The Critique of Practical Reason — Kant — John Shaqi
The Critique of Practical Reason
Kant · en
Now, since the notions of good and evil, as consequences of the a
priori determination of the will, imply also a pure practical
principle, and therefore a causality of pure reason; hence they do not
originally refer to objects (so as to be, for instance, special
modes of the synthetic unity of the manifold of given intuitions in
one consciousness) like the pure concepts of the understanding or
categories of reason in its theoretic employment; on the contrary,
they presuppose that objects are given; but they are all modes
(modi) of a single category, namely, that of causality, the
determining principle of which consists in the rational conception
of a law, which as a law of freedom reason gives to itself, thereby
a priori proving itself practical. However, as the actions on the
one side come under a law which is not a physical law, but a law of
freedom, and consequently belong to the conduct of beings in the world
of intelligence, yet on the other side as events in the world of sense
they belong to phenomena; hence the determinations of a practical
reason are only possible in reference to the latter and, therefore, in
accordance with the categories of the understanding; not indeed with a
view to any theoretic employment of it, i.e., so as to bring the
manifold of (sensible) intuition under one consciousness a priori; but
only to subject the manifold of desires to the unity of
consciousness of a practical reason, giving it commands in the moral
law, i.e., to a pure will a priori.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 15}