We have finally reduced the definite conception of morality to the
idea of freedom. This latter, however, we could not prove to be
actually a property of ourselves or of human nature; only we saw
that it must be presupposed if we would conceive a being as rational
and conscious of its causality in respect of its actions, i. e., as
endowed with a will; and so we find that on just the same grounds we
must ascribe to every being endowed with reason and will this
attribute of determining itself to action under the idea of its
freedom.
Now it resulted also from the presupposition of this idea that we
became aware of a law that the subjective principles of action,
i.e., maxims, must always be so assumed that they can also hold as
objective, that is, universal principles, and so serve as universal
laws of our own dictation. But why then should I subject myself to
this principle and that simply as a rational being, thus also
subjecting to it all other beings endowed with reason? I will allow
that no interest urges me to this, for that would not give a
categorical imperative, but I must take an interest in it and
discern how this comes to pass; for this "I ought" is properly an "I
would," valid for every rational being, provided only that reason
determined his actions without any hindrance. But for beings that
are in addition affected as we are by springs of a different kind,
namely, sensibility, and in whose case that is not always done which
reason alone would do, for these that necessity is expressed only as
an "ought," and the subjective necessity is different from the
objective.
It seems then as if the moral law, that is, the principle of
autonomy of the will, were properly speaking only presupposed in the
idea of freedom, and as if we could not prove its reality and
objective necessity independently. In that case we should still have
gained something considerable by at least determining the true
principle more exactly than had previously been done; but as regards
its validity and the practical necessity of subjecting oneself to
it, we should not have advanced a step. For if we were asked why the
universal validity of our maxim as a law must be the condition
restricting our actions, and on what we ground the worth which we
assign to this manner of acting--a worth so great that there cannot
be any higher interest; and if we were asked further how it happens
that it is by this alone a man believes he feels his own personal
worth, in comparison with which that of an agreeable or disagreeable
condition is to be regarded as nothing, to these questions we could
give no satisfactory answer.
We find indeed sometimes that we can take an interest [Footnote:
"Interest" means a spring of the will, in so far as this spring is
presented by Reason. See note, p. 391.] in a personal quality which
does not involve any interest of external condition, provided this
quality makes us capable of participating in the condition in case
reason were to effect the allotment; that is to say, the mere being
worthy of happiness can interest of itself even without the motive
of participating in this happiness. This judgment, however, is in
fact only the effect of the importance of the moral law which we
before presupposed (when by the idea of freedom we detach ourselves
from every empirical interest); but that we ought to detach
ourselves from these interests, i. e., to consider ourselves as free
in action and yet as subject to certain laws, so as to find a worth
simply in our own person whiph can compensate us for the loss of
everything that give worth to our condition; this we are not yet
able to discern in this way, nor do we see how it is possible so to
act--in other words, whence the moral law derives its obligation.
It must be freely admitted that there is a sort of circle here from
which it seems impossible to escape. In the order of efficient
causes we assume ourselves free, in order that in the order of ends
we may conceive ourselves as subject to moral laws: and we
afterwards conceive ourselves as subject to these laws, bjecause we
have attributed to ourselves freedom of will: for freedom and self-
legislation of will are both autonomy, and therefore are reciprocal
conceptions, and for this very reason one must not be used to
explain the other or give the reason of it, but at most only for
logical purposes to reduce apparently different notions of the same
object to one single concept (as we reduce different fractions of
the same value to the lowest terms).
One resource retrains to us, namely, to inquire whether we do not
occupy different points of view when by means of freedom we think
ourselves as causes efficient a priori, and when we form our
conception of ourselves from our actions as effects which we see
before our eyes.
It is a remark which needs no subtle reflection to make, but which
we may assume that even the commonest understanding can make,
although it be after its fashion by an obscure discernment of
judgment which it calls feeling, that all the "ideas" [Footnote: The
common understanding being here spoken of, I use the word "idea" in
its popular sense.] that comes to us involuntarily (as those of the
senses) do not enable us to know objects otherwise than as they
affect us; so that what they may be in themselves remains unknown to
us, and consequently that as regards "ideas" of this kind even with
the closest attention and clearness that the understanding can apply
to them, we can by them only attain to the knowledge of appearances,
never to that of things in themselves. As soon as this distinction
has once been made (perhaps merely in consequence of the difference
observed between the ideas given us from without, and in which we
are passive, and those that we produce simply from ourselves, and in
which we show our own activity), then it follows of itself that we
must admit and assume behind the appearance something else that is
not an appearance, namely, the things in themselves; although we
must admit that as they can never be known to us except as they
affect us, we can come no nearer to them, nor can we ever know what
they are in themselves. This must furnish a distinction, however
crude, between a world of sense and the world of understanding, of
which the former may be different according to the difference of the
sensuous impressions in--various observers, while the second which
is its basis always remains the same. Even as to himself, a man
cannot pretend to know what he is in himself from the knowledge he
has by internal sensation. For as he does not as it were create
himself, and does not come by the conception of himself a priori but
empirically, it naturally follows that he can obtain his knowledge
even of himself only by the inner sense, and consequently only
through the appearances of his nature and the way in which his
consciousness is affected. At the same time beyond these
characteristics of his own subject, made up of mere appearances, he
must necessarily suppose something else as their basis, namely, his
ego, whatever its characteristics in itself may be. Thus in respect
to mere perception and receptivity of sensations he must reckon
himself as belonging to the world of sense, but in respect of
whatever there may be of pure activity in him (that which reaches
consciousness immediately and not through affecting the senses) he
must reckon himself as belonging to the intellectual world, of
which, however, he has no further knowledge. To such a conclusion
the reflecting man must come with respect ito all the things which
can be presented to him: it is probably to be met with even in
persons of the commonest understanding, who, as is well known, are
very much inclined to suppose behind the objects of the senses
something else invisible and acting of itself. They spoil it,
however, by presently sensualizing this invisible again; that is to
say, wanting to make it an object of intuition, so that they do not
become a whit the wiser.
Now man really finds in himself a faculty by which he distinguishes
himself from everything else, even from himself as affected by
objects, and that is Reason. This being pure spontaneity is even
elevated above the understanding. For although the latter is a
spontaneity and does not, like sense, merely contain intuitions that
arise when we are affected by things (and are therefore passive),
yet it cannot produce from its activity any other conceptions than
those which merely serve to bring the intuitions of sense under
rulesf and thereby to unite them in one consciousness, and without
this use of the sensibility it could not think at all; whereas, on
the contrary, Reason shows so pure a spontaneity in the case of what
I call Ideas [Ideal Conceptions] that it thereby far transcends
everything that the sensibility can give it, and exhibits its most
important function in distinguishing the world of sense from that of
understanding, and thereby prescribing the limits of the
understanding itself.
For this reason a rational being must regard himself qua
intelligence (not from the side of his lower faculties) as belonging
not to the world of sense, but to that of understanding; hence he
has two points of view from which he can regard himself, and
recognise laws of the exercise of his faculties, and consequently of
all his actions: first, so far as he belongs to the world of sense,
he finds himself subject to laws of nature (heteronomy); secondly,
as belonging to the intelligible world, under laws which being
independent on nature have their foundation not in experience but in
reason alone.
As a rational being, and consequently belonging to the intelligible
world, man can never conceive the causality of his own will
otherwise than on condition of the idea of freedom. for independence
on the determining causes of the sensible world (an independence
which Reason must always ascribe to itself) is freedom. Now the idea
of freedom is inseparably connected with the conception of autonomy,
and this again with the universal principle of morality which is
ideally the foundation of all actions of rational beings, just as
the law of nature is of all phenomena.
Now the suspicion is removed which we raised above, that there was a
latent circle involved in our reasoning from freedom to autonomy,
and from this to the moral law, viz.: that we laid down the idea of
freedom because of the moral law only that we might afterwards in
turn infer the latter from freedom and that consequently we could
assign no reason at all for this law, but could only [present]
[Footnote: The verb is wanting in the original.] it as a petitio
principii which well disposed minds would gladly concede to us, but
which we could never put forward as a provable proposition. For now
we see that when we conceive ourselves as free we transfer ourselves
into the--world of understanding as members of it, and recognise the
autonomy of the will with its consequence, morality; whereas, if we
conceive ourselves as under obligation we consider ourselves as
belonging to the world of sense, and at the same time to the world
of understanding.
How is a Categorical Imperative Possible?
Every rational being reckons himself qua intelligence as belonging
to the world of understanding, and it is simply as an efficient
cause belonging to that world that he calls his causality a will. On
the other side he is also conscious of himself as a part of the
world of sense in which his actions which are mere appearances
[phenomena] of that causality are displayed; we cannot, however,
discern how they are possible from this causality which we do not
know; but instead of that, these actions as belonging to the
sensible world must be viewed as determined by other phenomena,
namely,--desires and inclinations. If therefore I were only a member
of the world of understanding, then all my actions would perfectly
conform to the principle of autonomy of the pure will; if I were
only a part of the world of sense they would necessarily be assumed
to conform wholly to the natural law of desires and inclinations, in
other words, to the heteronomy of nature. (The former would rest on
morality as the supreme principle, the latter on happiness.), Since,
however, the world of understanding contains the foundation of the
world of sense, and consequently of its laws alsof and accordingly
gives the law to my will (which belongs wholly to the world of
understanding) directly, and must be conceived as doing so, it
follows that, although on the one side I must regard myself as a
being belonging to the world of sense, yet on the other side I must
recognise myself as subject as an intelligence to the law of the
world of understanding, i. e., to reason, which contains this law in
the idea of freedom, and therefore as subject to the autonomy of the
will: consequently I must regard the laws of the world of
understanding as imperatives for me, and the actions which conform
to them as duties.
And thus what makes categorical imperatives possible is this, that
the idea of freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world, in
consequence of which if I were nothing else all my actions would
always conform to the autonomy of the will; but as I at the same
time intuite myself as a member of the world of sense, they ought so
to conform, and this categorical "ought" implies a synthetic a
priori proposition, inasmuch as besides my will as affected by
sensible desires there is added further the idea of the same will
but as belonging to the world of the understanding, pure and
practical of itself, which contains the supreme condition according
to Reason of the former will; precisely as to the intuitions of
sense there are added concepts of the understanding which of
themselves signify nothing but regular form in general, and in this
way synthetic a priori propositions become possible, on which all
knowledge of physical nature rests.
The practical use of common human reason confirms this reasoning.
There is no one, not even the most consummate villain, provided only
that he is otherwise accustomed to the use of reason, who, when we
set before him examples of tionesty of purposea of steadfastness in
following good maxims, of sympathy and general benevolence (even
combined with great sacrifices of advantages and comfort), does not
wish that he might also possess these qualities. Only on account of
his inclinations and impulses he cannot attain this in himself, but
at the same time he wishes to be free from such inclinations which
are burdensome to himself. He proves by this that he transfers
himself in thought with a will free from the impulses of--the
sensibility into an order of things wholly different from that of
his desires in the field of the sensibility; since he cannot expect
to obtain by that wish any gratification of his desires, nor any
position which would satisfy any of his actual or supposable
inclinations (for this would destroy the pre-eminence of the very
idea which wrests that wish from him): he can only expect a greater
intrinsic worth of his own person. This better person, however, he
imagines himself to be when he transfers himself to the point of
view of a member of the world of the understanding, to which he is
involuntarily forced by the idea of freedom, i. e., of independence
on determining causes of the world of sense; and from this point of
view he is conscious of a good will, which by his own confession
constitutes the law for the bad will that he possesses as a member
of the world of sense-a law whose authority he recognises while
transgressing it. What he morally "ought" is then what he
necessarily "would" as a member of the world of the understanding,
and is conceived by him as an "ought" only inasmuch as he likewise
considers himself as a member of the world of sense.