The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics

Kant · en
Internal Duty of Virtue       External Virtue of Duty

      My Own End,                  The End of Others,

      which is also my             the promotion of

                                             {INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 115}

      Duty                         which is also my

                                   Duty

      (My own                      (The Happiness

      Perfection)                  of Others)

                                             {INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 120}

             3                              4

      The Law which is             The End which is

      also Spring                  also Spring

                                             {INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 125}

      On which the                 On which the

      Morality                     Legality

       of every free determination of will rests

                                             {INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 130}

  The Formal Element of the Duty of Virtue.

XII. Preliminary Notions of the Susceptibility of the Mind for

               Notions of Duty generally

                                             {INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 135}

These are such moral qualities as, when a man does not possess them,
he is not bound to acquire them. They are: the moral feeling,
conscience, love of one's neighbour, and respect for ourselves
(self-esteem). There is no obligation to have these, since they are
subjective conditions of susceptibility for the notion of duty, not
objective conditions of morality. They are all sensitive and
antecedent, but natural capacities of mind (praedispositio) to be
affected by notions of duty; capacities which it cannot be regarded as
a duty to have, but which every man has, and by virtue of which he can
be brought under obligation. The consciousness of them is not of
empirical origin, but can only follow on that of a moral law, as an
effect of the same on the mind.

                  A. THE MORAL FEELING

This is the susceptibility for pleasure or displeasure, merely
from the consciousness of the agreement or disagreement of our
action with the law of duty. Now, every determination of the
elective will proceeds from the idea of the possible action through
the feeling of pleasure or displeasure in taking an interest in it
or its effect to the deed; and here the sensitive state (the affection
of the internal sense) is either a pathological or a moral feeling.
The former is the feeling that precedes the idea of the law, the
latter that which may follow it.

                                             {INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 140}