“The Metaphysics of Morals” by Immanuel Kant (translated by Mary Gregor)

This is Kant’s take on a system of morality derived solely from a priori logic. “The concept of freedom is a pure rational concept, which for this very reason is transcendent for theoretical philosophy, that is, it is a concept such that no instance corresponding to it can be given in any possible experience…. But in reason’s practical use the concept of freedom proves its reality by practical principles, which are laws of a causality of pure reason for determining choice independently of any empirical conditions…. On this concept of freedom, which is positive (from a practical point of view), are based unconditional practical laws, which are called moral…. Moral laws are imperatives (commands or prohibitions) and indeed categorical (unconditional) imperatives…. By categorical imperatives certain actions are permitted or forbidden, that is, morally possible or impossible, while some of them or their opposites are morally necessary, that is, obligatory. For those actions, then, there arises the concept of a duty, observance or transgression of which is indeed connected with a pleasure or displeasure of a distinctive kind (moral feeling), although in practical laws of reason we take no account of these feelings.” Kant continues by stressing his concept of the categorical imperative, “A categorical (unconditional) imperative is one that represents an action as objectively necessary and makes it necessary not indirectly, through the representation of some end that can be attained by the action, but through the mere representation of this action itself (its form), and hence directly. No other practical doctrine can furnish instances of such imperatives than that which prescribes obligation (the doctrine of morals)…. A categorical imperative, because it asserts an obligation with respect to certain actions, is a morally practical law…. A categorical imperative is a law that either commands or prohibits, depending upon whether it represents as a duty the commission or omission of an action.” Finally, in Kant’s deontological system, people are always ends unto themselves and never just a means to another’s own ends. “For a human being can never be treated merely as a means to the purposes of another or be put among the objects of rights to things: his innate personality protects him from this, even though he can be condemned to lose his civil personality.”

Kant stresses the a priori nature of his moral system. “But in fact no moral principle is based, as people sometimes suppose, on any feeling whatsoever. Any such principle is really an obscurely thought metaphysics that is inherent in every human being because of his rational predisposition…. But his thought must go all the way back to the elements of metaphysics, without which no certitude or purity can be expected in the doctrine of virtue…. If one departs from this principle and begins with pathological or pure aesthetic or even moral feeling (with what is subjectively rather than objectively practical); if, that is, one begins with the matter of the will, the end, instead of with the form of the will, the law, in order to determine duties on this basis, then there will indeed be no metaphysical first principles of the doctrine of virtue…. After it has been made so clear that the principle of duty is derived from pure reason, one cannot help wondering how this principle could be reduced again to a doctrine of happiness.”

Furthermore, Kant parses out the difference between the external law that governs us, from the internal duties that must govern each individual unto himself. “In ancient times “ethics” signified the doctrine of morals (philosophia moralis) in general, which was also called the doctrine of duties. Later on it seemed better to reserve the name “ethics” for one part of moral philosophy, namely for the doctrine of those duties that do not come under external laws…. The very concept of duty is already the concept of a necessitation (constraint) of free choice through the law. This constraint may be an external constraint or a self-constraint. The moral imperative makes this constraint known through the categorical nature of its pronouncement (the unconditional ought)…. It is this self-constraint in opposite directions and its unavoidability that makes known the inexplicable property of freedom itself…. Only an end that is also a duty can be called a duty of virtue…. What essentially distinguishes a duty of virtue from a duty of right is that external constraint to the latter kind of duty is morally possible, whereas the former is based only on free self-constraint.”

Finally, Kant stresses that each man must know himself. “Know your heart – whether it is good or evil, whether the source of your actions is pure or impure, and what can be imputed to you as belonging originally to the substance of a human being or as derived (acquired or developed) and belonging to your moral condition…. Moral cognition of oneself, which seeks to penetrate into the depths (the abyss) of one’s heart which are quite difficult to fathom, is the beginning of all human wisdom…. Impartiality in appraising oneself in comparison with the law, and sincerity in acknowledging to oneself one’s inner moral worth or lack of worth are duties to oneself that follow directly from this first command to cognize oneself.”

“Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals” by Immanuel Kant (translated by Mary Gregor and Jens Timmermann)

This short treatise is Kant’s explication of his categorical imperative and the basis for his entire system of morals. He begins by explaining why morality is only linked with duty, “To do the action without any inclination, solely from duty; not until then does it have its genuine moral worth…. It is just there that the worth of character commences, which is moral and beyond all comparison the highest, namely that he be beneficent, not from inclination, but from duty.” He continues with a definition of duty, “Duty is the necessity of an action from respect for the law…. Only what is connected with my will merely as ground, never as effect, what does not serve my inclination, but outweighs it, or at least excludes it entirely from calculations when we make a choice, hence the mere law by itself, can be an object of respect and thus a command. Now, an action from duty is to separate off entirely the influence of inclination, and with it every object of the will; thus nothing remains for the will that could determine it except, objectively, the law and, subjectively, pure respect for this practical law…. I ought never to proceed except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law…. The necessity of my actions from pure respect for the practical law is that which constitutes duty, to which every other motivating ground must give way, because it is the condition of a will good in itself, whose worth surpasses everything.”

Kant continues by asserting that it is not consequentialism, but the inner motive of the individual that pertains to morality, “When moral worth is at issue what counts is not the actions, which one sees, but their inner principles, which one does not see.” He continues on the concept of the Will, “Only a rational being has the capacity to act according to the representation of laws, i.e. according to principles, or a will. Since reason is required for deriving actions from laws, the will is nothing other than practical reason…. The will is a capacity to choose only that which reason, independently of inclination, recognizes as practically necessary, i.e. as good.”

The categorical imperative is the central concept of Kant’s entire moral system. He begins, “The categorical imperative would be the one that represented an action as objectively necessary by itself, without reference to another end…. All imperatives are formulae for the determination of an action necessary according to the principle of a will that is good in some way…. The categorical imperative, which declares the action to be of itself objectively necessary without reference to any other purpose, i.e. even apart from any other end, holds as an apodictically practical principle…. 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…. So act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.”

Next, Kant discusses treating every rational agent as an end. “A human being and generally every rational being exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means for the discretionary use for this or that will…. Rational beings are called persons, because their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves, i.e. as something that may not be used merely as a means…. These are therefore not merely subjective ends, the existence of which, as the effect of our action, has a worth for us; but rather objective ends, i.e. entities whose existence in itself is an end…. The ground of this principle is: a rational nature exists as an end in itself…. So act that you use humanity, in your own person as well as in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” Kant connects this back with his categorical imperative, “Autonomy is thus the ground of the dignity of a human and of every rational nature…. The categorical imperative can also be expressed as follows: act according to maxims that can at the same time have as their object themselves as universal laws of nature. Such, then, is the formula of an absolutely good will…. A rational nature is distinguished from the others by this, that it sets itself an end.”

Kant might be described as the progenitor of German idealism. He talks of the world of appearances, where humans rely on their senses, and the world of things in themselves, defined through reason and understanding, but never quite grasped. “A human being cannot even—according to the acquaintance he has with himself by inner sensation—presume to cognize how he himself is in himself.” Kant concludes, “As a rational being, hence as one that belongs to the intelligible world, a human being can never think of the causality of his own will otherwise than under the idea of freedom…. When we think of ourselves as free, we transfer ourselves as members into the world of understanding, and cognize autonomy of the will, along with its consequence, morality; but if we think of ourselves as bound by duty we consider ourselves as belonging to the world of sense and yet at the same time to the world of understanding…. Categorical imperatives are possible, because the idea of freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world.”

“Critique of Practical Reason” by Immanuel Kant (translated by Mary Gregor)

The second of Kant’s three critiques deals specifically with human agency and morality. Kant begins, “If, now, it is found that this rule is practically correct, then it is a law because it is a categorical imperative. Thus practical laws refer only to the will, without regard to what is attained by its causality…. In a practical law reason determines the will immediately, not by means of an intervening feeling of pleasure or displeasure, not even in this law; and that it can as pure reason be practical is what alone makes it possible for it to be lawgiving…. Pure reason is practical of itself alone and gives (to the human being) a universal law which we call the moral law…. Accordingly the moral law is for them an imperative that commands categorically because the law is unconditional; the relation of such a will to this law is dependence under the name of obligation, which signifies a necessitation, though only by reason and its objective law, to an action which is called duty.”

Kant contrasts duty with happiness. “The direct opposite of the principle of morality is the principle of one’s own happiness made the determining ground of the will…. The maxim of self-love (prudence) merely advises; the law of morality commands…. What duty is, is plain of itself to everyone, but what brings true lasting advantage, if this is to extend to the whole of one’s existence, is always veiled in impenetrable obscurity…. The moral law commands compliance from everyone, and indeed the most exact compliance. Appraising what is to be done in accordance with it must, therefore, not be so difficult that the most common and unpracticed understanding should not know how to go about it, even without worldly prudence…. To satisfy the categorical command of morality is within everyone’s power at all times; to satisfy the empirically conditioned precept of happiness is but seldom possible.”

Kant next contrasts morality with legality. “What is essential to any moral worth of actions is that the moral law determine the will immediately. If the determination of the will takes place conformably with the moral law but only by means of a feeling, of whatever kind, that has to be presupposed in order for the law to become a sufficient determining ground of the will, so that the action is not done for the sake of the law, then the action will contain legality indeed but not morality.” It is reason alone, not any feelings of the senses or outside pressures, that must determine the free will towards moral duty. “What is essential in every determination of the will by the moral law is that, as a free will—and so not only without the cooperation of sensible impulses but even with rejection of all of them and with infringement upon all inclinations insofar as they could be opposed to that law—it is determined solely by the law.”

Kant reiterates his categorical imperative that all rational agents must be treated by other agents as ends, in and of themselves, and not merely as means. “The moral law is holy (inviolable)…. A human being alone, and with him every rational creature, is an end in itself: by virtue of the autonomy of his freedom he is the subject of the moral law…. This subject is to be used never merely as a means but as at the same time an end…. In the order of ends the human being (and with him every rational being) is an end in itself, that is, can never be used merely as a means by anyone (not even by God) without being at the same time himself an end, and that humanity, in our person must, accordingly, be holy to ourselves: for he is the subject of the moral law.”

Kant squares his philosophy with his understanding of Christianity, “The moral law is holy (inflexible) and demands holiness of morals, although all the moral perfection that a human being can attain is still only virtue, that is, a disposition conformed with law from respect for law…. With respect to the holiness that the Christian law demands, nothing remains for a creature but endless progress…. The moral law of itself does not promise any happiness…. Holiness of morals is prescribed to them as a rule even in this life while the well-being proportioned to it, namely beatitude, is represented as attainable only in an eternity…. Morals is not properly the doctrine of how we are to make ourselves happy but of how we are to become worthy of happiness.”

Finally, Kant concludes, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not need to search for them and merely conjecture them as though they were veiled in obscurity or in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence.”