The Critique of Practical Reason — Kant — John Shaqi
The Critique of Practical Reason
Kant · en
More refined, though equally false, is the theory of those who
suppose a certain special moral sense, which sense and not reason
determines the moral law, and in consequence of which the
consciousness of virtue is supposed to be directly connected with
contentment and pleasure; that of vice, with mental dissatisfaction
and pain; thus reducing the whole to the desire of private
happiness. Without repeating what has been said above, I will here
only remark the fallacy they fall into. In order to imagine the
vicious man as tormented with mental dissatisfaction by the
consciousness of his transgressions, they must first represent him
as in the main basis of his character, at least in some degree,
morally good; just as he who is pleased with the consciousness of
right conduct must be conceived as already virtuous. The notion of
morality and duty must, therefore, have preceded any regard to this
satisfaction, and cannot be derived from it. A man must first
appreciate the importance of what we call duty, the authority of the
moral law, and the immediate dignity which the following of it gives
to the person in his own eyes, in order to feel that satisfaction in
the consciousness of his conformity to it and the bitter remorse
that accompanies the consciousness of its transgression. It is,
therefore, impossible to feel this satisfaction or dissatisfaction
prior to the knowledge of obligation, or to make it the basis of the
latter. A man must be at least half honest in order even to be able to
form a conception of these feelings. I do not deny that as the human
will is, by virtue of liberty, capable of being immediately determined
by the moral law, so frequent practice in accordance with this
principle of determination can, at least, produce subjectively a
feeling of satisfaction; on the contrary, it is a duty to establish
and to cultivate this, which alone deserves to be called properly
the moral feeling; but the notion of duty cannot be derived from it,
else we should have to suppose a feeling for the law as such, and thus
make that an object of sensation which can only be thought by the
reason; and this, if it is not to be a flat contradiction, would
destroy all notion of duty and put in its place a mere mechanical play
of refined inclinations sometimes contending with the coarser.
If now we compare our formal supreme principle of pure practical
reason (that of autonomy of the will) with all previous material
principles of morality, we can exhibit them all in a table in which
all possible cases are exhausted, except the one formal principle; and
thus we can show visibly that it is vain to look for any other
principle than that now proposed. In fact all possible principles of
determination of the will are either merely subjective, and
therefore empirical, or are also objective and rational; and both
are either external or internal.
Practical Material Principles of Determination taken as the
Foundation of Morality, are: