(2) Morality is not qualified, but _certain_ in its requirements. The
most inexperienced, the humblest, the one most restricted in his
circumstances and opportunities, must know what is morally required as
surely as the wisest and most educated. Hence moral reason must utter
its precepts clearly and unambiguously. But no one can be _sure_ what
happiness is, or whether a given act will bring joy or sorrow. "The
problem of determining certainly what action would promote the
happiness of a rational being is insoluble." (Abbott's _Kant_, p. 36.)
The demand for _certainty_ of precepts in moral matters also requires a
special faculty.
(3) Morality, which is inexorable and certain in its demands, is also
_universal_ in its requirements. Its laws are the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever, the same for one as for another. Now happiness
notoriously varies with the condition and circumstances of a person, as
well as with the conditions of different peoples and epochs.
Intelligence with reference to happiness can only give counsel, not even
rules, so variable is happiness. It can only advise that upon the
average, under certain conditions, a given course of action has usually
promoted happiness. When we add that the commands of morality are also
universal with respect to the different inclinations of different
individuals, we are made emphatically aware of the necessity of a
rational standpoint, which in its impartiality totally transcends the
ends and plans that grow out of the ordinary experience of an
individual.
=An A Priori Reason Kant's Solution.=--The net outcome is that only a
reason which is separate and independent of all experience is capable of
meeting the requirements of morality. What smacks in its origin and aim
of experience is tainted with self-love; is partial, temporary,
uncertain, and relative or dependent. The moral law is unqualified,
necessary, and universal. Hence we have to recognize in man as a moral
being a faculty of reason which expresses itself in the law of conduct
_a priori_ to all experience of desire, pleasure, and pain. Besides his
sensuous nature (with respect to which knowledge is bound up with
appetite) man has a purely rational nature, which manifests itself in
the consciousness of the absolute authority of universal law.[160]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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