Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: With an Updated Translation, Introduction, and Notes

by Immanuel Kant

First formula: FUL The Formula of Universal Law: “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you at the same time can will that it become a universal law” (G 4:421; cf. G 4:402), with its variant, FLN The Formula of the Law of Nature: “So act, as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature” (G 4:421; cf. G 4:436). Second formula: FH The Formula of Humanity as End in Itself: “So act that you use humanity, as much in your own person as in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means” (G 4:429; cf. G 4:436). Third formula: FA Formula of Autonomy: “. . . the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law” (G 4:431; cf. G 4:432) or “Not to choose otherwise than so that the maxims of one’s choice are at the same time comprehended with it in the same volition as universal law” (G 4:440; cf. G 4:432, 434, 438), with its variant, FRE The Formula of the Realm of Ends: “Act in accordance with maxims of a universally legislative member for a merely possible realm of ends” (G 4:439; cf. G 4:433, 437, 438).

All rational cognition is either material, and considers some object, or formal, and concerns itself merely with the form of the understanding and of reason itself and the universal rules of thinking in general, without distinction among objects.

There is nothing it is possible to think of anywhere in the world, or indeed anything at all outside it, that can be held to be good without limitation, excepting only a good will. Understanding, wit, the power of judgment1 and like talents of the mind,a whatever they might be called, or courage, resoluteness, persistence in an intention, as qualities of temperament, are without doubt in some respects good and to be wished for; but they can also become extremely evil and harmful if the will that is to make use of these gifts of nature, and whose peculiar constitution is therefore called character,2 is not good.

Even if through the peculiar disfavor of fate, or through the meager endowment of a stepmotherly nature, this will were entirely lacking in the resources to carry out its aim, if with its greatest effort nothing were accomplished by it, and only the good will were left over (to be sure, not a mere wish, but as the mobilization of all means insofar as they are in our control): then it would shine all by itselfa like a jewel, as something that has its full worth in itself. Utility or fruitlessness can neither add to nor subtract anything from this worth. It would be only the setting, as it were, to make it easier to handle in common traffic, or to draw the attention of those who are still not sufficiently connoisseurs; but not to recommend it to connoisseurs and determine its worth.

In the natural predispositions of an organized being, i.e. a being arranged purposivelyb for life, we assume as a principle that no instrument is to be encountered in it for any end except that which is the most suitable to and appropriate for it.7 Now if, in a being that has reason and a will, its preservation, its welfare—in a word, its happiness—were the real end of nature, then nature would have hit on a very bad arrangement in appointing reason in this creature to accomplish the aim. For all the actions it has to execute toward this aim, and the entire rule of its conduct, would be prescribed to it much more precisely through instinct, and that end could be obtained far more safely through it than could ever happen through reason; and if, over and above this, reason were imparted to the favored creature, it would have served it only to make it consider the happy predisposition of its nature, to admire it, rejoice in it, and to make it grateful to the beneficent cause of it, but not to subject its faculty of desire to that weak and deceptive guidance, and meddle in the aim of nature; in a word, nature would have prevented reason from breaking out into practical use and from having the presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for itself the project of happiness and the means of attaining it; nature would have taken over not only the choice of the ends but also of the means, and with wise provision would have entrusted both solely to instinct.

In fact we also find that the more a cultivated reason gives itself over to the aim of enjoying life and happiness, the farther the human being falls short of true contentment; from this arises in many, and indeed in those most practiced in the cultivated use of reason, if only they are sincere enough to admit it, a certain degree of misology, i.e. hatred of reason;9 for after reckoning all the advantages they draw, I do not say from the invention of all the arts of common luxury,10 but even from the sciences (which also seem to them in the end to bea a luxury of the understanding), they nevertheless find that they have in fact only brought moreb hardship down [Ak 4:396] on their shoulders than they have gained in happiness, and on this account in the end they sooner envy than despise human beings of the more common stamp, who are closer to the guidance of mere natural instinct and do not permit their reason much influence over their conduct.

yet since reason nevertheless has been imparted to us as a practical faculty, i.e. as one that ought to have influence on the will, its true vocation must therefore be not to produce volition as a means to some other aim, but rather to produce a will good in itself,

for reason, which recognizes its highest practical vocation in the grounding of a good will, is capable in attaining this aim only of a contentment after its own kind, namely from the fulfillment of anc end that again only reason determines, even if this should also be bound up with some infringement of the ends of inclination.

By contrast, to preserve one’s life is a duty, and beside this everyone has an immediate inclination to it. But the often anxious care that the greatest part of humankind takes for its sake still has no inner worth, and its maxim has no moral content. They protect their life, to be sure, in conformity with [Ak 4:398] duty, but not from duty. If, by contrast, adversities and hopeless grief have entirely taken away the taste for life, if the unhappy one, strong of soul, more indignant than pusillanimous or dejected over his fate, wishes for death and yet preserves his life without loving it, not from inclination or fear, but from duty: then his maxim has a moral content.