Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)

by Immanuel Kant

There can be only one reason why we must do what duty demands, and that is that we demand it of ourselves.

if we do our duty for the sake of something else, we are acting on a hypothetical, rather than a categorical, imperative.

Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: physics, ethics, and logic.

Formal philosophy is called logic, whereas material philosophy, which has to do with determinate objects and the laws to which they are subject, is once again twofold. For these laws are either laws of nature, or of freedom. The science of the first is called physics, that of the other is ethics; the former is also called doctrine of nature, the latter doctrine of morals.

All philosophy in so far as it is based on grounds of experience can be called empirical, that which presents its doctrines solely from a priori principles pure philosophy. The latter, if it is merely formal, is called logic; but if it is limited to determinate objects of the understanding it is called metaphysics. In this way there arises the idea of a twofold metaphysics, a metaphysics of nature and a metaphysics of morals. Physics will thus have its empirical, but also a rational part; so too will ethics, though here the empirical part might in particular be called practical anthropology, the rational part actually moral science.

is it not thought to be of the utmost necessity to work out for once a pure moral philosophy, completely cleansed of everything that might be in some way empirical and belongs to anthropology?

does not just hold for human beings only, as if other rational beings did not have to heed

a priori

R12302081357 What makes it difficult to perceive a priori?

For in the case of what is to be morally good it is not enough that it conform with the moral law, but it must also be done for its sake;

transcendental philosophy,

a rational impartial spectator can nevermore take any delight in the sight of the uninterrupted prosperity of a being adorned with no feature of a pure and good will, and that a good will thus appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of the worthiness to be happy.

to preserve one’s life is one’s duty,p and besides everyone has an immediate inclination to do so.

the great advantage the practical capacity to judge has over the theoretical in common human understanding. In the latter, when common reason dares to depart from the laws of experience and the perceptions of the senses, it falls into nothing but sundry incomprehensibilities and internal contradictions, or at least into a chaos of uncertainty, obscurity, and instability. But in practical matters the power of judging first begins to show itself to advantage just when common understanding excludes all sensuous incentives from practical laws.

we can never, even by the most strenuous examination, get entirely behind our covert incentives, because when moral worth is at issue what counts is not the actions, which one sees, but their inner principles, which one does not see.

Even the Holy One of the Gospeld must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before he is recognized as onee

happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of the imagination,

it is 4:419 futile to expect that they should determine an action by which the totality of an in fact infinite series of consequences would be attained.

There is therefore only a single categorical imperative, and it is this: act only according to that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.

The only further question is whether this principle of self-love could become a universal law of nature.

we actually do not will that our maxim should become a universal law, since that is impossible for us, but that its opposite should rather generally remain a law; we just take the liberty of making an exception to it for ourselves, orr (just for this once) to the advantage of our inclination.

The objective necessity of an action from obligation is called duty.

the principle of one’s own happiness17 is the most objectionable, not merely because it is false,