READ STUDY GUIDE: Chapter 3 |
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Chapter 3
TRANSITION FROM THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS TO THE
CRITIQUE OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON
The Concept of Freedom is the Key that explains the Autonomy of
the Will
The will is a kind of causality belonging to living beings in so far
as they are rational, and freedom would be this property of such
causality that it can be efficient, independently of foreign causes
determining it; just as physical necessity is the property that the
causality of all irrational beings has of being determined to activity
by the influence of foreign causes.
The preceding definition of freedom is negative and therefore
unfruitful for the discovery of its essence, but it leads to a
positive conception which is so much the more full and fruitful.
Since the conception of causality involves that of laws, according
to which, by something that we call cause, something else, namely
the effect, must be produced; hence, although freedom is not a
property of the will depending on physical laws, yet it is not for
that reason lawless; on the contrary it must be a causality acting
according to immutable laws, but of a peculiar kind; otherwise a
free will would be an absurdity. Physical necessity is a heteronomy of
the efficient causes, for every effect is possible only according to
this law, that something else determines the efficient cause to
exert its causality. What else then can freedom of the will be but
autonomy, that is, the property of the will to be a law to itself? But
the proposition: "The will is in every action a law to itself," only
expresses the principle: "To act on no other maxim than that which can
also have as an object itself as a universal law." Now this is
precisely the formula of the categorical imperative and is the
principle of morality, so that a free will and a will subject to moral
laws are one and the same.
On the hypothesis, then, of freedom of the will, morality together
with its principle follows from it by mere analysis of the conception.
However, the latter is a synthetic proposition; viz., an absolutely
good will is that whose maxim can always include itself regarded as
a universal law; for this property of its maxim can never be
discovered by analysing the conception of an absolutely good will. Now
such synthetic propositions are only possible in this way: that the
two cognitions are connected together by their union with a third in
which they are both to be found. The positive concept of freedom
furnishes this third cognition, which cannot, as with physical causes,
be the nature of the sensible world (in the concept of which we find
conjoined the concept of something in relation as cause to something
else as effect). We cannot now at once show what this third is to
which freedom points us and of which we have an idea a priori, nor can
we make intelligible how the concept of freedom is shown to be
legitimate from principles of pure practical reason and with it the
possibility of a categorical imperative; but some further
preparation is required.
Freedom must be presupposed as a Property of the Will
of all Rational Beings
It is not enough to predicate freedom of our own will, from Whatever
reason, if we have not sufficient grounds for predicating the same
of all rational beings. For as morality serves as a law for us only
because we are rational beings, it must also hold for all rational
beings; and as it must be deduced simply from the property of freedom,
it must be shown that freedom also is a property of all rational
beings. It is not enough, then, to prove it from certain supposed
experiences of human nature (which indeed is quite impossible, and
it can only be shown a priori), but we must show that it belongs to
the activity of all rational beings endowed with a will. Now I say
every being that cannot act except under the idea of freedom is just
for that reason in a practical point of view really free, that is to
say, all laws which are inseparably connected with freedom have the
same force for him as if his will had been shown to be free in
itself by a proof theoretically conclusive.* Now I affirm that we must
attribute to every rational being which has a will that it has also
the idea of freedom and acts entirely under this idea. For in such a
being we conceive a reason that is practical, that is, has causality
in reference to its objects. Now we cannot possibly conceive a
reason consciously receiving a bias from any other quarter with
respect to its judgements, for then the subject would ascribe the
determination of its judgement not to its own reason, but to an
impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its principles
independent of foreign influences. Consequently as practical reason or
as the will of a rational being it must regard itself as free, that is
to say, the will of such a being cannot be a will of its own except
under the idea of freedom. This idea must therefore in a practical
point of view be ascribed to every rational being.
*I adopt this method of assuming freedom merely as an idea which
rational beings suppose in their actions, in order to avoid the
necessity of proving it in its theoretical aspect also. The former
is sufficient for my purpose; for even though the speculative proof
should not be made out, yet a being that cannot act except with the
idea of freedom is bound by the same laws that would oblige a being
who was actually free. Thus we can escape here from the onus which
presses on the theory.
Of the Interest attaching to the Ideas of Morality
We have finally reduced the definite conception of morality to the
idea of freedom. This latter, however, we could not prove to be
actually a property of ourselves or of human nature; only we saw
that it must be presupposed if we would conceive a being as rational
and conscious of its causality in respect of its actions, i.e., as
endowed with a will; and so we find that on just the same grounds we
must ascribe to every being endowed with reason and will this
attribute of determining itself to action under the idea of its
freedom.
Now it resulted also from the presupposition of these ideas that
we became aware of a law that the subjective principles of action,
i.e., maxims, must always be so assumed that they can also hold as
objective, that is, universal principles, and so serve as universal
laws of our own dictation. But why then should I subject myself to
this principle and that simply as a rational being, thus also
subjecting to it all other being endowed with reason? I will allow
that no interest urges me to this, for that would not give a
categorical imperative, but I must take an interest in it and
discern how this comes to pass; for this properly an "I ought" is
properly an "I would," valid for every rational being, provided only
that reason determined his actions without any hindrance. But for
beings that are in addition affected as we are by springs of a
different kind, namely, sensibility, and in whose case that is not
always done which reason alone would do, for these that necessity is
expressed only as an "ought," and the subjective necessity is
different from the objective.
It seems then as if the moral law, that is, the principle of
autonomy of the will, were properly speaking only presupposed in the
idea of freedom, and as if we could not prove its reality and
objective necessity independently. In that case we should still have
gained something considerable by at least determining the true
principle more exactly than had previously been done; but as regards
its validity and the practical necessity of subjecting oneself to
it, we should not have advanced a step. For if we were asked why the
universal validity of our maxim as a law must be the condition
restricting our actions, and on what we ground the worth which we
assign to this manner of worth so great that there cannot be
any higher interest; and if we were asked further how it happens
that it is by this alone a man believes he feels his own personal
worth, in comparison with which that of an agreeable or disagreeable
condition is to be regarded as nothing, to these questions we could
give no satisfactory answer.
We find indeed sometimes that we can take an interest in a
personal quality which does not involve any interest of external
condition, provided this quality makes us capable of participating
in the condition in case reason were to effect the allotment; that
is to say, the mere being worthy of happiness can interest of itself
even without the motive of participating in this happiness. This
judgement, however, is in fact only the effect of the importance of
the moral law which we before presupposed (when by the idea of freedom
we detach ourselves from every empirical interest); but that we
ought to detach ourselves from these interests, i.e., to consider
ourselves as free in action and yet as subject to certain laws, so
as to find a worth simply in our own person which can compensate us
for the loss of everything that gives worth to our condition; this
we are not yet able to discern in this way, nor do we see how it is
possible so to other words, whence the moral law derives its
obligation.
It must be freely admitted that there is a sort of circle here
from which it seems impossible to escape. In the order of efficient
causes we assume ourselves free, in order that in the order of ends we
may conceive ourselves as subject to moral laws: and we afterwards
conceive ourselves as subject to these laws, because we have
attributed to ourselves freedom of will: for freedom and
self-legislation of will are both autonomy and, therefore, are
reciprocal conceptions, and for this very reason one must not be
used to explain the other or give the reason of it, but at most only
logical purposes to reduce apparently different notions of the same
object to one single concept (as we reduce different fractions of
the same value to the lowest terms).
One resource remains to us, namely, to inquire whether we do not
occupy different points of view when by means of freedom we think
ourselves as causes efficient a priori, and when we form our
conception of ourselves from our actions as effects which we see
before our eyes.
It is a remark which needs no subtle reflection to make, but which
we may assume that even the commonest understanding can make, although
it be after its fashion by an obscure discernment of judgement which
it calls feeling, that all the "ideas" that come to us involuntarily
(as those of the senses) do not enable us to know objects otherwise
than as they affect us; so that what they may be in themselves remains
unknown to us, and consequently that as regards "ideas" of this kind
even with the closest attention and clearness that the understanding
can apply to them, we can by them only attain to the knowledge of
appearances, never to that of things in themselves. As soon as this
distinction has once been made (perhaps merely in consequence of the
difference observed between the ideas given us from without, and in
which we are passive, and those that we produce simply from ourselves,
and in which we show our own activity), then it follows of itself that
we must admit and assume behind the appearance something else that
is not an appearance, namely, the things in themselves; although we
must admit that as they can never be known to us except as they affect
us, we can come no nearer to them, nor can we ever know what they
are in themselves. This must furnish a distinction, however crude,
between a world of sense and the world of understanding, of which
the former may be different according to the difference of the
sensuous impressions in various observers, while the second which is
its basis always remains the same, Even as to himself, a man cannot
pretend to know what he is in himself from the knowledge he has by
internal sensation. For as he does not as it were create himself,
and does not come by the conception of himself a priori but
empirically, it naturally follows that he can obtain his knowledge
even of himself only by the inner sense and, consequently, only
through the appearances of his nature and the way in which his
consciousness is affected. At the same time beyond these
characteristics of his own subject, made up of mere appearances, he
must necessarily suppose something else as their basis, namely, his
ego, whatever its characteristics in itself may be. Thus in respect to
mere perception and receptivity of sensations he must reckon himself
as belonging to the world of sense; but in respect of whatever there
may be of pure activity in him (that which reaches consciousness
immediately and not through affecting the senses), he must reckon
himself as belonging to the intellectual world, of which, however,
he has no further knowledge. To such a conclusion the reflecting man
must come with respect to all the things which can be presented to
him: it is probably to be met with even in persons of the commonest
understanding, who, as is well known, are very much inclined to
suppose behind the objects of the senses something else invisible
and acting of itself. They spoil it, however, by presently
sensualizing this invisible again; that is to say, wanting to make
it an object of intuition, so that they do not become a whit the
wiser.
Now man really finds in himself a faculty by which he
distinguishes himself from everything else, even from himself as
affected by objects, and that is reason. This being pure spontaneity
is even elevated above the understanding. For although the latter is a
spontaneity and does not, like sense, merely contain intuitions that
arise when we are affected by things (and are therefore passive),
yet it cannot produce from its activity any other conceptions than
those which merely serve to bring the intuitions of sense under
rules and, thereby, to unite them in one consciousness, and without
this use of the sensibility it could not think at all; whereas, on the
contrary, reason shows so pure a spontaneity in the case of what I
call ideas [ideal conceptions] that it thereby far transcends
everything that the sensibility can give it, and exhibits its most
important function in distinguishing the world of sense from that of
understanding, and thereby prescribing the limits of the understanding
itself.
For this reason a rational being must regard himself qua
intelligence (not from the side of his lower faculties) as belonging
not to the world of sense, but to that of understanding; hence he
has two points of view from which he can regard himself, and recognise
laws of the exercise of his faculties, and consequently of all his
actions: first, so far as he belongs to the world of sense, he finds
himself subject to laws of nature (heteronomy); secondly, as belonging
to the intelligible world, under laws which being independent of
nature have their foundation not in experience but in reason alone.
As a rational being, and consequently belonging to the
intelligible world, man can never conceive the causality of his own
will otherwise than on condition of the idea of freedom, for
independence of the determinate causes of the sensible world (an
independence which reason must always ascribe to itself) is freedom.
Now the idea of freedom is inseparably connected with the conception
of autonomy, and this again with the universal principle of morality
which is ideally the foundation of all actions of rational beings,
just as the law of nature is of all phenomena.
Now the suspicion is removed which we raised above, that there was a
latent circle involved in our reasoning from freedom to autonomy,
and from this to the moral law, viz.: that we laid down the idea of
freedom because of the moral law only that we might afterwards in turn
infer the latter from freedom, and that consequently we could assign
no reason at all for this law, but could only [present] it as a
petitio principii which well disposed minds would gladly concede to
us, but which we could never put forward as a provable proposition.
For now we see that, when we conceive ourselves as free, we transfer
ourselves into the world of understanding as members of it and
recognise the autonomy of the will with its consequence, morality;
whereas, if we conceive ourselves as under obligation, we consider
ourselves as belonging to the world of sense and at the same time to
the world of understanding.
How is a Categorical Imperative Possible?
Every rational being reckons himself qua intelligence as belonging
to the world of understanding, and it is simply as an efficient
cause belonging to that world that he calls his causality a will. On
the other side he is also conscious of himself as a part of the
world of sense in which his actions, which are mere appearances
[phenomena] of that causality, are displayed; we cannot, however,
discern how they are possible from this causality which we do not
know; but instead of that, these actions as belonging to the
sensible world must be viewed as determined by other phenomena,
namely, desires and inclinations. If therefore I were only a member of
the world of understanding, then all my actions would perfectly
conform to the principle of autonomy of the pure will; if I were
only a part of the world of sense, they would necessarily be assumed
to conform wholly to the natural law of desires and inclinations, in
other words, to the heteronomy of nature. (The former would rest on
morality as the supreme principle, the latter on happiness.) Since,
however, the world of understanding contains the foundation of the
world of sense, and consequently of its laws also, and accordingly
gives the law to my will (which belongs wholly to the world of
understanding) directly, and must be conceived as doing so, it follows
that, although on the one side I must regard myself as a being
belonging to the world of sense, yet on the other side I must
recognize myself as subject as an intelligence to the law of the world
of understanding, i.e., to reason, which contains this law in the idea
of freedom, and therefore as subject to the autonomy of the will:
consequently I must regard the laws of the world of understanding as
imperatives for me and the actions which conform to them as duties.
And thus what makes categorical imperatives possible is this, that
the idea of freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world, in
consequence of which, if I were nothing else, all my actions would
always conform to the autonomy of the will; but as I at the same
time intuite myself as a member of the world of sense, they ought so
to conform, and this categorical "ought" implies a synthetic a
priori proposition, inasmuch as besides my will as affected by
sensible desires there is added further the idea of the same will
but as belonging to the world of the understanding, pure and practical
of itself, which contains the supreme condition according to reason of
the former will; precisely as to the intuitions of sense there are
added concepts of the understanding which of themselves signify
nothing but regular form in general and in this way synthetic a priori
propositions become possible, on which all knowledge of physical
nature rests.
The practical use of common human reason confirms this reasoning.
There is no one, not even the most consummate villain, provided only
that be is otherwise accustomed to the use of reason, who, when we set
before him examples of honesty of purpose, of steadfastness in
following good maxims, of sympathy and general benevolence (even
combined with great sacrifices of advantages and comfort), does not
wish that he might also possess these qualities. Only on account of
his inclinations and impulses he cannot attain this in himself, but at
the same time he wishes to be free from such inclinations which are
burdensome to himself. He proves by this that he transfers himself
in thought with a will free from the impulses of the sensibility
into an order of things wholly different from that of his desires in
the field of the sensibility; since he cannot expect to obtain by that
wish any gratification of his desires, nor any position which would
satisfy any of his actual or supposable inclinations (for this would
destroy the pre-eminence of the very idea which wrests that wish
from him): he can only expect a greater intrinsic worth of his own
person. This better person, however, he imagines himself to be when be
transfers himself to the point of view of a member of the world of the
understanding, to which he is involuntarily forced by the idea of
freedom, i.e., of independence on determining causes of the world of
sense; and from this point of view he is conscious of a good will,
which by his own confession constitutes the law for the bad will
that he possesses as a member of the world of law whose
authority he recognizes while transgressing it. What he morally
"ought" is then what he necessarily "would," as a member of the
world of the understanding, and is conceived by him as an "ought" only
inasmuch as he likewise considers himself as a member of the world
of sense.
Of the Extreme Limits of all Practical Philosophy.
All men attribute to themselves freedom of will. Hence come all
judgements upon actions as being such as ought to have been done,
although they have not been done. However, this freedom is not a
conception of experience, nor can it be so, since it still remains,
even though experience shows the contrary of what on supposition of
freedom are conceived as its necessary consequences. On the other side
it is equally necessary that everything that takes place should be
fixedly determined according to laws of nature. This necessity of
nature is likewise not an empirical conception, just for this
reason, that it involves the motion of necessity and consequently of a
priori cognition. But this conception of a system of nature is
confirmed by experience; and it must even be inevitably presupposed if
experience itself is to be possible, that is, a connected knowledge of
the objects of sense resting on general laws. Therefore freedom is
only an idea of reason, and its objective reality in itself is
doubtful; while nature is a concept of the understanding which proves,
and must necessarily prove, its reality in examples of experience.
There arises from this a dialectic of reason, since the freedom
attributed to the will appears to contradict the necessity of
nature, and placed between these two ways reason for speculative
purposes finds the road of physical necessity much more beaten and
more appropriate than that of freedom; yet for practical purposes
the narrow footpath of freedom is the only one on which it is possible
to make use of reason in our conduct; hence it is just as impossible
for the subtlest philosophy as for the commonest reason of men to
argue away freedom. Philosophy must then assume that no real
contradiction will be found between freedom and physical necessity
of the same human actions, for it cannot give up the conception of
nature any more than that of freedom.
Nevertheless, even though we should never be able to comprehend
how freedom is possible, we must at least remove this apparent
contradiction in a convincing manner. For if the thought of freedom
contradicts either itself or nature, which is equally necessary, it
must in competition with physical necessity be entirely given up.
It would, however, be impossible to escape this contradiction if the
thinking subject, which seems to itself free, conceived itself in
the same sense or in the very same relation when it calls itself
free as when in respect of the same action it assumes itself to be
subject to the law of nature. Hence it is an indispensable problem
of speculative philosophy to show that its illusion respecting the
contradiction rests on this, that we think of man in a different sense
and relation when we call him free and when we regard him as subject
to the laws of nature as being part and parcel of nature. It must
therefore show that not only can both these very well co-exist, but
that both must be thought as necessarily united in the same subject,
since otherwise no reason could be given why we should burden reason
with an idea which, though it may possibly without contradiction be
reconciled with another that is sufficiently established, yet
entangles us in a perplexity which sorely embarrasses reason in its
theoretic employment. This duty, however, belongs only to
speculative philosophy. The philosopher then has no option whether
he will remove the apparent contradiction or leave it untouched; for
in the latter case the theory respecting this would be bonum vacans,
into the possession of which the fatalist would have a right to
enter and chase all morality out of its supposed domain as occupying
it without title.
We cannot however as yet say that we are touching the bounds of
practical philosophy. For the settlement of that controversy does
not belong to it; it only demands from speculative reason that it
should put an end to the discord in which it entangles itself in
theoretical questions, so that practical reason may have rest and
security from external attacks which might make the ground debatable
on which it desires to build.
The claims to freedom of will made even by common reason are founded
on the consciousness and the admitted supposition that reason is
independent of merely subjectively determined causes which together
constitute what belongs to sensation only and which consequently
come under the general designation of sensibility. Man considering
himself in this way as an intelligence places himself thereby in a
different order of things and in a relation to determining grounds
of a wholly different kind when on the one hand he thinks of himself
as an intelligence endowed with a will, and consequently with
causality, and when on the other he perceives himself as a
phenomenon in the world of sense (as he really is also), and affirms
that his causality is subject to external determination according to
laws of nature. Now he soon becomes aware that both can hold good,
nay, must hold good at the same time. For there is not the smallest
contradiction in saying that a thing in appearance (belonging to the
world of sense) is subject to certain laws, of which the very same
as a thing or being in itself is independent, and that he must
conceive and think of himself in this twofold way, rests as to the
first on the consciousness of himself as an object affected through
the senses, and as to the second on the consciousness of himself as an
intelligence, i.e., as independent on sensible impressions in the
employment of his reason (in other words as belonging to the world
of understanding).
Hence it comes to pass that man claims the possession of a will
which takes no account of anything that comes under the head of
desires and inclinations and, on the contrary, conceives actions as
possible to him, nay, even as necessary which can only be done by
disregarding all desires and sensible inclinations. The causality of
such actions lies in him as an intelligence and in the laws of effects
and actions [which depend] on the principles of an intelligible world,
of which indeed he knows nothing more than that in it pure reason
alone independent of sensibility gives the law; moreover since it is
only in that world, as an intelligence, that he is his proper self
(being as man only the appearance of himself), those laws apply to him
directly and categorically, so that the incitements of inclinations
and appetites (in other words the whole nature of the world of
sense) cannot impair the laws of his volition as an intelligence. Nay,
he does not even hold himself responsible for the former or ascribe
them to his proper self, i.e., his will: he only ascribes to his
will any indulgence which he might yield them if he allowed them to
influence his maxims to the prejudice of the rational laws of the
will.
When practical reason thinks itself into a world of understanding,
it does not thereby transcend its own limits, as it would if it
tried to enter it by intuition or sensation. The former is only a
negative thought in respect of the world of sense, which does not give
any laws to reason in determining the will and is positive only in
this single point that this freedom as a negative characteristic is at
the same time conjoined with a (positive) faculty and even with a
causality of reason, which we designate a will, namely a faculty of so
acting that the principle of the actions shall conform to the
essential character of a rational motive, i.e., the condition that the
maxim have universal validity as a law. But were it to borrow an
object of will, that is, a motive, from the world of understanding,
then it would overstep its bounds and pretend to be acquainted with
something of which it knows nothing. The conception of a world of
the understanding is then only a point of view which reason finds
itself compelled to take outside the appearances in order to
conceive itself as practical, which would not be possible if the
influences of the sensibility had a determining power on man, but
which is necessary unless he is to be denied the consciousness of
himself as an intelligence and, consequently, as a rational cause,
energizing by reason, that is, operating freely. This thought
certainly involves the idea of an order and a system of laws different
from that of the mechanism of nature which belongs to the sensible
world; and it makes the conception of an intelligible world
necessary (that is to say, the whole system of rational beings as
things in themselves). But it does not in the least authorize us to
think of it further than as to its formal condition only, that is, the
universality of the maxims of the will as laws, and consequently the
autonomy of the latter, which alone is consistent with its freedom;
whereas, on the contrary, all laws that refer to a definite object
give heteronomy, which only belongs to laws of nature and can only
apply to the sensible world.
But reason would overstep all its bounds if it undertook to
explain how pure reason can be practical, which would be exactly the
same problem as to explain how freedom is possible.
For we can explain nothing but that which we can reduce to laws, the
object of which can be given in some possible experience. But
freedom is a mere idea, the objective reality of which can in no
wise be shown according to laws of nature, and consequently not in any
possible experience; and for this reason it can never be
comprehended or understood, because we cannot support it by any sort
of example or analogy. It holds good only as a necessary hypothesis of
reason in a being that believes itself conscious of a will, that is,
of a faculty distinct from mere desire (namely, a faculty of
determining itself to action as an intelligence, in other words, by
laws of reason independently on natural instincts). Now where
determination according to laws of nature ceases, there all
explanation ceases also, and nothing remains but defence, i.e., the
removal of the objections of those who pretend to have seen deeper
into the nature of things, and thereupon boldly declare freedom
impossible. We can only point out to them that the supposed
contradiction that they have discovered in it arises only from this,
that in order to be able to apply the law of nature to human
actions, they must necessarily consider man as an appearance: then
when we demand of them that they should also think of him qua
intelligence as a thing in itself, they still persist in considering
him in this respect also as an appearance. In this view it would no
doubt be a contradiction to suppose the causality of the same
subject (that is, his will) to be withdrawn from all the natural
laws of the sensible world. But this contradiction disappears, if they
would only bethink themselves and admit, as is reasonable, that behind
the appearances there must also lie at their root (although hidden)
the things in themselves, and that we cannot expect the laws of
these to be the same as those that govern their appearances.
The subjective impossibility of explaining the freedom of the will
is identical with the impossibility of discovering and explaining an
interest* which man can take in the moral law. Nevertheless he does
actually take an interest in it, the basis of which in us we call
the moral feeling, which some have falsely assigned as the standard of
our moral judgement, whereas it must rather be viewed as the
subjective effect that the law exercises on the will, the objective
principle of which is furnished by reason alone.
*Interest is that by which reason becomes practical, i.e., a cause
determining the will. Hence we say of rational beings only that they
take an interest in a thing; irrational beings only feel sensual
appetites. Reason takes a direct interest in action then only when the
universal validity of its maxims is alone sufficient to determine
the will. Such an interest alone is pure. But if it can determine
the will only by means of another object of desire or on the
suggestion of a particular feeling of the subject, then reason takes
only an indirect interest in the action, and, as reason by itself
without experience cannot discover either objects of the will or a
special feeling actuating it, this latter interest would only be
empirical and not a pure rational interest. The logical interest of
reason (namely, to extend its insight) is never direct, but
presupposes purposes for which reason is employed.
In order indeed that a rational being who is also affected through
the senses should will what reason alone directs such beings that they
ought to will, it is no doubt requisite that reason should have a
power to infuse a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction in the
fulfilment of duty, that is to say, that it should have a causality by
which it determines the sensibility according to its own principles.
But it is quite impossible to discern, i.e., to make it intelligible a
priori, how a mere thought, which itself contains nothing sensible,
can itself produce a sensation of pleasure or pain; for this is a
particular kind of causality of which as of every other causality we
can determine nothing whatever a priori; we must only consult
experience about it. But as this cannot supply us with any relation of
cause and effect except between two objects of experience, whereas
in this case, although indeed the effect produced lies within
experience, yet the cause is supposed to be pure reason acting through
mere ideas which offer no object to experience, it follows that for us
men it is quite impossible to explain how and why the universality
of the maxim as a law, that is, morality, interests. This only is
certain, that it is not because it interests us that it has validity
for us (for that would be heteronomy and dependence of practical
reason on sensibility, namely, on a feeling as its principle, in which
case it could never give moral laws), but that it interests us because
it is valid for us as men, inasmuch as it had its source in our will
as intelligences, in other words, in our proper self, and what belongs
to mere appearance is necessarily subordinated by reason to the nature
of the thing in itself.
The question then, "How a categorical imperative is possible," can
be answered to this extent, that we can assign the only hypothesis
on which it is possible, namely, the idea of freedom; and we can
also discern the necessity of this hypothesis, and this is
sufficient for the practical exercise of reason, that is, for the
conviction of the validity of this imperative, and hence of the
moral law; but how this hypothesis itself is possible can never be
discerned by any human reason. On the hypothesis, however, that the
will of an intelligence is free, its autonomy, as the essential formal
condition of its determination, is a necessary consequence.
Moreover, this freedom of will is not merely quite possible as a
hypothesis (not involving any contradiction to the principle of
physical necessity in the connexion of the phenomena of the sensible
world) as speculative philosophy can show: but further, a rational
being who is conscious of causality through reason, that is to say, of
a will (distinct from desires), must of necessity make it practically,
that is, in idea, the condition of all his voluntary actions. But to
explain how pure reason can be of itself practical without the aid
of any spring of action that could be derived from any other source,
i.e., how the mere principle of the universal validity of all its
maxims as laws (which would certainly be the form of a pure
practical reason) can of itself supply a spring, without any matter
(object) of the will in which one could antecedently take any
interest; and how it can produce an interest which would be called
purely moral; or in other words, how pure reason can be practical-
to explain this is beyond the power of human reason, and all the
labour and pains of seeking an explanation of it are lost an
It is just the same as if I sought to find out how freedom itself is
possible as the causality of a will. For then I quit the ground of
philosophical explanation, and I have no other to go upon. I might
indeed revel in the world of intelligences which still remains to
me, but although I have an idea of it which is well founded, yet I
have not the least knowledge of it, nor an I ever attain to such
knowledge with all the efforts of my natural faculty of reason. It
signifies only a something that remains over when I have eliminated
everything belonging to the world of sense from the actuating
principles of my will, serving merely to keep in bounds the
principle of motives taken from the field of sensibility; fixing its
limits and showing that it does not contain all in all within
itself, but that there is more beyond it; but this something more I
know no further. Of pure reason which frames this ideal, there remains
after the abstraction of all matter, i.e., knowledge of objects,
nothing but the form, namely, the practical law of the universality of
the maxims, and in conformity with this conception of reason in
reference to a pure world of understanding as a possible efficient
cause, that is a cause determining the will. There must here be a
total absence of springs; unless this idea of an intelligible world is
itself the spring, or that in which reason primarily takes an
interest; but to make this intelligible is precisely the problem
that we cannot solve.
Here now is the extreme limit of all moral inquiry, and it is of
great importance to determine it even on this account, in order that
reason may not on the one band, to the prejudice of morals, seek about
in the world of sense for the supreme motive and an interest
comprehensible but empirical; and on the other hand, that it may not
impotently flap its wings without being able to move in the (for it)
empty space of transcendent concepts which we call the intelligible
world, and so lose itself amidst chimeras. For the rest, the idea of a
pure world of understanding as a system of all intelligences, and to
which we ourselves as rational beings belong (although we are likewise
on the other side members of the sensible world), this remains
always a useful and legitimate idea for the purposes of rational
belief, although all knowledge stops at its threshold, useful, namely,
to produce in us a lively interest in the moral law by means of the
noble ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves (rational
beings), to which we can belong as members then only when we carefully
conduct ourselves according to the maxims of freedom as if they were
laws of nature.
Concluding Remark
The speculative employment of reason with respect to nature leads to
the absolute necessity of some supreme cause of the world: the
practical employment of reason with a view to freedom leads also to
absolute necessity, but only of the laws of the actions of a
rational being as such. Now it is an essential principle of reason,
however employed, to push its knowledge to a consciousness of its
necessity (without which it would not be rational knowledge). It is,
however, an equally essential restriction of the same reason that it
can neither discern the necessity of what is or what happens, nor of
what ought to happen, unless a condition is supposed on which it is or
happens or ought to happen. In this way, however, by the constant
inquiry for the condition, the satisfaction of reason is only
further and further postponed. Hence it unceasingly seeks the
unconditionally necessary and finds itself forced to assume it,
although without any means of making it comprehensible to itself,
happy enough if only it can discover a conception which agrees with
this assumption. It is therefore no fault in our deduction of the
supreme principle of morality, but an objection that should be made to
human reason in general, that it cannot enable us to conceive the
absolute necessity of an unconditional practical law (such as the
categorical imperative must be). It cannot be blamed for refusing to
explain this necessity by a condition, that is to say, by means of
some interest assumed as a basis, since the law would then cease to be
a supreme law of reason. And thus while we do not comprehend the
practical unconditional necessity of the moral imperative, we yet
comprehend its incomprehensibility, and this is all that can be fairly
demanded of a philosophy which strives to carry its principles up to
the very limit of human reason.
-THE END- -THE END-
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