Part II: Doctrine of the method of pure practical reason
Original German
Der A 267 V:149 Kritik der praktischen Vernunft
Zweiter Theil. Methodenlehre der reinen praktischen Vernunft.
V:151 Unter der Methodenlehre der reinen praktischen Vernunft kann A 269 man nicht die Art (sowohl im Nachdenken als im Vortrage) mit reinen praktischen Grundsätzen in Absicht auf ein wissenschaftliches Erkenntniß derselben zu verfahren verstehen, welches man sonst im Theoretischen eigentlich allein Methode nennt (denn populäres Erkenntniß bedarf einer Manier, Wissenschaft aber einer Methode, d. i. eines Verfahrens nach Principien der Vernunft, wodurch das Mannigfaltige einer Erkenntniß allein ein System werden kann). Vielmehr wird unter dieser Methodenlehre die Art verstanden, wie man den Gesetzen der reinen praktischen Vernunft Eingang in das menschliche Gemüth, Einfluß auf die Maximen desselben verschaffen, d. i. die objectiv praktische Vernunft auch subjectiv praktisch machen könne.
Nun ist zwar klar, daß diejenigen Bestimmungsgründe des Willens, welche allein die Maximen eigentlich moralisch machen und ihnen einen sittlichen Werth geben, die unmittelbare Vorstellung des Gesetzes und die objectiv nothwendige Befolgung desselben als Pflicht, als die eigentlichen Triebfedern der Handlungen vorgestellt werden müssen, weil sonst zwar Legalität der Handlungen, aber nicht Moralität der Gesinnungen bewirkt A 270 werden würde. Allein nicht so klar, vielmehr beim ersten Anblicke ganz unwahrscheinlich muß es jedermann vorkommen, daß auch subjectiv jene Darstellung der reinen Tugend mehr Macht über das menschliche Gemüth haben und eine weit stärkere Triebfeder abgeben könne, selbst jene Legalität der Handlungen zu bewirken und kräftigere Entschließungen hervorzubringen, das Gesetz aus reiner Achtung für dasselbe jeder anderen Rücksicht vorzuziehen, als alle Anlockungen, die aus Vorspiegelungen von Vergnügen und überhaupt allem dem, was man zur Glückseligkeit zählen V:152 mag, oder auch alle Androhungen von Schmerz und Übeln jemals wirken können. Gleichwohl ist es wirklich so bewandt, und wäre es nicht so mit der menschlichen Natur beschaffen, so würde auch keine Vorstellungsart des Gesetzes durch Umschweife und empfehlende Mittel jemals Moralität der Gesinnung hervorbringen. Alles wäre lauter Gleißnerei, das Gesetz würde gehaßt, oder wohl gar verachtet, indessen doch um eigenen Vortheils willen befolgt werden. Der Buchstabe des Gesetzes (Legalität) würde in unseren Handlungen anzutreffen sein, der Geist desselben aber in unseren Gesinnungen (Moralität) gar nicht, und da wir mit aller unserer Bemühung uns doch in unserem Urtheile nicht ganz von der Vernunft los machen können, so würden wir unvermeidlich in unseren eigenen Augen als nichtswürdige, verworfene Menschen erscheinen müssen, wenn wir uns gleich A 271 für diese Kränkung vor dem inneren Richterstuhl dadurch schadlos zu halten versuchten, daß wir uns an den Vergnügen ergötzten, die ein von uns angenommenes natürliches oder göttliches Gesetz unserem Wahne nach mit dem Maschinenwesen ihrer Polizei, die sich blos nach dem richtete, was man thut, ohne sich um die Bewegungsgründe, warum man es thut, zu bekümmern, verbunden hätte.
Zwar kann man nicht in Abrede sein, daß, um ein entweder noch ungebildetes, oder auch verwildertes Gemüth zuerst ins Gleis des moralisch Guten zu bringen, es einiger vorbereitenden Anleitungen bedürfe, es durch seinen eigenen Vortheil zu locken, oder durch den Schaden zu schrecken; allein so bald dieses Maschinenwerk, dieses Gängelband nur einige Wirkung gethan hat, so muß durchaus der reine moralische Bewegungsgrund an die Seele gebracht werden, der nicht allein dadurch, daß er der einzige ist, welcher einen Charakter (praktische consequente Denkungsart nach unveränderlichen Maximen) gründet, sondern auch darum, weil er den Menschen seine eigene Würde fühlen lehrt, dem Gemüthe eine ihm selbst unerwartete Kraft giebt, sich von aller sinnlichen Anhänglichkeit, so fern sie herrschend werden will, loszureißen und in der Unabhängigkeit seiner intelligibelen Natur und der Seelengröße, dazu er sich bestimmt sieht, für A 272 die Opfer, die er darbringt, reichliche Entschädigung zu finden. Wir wollen also diese Eigenschaft unseres Gemüths, diese Empfänglichkeit eines reinen moralischen Interesse und mithin die bewegende Kraft der reinen Vorstellung der Tugend, wenn sie gehörig ans menschliche Herz gebracht wird, als die mächtigste und, wenn es auf die Dauer und Pünktlichkeit in Befolgung moralischer Maximen ankommt, einzige Triebfeder zum Guten V:153 durch Beobachtungen, die ein jeder anstellen kann, beweisen; wobei doch zugleich erinnert werden muß, daß, wenn diese Beobachtungen nur die Wirklichkeit eines solchen Gefühls, nicht aber dadurch zu Stande gebrachte sittliche Besserung beweisen, dieses der einzigen Methode, die objectiv praktischen Gesetze der reinen Vernunft durch bloße reine Vorstellung der Pflicht subjectiv praktisch zu machen, keinen Abbruch thue, gleich als ob sie eine leere Phantasterei wäre. Denn da diese Methode noch niemals in Gang gebracht worden, so kann auch die Erfahrung noch nichts von ihrem Erfolg aufzeigen, sondern man kann nur Beweisthümer der Empfänglichkeit solcher Triebfedern fordern, die ich jetzt kürzlich vorlegen und darnach die Methode der Gründung und Cultur ächter moralischer Gesinnungen mit wenigem entwerfen will.
Wenn man auf den Gang der Gespräche in gemischten Gesellschaften, die nicht blos aus Gelehrten und Vernünftlern, sondern auch aus Leuten A 273 von Geschäften oder Frauenzimmer bestehen, Acht hat, so bemerkt man, daß außer dem Erzählen und Scherzen noch eine Unterhaltung, nämlich das Räsonniren, darin Platz findet: weil das erstere, wenn es Neuigkeit und mit ihr Interesse bei sich führen soll, bald erschöpft, das zweite aber leicht schal wird. Unter allem Räsonniren ist aber keines, was mehr den Beitritt der Personen, die sonst bei allem Vernünfteln bald lange Weile haben, erregt und eine gewisse Lebhaftigkeit in die Gesellschaft bringt, als das über den sittlichen Werth dieser oder jener Handlung, dadurch der Charakter irgend einer Person ausgemacht werden soll. Diejenige, welchen sonst alles Subtile und Grüblerische in theoretischen Fragen trocken und verdrießlich ist, treten bald bei, wenn es darauf ankommt, den moralischen Gehalt einer erzählten guten oder bösen Handlung auszumachen, und sind so genau, so grüblerisch, so subtil, alles, was die Reinigkeit der Absicht und mithin den Grad der Tugend in derselben vermindern, oder auch nur verdächtig machen könnte, auszusinnen, als man bei keinem Objecte der Speculation sonst von ihnen erwartet. Man kann in diesen Beurtheilungen oft den Charakter der über andere urtheilenden Personen selbst hervorschimmern sehen, deren einige vorzüglich geneigt scheinen, indem sie ihr Richteramt vornehmlich über Verstorbene ausüben, das Gute, was von A 274 dieser oder jener That derselben erzählt wird, wider alle kränkende Einwürfe der Unlauterkeit und zuletzt den ganzen sittlichen Werth der Person wider den Vorwurf der Verstellung und geheimen Bösartigkeit zu vertheidigen, andere dagegen mehr auf Anklagen und Beschuldigungen sinnen, V:154 diesen Werth anzufechten. Doch kann man den letzteren nicht immer die Absicht beimessen, Tugend aus allen Beispielen der Menschen gänzlich wegvernünfteln zu wollen, um sie dadurch zum leeren Namen zu machen, sondern es ist oft nur wohlgemeinte Strenge in Bestimmung des ächten sittlichen Gehalts nach einem unnachsichtlichen Gesetze, mit welchem und nicht mit Beispielen verglichen der Eigendünkel im Moralischen sehr sinkt, und Demuth nicht etwa blos gelehrt, sondern bei scharfer Selbstprüfung von jedem gefühlt wird. Dennoch kann man den Verteidigern der Reinigkeit der Absicht in gegebenen Beispielen es mehrentheils ansehen, daß sie ihr da, wo sie die Vermuthung der Rechtschaffenheit für sich hat, auch den mindesten Fleck gerne abwischen möchten, aus dem Bewegungsgrunde, damit nicht, wenn allen Beispielen ihre Wahrhaftigkeit gestritten und aller menschlichen Tugend die Lauterkeit weggeleugnet würde, diese nicht endlich gar für ein bloßes Hirngespinst gehalten und so alle Bestrebung zu derselben als eitles Geziere und trüglicher Eigendünkel geringschätzig gemacht werde.
Ich weiß nicht, warum die Erzieher der Jugend von diesem Hange A 275 der Vernunft, in aufgeworfenen praktischen Fragen selbst die subtilste Prüfung mit Vergnügen einzuschlagen, nicht schon längst Gebrauch gemacht haben, und, nachdem sie einen blos moralischen Katechism zum Grunde legten, sie nicht die Biographien alter und neuer Zeiten in der Absicht durchsuchten, um Beläge zu den vorgelegten Pflichten bei der Hand zu haben, an denen sie vornehmlich durch die Vergleichung ähnlicher Handlungen unter verschiedenen Umständen die Beurtheilung ihrer Zöglinge in Thätigkeit setzten, um den mindern oder größeren moralischen Gehalt derselben zu bemerken, als worin sie selbst die frühe Jugend, die zu aller Speculation sonst noch unreif ist, bald sehr scharfsichtig und dabei, weil sie den Fortschritt ihrer Urtheilskraft fühlt, nicht wenig interessirt finden werden, was aber das Vornehmste ist, mit Sicherheit hoffen können, daß die öftere Übung, das Wohlverhalten in seiner ganzen Reinigkeit zu kennen und ihm Beifall zu geben, dagegen selbst die kleinste Abweichung von ihr mit Bedauern oder Verachtung zu bemerken, ob es zwar bis dahin nur als ein Spiel der Urtheilskraft, in welchem Kinder mit einander wetteifern können, getrieben wird, dennoch einen dauerhaften Eindruck der Hochschätzung auf der einen und des Abscheues auf der andern Seite zurücklassen werde, welche durch bloße Gewohnheit, solche Handlungen als beifalls- oder tadelswürdig öfters anzusehen, zur Rechtschaffenheit im A 276 V:155 künftigen Lebenswandel eine gute Grundlage ausmachen würden. Nur wünsche ich sie mit Beispielen sogenannter edler (überverdienstlicher) Handlungen, mit welchen unsere empfindsame Schriften so viel um sich werfen, zu verschonen und alles blos auf Pflicht und den Werth, den ein Mensch sich in seinen eigenen Augen durch das Bewußtsein, sie nicht übertreten zu haben, geben kann und muß, auszusetzen, weil, was auf leere Wünsche und Sehnsuchten nach unersteiglicher Vollkommenheit hinausläuft, lauter Romanhelden hervorbringt, die, indem sie sich auf ihr Gefühl für das überschwenglich Große viel zu Gute thun, sich dafür von der Beobachtung der gemeinen und gangbaren Schuldigkeit, die alsdann ihnen nur unbedeutend klein scheint, frei sprechen.18
Wenn man aber frägt, was denn eigentlich die reine Sittlichkeit ist, A 277 an der als dem Probemetall man jeder Handlung moralischen Gehalt prüfen müsse, so muß ich gestehen, daß nur Philosophen die Entscheidung dieser Frage zweifelhaft machen können; denn in der gemeinen Menschenvernunft ist sie, zwar nicht durch abgezogene allgemeine Formeln, aber doch durch den gewöhnlichen Gebrauch, gleichsam als der Unterschied zwischen der rechten und linken Hand, längst entschieden. Wir wollen also vorerst das Prüfungsmerkmal der reinen Tugend an einem Beispiele zeigen und, indem wir uns vorstellen, daß es etwa einem zehnjährigen Knaben zur Beurtheilung vorgelegt worden, sehen, ob er auch von selber, ohne durch den Lehrer dazu angewiesen zu sein, nothwendig so urtheilen müßte. Man erzähle die Geschichte eines redlichen Mannes, den man bewegen will, den Verleumdern einer unschuldigen, übrigens nichts vermögenden Person (wie etwa Anna von Bolen auf Anklage Heinrich VIII. von England) beizutreten. Man bietet Gewinne, d. i. große Geschenke oder hohen Rang, an, er schlägt sie aus. Dieses wird bloßen Beifall und Billigung V:156 in der Seele des Zuhörers wirken, weil es Gewinn ist. Nun fängt man es mit Androhung des Verlusts an. Es sind unter diesen Verleumdern A 278 seine besten Freunde, die ihm jetzt ihre Freundschaft aufsagen, nahe Verwandte, die ihn (der ohne Vermögen ist) zu enterben drohen, Mächtige, die ihn in jedem Orte und Zustande verfolgen und kränken können, ein Landesfürst, der ihn mit dem Verlust der Freiheit, ja des Lebens selbst bedroht. Um ihn aber, damit das Maß des Leidens voll sei, auch den Schmerz fühlen zu lassen, den nur das sittlich gute Herz recht inniglich fühlen kann, mag man seine mit äußerster Noth und Dürftigkeit bedrohte Familie ihn um Nachgiebigkeit anflehend, ihn selbst, obzwar rechtschaffen, doch eben nicht von festen, unempfindlichen Organen des Gefühls für Mitleid sowohl als eigener Noth, in einem Augenblick, darin er wünscht den Tag nie erlebt zu haben, der ihn einem so unaussprechlichen Schmerz aussetzte, dennoch seinem Vorsatze der Redlichkeit, ohne zu wanken oder nur zu zweifeln, treu bleibend vorstellen: so wird mein jugendlicher Zuhörer stufenweise von der bloßen Billigung zur Bewunderung, von da zum Erstaunen, endlich bis zur größten Verehrung und einem lebhaften Wunsche, selbst ein solcher Mann sein zu können (obzwar freilich nicht in seinem Zustande), erhoben werden; und gleichwohl ist hier die Tugend nur darum so viel werth, weil sie so viel kostet, nicht weil sie etwas einbringt. Die ganze Bewunderung und selbst Bestrebung zur Ähnlichkeit mit diesem Charakter beruht hier gänzlich auf der Reinigkeit des sittlichen A 279 Grundsatzes, welche nur dadurch recht in die Augen fallend vorgestellt werden kann, daß man alles, was Menschen nur zur Glückseligkeit zählen mögen, von den Triebfedern der Handlung wegnimmt. Also muß die Sittlichkeit auf das menschliche Herz desto mehr Kraft haben, je reiner sie dargestellt wird. Woraus denn folgt, daß, wenn das Gesetz der Sitten und das Bild der Heiligkeit und Tugend auf unsere Seele überall einigen Einfluß ausüben soll, sie diesen nur so fern ausüben könne, als sie rein, unvermengt von Absichten auf sein Wohlbefinden, als Triebfeder ans Herz gelegt wird, darum weil sie sich im Leiden am herrlichsten zeigt. Dasjenige aber, dessen Wegräumung die Wirkung einer bewegenden Kraft verstärkt, muß ein Hinderniß gewesen sein. Folglich ist alle Beimischung der Triebfedern, die von eigener Glückseligkeit hergenommen werden, ein Hinderniß, dem moralischen Gesetze Einfluß aufs menschliche Herz zu verschaffen. — Ich behaupte ferner, daß selbst in jener bewunderten Handlung, wenn der Bewegungsgrund, daraus sie geschah, die Hochschätzung V:157 seiner Pflicht war, alsdann eben diese Achtung fürs Gesetz, nicht etwa ein Anspruch auf die innere Meinung von Großmuth und edler, verdienstlicher Denkungsart, gerade auf das Gemüth des Zuschauers die größte Kraft habe, folglich Pflicht, nicht Verdienst den nicht allein bestimmtesten, sondern, wenn sie im rechten Lichte ihrer Unverletzlichkeit vorgestellt wird, A 280 auch den eindringendsten Einfluß aufs Gemüth haben müsse.
In unsern Zeiten, wo man mehr mit schmelzenden, weichherzigen Gefühlen, oder hochfliegenden, aufblähenden und das Herz eher welk als stark machenden Anmaßungen über das Gemüth mehr auszurichten hofft, als durch die der menschlichen Unvollkommenheit und dem Fortschritte im Guten angemeßnere trockne und ernsthafte Vorstellung der Pflicht, ist die Hinweisung auf diese Methode nöthiger als jemals. Kindern Handlungen als edele, großmüthige, verdienstliche zum Muster aufzustellen, in der Meinung, sie durch Einflößung eines Enthusiasmus für dieselbe einzunehmen, ist vollends zweckwidrig. Denn da sie noch in der Beobachtung der gemeinsten Pflicht und selbst in der richtigen Beurtheilung derselben so weit zurück sind, so heißt das so viel, als sie bei Zeiten zu Phantasten zu machen. Aber auch bei dem belehrtern und erfahrnern Theil der Menschen ist diese vermeinte Triebfeder, wo nicht von nachtheiliger, wenigstens von keiner ächten moralischen Wirkung aufs Herz, die man dadurch doch hat zuwegebringen wollen.
Alle Gefühle, vornehmlich die, so ungewohnte Anstrengung bewirken sollen, müssen in dem Augenblicke, da sie in ihrer Heftigkeit sind, und ehe sie verbrausen, ihre Wirkung thun, sonst thun sie nichts: indem das Herz natürlicherweise zu seiner natürlichen, gemäßigten Lebensbewegung A 281 zurückkehrt und sonach in die Mattigkeit verfällt, die ihm vorher eigen war, weil zwar etwas, was es reizte, nichts aber, das es stärkte, an dasselbe gebracht war. Grundsätze müssen auf Begriffe errichtet werden, auf alle andere Grundlage können nur Anwandelungen zu Stande kommen, die der Person keinen moralischen Werth, ja nicht einmal eine Zuversicht auf sich selbst verschaffen können, ohne die das Bewußtsein seiner moralischen Gesinnung und eines solchen Charakters, das höchste Gut im Menschen, gar nicht stattfinden kann. Diese Begriffe nun, wenn sie subjectiv praktisch werden sollen, müssen nicht bei den objectiven Gesetzen der Sittlichkeit stehen bleiben, um sie zu bewundern und in Beziehung auf die Menschheit hochzuschätzen, sondern ihre Vorstellung in Relation auf den Menschen und auf sein Individuum betrachten; da denn jenes Gesetz in V:158 einer zwar höchst achtungswürdigen, aber nicht so gefälligen Gestalt erscheint, als ob es zu dem Elemente gehöre, daran er natürlicher Weise gewohnt ist, sondern wie es ihn nöthigt, dieses oft nicht ohne Selbstverleugnung zu verlassen und sich in ein höheres zu begeben, darin er sich mit unaufhörlicher Besorgniß des Rückfalls nur mit Mühe erhalten kann. Mit einem Worte, das moralische Gesetz verlangt Befolgung aus Pflicht, nicht aus Vorliebe, die man gar nicht voraussetzten kann und soll.
Laßt uns nun im Beispiele sehen, ob in der Vorstellung einer Handlung A 282 als edler und großmüthiger Handlung mehr subjectiv bewegende Kraft einer Triebfeder liege, als wenn diese blos als Pflicht in Verhältniß auf das ernste moralische Gesetz vorgestellt wird. Die Handlung, da jemand mit der größten Gefahr des Lebens Leute aus dem Schiffbruche zu retten sucht, wenn er zuletzt dabei selbst sein Leben einbüßt, wird zwar einerseits zur Pflicht, andererseits aber und größtentheils auch für verdienstliche Handlung angerechnet, aber unsere Hochschätzung derselben wird gar sehr durch den Begriff von Pflicht gegen sich selbst, welche hier etwas Abbruch zu leiden scheint, geschwächt. Entscheidender ist die großmüthige Aufopferung seines Lebens zur Erhaltung des Vaterlandes, und doch, ob es auch so vollkommen Pflicht sei, sich von selbst und unbefohlen dieser Absicht zu weihen, darüber bleibt einiger Scrupel übrig, und die Handlung hat nicht die ganze Kraft eines Musters und Antriebes zur Nachahmung in sich. Ist es aber unerlaßliche Pflicht, deren Übertretung das moralische Gesetz an sich und ohne Rücksicht auf Menschenwohl verletzt und dessen Heiligkeit gleichsam mit Füßen tritt (dergleichen Pflichten man Pflichten gegen Gott zu nennen pflegt, weil wir uns in ihm das Ideal der Heiligkeit in Substanz denken), so widmen wir der Befolgung desselben mit Aufopferung alles dessen, was für die innigste aller unserer Neigungen nur immer einen Werth haben mag, die allervollkommenste A 283 Hochachtung, und wir finden unsere Seele durch ein solches Beispiel gestärkt und erhoben, wenn wir an demselben uns überzeugen können, daß die menschliche Natur zu einer so großen Erhebung über alles, was Natur nur immer an Triebfedern zum Gegentheil aufbringen mag, fähig sei. Juvenal stellt ein solches Beispiel in einer Steigerung vor, die den Leser die Kraft der Triebfeder, die im reinen Gesetze der Pflicht als Pflicht steckt, lebhaft empfinden läßt:
Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idemInteger; ambiguae si quando citabere testisV:159 Incertaeque rei, Phalaris licet imperet, ut sisFalsus, et admoto dictet periuria tauro,Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudoriEt proper vitam vivendi perdere causas.
Wenn wir irgend etwas Schmeichelhaftes vom Verdienstlichen in unsere Handlung bringen können, dann ist die Triebfeder schon mit Eigenliebe etwas vermischt, hat also einige Beihülfe von der Seite der Sinnlichkeit. Aber der Heiligkeit der Pflicht allein alles nachsetzen und sich bewußt werden, daß man es könne, weil unsere eigene Vernunft dieses als ihr Gebot anerkennt und sagt, daß man es thun solle, das heißt sich gleichsam über die Sinnenwelt selbst gänzlich erheben, und ist in demselben Bewußtsein des Gesetzes auch als Triebfeder eines die Sinnlichkeit beherrschenden Vermögens unzertrennlich, wenn gleich nicht immer A 284 mit Effect verbunden, der aber doch auch durch die öftere Beschäftigung mit derselben und die anfangs kleinern Versuche ihres Gebrauchs Hoffnung zu seiner Bewirkung giebt, um in uns nach und nach das größte, aber reine moralische Interesse daran hervorzubringen.
Die Methode nimmt also folgenden Gang. Zuerst ist es nur darum zu thun, die Beurtheilung nach moralischen Gesetzen zu einer natürlichen, alle unsere eigene sowohl als die Beobachtung fremder freier Handlungen begleitenden Beschäftigung und gleichsam zur Gewohnheit zu machen und sie zu schärfen, indem man vorerst frägt, ob die Handlung objectiv dem moralischen Gesetze, und welchem, gemäß sei; wobei man denn die Aufmerksamkeit auf dasjenige Gesetz, welches blos einen Grund zur Verbindlichkeit an die Hand giebt, von dem unterscheidet, welches in der That verbindend ist (leges obligandi a legibus obligantibus), (wie z. B. das Gesetz desjenigen, was das Bedürfniß der Menschen, im Gegensatze dessen, was das Recht derselben von mir fordert, wovon das Letztere wesentliche, das Erstere aber nur außerwesentliche Pflichten vorschreibt) und so verschiedene Pflichten, die in einer Handlung zusammenkommen, unterscheiden lehrt. Der andere Punkt, worauf die Aufmerksamkeit gerichtet werden muß, ist die Frage: ob die Handlung auch (subjectiv) um des moralischen Gesetzes willen geschehen, und also sie nicht allein A 285 sittliche Richtigkeit als That, sondern auch sittlichen Werth als Gesinnung, ihrer Maxime nach, habe. Nun ist kein Zweifel, daß diese Übung und das Bewußtsein einer daraus entspringenden Cultur unserer blos über das Praktische urtheilenden Vernunft ein gewisses Interesse selbst am Gesetze V:160 derselben, mithin an sittlich guten Handlungen nach und nach hervorbringen müsse. Denn wir gewinnen endlich das lieb, dessen Betrachtung uns den erweiterten Gebrauch unserer Erkenntnißkräfte empfinden läßt, welchen vornehmlich dasjenige befördert, worin wir moralische Richtigkeit antreffen: weil sich die Vernunft in einer solchen Ordnung der Dinge mit ihrem Vermögen, a priori nach Principien zu bestimmen, was geschehen soll, allein gut finden kann. Gewinnt doch ein Naturbeobachter Gegenstände, die seinen Sinnen anfangs anstößig sind, endlich lieb, wenn er die große Zweckmäßigkeit ihrer Organisation daran entdeckt und so seine Vernunft an ihrer Betrachtung weidet, und Leibniz brachte ein Insect, welches er durchs Mikroskop sorgfältig betrachtet hatte, schonend wiederum auf sein Blatt zurück, weil er sich durch seinen Anblick belehrt gefunden und von ihm gleichsam eine Wohltat genossen hatte.
Aber diese Beschäftigung der Urtheilskraft, welche uns unsere eigene Erkenntnißkräfte fühlen läßt, ist noch nicht das Interesse an den Handlungen A 286 und ihrer Moralität selbst. Sie macht blos, daß man sich gerne mit einer solchen Beurtheilung unterhält, und giebt der Tugend oder der Denkungsart nach moralischen Gesetzen eine Form der Schönheit, die bewundert, darum aber noch nicht gesucht wird (laudatur et alget); wie alles, dessen Betrachtung subjectiv ein Bewußtsein der Harmonie unserer Vorstellungskräfte bewirkt, und wobei wir unser ganzes Erkenntnißvermögen (Verstand und Einbildungskraft) gestärkt fühlen, ein Wohlgefallen hervorbringt, das sich auch andern mittheilen läßt, wobei gleichwohl die Existenz des Objects uns gleichgültig bleibt, indem es nur als die Veranlassung angesehen wird, der über die Thierheit erhabenen Anlage der Talente in uns inne zu werden. Nun tritt aber die zweite Übung ihr Geschäft an, nämlich in der lebendigen Darstellung der moralischen Gesinnung an Beispielen die Reinigkeit des Willens bemerklich zu machen, vorerst nur als negativer Vollkommenheit desselben, so fern in einer Handlung aus Pflicht gar keine Triebfedern der Neigungen als Bestimmungsgründe auf ihn einfließen; wodurch der Lehrling doch auf das Bewußtsein seiner Freiheit aufmerksam erhalten wird, und, obgleich diese Entsagung eine anfängliche Empfindung von Schmerz erregt, dennoch dadurch, daß sie jenen Lehrling dem Zwange selbst wahrer Bedürfnisse entzieht, ihm zugleich eine Befreiung von der mannigfaltigen Unzufriedenheit, darin ihn alle diese Bedürfnisse verflechten, angekündigt und das Gemüth A 287 für die Empfindung der Zufriedenheit aus anderen Quellen empfänglich V:161 gemacht wird. Das Herz wird doch von einer Last, die es jederzeit ingeheim drückt, befreit und erleichtert, wenn an reinen moralischen Entschließungen, davon Beispiele vorgelegt werden, dem Menschen ein inneres, ihm selbst sonst nicht einmal recht bekanntes Vermögen, die innere Freiheit, aufgedeckt wird, sich von der ungestümen Zudringlichkeit der Neigungen dermaßen loszumachen, daß gar keine, selbst die beliebteste nicht, auf eine Entschließung, zu der wir uns jetzt unserer Vernunft bedienen sollen, Einfluß habe. In einem Falle, wo ich nur allein weiß, daß das Unrecht auf meiner Seite sei, und, obgleich das freie Geständniß desselben und die Anerbietung zur Genugthuung an der Eitelkeit, dem Eigennutze, selbst dem sonst nicht unrechtmäßigen Widerwillen gegen den, dessen Recht von mir geschmälert ist, so großen Widerspruch findet, dennoch mich über alle diese Bedenklichkeiten wegsetzen kann, ist doch ein Bewußtsein einer Unabhängigkeit von Neigungen und von Glücksumständen und der Möglichkeit sich selbst genug zu sein enthalten, welche mir überall auch in anderer Absicht heilsam ist. Und nun findet das Gesetz der Pflicht durch den positiven Werth, den uns die Befolgung desselben empfinden läßt, leichteren Eingang durch die Achtung für uns selbst im Bewußtsein unserer Freiheit. Auf diese, wenn sie wohl gegründet ist, A 288 wenn der Mensch nichts stärker scheuet, als sich in der inneren Selbstprüfung in seinen eigenen Augen geringschätzig und verwerflich zu finden, kann nun jede gute sittliche Gesinnung gepfropft werden: weil dieses der beste, ja der einzige Wächter ist, das Eindringen unedler und verderbender Antriebe vom Gemüthe abzuhalten.
Ich habe hiemit nur auf die allgemeinsten Maximen der Methodenlehre einer moralischen Bildung und Übung hinweisen wollen. Da die Mannigfaltigkeit der Pflichten für jede Art derselben noch besondere Bestimmungen erforderte und so ein weitläuftiges Geschäfte ausmachen würde, so wird man mich für entschuldigt halten, wenn ich in einer Schrift wie diese, die nur Vorübung ist, es bei diesen Grundzügen bewenden lasse.
18 Handlungen, aus denen große, uneigennützige, theilnehmende Gesinnung und Menschlichkeit hervorleuchtet, zu preisen, ist ganz rathsam. Aber man muß hier nicht sowohl auf die Seelenerhebung, die sehr flüchtig und vorübergehend ist, als vielmehr auf die Herzensunterwerfung unter Pflicht, wovon ein längerer Eindruck erwartet werden kann, weil sie Grundsätze (jene aber nur Aufwallungen) mit sich führt, aufmerksam machen. Man darf nur ein wenig nachsinnen, man wird immer eine Schuld finden, die er sich irgend wodurch in Ansehung des Menschengeschlechts aufgeladen hat (sollte es auch nur die sein, daß man durch die Ungleichheit der Menschen in der bürgerlichen Verfassung Vortheile genießt, um deren willen andere desto mehr entbehren müssen), um durch die eigenliebige Einbildung des Verdienstlichen den Gedanken an Pflicht nicht zu verdrängen.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted translation directly from Kant's German, Akademie-Ausgabe V (1913), pages 1–163, including all eighteen author notes. Original page and section references are retained.
Of the A 267 V:149 Critique of Practical Reason
Part II. Doctrine of the Method of Pure Practical Reason.
V:151 By the doctrine of method of pure practical reason we cannot A 269 mean the way of proceeding, in reflection as well as exposition, with pure practical principles for the sake of a scientific cognition of them. In the theoretical sphere this alone is properly called method: popular cognition requires a manner, but science a method, that is, a procedure according to principles of reason, through which alone the manifold of a cognition can become a system. Rather, this doctrine of method means the way in which we can give the laws of pure practical reason access to the human mind and influence upon its maxims: that is, make objectively practical reason subjectively practical as well.
Now it is clear that the determining grounds of the will that alone make maxims properly moral and give them moral worth—the immediate representation of the law and the objectively necessary observance of it as duty—must be presented as the true incentives of actions. Otherwise the legality of actions would indeed be brought about, but not the morality of dispositions. A 270 Yet it is not so clear—indeed, at first sight it must seem entirely improbable to everyone—that even subjectively this presentation of pure virtue can have more power over the human mind and provide a far stronger incentive to bring about even that legality of actions, and produce firmer resolutions to prefer the law, out of pure respect for it, to every other consideration, than all the enticements arising from promises of pleasure and, in general, everything that may be counted as happiness, V:152 or than all threats of pain and evils could ever accomplish. Nevertheless, this is in fact the case. Were human nature not so constituted, no way of representing the law through indirect approaches and inducements could ever produce morality of disposition either. Everything would be sheer hypocrisy: the law would be hated, or even despised, yet obeyed for one's own advantage. The letter of the law, legality, would be found in our actions, but its spirit, morality, would be entirely absent from our dispositions. And since, despite all our efforts, we cannot altogether detach ourselves from reason in our judgment, we would inevitably have to appear in our own eyes as worthless, depraved human beings. This would remain so even if we tried A 271 to compensate for this humiliation before the inner tribunal by indulging in the pleasures that, in our delusion, a natural or divine law assumed by us had connected with the machinery of its enforcement—a machinery directed merely at what one does, without concerning itself with the motives for doing it.
Admittedly, to set a mind that is either still unformed or has become debased on the path of moral goodness initially requires some preparatory guidance, enticing it through its own advantage or frightening it through harm. But once this machinery, this leading string, has had some effect, the pure moral motive must without fail be brought before the soul. Not only is it the sole motive that establishes a character—a practically consistent way of thinking according to unchanging maxims—but, because it teaches a person to feel his own dignity, it also gives the mind a strength unexpected even by itself: the strength to tear itself free from every sensible attachment insofar as it seeks to rule, and to find ample compensation A 272 for the sacrifices it makes in the independence of its intelligible nature and the greatness of soul for which it sees itself destined. We therefore intend to prove this property of our mind, this receptivity to a pure moral interest, and hence the moving power of the pure representation of virtue when properly brought home to the human heart, as the most powerful incentive to goodness V:153 and, where lasting and exact observance of moral maxims is concerned, the only one. We shall do so through observations anyone can make. Yet we must also remember that, if these observations prove only the actuality of such a feeling, not moral improvement brought about by it, this does not discredit, as though it were an empty fantasy, the sole method of making the objectively practical laws of pure reason subjectively practical through the mere pure representation of duty. For since this method has never yet been put into practice, experience cannot yet show anything of its success. We can demand only evidence of receptivity to such incentives, which I shall now briefly present, and afterward sketch in a few words the method of establishing and cultivating genuine moral dispositions.
If we attend to the course of conversation in mixed company, consisting not merely of scholars and reasoners but also of people A 273 in business or women, we notice that, besides storytelling and joking, another kind of entertainment finds a place: reasoning. For the first is soon exhausted if it is to offer novelty and with it interest, while the second easily grows stale. But among all kinds of reasoning, none draws in people who otherwise soon tire of argument, or brings a certain liveliness to the company, more than reasoning about the moral worth of this or that action by which someone's character is to be determined. Those who otherwise find everything subtle and speculative in theoretical questions dry and tiresome soon join in when the moral substance of a reported good or evil action is to be assessed. They are as exact, as searching, as subtle in devising everything that might diminish, or even merely cast suspicion on, the purity of its intention and thus the degree of virtue in it, as we would never otherwise expect of them with any object of speculation. In these judgments we can often see the character of those judging others shine through. Some, exercising their judicial office chiefly over the dead, seem especially inclined to defend the good reported of A 274 this or that deed against every disparaging objection of impurity, and ultimately to defend the person's entire moral worth against the charge of pretense and secret malice. Others, by contrast, are more intent on accusations and charges V:154 challenging that worth. Yet we cannot always attribute to the latter an intention to reason virtue entirely out of every human example and thus reduce it to an empty name. Often it is merely well-meant rigor in determining genuine moral substance according to an unyielding law. Compared with this law, rather than with examples, moral conceit sinks very low, and humility is not merely taught but felt by everyone in searching self-examination. Nevertheless, in those who defend the purity of intention in given examples, we can usually see a wish to wipe away even the slightest stain wherever the presumption of integrity favors it. Their motive is to prevent virtue, if the truth of all its examples were disputed and the purity of all human virtue denied, from finally being regarded as a mere figment, and thus every striving toward it disparaged as vain affectation and deceptive conceit.
I do not know why educators of the young have not long since made use of this tendency A 275 of reason to take pleasure in even the subtlest examination of practical questions proposed to it. Having laid a purely moral catechism as their foundation, why have they not searched the biographies of ancient and modern times for illustrations of the duties presented, so as to have them at hand? Through these, especially by comparing similar actions under different circumstances, they could set their pupils' judgment to work in discerning the lesser or greater moral substance of those actions. They would soon find even young children, otherwise still unready for all speculation, very perceptive in this, and, because they feel their power of judgment advancing, not a little interested. Most importantly, they could confidently hope that frequent practice in recognizing good conduct in its complete purity and approving it, while noticing even the slightest deviation from it with regret or contempt, would leave a lasting impression of esteem on the one side and abhorrence on the other, even if pursued thus far merely as a game of judgment in which children can compete with one another. Through the mere habit of often regarding such actions as worthy of approval or blame, these impressions would form a good foundation for integrity in A 276 V:155 later conduct. I would only ask that they spare the children examples of so-called noble, supermeritorious actions, which our sentimental writings scatter about so freely, and stake everything solely on duty and on the worth a human being can and must give himself in his own eyes through the consciousness of not having transgressed it. For what amounts to empty wishes and longings for an unattainable perfection produces nothing but heroes of romance. Priding themselves on their feeling for what is extravagantly great, they excuse themselves in return from observing ordinary and everyday obligations, which then seem to them merely insignificant trifles.18
But if we ask what pure morality actually is, A 277 as the touchstone by which the moral substance of every action must be tested, I must admit that only philosophers can make the answer doubtful. For in ordinary human reason it has long been settled, not indeed through abstract universal formulas, but through ordinary use, much like the difference between the right and left hand. Let us therefore first show the criterion of pure virtue in an example and, imagining it presented for judgment to a boy of about ten, see whether he too would necessarily judge in this way on his own, without the teacher's guidance. Tell the story of an upright man whom others wish to induce to join the slanderers of an innocent but otherwise powerless person, such as Anne Boleyn when accused by Henry VIII of England. They offer him rewards—great gifts or high rank—and he refuses them. This will produce mere approval and assent V:156 in the listener's soul, because what is at stake is gain. Now they begin to threaten loss. Among these slanderers are A 278 his best friends, who now renounce their friendship; close relatives, who threaten to disinherit him, a man without means; powerful people who can persecute and injure him in every place and situation; a sovereign who threatens him with the loss of freedom, even of life itself. But to fill the measure of suffering, let him also feel the pain that only a morally good heart can feel in its full depth. Imagine his family, threatened with the utmost distress and deprivation, imploring him to yield. Imagine the man himself, though upright, by no means endowed with a firm insensibility to compassion or to his own distress, at a moment when he wishes he had never lived to see the day that exposed him to such inexpressible pain, nevertheless remaining faithful to his resolve to be upright, without wavering or even doubting. My young listener will then be raised by degrees from mere approval to admiration, from there to astonishment, and finally to the greatest reverence and a lively wish to be such a man himself—though certainly not in his situation. Yet here virtue is worth so much only because it costs so much, not because it brings anything in. All the admiration, and even the effort to resemble this character, rests here entirely on the purity of the moral A 279 principle. This purity can be presented with real vividness only by removing from the action's incentives everything that human beings might count as happiness. Morality must therefore have all the more power over the human heart the more purely it is presented. It follows that, if the moral law and the image of holiness and virtue are to exert any influence at all upon our soul, they can do so only insofar as they are brought home to the heart as an incentive in their purity, unmixed with aims directed at personal well-being, precisely because morality reveals itself most splendidly in suffering. But something whose removal strengthens the effect of a moving force must have been an obstacle. Consequently, every admixture of incentives drawn from one's own happiness is an obstacle to giving the moral law influence over the human heart.—I maintain further that, even in that admired action, if the motive from which it arose was high esteem V:157 for one's duty, then this very respect for the law, rather than any pretension to regard oneself inwardly as magnanimous and as possessing a noble, meritorious way of thinking, has the greatest power over the spectator's mind. Duty, not merit, must therefore exert not only the most determinate influence upon the mind, but also, when presented in the true light of its inviolability, A 280 the most penetrating.
In our times, when people hope to accomplish more with the mind through melting, tenderhearted feelings, or through soaring pretensions that inflate the heart and make it languid rather than strong, than through the dry and earnest representation of duty more appropriate to human imperfection and progress in goodness, drawing attention to this method is more necessary than ever. To hold up actions to children as noble, magnanimous, and meritorious models, hoping to win them over by inspiring enthusiasm for such actions, is entirely counterproductive. For since they are still so far behind in observing the most ordinary duty, and even in judging it correctly, this amounts to turning them into fantasists at an early age. But even among the better-instructed and more experienced part of humanity, this supposed incentive has, if not a harmful effect, at least no genuinely moral effect on the heart, though that was what it was intended to produce.
All feelings, especially those meant to bring about unusual exertion, must produce their effect at the moment of their intensity and before they subside; otherwise they accomplish nothing. For the heart naturally returns to its normal, moderate rhythm of life A 281 and then falls back into the languor previously its own, because something that excited it had been brought before it, but nothing that strengthened it. Principles must be founded on concepts; on any other foundation only passing impulses can arise, which can give the person no moral worth, not even confidence in himself. Without this confidence, consciousness of one's moral disposition and of such a character—the highest good in a human being—cannot exist at all. Now if these concepts are to become subjectively practical, they must not stop at the objective laws of morality in order to admire them and esteem them in relation to humanity, but must consider their representation in relation to the human being and to his own individual self. The law then appears in V:158 a form that is indeed supremely worthy of respect, but not so agreeable as though it belonged to the element to which he is naturally accustomed. Rather, it compels him to leave that element, often not without self-denial, and enter a higher one in which he can maintain himself only with difficulty and with unceasing fear of relapse. In a word, the moral law demands observance from duty, not from preference, which we cannot and ought not presuppose at all.
Let us now see in an example whether the representation of an action A 282 as noble and magnanimous contains more subjectively moving force as an incentive than when the action is represented merely as duty in relation to the stern moral law. When someone attempts to rescue people from a shipwreck at the greatest risk to his own life, and ultimately loses his life in doing so, the action is indeed reckoned on the one hand as duty, but on the other, and for the most part, also as a meritorious action. Yet our high esteem for it is greatly weakened by the concept of duty to oneself, which seems to suffer some infringement here. More decisive is the magnanimous sacrifice of one's life to preserve one's country. Yet some scruple remains as to whether it is so completely a duty to devote oneself to this purpose voluntarily and without orders, and the action does not possess the full force of a model and an impulse to imitation. But if it is an indispensable duty, whose transgression violates the moral law in itself and without regard to human welfare and, as it were, tramples its holiness underfoot—duties of this kind are usually called duties to God, because in him we think the ideal of holiness as a substance—then we devote the most perfect A 283 esteem to its observance at the sacrifice of everything that could have any value for even the deepest of our inclinations. We find our soul strengthened and elevated by such an example when it convinces us that human nature is capable of so great an elevation above everything nature can muster as incentives to the contrary. Juvenal presents such an example in a progression that makes the reader vividly feel the force of the incentive contained in the pure law of duty as duty:
Be a good soldier, a good guardian, and likewiseAn upright judge; if ever called as witness in a doubtfulV:159 And uncertain case, though Phalaris commands youTo lie, and bring his bull to dictate perjury,Believe it the greatest wrong to prefer life to honorAnd for life's sake to lose the reasons for living.
If we can bring anything flattering about merit into our action, then the incentive is already somewhat mixed with self-love, and thus receives some assistance from sensibility. But to subordinate everything to the holiness of duty alone, and to become conscious that we can do so because our own reason recognizes this as its command and says that we ought to do it, means, as it were, to raise ourselves entirely above the sensible world itself. In that same consciousness of the law this is also inseparably connected with the law as the incentive of a capacity that governs sensibility, though not always A 284 effectively. Yet frequent occupation with it and initially smaller attempts to use it also give hope of producing this effect, so as gradually to bring forth in us the greatest, yet pure, moral interest in it.
The method therefore takes the following course. First, the sole concern is to make judgment according to moral laws a natural occupation, accompanying our observation of our own free actions as well as those of others, and, as it were, a habit; and to sharpen it by first asking whether the action is objectively in accordance with the moral law, and which law. Here we distinguish, in directing attention, between the law that merely supplies a ground for obligation and the law that actually obligates—laws supplying grounds of obligation from laws that obligate. An example is the law of what human need requires of me as opposed to what human right requires: the latter prescribes essential duties, the former only nonessential duties. We thus teach the distinction between different duties that come together in one action. The other point to which attention must be directed is the question whether the action also occurred, subjectively, for the sake of the moral law, and thus possesses not only A 285 moral correctness as a deed, but also moral worth as a disposition, according to its maxim. Now there is no doubt that this exercise, and consciousness of the cultivation it brings to our reason insofar as it judges merely about the practical, must gradually produce a certain interest in its law V:160 itself, and hence in morally good actions. For we eventually come to love that whose contemplation makes us feel the extended use of our cognitive powers. This is promoted above all by that in which we find moral correctness, because only in such an order of things can reason feel at home with its capacity to determine a priori, according to principles, what ought to happen. After all, a student of nature eventually comes to love objects initially offensive to his senses when he discovers the great purposiveness of their organization and thus delights his reason in contemplating them. And Leibniz gently returned to its leaf an insect he had carefully examined through a microscope, because he felt instructed by the sight of it and as though he had received a kindness from it.
But this occupation of judgment, which makes us feel our own cognitive powers, is not yet interest in the actions A 286 and their morality themselves. It merely makes us enjoy entertaining ourselves with such judgment, and gives virtue, or the way of thinking according to moral laws, a form of beauty that is admired but not yet sought—praised, yet left in the cold. In the same way, everything whose contemplation subjectively produces a consciousness of the harmony of our powers of representation, and in which we feel our entire cognitive faculty—understanding and imagination—strengthened, brings forth a pleasure that can also be communicated to others. Yet the object's existence remains indifferent to us, since it is regarded merely as the occasion for becoming aware of the endowment of talents within us that raises us above animality. But now the second exercise begins its work: through the vivid presentation of moral disposition in examples, it makes the purity of the will noticeable, initially only as its negative perfection, insofar as in an action from duty no incentives of inclination influence the will as determining grounds at all. The pupil's attention is thereby kept on the consciousness of his freedom. And although this renunciation initially arouses a feeling of pain, nevertheless, by releasing the pupil from the constraint even of genuine needs, it also promises him liberation from the manifold dissatisfaction in which all these needs entangle him, and makes the mind A 287 receptive to the feeling of contentment from other sources. V:161 The heart is indeed freed and relieved of a burden that always secretly weighs upon it when examples of pure moral resolutions disclose to a human being an inner capacity otherwise not even properly known to himself: inner freedom, the capacity to free himself from the tempestuous importunity of inclinations so completely that none, not even the dearest, has any influence on a resolution for which we are now to use our reason. Take a case in which I alone know that the wrong is on my side. Although freely confessing it and offering satisfaction encounter such great resistance from vanity, self-interest, and even my otherwise not unjustified aversion to the person whose right I have infringed, I can nevertheless set all these misgivings aside. This contains a consciousness of independence from inclinations and fortunate circumstances, and of the possibility of being sufficient to myself—a consciousness beneficial to me in every other respect as well. And now the law of duty, through the positive worth that observing it makes us feel, gains easier access through respect for ourselves in the consciousness of our freedom. Upon this respect, if it is well grounded, A 288 if a human being fears nothing more than finding himself contemptible and reprehensible in his own eyes during inner self-examination, every good moral disposition can now be grafted. For it is the best, indeed the only, guardian that can keep ignoble and corrupting impulses from entering the mind.
My intention here has been only to indicate the most general maxims for a doctrine of method in moral education and exercise. Since the diversity of duties would require further particular determinations for each kind, and would thus constitute an extensive undertaking, I trust I shall be excused for leaving the matter at these outlines in a work such as this, which is only preparatory.
18 It is entirely advisable to praise actions in which a great, unselfish, sympathetic disposition and humanity shine forth. But here we must direct attention not so much to the elevation of the soul, which is very fleeting and transitory, as to the heart's submission to duty. A more lasting impression can be expected from the latter, because it brings principles with it, while the former brings only surges of feeling. One need only reflect a little to find some debt one has incurred in some way toward the human race—even if only that, through the inequality of human beings in civil society, one enjoys advantages for whose sake others must suffer all the greater deprivation—so that the self-loving fancy of merit does not displace the thought of duty.
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the same German text, including all eighteen author notes.
Of the A 267 V:149 Critique of Practical Reason
Part II. Doctrine of the Method of Pure Practical Reason.
V:151 The doctrine of method of pure practical reason cannot A 269 mean a way of handling pure practical principles, either in thought or in presentation, for the sake of scientific cognition of them. That is what alone is usually called method in the theoretical field. For popular cognition needs a manner of presentation, whereas science needs a method: a procedure according to principles of reason, through which alone the various elements of cognition can become a system. Instead, this doctrine of method means a way of giving the laws of pure practical reason access to the human mind and influence over its maxims. In other words, it concerns how to make objectively practical reason practical subjectively as well.
Now it is clear that the determining grounds of the will that alone make maxims genuinely moral and give them moral worth must be presented as the real incentives of actions. These grounds are the direct representation of the law and the objectively necessary observance of it as duty. Otherwise we would produce legality in actions, but not morality in dispositions. A 270 But another point is less clear. Indeed, at first glance everyone must find it quite unlikely: even subjectively, this presentation of pure virtue can have more power over the human mind and supply a much stronger incentive than all the attractions offered by promised pleasures and everything we may count as happiness, V:152 or all the threats of pain and evil. It can more effectively produce even that legality of actions, and stronger resolutions to prefer the law to every other consideration out of pure respect for it. Yet this is really how things stand. If human nature were not constituted this way, then no indirect presentation of the law, no means of recommending it, could ever produce morality of disposition. Everything would be sheer hypocrisy. The law would be hated or even despised, yet followed for one's own advantage. The letter of the law, legality, would appear in our actions, but its spirit, morality, would be entirely absent from our dispositions. And since all our efforts cannot completely free our judgment from reason, we would inevitably have to appear in our own eyes as worthless, contemptible people. We might indeed A 271 try to compensate for this humiliation before our inner tribunal by enjoying the pleasures that, in our delusion, some natural or divine law we had adopted supposedly attached to its machinery of enforcement. But such enforcement would attend only to what people do, without caring about their motives for doing it.
Admittedly, to bring an as yet untrained mind, or one that has run wild, onto the path of moral goodness initially requires some preparatory guidance. We must attract it through its own advantage or frighten it through harm. But as soon as this machinery, this leading string, has had any effect, the pure moral motive must without fail be brought before the soul. It is the only motive that establishes a character: a practically consistent way of thinking according to unchanging maxims. It also teaches a person to feel their own dignity. For both reasons, it gives the mind a strength it did not expect in itself: the strength to break free of every attachment to sense insofar as that attachment tries to dominate. In the independence of their intelligible nature and the greatness of soul to which they see themselves called, people find A 272 ample compensation for the sacrifices they make. We therefore intend to establish this property of our mind—its receptivity to a pure moral interest, and thus the motivating force of the pure representation of virtue when properly brought home to the human heart—through observations anyone can make. We will show it to be the strongest incentive to good, V:153 and the only one when lasting and precise observance of moral maxims is at issue. At the same time, we must remember something. These observations may prove only the reality of such a feeling, not any moral improvement it has brought about. But that does not discredit, as empty fantasy, the only method of making the objectively practical laws of pure reason subjectively practical through the mere pure representation of duty. For this method has never yet been put into practice, so experience cannot yet show anything about its success. We can demand only evidence of receptivity to such incentives. I will now briefly present that evidence, and then sketch in a few words the method of establishing and cultivating genuine moral dispositions.
Pay attention to the course of conversation in mixed company, made up not just of scholars and people fond of argument but also of people A 273 in business or women. You will notice another kind of entertainment alongside storytelling and joking: reasoning. It finds a place there because stories soon run out if they are to bring novelty and the interest that goes with it, while jokes easily grow stale. But no reasoning draws in people who otherwise quickly find all such discussion boring, or brings a certain liveliness to the company, more than reasoning about the moral worth of this or that action, in order to establish someone's character. People who otherwise find every subtlety and close analysis in theoretical questions dry and tiresome soon join in when asked to determine the moral substance of a reported good or bad action. They are precise, searching, and subtle in thinking up everything that might diminish, or even cast suspicion on, the purity of its intention and thus its degree of virtue. No one would expect this of them on any other speculative subject. In these assessments, we can often glimpse the character of the people judging others. Some seem especially inclined, when exercising their office as judge chiefly over the dead, to defend the goodness reported of A 274 this or that deed against every damaging objection that its motives were impure. Ultimately, they defend the person's entire moral worth against the charge of pretense and hidden malice. Others instead think more about accusations and charges V:154 that challenge this worth. Yet we cannot always attribute to the latter an intention to reason virtue entirely out of every human example and so make it an empty name. Often it is simply well-meant strictness in determining genuine moral substance by an uncompromising law. Comparing ourselves with this law, rather than with examples, greatly reduces moral conceit. Humility is not merely taught: everyone feels it under rigorous self-examination. Still, we can usually see why people defend the purity of intention in given examples. Where the presumption of integrity favors it, they would gladly wipe away even the smallest stain. Their motive is to prevent this outcome: if every example were denied authenticity, and all human virtue were denied purity, virtue might finally be thought a mere figment of the imagination. Every effort toward it would then be dismissed as empty affectation and deceptive conceit.
I do not know why educators of the young have not long since used this tendency A 275 of reason to take pleasure in pursuing even the subtlest examination of practical questions put before it. After laying the foundation with a purely moral catechism, why have they not searched biographies from ancient and modern times to have examples of the duties presented ready to hand? These could engage their pupils' judgment, especially by comparing similar actions under different circumstances, so they can notice the lesser or greater moral substance in them. They would soon find even quite young children, otherwise still unready for any speculation, very perceptive here and considerably interested, because they feel their judgment advancing. Most importantly, educators could confidently hope for a lasting impression of esteem on one side and aversion on the other. This would come from repeatedly practicing how to recognize good conduct in its full purity and approve of it, while noticing even the smallest departure from it with regret or contempt. It might initially be pursued only as a game of judgment in which children compete with one another. Yet the mere habit of repeatedly regarding such actions as worthy of approval or blame would provide a good foundation for integrity in A 276 V:155 their future conduct. I wish only that educators would spare them examples of so-called noble actions, actions beyond the call of duty, which our sentimental writings scatter about so freely. They should base everything simply on duty and on the worth a person can and must give themselves in their own eyes through the consciousness of not having violated it. For empty wishes and longings for unreachable perfection produce nothing but heroes of fiction. They pride themselves on their feeling for what is extravagantly great and, in return, excuse themselves from observing the ordinary, everyday obligations that then seem insignificantly small to them.18
But suppose someone asks what pure morality actually is: A 277 the touchstone by which we must test every action's moral substance. I must admit that only philosophers can make the answer doubtful. Ordinary human reason settled it long ago, not through abstract general formulas, but through everyday use, much as it distinguishes the right hand from the left. Let us therefore first show the test of pure virtue through an example. Imagine it presented for assessment to a boy of about ten, and let us see whether he would necessarily make this judgment on his own, without his teacher directing him. Tell the story of an honest man whom people want to persuade to join the slanderers of an innocent but otherwise powerless person, such as Anne Boleyn under accusation by Henry VIII of England. They offer him gains: large gifts or high rank. He rejects them. This will produce mere approval and assent V:156 in the listener's soul, because the issue is gain. Now they begin threatening him with losses. Among these slanderers A 278 are his best friends, who now withdraw their friendship; close relatives, who threaten to disinherit him, a man without wealth; powerful people, who can persecute and hurt him wherever he goes and whatever his circumstances; and a sovereign, who threatens him with loss of freedom and even life itself. But to fill the measure of his suffering, let him also feel the pain that only a morally good heart can feel with true depth. Picture his family, threatened by extreme need and poverty, begging him to give in. Picture the man himself: honest, but by no means hard or insensitive either to compassion or to his own distress. At a moment when he wishes he had never lived to see the day that exposed him to such unspeakable pain, he nevertheless remains true to his resolve to be honest, without wavering or even doubting. My young listener will rise by degrees from mere approval to admiration, from there to astonishment, and finally to the greatest reverence and a lively wish to be such a man himself—though certainly not in that man's circumstances. Yet here virtue is worth so much only because it costs so much, not because it brings any gain. All the admiration, and even the effort to resemble this character, rests entirely on the purity of the moral A 279 principle. We can make that purity truly stand out only by removing from the action's incentives everything people might count as happiness. Thus morality must have more power over the human heart the more purely it is presented. It follows that if the moral law and the image of holiness and virtue are to influence our soul at all, they can do so only when brought home to the heart as a pure incentive, unmixed with aims directed at one's well-being. For morality shows itself most splendidly in suffering. But something whose removal strengthens a motivating force's effect must have been an obstacle. Consequently, mixing in any incentives drawn from one's own happiness obstructs the moral law's influence on the human heart.—I maintain further that even in the admired action just described, if the motive was esteem V:157 for one's duty, this very respect for the law has the greatest power over the spectator's mind. It is not any claim to regard oneself as magnanimous or as possessing a noble and meritorious way of thinking. Thus duty, not merit, must have the most definite influence on the mind and, when presented in the right light as inviolable, A 280 the most penetrating influence as well.
In our times, people hope to accomplish more with melting, tenderhearted feelings, or with soaring, inflated pretensions that weaken the heart rather than strengthen it, than through the dry and serious presentation of duty. Yet the latter is better suited to human imperfection and progress in goodness. Pointing out this method is therefore more necessary than ever. Holding up actions to children as noble, magnanimous, and meritorious models, in the belief that enthusiasm for them will win the children over, defeats the purpose altogether. For children are still so far behind in observing even the commonest duty, and even in judging it correctly, that this simply turns them into dreamers at an early age. But even among the more instructed and experienced, this supposed incentive has, if not a harmful effect on the heart, at least no genuinely moral effect—the very effect it was meant to bring about.
All feelings, especially those meant to produce unusual effort, must take effect while they are intense, before they subside. Otherwise they do nothing. For the heart naturally returns to its normal, moderate rhythm A 281 of life and so falls back into its previous weakness. Something has been brought to it that excited it, but nothing that strengthened it. Principles must be built on concepts. Any other foundation can produce only passing impulses. These cannot give a person moral worth or even confidence in themselves. Without that confidence, consciousness of a moral disposition and such a character—the highest good within a human being—cannot exist at all. Now if these concepts are to become subjectively practical, they must not stop at the objective laws of morality, merely admiring them and esteeming them in relation to humanity. They must consider how those laws are represented in relation to the human being and to the particular individual. The law then appears in V:158 a form that deserves the highest respect but is not so agreeable as though it belonged to the element in which the person naturally feels at home. Instead, it compels them to leave that element, often not without self-denial, and enter a higher one. There they can maintain themselves only with difficulty, in constant fear of falling back. In a word, the moral law demands observance from duty, not from preference, which neither can nor should be presupposed.
Let us now examine an example to see whether representing an action A 282 as noble and magnanimous gives it more subjective motivating force as an incentive than representing it merely as duty in relation to the stern moral law. Suppose someone tries, at the greatest risk to their own life, to rescue people from a shipwreck, and ultimately loses their life doing so. On one side this action is counted as duty, but on the other, and for the most part, as meritorious. Yet our high esteem for it is greatly weakened by the concept of duty to oneself, which seems to suffer some harm here. A more decisive case is the magnanimous sacrifice of one's life to preserve one's country. Yet some doubt remains whether devoting oneself to that aim voluntarily and without orders is so fully a duty. The action therefore does not possess the full force of a model and an incentive to imitation. But suppose it is an indispensable duty, whose violation infringes the moral law in itself, regardless of human welfare, and virtually tramples its holiness underfoot. Such duties are usually called duties to God, because in him we think the ideal of holiness embodied in a being. We then offer the most complete A 283 respect to observance of that law at the sacrifice of everything that could have value for even our deepest inclination. We find our soul strengthened and uplifted by such an example, when it convinces us that human nature can rise so far above every incentive nature could possibly supply to the contrary. Juvenal presents such an example in an ascending sequence that makes the reader vividly feel the force of the incentive contained in the pure law of duty as duty:
Be a good soldier, a good guardian, and alsoAn honest judge; if ever called as a witness in a doubtfulV:159 And uncertain case, even if Phalaris orders youTo lie, and brings his bull to dictate perjury,Count it the greatest wrong to prefer life to honorAnd for life's sake lose the reasons for living.
Whenever we can introduce something flattering about our action's merit, the incentive is already somewhat mixed with self-love, and so receives some help from sensibility. But to subordinate everything to the holiness of duty alone, and to become conscious that one can do so because our own reason recognizes this as its command and says we ought to do it, means rising, as it were, completely above the world of sense itself. In that very consciousness of the law, this is also inseparably connected with the law as an incentive of a faculty that rules over sensibility. It is not always A 284 connected with an actual effect. Yet frequent attention to it and initially smaller attempts to use it offer hope of producing that effect, gradually arousing in us the greatest, but pure, moral interest in it.
The method therefore proceeds as follows. First, we need only make judgment according to moral laws a natural activity, almost a habit, accompanying all observation of our own free actions and those of others. We must sharpen this judgment by first asking whether the action objectively conforms to the moral law, and to which law. Here we direct attention to the difference between a law that merely supplies a ground of obligation and a law that actually obligates: laws providing grounds of obligation as distinct from binding laws. An example is the difference between the law concerning what people's need demands of me and the law concerning what their right demands. The latter prescribes essential duties, the former only nonessential duties. In this way we teach how to distinguish the different duties that come together in one action. The other point requiring attention is whether the action was also done, subjectively, for the sake of the moral law. Does it therefore possess not only A 285 moral correctness as a deed, but also moral worth as a disposition, in terms of its maxim? Now there is no doubt that this exercise, and the consciousness that it cultivates our reason's mere judgment about practical matters, must gradually produce a certain interest in the law V:160 of reason itself, and so in morally good actions. For we finally come to love things whose contemplation makes us feel the expanded use of our cognitive powers. What we find morally correct especially promotes this use, because only in such an order of things can reason feel at home with its capacity to determine a priori, according to principles, what ought to happen. Even a student of nature eventually comes to love objects that initially offend the senses, on discovering the great purposiveness of their organization and thus delighting reason in their contemplation. Leibniz carefully returned an insect he had examined through a microscope to its leaf, because its appearance had taught him something and he had, as it were, received a benefit from it.
But this activity of judgment, which makes us feel our own cognitive powers, is not yet interest in actions A 286 and their morality themselves. It merely makes us enjoy entertaining ourselves with such assessment. It gives virtue, or the way of thinking according to moral laws, a beautiful form that is admired, but not yet sought after: it is praised and left in the cold. Similarly, anything whose contemplation produces in us a subjective consciousness of harmony among our powers of representation, and makes us feel our entire cognitive faculty—understanding and imagination—strengthened, produces a pleasure that can also be shared with others. Yet the object's existence remains a matter of indifference to us. It is regarded only as an occasion for becoming aware of our capacity for talents, which rises above animal nature. But now the second exercise begins. By vividly presenting moral disposition in examples, it makes the purity of the will noticeable. At first this is presented only as a negative perfection of the will: in an action from duty, no incentives of inclination influence it as determining grounds. This keeps the learner attentive to the consciousness of their freedom. Although this renunciation initially arouses a feeling of pain, it also removes the learner from the constraint even of genuine needs. It thus promises release from the many kinds of dissatisfaction in which all those needs entangle them, and makes the mind A 287 receptive to a feeling of satisfaction from other sources. V:161 The heart is freed and relieved of a burden that always secretly weighs on it when examples of pure moral resolves reveal an inner capacity in the person, one they had not otherwise even properly known: inner freedom. This is the capacity to free oneself from the forceful demands of inclinations so thoroughly that none, not even the most cherished, influences a decision for which we are now to use our reason. Consider a case where I alone know that I am in the wrong. Freely admitting it and offering redress meets strong opposition from vanity, self-interest, and even my otherwise not wrongful aversion to the person whose right I have infringed. Yet I can put all these reservations aside. This involves consciousness of independence from inclinations and fortunate circumstances, and of the possibility of being sufficient to myself. That consciousness benefits me in other respects everywhere as well. The law of duty now gains easier access through the respect for ourselves contained in the consciousness of our freedom, because of the positive worth its observance makes us feel. On this respect, when it is well grounded, A 288 every good moral disposition can be grafted. This is so when a person fears nothing more than finding themselves contemptible and blameworthy in their own eyes during inner self-examination. For this is the best, indeed the only, guardian that can keep base and corrupting impulses from entering the mind.
Here I have meant only to point out the most general maxims of a doctrine of method for moral education and practice. The variety of duties would require further specific determinations for each kind, making this an extensive task. I therefore hope to be excused for leaving it at these basic outlines in a work like this, which is only preparatory.
18 It is entirely advisable to praise actions that reveal a great, unselfish, sympathetic disposition and humanity. But here attention must be drawn less to the uplifting of the soul, which is very fleeting and temporary, than to the heart's submission to duty. We can expect a longer-lasting impression from the latter because it brings principles with it, whereas the former brings only bursts of feeling. We need only reflect a little to find some debt we have incurred toward the human race. It may be no more than the fact that inequality among people in civil society gives us advantages for which others must suffer greater deprivation. This reflection will keep a self-loving fancy about our merit from displacing the thought of duty.
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Part II: Doctrine of the method of pure practical reason is part of Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is part 11 of 12 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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