of skill (how to find means to accomplish one's purpose), but in that case they are merely

theoretical principles;* as, for example, how he who would like to eat bread should contrive a mill; but

practical precepts founded on them can never be universal, for the determining principle of the desire is based

on the feeling pleasure and pain, which can never be supposed to be universally directed to the same objects.

*Propositions which in mathematics or physics are called practical ought properly to be called technical. For

they For they have nothing to do with the determination of the theoretical they only point out how the certain

must is to be produced and are, therefore, just as theoretical as any propositions which express the connection

of a cause with an effect. Now whoever chooses the effect must also choose the cause.

Even supposing, however, that all finite rational beings were thoroughly agreed as to what were the objects of

their feelings of pleasure and pain, and also as to the means which they must employ to attain the one and

avoid the other; still, they could by no means set up the principle of selflove as a practical law, for this

unanimity itself would be only contingent. The principle of determination would still be only subjectively

valid and merely empirical, and would not possess the necessity which is conceived in every law, namely, an

objective necessity arising from a priori grounds; unless, indeed, we hold this necessity to be not at all

practical, but merely physical, viz., that our action is as inevitably determined by our inclination, as yawning

when we see others yawn. It would be better to maintain that there are no practical laws at all, but only

counsels for the service of our desires, than to raise merely subjective principles to the rank of practical laws,

which have objective necessity, and not merely subjective, and which must be known by reason a priori, not

by experience (however empirically universal this may be). Even the rules of corresponding phenomena are

only called laws of nature (e.g., the mechanical laws), when we either know them really a priori, or (as in the

case of chemical laws) suppose that they would be known a priori from objective grounds if our insight

reached further. But in the case of merely subjective practical principles, it is expressly made a condition that

they rest, not on objective, but on subjective conditions of choice, and hence that they must always be

represented as mere maxims, never as practical laws. This second remark seems at first sight to be mere

verbal refinement, but it defines the terms of the most important distinction which can come into

A rational being cannot regard his maxims as practical universal laws, unless he conceives them as principles

By the matter of a practical principle I mean the object of the will. This object is either the determining

ground of the will or it is not. In the former case the rule of the will is subjected to an empirical condition

(viz., the relation of the determining idea to the feeling of pleasure and pain), consequently it can not be a

practical law. Now, when we abstract from a law all matter, i.e., every object of the will (as a determining

principle), nothing is left but the mere form of a universal legislation. Therefore, either a rational being

cannot conceive his subjective practical principles, that is, his maxims, as being at the same time universal

laws, or he must suppose that their mere form, by which they are fitted for universal legislation, is alone what

The commonest understanding can distinguish without instruction what form of maxim is adapted for

universal legislation, and what is not. Suppose, for example, that I have made it my maxim to increase my

fortune by every safe means. Now, I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of which is dead and has left no

writing about it. This is just the case for my maxim. I desire then to know whether that maxim can also bold

good as a universal practical law. I apply it, therefore, to the present case, and ask whether it could take the

form of a law, and consequently whether I can by my maxim at the same time give such a law as this, that

everyone may deny a deposit of which no one can produce a proof. I at once become aware that such a

principle, viewed as a law, would annihilate itself, because the result would be that there would be no

deposits. A practical law which I recognise as such must be qualified for universal legislation; this is an

identical proposition and, therefore, selfevident. Now, if I say that my will is subject to a practical law, I

cannot adduce my inclination (e.g., in the present case my avarice) as a principle of determination fitted to be

a universal practical law; for this is so far from being fitted for a universal legislation that, if put in the form

It is, therefore, surprising that intelligent men could have thought of calling the desire of happiness a

universal practical law on the ground that the desire is universal, and, therefore, also the maxim by which

everyone makes this desire determine his will. For whereas in other cases a universal law of nature makes

everything harmonious; here, on the contrary, if we attribute to the maxim the universality of a law, the

extreme opposite of harmony will follow, the greatest opposition and the complete destruction of the maxim

itself and its purpose. For, in that case, the will of all has not one and the same object, but everyone has his

own (his private welfare), which may accidentally accord with the purposes of others which are equally

selfish, but it is far from sufficing for a law; because the occasional exceptions which one is permitted to

make are endless, and cannot be definitely embraced in one universal rule. In this manner, then, results a

harmony like that which a certain satirical poem depicts as existing between a married couple bent on going

to ruin, "O, marvellous harmony, what he wishes, she wishes also"; or like what is said of the pledge of

Francis I to the Emperor Charles V, "What my brother Charles wishes that I wish also" (viz., Milan).

Empirical principles of determination are not fit for any universal external legislation, but just as little for

internal; for each man makes his own subject the foundation of his inclination, and in the same subject

sometimes one inclination, sometimes another, has the preponderance. To discover a law which would

govern them all under this condition, namely, bringing them all into harmony, is quite impossible.

Supposing that the mere legislative form of maxims is alone the sufficient determining principle of a will, to

Since the bare form of the law can only be conceived by reason, and is, therefore, not an object of the senses,

and consequently does not belong to the class of phenomena, it follows that the idea of it, which determines

the will, is distinct from all the principles that determine events in nature according to the law of causality,

because in their case the determining principles must themselves be phenomena. Now, if no other

determining principle can serve as a law for the will except that universal legislative form, such a will must

be conceived as quite independent of the natural law of phenomena in their mutual relation, namely, the law

of causality; such independence is called freedom in the strictest, that is, in the transcendental, sense;

consequently, a will which can have its law in nothing but the mere legislative form of the maxim is a free

Supposing that a will is free, to find the law which alone is competent to determine it necessarily.

Since the matter of the practical law, i.e., an object of the maxim, can never be given otherwise than

empirically, and the free will is independent on empirical conditions (that is, conditions belonging to the

world of sense) and yet is determinable, consequently a free will must find its principle of determination in

the law, and yet independently of the matter of the law. But, besides the matter of the law, nothing is

contained in it except the legislative form. It is the legislative form, then, contained in the maxim, which can

Thus freedom and an unconditional practical law reciprocally imply each other. Now I do not ask here

whether they are in fact distinct, or whether an unconditioned law is not rather merely the consciousness of a

pure practical reason and the latter identical with the positive concept of freedom; I only ask, whence begins

our knowledge of the unconditionally practical, whether it is from freedom or from the practical law? Now it

cannot begin from freedom, for of this we cannot be immediately conscious, since the first concept of it is

negative; nor can we infer it from experience, for experience gives us the knowledge only of the law of

phenomena, and hence of the mechanism of nature, the direct opposite of freedom. It is therefore the moral

law, of which we become directly conscious (as soon as we trace for ourselves maxims of the will), that first

presents itself to us, and leads directly to the concept of freedom, inasmuch as reason presents it as a principle

of determination not to be outweighed by any sensible conditions, nay, wholly independent of them. But how

is the consciousness, of that moral law possible? We can become conscious of pure practical laws just as we

are conscious of pure theoretical principles, by attending to the necessity with which reason prescribes them

and to the elimination of all empirical conditions, which it directs. The concept of a pure will arises out of the

former, as that of a pure understanding arises out of the latter. That this is the true subordination of our

concepts, and that it is morality that first discovers to us the notion of freedom, hence that it is practical

reason which, with this concept, first proposes to speculative reason the most insoluble problem, thereby

placing it in the greatest perplexity, is evident from the following consideration: Since nothing in phenomena

can be explained by the concept of freedom, but the mechanism of nature must constitute the only clue;

moreover, when pure reason tries to ascend in the series of causes to the unconditioned, it falls into an

antinomy which is entangled in incomprehensibilities on the one side as much as the other; whilst the latter

(namely, mechanism) is at least useful in the explanation of phenomena, therefore no one would ever have

been so rash as to introduce freedom into science, had not the moral law, and with it practical reason, come in

and forced this notion upon us. Experience, however, confirms this order of notions. Suppose some one

asserts of his lustful appetite that, when the desired object and the opportunity are present, it is quite

irresistible. [Ask him] if a gallows were erected before the house where he finds this opportunity, in order

that he should be hanged thereon immediately after the gratification of his lust, whether he could not then

control his passion; we need not be long in doubt what he would reply. Ask him, however if his sovereign

ordered him, on pain of the same immediate execution, to bear false witness against an honourable man,

whom the prince might wish to destroy under a plausible pretext, would he consider it possible in that case to

overcome his love of life, however great it may be. He would perhaps not venture to affirm whether he would

do so or not, but he must unhesitatingly admit that it is possible to do so. He judges, therefore, that he can do

a certain thing because he is conscious that he ought, and he recognizes that he is free a fact which but for

Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal

Pure geometry has postulates which are practical propositions, but contain nothing further than the

assumption that we can do something if it is required that we should do it, and these are the only geometrical

propositions that concern actual existence. They are, then, practical rules under a problematical condition of

the will; but here the rule says: We absolutely must proceed in a certain manner. The practical rule is,

therefore, unconditional, and hence it is conceived a priori as a categorically practical proposition by which

the will is objectively determined absolutely and immediately (by the practical rule itself, which thus is in this

case a law); for pure reason practical of itself is here directly legislative. The will is thought as independent

on empirical conditions, and, therefore, as pure will determined by the mere form of the law, and this

principle of determination is regarded as the supreme condition of all maxims. The thing is strange enough,

and has no parallel in all the rest of our practical knowledge. For the a priori thought of a possible universal

legislation which is therefore merely problematical, is unconditionally commanded as a law without

borrowing anything from experience or from any external will. This, however, is not a precept to do

something by which some desired effect can be attained (for then the will would depend on physical

conditions), but a rule that determines the will a priori only so far as regards the forms of its maxims; and

thus it is at least not impossible to conceive that a law, which only applies to the subjective form of

principles, yet serves as a principle of determination by means of the objective form of law in general. We

may call the consciousness of this fundamental law a fact of reason, because we cannot reason it out from

antecedent data of reason, e.g., the consciousness of freedom (for this is not antecedently given), but it forces

itself on us as a synthetic a priori proposition, which is not based on any intuition, either pure or empirical. It

would, indeed, be analytical if the freedom of the will were presupposed, but to presuppose freedom as a

positive concept would require an intellectual intuition, which cannot here be assumed; however, when we

regard this law as given, it must be observed, in order not to fall into any misconception, that it is not an

empirical fact, but the sole fact of the pure reason, which thereby announces itself as originally legislative (sic

Pure reason is practical of itself alone and gives (to man) a universal law which we call the moral law.

The fact just mentioned is undeniable. It is only necessary to analyse the judgement that men pass on the

lawfulness of their actions, in order to find that, whatever inclination may say to the contrary, reason,

incorruptible and selfconstrained, always confronts the maxim of the will in any action with the pure will,

that is, with itself, considering itself as a priori practical. Now this principle of morality, just on account of

the universality of the legislation which makes it the formal supreme determining principle of the will,

without regard to any subjective differentes, is declared by the reason to be a law for all rational beings, in so

far as they have a will, that is, a power to determine their causality by the conception of rules; and, therefore,

so far as they are capable of acting according to principles, and consequently also according to practical a

priori principles (for these alone have the necessity that reason requires in a principle). It is, therefore, not

limited to men only, but applies to all finite beings that possess reason and will; nay, it even includes the

Infinite Being as the supreme intelligence. In the former case, however, the law has the form of an

imperative, because in them, as rational beings, we can suppose a pure will, but being creatures affected with

wants and physical motives, not a holy will, that is, one which would be incapable of any maxim conflicting

with the moral law. In their case, therefore, the moral law is an imperative, which commands categorically,

because the law is unconditioned; the relation of such a will to this law is dependence under the name of

obligation, which implies a constraint to an action, though only by reason and its objective law; and this

action is called duty, because an elective will, subject to pathological affections (though not determined by

them, and, therefore, still free), implies a wish that arises from subjective causes and, therefore, may often be

opposed to the pure objective determining principle; whence it requires the moral constraint of a resistance of

the practical reason, which may be called an internal, but intellectual, compulsion. In the supreme intelligence

the elective will is rightly conceived as incapable of any maxim which could not at the same time be

objectively a law; and the notion of holiness, which on that account belongs to it, places it, not indeed above

all practical laws, but above all practically restrictive laws, and consequently above obligation and duty. This

holiness of will is, however, a practical idea, which must necessarily serve as a type to which finite rational

beings can only approximate indefinitely, and which the pure moral law, which is itself on this account called

holy, constantly and rightly holds before their eyes. The utmost that finite practical reason can effect is to be

certain of this indefinite progress of one's maxims and of their steady disposition to advance. This is virtue,

and virtue, at least as a naturally acquired faculty, can never be perfect, because assurance in such a case

never becomes apodeictic certainty and, when it only amounts to persuasion, is very dangerous.

The autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws and of all duties which conform to them; on

the other hand, heteronomy of the elective will not only cannot be the basis of any obligation, but is, on the

In fact the sole principle of morality consists in the independence on all matter of the law (namely, a desired

object), and in the determination of the elective will by the mere universal legislative form of which its

maxim must be capable. Now this independence is freedom in the negative sense, and this selflegislation of

the pure, and therefore practical, reason is freedom in the positive sense. Thus the moral law expresses

nothing else than the autonomy of the pure practical reason; that is, freedom; and this is itself the formal

condition of all maxims, and on this condition only can they agree with the supreme practical law. If

therefore the matter of the volition, which can be nothing else than the object of a desire that is connected

with the law, enters into the practical law, as the condition of its possibility, there results heteronomy of the

elective will, namely, dependence on the physical law that we should follow some impulse or inclination. In

that case the will does not give itself the law, but only the precept how rationally to follow pathological law;

and the maxim which, in such a case, never contains the universally legislative form, not only produces no

obligation, but is itself opposed to the principle of a pure practical reason and, therefore, also to the moral

Hence a practical precept, which contains a material (and therefore empirical) condition, must never be

reckoned a practical law. For the law of the pure will, which is free, brings the will into a sphere quite

different from the empirical; and as the necessity involved in the law is not a physical necessity, it can only

consist in the formal conditions of the possibility of a law in general. All the matter of practical rules rests on

subjective conditions, which give them only a conditional universality (in case I desire this or that, what I

must do in order to obtain it), and they all turn on the principle of private happiness. Now, it is indeed

undeniable that every volition must have an object, and therefore a matter; but it does not follow that this is

the determining principle and the condition of the maxim; for, if it is so, then this cannot be exhibited in a

universally legislative form, since in that case the expectation of the existence of the object would be the

determining cause of the choice, and the volition must presuppose the dependence of the faculty of desire on

the existence of something; but this dependence can only be sought in empirical conditions and, therefore,

can never furnish a foundation for a necessary and universal rule. Thus, the happiness of others may be the

object of the will of a rational being. But if it were the determining principle of the maxim, we must assume

that we find not only a rational satisfaction in the welfare of others, but also a want such as the sympathetic

disposition in some men occasions. But I cannot assume the existence of this want in every rational being

(not at all in God). The matter, then, of the maxim may remain, but it must not be the condition of it, else the

maxim could not be fit for a law. Hence, the mere form of law, which limits the matter, must also be a reason

for adding this matter to the will, not for presupposing it. For example, let the matter be my own happiness.

This (rule), if I attribute it to everyone (as, in fact, I may, in the case of every finite being), can become an

objective practical law only if I include the happiness of others. Therefore, the law that we should promote

the happiness of others does not arise from the assumption that this is an object of everyone's choice, but

merely from this, that the form of universality which reason requires as the condition of giving to a maxim of

selflove the objective validity of a law is the principle that determines the will. Therefore it was not the

object (the happiness of others) that determined the pure will, but it was the form of law only, by which I

restricted my maxim, founded on inclination, so as to give it the universality of a law, and thus to adapt it to

the practical reason; and it is this restriction alone, and not the addition of an external spring, that can give

rise to the notion of the obligation to extend the maxim of my selflove to the happiness of others.

The direct opposite of the principle of morality is, when the principle of private happiness is made the

determining principle of the will, and with this is to be reckoned, as I have shown above, everything that

places the determining principle which is to serve as a law, anywhere but in the legislative form of the

maxim. This contradiction, however, is not merely logical, like that which would arise between rules

empirically conditioned, if they were raised to the rank of necessary principles of cognition, but is practical,

and would ruin morality altogether were not the voice of reason in reference to the will so clear, so

irrepressible, so distinctly audible, even to the commonest men. It can only, indeed, be maintained in the

perplexing speculations of the schools, which are bold enough to shut their ears against that heavenly voice,

Suppose that an acquaintance whom you otherwise liked were to attempt to justify himself to you for having

borne false witness, first by alleging the, in his view, sacred duty of consulting his own happiness; then by

enumerating the advantages which he had gained thereby, pointing out the prudence he had shown in

securing himself against detection, even by yourself, to whom he now reveals the secret, only in order that he

may be able to deny it at any time; and suppose he were then to affirm, in all seriousness, that he has fulfilled

a true human duty; you would either laugh in his face, or shrink back from him with disgust; and yet, if a man

has regulated his principles of action solely with a view to his own advantage, you would have nothing

whatever to object against this mode of proceeding. Or suppose some one recommends you a man as steward,

as a man to whom you can blindly trust all your affairs; and, in order to inspire you with confidence, extols

him as a prudent man who thoroughly understands his own interest, and is so indefatigably active that he lets

slip no opportunity of advancing it; lastly, lest you should be afraid of finding a vulgar selfishness in him,

praises the good taste with which he lives; not seeking his pleasure in moneymaking, or in coarse

wantonness, but in the enlargement of his knowledge, in instructive intercourse with a select circle, and even

in relieving the needy; while as to the means (which, of course, derive all their value from the end), he is not

particular, and is ready to use other people's money for the purpose as if it were his own, provided only he

knows that he can do so safely, and without discovery; you would either believe that the recommender was

mocking you, or that he had lost his senses. So sharply and clearly marked are the boundaries of morality and

selflove that even the commonest eye cannot fail to distinguish whether a thing belongs to the one or the

other. The few remarks that follow may appear superfluous where the truth is so plain, but at least they may

The principle of happiness may, indeed, furnish maxims, but never such as would be competent to be laws of

the will, even if universal happiness were made the object. For since the knowledge of this rests on mere

empirical data, since every man's judgement on it depends very much on his particular point of view, which is

itself moreover very variable, it can supply only general rules, not universal; that is, it can give rules which

on the average will most frequently fit, but not rules which must hold good always and necessarily; hence, no

practical laws can be founded on it. Just because in this case an object of choice is the foundation of the rule

and must therefore precede it, the rule can refer to nothing but what is [felt], and therefore it refers to

experience and is founded on it, and then the variety of judgement must be endless. This principle, therefore,

does not prescribe the same practical rules to all rational beings, although the rules are all included under a

common title, namely, that of happiness. The moral law, however, is conceived as objectively necessary, only

The maxim of selflove (prudence) only advises; the law of morality commands. Now there is a great

difference between that which we are advised to do and that to which we are obliged.

The commonest intelligence can easily and without hesitation see what, on the principle of autonomy of the

will, requires to be done; but on supposition of heteronomy of the will, it is bard and requires knowledge of

the world to see what is to be done. That is to say, what duty is, is plain of itself to everyone; but what is to

bring true durable advantage, such as will extend to the whole of one's existence, is always veiled in

impenetrable obscurity; and much prudence is required to adapt the practical rule founded on it to the ends of

life, even tolerably, by making proper exceptions. But the moral law commands the most punctual obedience

from everyone; it must, therefore, not be so difficult to judge what it requires to be done, that the commonest

unpractised understanding, even without worldly prudence, should fail to apply it rightly.

It is always in everyone's power to satisfy the categorical command of morality; whereas it is seldom

possible, and by no means so to everyone, to satisfy the empirically conditioned precept of happiness, even

with regard to a single purpose. The reason is that in the former case there is question only of the maxim,

which must be genuine and pure; but in the latter case there is question also of one's capacity and physical

power to realize a desired object. A command that everyone should try to make himself happy would be

foolish, for one never commands anyone to do what he of himself infallibly wishes to do. We must only

command the means, or rather supply them, since he cannot do everything that he wishes. But to command

morality under the name of duty is quite rational; for, in the first place, not everyone is willing to obey its

precepts if they oppose his inclinations; and as to the means of obeying this law, these need not in this case be

He who has lost at play may be vexed at himself and his folly, but if he is conscious of having cheated at play

(although he has gained thereby), he must despise himself as soon as he compares himself with the moral

law. This must, therefore, be something different from the principle of private happiness. For a man must

have a different criterion when he is compelled to say to himself: "I am a worthless fellow, though I have

filled my purse"; and when he approves himself, and says: "I am a prudent man, for I have enriched my

Finally, there is something further in the idea of our practical reason, which accompanies the transgression of

a moral law namely, its ill desert. Now the notion of punishment, as such, cannot be united with that of

becoming a partaker of happiness; for although he who inflicts the punishment may at the same time have the

benevolent purpose of directing this punishment to this end, yet it must first be justified in itself as

punishment, i.e., as mere harm, so that if it stopped there, and the person punished could get no glimpse of

kindness hidden behind this harshness, he must yet admit that justice was done him, and that his reward was

perfectly suitable to his conduct. In every punishment, as such, there must first be justice, and this constitutes

the essence of the notion. Benevolence may, indeed, be united with it, but the man who has deserved

punishment has not the least reason to reckon upon this. Punishment, then, is a physical evil, which, though it

be not connected with moral evil as a natural consequence, ought to be connected with it as a consequence by

the principles of a moral legislation. Now, if every crime, even without regarding the physical consequence

with respect to the actor, is in itself punishable, that is, forfeits happiness (at least partially), it is obviously

absurd to say that the crime consisted just in this, that be has drawn punishment on himself, thereby injuring

his private happiness (which, on the principle of selflove, must be the proper notion of all crime). According

to this view, the punishment would be the reason for calling anything a crime, and justice would, on the

contrary, consist in omitting all punishment, and even preventing that which naturally follows; for, if this

were done, there would no longer be any evil in the action, since the harm which otherwise followed it, and

on account of which alone the action was called evil, would now be prevented. To look, however, on all

rewards and punishments as merely the machinery in the hand of a higher power, which is to serve only to set

rational creatures striving after their final end (happiness), this is to reduce the will to a mechanism

More refined, though equally false, is the theory of those who suppose a certain special moral sense, which

sense and not reason determines the moral law, and in consequence of which the consciousness of virtue is

supposed to be directly connected with contentment and pleasure; that of vice, with mental dissatisfaction and

pain; thus reducing the whole to the desire of private happiness. Without repeating what has been said above,

I will here only remark the fallacy they fall into. In order to imagine the vicious man as tormented with

mental dissatisfaction by the consciousness of his transgressions, they must first represent him as in the main

basis of his character, at least in some degree, morally good; just as he who is pleased with the consciousness

of right conduct must be conceived as already virtuous. The notion of morality and duty must, therefore, have

preceded any regard to this satisfaction, and cannot be derived from it. A man must first appreciate the

importance of what we call duty, the authority of the moral law, and the immediate dignity which the

following of it gives to the person in his own eyes, in order to feel that satisfaction in the consciousness of his

conformity to it and the bitter remorse that accompanies the consciousness of its transgression. It is, therefore,

impossible to feel this satisfaction or dissatisfaction prior to the knowledge of obligation, or to make it the

basis of the latter. A man must be at least half honest in order even to be able to form a conception of these

feelings. I do not deny that as the human will is, by virtue of liberty, capable of being immediately

determined by the moral law, so frequent practice in accordance with this principle of determination can, at

least, produce subjectively a feeling of satisfaction; on the contrary, it is a duty to establish and to cultivate

this, which alone deserves to be called properly the moral feeling; but the notion of duty cannot be derived

from it, else we should have to suppose a feeling for the law as such, and thus make that an object of

sensation which can only be thought by the reason; and this, if it is not to be a flat contradiction, would

destroy all notion of duty and put in its place a mere mechanical play of refined inclinations sometimes

If now we compare our formal supreme principle of pure practical reason (that of autonomy of the will) with

all previous material principles of morality, we can exhibit them all in a table in which all possible cases are

exhausted, except the one formal principle; and thus we can show visibly that it is vain to look for any other

principle than that now proposed. In fact all possible principles of determination of the will are either merely

subjective, and therefore empirical, or are also objective and rational; and both are either external or internal.

Practical Material Principles of Determination taken as the Foundation of Morality, are:

Those of the upper table are all empirical and evidently incapable of furnishing the universal principle of

morality; but those in the lower table are based on reason (for perfection as a quality of things, and the

highest perfection conceived as substance, that is, God, can only be thought by means of rational concepts).

But the former notion, namely, that of perfection, may either be taken in a theoretic signification, and then it

means nothing but the completeness of each thing in its own kind (transcendental), or that of a thing merely

as a thing (metaphysical); and with that we are not concerned here. But the notion of perfection in a practical

sense is the fitness or sufficiency of a thing for all sorts of purposes. This perfection, as a quality of man and

consequently internal, is nothing but talent and, what strengthens or completes this, skill. Supreme perfection

conceived as substance, that is God, and consequently external (considered practically), is the sufficiency of

this being for all ends. Ends then must first be given, relatively to which only can the notion of perfection

(whether internal in ourselves or external in God) be the determining principle of the will. But an end being

an object which must precede the determination of the will by a practical rule and contain the ground of the

possibility of this determination, and therefore contain also the matter of the will, taken as its determining

principle such an end is always empirical and, therefore, may serve for the Epicurean principle of the

happiness theory, but not for the pure rational principle of morality and duty. Thus, talents and the

improvement of them, because they contribute to the advantages of life; or the will of God, if agreement with

it be taken as the object of the will, without any antecedent independent practical principle, can be motives

only by reason of the happiness expected therefrom. Hence it follows, first, that all the principles here stated

are material; secondly, that they include all possible material principles; and, finally, the conclusion, that

since material principles are quite incapable of furnishing the supreme moral law (as has been shown), the

formal practical principle the pure reason (according to which the mere form of a universal legislation must

constitute the supreme and immediate determining principle of the will) is the only one possible which is

adequate to furnish categorical imperatives, that is, practical laws (which make actions a duty), and in general

to serve as the principle of morality, both in criticizing conduct and also in its application to the human will

This Analytic shows that pure reason can be practical, that is, can of itself determine the will independently

of anything empirical; and this it proves by a fact in which pure reason in us proves itself actually practical,

namely, the autonomy shown in the fundamental principle of morality, by which reason determines the will

It shows at the same time that this fact is inseparably connected with the consciousness of freedom of the

will, nay, is identical with it; and by this the will of a rational being, although as belonging to the world of

sense it recognizes itself as necessarily subject to the laws of causality like other efficient causes; yet, at the

same time, on another side, namely, as a being in itself, is conscious of existing in and being determined by

an intelligible order of things; conscious not by virtue of a special intuition of itself, but by virtue of certain

dynamical laws which determine its causality in the sensible world; for it has been elsewhere proved that if

freedom is predicated of us, it transports us into an intelligible order of things.

Now, if we compare with this the analytical part of the critique of pure speculative reason, we shall see a

remarkable contrast. There it was not fundamental principles, but pure, sensible intuition (space and time),

that was the first datum that made a priori knowledge possible, though only of objects of the senses.

Synthetical principles could not be derived from mere concepts without intuition; on the contrary, they could

only exist with reference to this intuition, and therefore to objects of possible experience, since it is the

concepts of the understanding, united with this intuition, which alone make that knowledge possible which

we call experience. Beyond objects of experience, and therefore with regard to things as noumena, all

positive knowledge was rightly disclaimed for speculative reason. This reason, however, went so far as to

establish with certainty the concept of noumena; that is, the possibility, nay, the necessity, of thinking them;

for example, it showed against all objections that the supposition of freedom, negatively considered, was

quite consistent with those principles and limitations of pure theoretic reason. But it could not give us any

definite enlargement of our knowledge with respect to such objects, but, on the contrary, cut off all view of

On the other hand, the moral law, although it gives no view, yet gives us a fact absolutely inexplicable from

any data of the sensible world, and the whole compass of our theoretical use of reason, a fact which points to

a pure world of the understanding, nay, even defines it positively and enables us to know something of it,

This law (as far as rational beings are concerned) gives to the world of sense, which is a sensible system of

nature, the form of a world of the understanding, that is, of a supersensible system of nature, without

interfering with its mechanism. Now, a system of nature, in the most general sense, is the existence of things

under laws. The sensible nature of rational beings in general is their existence under laws empirically

conditioned, which, from the point of view of reason, is heteronomy. The supersensible nature of the same

beings, on the other hand, is their existence according to laws which are independent of every empirical

condition and, therefore, belong to the autonomy of pure reason. And, since the laws by which the existence

of things depends on cognition are practical, supersensible nature, so far as we can form any notion of it, is

nothing else than a system of nature under the autonomy of pure practical reason. Now, the law of this

autonomy is the moral law, which, therefore, is the fundamental law of a supersensible nature, and of a pure

world of understanding, whose counterpart must exist in the world of sense, but without interfering with its

laws. We might call the former the archetypal world (natura archetypa), which we only know in the reason;

and the latter the ectypal world (natura ectypa), because it contains the possible effect of the idea of the

former which is the determining principle of the will. For the moral law, in fact, transfers us ideally into a

system in which pure reason, if it were accompanied with adequate physical power, would produce the

summum bonum, and it determines our will to give the sensible world the form of a system of rational

The least attention to oneself proves that this idea really serves as the model for the determinations of our

When the maxim which I am disposed to follow in giving testimony is tested by the practical reason, I always

consider what it would be if it were to hold as a universal law of nature. It is manifest that in this view it

would oblige everyone to speak the truth. For it cannot hold as a universal law of nature that statements

should be allowed to have the force of proof and yet to be purposely untrue. Similarly, the maxim which I

adopt with respect to disposing freely of my life is at once determined, when I ask myself what it should be,

in order that a system, of which it is the law, should maintain itself. It is obvious that in such a system no one

could arbitrarily put an end to his own life, for such an arrangement would not be a permanent order of

things. And so in all similar cases. Now, in nature, as it actually is an object of experience, the free will is not

of itself determined to maxims which could of themselves be the foundation of a natural system of universal

laws, or which could even be adapted to a system so constituted; on the contrary, its maxims are private

inclinations which constitute, indeed, a natural whole in conformity with pathological (physical) laws, but

could not form part of a system of nature, which would only be possible through our will acting in

accordance with pure practical laws. Yet we are, through reason, conscious of a law to which all our maxims

are subject, as though a natural order must be originated from our will. This law, therefore, must be the idea

of a natural system not given in experience, and yet possible through freedom; a system, therefore, which is

supersensible, and to which we give objective reality, at least in a practical point of view, since we look on it

Hence the distinction between the laws of a natural system to which the will is subject, and of a natural

system which is subject to a will (as far as its relation to its free actions is concerned), rests on this, that in the

former the objects must be causes of the ideas which determine the will; whereas in the latter the will is the

cause of the objects; so that its causality has its determining principle solely in the pure faculty of reason,

There are therefore two very distinct problems: how, on the one side, pure reason can cognise objects a priori,

and how on the other side it can be an immediate determining principle of the will, that is, of the causality of

the rational being with respect to the reality of objects (through the mere thought of the universal validity of

The former, which belongs to the critique of the pure speculative reason, requires a previous explanation,

how intuitions without which no object can be given, and, therefore, none known synthetically, are possible a

priori; and its solution turns out to be that these are all only sensible and, therefore, do not render possible any

speculative knowledge which goes further than possible experience reaches; and that therefore all the

principles of that pure speculative reason avail only to make experience possible; either experience of given

objects or of those that may be given ad infinitum, but never are completely given.

The latter, which belongs to the critique of practical reason, requires no explanation how the objects of the

faculty of desire are possible, for that being a problem of the theoretical knowledge of nature is left to the

critique of the speculative reason, but only how reason can determine the maxims of the will; whether this

takes place only by means of empirical ideas as principles of determination, or whether pure reason can be

practical and be the law of a possible order of nature, which is not empirically knowable. The possibility of

such a supersensible system of nature, the conception of which can also be the ground of its reality through

our own free will, does not require any a priori intuition (of an intelligible world) which, being in this case

supersensible, would be impossible for us. For the question is only as to the determining principle of volition

in its maxims, namely, whether it is empirical, or is a conception of the pure reason (having the legal

character belonging to it in general), and how it can be the latter. It is left to the theoretic principles of reason

to decide whether the causality of the will suffices for the realization of the objects or not, this being an

inquiry into the possibility of the objects of the volition. Intuition of these objects is therefore of no

importance to the practical problem. We are here concerned only with the determination of the will and the

determining principles of its maxims as a free will, not at all with the result. For, provided only that the will

conforms to the law of pure reason, then let its power in execution be what it may, whether according to these

maxims of legislation of a possible system of nature any such system really results or not, this is no concern

of the critique, which only inquires whether, and in what way, pure reason can be practical, that is directly

In this inquiry criticism may and must begin with pure practical laws and their reality. But instead of intuition

it takes as their foundation the conception of their existence in the intelligible world, namely, the concept of

freedom. For this concept has no other meaning, and these laws are only possible in relation to freedom of the

will; but freedom being supposed, they are necessary; or conversely freedom is necessary because those laws

are necessary, being practical postulates. It cannot be further explained how this consciousness of the moral

law, or, what is the same thing, of freedom, is possible; but that it is admissible is well established in the

The exposition of the supreme principle of practical reason is now finished; that is to say, it has been shown

first, what it contains, that it subsists for itself quite a priori and independent of empirical principles; and next

in what it is distinguished from all other practical principles. With the deduction, that is, the justification of

its objective and universal validity, and the discernment of the possibility of such a synthetical proposition a

priori, we cannot expect to succeed so well as in the case of the principles of pure theoretical reason. For

these referred to objects of possible experience, namely, to phenomena, and we could prove that these

phenomena could be known as objects of experience only by being brought under the categories in

accordance with these laws; and consequently that all possible experience must conform to these laws. But I

could not proceed in this way with the deduction of the moral law. For this does not concern the knowledge

of the properties of objects, which may be given to the reason from some other source; but a knowledge

which can itself be the ground of the existence of the objects, and by which reason in a rational being has

causality, i.e., pure reason, which can be regarded as a faculty immediately determining the will.

Now all our human insight is at an end as soon as we have arrived at fundamental powers or faculties, for the

possibility of these cannot be understood by any means, and just as little should it be arbitrarily invented and

assumed. Therefore, in the theoretic use of reason, it is experience alone that can justify us in assuming them.

But this expedient of adducing empirical proofs, instead of a deduction from a priori sources of knowledge, is

denied us here in respect to the pure practical faculty of reason. For whatever requires to draw the proof of its

reality from experience must depend for the grounds of its possibility on principles of experience; and pure,

yet practical, reason by its very notion cannot be regarded as such. Further, the moral law is given as a fact of

pure reason of which we are a priori conscious, and which is apodeictically certain, though it be granted that

in experience no example of its exact fulfilment can be found. Hence, the objective reality of the moral law

cannot be proved by any deduction by any efforts of theoretical reason, whether speculative or empirically

supported, and therefore, even if we renounced its apodeictic certainty, it could not be proved a posteriori by

But instead of this vainly sought deduction of the moral principle, something else is found which was quite

unexpected, namely, that this moral principle serves conversely as the principle of the deduction of an

inscrutable faculty which no experience could prove, but of which speculative reason was compelled at least

to assume the possibility (in order to find amongst its cosmological ideas the unconditioned in the chain of

causality, so as not to contradict itself) I mean the faculty of freedom. The moral law, which itself does not

require a justification, proves not merely the possibility of freedom, but that it really belongs to beings who

recognize this law as binding on themselves. The moral law is in fact a law of the causality of free agents and,

therefore, of the possibility of a supersensible system of nature, just as the metaphysical law of events in the

world of sense was a law of causality of the sensible system of nature; and it therefore determines what

speculative philosophy was compelled to leave undetermined, namely, the law for a causality, the concept of

which in the latter was only negative; and therefore for the first time gives this concept objective reality.

This sort of credential of the moral law, viz., that it is set forth as a principle of the deduction of freedom,

which is a causality of pure reason, is a sufficient substitute for all a priori justification, since theoretic reason

was compelled to assume at least the possibility of freedom, in order to satisfy a want of its own. For the

moral law proves its reality, so as even to satisfy the critique of the speculative reason, by the fact that it adds

a positive definition to a causality previously conceived only negatively, the possibility of which was

incomprehensible to speculative reason, which yet was compelled to suppose it. For it adds the notion of a

reason that directly determines the will (by imposing on its maxims the condition of a universal legislative

form); and thus it is able for the first time to give objective, though only practical, reality to reason, which

always became transcendent when it sought to proceed speculatively with its ideas. It thus changes the

transcendent use of reason into an immanent use (so that reason is itself, by means of ideas, an efficient cause

The determination of the causality of beings in the world of sense, as such, can never be unconditioned; and

yet for every series of conditions there must be something unconditioned, and therefore there must be a

causality which is determined wholly by itself. Hence, the idea of freedom as a faculty of absolute

spontaneity was not found to be a want but, as far as its possibility is concerned, an analytic principle of pure

speculative reason. But as it is absolutely impossible to find in experience any example in accordance with

this idea, because amongst the causes of things as phenomena it would be impossible to meet with any

absolutely unconditioned determination of causality, we were only able to defend our supposition that a

freely acting cause might be a being in the world of sense, in so far as it is considered in the other point of

view as a noumenon, showing that there is no contradiction in regarding all its actions as subject to physical

conditions so far as they are phenomena, and yet regarding its causality as physically unconditioned, in so far

as the acting being belongs to the world of understanding, and in thus making the concept of freedom the

regulative principle of reason. By this principle I do not indeed learn what the object is to which that sort of

causality is attributed; but I remove the difficulty, for, on the one side, in the explanation of events in the

world, and consequently also of the actions of rational beings, I leave to the mechanism of physical necessity

the right of ascending from conditioned to condition ad infinitum, while on the other side I keep open for

speculative reason the place which for it is vacant, namely, the intelligible, in order to transfer the

unconditioned thither. But I was not able to verify this supposition; that is, to change it into the knowledge of

a being so acting, not even into the knowledge of the possibility of such a being. This vacant place is now

filled by pure practical reason with a definite law of causality in an intelligible world (causality with

freedom), namely, the moral law. Speculative reason does not hereby gain anything as regards its insight, but

only as regards the certainty of its problematical notion of freedom, which here obtains objective reality,

which, though only practical, is nevertheless undoubted. Even the notion of causality the application, and

consequently the signification, of which holds properly only in relation to phenomena, so as to connect them

into experiences (as is shown by the Critique of Pure Reason) is not so enlarged as to extend its use beyond

these limits. For if reason sought to do this, it would have to show how the logical relation of principle and

consequence can be used synthetically in a different sort of intuition from the sensible; that is how a causa

noumenon is possible. This it can never do; and, as practical reason, it does not even concern itself with it,

since it only places the determining principle of causality of man as a sensible creature (which is given) in

pure reason (which is therefore called practical); and therefore it employs the notion of cause, not in order to

know objects, but to determine causality in relation to objects in general. It can abstract altogether from the

application of this notion to objects with a view to theoretical knowledge (since this concept is always found

a priori in the understanding even independently of any intuition). Reason, then, employs it only for a

practical purpose, and hence we can transfer the determining principle of the will into the intelligible order of

things, admitting, at the same time, that we cannot understand how the notion of cause can determine the

knowledge of these things. But reason must cognise causality with respect to the actions of the will in the

sensible world in a definite manner; otherwise, practical reason could not really produce any action. But as to

the notion which it forms of its own causality as noumenon, it need not determine it theoretically with a view

to the cognition of its supersensible existence, so as to give it significance in this way. For it acquires

significance apart from this, though only for practical use, namely, through the moral law. Theoretically

viewed, it remains always a pure a priori concept of the understanding, which can be applied to objects

whether they have been given sensibly or not, although in the latter case it has no definite theoretical

significance or application, but is only a formal, though essential, conception of the understanding relating to

an object in general. The significance which reason gives it through the moral law is merely practical,

inasmuch as the idea of the idea of the law of causality (of the will) has self causality, or is its determining

II. Of the Right that Pure Reason in its Practical use has to an Extension which is not possible to it in its

We have in the moral principle set forth a law of causality, the determining principle of which is set above all

the conditions of the sensible world; we have it conceived how the will, as belonging to the intelligible world,

is determinable, and therefore we therefore we have its subject (man) not merely conceived as belonging to a

world of pure understanding, and in this respect unknown (which the critique of speculative reason enabled

us to do), but also defined as regards his causality by means of a law which cannot be reduced to any physical

law of the sensible world; and therefore our knowledge is extended beyond the limits of that world, a

pretension which the Critique of Pure Reason declared to be futile in all speculation. Now, how is the

practical use of pure reason here to be reconciled with the theoretical, as to the determination of the limits of

David Hume, of whom we may say that he commenced the assault on the claims of pure reason, which made

a thorough investigation of it necessary, argued thus: The notion of cause is a notion that involves the

necessity of the connexion of the existence of different things (and that, in so far as they are different), so

that, given A, I know that something quite distinct there from, namely B, must necessarily also exist. Now

necessity can be attributed to a connection, only in so far as it is known a priori, for experience would only

enable us to know of such a connection that it exists, not that it necessarily exists. Now, it is impossible, says

he, to know a priori and as necessary the connection between one thing and another (or between one attribute

and another quite distinct) when they have not been given in experience. Therefore the notion of a cause is

fictitious and delusive and, to speak in the mildest way, is an illusion, only excusable inasmuch as the custom

(a subjective necessity) of perceiving certain things, or their attributes as often associated in existence along

with or in succession to one another, is insensibly taken for an objective necessity of supposing such a

connection in the objects themselves; and thus the notion of a cause has been acquired surreptitiously and not

legitimately; nay, it can never be so acquired or authenticated, since it demands a connection in itself vain,

chimerical, and untenable in presence of reason, and to which no object can ever correspond. In this way was

empiricism first introduced as the sole source of principles, as far as all knowledge of the existence of things

is concerned (mathematics therefore remaining excepted); and with empiricism the most thorough scepticism,

even with regard to the whole science of nature( as philosophy). For on such principles we can never

conclude from given attributes of things as existing to a consequence (for this would require the notion of

cause, which involves the necessity of such a connection); we can only, guided by imagination, expect similar

cases an expectation which is never certain, however of ten it has been fulfilled. Of no event could we say: a

certain thing must have preceded it, on which it necessarily followed; that is, it must have a cause; and

therefore, however frequent the cases we have known in which there was such an antecedent, so that a rule

could be derived from them, yet we never could suppose it as always and necessarily so happening; we

should, therefore, be obliged to leave its share to blind chance, with which all use of reason comes to an end;

and this firmly establishes scepticism in reference to arguments ascending from effects to causes and makes it

Mathematics escaped well, so far, because Hume thought that its propositions were analytical; that is,

proceeded from one property to another, by virtue of identity and, consequently, according to the principle of

contradiction. This, however, is not the case, since, on the contrary, they are synthetical; and although

geometry, for example, has not to do with the existence of things, but only with their a priori properties in a

possible intuition, yet it proceeds just as in the case of the causal notion, from one property (A) to another

wholly distinct (B), as necessarily connected with the former. Nevertheless, mathematical science, so highly

vaunted for its apodeictic certainty, must at last fall under this empiricism for the same reason for which

Hume put custom in the place of objective necessity in the notion of cause and, in spite of all its pride, must

consent to lower its bold pretension of claiming assent a priori and depend for assent to the universality of its

propositions on the kindness of observers, who, when called as witnesses, would surely not hesitate to admit

that what the geometer propounds as a theorem they have always perceived to be the fact, and, consequently,

although it be not necessarily true, yet they would permit us to expect it to be true in the future. In this

manner Hume's empiricism leads inevitably to scepticism, even with regard to mathematics, and

consequently in every scientific theoretical use of reason (for this belongs either to philosophy or

mathematics). Whether with such a terrible overthrow of the chief branches of knowledge, common reason

will escape better, and will not rather become irrecoverably involved in this destruction of all knowledge, so

that from the same principles a universal scepticism should follow (affecting, indeed, only the learned), this I

As regards my own labours in the critical examination of pure reason, which were occasioned by Hume's

sceptical teaching, but went much further and embraced the whole field of pure theoretical reason in its

synthetic use and, consequently, the field of what is called metaphysics in general; I proceeded in the

following manner with respect to the doubts raised by the Scottish philosopher touching the notion of

causality. If Hume took the objects of experience for things in themselves (as is almost always done), he was

quite right in declaring the notion of cause to be a deception and false illusion; for as to things in themselves,

and their attributes as such, it is impossible to see why because A is given, B, which is different, must

necessarily be also given, and therefore he could by no means admit such an a priori knowledge of things in

themselves. Still less could this acute writer allow an empirical origin of this concept, since this is directly

contradictory to the necessity of connection which constitutes the essence of the notion of causality, hence the

notion was proscribed, and in its place was put custom in the observation of the course of perceptions.

It resulted, however, from my inquiries, that the objects with which we have to do in experience are by no

means things in themselves, but merely phenomena; and that although in the case of things in themselves it is

impossible to see how, if A is supposed, it should be contradictory that B, which is quite different from A,

should not also be supposed (i.e., to see the necessity of the connection between A as cause and B as effect);

yet it can very well be conceived that, as phenomena, they may be necessarily connected in one experience in

a certain way (e.g., with regard to timerelations); so that they could not be separated without contradicting

that connection, by means of which this experience is possible in which they are objects and in which alone

they are cognisable by us. And so it was found to be in fact; so that I was able not only to prove the objective

reality of the concept of cause in regard to objects of experience, but also to deduce it as an a priori concept

by reason of the necessity of the connection it implied; that is, to show the possibility of its origin from pure

understanding without any empirical sources; and thus, after removing the source of empiricism, I was able

also to overthrow the inevitable consequence of this, namely, scepticism, first with regard to physical science,

and then with regard to mathematics (in which empiricism has just the same grounds), both being sciences

which have reference to objects of possible experience; herewith overthrowing the thorough doubt of

But how is it with the application of this category of causality (and all the others; for without them there can

be no knowledge of anything existing) to things which are not objects of possible experience, but lie beyond

its bounds? For I was able to deduce the objective reality of these concepts only with regard to objects of

possible experience. But even this very fact, that I have saved them, only in case I have proved that objects

may by means of them be thought, though not determined a priori; this it is that gives them a place in the pure

understanding, by which they are referred to objects in general (sensible or not sensible). If anything is still

wanting, it is that which is the condition of the application of these categories, and especially that of

causality, to objects, namely, intuition; for where this is not given, the application with a view to theoretic

knowledge of the object, as a noumenon, is impossible and, therefore, if anyone ventures on it, is (as in the

Critique of Pure Reason) absolutely forbidden. Still, the objective reality of the concept (of causality)

remains, and it can be used even of noumena, but without our being able in the least to define the concept

theoretically so as to produce knowledge. For that this concept, even in reference to an object, contains

nothing impossible, was shown by this, that, even while applied to objects of sense, its seat was certainly

fixed in the pure understanding; and although, when referred to things in themselves (which cannot be objects

of experience), it is not capable of being determined so as to represent a definite object for the purpose of

theoretic knowledge; yet for any other purpose (for instance, a practical) it might be capable of being

determined so as to have such application. This could not be the case if, as Hume maintained, this concept of

In order now to discover this condition of the application of the said concept to noumena, we need only recall

why we are not content with its application to objects of experience, but desire also to apply it to things in

themselves. It will appear, then, that it is not a theoretic but a practical purpose that makes this a necessity. In

speculation, even if we were successful in it, we should not really gain anything in the knowledge of nature,

or generally with regard to such objects as are given, but we should make a wide step from the sensibly

conditioned (in which we have already enough to do to maintain ourselves, and to follow carefully the chain

of causes) to the supersensible, in order to complete our knowledge of principles and to fix its limits; whereas

there always remains an infinite chasm unfilled between those limits and what we know; and we should have

But, besides the relation in which the understanding stands to objects (in theoretical knowledge), it has also a

relation to the faculty of desire, which is therefore called the will, and the pure will, inasmuch as pure

understanding (in this case called reason) is practical through the mere conception of a law. The objective

reality of a pure will, or, what is the same thing, of a pure practical reason, is given in the moral law a priori,

as it were, by a fact, for so we may name a determination of the will which is inevitable, although it does not

rest on empirical principles. Now, in the notion of a will the notion of causality is already contained, and

hence the notion of a pure will contains that of a causality accompanied with freedom, that is, one which is

not determinable by physical laws, and consequently is not capable of any empirical intuition in proof of its

reality, but, nevertheless, completely justifies its objective reality a priori in the pure practical law; not,

indeed (as is easily seen) for the purposes of the theoretical, but of the practical use of reason. Now the notion

of a being that has free will is the notion of a causa noumenon, and that this notion involves no contradiction,

we are already assured by the fact that inasmuch as the concept of cause has arisen wholly from pure

understanding, and has its objective reality assured by the deduction, as it is moreover in its origin

independent of any sensible conditions, it is, therefore, not restricted to phenomena (unless we wanted to

make a definite theoretic use of it), but can be applied equally to things that are objects of the pure

understanding. But, since this application cannot rest on any intuition (for intuition can only be sensible),

therefore, causa noumenon, as regards the theoretic use of reason, although a possible and thinkable, is yet an

empty notion. Now, I do not desire by means of this to understand theoretically the nature of a being, in so far

as it has a pure will; it is enough for me to have thereby designated it as such, and hence to combine the

notion of causality with that of freedom (and what is inseparable from it, the moral law, as its determining

principle). Now, this right I certainly have by virtue of the pure, notempirical origin of the notion of cause,

since I do not consider myself entitled to make any use of it except in reference to the moral law which

If, with Hume, I had denied to the notion of causality all objective reality in its [theoretic] use, not merely

with regard to things in themselves (the supersensible), but also with regard to the objects of the senses, it

would have lost all significance, and being a theoretically impossible notion would have been declared to be

quite useless; and since what is nothing cannot be made any use of, the practical use of a concept

theoretically null would have been absurd. But, as it is, the concept of a causality free from empirical

conditions, although empty, i.e., without any appropriate intuition), is yet theoretically possible, and refers to

an indeterminate object; but in compensation significance is given to it in the moral law and consequently in

a practical sense. I have, indeed, no intuition which should determine its objective theoretic reality, but not

the less it has a real application, which is exhibited in concreto in intentions or maxims; that is, it has a

practical reality which can be specified, and this is sufficient to justify it even with a view to noumena.

Now, this objective reality of a pure concept of the understanding in the sphere of the supersensible, once

brought in, gives an objective reality also to all the other categories, although only so far as they stand in

necessary connexion with the determining principle of the will (the moral law); a reality only of practical

application, which has not the least effect in enlarging our theoretical knowledge of these objects, or the

discernment of their nature by pure reason. So we shall find also in the sequel that these categories refer only

to beings as intelligences, and in them only to the relation of reason to the will; consequently, always only to

the practical, and beyond this cannot pretend to any knowledge of these beings; and whatever other properties

belonging to the theoretical representation of supersensible things may be brought into connexion with these

categories, this is not to be reckoned as knowledge, but only as a right (in a practical point of view, however,

it is a necessity) to admit and assume such beings, even in the case where we [conceive] supersensible beings

(e.g., God) according to analogy, that is, a purely rational relation, of which we make a practical use with

reference to what is sensible; and thus the application to the supersensible solely in a practical point of view

does not give pure theoretic reason the least encouragement to run riot into the transcendent.

By a concept of the practical reason I understand the idea of an object as an effect possible to be produced

through freedom. To be an object of practical knowledge, as such, signifies, therefore, only the relation of the

will to the action by which the object or its opposite would be realized; and to decide whether something is an

object of pure practical reason or not is only to discern the possibility or impossibility of willing the action by

which, if we had the required power (about which experience must decide), a certain object would be

realized. If the object be taken as the determining principle of our desire, it must first be known whether it is

physically possible by the free use of our powers, before we decide whether it is an object of practical reason

or not. On the other hand, if the law can be considered a priori as the determining principle of the action, and

the latter therefore as determined by pure practical reason, the judgement whether a thing is an object of pure

practical reason or not does not depend at all on the comparison with our physical power; and the question is

only whether we should will an action that is directed to the existence of an object, if the object were in our

power; hence the previous question is only as the moral possibility of the action, for in this case it is not the

object, but the law of the will, that is the determining principle of the action. The only objects of practical

reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired

according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of

If the notion of good is not to be derived from an antecedent practical law, but, on the contrary, is to serve as

its foundation, it can only be the notion of something whose existence promises pleasure, and thus determines

the causality of the subject to produce it, that is to say, determines the faculty of desire. Now, since it is

impossible to discern a priori what idea will be accompanied with pleasure and what with pain, it will depend

on experience alone to find out what is primarily good or evil. The property of the subject, with reference to

which alone this experiment can be made, is the feeling of pleasure and pain, a receptivity belonging to the

internal sense; thus that only would be primarily good with which the sensation of pleasure is immediately

connected, and that simply evil which immediately excites pain. Since, however, this is opposed even to the

usage of language, which distinguishes the pleasant from the good, the unpleasant from the evil, and requires

that good and evil shall always be judged by reason, and, therefore, by concepts which can be communicated

to everyone, and not by mere sensation, which is limited to individual [subjects] and their susceptibility; and,

since nevertheless, pleasure or pain cannot be connected with any idea of an object a priori, the philosopher

who thought himself obliged to make a feeling of pleasure the foundation of his practical judgements would

call that good which is a means to the pleasant, and evil, what is a cause of unpleasantness and pain; for the

judgement on the relation of means to ends certainly belongs to reason. But, although reason is alone capable

of discerning the connexion of means with their ends (so that the will might even be defined as the faculty of

ends, since these are always determining principles of the desires), yet the practical maxims which would

follow from the aforesaid principle of the good being merely a means, would never contain as the object of

the will anything good in itself, but only something good for something; the good would always be merely

the useful, and that for which it is useful must always lie outside the will, in sensation. Now if this as a

pleasant sensation were to be distinguished from the notion of good, then there would be nothing primarily

good at all, but the good would have to be sought only in the means to something else, namely, some

It is an old formula of the schools: Nihil appetimus nisi sub ratione boni; Nihil aversamur nisi sub ratione

mali, and it is used often correctly, but often also in a manner injurious to philosophy, because the

expressions boni and mali are ambiguous, owing to the poverty of language, in consequence of which they

admit a double sense, and, therefore, inevitably bring the practical laws into ambiguity; and philosophy,

which in employing them becomes aware of the different meanings in the same word, but can find no special

expressions for them, is driven to subtile distinctions about which there is subsequently no unanimity,

because the distinction could not be directly marked by any suitable expression.*

*Besides this, the expression sub ratione boni is also ambiguous. For it may mean: "We represent something

to ourselves as good, when and because we desire (will) it"; or "We desire something because we represent it

to ourselves as good," so that either the desire determines the notion of the object as a good, or the notion of

good determines the desire (the will); so that in the first case sub ratione boni would mean, "We will

something under the idea of the good"; in the second, "In consequence of this idea," which, as determining

The German language has the good fortune to possess expressions which do not allow this difference to be

overlooked. It possesses two very distinct concepts and especially distinct expressions for that which the

Latins express by a single word, bonum. For bonum it has das Gute [good], and das Wohl [well, weal], for

malum das Bose [evil], and das Ubel [ill, bad], or das Well [woe]. So that we express two quite distinct

judgements when we consider in an action the good and evil of it, or our weal and woe (ill). Hence it already

follows that the above quoted psychological proposition is at least very doubtful if it is translated: "We desire

nothing except with a view to our weal or woe"; on the other hand, if we render it thus: "Under the direction

of reason we desire nothing except so far as we esteem it good or evil," it is indubitably certain and at the

Well or ill always implies only a reference to our condition, as pleasant or unpleasant, as one of pleasure or

pain, and if we desire or avoid an object on this account, it is only so far as it is referred to our sensibility and

to the feeling of pleasure or pain that it produces. But good or evil always implies a reference to the will, as

determined by the law of reason, to make something its object; for it is never determined directly by the

object and the idea of it, but is a faculty of taking a rule of reason for or motive of an action (by which an

object may be realized). Good and evil therefore are properly referred to actions, not to the sensations of the

person, and if anything is to be good or evil absolutely (i.e., in every respect and without any further

condition), or is to be so esteemed, it can only be the manner of acting, the maxim of the will, and

consequently the acting person himself as a good or evil man that can be so called, and not a thing.

However, then, men may laugh at the Stoic, who in the severest paroxysms of gout cried out: "Pain, however

thou tormentest me, I will never admit that thou art an evil (kakov, malum)": he was right. A bad thing it

certainly was, and his cry betrayed that; but that any evil attached to him thereby, this he bad no reason

whatever to admit, for pain did not in the least diminish the worth of his person, but only that of his

condition. If he had been conscious of a single lie, it would have lowered his pride, but pain served only to

raise it, when he was conscious that he had not deserved it by any unrighteous action by which he had

What we call good must be an object of desire in the judgement of every rational man, and evil an object of

aversion in the eyes of everyone; therefore, in addition to sense, this judgement requires reason. So it is with

truthfulness, as opposed to lying; so with justice, as opposed to violence, But we may call a thing a bad [or

ill) thing, which yet everyone must at the same time acknowledge to be good, sometimes directly, sometimes

indirectly. The man who submits to a surgical operation feels it no doubt as a bad thing, but by their reason

he and everyone acknowledge it to be good. If a man who delights in annoying and vexing peaceable people

at last receives a right good beating, this is no doubt a bad thing; but everyone approves it and regards it as a

good thing, even though nothing else resulted from it; nay, even the man who receives it must in his reason

acknowledge that he has met justice, because he sees the proportion between good conduct and good fortune,

No doubt our weal and woe are of very great importance in the estimation of our practical reason, and as far

as our nature as sensible beings is concerned, our happiness is the only thing of consequence, provided it is

estimated as reason especially requires, not by the transitory sensation, but by the influence that this has on

our whole existence, and on our satisfaction therewith; but it is not absolutely the only thing of consequence.

Man is a being who, as belonging to the world of sense, has wants, and so far his reason has an office which

it cannot refuse, namely, to attend to the interest of his sensible nature, and to form practical maxims, even

with a view to the happiness of this life, and if possible even to that of a future. But he is not so completely an

animal as to be indifferent to what reason says on its own account, and to use it merely as an instrument for

the satisfaction of his wants as a sensible being. For the possession of reason would not raise his worth above

that of the brutes, if it is to serve him only for the same purpose that instinct serves in them; it would in that

case be only a particular method which nature had employed to equip man for the same ends for which it has

qualified brutes, without qualifying him for any higher purpose. No doubt once this arrangement of nature

has been made for him he requires reason in order to take into consideration his weal and woe, but besides

this he possesses it for a higher purpose also, namely, not only to take into consideration what is good or evil

in itself, about which only pure reason, uninfluenced by any sensible interest, can judge, but also to

distinguish this estimate thoroughly from the former and to make it the supreme condition thereof.

In estimating what is good or evil in itself, as distinguished from what can be so called only relatively, the

following points are to be considered. Either a rational principle is already conceived, as of itself the

determining principle of the will, without regard to possible objects of desire (and therefore by the more

legislative form of the maxim), and in that case that principle is a practical a priori law, and pure reason is

supposed to be practical of itself. The law in that case determines the will directly; the action conformed to it

is good in itself; a will whose maxim always conforms to this law is good absolutely in every respect and is

the supreme condition of all good. Or the maxim of the will is consequent on a determining principle of

desire which presupposes an object of pleasure or pain, something therefore that pleases or displeases, and

the maxim of reason that we should pursue the former and avoid the latter determines our actions as good

relatively to our inclination, that is, good indirectly, i.e., relatively to a different end to which they are

means), and in that case these maxims can never be called laws, but may be called rational practical precepts.

The end itself, the pleasure that we seek, is in the latter case not a good but a welfare; not a concept of reason,

but an empirical concept of an object of sensation; but the use of the means thereto, that is, the action, is

nevertheless called good (because rational deliberation is required for it), not however, good absolutely, but

only relatively to our sensuous nature, with regard to its feelings of pleasure and displeasure; but the will

whose maxim is affected thereby is not a pure will; this is directed only to that in which pure reason by itself

This is the proper place to explain the paradox of method in a critique of practical reason, namely, that the

concept of good and evil must not be determined before the moral law (of which it seems as if it must be the

foundation), but only after it and by means of it. In fact, even if we did not know that the principle of morality

is a pure a priori law determining the will, yet, that we may not assume principles quite gratuitously, we

must, at least at first, leave it undecided, whether the will has merely empirical principles of determination, or

whether it has not also pure a priori principles; for it is contrary to all rules of philosophical method to

assume as decided that which is the very point in question. Supposing that we wished to begin with the

concept of good, in order to deduce from it the laws of the will, then this concept of an object (as a good)

would at the same time assign to us this object as the sole determining principle of the will. Now, since this

concept had not any practical a priori law for its standard, the criterion of good or evil could not be placed in

anything but the agreement of the object with our feeling of pleasure or pain; and the use of reason could only

consist in determining in the first place this pleasure or pain in connexion with all the sensations of my

existence, and in the second place the means of securing to myself the object of the pleasure. Now, as

experience alone can decide what conforms to the feeling of pleasure, and by hypothesis the practical law is

to be based on this as a condition, it follows that the possibility of a priori practical laws would be at once

excluded, because it was imagined to be necessary first of all to find an object the concept of which, as a

good, should constitute the universal though empirical principle of determination of the will. But what it was

necessary to inquire first of all was whether there is not an a priori determining principle of the will (and this

could never be found anywhere but in a pure practical law, in so far as this law prescribes to maxims merely

their form without regard to an object). Since, however, we laid the foundation of all practical law in an

object determined by our conceptions of good and evil, whereas without a previous law that object could not

be conceived by empirical concepts, we have deprived ourselves beforehand of the possibility of even

conceiving a pure practical law. On the other hand, if we had first investigated the latter analytically, we

should have found that it is not the concept of good as an object that determines the moral law and makes it

possible, but that, on the contrary, it is the moral law that first determines the concept of good and makes it

This remark, which only concerns the method of ultimate ethical inquiries, is of importance. It explains at

once the occasion of all the mistakes of philosophers with respect to the supreme principle of morals. For

they sought for an object of the will which they could make the matter and principle of a law (which

consequently could not determine the will directly, but by means of that object referred to the feeling of

pleasure or pain; whereas they ought first to have searched for a law that would determine the will a priori

and directly, and afterwards determine the object in accordance with the will). Now, whether they placed this

object of pleasure, which was to supply the supreme conception of goodness, in happiness, in perfection, in

moral [feeling], or in the will of God, their principle in every case implied heteronomy, and they must

inevitably come upon empirical conditions of a moral law, since their object, which was to be the immediate

principle of the will, could not be called good or bad except in its immediate relation to feeling, which is

always empirical. It is only a formal law that is, one which prescribes to reason nothing more than the form

of its universal legislation as the supreme condition of its maxims that can be a priori a determining

principle of practical reason. The ancients avowed this error without concealment by directing all their moral

inquiries to the determination of the notion of the summum bonum, which they intended afterwards to make

the determining principle of the will in the moral law; whereas it is only far later, when the moral law has

been first established for itself, and shown to be the direct determining principle of the will, that this object

can be presented to the will, whose form is now determined a priori; and this we shall undertake in the

Dialectic of the pure practical reason. The moderns, with whom the question of the summum bonum has gone

out of fashion, or at least seems to have become a secondary matter, hide the same error under vague

(expressions as in many other cases). It shows itself, nevertheless, in their systems, as it always produces

heteronomy of practical reason; and from this can never be derived a moral law giving universal commands.

Now, since the notions of good and evil, as consequences of the a priori determination of the will, imply also

a pure practical principle, and therefore a causality of pure reason; hence they do not originally refer to

objects (so as to be, for instance, special modes of the synthetic unity of the manifold of given intuitions in

one consciousness) like the pure concepts of the understanding or categories of reason in its theoretic

employment; on the contrary, they presuppose that objects are given; but they are all modes (modi) of a

single category, namely, that of causality, the determining principle of which consists in the rational

conception of a law, which as a law of freedom reason gives to itself, thereby a priori proving itself practical.

However, as the actions on the one side come under a law which is not a physical law, but a law of freedom,

and consequently belong to the conduct of beings in and consequently the consequently belong to the beings

in the world of intelligence, yet on the other side as events in the world of sense they belong to phenomena;

hence the determinations of a practical reason are only possible in reference to the latter and, therefore, in

accordance with the categories of the understanding; not indeed with a view to any theoretic employment of

it, i.e., so as to bring the manifold of (sensible) intuition under one consciousness a priori; but only to subject

the manifold of desires to the unity of consciousness of a practical reason, giving it commands in the moral

These categories of freedom for so we choose to call them in contrast to those theoretic categories which are

categories of physical nature have an obvious advantage over the latter, inasmuch as the latter are only

forms of thought which designate objects in an indefinite manner by means of universal concept of every

possible intuition; the former, on the contrary, refer to the determination of a free elective will (to which

indeed no exactly corresponding intuition can be assigned, but which has as its foundation a pure practical a

priori law, which is not the case with any concepts belonging to the theoretic use of our cognitive faculties);

hence, instead of the form of intuition (space and time), which does not lie in reason itself, but has to be

drawn from another source, namely, the sensibility, these being elementary practical concepts have as their

foundation the form of a pure will, which is given in reason and, therefore, in the thinking faculty itself. From

this it happens that as all precepts of pure practical reason have to do only with the determination of the will,

not with the physical conditions (of practical ability) of the execution of one's purpose, the practical a priori

principles in relation to the supreme principle of freedom are at once cognitions, and have not to wait for

intuitions in order to acquire significance, and that for this remarkable reason, because they themselves

produce the reality of that to which they refer (the intention of the will), which is not the case with theoretical

concepts. Only we must be careful to observe that these categories only apply to the practical reason; and thus

they proceed in order from those which are as yet subject to sensible conditions and morally indeterminate to

those which are free from sensible conditions and determined merely by the moral law.

It will at once be observed that in this table freedom is considered as a sort of causality not subject to

empirical principles of determination, in regard to actions possible by it, which are phenomena in the world

of sense, and that consequently it is referred to the categories which concern its physical possibility, whilst

yet each category is taken so universally that the determining principle of that causality can be placed outside

the world of sense in freedom as a property of a being in the world of intelligence; and finally the categories

of modality introduce the transition from practical principles generally to those of morality, but only

I add nothing further here in explanation of the present table, since it is intelligible enough of itself. A

division of this kind based on principles is very useful in any science, both for the sake of thoroughness and

intelligibility. Thus, for instance, we know from the preceding table and its first number what we must begin

from in practical inquiries; namely, from the maxims which every one founds on his own inclinations; the

precepts which hold for a species of rational beings so far as they agree in certain inclinations; and finally the

law which holds for all without regard to their inclinations, etc. In this way we survey the whole plan of what

has to be done, every question of practical philosophy that has to be answered, and also the order that is to be

It is the notions of good and evil that first determine an object of the will. They themselves, however, are

subject to a practical rule of reason which, if it is pure reason, determines the will a priori relatively to its

object. Now, whether an action which is possible to us in the world of sense, comes under the rule or not, is a

question to be decided by the practical judgement, by which what is said in the rule universally (in abstracto)

is applied to an action in concreto. But since a practical rule of pure reason in the first place as practical

concerns the existence of an object, and in the second place as a practical rule of pure reason implies

necessity as regards the existence of the action and, therefore, is a practical law, not a physical law depending

on empirical principles of determination, but a law of freedom by which the will is to be determined

independently on anything empirical (merely by the conception of a law and its form), whereas all instances

that can occur of possible actions can only be empirical, that is, belong to the experience of physical nature;

hence, it seems absurd to expect to find in the world of sense a case which, while as such it depends only on

the law of nature, yet admits of the application to it of a law of freedom, and to which we can apply the

supersensible idea of the morally good which is to be exhibited in it in concreto. Thus, the judgement of the

pure practical reason is subject to the same difficulties as that of the pure theoretical reason. The latter,

however, had means at hand of escaping from these difficulties, because, in regard to the theoretical

employment, intuitions were required to which pure concepts of the understanding could be applied, and such

intuitions (though only of objects of the senses) can be given a priori and, therefore, as far as regards the

union of the manifold in them, conforming to the pure a priori concepts of the understanding as schemata. On

the other hand, the morally good is something whose object is supersensible; for which, therefore, nothing

corresponding can be found in any sensible intuition. Judgement depending on laws of pure practical reason

seems, therefore, to be subject to special difficulties arising from this, that a law of freedom is to be applied to

actions, which are events taking place in the world of sense, and which, so far, belong to physical nature.

But here again is opened a favourable prospect for the pure practical judgement. When I subsume under a

pure practical law an action possible to me in the world of sense, I am not concerned with the possibility of

the action as an event in the world of sense. This is a matter that belongs to the decision of reason in its

theoretic use according to the law of causality, which is a pure concept of the understanding, for which reason

has a schema in the sensible intuition. Physical causality, or the condition under which it takes place, belongs

to the physical concepts, the schema of which is sketched by transcendental imagination. Here, however, we

have to do, not with the schema of a case that occurs according to laws, but with the schema of a law itself (if

the word is allowable here), since the fact that the will (not the action relatively to its effect) is determined by

the law alone without any other principle, connects the notion of causality with quite different conditions

The physical law being a law to which the objects of sensible intuition, as such, are subject, must have a

schema corresponding to it that is, a general procedure of the imagination (by which it exhibits a priori to

the senses the pure concept of the understanding which the law determines). But the law of freedom (that is,

of a causality not subject to sensible conditions), and consequently the concept of the unconditionally good,

cannot have any intuition, nor consequently any schema supplied to it for the purpose of its application in

concreto. Consequently the moral law has no faculty but the understanding to aid its application to physical

objects (not the imagination); and the understanding for the purposes of the judgement can provide for an

idea of the reason, not a schema of the sensibility, but a law, though only as to its form as law; such a law,

however, as can be exhibited in concreto in objects of the senses, and therefore a law of nature. We can

The rule of the judgement according to laws of pure practical reason is this: ask yourself whether, if the

action you propose were to take place by a law of the system of nature of which you were yourself a part, you

could regard it as possible by your own will. Everyone does, in fact, decide by this rule whether actions are

morally good or evil. Thus, people say: "If everyone permitted himself to deceive, when he thought it to his

advantage; or thought himself justified in shortening his life as soon as he was thoroughly weary of it; or

looked with perfect indifference on the necessity of others; and if you belonged to such an order of things,

would you do so with the assent of your own will?" Now everyone knows well that if he secretly allows

himself to deceive, it does not follow that everyone else does so; or if, unobserved, he is destitute of

compassion, others would not necessarily be so to him; hence, this comparison of the maxim of his actions

with a universal law of nature is not the determining principle of his will. Such a law is, nevertheless, a type

of the estimation of the maxim on moral principles. If the maxim of the action is not such as to stand the test

of the form of a universal law of nature, then it is morally impossible. This is the judgement even of common

sense; for its ordinary judgements, even those of experience, are always based on the law of nature. It has it

therefore always at hand, only that in cases where causality from freedom is to be criticised, it makes that law

of nature only the type of a law of freedom, because, without something which it could use as an example in a

case of experience, it could not give the law of a pure practical reason its proper use in practice.

It is therefore allowable to use the system of the world of sense as the type of a supersensible system of

things, provided I do not transfer to the latter the intuitions, and what depends on them, but merely apply to it

the form of law in general (the notion of which occurs even in the commonest use of reason, but cannot be

definitely known a priori for any other purpose than the pure practical use of reason); for laws, as such, are so

Further, since of all the supersensible absolutely nothing [is known] except freedom (through the moral law),

and this only so far as it is inseparably implied in that law, and moreover all supersensible objects to which

reason might lead us, following the guidance of that law, have still no reality for us, except for the purpose of

that law, and for the use of mere practical reason; and as reason is authorized and even compelled to use

physical nature (in its pure form as an object of the understanding) as the type of the judgement; hence, the

present remark will serve to guard against reckoning amongst concepts themselves that which belongs only to

the typic of concepts. This, namely, as a typic of the judgement, guards against the empiricism of practical

reason, which founds the practical notions of good and evil merely on experienced consequences (socalled

happiness). No doubt happiness and the infinite advantages which would result from a will determined by

selflove, if this will at the same time erected itself into a universal law of nature, may certainly serve as a

perfectly suitable type of the morally good, but it is not identical with it. The same typic guards also against

the mysticism of practical reason, which turns what served only as a symbol into a schema, that is, proposes

to provide for the moral concepts actual intuitions, which, however, are not sensible (intuitions of an invisible

Kingdom of God), and thus plunges into the transcendent. What is befitting the use of the moral concepts is

only the rationalism of the judgement, which takes from the sensible system of nature only what pure reason

can also conceive of itself, that is, conformity to law, and transfers into the supersensible nothing but what

can conversely be actually exhibited by actions in the world of sense according to the formal rule of a law of

nature. However, the caution against empiricism of practical reason is much more important; for mysticism is

quite reconcilable with the purity and sublimity of the moral law, and, besides, it is not very natural or

agreeable to common habits of thought to strain one's imagination to supersensible intuitions; and hence the

danger on this side is not so general. Empiricism, on the contrary, cuts up at the roots the morality of

intentions (in which, and not in actions only, consists the high worth that men can and ought to give to

themselves), and substitutes for duty something quite different, namely, an empirical interest, with which the

inclinations generally are secretly leagued; and empiricism, moreover, being on this account allied with all

the inclinations which (no matter what fashion they put on) degrade humanity when they are raised to the

dignity of a supreme practical principle; and as these, nevertheless, are so favourable to everyone's feelings, it

is for that reason much more dangerous than mysticism, which can never constitute a lasting condition of any

What is essential in the moral worth of actions is that the moral law should directly determine the will. If the

determination of the will takes place in conformity indeed to the moral law, but only by means of a feeling,

no matter of what kind, which has to be presupposed in order that the law may be sufficient to determine the

will, and therefore not for the sake of the law, then the action will possess legality, but not morality. Now, if

we understand by motive (elater animi) the subjective ground of determination of the will of a being whose

reason does not necessarily conform to the objective law, by virtue of its own nature, then it will follow, first,

that not motives can be attributed to the Divine will, and that the motives of the human will (as well as that of

every created rational being) can never be anything else than the moral law, and consequently that the

objective principle of determination must always and alone be also the subjectively sufficient determining

principle of the action, if this is not merely to fulfil the letter of the law, without containing its spirit.*

*We may say of every action that conforms to the law, but is not done for the sake of the law, that it is

Since, then, for the purpose of giving the moral law influence over the will, we must not seek for any other

motives that might enable us to dispense with the motive of the law itself, because that would produce mere

hypocrisy, without consistency; and it is even dangerous to allow other motives (for instance, that of interest)

even to cooperate along with the moral law; hence nothing is left us but to determine carefully in what way

the moral law becomes a motive, and what effect this has upon the faculty of desire. For as to the question

how a law can be directly and of itself a determining principle of the will (which is the essence of morality),

this is, for human reason, an insoluble problem and identical with the question: how a free will is possible.

Therefore what we have to show a priori is not why the moral law in itself supplies a motive, but what effect

The essential point in every determination of the will by the moral law is that being a free will it is

determined simply by the moral law, not only without the cooperation of sensible impulses, but even to the

rejection of all such, and to the checking of all inclinations so far as they might be opposed to that law. So far,

then, the effect of the moral law as a motive is only negative, and this motive can be known a priori to be

such. For all inclination and every sensible impulse is founded on feeling, and the negative effect produced

on feeling (by the check on the inclinations) is itself feeling; consequently, we can see a priori that the moral

law, as a determining principle of the will, must by thwarting all our inclinations produce a feeling which

may be called pain; and in this we have the first, perhaps the only, instance in which we are able from a priori

considerations to determine the relation of a cognition (in this case of pure practical reason) to the feeling of

pleasure or displeasure. All the inclinations together (which can be reduced to a tolerable system, in which

case their satisfaction is called happiness) constitute selfregard (solipsismus). This is either the selflove

that consists in an excessive fondness for oneself (philautia), or satisfaction with oneself (arrogantia). The

former is called particularly selfishness; the latter selfconceit. Pure practical reason only checks selfishness,

looking on it as natural and active in us even prior to the moral law, so far as to limit it to the condition of

agreement with this law, and then it is called rational selflove. But selfconceit reason strikes down

altogether, since all claims to selfesteem which precede agreement with the moral law are vain and

unjustifiable, for the certainty of a state of mind that coincides with this law is the first condition of personal

worth (as we shall presently show more clearly), and prior to this conformity any pretension to worth is false

and unlawful. Now the propensity to selfesteem is one of the inclinations which the moral law checks,

inasmuch as that esteem rests only on morality. Therefore the moral law breaks down selfconceit. But as

this law is something positive in itself, namely, the form of an intellectual causality, that is, of freedom, it

must be an object of respect; for, by opposing the subjective antagonism of the inclinations, it weakens

selfconceit; and since it even breaks down, that is, humiliates, this conceit, it is an object of the highest

respect and, consequently, is the foundation of a positive feeling which is not of empirical origin, but is

known a priori. Therefore respect for the moral law is a feeling which is produced by an intellectual cause,

and this feeling is the only one that we know quite a priori and the necessity of which we can perceive.

In the preceding chapter we have seen that everything that presents itself as an object of the will prior to the

moral law is by that law itself, which is the supreme condition of practical reason, excluded from the

determining principles of the will which we have called the unconditionally good; and that the mere practical

form which consists in the adaptation of the maxims to universal legislation first determines what is good in

itself and absolutely, and is the basis of the maxims of a pure will, which alone is good in every respect.

However, we find that our nature as sensible beings is such that the matter of desire (objects of inclination,

whether of hope or fear) first presents itself to us; and our pathologically affected self, although it is in its

maxims quite unfit for universal legislation; yet, just as if it constituted our entire self, strives to put its

pretensions forward first, and to have them acknowledged as the first and original. This propensity to make

ourselves in the subjective determining principles of our choice serve as the objective determining principle

of the will generally may be called selflove; and if this pretends to be legislative as an unconditional

practical principle it may be called selfconceit. Now the moral law, which alone is truly objective (namely,

in every respect), entirely excludes the influence of selflove on the supreme practical principle, and

indefinitely checks the selfconceit that prescribes the subjective conditions of the former as laws. Now

whatever checks our selfconceit in our own judgement humiliates; therefore the moral law inevitably

humbles every man when he compares with it the physical propensities of his nature. That, the idea of which

as a determining principle of our will humbles us in our selfconsciousness, awakes respect for itself, so far

as it is itself positive and a determining principle. Therefore the moral law is even subjectively a cause of

respect. Now since everything that enters into selflove belongs to inclination, and all inclination rests on

feelings, and consequently whatever checks all the feelings together in selflove has necessarily, by this very

circumstance, an influence on feeling; hence we comprehend how it is possible to perceive a priori that the

moral law can produce an effect on feeling, in that it excludes the inclinations and the propensity to make

them the supreme practical condition, i.e., selflove, from all participation in the supreme legislation. This

effect is on one side merely negative, but on the other side, relatively to the restricting principle of pure

practical reason, it is positive. No special kind of feeling need be assumed for this under the name of a

practical or moral feeling as antecedent to the moral law and serving as its foundation.

The negative effect on feeling (unpleasantness) is pathological, like every influence on feeling and like every

feeling generally. But as an effect of the consciousness of the moral law, and consequently in relation to a

supersensible cause, namely, the subject of pure practical reason which is the supreme lawgiver, this feeling

of a rational being affected by inclinations is called humiliation (intellectual selfdepreciation); but with

reference to the positive source of this humiliation, the law, it is respect for it. There is indeed no feeling for

this law; but inasmuch as it removes the resistance out of the way, this removal of an obstacle is, in the

judgement of reason, esteemed equivalent to a positive help to its causality. Therefore this feeling may also

be called a feeling of respect for the moral law, and for both reasons together a moral feeling.

While the moral law, therefore, is a formal determining principle of action by practical pure reason, and is

moreover a material though only objective determining principle of the objects of action as called good and

evil, it is also a subjective determining principle, that is, a motive to this action, inasmuch as it has influence

on the morality of the subject and produces a feeling conducive to the influence of the law on the will. There

is here in the subject no antecedent feeling tending to morality. For this is impossible, since every feeling is

sensible, and the motive of moral intention must be free from all sensible conditions. On the contrary, while

the sensible feeling which is at the bottom of all our inclinations is the condition of that impression which we

call respect, the cause that determines it lies in the pure practical reason; and this impression therefore, on

account of its origin, must be called, not a pathological but a practical effect. For by the fact that the

conception of the moral law deprives selflove of its influence, and selfconceit of its illusion, it lessens the

obstacle to pure practical reason and produces the conception of the superiority of its objective law to the

impulses of the sensibility; and thus, by removing the counterpoise, it gives relatively greater weight to the

law in the judgement of reason (in the case of a will affected by the aforesaid impulses). Thus the respect for

the law is not a motive to morality, but is morality itself subjectively considered as a motive, inasmuch as

pure practical reason, by rejecting all the rival pretensions of selflove, gives authority to the law, which now

alone has influence. Now it is to be observed that as respect is an effect on feeling, and therefore on the

sensibility, of a rational being, it presupposes this sensibility, and therefore also the finiteness of such beings

on whom the moral law imposes respect; and that respect for the law cannot be attributed to a supreme being,

or to any being free from all sensibility, in whom, therefore, this sensibility cannot be an obstacle to practical

This feeling (which we call the moral feeling) is therefore produced simply by reason. It does not serve for

the estimation of actions nor for the foundation of the objective moral law itself, but merely as a motive to

make this of itself a maxim. But what name could we more suitably apply to this singular feeling which

cannot be compared to any pathological feeling? It is of such a peculiar kind that it seems to be at the disposal

Respect applies always to persons only not to things. The latter may arouse inclination, and if they are

animals (e.g., horses, dogs, etc.), even love or fear, like the sea, a volcano, a beast of prey; but never respect.

Something that comes nearer to this feeling is admiration, and this, as an affection, astonishment, can apply

to things also, e.g., lofty mountains, the magnitude, number, and distance of the heavenly bodies, the strength

and swiftness of many animals, etc. But all this is not respect. A man also may be an object to me of love,

fear, or admiration, even to astonishment, and yet not be an object of respect. His jocose humour, his courage

and strength, his power from the rank be has amongst others, may inspire me with sentiments of this kind, but

still inner respect for him is wanting. Fontenelle says, "I bow before a great man, but my mind does not bow."

I would add, before an humble plain man, in whom I perceive uprightness of character in a higher degree than

I am conscious of in myself, my mind bows whether I choose it or not, and though I bear my head never so

high that he may not forget my superior rank. Why is this? Because his example exhibits to me a law that

humbles my selfconceit when I compare it with my conduct: a law, the practicability of obedience to which

I see proved by fact before my eyes. Now, I may even be conscious of a like degree of uprightness, and yet

the respect remains. For since in man all good is defective, the law made visible by an example still humbles

my pride, my standard being furnished by a man whose imperfections, whatever they may be, are not known

to me as my own are, and who therefore appears to me in a more favourable light. Respect is a tribute which

we cannot refuse to merit, whether we will or not; we may indeed outwardly withhold it, but we cannot help

Respect is so far from being a feeling of pleasure that we only reluctantly give way to it as regards a man. We

try to find out something that may lighten the burden of it, some fault to compensate us for the humiliation

which such which such an example causes. Even the dead are not always secure from this criticism,

especially if their example appears inimitable. Even the moral law itself in its solemn majesty is exposed to

this endeavour to save oneself from yielding it respect. Can it be thought that it is for any other reason that we

are so ready to reduce it to the level of our familiar inclination, or that it is for any other reason that we all

take such trouble to make it out to be the chosen precept of our own interest well understood, but that we

want to be free from the deterrent respect which shows us our own unworthiness with such severity?

Nevertheless, on the other hand, so little is there pain in it that if once one has laid aside selfconceit and

allowed practical influence to that respect, he can never be satisfied with contemplating the majesty of this

law, and the soul believes itself elevated in proportion as it sees the holy law elevated above it and its frail

nature. No doubt great talents and activity proportioned to them may also occasion respect or an analogous

feeling. It is very proper to yield it to them, and then it appears as if this sentiment were the same thing as

admiration. But if we look closer we shall observe that it is always uncertain how much of the ability is due

to native talent, and how much to diligence in cultivating it. Reason represents it to us as probably the fruit of

cultivation, and therefore as meritorious, and this notably reduces our selfconceit, and either casts a

reproach on us or urges us to follow such an example in the way that is suitable to us. This respect, then,

which we show to such a person (properly speaking, to the law that his example exhibits) is not mere

admiration; and this is confirmed also by the fact that when the common run of admirers think they have

learned from any source the badness of such a man's character (for instance Voltaire's) they give up all

respect for him; whereas the true scholar still feels it at least with regard to his talents, because he is himself

engaged in a business and a vocation which make imitation of such a man in some degree a law.

Respect for the moral law is, therefore, the only and the undoubted moral motive, and this feeling is directed

to no object, except on the ground of this law. The moral law first determines the will objectively and directly

in the judgement of reason; and freedom, whose causality can be determined only by the law, consists just in

this, that it restricts all inclinations, and consequently selfesteem, by the condition of obedience to its pure

law. This restriction now has an effect on feeling, and produces the impression of displeasure which can be

known a priori from the moral law. Since it is so far only a negative effect which, arising from the influence

of pure practical reason, checks the activity of the subject, so far as it is determined by inclinations, and hence

checks the opinion of his personal worth (which, in the absence of agreement with the moral law, is reduced

to nothing); hence, the effect of this law on feeling is merely humiliation. We can, therefore, perceive this a

priori, but cannot know by it the force of the pure practical law as a motive, but only the resistance to motives

of the sensibility. But since the same law is objectively, that is, in the conception of pure reason, an

immediate principle of determination of the will, and consequently this humiliation takes place only

relatively to the purity of the law; hence, the lowering of the pretensions of moral selfesteem, that is,

humiliation on the sensible side, is an elevation of the moral, i.e., practical, esteem for the law itself on the

intellectual side; in a word, it is respect for the law, and therefore, as its cause is intellectual, a positive

feeling which can be known a priori. For whatever diminishes the obstacles to an activity furthers this activity

itself. Now the recognition of the moral law is the consciousness of an activity of practical reason from

objective principles, which only fails to reveal its effect in actions because subjective (pathological) causes

hinder it. Respect for the moral law then must be regarded as a positive, though indirect, effect of it on

feeling, inasmuch as this respect weakens the impeding influence of inclinations by humiliating selfesteem;

and hence also as a subjective principle of activity, that is, as a motive to obedience to the law, and as a

principle of the maxims of a life conformable to it. From the notion of a motive arises that of an interest,

which can never be attributed to any being unless it possesses reason, and which signifies a motive of the will

in so far as it is conceived by the reason. Since in a morally good will the law itself must be the motive, the

moral interest is a pure interest of practical reason alone, independent of sense. On the notion of an interest is

based that of a maxim. This, therefore, is morally good only in case it rests simply on the interest taken in

obedience to the law. All three notions, however, that of a motive, of an interest, and of a maxim, can be

applied only to finite beings. For they all suppose a limitation of the nature of the being, in that the subjective

character of his choice does not of itself agree with the objective law of a practical reason; they suppose that

the being requires to be impelled to action by something, because an internal obstacle opposes itself.

There is something so singular in the unbounded esteem for the pure moral law, apart from all advantage, as

it is presented for our obedience by practical reason, the voice of which makes even the boldest sinner

tremble and compels him to hide himself from it, that we cannot wonder if we find this influence of a mere

intellectual idea on the feelings quite incomprehensible to speculative reason and have to be satisfied with

seeing so much of this a priori that such a feeling is inseparably connected with the conception of the moral

law in every finite rational being. If this feeling of respect were pathological, and therefore were a feeling of

pleasure based on the inner sense, it would be in vain to try to discover a connection of it with any idea a

priori. But [it] is a feeling that applies merely to what is practical, and depends on the conception of a law,

simply as to its form, not on account of any object, and therefore cannot be reckoned either as pleasure or

pain, and yet produces an interest in obedience to the law, which we call the moral interest, just as the

capacity of taking such an interest in the law (or respect for the moral law itself) is properly the moral feeling.

The consciousness of a free submission of the will to the law, yet combined with an inevitable constraint put

upon all inclinations, though only by our own reason, is respect for the law. The law that demands this

respect and inspires it is clearly no other than the moral (for no other precludes all inclinations from

exercising any direct influence on the will). An action which is objectively practical according to this law, to

the exclusion of every determining principle of inclination, is duty, and this by reason of that exclusion

includes in its concept practical obligation, that is, a determination to actions, however reluctantly they may

be done. The feeling that arises from the consciousness of this obligation is not pathological, as would be a

feeling produced by an object of the senses, but practical only, that is, it is made possible by a preceding

(objective) determination of the will and a causality of the reason. As submission to the law, therefore, that is,

as a command (announcing constraint for the sensibly affected subject), it contains in it no pleasure, but on

the contrary, so far, pain in the action. On the other hand, however, as this constraint is exercised merely by

the legislation of our own reason, it also contains something elevating, and this subjective effect on feeling,

inasmuch as pure practical reason is the sole cause of it, may be called in this respect selfapprobation, since

we recognize ourselves as determined thereto solely by the law without any interest, and are now conscious

of a quite different interest subjectively produced thereby, and which is purely practical and free; and our

taking this interest in an action of duty is not suggested by any inclination, but is commanded and actually

brought about by reason through the practical law; whence this feeling obtains a special name, that of respect.

The notion of duty, therefore, requires in the action, objectively, agreement with the law, and, subjectively in

its maxim, that respect for the law shall be the sole mode in which the will is determined thereby. And on this

rests the distinction between the consciousness of having acted according to duty and from duty, that is, from

respect for the law. The former (legality) is possible even if inclinations have been the determining principles

of the will; but the latter (morality), moral worth, can be placed only in this, that the action is done from duty,

*If we examine accurately the notion of respect for persons as it has been already laid down, we shall

perceive that it always rests on the consciousness of a duty which an example shows us, and that respect,

therefore. can never have any but a moral ground, and that it is very good and even, in a psychological point

of view, very useful for the knowledge of mankind, that whenever we use this expression we should attend to

this secret and marvellous, yet often recurring, regard which men in their judgement pay to the moral law.

It is of the greatest importance to attend with the utmost exactness in all moral judgements to the subjective

principle of all maxims, that all the morality of actions may be placed in the necessity of acting from duty and

from respect for the law, not from love and inclination for that which the actions are to produce. For men and

all created rational beings moral necessity is constraint, that is obligation, and every action based on it is to be

conceived as a duty, not as a proceeding previously pleasing, or likely to be Pleasing to us of our own accord.

As if indeed we could ever bring it about that without respect for the law, which implies fear, or at least

apprehension of transgression, we of ourselves, like the independent Deity, could ever come into possession

of holiness of will by the coincidence of our will with the pure moral law becoming as it were part of our

nature, never to be shaken (in which case the law would cease to be a command for us, as we could never be

The moral law is in fact for the will of a perfect being a law of holiness, but for the will of every finite

rational being a law of duty, of moral constraint, and of the determination of its actions by respect for this law

and reverence for its duty. No other subjective principle must be assumed as a motive, else while the action

might chance to be such as the law prescribes, yet, as does not proceed from duty, the intention, which is the

It is a very beautiful thing to do good to men from love to them and from sympathetic good will, or to be just

from love of order; but this is not yet the true moral maxim of our conduct which is suitable to our position

amongst rational beings as men, when we pretend with fanciful pride to set ourselves above the thought of

duty, like volunteers, and, as if we were independent on the command, to want to do of our own good

pleasure what we think we need no command to do. We stand under a discipline of reason and in all our

maxims must not forget our subjection to it, nor withdraw anything therefrom, or by an egotistic presumption

diminish aught of the authority of the law (although our own reason gives it) so as to set the determining

principle of our will, even though the law be conformed to, anywhere else but in the law itself and in respect

for this law. Duty and obligation are the only names that we must give to our relation to the moral law. We

are indeed legislative members of a moral kingdom rendered possible by freedom, and presented to us by

reason as an object of respect; but yet we are subjects in it, not the sovereign, and to mistake our inferior

position as creatures, and presumptuously to reject the authority of the moral law, is already to revolt from it

With this agrees very well the possibility of such a command as: Love God above everything, and thy

neighbour as thyself.* For as a command it requires respect for a law which commands love and does not

leave it to our own arbitrary choice to make this our principle. Love to God, however, considered as an

inclination (pathological love), is impossible, for He is not an object of the senses. The same affection

towards men is possible no doubt, but cannot be commanded, for it is not in the power of any man to love

anyone at command; therefore it is only practical love that is meant in that pith of all laws. To love God

means, in this sense, to like to do His commandments; to love one's neighbour means to like to practise all

duties towards him. But the command that makes this a rule cannot command us to have this disposition in

actions conformed to duty, but only to endeavour after it. For a command to like to do a thing is in itself

contradictory, because if we already know of ourselves what we are bound to do, and if further we are

conscious of liking to do it, a command would be quite needless; and if we do it not willingly, but only out of

respect for the law, a command that makes this respect the motive of our maxim would directly counteract the

disposition commanded. That law of all laws, therefore, like all the moral precepts of the Gospel, exhibits the

moral disposition in all its perfection, in which, viewed as an ideal of holiness, it is not attainable by any

creature, but yet is the pattern which we should strive to approach, and in an uninterrupted but infinite

progress become like to. In fact, if a rational creature could ever reach this point, that he thoroughly likes to

do all moral laws, this would mean that there does not exist in him even the possibility of a desire that would

tempt him to deviate from them; for to overcome such a desire always costs the subject some sacrifice and

therefore requires selfcompulsion, that is, inward constraint to something that one does not quite like to do;

and no creature can ever reach this stage of moral disposition. For, being a creature, and therefore always

dependent with respect to what be requires for complete satisfaction, he can never be quite free from desires

and inclinations, and as these rest on physical causes, they can never of themselves coincide with the moral

law, the sources of which are quite different; and therefore they make it necessary to found the mental

disposition of one's maxims on moral obligation, not on ready inclination, but on respect, which demands

obedience to the law, even though one may not like it; not on love, which apprehends no inward reluctance of

the will towards the law. Nevertheless, this latter, namely, love to the law (which would then cease to be a

command, and then morality, which would have passed subjectively into holiness, would cease to be virtue)

must be the constant though unattainable goal of his endeavours. For in the case of what we highly esteem,

but yet (on account of the consciousness of our weakness) dread, the increased facility of satisfying it

changes the most reverential awe into inclination, and respect into love; at least this would be the perfection

of a disposition devoted to the law, if it were possible for a creature to attain it.

*This law is in striking contrast with the principle of private happiness which some make the supreme

principle of morality. This would be expressed thus: Love thyself above everything, and God and thy

This reflection is intended not so much to clear up the evangelical command just cited, in order to prevent

religious fanaticism in regard to love of God, but to define accurately the moral disposition with regard

directly to our duties towards men, and to check, or if possible prevent, a merely moral fanaticism which

infects many persons. The stage of morality on which man (and, as far as we can see, every rational creature)

stands is respect for the moral law. The disposition that he ought to have in obeying this is to obey it from

duty, not from spontaneous inclination, or from an endeavour taken up from liking and unbidden; and this

proper moral condition in which he can always be is virtue, that is, moral disposition militant, and not

holiness in the fancied possession of a perfect purity of the disposition of the will. It is nothing but moral

fanaticism and exaggerated selfconceit that is infused into the mind by exhortation to actions as noble,

sublime, and magnanimous, by which men are led into the delusion that it is not duty, that is, respect for the

law, whose yoke (an easy yoke indeed, because reason itself imposes it on us) they must bear, whether they

like it or not, that constitutes the determining principle of their actions, and which always humbles them

while they obey it; fancying that those actions are expected from them, not from duty, but as pure merit. For

not only would they, in imitating such deeds from such a principle, not have fulfilled the spirit of the law in

the least, which consists not in the legality of the action (without regard to principle), but in the subjection of

the mind to the law; not only do they make the motives pathological (seated in sympathy or selflove), not

moral (in the law), but they produce in this way a vain, highflying, fantastic way of thinking, flattering

themselves with a spontaneous goodness of heart that needs neither spur nor bridle, for which no command is

needed, and thereby forgetting their obligation, which they ought to think of rather than merit. Indeed actions

of others which are done with great sacrifice, and merely for the sake of duty, may be praised as noble and

sublime, but only so far as there are traces which suggest that they were done wholly out of respect for duty

and not from excited feelings. If these, however, are set before anyone as examples to be imitated, respect for

duty (which is the only true moral feeling) must be employed as the motive this severe holy precept which

never allows our vain selflove to dally with pathological impulses (however analogous they may be to

morality), and to take a pride in meritorious worth. Now if we search we shall find for all actions that are

worthy of praise a law of duty which commands, and does not leave us to choose what may be agreeable to

our inclinations. This is the only way of representing things that can give a moral training to the soul, because

If fanaticism in its most general sense is a deliberate over stepping of the limits of human reason, then moral

fanaticism is such an over stepping of the bounds that practical pure reason sets to mankind, in that it forbids

us to place the subjective determining principle of correct actions, that is, their moral motive, in anything but

the law itself, or to place the disposition which is thereby brought into the maxims in anything but respect for

this law, and hence commands us to take as the supreme vital principle of all morality in men the thought of

If this is so, it is not only writers of romance or sentimental educators (although they may be zealous

opponents of sentimentalism), but sometimes even philosophers, nay, even the severest of all, the Stoics, that

have brought in moral fanaticism instead of a sober but wise moral discipline, although the fanaticism of the

latter was more heroic, that of the former of an insipid, effeminate character; and we may, without hypocrisy,

say of the moral teaching of the Gospel, that it first, by the purity of its moral principle, and at the same time

by its suitability to the limitations of finite beings, brought all the good conduct of men under the discipline

of a duty plainly set before their eyes, which does not permit them to indulge in dreams of imaginary moral

perfections; and that it also set the bounds of humility (that is, selfknowledge) to selfconceit as well as to

Duty! Thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest

submission, and yet seekest not to move the will by threatening aught that would arouse natural aversion or

terror, but merely holdest forth a law which of itself finds entrance into the mind, and yet gains reluctant

reverence (though not always obedience), a law before which all inclinations are dumb, even though they

secretly counterwork it; what origin is there worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble

descent which proudly rejects all kindred with the inclinations; a root to be derived from which is the

It can be nothing less than a power which elevates man above himself (as a part of the world of sense), a

power which connects him with an order of things that only the understanding can conceive, with a world

which at the same time commands the whole sensible world, and with it the empirically determinable

existence of man in time, as well as the sum total of all ends (which totality alone suits such unconditional

practical laws as the moral). This power is nothing but personality, that is, freedom and independence on the

mechanism of nature, yet, regarded also as a faculty of a being which is subject to special laws, namely, pure

practical laws given by its own reason; so that the person as belonging to the sensible world is subject to his

own personality as belonging to the intelligible [supersensible] world. It is then not to be wondered at that

man, as belonging to both worlds, must regard his own nature in reference to its second and highest

On this origin are founded many expressions which designate the worth of objects according to moral ideas.

The moral law is holy (inviolable). Man is indeed unholy enough, but he must regard humanity in his own

person as holy. In all creation every thing one chooses and over which one has any power, may be used

merely as means; man alone, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself. By virtue of the

autonomy of his freedom he is the subject of the moral law, which is holy. just for this reason every will,

even every person's own individual will, in relation to itself, is restricted to the condition of agreement with

the autonomy of the rational being, that is to say, that it is not to be subject to any purpose which cannot

accord with a law which might arise from the will of the passive subject himself; the latter is, therefore, never

to be employed merely as means, but as itself also, concurrently, an end. We justly attribute this condition

even to the Divine will, with regard to the rational beings in the world, which are His creatures, since it rests

This respectinspiring idea of personality which sets before our eyes the sublimity of our nature (in its higher

aspect), while at the same time it shows us the want of accord of our conduct with it and thereby strikes down

selfconceit, is even natural to the commonest reason and easily observed. Has not every even moderately

honourable man sometimes found that, where by an otherwise inoffensive lie he might either have withdrawn

himself from an unpleasant business, or even have procured some advantages for a loved and welldeserving

friend, he has avoided it solely lest he should despise himself secretly in his own eyes? When an upright man

is in the greatest distress, which he might have avoided if he could only have disregarded duty, is he not

sustained by the consciousness that he has maintained humanity in its proper dignity in his own person and

honoured it, that he has no reason to be ashamed of himself in his own sight, or to dread the inward glance of

selfexamination? This consolation is not happiness, it is not even the smallest part of it, for no one would

wish to have occasion for it, or would, perhaps, even desire a life in such circumstances. But he lives, and he

cannot endure that he should be in his own eyes unworthy of life. This inward peace is therefore merely

negative as regards what can make life pleasant; it is, in fact, only the escaping the danger of sinking in

personal worth, after everything else that is valuable has been lost. It is the effect of a respect for something

quite different from life, something in comparison and contrast with which life with all its enjoyment has no

value. He still lives only because it is his duty, not because he finds anything pleasant in life.

Such is the nature of the true motive of pure practical reason; it is no other than the pure moral law itself,

inasmuch as it makes us conscious of the sublimity of our own supersensible existence and subjectively

produces respect for their higher nature in men who are also conscious of their sensible existence and of the

consequent dependence of their pathologically very susceptible nature. Now with this motive may be

combined so many charms and satisfactions of life that even on this account alone the most prudent choice of

a rational Epicurean reflecting on the greatest advantage of life would declare itself on the side of moral

conduct, and it may even be advisable to join this prospect of a cheerful enjoyment of life with that supreme

motive which is already sufficient of itself; but only as a counterpoise to the attractions which vice does not

fail to exhibit on the opposite side, and not so as, even in the smallest degree, to place in this the proper

moving power when duty is in question. For that would be just the same as to wish to taint the purity of the

moral disposition in its source. The majesty of duty has nothing to do with enjoyment of life; it has its special

law and its special tribunal, and though the two should be never so well shaken together to be given well

mixed, like medicine, to the sick soul, yet they will soon separate of themselves; and if they do not, the

former will not act; and although physical life might gain somewhat in force, the moral life would fade away

By the critical examination of a science, or of a portion of it, which constitutes a system by itself, I

understand the inquiry and proof why it must have this and no other systematic form, when we compare it

with another system which is based on a similar faculty of knowledge. Now practical and speculative reason

are based on the same faculty, so far as both are pure reason. Therefore the difference in their systematic form

must be determined by the comparison of both, and the ground of this must be assigned.

The Analytic of pure theoretic reason had to do with the knowledge of such objects as may have been given

to the understanding, and was obliged therefore to begin from intuition and consequently (as this is always

sensible) from sensibility; and only after that could advance to concepts (of the objects of this intuition), and

could only end with principles after both these had preceded. On the contrary, since practical reason has not

to do with objects so as to know them, but with its own faculty of realizing them (in accordance with the

knowledge of them), that is, with a will which is a causality, inasmuch as reason contains its determining

principle; since, consequently, it has not to furnish an object of intuition, but as practical reason has to furnish

only a law (because the notion of causality always implies the reference to a law which determines the

existence of the many in relation to one another); hence a critical examination of the Analytic of reason, if

this is to be practical reason (and this is properly the problem), must begin with the possibility of practical

principles a priori. Only after that can it proceed to concepts of the objects of a practical reason, namely,

those of absolute good and evil, in order to assign them in accordance with those principles (for prior to those

principles they cannot possibly be given as good and evil by any faculty of knowledge), and only then could

the section be concluded with the last chapter, that, namely, which treats of the relation of the pure practical

reason to the sensibility and of its necessary influence thereon, which is a priori cognisable, that is, of the

moral sentiment. Thus the Analytic of the practical pure reason has the whole extent of the conditions of its

use in common with the theoretical, but in reverse order. The Analytic of pure theoretic reason was divided

into transcendental Aesthetic and transcendental Logic, that of the practical reversely into Logic and

Aesthetic of pure practical reason (if I may, for the sake of analogy merely, use these designations, which are

not quite suitable). This logic again was there divided into the Analytic of concepts and that of principles:

here into that of principles and concepts. The Aesthetic also had in the former case two parts, on account of

the two kinds of sensible intuition; here the sensibility is not considered as a capacity of intuition at all, but

merely as feeling (which can be a subjective ground of desire), and in regard to it pure practical reason admits

It is also easy to see the reason why this division into two parts with its subdivision was not actually adopted

here (as one might have been induced to attempt by the example of the former critique). For since it is pure

reason that is here considered in its practical use, and consequently as proceeding from a priori principles,

and not from empirical principles of determination, hence the division of the analytic of pure practical reason

must resemble that of a syllogism; namely, proceeding from the universal in the major premiss (the moral

principle), through a minor premiss containing a subsumption of possible actions (as good or evil) under the

former, to the conclusion, namely, the subjective determination of the will (an interest in the possible

practical good, and in the maxim founded on it). He who has been able to convince himself of the truth of the

positions occurring in the Analytic will take pleasure in such comparisons; for they justly suggest the

expectation that we may perhaps some day be able to discern the unity of the whole faculty of reason

(theoretical as well as practical) and be able to derive all from one principle, which, is what human reason

inevitably demands, as it finds complete satisfaction only in a perfectly systematic unity of its knowledge.

If now we consider also the contents of the knowledge that we can have of a pure practical reason, and by

means of it, as shown by the Analytic, we find, along with a remarkable analogy between it and the

theoretical, no less remarkable differences. As regards the theoretical, the faculty of a pure rational cognition

a priori could be easily and evidently proved by examples from sciences (in which, as they put their

principles to the test in so many ways by methodical use, there is not so much reason as in common

knowledge to fear a secret mixture of empirical principles of cognition). But, that pure reason without the

admixture of any empirical principle is practical of itself, this could only be shown from the commonest

practical use of reason, by verifying the fact, that every man's natural reason acknowledges the supreme

practical principle as the supreme law of his will a law completely a priori and not depending on any

sensible data. It was necessary first to establish and verify the purity of its origin, even in the judgement of

this common reason, before science could take it in hand to make use of it, as a fact, that is, prior to all

disputation about its possibility, and all the consequences that may be drawn from it. But this circumstance

may be readily explained from what has just been said; because practical pure reason must necessarily begin

with principles, which therefore must be the first data, the foundation of all science, and cannot be derived

from it. It was possible to effect this verification of moral principles as principles of a pure reason quite well,

and with sufficient certainty, by a single appeal to the judgement of common sense, for this reason, that

anything empirical which might slip into our maxims as a determining principle of the will can be detected at

once by the feeling of pleasure or pain which necessarily attaches to it as exciting desire; whereas pure

practical reason positively refuses to admit this feeling into its principle as a condition. The heterogeneity of

the determining principles (the empirical and rational) is clearly detected by this resistance of a practically

legislating reason against every admixture of inclination, and by a peculiar kind of sentiment, which,

however, does not precede the legislation of the practical reason, but, on the contrary, is produced by this as a

constraint, namely, by the feeling of a respect such as no man has for inclinations of whatever kind but for the

law only; and it is detected in so marked and prominent a manner that even the most uninstructed cannot fail

to see at once in an example presented to him, that empirical principles of volition may indeed urge him to

follow their attractions, but that he can never be expected to obey anything but the pure practical law of

The distinction between the doctrine of happiness and the doctrine of morality, in the former of which

empirical principles constitute the entire foundation, while in the second they do not form the smallest part of

it, is the first and most important office of the Analytic of pure practical reason; and it must proceed in it with

as much exactness and, so to speak, scrupulousness, as any geometer in his work. The philosopher, however,

has greater difficulties to contend with here (as always in rational cognition by means of concepts merely

without construction), because he cannot take any intuition as a foundation (for a pure noumenon). He has,

however, this advantage that, like the chemist, he can at any time make an experiment with every man's

practical reason for the purpose of distinguishing the moral (pure) principle of determination from the

empirical; namely, by adding the moral law (as a determining principle) to the empirically affected will (e.g.,

that of the man who would be ready to lie because he can gain something thereby). It is as if the analyst

added alkali to a solution of lime in hydrochloric acid, the acid at once forsakes the lime, combines with the

alkali, and the lime is precipitated. just in the same way, if to a man who is otherwise honest (or who for this

occasion places himself only in thought in the position of an honest man), we present the moral law by which

he recognises the worthlessness of the liar, his practical reason (in forming a judgement of what ought to be

done) at once forsakes the advantage, combines with that which maintains in him respect for his own person

(truthfulness), and the advantage after it has been separated and washed from every particle of reason (which

is altogether on the side of duty) is easily weighed by everyone, so that it can enter into combination with

reason in other cases, only not where it could be opposed to the moral law, which reason never forsakes, but

But it does not follow that this distinction between the principle of happiness and that of morality is an

opposition between them, and pure practical reason does not require that we should renounce all claim to

happiness, but only that the moment duty is in question we should take no account of happiness. It may even

in certain respects be a duty to provide for happiness; partly, because (including skill, wealth, riches) it

contains means for the fulfilment of our duty; partly, because the absence of it (e.g., poverty) implies

temptations to transgress our duty. But it can never be an immediate duty to promote our happiness, still less

can it be the principle of all duty. Now, as all determining principles of the will, except the law of pure

practical reason alone (the moral law), are all empirical and, therefore, as such, belong to the principle of

happiness, they must all be kept apart from the supreme principle of morality and never be incorporated with

it as a condition; since this would be to destroy all moral worth just as much as any empirical admixture with

geometrical principles would destroy the certainty of mathematical evidence, which in Plato's opinion is the

Instead, however, of the deduction of the supreme principle of pure practical reason, that is, the explanation

of the possibility of such a knowledge a priori, the utmost we were able to do was to show that if we saw the

possibility of the freedom of an efficient cause, we should also see not merely the possibility, but even the

necessity, of the moral law as the supreme practical law of rational beings, to whom we attribute freedom of

causality of their will; because both concepts are so inseparably united that we might define practical freedom

as independence of the will on anything but the moral law. But we cannot perceive the possibility of the

freedom of an efficient cause, especially in the world of sense; we are fortunate if only we can be sufficiently

assured that there is no proof of its impossibility, and are now, by the moral law which postulates it,

compelled and therefore authorized to assume it. However, there are still many who think that they can

explain this freedom on empirical principles, like any other physical faculty, and treat it as a psychological

property, the explanation of which only requires a more exact study of the nature of the soul and of the

motives of the will, and not as a transcendental predicate of the causality of a being that belongs to the world

of sense (which is really the point). They thus deprive us of the grand revelation which we obtain through

practical reason by means of the moral law, the revelation, namely, of a supersensible world by the

realization of the otherwise transcendent concept of freedom, and by this deprive us also of the moral law

itself, which admits no empirical principle of determination. Therefore it will be necessary to add something

here as a protection against this delusion and to exhibit empiricism in its naked superficiality.

The notion of causality as physical necessity, in opposition to the same notion as freedom, concerns only the

existence of things so far as it is determinable in time, and, consequently, as phenomena, in opposition to

their causality as things in themselves. Now if we take the attributes of existence of things in time for

attributes of things in themselves (which is the common view), then it is impossible to reconcile the necessity

of the causal relation with freedom; they are contradictory. For from the former it follows that every event,

and consequently every action that takes place at a certain point of time, is a necessary result of what existed

in time preceding. Now as time past is no longer in my power, hence every action that I perform must be the

necessary result of certain determining grounds which are not in my power, that is, at the moment in which I

am acting I am never free. Nay, even if I assume that my whole existence is independent on any foreign cause

(for instance, God), so that the determining principles of my causality, and even of my whole existence, were

not outside myself, yet this would not in the least transform that physical necessity into freedom. For at every

moment of time I am still under the necessity of being determined to action by that which is not in my power,

and the series of events infinite a parte priori, which I only continue according to a predetermined order and

could never begin of myself, would be a continuous physical chain, and therefore my causality would never

If, then, we would attribute freedom to a being whose existence is determined in time, we cannot except him

from the law of necessity as to all events in his existence and, consequently, as to his actions also; for that

would be to hand him over to blind chance. Now as this law inevitably applies to all the causality of things,

so far as their existence is determinable in time, it follows that if this were the mode in which we had also to

conceive the existence of these things in themselves, freedom must be rejected as a vain and impossible

conception. Consequently, if we would still save it, no other way remains but to consider that the existence of

a thing, so far as it is determinable in time, and therefore its causality, according to the law of physical

necessity, belong to appearance, and to attribute freedom to the same being as a thing in itself. This is

certainly inevitable, if we would retain both these contradictory concepts together; but in application, when

we try to explain their combination in one and the same action, great difficulties present themselves which

When I say of a man who commits a theft that, by the law of causality, this deed is a necessary result of the

determining causes in preceding time, then it was impossible that it could not have happened; how then can

the judgement, according to the moral law, make any change, and suppose that it could have been omitted,

because the law says that it ought to have been omitted; that is, how can a man be called quite free at the

same moment, and with respect to the same action in which he is subject to an inevitable physical necessity?

Some try to evade this by saying that the causes that determine his causality are of such a kind as to agree

with a comparative notion of freedom. According to this, that is sometimes called a free effect, the

determining physical cause of which lies within the acting thing itself, e.g., that which a projectile performs

when it is in free motion, in which case we use the word freedom, because while it is in flight it is not urged

by anything external; or as we call the motion of a clock a free motion, because it moves its hands itself,

which therefore do not require to be pushed by external force; so although the actions of man are necessarily

determined by causes which precede in time, we yet call them free, because these causes are ideas produced

by our own faculties, whereby desires are evoked on occasion of circumstances, and hence actions are

wrought according to our own pleasure. This is a wretched subterfuge with which some persons still let

themselves be put off, and so think they have solved, with a petty word jugglery, that difficult problem, at

the solution of which centuries have laboured in vain, and which can therefore scarcely be found so

completely on the surface. In fact, in the question about the freedom which must be the foundation of all

moral laws and the consequent responsibility, it does not matter whether the principles which necessarily

determine causality by a physical law reside within the subject or without him, or in the former case whether

these principles are instinctive or are conceived by reason, if, as is admitted by these men themselves, these

determining ideas have the ground of their existence in time and in the antecedent state, and this again in an

antecedent, etc. Then it matters not that these are internal; it matters not that they have a psychological and

not a mechanical causality, that is, produce actions by means of ideas and not by bodily movements; they are

still determining principles of the causality of a being whose existence is determinable in time, and therefore

under the necessitation of conditions of past time, which therefore, when the subject has to act, are no longer

in his power. This may imply psychological freedom (if we choose to apply this term to a merely internal

chain of ideas in the mind), but it involves physical necessity and, therefore, leaves no room for

transcendental freedom, which must be conceived as independence on everything empirical, and,

consequently, on nature generally, whether it is an object of the internal sense considered in time only, or of

the external in time and space. Without this freedom (in the latter and true sense), which alone is practical a

priori, no moral law and no moral imputation are possible. just for this reason the necessity of events in time,

according to the physical law of causality, may be called the mechanism of nature, although we do not mean

by this that things which are subject to it must be really material machines. We look here only to the

necessity of the connection of events in a timeseries as it is developed according to the physical law,

whether the subject in which this development takes place is called automaton materiale when the mechanical

being is moved by matter, or with Leibnitz spirituale when it is impelled by ideas; and if the freedom of our

will were no other than the latter (say the psychological and comparative, not also transcendental, that is,

absolute), then it would at bottom be nothing better than the freedom of a turnspit, which, when once it is

Now, in order to remove in the supposed case the apparent contradiction between freedom and the

mechanism of nature in one and the same action, we must remember what was said in the Critique of Pure

Reason, or what follows therefrom; viz., that the necessity of nature, which cannot coexist with the freedom

of the subject, appertains only to the attributes of the thing that is subject to timeconditions, consequently

only to those of the acting subject as a phenomenon; that therefore in this respect the determining principles

of every action of the same reside in what belongs to past time and is no longer in his power (in which must

be included his own past actions and the character that these may determine for him in his own eyes as a

phenomenon). But the very same subject, being on the other side conscious of himself as a thing in himself,

considers his existence also in so far as it is not subject to timeconditions, and regards himself as only

determinable by laws which he gives himself through reason; and in this his existence nothing is antecedent

to the determination of his will, but every action, and in general every modification of his existence, varying

according to his internal sense, even the whole series of his existence as a sensible being is in the

consciousness of his supersensible existence nothing but the result, and never to be regarded as the

determining principle, of his causality as a noumenon. In this view now the rational being can justly say of

every unlawful action that he performs, that he could very well have left it undone; although as appearance it

is sufficiently determined in the past, and in this respect is absolutely necessary; for it, with all the past which

determines it, belongs to the one single phenomenon of his character which he makes for himself, in

consequence of which he imputes the causality of those appearances to himself as a cause independent of

With this agree perfectly the judicial sentences of that wonderful faculty in us which we call conscience. A

man may use as much art as he likes in order to paint to himself an unlawful act, that he remembers, as an

unintentional error, a mere oversight, such as one can never altogether avoid, and therefore as something in

which he was carried away by the stream of physical necessity, and thus to make himself out innocent, yet he

finds that the advocate who speaks in his favour can by no means silence the accuser within, if only he is

conscious that at the time when he did this wrong he was in his senses, that is, in possession of his freedom;

and, nevertheless, he accounts for his error from some bad habits, which by gradual neglect of attention he

has allowed to grow upon him to such a degree that he can regard his error as its natural consequence,

although this cannot protect him from the blame and reproach which he casts upon himself. This is also the

ground of repentance for a long past action at every recollection of it; a painful feeling produced by the moral

sentiment, and which is practically void in so far as it cannot serve to undo what has been done. (Hence

Priestley, as a true and consistent fatalist, declares it absurd, and he deserves to be commended for this

candour more than those who, while they maintain the mechanism of the will in fact, and its freedom in

words only, yet wish it to be thought that they include it in their system of compromise, although they do not

explain the possibility of such moral imputation.) But the pain is quite legitimate, because when the law of

our intelligible [supersensible] existence (the moral law) is in question, reason recognizes no distinction of

time, and only asks whether the event belongs to me, as my act, and then always morally connects the same

feeling with it, whether it has happened just now or long ago. For in reference to the supersensible

consciousness of its existence (i.e., freedom) the life of sense is but a single phenomenon, which, inasmuch as

it contains merely manifestations of the mental disposition with regard to the moral law (i.e., of the

character), must be judged not according to the physical necessity that belongs to it as phenomenon, but

according to the absolute spontaneity of freedom. It may therefore be admitted that, if it were possible to have

so profound an insight into a man's mental character as shown by internal as well as external actions as to

know all its motives, even the smallest, and likewise all the external occasions that can influence them, we

could calculate a man's conduct for the future with as great certainty as a lunar or solar eclipse; and

nevertheless we may maintain that the man is free. In fact, if we were capable of a further glance, namely, an

intellectual intuition of the same subject (which indeed is not granted to us, and instead of it we have only the

rational concept), then we should perceive that this whole chain of appearances in regard to all that concerns

the moral laws depends on the spontaneity of the subject as a thing in itself, of the determination of which no

physical explanation can be given. In default of this intuition, the moral law assures us of this distinction

between the relation of our actions as appearance to our sensible nature, and the relation of this sensible

nature to the supersensible substratum in us. In this view, which is natural to our reason, though inexplicable,

we can also justify some judgements which we passed with all conscientiousness, and which yet at first sight

seem quite opposed to all equity. There are cases in which men, even with the same education which has been

profitable to others, yet show such early depravity, and so continue to progress in it to years of manhood, that

they are thought to be born villains, and their character altogether incapable of improvement; and

nevertheless they are judged for what they do or leave undone, they are reproached for their faults as guilty;

nay, they themselves (the children) regard these reproaches as well founded, exactly as if in spite of the

hopeless natural quality of mind ascribed to them, they remained just as responsible as any other man. This

could not happen if we did not suppose that whatever springs from a man's choice (as every action

intentionally performed undoubtedly does) has as its foundation a free causality, which from early youth

expresses its character in its manifestations (i.e., actions). These, on account of the uniformity of conduct,

exhibit a natural connection, which however does not make the vicious quality of the will necessary, but on

the contrary, is the consequence of the evil principles voluntarily adopted and unchangeable, which only

make it so much the more culpable and deserving of punishment. There still remains a difficulty in the

combination of freedom with the mechanism of nature in a being belonging to the world of sense; a difficulty

which, even after all the foregoing is admitted, threatens freedom with complete destruction. But with this

danger there is also a circumstance that offers hope of an issue still favourable to freedom; namely, that the

same difficulty presses much more strongly (in fact as we shall presently see, presses only) on the system that

holds the existence determinable in time and space to be the existence of things in themselves; it does not

therefore oblige us to give up our capital supposition of the ideality of time as a mere form of sensible

intuition, and consequently as a mere manner of representation which is proper to the subject as belonging to

the world of sense; and therefore it only requires that this view be reconciled with this idea.

The difficulty is as follows: Even if it is admitted that the supersensible subject can be free with respect to a

given action, although, as a subject also belonging to the world of sense, he is under mechanical conditions

with respect to the same action, still, as soon as we allow that God as universal first cause is also the cause of

the existence of substance (a proposition which can never be given up without at the same time giving up the

notion of God as the Being of all beings, and therewith giving up his all sufficiency, on which everything in

theology depends), it seems as if we must admit that a man's actions have their determining principle in

something which is wholly out of his power namely, in the causality of a Supreme Being distinct from

himself and on whom his own existence and the whole determination of his causality are absolutely

dependent. In point of fact, if a man's actions as belonging to his modifications in time were not merely

modifications of him as appearance, but as a thing in itself, freedom could not be saved. Man would be a

marionette or an automaton, like Vaucanson's, prepared and wound up by the Supreme Artist.

Selfconsciousness would indeed make him a thinking automaton; but the consciousness of his own

spontaneity would be mere delusion if this were mistaken for freedom, and it would deserve this name only in

a comparative sense, since, although the proximate determining causes of its motion and a long series of their

determining causes are internal, yet the last and highest is found in a foreign hand. Therefore I do not see how

those who still insist on regarding time and space as attributes belonging to the existence of things in

themselves, can avoid admitting the fatality of actions; or if (like the otherwise acute Mendelssohn) they

allow them to be conditions necessarily belonging to the existence of finite and derived beings, but not to that

of the infinite Supreme Being, I do not see on what ground they can justify such a distinction, or, indeed, how

they can avoid the contradiction that meets them, when they hold that existence in time is an attribute

necessarily belonging to finite things in themselves, whereas God is the cause of this existence, but cannot be

the cause of time (or space) itself (since this must be presupposed as a necessary a priori condition of the

existence of things); and consequently as regards the existence of these things. His causality must be subject

to conditions and even to the condition of time; and this would inevitably bring in everything contradictory to

the notions of His infinity and independence. On the other hand, it is quite easy for us to draw the distinction

between the attribute of the divine existence of being independent on all timeconditions, and that of a being

of the world of sense, the distinction being that between the existence of a being in itself and that of a thing in

appearance. Hence, if this ideality of time and space is not adopted, nothing remains but Spinozism, in which

space and time are essential attributes of the Supreme Being Himself, and the things dependent on Him

(ourselves, therefore, included) are not substances, but merely accidents inhering in Him; since, if these

things as His effects exist in time only, this being the condition of their existence in themselves, then the

actions of these beings must be simply His actions which He performs in some place and time. Thus,

Spinozism, in spite of the absurdity of its fundamental idea, argues more consistently than the creation theory

can, when beings assumed to be substances, and beings in themselves existing in time, are regarded as effects

of a Supreme Cause, and yet as not [belonging] to Him and His action, but as separate substances.

The abovementioned difficulty is resolved briefly and clearly as follows: If existence in time is a mere

sensible mode of representation belonging to thinking beings in the world and consequently does not apply to

them as things in themselves, then the creation of these beings is a creation of things in themselves, since the

notion of creation does not belong to the sensible form of representation of existence or to causality, but can

only be referred to noumena. Consequently, when I say of beings in the world of sense that they are created, I

so far regard them as noumena. As it would be a contradiction, therefore, to say that God is a creator of

appearances, so also it is a contradiction to say that as creator He is the cause of actions in the world of sense,

and therefore as appearances, although He is the cause of the existence of the acting beings (which are

noumena). If now it is possible to affirm freedom in spite of the natural mechanism of actions as appearances

(by regarding existence in time as something that belongs only to appearances, not to things in themselves),

then the circumstance that the acting beings are creatures cannot make the slightest difference, since creation

concerns their supersensible and not their sensible existence, and, therefore, cannot be regarded as the

determining principle of the appearances. It would be quite different if the beings in the world as things in

themselves existed in time, since in that case the creator of substance would be at the same time the author of

Of so great importance is the separation of time (as well as space) from the existence of things in themselves

It may be said that the solution here proposed involves great difficulty in itself and is scarcely susceptible of a

lucid exposition. But is any other solution that has been attempted, or that may be attempted, easier and more

intelligible? Rather might we say that the dogmatic teachers of metaphysics have shown more shrewdness

than candour in keeping this difficult point out of sight as much as possible, in the hope that if they said

nothing about it, probably no one would think of it. If science is to be advanced, all difficulties must be laid

open, and we must even search for those that are hidden, for every difficulty calls forth a remedy, which

cannot be discovered without science gaining either in extent or in exactness; and thus even obstacles become

means of increasing the thoroughness of science. On the other hand, if the difficulties are intentionally

concealed, or merely removed by palliatives, then sooner or later they burst out into incurable mischiefs,

Since it is, properly speaking, the notion of freedom alone amongst all the ideas of pure speculative reason

that so greatly enlarges our knowledge in the sphere of the supersensible, though only of our practical

knowledge, I ask myself why it exclusively possesses so great fertility, whereas the others only designate the

vacant space for possible beings of the pure understanding, but are unable by any means to define the concept

of them. I presently find that as I cannot think anything without a category, I must first look for a category for

the rational idea of freedom with which I am now concerned; and this is the category of causality; and

although freedom, a concept of the reason, being a transcendent concept, cannot have any intuition

corresponding to it, yet the concept of the understanding for the synthesis of which the former demands the

unconditioned (namely, the concept of causality) must have a sensible intuition given, by which first its

objective reality is assured. Now, the categories are all divided into two classes the mathematical, which

concern the unity of synthesis in the conception of objects, and the dynamical, which refer to the unity of

synthesis in the conception of the existence of objects. The former (those of magnitude and quality) always

contain a synthesis of the homogeneous, and it is not possible to find in this the unconditioned antecedent to

what is given in sensible intuition as conditioned in space and time, as this would itself have to belong to

space and time, and therefore be again still conditioned. Whence it resulted in the Dialectic of Pure Theoretic

Reason that the opposite methods of attaining the unconditioned and the totality of the conditions were both

wrong. The categories of the second class (those of causality and of the necessity of a thing) did not require

this homogeneity (of the conditioned and the condition in synthesis), since here what we have to explain is

not how the intuition is compounded from a manifold in it, but only how the existence of the conditioned

object corresponding to it is added to the existence of the condition (added, namely, in the understanding as

connected therewith); and in that case it was allowable to suppose in the supersensible world the

unconditioned antecedent to the altogether conditioned in the world of sense (both as regards the causal

connection and the contingent existence of things themselves), although this unconditioned remained

indeterminate, and to make the synthesis transcendent. Hence, it was found in the Dialectic of the Pure

Speculative Reason that the two apparently opposite methods of obtaining for the conditioned the

unconditioned were not really contradictory, e.g., in the synthesis of causality to conceive for the conditioned

in the series of causes and effects of the sensible world, a causality which has no sensible condition, and that

the same action which, as belonging to the world of sense, is always sensibly conditioned, that is,

mechanically necessary, yet at the same time may be derived from a causality not sensibly conditioned

being the causality of the acting being as belonging to the supersensible world and may consequently be

conceived as free. Now, the only point in question was to change this may be into is; that is, that we should

be able to show in an actual case, as it were by a fact, that certain actions imply such a causality (namely, the

intellectual, sensibly unconditioned), whether they are actual or only commanded, that is, objectively

necessary in a practical sense. We could not hope to find this connections in actions actually given in

experience as events of the sensible world, since causality with freedom must always be sought outside the

world of sense in the world of intelligence. But things of sense of sense in the world of intelligence. But

things of sense are the only things offered to our perception and observation. Hence, nothing remained but to

find an incontestable objective principle of causality which excludes all sensible conditions: that is, a

principle in which reason does not appeal further to something else as a determining ground of its causality,

but contains this determining ground itself by means of that principle, and in which therefore it is itself as

pure reason practical. Now, this principle had not to be searched for or discovered; it had long been in the

reason of all men, and incorporated in their nature, and is the principle of morality. Therefore, that

unconditioned causality, with the faculty of it, namely, freedom, is no longer merely indefinitely and

problematically thought (this speculative reason could prove to be feasible), but is even as regards the law of

its causality definitely and assertorially known; and with it the fact that a being (I myself), belonging to the

world of sense, belongs also to the supersensible world, this is also positively known, and thus the reality of

the supersensible world is established and in practical respects definitely given, and this definiteness, which

for theoretical purposes would be transcendent, is for practical purposes immanent. We could not, however,

make a similar step as regards the second dynamical idea, namely, that of a necessary being. We could not

rise to it from the sensible world without the aid of the first dynamical idea. For if we attempted to do so, we

should have ventured to leave at a bound all that is given to us, and to leap to that of which nothing is given

us that can help us to effect the connection of such a supersensible being with the world of sense (since the

necessary being would have to be known as given outside ourselves). On the other hand, it is now obvious

that this connection is quite possible in relation to our own subject, inasmuch as I know myself to be on the

one side as an intelligible [supersensible] being determined by the moral law (by means of freedom), and on

the other side as acting in the world of sense. It is the concept of freedom alone that enables us to find the

unconditioned and intelligible for the conditioned and sensible without going out of ourselves. For it is our

own reason that by means of the supreme and unconditional practical law knows that itself and the being that

is conscious of this law (our own person) belong to the pure world of understanding, and moreover defines

the manner in which, as such, it can be active. In this way it can be understood why in the whole faculty of

reason it is the practical reason only that can help us to pass beyond the world of sense and give us

knowledge of a supersensible order and connection, which, however, for this very reason cannot be extended

Let me be permitted on this occasion to make one more remark, namely, that every step that we make with

pure reason, even in the practical sphere where no attention is paid to subtle speculation, nevertheless accords

with all the material points of the Critique of the Theoretical Reason as closely and directly as if each step

had been thought out with deliberate purpose to establish this confirmation. Such a thorough agreement,

wholly unsought for and quite obvious (as anyone can convince himself, if he will only carry moral inquiries

up to their principles), between the most important proposition of practical reason and the often seemingly

too subtle and needless remarks of the Critique of the Speculative Reason, occasions surprise and

astonishment, and confirms the maxim already recognized and praised by others, namely, that in every

scientific inquiry we should pursue our way steadily with all possible exactness and frankness, without caring

for any objections that may be raised from outside its sphere, but, as far as we can, to carry out our inquiry

truthfully and completely by itself. Frequent observation has convinced me that, when such researches are

concluded, that which in one part of them appeared to me very questionable, considered in relation to other

extraneous doctrines, when I left this doubtfulness out of sight for a time and only attended to the business in

hand until it was completed, at last was unexpectedly found to agree perfectly with what had been discovered

separately without the least regard to those doctrines, and without any partiality or prejudice for them.

Authors would save themselves many errors and much labour lost (because spent on a delusion) if they could

Pure reason always has its dialetic, whether it is considered in its speculative or its practical employment; for

it requires the absolute totality of the 'conditions of what is given conditioned, and this can only be found in

things in themselves. But as all conceptions of things in themselves must be referred to intuitions, and with us

men these can never be other than sensible and hence can never enable us to know objects as things in

themselves but only as appearances, and since the unconditioned can never be found in this chain of

appearances which consists only of conditioned and conditions; thus from applying this rational idea of the

totality of the conditions (in other words of the unconditioned) to appearances, there arises an inevitable

illusion, as if these latter were things in themselves (for in the absence of a warning critique they are always

regarded as such). This illusion would never be noticed as delusive if it did not betray itself by a conflict of

reason with itself, when it applies to appearances its fundamental principle of presupposing the unconditioned

to everything conditioned. By this, however, reason is compelled to trace this illusion to its source, and

search how it can be removed, and this can only be done by a complete critical examination of the whole pure

faculty of reason; so that the antinomy of the pure reason which is manifest in its dialectic is in fact the most

beneficial error into which human reason could ever have fallen, since it at last drives us to search for the key

to escape from this labyrinth; and when this key is found, it further discovers that which we did not seek but

yet had need of, namely, a view into a higher and an immutable order of things, in which we even now are,

and in which we are thereby enabled by definite precepts to continue to live according to the highest dictates

It may be seen in detail in the Critique of Pure Reason how in its speculative employment this natural

dialectic is to be solved, and how the error which arises from a very natural illusion may be guarded against.

But reason in its practical use is not a whit better off. As pure practical reason, it likewise seeks to find the

unconditioned for the practically conditioned (which rests on inclinations and natural wants), and this is not

as the determining principle of the will, but even when this is given (in the moral law) it seeks the

unconditioned totality of the object of pure practical reason under the name of the summum bonum.

To define this idea practically, i.e., sufficiently for the maxims of our rational conduct, is the business of

practical wisdom, and this again as a science is philosophy, in the sense in which the word was understood by

the ancients, with whom it meant instruction in the conception in which the summum bonum was to be

placed, and the conduct by which it was to be obtained. It would be well to leave this word in its ancient

signification as a doctrine of the summum bonum, so far as reason endeavours to make this into a science.

For on the one band the restriction annexed would suit the Greek expression (which signifies the love of

wisdom), and yet at the same time would be sufficient to embrace under the name of philosophy the love of

science: that is to say, of all speculative rational knowledge, so far as it is serviceable to reason, both for that

conception and also for the practical principle determining our conduct, without letting out of sight the main

end, on account of which alone it can be called a doctrine of practical wisdom. On the other hand, it would be

no harm to deter the selfconceit of one who ventures to claim the title of philosopher by holding before him

in the very definition a standard of selfestimation which would very much lower his pretensions. For a

teacher of wisdom would mean something more than a scholar who has not come so far as to guide himself,

much less to guide others, with certain expectation of attaining so high an end: it would mean a master in the

knowledge of wisdom, which implies more than a modest man would claim for himself. Thus philosophy as

well as wisdom would always remain an ideal, which objectively is presented complete in reason alone, while

subjectively for the person it is only the goal of his unceasing endeavours; and no one would be justified in

professing to be in possession of it so as to assume the name of philosopher who could not also show its

infallible effects in his own person as an example (in his selfmastery and the unquestioned interest that he

takes preeminently in the general good), and this the ancients also required as a condition of deserving that

We have another preliminary remark to make respecting the dialectic of the pure practical reason, on the

point of the definition of the summum bonum (a successful solution of which dialectic would lead us to

expect, as in case of that of the theoretical reason, the most beneficial effects, inasmuch as the

selfcontradictions of pure practical reason honestly stated, and not concealed, force us to undertake a

The moral law is the sole determining principle of a pure will. But since this is merely formal (viz., as

prescribing only the form of the maxim as universally legislative), it abstracts as a determining principle from

all matter that is to say, from every object of volition. Hence, though the summum bonum may be the whole

object of a pure practical reason, i.e., a pure will, yet it is not on that account to be regarded as its determining

principle; and the moral law alone must be regarded as the principle on which that and its realization or

promotion are aimed at. This remark is important in so delicate a case as the determination of moral

principles, where the slightest misinterpretation perverts men's minds. For it will have been seen from the

Analytic that, if we assume any object under the name of a good as a determining principle of the will prior to

the moral law and then deduce from it the supreme practical principle, this would always introduce

It is, however, evident that if the notion of the summum bonum includes that of the moral law as its supreme

condition, then the summum bonum would not merely be an object, but the notion of it and the conception of

its existence as possible by our own practical reason would likewise be the determining principle of the will,

since in that case the will is in fact determined by the moral law which is already included in this conception,

and by no other object, as the principle of autonomy requires. This order of the conceptions of determination

of the will must not be lost sight of, as otherwise we should misunderstand ourselves and think we had fallen

The conception of the summum itself contains an ambiguity which might occasion needless disputes if we

did not attend to it. The summum may mean either the supreme (supremum) or the perfect (consummatum).

The former is that condition which is itself unconditioned, i.e., is not subordinate to any other (originarium);

the second is that whole which is not a part of a greater whole of the same kind (perfectissimum). It has been

shown in the Analytic that virtue (as worthiness to be happy) is the supreme condition of all that can appear

to us desirable, and consequently of all our pursuit of happiness, and is therefore the supreme good. But it

does not follow that it is the whole and perfect good as the object of the desires of rational finite beings; for

this requires happiness also, and that not merely in the partial eyes of the person who makes himself an end,

but even in the judgement of an impartial reason, which regards persons in general as ends in themselves. For

to need happiness, to deserve it, and yet at the same time not to participate in it, cannot be consistent with the

perfect volition of a rational being possessed at the same time of all power, if, for the sake of experiment, we

conceive such a being. Now inasmuch as virtue and happiness together constitute the possession of the

summum bonum in a person, and the distribution of happiness in exact proportion to morality (which is the

worth of the person, and his worthiness to be happy) constitutes the summum bonum of a possible world;

hence this summum bonum expresses the whole, the perfect good, in which, however, virtue as the condition

is always the supreme good, since it has no condition above it; whereas happiness, while it is pleasant to the

possessor of it, is not of itself absolutely and in all respects good, but always presupposes morally right

When two elements are necessarily united in one concept, they must be connected as reason and

consequence, and this either so that their unity is considered as analytical (logical connection), or as

synthetical (real connection) the former following the law of identity, the latter that of causality. The

connection of virtue and happiness may therefore be understood in two ways: either the endeavour to be

virtuous and the rational pursuit of happiness are not two distinct actions, but absolutely identical, in which

case no maxim need be made the principle of the former, other than what serves for the latter; or the

connection consists in this, that virtue produces happiness as something distinct from the consciousness of

The ancient Greek schools were, properly speaking, only two, and in determining the conception of the

summum bonum these followed in fact one and the same method, inasmuch as they did not allow virtue and

happiness to be regarded as two distinct elements of the summum bonum, and consequently sought the unity

of the principle by the rule of identity; but they differed as to which of the two was to be taken as the

fundamental notion. The Epicurean said: "To be conscious that one's maxims lead to happiness is virtue"; the

Stoic said: "To be conscious of one's virtue is happiness." With the former, Prudence was equivalent to

morality; with the latter, who chose a higher designation for virtue, morality alone was true wisdom.

While we must admire the men who in such early times tried all imaginable ways of extending the domain of

philosophy, we must at the same time lament that their acuteness was unfortunately misapplied in trying to

trace out identity between two extremely heterogeneous notions, those of happiness and virtue. But it agrees

with the dialectical spirit of their times (and subtle minds are even now sometimes misled in the same way) to

get rid of irreconcilable differences in principle by seeking to change them into a mere contest about words,

and thus apparently working out the identity of the notion under different names, and this usually occurs in

cases where the combination of heterogeneous principles lies so deep or so high, or would require so

complete a transformation of the doctrines assumed in the rest of the philosophical system, that men are

afraid to penetrate deeply into the real difference and prefer treating it as a difference in questions of form.

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 52

While both schools sought to trace out the identity of the practical principles of virtue and happiness, they

were not agreed as to the way in which they tried to force this identity, but were separated infinitely from one

another, the one placing its principle on the side of sense, the other on that of reason; the one in the

consciousness of sensible wants, the other in the independence of practical reason on all sensible grounds of

determination. According to the Epicurean, the notion of virtue was already involved in the maxim: "To

promote one's own happiness"; according to the Stoics, on the other hand, the feeling of happiness was

already contained in the consciousness of virtue. Now whatever is contained in another notion is identical

with part of the containing notion, but not with the whole, and moreover two wholes may be specifically

distinct, although they consist of the same parts; namely if the parts are united into a whole in totally different

ways. The Stoic maintained that the virtue was the whole summum bonum, and happiness only the

consciousness of possessing it, as making part of the state of the subject. The Epicurean maintained that

happiness was the whole summum bonum, and virtue only the form of the maxim for its pursuit; viz., the

Now it is clear from the Analytic that the maxims of virtue and those of private happiness are quite

heterogeneous as to their supreme practical principle, and, although they belong to one summum bonum

which together they make possible, yet they are so far from coinciding that they restrict and check one

another very much in the same subject. Thus the question: "How is the summum bonum practically

possible?" still remains an unsolved problem, notwithstanding all the attempts at coalition that have hitherto

been made. The Analytic has, however, shown what it is that makes the problem difficult to solve; namely,

that happiness and morality are two specifically distinct elements of the summum bonum and, therefore, their

combination cannot be analytically cognised (as if the man that seeks his own happiness should find by mere

analysis of his conception that in so acting he is virtuous, or as if the man that follows virtue should in the

consciousness of such conduct find that he is already happy ipso facto), but must be a synthesis of concepts.

Now since this combination is recognised as a priori, and therefore as practically necessary, and consequently

not as derived from experience, so that the possibility of the summum bonum does not rest on any empirical

principle, it follows that the deduction [legitimation] of this concept must be transcendental. It is a priori

(morally) necessary to produce the summum bonum by freedom of will: therefore the condition of its

In the summum bonum which is practical for us, i.e., to be realized by our will, virtue and happiness are

thought as necessarily combined, so that the one cannot be assumed by pure practical reason without the

other also being attached to it. Now this combination (like every other) is either analytical or synthetical. It

bas been shown that it cannot be analytical; it must then be synthetical and, more particularly, must be

conceived as the connection of cause and effect, since it concerns a practical good, i.e., one that is possible by

means of action; consequently either the desire of happiness must be the motive to maxims of virtue, or the

maxim of virtue must be the efficient cause of happiness. The first is absolutely impossible, because (as was

proved in the Analytic) maxims which place the determining principle of the will in the desire of personal

happiness are not moral at all, and no virtue can be founded on them. But the second is also impossible,

because the practical connection of causes and effects in the world, as the result of the determination of the

will, does not depend upon the moral dispositions of the will, but on the knowledge of the laws of nature and

the physical power to use them for one's purposes; consequently we cannot expect in the world by the most

punctilious observance of the moral laws any necessary connection of happiness with virtue adequate to the

summum bonum. Now, as the promotion of this summum bonum, the conception of which contains this

connection, is a priori a necessary object of our will and inseparably attached to the moral law, the

impossibility of the former must prove the falsity of the latter. If then the supreme good is not possible by

practical rules, then the moral law also which commands us to promote it is directed to vain imaginary ends

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 53

The antinomy of pure speculative reason exhibits a similar conflict between freedom and physical necessity

in the causality of events in the world. It was solved by showing that there is no real contradiction when the

events and even the world in which they occur are regarded (as they ought to be) merely as appearances;

since one and the same acting being, as an appearance (even to his own inner sense), has a causality in the

world of sense that always conforms to the mechanism of nature, but with respect to the same events, so far

as the acting person regards himself at the same time as a noumenon (as pure intelligence in an existence not

dependent on the condition of time), he can contain a principle by which that causality acting according to

It is just the same with the foregoing antinomy of pure practical reason. The first of the two propositions,

"That the endeavour after happiness produces a virtuous mind," is absolutely false; but the second, "That a

virtuous mind necessarily produces happiness," is not absolutely false, but only in so far as virtue is

considered as a form of causality in the sensible world, and consequently only if I suppose existence in it to

be the only sort of existence of a rational being; it is then only conditionally false. But as I am not only

justified in thinking that I exist also as a noumenon in a world of the understanding, but even have in the

moral law a purely intellectual determining principle of my causality (in the sensible world), it is not

impossible that morality of mind should have a connection as cause with happiness (as an effect in the

sensible world) if not immediate yet mediate (viz., through an intelligent author of nature), and moreover

necessary; while in a system of nature which is merely an object of the senses, this combination could never

occur except contingently and, therefore, could not suffice for the summum bonum.

Thus, notwithstanding this seeming conflict of practical reason with itself, the summum bonum, which is the

necessary supreme end of a will morally determined, is a true object thereof; for it is practically possible, and

the maxims of the will which as regards their matter refer to it have objective reality, which at first was

threatened by the antinomy that appeared in the connection of morality with happiness by a general law; but

this was merely from a misconception, because the relation between appearances was taken for a relation of

When we find ourselves obliged to go so far, namely, to the connection with an intelligible world, to find the

possibility of the summum bonum, which reason points out to all rational beings as the goal of all their moral

wishes, it must seem strange that, nevertheless, the philosophers both of ancient and modern times have been

able to find happiness in accurate proportion to virtue even in this life (in the sensible world), or have

persuaded themselves that they were conscious thereof. For Epicurus as well as the Stoics extolled above

everything the happiness that springs from the consciousness of living virtuously; and the former was not so

base in his practical precepts as one might infer from the principles of his theory, which he used for

explanation and not for action, or as they were interpreted by many who were misled by his using the term

pleasure for contentment; on the contrary, he reckoned the most disinterested practice of good amongst the

ways of enjoying the most intimate delight, and his scheme of pleasure (by which he meant constant

cheerfulness of mind) included the moderation and control of the inclinations, such as the strictest moral

philosopher might require. He differed from the Stoics chiefly in making this pleasure the motive, which they

very rightly refused to do. For, on the one hand, the virtuous Epicurus, like many wellintentioned men of

this day who do not reflect deeply enough on their principles, fell into the error of presupposing the virtuous

disposition in the persons for whom he wished to provide the springs to virtue (and indeed the upright man

cannot be happy if he is not first conscious of his uprightness; since with such a character the reproach that

his habit of thought would oblige him to make against himself in case of transgression and his moral

selfcondemnation would rob him of all enjoyment of the pleasantness which his condition might otherwise

contain). But the question is: How is such a disposition possible in the first instance, and such a habit of

thought in estimating the worth of one's existence, since prior to it there can be in the subject no feeling at all

for moral worth? If a man is virtuous without being conscious of his integrity in every action, he will

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 54

certainly not enjoy life, however favourable fortune may be to him in its physical circumstances; but can we

make him virtuous in the first instance, in other words, before he esteems the moral worth of his existence so

highly, by praising to him the peace of mind that would result from the consciousness of an integrity for

On the other hand, however, there is here an occasion of a vitium subreptionis, and as it were of an optical

illusion, in the selfconsciousness of what one does as distinguished from what one feels an illusion which

even the most experienced cannot altogether avoid. The moral disposition of mind is necessarily combined

with a consciousness that the will is determined directly by the law. Now the consciousness of a

determination of the faculty of desire is always the source of a satisfaction in the resulting action; but this

pleasure, this satisfaction in oneself, is not the determining principle of the action; on the contrary, the

determination of the will directly by reason is the source of the feeling of pleasure, and this remains a pure

practical not sensible determination of the faculty of desire. Now as this determination has exactly the same

effect within in impelling to activity, that a feeling of the pleasure to be expected from the desired action

would have had, we easily look on what we ourselves do as something which we merely passively feel, and

take the moral spring for a sensible impulse, just as it happens in the socalled illusion of the senses (in this

case the inner sense). It is a sublime thing in human nature to be determined to actions immediately by a

purely rational law; sublime even is the illusion that regards the subjective side of this capacity of intellectual

determination as something sensible and the effect of a special sensible feeling (for an intellectual feeling

would be a contradiction). It is also of great importance to attend to this property of our personality and as

much as possible to cultivate the effect of reason on this feeling. But we must beware lest by falsely extolling

this moral determining principle as a spring, making its source lie in particular feelings of pleasure (which are

in fact only results), we degrade and disfigure the true genuine spring, the law itself, by putting as it were a

false foil upon it. Respect, not pleasure or enjoyment of happiness, is something for which it is not possible

that reason should have any antecedent feeling as its foundation (for this would always be sensible and

pathological); and consciousness of immediate obligation of the will by the law is by no means analogous to

the feeling of pleasure, although in relation to the faculty of desire it produces the same effect, but from

different sources: it is only by this mode of conception, however, that we can attain what we are seeking,

namely, that actions be done not merely in accordance with duty (as a result of pleasant feelings), but from

Have we not, however, a word which does not express enjoyment, as happiness does, but indicates a

satisfaction in one's existence, an analogue of the happiness which must necessarily accompany the

consciousness of virtue? Yes this word is selfcontentment which in its proper signification always

designates only a negative satisfaction in one's existence, in which one is conscious of needing nothing.

Freedom and the consciousness of it as a faculty of following the moral law with unyielding resolution is

independence of inclinations, at least as motives determining (though not as affecting) our desire, and so far

as I am conscious of this freedom in following my moral maxims, it is the only source of an unaltered

contentment which is necessarily connected with it and rests on no special feeling. This may be called

intellectual contentment. The sensible contentment (improperly socalled) which rests on the satisfaction of

the inclinations, however delicate they may be imagined to be, can never be adequate to the conception of it.

For the inclinations change, they grow with the indulgence shown them, and always leave behind a still

greater void than we had thought to fill. Hence they are always burdensome to a rational being, and, although

he cannot lay them aside, they wrest from him the wish to be rid of them. Even an inclination to what is right

(e.g., to beneficence), though it may much facilitate the efficacy of the moral maxims, cannot produce any.

For in these all must be directed to the conception of the law as a determining principle, if the action is to

contain morality and not merely legality. Inclination is blind and slavish, whether it be of a good sort or not,

and, when morality is in question, reason must not play the part merely of guardian to inclination, but

disregarding it altogether must attend simply to its own interest as pure practical reason. This very feeling of

compassion and tender sympathy, if it precedes the deliberation on the question of duty and becomes a

determining principle, is even annoying to right thinking persons, brings their deliberate maxims into

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 55

confusion, and makes them wish to be delivered from it and to be subject to lawgiving reason alone.

From this we can understand how the consciousness of this faculty of a pure practical reason produces by

action (virtue) a consciousness of mastery over one's inclinations, and therefore of independence of them, and

consequently also of the discontent that always accompanies them, and thus a negative satisfaction with one's

state, i.e., contentment, which is primarily contentment with one's own person. Freedom itself becomes in this

way (namely, indirectly) capable of an enjoyment which cannot be called happiness, because it does not

depend on the positive concurrence of a feeling, nor is it, strictly speaking, bliss, since it does not include

complete independence of inclinations and wants, but it resembles bliss in so far as the determination of one's

will at least can hold itself free from their influence; and thus, at least in its origin, this enjoyment is

analogous to the selfsufficiency which we can ascribe only to the Supreme Being.

From this solution of the antinomy of practical pure reason, it follows that in practical principles we may at

least conceive as possible a natural and necessary connection between the consciousness of morality and the

expectation of a proportionate happiness as its result, though it does not follow that we can know or perceive

this connection; that, on the other hand, principles of the pursuit of happiness cannot possibly produce

morality; that, therefore, morality is the supreme good (as the first condition of the summum bonum), while

happiness constitutes its second element, but only in such a way that it is the morally conditioned, but

necessary consequence of the former. Only with this subordination is the summum bonum the whole object

of pure practical reason, which must necessarily conceive it as possible, since it commands us to contribute to

the utmost of our power to its realization. But since the possibility of such connection of the conditioned with

its condition belongs wholly to the supersensual relation of things and cannot be given according to the laws

of the world of sense, although the practical consequences of the idea belong to the world of sense, namely,

the actions that aim at realizing the summum bonum; we will therefore endeavour to set forth the grounds of

that possibility, first, in respect of what is immediately in our power, and then, secondly, in that which is not

in our power, but which reason presents to us as the supplement of our impotence, for the realization of the

By primacy between two or more things connected by reason, I understand the prerogative, belonging to one,

of being the first determining principle in the connection with all the rest. In a narrower practical sense it

means the prerogative of the interest of one in so far as the interest of the other is subordinated to it, while it

is not postponed to any other. To every faculty of the mind we can attribute an interest, that is, a principle,

that contains the condition on which alone the former is called into exercise. Reason, as the faculty of

principles, determines the interest of all the powers of the mind and is determined by its own. The interest of

its speculative employment consists in the cognition of the object pushed to the highest a priori principles:

that of its practical employment, in the determination of the will in respect of the final and complete end. As

to what is necessary for the possibility of any employment of reason at all, namely, that its principles and

affirmations should not contradict one another, this constitutes no part of its interest, but is the condition of

having reason at all; it is only its development, not mere consistency with itself, that is reckoned as its

If practical reason could not assume or think as given anything further than what speculative reason of itself

could offer it from its own insight, the latter would have the primacy. But supposing that it had of itself

original a priori principles with which certain theoretical positions were inseparably connected, while these

were withdrawn from any possible insight of speculative reason (which, however, they must not contradict);

then the question is: Which interest is the superior (not which must give way, for they are not necessarily

conflicting), whether speculative reason, which knows nothing of all that the practical offers for its

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 56

acceptance, should take up these propositions and (although they transcend it) try to unite them with its own

concepts as a foreign possession handed over to it, or whether it is justified in obstinately following its own

separate interest and, according to the canonic of Epicurus, rejecting as vain subtlety everything that cannot

accredit its objective reality by manifest examples to be shown in experience, even though it should be never

so much interwoven with the interest of the practical (pure) use of reason, and in itself not contradictory to

the theoretical, merely because it infringes on the interest of the speculative reason to this extent, that it

removes the bounds which this latter had set to itself, and gives it up to every nonsense or delusion of

In fact, so far as practical reason is taken as dependent on pathological conditions, that is, as merely

regulating the inclinations under the sensible principle of happiness, we could not require speculative reason

to take its principles from such a source. Mohammed's paradise, or the absorption into the Deity of the

theosophists and mystics would press their monstrosities on the reason according to the taste of each, and one

might as well have no reason as surrender it in such fashion to all sorts of dreams. But if pure reason of itself

can be practical and is actually so, as the consciousness of the moral law proves, then it is still only one and

the same reason which, whether in a theoretical or a practical point of view, judges according to a priori

principles; and then it is clear that although it is in the first point of view incompetent to establish certain

propositions positively, which, however, do not contradict it, then, as soon as these propositions are

inseparably attached to the practical interest of pure reason, it must accept them, though it be as something

offered to it from a foreign source, something that has not grown on its own ground, but yet is sufficiently

authenticated; and it must try to compare and connect them with everything that it has in its power as

speculative reason. It must remember, however, that these are not additions to its insight, but yet are

extensions of its employment in another, namely, a practical aspect; and this is not in the least opposed to its

Thus, when pure speculative and pure practical reason are combined in one cognition, the latter has the

primacy, provided, namely, that this combination is not contingent and arbitrary, but founded a priori on

reason itself and therefore necessary. For without this subordination there would arise a conflict of reason

with itself; since, if they were merely coordinate, the former would close its boundaries strictly and admit

nothing from the latter into its domain, while the latter would extend its bounds over everything and when its

needs required would seek to embrace the former within them. Nor could we reverse the order and require

pure practical reason to be subordinate to the speculative, since all interest is ultimately practical, and even

that of speculative reason is conditional, and it is only in the practical employment of reason that it is

The realization of the summum bonum in the world is the necessary object of a will determinable by the

moral law. But in this will the perfect accordance of the mind with the moral law is the supreme condition of

the summum bonum. This then must be possible, as well as its object, since it is contained in the command to

promote the latter. Now, the perfect accordance of the will with the moral law is holiness, a perfection of

which no rational being of the sensible world is capable at any moment of his existence. Since, nevertheless,

it is required as practically necessary, it can only be found in a progress in infinitum towards that perfect

accordance, and on the principles of pure practical reason it is necessary to assume such a practical progress

Now, this endless progress is only possible on the supposition of an endless duration of the existence and

personality of the same rational being (which is called the immortality of the soul). The summum bonum,

then, practically is only possible on the supposition of the immortality of the soul; consequently this

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 57

immortality, being inseparably connected with the moral law, is a postulate of pure practical reason (by

which I mean a theoretical proposition, not demonstrable as such, but which is an inseparable result of an

This principle of the moral destination of our nature, namely, that it is only in an endless progress that we can

attain perfect accordance with the moral law, is of the greatest use, not merely for the present purpose of

supplementing the impotence of speculative reason, but also with respect to religion. In default of it, either

the moral law is quite degraded from its holiness, being made out to be indulgent and conformable to our

convenience, or else men strain their notions of their vocation and their expectation to an unattainable goal,

hoping to acquire complete holiness of will, and so they lose themselves in fanatical theosophic dreams,

which wholly contradict selfknowledge. In both cases the unceasing effort to obey punctually and

thoroughly a strict and inflexible command of reason, which yet is not ideal but real, is only hindered. For a

rational but finite being, the only thing possible is an endless progress from the lower to higher degrees of

moral perfection. The Infinite Being, to whom the condition of time is nothing, sees in this to us endless

succession a whole of accordance with the moral law; and the holiness which his command inexorably

requires, in order to be true to his justice in the share which He assigns to each in the summum bonum, is to

be found in a single intellectual intuition of the whole existence of rational beings. All that can be expected of

the creature in respect of the hope of this participation would be the consciousness of his tried character, by

which from the progress he has hitherto made from the worse to the morally better, and the immutability of

purpose which has thus become known to him, he may hope for a further unbroken continuance of the same,

however long his existence may last, even beyond this life,* and thus he may hope, not indeed here, nor in

any imaginable point of his future existence, but only in the endlessness of his duration (which God alone can

survey) to be perfectly adequate to his will (without indulgence or excuse, which do not harmonize with

*It seems, nevertheless, impossible for a creature to have the conviction of his unwavering firmness of mind

in the progress towards goodness. On this account the Christian religion makes it come only from the same

Spirit that works sanctification, that is, this firm purpose, and with it the consciousness of steadfastness in the

moral progress. But naturally one who is conscious that he has persevered through a long portion of his life

up to the end in the progress to the better, and this genuine moral motives, may well have the comforting

hope, though not the certainty, that even in an existence prolonged beyond this life he will continue in these

principles; and although he is never justified here in his own eyes, nor can ever hope to be so in the increased

perfection of his nature, to which he looks forward, together with an increase of duties, nevertheless in this

progress which, though it is directed to a goal infinitely remote, yet is in God's sight regarded as equivalent to

possession, he may have a prospect of a blessed future; for this is the word that reason employs to designate

perfect wellbeing independent of all contingent causes of the world, and which, like holiness, is an idea that

can be contained only in an endless progress and its totality, and consequently is never fully attained by a

In the foregoing analysis the moral law led to a practical problem which is prescribed by pure reason alone,

without the aid of any sensible motives, namely, that of the necessary completeness of the first and principle

element of the summum bonum, viz., morality; and, as this can be perfectly solved only in eternity, to the

postulate of immortality. The same law must also lead us to affirm the possibility of the second element of

the summum bonum, viz., happiness proportioned to that morality, and this on grounds as disinterested as

before, and solely from impartial reason; that is, it must lead to the supposition of the existence of a cause

adequate to this effect; in other words, it must postulate the existence of God, as the necessary condition of

the possibility of the summum bonum (an object of the will which is necessarily connected with the moral

legislation of pure reason). We proceed to exhibit this connection in a convincing manner.

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 58

Happiness is the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything goes according to his wish

and will; it rests, therefore, on the harmony of physical nature with his whole end and likewise with the

essential determining principle of his will. Now the moral law as a law of freedom commands by determining

principles, which ought to be quite independent of nature and of its harmony with our faculty of desire (as

springs). But the acting rational being in the world is not the cause of the world and of nature itself. There is

not the least ground, therefore, in the moral law for a necessary connection between morality and

proportionate happiness in a being that belongs to the world as part of it, and therefore dependent on it, and

which for that reason cannot by his will be a cause of this nature, nor by his own power make it thoroughly

harmonize, as far as his happiness is concerned, with his practical principles. Nevertheless, in the practical

problem of pure reason, i.e., the necessary pursuit of the summum bonum, such a connection is postulated as

necessary: we ought to endeavour to promote the summum bonum, which, therefore, must be possible.

Accordingly, the existence of a cause of all nature, distinct from nature itself and containing the principle of

this connection, namely, of the exact harmony of happiness with morality, is also postulated. Now this

supreme cause must contain the principle of the harmony of nature, not merely with a law of the will of

rational beings, but with the conception of this law, in so far as they make it the supreme determining

principle of the will, and consequently not merely with the form of morals, but with their morality as their

motive, that is, with their moral character. Therefore, the summum bonum is possible in the world only on the

supposition of a Supreme Being having a causality corresponding to moral character. Now a being that is

capable of acting on the conception of laws is an intelligence (a rational being), and the causality of such a

being according to this conception of laws is his will; therefore the supreme cause of nature, which must be

presupposed as a condition of the summum bonum is a being which is the cause of nature by intelligence and

will, consequently its author, that is God. It follows that the postulate of the possibility of the highest derived

good (the best world) is likewise the postulate of the reality of a highest original good, that is to say, of the

existence of God. Now it was seen to be a duty for us to promote the summum bonum; consequently it is not

merely allowable, but it is a necessity connected with duty as a requisite, that we should presuppose the

possibility of this summum bonum; and as this is possible only on condition of the existence of God, it

inseparably connects the supposition of this with duty; that is, it is morally necessary to assume the existence

It must be remarked here that this moral necessity is subjective, that is, it is a want, and not objective, that is,

itself a duty, for there cannot be a duty to suppose the existence of anything (since this concerns only the

theoretical employment of reason). Moreover, it is not meant by this that it is necessary to suppose the

existence of God as a basis of all obligation in general (for this rests, as has been sufficiently proved, simply

on the autonomy of reason itself). What belongs to duty here is only the endeavour to realize and promote the

summum bonum in the world, the possibility of which can therefore be postulated; and as our reason finds it

not conceivable except on the supposition of a supreme intelligence, the admission of this existence is

therefore connected with the consciousness of our duty, although the admission itself belongs to the domain

of speculative reason. Considered in respect of this alone, as a principle of explanation, it may be called a

hypothesis, but in reference to the intelligibility of an object given us by the moral law (the summum bonum),

and consequently of a requirement for practical purposes, it may be called faith, that is to say a pure rational

faith, since pure reason (both in its theoretical and practical use) is the sole source from which it springs.

From this deduction it is now intelligible why the Greek schools could never attain the solution of their

problem of the practical possibility of the summum bonum, because they made the rule of the use which the

will of man makes of his freedom the sole and sufficient ground of this possibility, thinking that they had no

need for that purpose of the existence of God. No doubt they were so far right that they established the

principle of morals of itself independently of this postulate, from the relation of reason only to the will, and

consequently made it the supreme practical condition of the summum bonum; but it was not therefore the

whole condition of its possibility. The Epicureans had indeed assumed as the supreme principle of morality a

wholly false one, namely that of happiness, and had substituted for a law a maxim of arbitrary choice

according to every man's inclination; they proceeded, however, consistently enough in this, that they

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 59

degraded their summum bonum likewise, just in proportion to the meanness of their fundamental principle,

and looked for no greater happiness than can be attained by human prudence (including temperance and

moderation of the inclinations), and this as we know would be scanty enough and would be very different

according to circumstances; not to mention the exceptions that their maxims must perpetually admit and

which make them incapable of being laws. The Stoics, on the contrary, had chosen their supreme practical

principle quite rightly, making virtue the condition of the summum bonum; but when they represented the

degree of virtue required by its pure law as fully attainable in this life, they not only strained the moral

powers of the man whom they called the wise beyond all the limits of his nature, and assumed a thing that

contradicts all our knowledge of men, but also and principally they would not allow the second element of the

summum bonum, namely, happiness, to be properly a special object of human desire, but made their wise

man, like a divinity in his consciousness of the excellence of his person, wholly independent of nature (as

regards his own contentment); they exposed him indeed to the evils of life, but made him not subject to them

(at the same time representing him also as free from moral evil). They thus, in fact, left out the second

element of the summum bonum namely, personal happiness, placing it solely in action and satisfaction with

one's own personal worth, thus including it in the consciousness of being morally minded, in which they

The doctrine of Christianity,* even if we do not yet consider it as a religious doctrine, gives, touching this

point, a conception of the summum bonum (the kingdom of God), which alone satisfies the strictest demand

of practical reason. The moral law is holy (unyielding) and demands holiness of morals, although all the

moral perfection to which man can attain is still only virtue, that is, a rightful disposition arising from respect

for the law, implying consciousness of a constant propensity to transgression, or at least a want of purity, that

is, a mixture of many spurious (not moral) motives of obedience to the law, consequently a selfesteem

combined with humility. In respect, then, of the holiness which the Christian law requires, this leaves the

creature nothing but a progress in infinitum, but for that very reason it justifies him in hoping for an endless

duration of his existence. The worth of a character perfectly accordant with the moral law is infinite, since the

only restriction on all possible happiness in the judgement of a wise and all powerful distributor of it is the

absence of conformity of rational beings to their duty. But the moral law of itself does not promise any

happiness, for according to our conceptions of an order of nature in general, this is not necessarily connected

with obedience to the law. Now Christian morality supplies this defect (of the second indispensable element

of the summum bonum) by representing the world in which rational beings devote themselves with all their

soul to the moral law, as a kingdom of God, in which nature and morality are brought into a harmony foreign

to each of itself, by a holy Author who makes the derived summum bonum possible. Holiness of life is

prescribed to them as a rule even in this life, while the welfare proportioned to it, namely, bliss, is represented

as attainable only in an eternity; because the former must always be the pattern of their conduct in every state,

and progress towards it is already possible and necessary in this life; while the latter, under the name of

happiness, cannot be attained at all in this world (so far as our own power is concerned), and therefore is

made simply an object of hope. Nevertheless, the Christian principle of morality itself is not theological (so

as to be heteronomy), but is autonomy of pure practical reason, since it does not make the knowledge of God

and His will the foundation of these laws, but only of the attainment of the summum bonum, on condition of

following these laws, and it does not even place the proper spring of this obedience in the desired results, but

solely in the conception of duty, as that of which the faithful observance alone constitutes the worthiness to

*It is commonly held that the Christian precept of morality has no advantage in respect of purity over the

moral conceptions of the Stoics; the distinction between them is, however, very obvious. The Stoic system

made the consciousness of strength of mind the pivot on which all moral dispositions should turn; and

although its disciples spoke of duties and even defined them very well, yet they placed the spring and proper

determining principle of the will in an elevation of the mind above the lower springs of the senses, which owe

their power only to weakness of mind. With them therefore, virtue was a sort of heroism in the wise man

raising himself above the animal nature of man, is sufficient for Himself, and, while he prescribes duties to

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 60

others, is himself raised above them, and is not subject to any temptation to transgress the moral law. All this,

however, they could not have done if they had conceived this law in all its purity and strictness, as the precept

of the Gospel does. When I give the name idea to a perfection to which nothing adequate can be given in

experience, it does not follow that the moral ideas are thing transcendent, that is something of which we

could not even determine the concept adequately, or of which it is uncertain whether there is any object

corresponding to it at all, as is the case with the ideas of speculative reason; on the contrary, being types of

practical perfection, they serve as the indispensable rule of conduct and likewise as the standard of

comparison. Now if I consider Christian morals on their philosophical side, then compared with the ideas of

the Greek schools, they would appear as follows: the ideas of the Cynics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the

Christians are: simplicity of nature, prudence, wisdom, and holiness. In respect of the way of attaining them,

the Greek schools were distinguished from one another thus that the Cynics only required common sense, the

others the path of science, but both found the mere use of natural powers sufficient for the purpose. Christian

morality, because its precept is framed (as a moral precept must be) so pure and unyielding, takes from man

all confidence that be can be fully adequate to it, at least in this life, but again sets it up by enabling us to

hope that if we act as well as it is in our power to do, then what is not in our power will come in to our aid

from another source, whether we know how this may be or not. Aristotle and Plato differed only as to the

In this manner, the moral laws lead through the conception of the summum bonum as the object and final end

of pure practical reason to religion, that is, to the recognition of all duties as divine commands, not as

sanctions, that is to say, arbitrary ordinances of a foreign and contingent in themselves, but as essential laws

of every free will in itself, which, nevertheless, must be regarded as commands of the Supreme Being,

because it is only from a morally perfect (holy and good) and at the same time allpowerful will, and

consequently only through harmony with this will, that we can hope to attain the summum bonum which the

moral law makes it our duty to take as the object of our endeavours. Here again, then, all remains

disinterested and founded merely on duty; neither fear nor hope being made the fundamental springs, which if

taken as principles would destroy the whole moral worth of actions. The moral law commands me to make

the highest possible good in a world the ultimate object of all my conduct. But I cannot hope to effect this

otherwise than by the harmony of my will with that of a holy and good Author of the world; and although the

conception of the summum bonum as a whole, in which the greatest happiness is conceived as combined in

the most exact proportion with the highest degree of moral perfection (possible in creatures), includes my

own happiness, yet it is not this that is the determining principle of the will which is enjoined to promote the

summum bonum, but the moral law, which, on the contrary, limits by strict conditions my unbounded desire

Hence also morality is not properly the doctrine how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should

become worthy of happiness. It is only when religion is added that there also comes in the hope of

participating some day in happiness in proportion as we have endeavoured to be not unworthy of it.

A man is worthy to possess a thing or a state when his possession of it is in harmony with the summum

bonum. We can now easily see that all worthiness depends on moral conduct, since in the conception of the

summum bonum this constitutes the condition of the rest (which belongs to one's state), namely, the

participation of happiness. Now it follows from this that morality should never be treated as a doctrine of

happiness, that is, an instruction how to become happy; for it has to do simply with the rational condition

(conditio sine qua non) of happiness, not with the means of attaining it. But when morality has been

completely expounded (which merely imposes duties instead of providing rules for selfish desires), then first,

after the moral desire to promote the summum bonum (to bring the kingdom of God to us) has been

awakened, a desire founded on a law, and which could not previously arise in any selfish mind, and when for

the behoof of this desire the step to religion has been taken, then this ethical doctrine may be also called a

doctrine of happiness because the hope of happiness first begins with religion only.

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 61

We can also see from this that, when we ask what is God's ultimate end in creating the world, we must not

name the happiness of the rational beings in it, but the summum bonum, which adds a further condition to

that wish of such beings, namely, the condition of being worthy of happiness, that is, the morality of these

same rational beings, a condition which alone contains the rule by which only they can hope to share in the

former at the hand of a wise Author. For as wisdom, theoretically considered, signifies the knowledge of the

summum bonum and, practically, the accordance of the will with the summum bonum, we cannot attribute to

a supreme independent wisdom an end based merely on goodness. For we cannot conceive the action of this

goodness (in respect of the happiness of rational beings) as suitable to the highest original good, except under

the restrictive conditions of harmony with the holiness* of his will. Therefore, those who placed the end of

creation in the glory of God (provided that this is not conceived anthropomorphically as a desire to be

praised) have perhaps hit upon the best expression. For nothing glorifies God more than that which is the

most estimable thing in the world, respect for his command, the observance of the holy duty that his law

imposes on us, when there is added thereto his glorious plan of crowning such a beautiful order of things with

corresponding happiness. If the latter (to speak humanly) makes Him worthy of love, by the former He is an

object of adoration. Even men can never acquire respect by benevolence alone, though they may gain love, so

that the greatest beneficence only procures them honour when it is regulated by worthiness.

*In order to make these characteristics of these conceptions clear, I add the remark that whilst we ascribe to

God various attributes, the quality of which we also find applicable to creatures, only that in Him they are

raised to the highest degree, e.g., power, knowledge, presence, goodness, etc., under the designations of

omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc., there are three that are ascribed to God exclusively, and yet

without the addition of greatness, and which are all moral He is the only holy, the only blessed, the only wise,

because these conceptions already imply the absence of limitation. In the order of these attributes He is also

the holy lawgiver (and creator), the good governor (and preserver) and the just judge, three attributes which

include everything by which God is the object of religion, and in conformity with which the metaphysical

That in the order of ends, man (and with him every rational being) is an end in himself, that is, that he can

never be used merely as a means by any (not even by God) without being at the same time an end also

himself, that therefore humanity in our person must be holy to ourselves, this follows now of itself because he

is the subject of the moral law, in other words, of that which is holy in itself, and on account of which and in

agreement with which alone can anything be termed holy. For this moral law is founded on the autonomy of

his will, as a free will which by its universal laws must necessarily be able to agree with that to which it is to

They all proceed from the principle of morality, which is not a postulate but a law, by which reason

determines the will directly, which will, because it is so determined as a pure will, requires these necessary

conditions of obedience to its precept. These postulates are not theoretical dogmas but, suppositions

practically necessary; while then they do [not] extend our speculative knowledge, they give objective reality

to the ideas of speculative reason in general (by means of their reference to what is practical), and give it a

right to concepts, the possibility even of which it could not otherwise venture to affirm.

These postulates are those of immortality, freedom positively considered (as the causality of a being so far as

he belongs to the intelligible world), and the existence of God. The first results from the practically necessary

condition of a duration adequate to the complete fulfilment of the moral law; the second from the necessary

supposition of independence of the sensible world, and of the faculty of determining one's will according to

the law of an intelligible world, that is, of freedom; the third from the necessary condition of the existence of

the summum bonum in such an intelligible world, by the supposition of the supreme independent good, that

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 62

Thus the fact that respect for the moral law necessarily makes the summum bonum an object of our

endeavours, and the supposition thence resulting of its objective reality, lead through the postulates of

practical reason to conceptions which speculative reason might indeed present as problems, but could never

solve. Thus it leads: 1. To that one in the solution of which the latter could do nothing but commit

paralogisms (namely, that of immortality), because it could not lay hold of the character of permanence, by

which to complete the psychological conception of an ultimate subject necessarily ascribed to the soul in

selfconsciousness, so as to make it the real conception of a substance, a character which practical reason

furnishes by the postulate of a duration required for accordance with the moral law in the summum bonum,

which is the whole end of practical reason. 2. It leads to that of which speculative reason contained nothing

but antinomy, the solution of which it could only found on a notion Problematically conceivable indeed, but

whose objective reality it could not prove or determine, namely, the cosmological idea of an intelligible

world and the consciousness of our existence in it, by means of the postulate of freedom (the reality of which

it lays down by virtue of the moral law), and with it likewise the law of an intelligible world, to which

speculative reason could only point, but could not define its conception. 3. What speculative reason was able

to think, but was obliged to leave undetermined as a mere transcendental ideal, viz., the theological

conception of the first Being, to this it gives significance (in a practical view, that is, as a condition of the

possibility of the object of a will determined by that law), namely, as the supreme principle of the summum

bonum in an intelligible world, by means of moral legislation in it invested with sovereign power.

Is our knowledge, however, actually extended in this way by pure practical reason, and is that immanent in

practical reason which for the speculative was only transcendent? Certainly, but only in a practical point of

view. For we do not thereby take knowledge of the nature of our souls, nor of the intelligible world, nor of

the Supreme Being, with respect to what they are in themselves, but we have merely combined the

conceptions of them in the practical concept of the summum bonum as the object of our will, and this

altogether a priori, but only by means of the moral law, and merely in reference to it, in respect of the object

which it commands. But how freedom is possible, and how we are to conceive this kind of causality

theoretically and positively, is not thereby discovered; but only that there is such a causality is postulated by

the moral law and in its behoof. It is the same with the remaining ideas, the possibility of which no human

intelligence will ever fathom, but the truth of which, on the other hand, no sophistry will ever wrest from the

In order not to be too abstract, we will answer this question at once in its application to the present case. In

order to extend a pure cognition practically, there must be an a priori purpose given, that is, an end as object

(of the will), which independently of all theological principle is presented as practically necessary by an

imperative which determines the will directly (a categorical imperative), and in this case that is the summum

bonum. This, however, is not possible without presupposing three theoretical conceptions (for which, because

they are mere conceptions of pure reason, no corresponding intuition can be found, nor consequently by the

path of theory any objective reality); namely, freedom, immortality, and God. Thus by the practical law

which commands the existence of the highest good possible in a world, the possibility of those objects of

pure speculative reason is postulated, and the objective reality which the latter could not assure them. By this

the theoretical knowledge of pure reason does indeed obtain an accession; but it consists only in this, that

those concepts which otherwise it had to look upon as problematical (merely thinkable) concepts, are now

shown assertorially to be such as actually have objects; because practical reason indispensably requires their

existence for the possibility of its object, the summum bonum, which practically is absolutely necessary, and

this justifies theoretical reason in assuming them. But this extension of theoretical reason is no extension of

speculative, that is, we cannot make any positive use of it in a theoretical point of view. For as nothing is

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 63

accomplished in this by practical reason, further than that these concepts are real and actually have their

(possible) objects, and nothing in the way of intuition of them is given thereby (which indeed could not be

demanded), hence the admission of this reality does not render any synthetical proposition possible.

Consequently, this discovery does not in the least help us to extend this knowledge of ours in a speculative

point of view, although it does in respect of the practical employment of pure reason. The above three ideas

of speculative reason are still in themselves not cognitions; they are however (transcendent) thoughts, in

which there is nothing impossible. Now, by help of an apodeictic practical law, being necessary conditions of

that which it commands to be made an object, they acquire objective reality; that is, we learn from it that they

have objects, without being able to point out how the conception of them is related to an object, and this, too,

is still not a cognition of these objects; for we cannot thereby form any synthetical judgement about them, nor

determine their application theoretically; consequently, we can make no theoretical rational use of them at all,

in which use all speculative knowledge of reason consists. Nevertheless, the theoretical knowledge, not

indeed of these objects, but of reason generally, is so far enlarged by this, that by the practical postulates

objects were given to those ideas, a merely problematical thought having by this means first acquired

objective reality. There is therefore no extension of the knowledge of given supersensible objects, but an

extension of theoretical reason and of its knowledge in respect of the supersensible generally; inasmuch as it

is compelled to admit that there are such objects, although it is not able to define them more closely, so as

itself to extend this knowledge of the objects (which have now been given it on practical grounds, and only

for practical use). For this accession, then, pure theoretical reason, for which all those ideas are transcendent

and without object, has simply to thank its practical faculty. In this they become immanent and constitutive,

being the source of the possibility of realizing the necessary object of pure practical reason (the summum

bonum); whereas apart from this they are transcendent, and merely regulative principles of speculative

reason, which do not require it to assume a new object beyond experience, but only to bring its use in

experience nearer to completeness. But when once reason is in possession of this accession, it will go to work

with these ideas as speculative reason (properly only to assure the certainty of its practical use) in a negative

manner: that is, not extending but clearing up its knowledge so as on one side to keep off anthropomorphism,

as the source of superstition, or seeming extension of these conceptions by supposed experience; and on the

other side fanaticism, which promises the same by means of supersensible intuition or feelings of the like

kind. All these are hindrances to the practical use of pure reason, so that the removal of them may certainly

be considered an extension of our knowledge in a practical point of view, without contradicting the admission

Every employment of reason in respect of an object requires pure concepts of the understanding (categories),

without which no object can be conceived. These can be applied to the theoretical employment of reason, i.e.,

to that kind of knowledge, only in case an intuition (which is always sensible) is taken as a basis, and

therefore merely in order to conceive by means of them an object of possible experience. Now here what

have to be thought by means of the categories in order to be known are ideas of reason, which cannot be

given in any experience. Only we are not here concerned with the theoretical knowledge of the objects of

these ideas, but only with this, whether they have objects at all. This reality is supplied by pure practical

reason, and theoretical reason has nothing further to do in this but to think those objects by means of

categories. This, as we have elsewhere clearly shown, can be done well enough without needing any intuition

(either sensible or supersensible) because the categories have their seat and origin in the pure understanding,

simply as the faculty of thought, before and independently of any intuition, and they always only signify an

object in general, no matter in what way it may be given to us. Now when the categories are to be applied to

these ideas, it is not possible to give them any object in intuition; but that such an object actually exists, and

consequently that the category as a mere form of thought is here not empty but has significance, this is

sufficiently assured them by an object which practical reason presents beyond doubt in the concept of the

summum bonum, the reality of the conceptions which are required for the possibility of the summum bonum;

without, however, effecting by this accession the least extension of our knowledge on theoretical principles.

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 64

When these ideas of God, of an intelligible world (the kingdom of God), and of immortality are further

determined by predicates taken from our own nature, we must not regard this determination as a sensualizing

of those pure rational ideas (anthropomorphism), nor as a transcendent knowledge of supersensible objects;

for these predicates are no others than understanding and will, considered too in the relation to each other in

which they must be conceived in the moral law, and therefore, only so far as a pure practical use is made of

them. As to all the rest that belongs to these conceptions psychologically, that is, so far as we observe these

faculties of ours empirically in their exercise (e.g., that the understanding of man is discursive, and its notions

therefore not intuitions but thoughts, that these follow one another in time, that his will has its satisfaction

always dependent on the existence of its object, etc., which cannot be the case in the Supreme Being), from

all this we abstract in that case, and then there remains of the notions by which we conceive a pure

intelligence nothing more than just what is required for the possibility of conceiving a moral law. There is

then a knowledge of God indeed, but only for practical purposes, and, if we attempt to extend it to a

theoretical knowledge, we find an understanding that has intuitions, not thoughts, a will that is directed to

objects on the existence of which its satisfaction does not in the least depend (not to mention the

transcendental predicates, as, for example, a magnitude of existence, that is duration, which, however, is not

in time, the only possible means we have of conceiving existence as magnitude). Now these are all attributes

of which we can form no conception that would help to the knowledge of the object, and we learn from this

that they can never be used for a theory of supersensible beings, so that on this side they are quite incapable

of being the foundation of a speculative knowledge, and their use is limited simply to the practice of the

This last is so obvious, and can be proved so clearly by fact, that we may confidently challenge all pretended

natural theologians (a singular name)* to specify (over and above the merely ontological predicates) one

single attribute, whether of the understanding or of the will, determining this object of theirs, of which we

could not show incontrovertibly that, if we abstract from it everything anthropomorphic, nothing would

remain to us but the mere word, without our being able to connect with it the smallest notion by which we

could hope for an extension of theoretical knowledge. But as to the practical, there still remains to us of the

attributes of understanding and will the conception of a relation to which objective reality is given by the

practical law (which determines a priori precisely this relation of the understanding to the will). When once

this is done, then reality is given to the conception of the object of a will morally determined (the conception

of the summum bonum), and with it to the conditions of its possibility, the ideas of God, freedom, and

immortality, but always only relatively to the practice of the moral law (and not for any speculative purpose).

*Learning is properly only the whole content of the historical sciences. Consequently it is only the teacher of

revealed theology that can be called a learned theologian. If, however, we choose to call a man learned who is

in possession of the rational sciences (mathematics and philosophy), although even this would be contrary to

the signification of the word (which always counts as learning only that which one must be "learned" and

which, therefore, he cannot discover of himself by reason), even in that case the philosopher would make too

poor a figure with his knowledge of God as a positive science to let himself be called on that account a

According to these remarks it is now easy to find the answer to the weighty question whether the notion of

God is one belonging to physics (and therefore also to metaphysics, which contains the pure a priori

principles of the former in their universal import) or to morals. If we have recourse to God as the Author of

all things, in order to explain the arrangements of nature or its changes, this is at least not a physical

explanation, and is a complete confession that our philosophy has come to an end, since we are obliged to

assume something of which in itself we have otherwise no conception, in order to be able to frame a

conception of the possibility of what we see before our eyes. Metaphysics, however, cannot enable us to

attain by certain inference from the knowledge of this world to the conception of God and to the proof of His

existence, for this reason, that in order to say that this world could be produced only by a God (according to

the conception implied by this word) we should know this world as the most perfect whole possible; and for

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 65

this purpose should also know all possible worlds (in order to be able to compare them with this); in other

words, we should be omniscient. It is absolutely impossible, however, to know the existence of this Being

from mere concepts, because every existential proposition, that is, every proposition that affirms the existence

of a being of which I frame a concept, is a synthetic proposition, that is, one by which I go beyond that

conception and affirm of it more than was thought in the conception itself; namely, that this concept in the

understanding has an object corresponding to it outside the understanding, and this it is obviously impossible

to elicit by any reasoning. There remains, therefore, only one single process possible for reason to attain this

knowledge, namely, to start from the supreme principle of its pure practical use (which in every case is

directed simply to the existence of something as a consequence of reason) and thus determine its object. Then

its inevitable problem, namely, the necessary direction of the will to the summum bonum, discovers to us not

only the necessity of assuming such a First Being in reference to the possibility of this good in the world, but,

what is most remarkable, something which reason in its progress on the path of physical nature altogether

failed to find, namely, an accurately defined conception of this First Being. As we can know only a small part

of this world, and can still less compare it with all possible worlds, we may indeed from its order, design, and

greatness, infer a wise, good, powerful, etc., Author of it, but not that He is allwise, allgood, allpowerful,

etc. It may indeed very well be granted that we should be justified in supplying this inevitable defect by a

legitimate and reasonable hypothesis; namely, that when wisdom, goodness, etc, are displayed in all the parts

that offer themselves to our nearer knowledge, it is just the same in all the rest, and that it would therefore be

reasonable to ascribe all possible perfections to the Author of the world, but these are not strict logical

inferences in which we can pride ourselves on our insight, but only permitted conclusions in which we may

be indulged and which require further recommendation before we can make use of them. On the path of

empirical inquiry then (physics), the conception of God remains always a conception of the perfection of the

First Being not accurately enough determined to be held adequate to the conception of Deity. (With

When I now try to test this conception by reference to the object of practical reason, I find that the moral

principle admits as possible only the conception of an Author of the world possessed of the highest

perfection. He must be omniscient, in order to know my conduct up to the inmost root of my mental state in

all possible cases and into all future time; omnipotent, in order to allot to it its fitting consequences; similarly

He must be omnipresent, eternal, etc. Thus the moral law, by means of the conception of the summum bonum

as the object of a pure practical reason, determines the concept of the First Being as the Supreme Being; a

thing which the physical (and in its higher development the metaphysical), in other words, the whole

speculative course of reason, was unable to effect. The conception of God, then, is one that belongs originally

not to physics, i.e., to speculative reason, but to morals. The same may be said of the other conceptions of

In the history of Grecian philosophy we find no distinct traces of a pure rational theology earlier than

Anaxagoras; but this is not because the older philosophers had not intelligence or penetration enough to raise

themselves to it by the path of speculation, at least with the aid of a thoroughly reasonable hypothesis. What

could have been easier, what more natural, than the thought which of itself occurs to everyone, to assume

instead of several causes of the world, instead of an indeterminate degree of perfection, a single rational cause

having all perfection? But the evils in the world seemed to them to be much too serious objections to allow

them to feel themselves justified in such a hypothesis. They showed intelligence and penetration then in this

very point, that they did not allow themselves to adopt it, but on the contrary looked about amongst natural

causes to see if they could not find in them the qualities and power required for a First Being. But when this

acute people had advanced so far in their investigations of nature as to treat even moral questions

philosophically, on which other nations had never done anything but talk, then first they found a new and

practical want, which did not fail to give definiteness to their conception of the First Being: and in this the

speculative reason played the part of spectator, or at best had the merit of embellishing a conception that had

not grown on its own ground, and of applying a series of confirmations from the study of nature now brought

forward for the first time, not indeed to strengthen the authority of this conception (which was already

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 66

established), but rather to make a show with a supposed discovery of theoretical reason.

From these remarks, the reader of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason will be thoroughly convinced how

highly necessary that laborious deduction of the categories was, and how fruitful for theology and morals. For

if, on the one hand, we place them in pure understanding, it is by this deduction alone that we can be

prevented from regarding them, with Plato, as innate, and founding on them extravagant pretensions to

theories of the supersensible, to which we can see no end, and by which we should make theology a magic

lantern of chimeras; on the other hand, if we regard them as acquired, this deduction saves us from restricting,

with Epicurus, all and every use of them, even for practical purposes, to the objects and motives of the senses.

But now that the Critique has shown by that deduction, first, that they are not of empirical origin, but have

their seat and source a priori in the pure understanding; secondly, that as they refer to objects in general

independently of the intuition of them, hence, although they cannot effect theoretical knowledge, except in

application to empirical objects, yet when applied to an object given by pure practical reason they enable us

to conceive the supersensible definitely, only so far, however, as it is defined by such predicates as are

necessarily connected with the pure practical purpose given a priori and with its possibility. The speculative

restriction of pure reason and its practical extension bring it into that relation of equality in which reason in

general can be employed suitably to its end, and this example proves better than any other that the path to

wisdom, if it is to be made sure and not to be impassable or misleading, must with us men inevitably pass

through science; but it is not till this is complete that we can be convinced that it leads to this goal.

A want or requirement of pure reason in its speculative use leads only to a hypothesis; that of pure practical

reason to a postulate; for in the former case I ascend from the result as high as I please in the series of causes,

not in order to give objective reality to the result (e.g., the causal connection of things and changes in the

world), but in order thoroughly to satisfy my inquiring reason in respect of it. Thus I see before me order and

design in nature, and need not resort to speculation to assure myself of their reality, but to explain them I

have to presuppose a Deity as their cause; and then since the inference from an effect to a definite cause is

always uncertain and doubtful, especially to a cause so precise and so perfectly defined as we have to

conceive in God, hence the highest degree of certainty to which this presupposition can be brought is that it

is the most rational opinion for us men.* On the other hand, a requirement of pure practical reason is based

on a duty, that of making something (the summum bonum) the object of my will so as to promote it with all

my powers; in which case I must suppose its possibility and, consequently, also the conditions necessary

thereto, namely, God, freedom, and immortality; since I cannot prove these by my speculative reason,

although neither can I refute them. This duty is founded on something that is indeed quite independent of

these suppositions and is of itself apodeictically certain, namely, the moral law; and so far it needs no further

support by theoretical views as to the inner constitution of things, the secret final aim of the order of the

world, or a presiding ruler thereof, in order to bind me in the most perfect manner to act in unconditional

conformity to the law. But the subjective effect of this law, namely, the mental disposition conformed to it

and made necessary by it, to promote the practically possible summum bonum, this presupposes at least that

the latter is possible, for it would be practically impossible to strive after the object of a conception which at

bottom was empty and had no object. Now the abovementioned postulates concern only the physical or

metaphysical conditions of the possibility of the summum bonum; in a word, those which lie in the nature of

things; not, however, for the sake of an arbitrary speculative purpose, but of a practically necessary end of a

pure rational will, which in this case does not choose, but obeys an inexorable command of reason, the

foundation of which is objective, in the constitution of things as they must be universally judged by pure

reason, and is not based on inclination; for we are in nowise justified in assuming, on account of what we

wish on merely subjective grounds, that the means thereto are possible or that its object is real. This, then, is

an absolutely necessary requirement, and what it presupposes is not merely justified as an allowable

hypothesis, but as a postulate in a practical point of view; and admitting that the pure moral law inexorably

binds every man as a command (not as a rule of prudence), the righteous man may say: "I will that there be a

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 67

God, that my existence in this world be also an existence outside the chain of physical causes and in a pure

world of the understanding, and lastly, that my duration be endless; I firmly abide by this, and will not let this

faith be taken from me; for in this instance alone my interest, because I must not relax anything of it,

inevitably determines my judgement, without regarding sophistries, however unable I may be to answer them

*But even here we should not be able to allege a requirement of reason, if we had not before our eyes a

problematical, but yet inevitable, conception of reason, namely, that of an absolutely necessary being. This

conception now seeks to be defined, and this, in addition to the tendency to extend itself, is the objective

ground of a requirement of speculative reason, namely, to have a more precise definition of the conception of

a necessary being which is to serve as the first cause of other beings, so as to make these latter knowable by

some means. Without such antecedent necessary problems there are no requirements at least not of pure

*[2] In the Deutsches Museum, February, 1787, there is a dissertation by a very subtle and clearheaded

man, the late Wizenmann, whose early death is to be lamented, in which he disputes the right to argue from a

want to the objective reality of its object, and illustrates the point by the example of a man in love, who

having fooled himself into an idea of beauty, which is merely a chimera of his own brain, would fain

conclude that such an object really exists somewhere. I quite agree with him in this, in all cases where the

want is founded on inclination, which cannot necessarily postulate the existence of its object even for the man

that is affected by it, much less can it contain a demand valid for everyone, and therefore it is merely a

subjective ground of the wish. But in the present case we have a want of reason springing from an objective

determining principle of the will, namely, the moral law, which necessarily binds every rational being, and

therefore justifies him in assuming a priori in nature the conditions proper for it, and makes the latter

inseparable from the complete practical use of reason. It is a duty to realize the summum bonum to the utmost

of our power, therefore it must be possible, consequently it is unavoidable for every rational being in the

world to assume what is necessary for its objective possibility. The assumption is as necessary as the moral

In order to prevent misconception in the use of a notion as yet so unusual as that of a faith of pure practical

reason, let me be permitted to add one more remark. It might almost seem as if this rational faith were here

announced as itself a command, namely, that we should assume the summum bonum as possible. But a faith

that is commanded is nonsense. Let the preceding analysis, however, be remembered of what is required to be

supposed in the conception of the summum bonum, and it will be seen that it cannot be commanded to

assume this possibility, and no practical disposition of mind is required to admit it; but that speculative reason

must concede it without being asked, for no one can affirm that it is impossible in itself that rational beings in

the world should at the same time be worthy of happiness in conformity with the moral law and also possess

this happiness proportionately. Now in respect of the first element of the summum bonum, namely, that

which concerns morality, the moral law gives merely a command, and to doubt the possibility of that element

would be the same as to call in question the moral law itself. But as regards the second element of that object,

namely, happiness perfectly proportioned to that worthiness, it is true that there is no need of a command to

admit its possibility in general, for theoretical reason has nothing to say against it; but the manner in which

we have to conceive this harmony of the laws of nature with those of freedom has in it something in respect

of which we have a choice, because theoretical reason decides nothing with apodeictic certainty about it, and

I had said above that in a mere course of nature in the world an accurate correspondence between happiness

and moral worth is not to be expected and must be regarded as impossible, and that therefore the possibility

of the summum bonum cannot be admitted from this side except on the supposition of a moral Author of the

world. I purposely reserved the restriction of this judgement to the subjective conditions of our reason, in

order not to make use of it until the manner of this belief should be defined more precisely. The fact is that

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 68

the impossibility referred to is merely subjective, that is, our reason finds it impossible for it to render

conceivable in the way of a mere course of nature a connection so exactly proportioned and so thoroughly

adapted to an end, between two sets of events happening according to such distinct laws; although, as with

everything else in nature that is adapted to an end, it cannot prove, that is, show by sufficient objective

Now, however, a deciding principle of a different kind comes into play to turn the scale in this uncertainty of

speculative reason. The command to promote the summum bonum is established on an objective basis (in

practical reason); the possibility of the same in general is likewise established on an objective basis (in

theoretical reason, which has nothing to say against it). But reason cannot decide objectively in what way we

are to conceive this possibility; whether by universal laws of nature without a wise Author presiding over

nature, or only on supposition of such an Author. Now here there comes in a subjective condition of reason,

the only way theoretically possible for it, of conceiving the exact harmony of the kingdom of nature with the

kingdom of morals, which is the condition of the possibility of the summum bonum; and at the same time the

only one conducive to morality (which depends on an objective law of reason). Now since the promotion of

this summum bonum, and therefore the supposition of its possibility, are objectively necessary (though only

as a result of practical reason), while at the same time the manner in which we would conceive it rests with

our own choice, and in this choice a free interest of pure practical reason decides for the assumption of a wise

Author of the world; it is clear that the principle that herein determines our judgement, though as a want it is

subjective, yet at the same time being the means of promoting what is objectively (practically) necessary, is

the foundation of a maxim of belief in a moral point of view, that is, a faith of pure practical reason. This,

then, is not commanded, but being a voluntary determination of our judgement, conducive to the moral

(commanded) purpose, and moreover harmonizing with the theoretical requirement of reason, to assume that

existence and to make it the foundation of our further employment of reason, it has itself sprung from the

moral disposition of mind; it may therefore at times waver even in the welldisposed, but can never be

IX. Of the Wise Adaptation of Man's Cognitive Faculties to his Practical Destination.

If human nature is destined to endeavour after the summum bonum, we must suppose also that the measure of

its cognitive faculties, and particularly their relation to one another, is suitable to this end. Now the Critique

of Pure Speculative Reason proves that this is incapable of solving satisfactorily the most weighty problems

that are proposed to it, although it does not ignore the natural and important hints received from the same

reason, nor the great steps that it can make to approach to this great goal that is set before it, which, however,

it can never reach of itself, even with the help of the greatest knowledge of nature. Nature then seems here to

have provided us only in a stepmotherly fashion with the faculty required for our end.

Suppose, now, that in this matter nature had conformed to our wish and had given us that capacity of

discernment or that enlightenment which we would gladly possess, or which some imagine they actually

possess, what would in all probability be the consequence? Unless our whole nature were at the same time

changed, our inclinations, which always have the first word, would first of all demand their own satisfaction,

and, joined with rational reflection, the greatest possible and most lasting satisfaction, under the name of

happiness; the moral law would afterwards speak, in order to keep them within their proper bounds, and even

to subject them all to a higher end, which has no regard to inclination. But instead of the conflict that the

moral disposition has now to carry on with the inclinations, in which, though after some defeats, moral

strength of mind may be gradually acquired, God and eternity with their awful majesty would stand

unceasingly before our eyes (for what we can prove perfectly is to us as certain as that of which we are

assured by the sight of our eyes). Transgression of the law, would, no doubt, be avoided; what is commanded

would be done; but the mental disposition, from which actions ought to proceed, cannot be infused by any

command, and in this case the spur of action is ever active and external, so that reason has no need to exert

itself in order to gather strength to resist the inclinations by a lively representation of the dignity of the law:

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 69

hence most of the actions that conformed to the law would be done from fear, a few only from hope, and

none at all from duty, and the moral worth of actions, on which alone in the eyes of supreme wisdom the

worth of the person and even that of the world depends, would cease to exist. As long as the nature of man

remains what it is, his conduct would thus be changed into mere mechanism, in which, as in a puppetshow,

everything would gesticulate well, but there would be no life in the figures. Now, when it is quite otherwise

with us, when with all the effort of our reason we have only a very obscure and doubtful view into the future,

when the Governor of the world allows us only to conjecture his existence and his majesty, not to behold

them or prove them clearly; and on the other hand, the moral law within us, without promising or threatening

anything with certainty, demands of us disinterested respect; and only when this respect has become active

and dominant, does it allow us by means of it a prospect into the world of the supersensible, and then only

with weak glances: all this being so, there is room for true moral disposition, immediately devoted to the law,

and a rational creature can become worthy of sharing in the summum bonum that corresponds to the worth of

his person and not merely to his actions. Thus what the study of nature and of man teaches us sufficiently

elsewhere may well be true here also; that the unsearchable wisdom by which we exist is not less worthy of

By the methodology of pure practical reason we are not to understand the mode of proceeding with pure

practical principles (whether in study or in exposition), with a view to a scientific knowledge of them, which

alone is what is properly called method elsewhere in theoretical philosophy (for popular knowledge requires a

manner, science a method, i.e., a process according to principles of reason by which alone the manifold of

any branch of knowledge can become a system). On the contrary, by this methodology is understood the

mode in which we can give the laws of pure practical reason access to the human mind and influence on its

maxims, that is, by which we can make the objectively practical reason subjectively practical also.

Now it is clear enough that those determining principles of the will which alone make maxims properly moral

and give them a moral worth, namely, the direct conception of the law and the objective necessity of obeying

it as our duty, must be regarded as the proper springs of actions, since otherwise legality of actions might be

produced, but not morality of character. But it is not so clear; on the contrary, it must at first sight seem to

every one very improbable that even subjectively that exhibition of pure virtue can have more power over the

human mind, and supply a far stronger spring even for effecting that legality of actions, and can produce

more powerful resolutions to prefer the law, from pure respect for it, to every other consideration, than all the

deceptive allurements of pleasure or of all that may be reckoned as happiness, or even than all threatenings of

pain and misfortune. Nevertheless, this is actually the case, and if human nature were not so constituted, no

mode of presenting the law by roundabout ways and indirect recommendations would ever produce morality

of character. All would be simple hypocrisy; the law would be hated, or at least despised, while it was

followed for the sake of one's own advantage. The letter of the law (legality) would be found in our actions,

but not the spirit of it in our minds (morality); and as with all our efforts we could not quite free ourselves

from reason in our judgement, we must inevitably appear in our own eyes worthless, depraved men, even

though we should seek to compensate ourselves for this mortification before the inner tribunal, by enjoying

the pleasure that a supposed natural or divine law might be imagined to have connected with it a sort of

police machinery, regulating its operations by what was done without troubling itself about the motives for

It cannot indeed be denied that in order to bring an uncultivated or degraded mind into the track of moral

goodness some preparatory guidance is necessary, to attract it by a view of its own advantage, or to alarm it

by fear of loss; but as soon as this mechanical work, these leadingstrings have produced some effect, then

we must bring before the mind the pure moral motive, which, not only because it is the only one that can be

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 70

the foundation of a character (a practically consistent habit of mind with unchangeable maxims), but also

because it teaches a man to feel his own dignity, gives the mind a power unexpected even by himself, to tear

himself from all sensible attachments so far as they would fain have the rule, and to find a rich compensation

for the sacrifice he offers, in the independence of his rational nature and the greatness of soul to which he

sees that he is destined. We will therefore show, by such observations as every one can make, that this

property of our minds, this receptivity for a pure moral interest, and consequently the moving force of the

pure conception of virtue, when it is properly applied to the human heart, is the most powerful spring and,

when a continued and punctual observance of moral maxims is in question, the only spring of good conduct.

It must, however, be remembered that if these observations only prove the reality of such a feeling, but do not

show any moral improvement brought about by it, this is no argument against the only method that exists of

making the objectively practical laws of pure reason subjectively practical, through the mere force of the

conception of duty; nor does it prove that this method is a vain delusion. For as it has never yet come into

vogue, experience can say nothing of its results; one can only ask for proofs of the receptivity for such

springs, and these I will now briefly present, and then sketch the method of founding and cultivating genuine

When we attend to the course of conversation in mixed companies, consisting not merely of learned persons

and subtle reasoners, but also of men of business or of women, we observe that, besides storytelling and

jesting, another kind of entertainment finds a place in them, namely, argument; for stories, if they are to have

novelty and interest, are soon exhausted, and jesting is likely to become insipid. Now of all argument there is

none in which persons are more ready to join who find any other subtle discussion tedious, none that brings

more liveliness into the company, than that which concerns the moral worth of this or that action by which

the character of some person is to be made out. Persons, to whom in other cases anything subtle and

speculative in theoretical questions is dry and irksome, presently join in when the question is to make out the

moral import of a good or bad action that has been related, and they display an exactness, a refinement, a

subtlety, in excogitating everything that can lessen the purity of purpose, and consequently the degree of

virtue in it, which we do not expect from them in any other kind of speculation. In these criticisms, persons

who are passing judgement on others often reveal their own character: some, in exercising their judicial

office, especially upon the dead, seem inclined chiefly to defend the goodness that is related of this or that

deed against all injurious charges of insincerity, and ultimately to defend the whole moral worth of the person

against the reproach of dissimulation and secret wickedness; others, on the contrary, turn their thoughts more

upon attacking this worth by accusation and fault finding. We cannot always, however, attribute to these

latter the intention of arguing away virtue altogether out of all human examples in order to make it an empty

name; often, on the contrary, it is only wellmeant strictness in determining the true moral import of actions

according to an uncompromising law. Comparison with such a law, instead of with examples, lowers

selfconceit in moral matters very much, and not merely teaches humility, but makes every one feel it when

he examines himself closely. Nevertheless, we can for the most part observe, in those who defend the purity

of purpose in giving examples that where there is the presumption of uprightness they are anxious to remove

even the least spot, lest, if all examples had their truthfulness disputed, and if the purity of all human virtue

were denied, it might in the end be regarded as a mere phantom, and so all effort to attain it be made light of

I do not know why the educators of youth have not long since made use of this propensity of reason to enter

with pleasure upon the most subtle examination of the practical questions that are thrown up; and why they

have not, after first laying the foundation of a purely moral catechism, searched through the biographies of

ancient and modern times with the view of having at hand instances of the duties laid down, in which,

especially by comparison of similar actions under different circumstances, they might exercise the critical

judgement of their scholars in remarking their greater or less moral significance. This is a thing in which they

would find that even early youth, which is still unripe for speculation of other kinds, would soon Become

very acute and not a little interested, because it feels the progress of its faculty of judgement; and, what is

most important, they could hope with confidence that the frequent practice of knowing and approving good

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 71

conduct in all its purity, and on the other hand of remarking with regret or contempt the least deviation from

it, although it may be pursued only as a sport in which children may compete with one another, yet will leave

a lasting impression of esteem on the one hand and disgust on the other; and so, by the mere habit of looking

on such actions as deserving approval or blame, a good foundation would be laid for uprightness in the future

course of life. Only I wish they would spare them the example of socalled noble (supermeritorious) actions,

in which our sentimental books so much abound, and would refer all to duty merely, and to the worth that a

man can and must give himself in his own eyes by the consciousness of not having transgressed it, since

whatever runs up into empty wishes and longings after inaccessible perfection produces mere heroes of

romance, who, while they pique themselves on their feeling for transcendent greatness, release themselves in

return from the observance of common and everyday obligations, which then seem to them petty and

*It is quite proper to extol actions that display a great, unselfish, sympathizing mind or humanity. But, in this

case, we must fix attention not so much on the elevation of soul, which is very fleeting and transitory, as on

the subjection of the heart to duty, from which a more enduring impression may be expected, because this

implies principle (whereas the former only implies ebullitions). One need only reflect a little and he will

always find a debt that he has by some means incurred towards the human race (even if it were only this, by

the inequality of men in the civil constitution, enjoys advantages on account of which others must be the

more in want), which will prevent the thought of duty from being repressed by the selfcomplacent

But if it is asked: "What, then, is really pure morality, by which as a touchstone we must test the moral

significance of every action," then I must admit that it is only philosophers that can make the decision of this

question doubtful, for to common sense it has been decided long ago, not indeed by abstract general

formulae, but by habitual use, like the distinction between the right and left hand. We will then point out the

criterion of pure virtue in an example first, and, imagining that it is set before a boy, of say ten years old, for

his judgement, we will see whether he would necessarily judge so of himself without being guided by his

teacher. Tell him the history of an honest man whom men want to persuade to join the calumniators of an

innocent and powerless person (say Anne Boleyn, accused by Henry VIII of England). He is offered

advantages, great gifts, or high rank; he rejects them. This will excite mere approbation and applause in the

mind of the hearer. Now begins the threatening of loss. Amongst these traducers are his best friends, who

now renounce his friendship; near kinsfolk, who threaten to disinherit him (he being without fortune);

powerful persons, who can persecute and harass him in all places and circumstances; a prince, who threatens

him with loss of freedom, yea, loss of life. Then to fill the measure of suffering, and that he may feel the pain

that only the morally good heart can feel very deeply, let us conceive his family threatened with extreme

distress and want, entreating him to yield; conceive himself, though upright, yet with feelings not hard or

insensible either to compassion or to his own distress; conceive him, I say, at the moment when he wishes

that he had never lived to see the day that exposed him to such unutterable anguish, yet remaining true to his

uprightness of purpose, without wavering or even doubting; then will my youthful hearer be raised gradually

from mere approval to admiration, from that to amazement, and finally to the greatest veneration, and a lively

wish that be himself could be such a man (though certainly not in such circumstances). Yet virtue is here

worth so much only because it costs so much, not because it brings any profit. All the admiration, and even

the endeavour to resemble this character, rest wholly on the purity of the moral principle, which can only be

strikingly shown by removing from the springs of action everything that men may regard as part of

happiness. Morality, then, must have the more power over the human heart the more purely it is exhibited.

Whence it follows that, if the law of morality and the image of holiness and virtue are to exercise any

influence at all on our souls, they can do so only so far as they are laid to heart in their purity as motives,

unmixed with any view to prosperity, for it is in suffering that they display themselves most nobly. Now that

whose removal strengthens the effect of a moving force must have been a hindrance, consequently every

admixture of motives taken from our own happiness is a hindrance to the influence of the moral law on the

heart. I affirm further that even in that admired action, if the motive from which it was done was a high

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 72

regard for duty, then it is just this respect for the law that has the greatest influence on the mind of the

spectator, not any pretension to a supposed inward greatness of mind or noble meritorious sentiments;

consequently duty, not merit, must have not only the most definite, but, when it is represented in the true light

It is more necessary than ever to direct attention to this method in our times, when men hope to produce more

effect on the mind with soft, tender feelings, or highflown, puffingup pretensions, which rather wither the

heart than strengthen it, than by a plain and earnest representation of duty, which is more suited to human

imperfection and to progress in goodness. To set before children, as a pattern, actions that are called noble,

magnanimous, meritorious, with the notion of captivating them by infusing enthusiasm for such actions, is to

defeat our end. For as they are still so backward in the observance of the commonest duty, and even in the

correct estimation of it, this means simply to make them fantastical romancers betimes. But, even with the

instructed and experienced part of mankind, this supposed spring has, if not an injurious, at least no genuine,

All feelings, especially those that are to produce unwonted exertions, must accomplish their effect at the

moment they are at their height and before the calm down; otherwise they effect nothing; for as there was

nothing to strengthen the heart, but only to excite it, it naturally returns to its normal moderate tone and, thus,

falls back into its previous languor. Principles must be built on conceptions; on any other basis there can only

be paroxysms, which can give the person no moral worth, nay, not even confidence in himself, without which

the highest good in man, consciousness of the morality of his mind and character, cannot exist. Now if these

conceptions are to become subjectively practical, we must not rest satisfied with admiring the objective law

of morality, and esteeming it highly in reference to humanity, but we must consider the conception of it in

relation to man as an individual, and then this law appears in a form indeed that is highly deserving of

respect, but not so pleasant as if it belonged to the element to which he is naturally accustomed; but on the

contrary as often compelling him to quit this element, not without selfdenial, and to betake himself to a

higher, in which he can only maintain himself with trouble and with unceasing apprehension of a relapse. In a

word, the moral law demands obedience, from duty not from predilection, which cannot and ought not to be

Let us now see, in an example, whether the conception of an action, as a noble and magnanimous one, has

more subjective moving power than if the action is conceived merely as duty in relation to the solemn law of

morality. The action by which a man endeavours at the greatest peril of life to rescue people from shipwreck,

at last losing his life in the attempt, is reckoned on one side as duty, but on the other and for the most part as a

meritorious action, but our esteem for it is much weakened by the notion of duty to himself which seems in

this case to be somewhat infringed. More decisive is the magnanimous sacrifice of life for the safety of one's

country; and yet there still remains some scruple whether it is a perfect duty to devote one's self to this

purpose spontaneously and unbidden, and the action has not in itself the full force of a pattern and impulse to

imitation. But if an indispensable duty be in question, the transgression of which violates the moral law itself,

and without regard to the welfare of mankind, and as it were tramples on its holiness (such as are usually

called duties to God, because in Him we conceive the ideal of holiness in substance), then we give our most

perfect esteem to the pursuit of it at the sacrifice of all that can have any value for the dearest inclinations,

and we find our soul strengthened and elevated by such an example, when we convince ourselves by

contemplation of it that human nature is capable of so great an elevation above every motive that nature can

oppose to it. Juvenal describes such an example in a climax which makes the reader feel vividly the force of

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 73

*[Juvenal, Satirae, "Be you a good soldier, a faithful tutor, an uncorrupted umpire also; if you are summoned

as a witness in a doubtful and uncertain thing, though Phalaris should command that you should be false, and

should dictate perjuries with the bull brought to you, believe it the highest impiety to prefer life to reputation,

When we can bring any flattering thought of merit into our action, then the motive is already somewhat

alloyed with selflove and has therefore some assistance from the side of the sensibility. But to postpone

everything to the holiness of duty alone, and to be conscious that we can because our own reason recognises

this as its command and says that we ought to do it, this is, as it were, to raise ourselves altogether above the

world of sense, and there is inseparably involved in the same a consciousness of the law, as a spring of a

faculty that controls the sensibility; and although this is not always attended with effect, yet frequent

engagement with this spring, and the at first minor attempts at using it, give hope that this effect may be

wrought, and that by degrees the greatest, and that a purely moral interest in it may be produced in us.

The method then takes the following course. At first we are only concerned to make the judging of actions by

moral laws a natural employment accompanying all our own free actions, as well as the observation of those

of others, and to make it as it were a habit, and to sharpen this judgement, asking first whether the action

conforms objectively to the moral law, and to what law; and we distinguish the law that merely furnishes a

principle of obligation from that which is really obligatory (leges obligandi a legibus obligantibus); as, for

instance, the law of what men's wants require from me, as contrasted with that which their rights demand, the

latter of which prescribes essential, the former only nonessential duties; and thus we teach how to

distinguish different kinds of duties which meet in the same action. The other point to which attention must

be directed is the question whether the action was also (subjectively) done for the sake of the moral law, so

that it not only is morally correct as a deed, but also, by the maxim from which it is done, has moral worth as

a disposition. Now there is no doubt that this practice, and the resulting culture of our reason in judging

merely of the practical, must gradually produce a certain interest even in the law of reason, and consequently

in morally good actions. For we ultimately take a liking for a thing, the contemplation of which makes us feel

that the use of our cognitive faculties is extended; and this extension is especially furthered by that in which

we find moral correctness, since it is only in such an order of things that reason, with its faculty of

determining a priori on principle what ought to be done, can find satisfaction. An observer of nature takes

liking at last to objects that at first offended his senses, when he discovers in them the great adaptation of

their organization to design, so that his reason finds food in its contemplation. So Leibnitz spared an insect

that he had carefully examined with the microscope, and replaced it on its leaf, because he had found himself

But this employment of the faculty of judgement, which makes us feel our own cognitive powers, is not yet

the interest in actions and in their morality itself. It merely causes us to take pleasure in engaging in such

criticism, and it gives to virtue or the disposition that conforms to moral laws a form of beauty, which is

admired, but not on that account sought after (laudatur et alget); as everything the contemplation of which

produces a consciousness of the harmony of our powers of conception, and in which we feel the whole of our

faculty of knowledge (understanding and imagination) strengthened, produces a satisfaction, which may also

be communicated to others, while nevertheless the existence of the object remains indifferent to us, being

only regarded as the occasion of our becoming aware of the capacities in us which are elevated above mere

animal nature. Now, however, the second exercise comes in, the living exhibition of morality of character by

examples, in which attention is directed to purity of will, first only as a negative perfection, in so far as in an

action done from duty no motives of inclination have any influence in determining it. By this the pupil's

attention is fixed upon the consciousness of his freedom, and although this renunciation at first excites a

feeling of pain, nevertheless, by its withdrawing the pupil from the constraint of even real wants, there is

proclaimed to him at the same time a deliverance from the manifold dissatisfaction in which all these wants

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum". 74

entangle him, and the mind is made capable of receiving the sensation of satisfaction from other sources. The

heart is freed and lightened of a burden that always secretly presses on it, when instances of pure moral

resolutions reveal to the man an inner faculty of which otherwise he has no right knowledge, the inward

freedom to release himself from the boisterous importunity of inclinations, to such a degree that none of

them, not even the dearest, shall have any influence on a resolution, for which we are now to employ our

reason. Suppose a case where I alone know that the wrong is on my side, and although a free confession of it

and the offer of satisfaction are so strongly opposed by vanity, selfishness, and even an otherwise not

illegitimate antipathy to the man whose rights are impaired by me, I am nevertheless able to discard all these

considerations; in this there is implied a consciousness of independence on inclinations and circumstances,

and of the possibility of being sufficient for myself, which is salutary to me in general for other purposes also.

And now the law of duty, in consequence of the positive worth which obedience to it makes us feel, finds

easier access through the respect for ourselves in the consciousness of our freedom. When this is well

established, when a man dreads nothing more than to find himself, on selfexamination, worthless and

contemptible in his own eyes, then every good moral disposition can be grafted on it, because this is the best,

nay, the only guard that can keep off from the mind the pressure of ignoble and corrupting motives.

I have only intended to point out the most general maxims of the methodology of moral cultivation and

exercise. As the manifold variety of duties requires special rules for each kind, and this would be a prolix

affair, I shall be readily excused if in a work like this, which is only preliminary, I content myself with these

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily

we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within. I have not to search for them and

conjecture them as though they were veiled in darkness or were in the transcendent region beyond my

horizon; I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of my existence. The former

begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense, and enlarges my connection therein to an

unbounded extent with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into limitless times of

their periodic motion, its beginning and continuance. The second begins from my invisible self, my

personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only by the

understanding, and with which I discern that I am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary

connection, as I am also thereby with all those visible worlds. The former view of a countless multitude of

worlds annihilates as it were my importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time

provided with vital power, one knows not how, must again give back the matter of which it was formed to the

planet it inhabits (a mere speck in the universe). The second, on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth as

an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and

even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as may be inferred from the destination assigned to my

existence by this law, a destination not restricted to conditions and limits of this life, but reaching into the

But though admiration and respect may excite to inquiry, they cannot supply the want of it. What, then, is to

be done in order to enter on this in a useful manner and one adapted to the loftiness of the subject? Examples

may serve in this as a warning and also for imitation. The contemplation of the world began from the noblest

spectacle that the human senses present to us, and that our understanding can bear to follow in their vast

reach; and it ended in astrology. Morality began with the noblest attribute of human nature, the development

and cultivation of which give a prospect of infinite utility; and ended in fanaticism or superstition. So it is

with all crude attempts where the principal part of the business depends on the use of reason, a use which

does not come of itself, like the use of the feet, by frequent exercise, especially when attributes are in

question which cannot be directly exhibited in common experience. But after the maxim had come into

vogue, though late, to examine carefully beforehand all the steps that reason purposes to take, and not to let it

proceed otherwise than in the track of a previously well considered method, then the study of the structure of

the universe took quite a different direction, and thereby attained an incomparably happier result. The fall of a

stone, the motion of a sling, resolved into their elements and the forces that are manifested in them, and

treated mathematically, produced at last that clear and henceforward unchangeable insight into the system of

the world which, as observation is continued, may hope always to extend itself, but need never fear to be

This example may suggest to us to enter on the same path in treating of the moral capacities of our nature,

and may give us hope of a like good result. We have at hand the instances of the moral judgement of reason.

By analysing these into their elementary conceptions, and in default of mathematics adopting a process

similar to that of chemistry, the separation of the empirical from the rational elements that may be found in

them, by repeated experiments on common sense, we may exhibit both pure, and learn with certainty what

each part can accomplish of itself, so as to prevent on the one hand the errors of a still crude untrained

judgement, and on the other hand (what is far more necessary) the extravagances of genius, by which, as by

the adepts of the philosopher's stone, without any methodical study or knowledge of nature, visionary

treasures are promised and the true are thrown away. In one word, science (critically undertaken and

methodically directed) is the narrow gate that leads to the true doctrine of practical wisdom, if we understand

by this not merely what one ought to do, but what ought to serve teachers as a guide to construct well and

clearly the road to wisdom which everyone should travel, and to secure others from going astray. Philosophy

must always continue to be the guardian of this science; and although the public does not take any interest in

its subtle investigations, it must take an interest in the resulting doctrines, which such an examination first

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