Book I, Chapter III: The incentives of pure practical reason
Original German
Drittes Hauptstück. Von den Triebfedern der reinen praktischen Vernunft.
Das Wesentliche alles sittlichen Werths der Handlungen kommt darauf an, daß das moralische Gesetz unmittelbar den Willen bestimme. Geschieht die Willensbestimmung zwar gemäß dem moralischen Gesetze, aber nur vermittelst eines Gefühls, welcher Art es auch sei, das A 127 vorausgesetzt werden muß, damit jenes ein hinreichender Bestimmungsgrund des Willens werde, mithin nicht um des Gesetzes willen: so wird die Handlung zwar Legalität, aber nicht Moralität enthalten. Wenn V:72 nun unter Triebfeder (elater animi) der subjective Bestimmungsgrund des Willens eines Wesens verstanden wird, dessen Vernunft nicht schon vermöge seiner Natur dem objectiven Gesetze nothwendig gemäß ist, so wird erstlich daraus folgen: daß man dem göttlichen Willen gar keine Triebfedern beilegen könne, die Triebfeder des menschlichen Willens aber (und des von jedem erschaffenen vernünftigen Wesen) niemals etwas anderes als das moralische Gesetz sein könne, mithin der objective Bestimmungsgrund jederzeit und ganz allein zugleich der subjectiv hinreichende Bestimmungsgrund der Handlung sein müsse, wenn diese nicht blos den Buchstaben des Gesetzes, ohne den Geist9 desselben zu enthalten, erfüllen soll.
Da man also zum Behuf des moralischen Gesetzes, und um ihm Einfluß auf den Willen zu verschaffen, keine anderweitige Triebfeder, dabei die des moralischen Gesetzes entbehrt werden könnte, suchen muß, weil das alles A 128 lauter Gleißnerei ohne Bestand bewirken würde, und sogar es bedenklich ist, auch nur neben dem moralischen Gesetze noch einige andere Triebfedern (als die des Vortheils) mitwirken zu lassen: so bleibt nichts übrig, als blos sorgfältig zu bestimmen, auf welche Art das moralische Gesetz Triebfeder werde, und was, indem sie es ist, mit dem menschlichen Begehrungsvermögen als Wirkung jenes Bestimmungsgrundes auf dasselbe vorgehe. Denn wie ein Gesetz für sich und unmittelbar Bestimmungsgrund des Willens sein könne (welches doch das Wesentliche aller Moralität ist), das ist ein für die menschliche Vernunft unauflösliches Problem und mit dem einerlei: wie ein freier Wille möglich sei. Also werden wir nicht den Grund, woher das moralische Gesetz in sich eine Triebfeder abgebe, sondern was, so fern es eine solche ist, sie im Gemüthe wirkt (besser zu sagen, wirken muß), a priori anzuzeigen haben.
Das Wesentliche aller Bestimmung des Willens durchs sittliche Gesetz ist: daß er als freier Wille, mithin nicht blos ohne Mitwirkung sinnlicher Antriebe, sondern selbst mit Abweisung aller derselben und mit Abbruch aller Neigungen, so fern sie jenem Gesetze zuwider sein könnten, blos durchs Gesetz bestimmt werde. So weit ist also die Wirkung des moralischen Gesetzes als Triebfeder nur negativ, und als solche kann diese Triebfeder a priori erkannt werden. Denn alle Neigung und jeder sinnliche Antrieb ist auf A 129 V:73 Gefühl gegründet, und die negative Wirkung aufs Gefühl (durch den Abbruch, der den Neigungen geschieht) ist selbst Gefühl. Folglich können wir a priori einsehen, daß das moralische Gesetz als Bestimmungsgrund des Willens dadurch, daß es allen unseren Neigungen Eintrag thut, ein Gefühl bewirken müsse, welches Schmerz genannt werden kann, und hier haben wir nun den ersten, vielleicht auch einzigen Fall, da wir aus Begriffen a priori das Verhältniß eines Erkenntnisses (hier ist es einer reinen praktischen Vernunft) zum Gefühl der Lust oder Unlust bestimmen konnten. Alle Neigungen zusammen (die auch wohl in ein erträgliches System gebracht werden können, und deren Befriedigung alsdann eigene Glückseligkeit heißt) machen die Selbstsucht (solipsismus) aus. Diese ist entweder die der Selbstliebe, eines über alles gehenden Wohlwollens gegen sich selbst (Philautia), oder die des Wohlgefallens an sich selbst (Arrogantia). Jene heißt besonders Eigenliebe, diese Eigendünkel. Die reine praktische Vernunft thut der Eigenliebe blos Abbruch, indem sie solche, als natürlich und noch vor dem moralischen Gesetze in uns rege, nur auf die Bedingung der Einstimmung mit diesem Gesetze einschränkt; da sie alsdann vernünftige Selbstliebe genannt wird. Aber den Eigendünkel schlägt sie gar nieder, indem alle Ansprüche der Selbstschätzung, die vor der Übereinstimmung mit dem sittlichen Gesetze vorhergehen, nichtig A 130 und ohne alle Befugniß sind, indem eben die Gewißheit einer Gesinnung, die mit diesem Gesetze übereinstimmt, die erste Bedingung alles Werths der Person ist (wie wir bald deutlicher machen werden) und alle Anmaßung vor derselben falsch und gesetzwidrig ist. Nun gehört der Hang zur Selbstschätzung mit zu den Neigungen, denen das moralische Gesetz Abbruch thut, so fern jene blos auf der Sinnlichkeit beruht. Also schlägt das moralische Gesetz den Eigendünkel nieder. Da dieses Gesetz aber doch etwas an sich Positives ist, nämlich die Form einer intellectuellen Causalität, d. i. der Freiheit, so ist es, indem es im Gegensatze mit dem subjectiven Widerspiele, nämlich den Neigungen in uns, den Eigendünkel schwächt, zugleich ein Gegenstand der Achtung und, indem es ihn sogar niederschlägt, d. i. demüthigt, ein Gegenstand der größten Achtung, mithin auch der Grund eines positiven Gefühls, das nicht empirischen Ursprungs ist und a priori erkannt wird. Also ist Achtung fürs moralische Gesetz ein Gefühl, welches durch einen intellectuellen Grund gewirkt wird, und dieses Gefühl ist das einzige, welches wir völlig a priori erkennen, und dessen Nothwendigkeit wir einsehen können.
V:74 Wir haben im vorigen Hauptstücke gesehen: daß alles, was sich als Object des Willens vor dem moralischen Gesetze darbietet, von den Bestimmungsgründen des Willens unter dem Namen des unbedingt Guten durch dieses Gesetz selbst, als die oberste Bedingung der praktischen Vernunft, A 131 ausgeschlossen werde, und daß die bloße praktische Form, die in der Tauglichkeit der Maximen zur allgemeinen Gesetzgebung besteht, zuerst das, was an sich und schlechterdings gut ist, bestimme und die Maxime eines reinen Willens gründe, der allein in aller Absicht gut ist. Nun finden wir aber unsere Natur als sinnlicher Wesen so beschaffen, daß die Materie des Begehrungsvermögens (Gegenstände der Neigung, es sei der Hoffnung oder Furcht) sich zuerst aufdringt, und unser pathologisch bestimmbares Selbst, ob es gleich durch seine Maximen zur allgemeinen Gesetzgebung ganz untauglich ist, dennoch, gleich als ob es unser ganzes Selbst ausmachte, seine Ansprüche vorher und als die ersten und ursprünglichen geltend zu machen bestrebt sei. Man kann diesen Hang, sich selbst nach den subjectiven Bestimmungsgründen seiner Willkür zum objectiven Bestimmungsgrunde des Willens überhaupt zu machen, die Selbstliebe nennen, welche, wenn sie sich gesetzgebend und zum unbedingten praktischen Princip macht, Eigendünkel heißen kann. Nun schließt das moralische Gesetz, welches allein wahrhaftig (nämlich in aller Absicht) objectiv ist, den Einfluß der Selbstliebe auf das oberste praktische Princip gänzlich aus und thut dem Eigendünkel, der die subjectiven Bedingungen der ersteren als Gesetze vorschreibt, unendlichen Abbruch. Was nun unserem Eigendünkel in unserem eigenen Urtheil Abbruch thut, das demüthigt. Also demüthigt A 132 das moralische Gesetz unvermeidlich jeden Menschen, indem dieser mit demselben den sinnlichen Hang seiner Natur vergleicht. Dasjenige, dessen Vorstellung als Bestimmungsgrund unseres Willens uns in unserem Selbstbewußtsein demüthigt, erweckt, so fern als es positiv und Bestimmungsgrund ist, für sich Achtung. Also ist das moralische Gesetz auch subjectiv ein Grund der Achtung. Da nun alles, was in der Selbstliebe angetroffen wird, zur Neigung gehört, alle Neigung aber auf Gefühlen beruht, mithin, was allen Neigungen insgesammt in der Selbstliebe Abbruch thut, eben dadurch nothwendig auf das Gefühl Einfluß hat, so begreifen wir, wie es möglich ist, a priori einzusehen, daß das moralische Gesetz, indem es die Neigungen und den Hang, sie zur obersten praktischen Bedingung zu machen, d. i. die Selbstliebe, von allem Beitritte zur obersten Gesetzgebung ausschließt, eine Wirkung aufs Gefühl ausüben könne, V:75 welche einerseits blos negativ ist, andererseits und zwar in Ansehung des einschränkenden Grundes der reinen praktischen Vernunft positiv ist, und wozu gar keine besondere Art von Gefühle unter dem Namen eines praktischen oder moralischen als vor dem moralischen Gesetze vorhergehend und ihm zum Grunde liegend angenommen werden darf.
Die negative Wirkung auf Gefühl (der Unannehmlichkeit) ist, so wie A 133 aller Einfluß auf dasselbe und wie jedes Gefühl überhaupt, pathologisch. Als Wirkung aber vom Bewußtsein des moralischen Gesetzes, folglich in Beziehung auf eine intelligibele Ursache, nämlich das Subject der reinen praktischen Vernunft als obersten Gesetzgeberin, heißt dieses Gefühl eines vernünftigen von Neigungen afficirten Subjects zwar Demüthigung (intellectuelle Verachtung), aber in Beziehung auf den positiven Grund derselben, das Gesetz, zugleich Achtung für dasselbe, für welches Gesetz gar kein Gefühl stattfindet, sondern im Urtheile der Vernunft, indem es den Widerstand aus dem Wege schafft, die Wegräumung eines Hindernisses einer positiven Beförderung der Causalität gleichgeschätzt wird. Darum kann dieses Gefühl nun auch ein Gefühl der Achtung fürs moralische Gesetz, aus beiden Gründen zusammen aber ein moralisches Gefühl genannt werden.
Das moralische Gesetz also, so wie es formaler Bestimmungsgrund der Handlung ist, durch praktische reine Vernunft, so wie es zwar auch materialer, aber nur objectiver Bestimmungsgrund der Gegenstände der Handlung unter dem Namen des Guten und Bösen ist, so ist es auch subjectiver Bestimmungsgrund, d. i. Triebfeder, zu dieser Handlung, indem es auf die Sinnlichkeit des Subjects Einfluß hat und ein Gefühl bewirkt, welches dem Einflusse des Gesetzes auf den Willen beförderlich ist. Hier A 134 geht kein Gefühl im Subject vorher, das auf Moralität gestimmt wäre. Denn das ist unmöglich, weil alles Gefühl sinnlich ist; die Triebfeder der sittlichen Gesinnung aber muß von aller sinnlichen Bedingung frei sein. Vielmehr ist das sinnliche Gefühl, was allen unseren Neigungen zum Grunde liegt, zwar die Bedingung derjenigen Empfindung, die wir Achtung nennen, aber die Ursache der Bestimmung desselben liegt in der reinen praktischen Vernunft, und diese Empfindung kann daher ihres Ursprunges wegen nicht pathologisch, sondern muß praktisch gewirkt heißen: indem dadurch, daß die Vorstellung des moralischen Gesetzes der Selbstliebe den Einfluß und dem Eigendünkel den Wahn benimmt, das Hinderniß der reinen praktischen Vernunft vermindert und die Vorstellung des Vorzuges V:76 ihres objectiven Gesetzes vor den Antrieben der Sinnlichkeit, mithin das Gewicht des ersteren relativ (in Ansehung eines durch die letztere afficirten Willens) durch die Wegschaffung des Gegengewichts im Urtheile der Vernunft hervorgebracht wird. Und so ist die Achtung fürs Gesetz nicht Triebfeder zur Sittlichkeit, sondern sie ist die Sittlichkeit selbst, subjectiv als Triebfeder betrachtet, indem die reine praktische Vernunft dadurch, daß sie der Selbstliebe im Gegensatze mit ihr alle Ansprüche abschlägt, dem Gesetze, das jetzt allein Einfluß hat, Ansehen verschafft. Hiebei ist nun zu bemerken: daß, so wie die Achtung eine Wirkung aufs Gefühl, mithin auf A 135 die Sinnlichkeit eines vernünftigen Wesens ist, es diese Sinnlichkeit, mithin auch die Endlichkeit solcher Wesen, denen das moralische Gesetz Achtung auferlegt, voraussetze, und daß einem höchsten, oder auch einem von aller Sinnlichkeit freien Wesen, welchem diese also auch kein Hinderniß der praktischen Vernunft sein kann, Achtung fürs Gesetz nicht beigelegt werden könne.
Dieses Gefühl (unter dem Namen des moralischen) ist also lediglich durch Vernunft bewirkt. Es dient nicht zu Beurtheilung der Handlungen, oder wohl gar zur Gründung des objectiven Sittengesetzes selbst, sondern blos zur Triebfeder, um dieses in sich zur Maxime zu machen. Mit welchem Namen aber könnte man dieses sonderbare Gefühl, welches mit keinem pathologischen in Vergleichung gezogen werden kann, schicklicher belegen? Es ist so eigenthümlicher Art, daß es lediglich der Vernunft und zwar der praktischen reinen Vernunft zu Gebote zu stehen scheint.
Achtung geht jederzeit nur auf Personen, niemals auf Sachen. Die letztere können Neigung und, wenn es Thiere sind (z. B. Pferde, Hunde &c.), sogar Liebe, oder auch Furcht, wie das Meer, ein Vulcan, ein Raubthier, niemals aber Achtung in uns erwecken. Etwas, was diesem Gefühl schon näher tritt, ist Bewunderung, und diese als Affect, das Erstaunen, kann auch auf Sachen gehen, z. B. himmelhohe Berge, die Größe, A 136 Menge und Weite der Weltkörper, die Stärke und Geschwindigkeit mancher Thiere u. s. w. Aber alles dieses ist nicht Achtung. Ein Mensch kann mir auch ein Gegenstand der Liebe, der Furcht, oder der Bewunderung, sogar bis zum Erstaunen, und doch darum kein Gegenstand der Achtung sein. Seine scherzhafte Laune, sein Muth und Stärke, seine Macht, durch seinen Rang, den er unter anderen hat, können mir dergleichen Empfindungen einflößen, es fehlt aber immer noch an innerer Achtung gegen ihn. Fontenelle sagt: Vor einem Vornehmen bücke ich mich, aber mein Geist V:77 bückt sich nicht. Ich kann hinzu setzen: Vor einem niedrigen, bürgerlich gemeinen Mann, an dem ich eine Rechtschaffenheit des Charakters in einem gewissen Maße, als ich mir von mir selbst nicht bewußt bin, wahrnehme, bückt sich mein Geist, ich mag wollen oder nicht und den Kopf noch so hoch tragen, um ihn meinen Vorrang nicht übersehen zu lassen. Warum das? Sein Beispiel hält mir ein Gesetz vor, das meinen Eigendünkel niederschlägt, wenn ich es mit meinem Verhalten vergleiche, und dessen Befolgung, mithin die Thunlichkeit desselben, ich durch die That bewiesen vor mir sehe. Nun mag ich mir sogar eines gleichen Grades der Rechtschaffenheit bewußt sein, und die Achtung bleibt doch. Denn da beim Menschen immer alles Gute mangelhaft ist, so schlägt das Gesetz, durch A 137 ein Beispiel anschaulich gemacht, doch immer meinen Stolz nieder, wozu der Mann, den ich vor mir sehe, dessen Unlauterkeit, die ihm immer noch anhängen mag, mir nicht so wie mir die meinige bekannt ist, der mir also in reinerem Lichte erscheint, einen Maßstab abgiebt. Achtung ist ein Tribut, den wir dem Verdienste nicht verweigern können, wir mögen wollen oder nicht; wir mögen allenfalls äußerlich damit zurückhalten, so können wir doch nicht verhüten, sie innerlich zu empfinden.
Die Achtung ist so wenig ein Gefühl der Lust, daß man sich ihr in Ansehung eines Menschen nur ungern überläßt. Man sucht etwas ausfindig zu machen, was uns die Last derselben erleichtern könne, irgend einen Tadel, um uns wegen der Demüthigung, die uns durch ein solches Beispiel widerfährt, schadlos zu halten. Selbst Verstorbene sind, vornehmlich wenn ihr Beispiel unnachahmlich scheint, vor dieser Kritik nicht immer gesichert. Sogar das moralische Gesetz selbst in seiner feierlichen Majestät ist diesem Bestreben, sich der Achtung dagegen zu erwehren, ausgesetzt. Meint man wohl, daß es einer anderen Ursache zuzuschreiben sei, weswegen man es gern zu unserer vertraulichen Neigung herabwürdigen möchte, und sich aus anderen Ursachen alles so bemühe, um es zur beliebten Vorschrift unseres eigenen wohlverstandenen Vortheils zu machen, als daß man der abschreckenden Achtung, die uns unsere eigene Unwürdigkeit so A 138 strenge vorhält, los werden möge? Gleichwohl ist darin doch auch wiederum so wenig Unlust: daß, wenn man einmal den Eigendünkel abgelegt und jener Achtung praktischen Einfluß verstattet hat, man sich wiederum an der Herrlichkeit dieses Gesetzes nicht satt sehen kann, und die Seele sich in dem Maße selbst zu erheben glaubt, als sie das heilige Gesetz über sich und ihre gebrechliche Natur erhaben sieht. Zwar können große Talente und V:78 eine ihnen proportionirte Thätigkeit auch Achtung oder ein mit derselben analogisches Gefühl bewirken, es ist auch ganz anständig es ihnen zu widmen, und da scheint es, als ob Bewunderung mit jener Empfindung einerlei sei. Allein wenn man näher zusieht, so wird man bemerken, daß, da es immer ungewiß bleibt, wie viel das angeborne Talent und wie viel Cultur durch eigenen Fleiß an der Geschicklichkeit Theil habe, so stellt uns die Vernunft die letztere muthmaßlich als Frucht der Cultur, mithin als Verdienst vor, welches unseren Eigendünkel merklich herabstimmt und uns darüber entweder Vorwürfe macht, oder uns die Befolgung eines solchen Beispiels in der Art, wie es uns angemessen ist, auferlegt. Sie ist also nicht bloße Bewunderung, diese Achtung, die wir einer solchen Person (eigentlich dem Gesetze, was uns sein Beispiel vorhält) beweisen; welches sich auch dadurch bestätigt, daß der gemeine Haufe der Liebhaber, wenn er das Schlechte des Charakters eines solchen Mannes (wie etwa Voltaire) A 139 sonst woher erkundigt zu haben glaubt, alle Achtung gegen ihn aufgiebt, der wahre Gelehrte aber sie noch immer wenigstens im Gesichtspunkte seiner Talente fühlt, weil er selbst in einem Geschäfte und Berufe verwickelt ist, welches die Nachahmung desselben ihm gewissermaßen zum Gesetze macht.
Achtung fürs moralische Gesetz ist also die einzige und zugleich unbezweifelte moralische Triebfeder, so wie dieses Gefühl auch auf kein Object anders, als lediglich aus diesem Grunde gerichtet ist. Zuerst bestimmt das moralische Gesetz objectiv und unmittelbar den Willen im Urtheile der Vernunft; Freiheit, deren Causalität blos durchs Gesetz bestimmbar ist, besteht aber eben darin, daß sie alle Neigungen, mithin die Schätzung der Person selbst auf die Bedingung der Befolgung ihres reinen Gesetzes einschränkt. Diese Einschränkung thut nun eine Wirkung aufs Gefühl und bringt Empfindung der Unlust hervor, die aus dem moralischen Gesetze a priori erkannt werden kann. Da sie aber blos so fern eine negative Wirkung ist, die, als aus dem Einflusse einer reinen praktischen Vernunft entsprungen, vornehmlich der Thätigkeit des Subjects, so fern Neigungen die Bestimmungsgründe desselben sind, mithin der Meinung seines persönlichen Werths Abbruch thut (der ohne Einstimmung mit dem moralischen Gesetze auf nichts herabgesetzt wird), so ist die Wirkung dieses Gesetzes A 140 aufs Gefühl blos Demüthigung, welche wir also zwar a priori einsehen, aber an ihr nicht die Kraft des reinen praktischen Gesetzes als Triebfeder, sondern nur den Widerstand gegen Triebfedern der Sinnlichkeit erkennen V:79 können. Weil aber dasselbe Gesetz doch objectiv, d. i. in der Vorstellung der reinen Vernunft, ein unmittelbarer Bestimmungsgrund des Willens ist, folglich diese Demüthigung nur relativ auf die Reinigkeit des Gesetzes stattfindet, so ist die Herabsetzung der Ansprüche der moralischen Selbstschätzung, d. i. die Demüthigung auf der sinnlichen Seite, eine Erhebung der moralischen, d. i. der praktischen Schätzung des Gesetzes selbst, auf der intellectuellen, mit einem Worte Achtung fürs Gesetz, also auch ein seiner intellectuellen Ursache nach positives Gefühl, das a priori erkannt wird. Denn eine jede Verminderung der Hindernisse einer Thätigkeit ist Beförderung dieser Thätigkeit selbst. Die Anerkennung des moralischen Gesetzes aber ist das Bewußtsein einer Thätigkeit der praktischen Vernunft aus objectiven Gründen, die blos darum nicht ihre Wirkung in Handlungen äußert, weil subjective Ursachen (pathologische) sie hindern. Also muß die Achtung fürs moralische Gesetz auch als positive, aber indirecte Wirkung desselben aufs Gefühl, so fern jenes den hindernden Einfluß der Neigungen durch Demüthigung des Eigendünkels schwächt, mithin als subjectiver Grund der Thätigkeit, d. i. als Triebfeder zu Befolgung desselben, und A 141 als Grund zu Maximen eines ihm gemäßen Lebenswandels angesehen werden. Aus dem Begriffe einer Triebfeder entspringt der eines Interesse, welches niemals einem Wesen, als was Vernunft hat, beigelegt wird und eine Triebfeder des Willens bedeutet, so fern sie durch Vernunft vorgestellt wird. Da das Gesetz selbst in einem moralisch guten Willen die Triebfeder sein muß, so ist das moralische Interesse ein reines sinnenfreies Interesse der bloßen praktischen Vernunft. Auf dem Begriffe eines Interesse gründet sich auch der einer Maxime. Diese ist also nur alsdann moralisch ächt, wenn sie auf dem bloßen Interesse, das man an der Befolgung des Gesetzes nimmt, beruht. Alle drei Begriffe aber, der einer Triebfeder, eines Interesse und einer Maxime, können nur auf endliche Wesen angewandt werden. Denn sie setzen insgesammt eine Eingeschränktheit der Natur eines Wesens voraus, da die subjective Beschaffenheit seiner Willkür mit dem objectiven Gesetze einer praktischen Vernunft nicht von selbst übereinstimmt; ein Bedürfniß, irgend wodurch zur Thätigkeit angetrieben zu werden, weil ein inneres Hinderniß derselben entgegensteht. Auf den göttlichen Willen können sie also nicht angewandt werden.
Es liegt so etwas Besonderes in der grenzenlosen Hochschätzung des reinen, von allem Vortheil entblößten moralischen Gesetzes, so wie es praktische A 142 V:80 Vernunft uns zur Befolgung vorstellt, deren Stimme auch den kühnsten Frevler zittern macht und ihn nöthigt, sich vor seinem Anblicke zu verbergen: daß man sich nicht wundern darf, diesen Einfluß einer blos intellectuellen Idee aufs Gefühl für speculative Vernunft unergründlich zu finden und sich damit begnügen zu müssen, daß man a priori doch noch so viel einsehen kann: ein solches Gefühl sei unzertrennlich mit der Vorstellung des moralischen Gesetzes in jedem endlichen vernünftigen Wesen verbunden. Wäre dieses Gefühl der Achtung pathologisch und also ein auf dem inneren Sinne gegründetes Gefühl der Lust, so würde es vergeblich sein, eine Verbindung derselben mit irgend einer Idee a priori zu entdecken. Nun aber ist es ein Gefühl, was blos aufs Praktische geht und zwar der Vorstellung eines Gesetzes lediglich seiner Form nach, nicht irgend eines Objects desselben wegen anhängt, mithin weder zum Vergnügen, noch zum Schmerze gerechnet werden kann und dennoch ein Interesse an der Befolgung desselben hervorbringt, welches wir das moralische nennen; wie denn auch die Fähigkeit, ein solches Interesse am Gesetze zu nehmen, (oder die Achtung fürs moralische Gesetz selbst) eigentlich das moralische Gefühl ist.
Das Bewußtsein einer freien Unterwerfung des Willens unter das Gesetz doch als mit einem unvermeidlichen Zwange, der allen Neigungen, A 143 aber nur durch eigene Vernunft angethan wird, verbunden, ist nun die Achtung fürs Gesetz. Das Gesetz, was diese Achtung fordert und auch einflößt, ist, wie man sieht, kein anderes als das moralische (denn kein anderes schließt alle Neigungen von der Unmittelbarkeit ihres Einflusses auf den Willen aus). Die Handlung, die nach diesem Gesetze mit Ausschließung aller Bestimmungsgründe aus Neigung objectiv praktisch ist, heißt Pflicht, welche um dieser Ausschließung willen in ihrem Begriffe praktische Nöthigung, d. i. Bestimmung zu Handlungen so ungerne, wie sie auch geschehen mögen, enthält. Das Gefühl, das aus dem Bewußtsein dieser Nöthigung entspringt, ist nicht pathologisch, als ein solches, was von einem Gegenstande der Sinne gewirkt würde, sondern allein praktisch, d. i. durch eine vorhergehende (objective) Willensbestimmung und Causalität der Vernunft, möglich. Es enthält also, als Unterwerfung unter ein Gesetz, d. i. als Gebot (welches für das sinnlich afficirte Subject Zwang ankündigt), keine Lust, sondern so fern vielmehr Unlust an der Handlung in sich. Dagegen aber, da dieser Zwang blos durch Gesetzgebung der eigenen Vernunft ausgeübt wird, enthält es auch Erhebung, und die V:81 subjective Wirkung aufs Gefühl, so fern davon reine praktische Vernunft die alleinige Ursache ist, kann also blos Selbstbilligung in Ansehung der letzteren heißen, indem man sich dazu ohne alles Interesse blos durchs A 144 Gesetz bestimmt erkennt und sich nunmehr eines ganz anderen, dadurch subjectiv hervorgebrachten Interesse, welches rein praktisch und frei ist, bewußt wird, welches an einer pflichtmäßigen Handlung zu nehmen, nicht etwa eine Neigung anräthig ist, sondern die Vernunft durchs praktische Gesetz schlechthin gebietet und auch wirklich hervorbringt, darum aber einen ganz eigenthümlichen Namen, nämlich den der Achtung, führt.
Der Begriff der Pflicht fordert also an der Handlung objectiv Übereinstimmung mit dem Gesetze, an der Maxime derselben aber subjectiv Achtung fürs Gesetz, als die alleinige Bestimmungsart des Willens durch dasselbe. Und darauf beruht der Unterschied zwischen dem Bewußtsein, pflichtmäßig und aus Pflicht, d. i. aus Achtung fürs Gesetz, gehandelt zu haben, davon das erstere (die Legalität) auch möglich ist, wenn Neigungen blos die Bestimmungsgründe des Willens gewesen wären, das zweite aber (die Moralität), der moralische Werth, lediglich darin gesetzt werden muß, daß die Handlung aus Pflicht, d. i. blos um des Gesetzes willen, geschehe.10
Es ist von der größten Wichtigkeit in allen moralischen Beurtheilungen A 145 auf das subjective Princip aller Maximen mit der äußersten Genauigkeit Acht zu haben, damit alle Moralität der Handlungen in der Nothwendigkeit derselben aus Pflicht und aus Achtung fürs Gesetz, nicht aus Liebe und Zuneigung zu dem, was die Handlungen hervorbringen sollen, gesetzt werde. Für Menschen und alle erschaffene vernünftige Wesen ist die moralische Nothwendigkeit Nöthigung, d. i. Verbindlichkeit, und jede darauf gegründete Handlung als Pflicht, nicht aber als eine uns von selbst schon beliebte, oder beliebt werden könnende Verfahrungsart vorzustellen. Gleich als ob wir es dahin jemals bringen könnten, daß ohne Achtung V:82 fürs Gesetz, welche mit Furcht oder wenigstens Besorgniß vor Übertretung verbunden ist, wir wie die über alle Abhängigkeit erhabene Gottheit von selbst, gleichsam durch eine uns zur Natur gewordene, niemals zu verrückende Übereinstimmung des Willens mit dem reinen Sittengesetze (welches also, da wir niemals versucht werden könnten, ihm untreu zu werden, A 146 wohl endlich gar aufhören könnte für uns Gebot zu sein), jemals in den Besitz einer Heiligkeit des Willens kommen könnten.
Das moralische Gesetz ist nämlich für den Willen eines allervollkommensten Wesens ein Gesetz der Heiligkeit, für den Willen jedes endlichen vernünftigen Wesens aber ein Gesetz der Pflicht, der moralischen Nöthigung, und der Bestimmung der Handlungen desselben durch Achtung für dies Gesetz und aus Ehrfurcht für seine Pflicht. Ein anderes subjectives Princip muß zur Triebfeder nicht angenommen werden, denn sonst kann zwar die Handlung, wie das Gesetz sie vorschreibt, ausfallen, aber da sie zwar pflichtmäßig ist, aber nicht aus Pflicht geschieht, so ist die Gesinnung dazu nicht moralisch, auf die es doch in dieser Gesetzgebung eigentlich ankommt.
Es ist sehr schön, aus Liebe zu Menschen und theilnehmendem Wohlwollen ihnen Gutes zu thun, oder aus Liebe zur Ordnung gerecht zu sein, aber das ist noch nicht die ächte moralische Maxime unsers Verhaltens, die unserm Standpunkte unter vernünftigen Wesen als Menschen angemessen ist, wenn wir uns anmaßen, gleichsam als Volontäre uns mit stolzer Einbildung über den Gedanken von Pflicht wegzusetzen und, als vom Gebote unabhängig, blos aus eigener Lust das thun zu wollen, wozu für uns kein Gebot nöthig wäre. Wir stehen unter einer Disciplin der A 147 Vernunft und müssen in allen unseren Maximen der Unterwürfigkeit unter derselben nicht vergessen, ihr nichts zu entziehen, oder dem Ansehen des Gesetzes (ob es gleich unsere eigene Vernunft giebt) durch eigenliebigen Wahn dadurch etwas abzukürzen, daß wir den Bestimmungsgrund unseres Willens, wenn gleich dem Gesetze gemäß, doch worin anders als im Gesetze selbst und in der Achtung für dieses Gesetz setzten. Pflicht und Schuldigkeit sind die Benennungen, die wir allein unserem Verhältnisse zum moralischen Gesetze geben müssen. Wir sind zwar gesetzgebende Glieder eines durch Freiheit möglichen, durch praktische Vernunft uns zur Achtung vorgestellten Reichs der Sitten, aber doch zugleich Unterthanen, nicht das Oberhaupt desselben, und die Verkennung unserer niederen Stufe als Geschöpfe und Weigerung des Eigendünkels gegen das Ansehen des V:83 heiligen Gesetzes ist schon eine Abtrünnigkeit von demselben dem Geiste nach, wenn gleich der Buchstabe desselben erfüllt würde.
Hiemit stimmt aber die Möglichkeit eines solchen Gebots als: Liebe Gott über alles und deinen Nächsten als dich selbst11 ganz wohl zusammen. Denn es fordert doch als Gebot Achtung für ein Gesetz, das A 148 Liebe befiehlt, und überläßt es nicht der beliebigen Wahl, sich diese zum Princip zu machen. Aber Liebe zu Gott als Neigung (pathologische Liebe) ist unmöglich; denn er ist kein Gegenstand der Sinne. Eben dieselbe gegen Menschen ist zwar möglich, kann aber nicht geboten werden; denn es steht in keines Menschen Vermögen, jemanden blos auf Befehl zu lieben. Also ist es blos die praktische Liebe, die in jenem Kern aller Gesetze verstanden wird. Gott lieben, heißt in dieser Bedeutung, seine Gebote gerne thun; den Nächsten lieben, heißt, alle Pflicht gegen ihn gerne ausüben. Das Gebot aber, daß dieses zur Regel macht, kann auch nicht diese Gesinnung in pflichtmäßigen Handlungen zu haben, sondern blos darnach zu streben gebieten. Denn ein Gebot, daß man etwas gerne thun soll, ist in sich widersprechend, weil, wenn wir, was uns zu thun obliege, schon von selbst wissen, wenn wir uns überdem auch bewußt wären, es gerne zu thun, ein Gebot darüber ganz unnöthig, und, thun wir es zwar, aber eben nicht gerne, sondern nur aus Achtung fürs Gesetz, ein Gebot, welches diese Achtung eben zur Triebfeder der Maxime macht, gerade der gebotenen Gesinnung zuwider wirken würde. Jenes Gesetz aller Gesetze stellt also, wie alle moralische Vorschrift des Evangelii, die sittliche A 149 Gesinnung in ihrer ganzen Vollkommenheit dar, so wie sie als ein Ideal der Heiligkeit von keinem Geschöpfe erreichbar, dennoch das Urbild ist, welchem wir uns zu näheren und in einem ununterbrochenen, aber unendlichen Progressus gleich zu werden streben sollen. Könnte nämlich ein vernünftig Geschöpf jemals dahin kommen, alle moralische Gesetze völlig gerne zu thun, so würde das so viel bedeuten als, es fände sich in ihm auch nicht einmal die Möglichkeit einer Begierde, die ihn zur Abweichung von ihnen reizte; denn die Überwindung einer solchen kostet dem Subject immer Aufopferung, bedarf also Selbstzwang, d. i. innere Nöthigung zu dem, was man V:84 nicht ganz gern thut. Zu dieser Stufe der moralischen Gesinnung aber kann es ein Geschöpf niemals bringen. Denn da es ein Geschöpf, mithin in Ansehung dessen, was es zur gänzlichen Zufriedenheit mit seinem Zustande fordert, immer abhängig ist, so kann es niemals von Begierden und Neigungen ganz frei sein, die, weil sie auf physischen Ursachen beruhen, mit dem moralischen Gesetze, das ganz andere Quellen hat, nicht von selbst stimmen, mithin es jederzeit nothwendig machen, in Rücksicht auf dieselbe die Gesinnung seiner Maximen auf moralische Nöthigung, nicht auf bereitwillige Ergebenheit, sondern auf Achtung, welche die Befolgung des Gesetzes, obgleich sie ungerne geschähe, fordert, nicht auf Liebe, A 150 die keine innere Weigerung des Willens gegen das Gesetz besorgt, zu gründen, gleichwohl aber diese letztere, nämlich die bloße Liebe zum Gesetze, (da es alsdann aufhören würde Gebot zu sein, und Moralität, die nun subjectiv in Heiligkeit überginge, aufhören würde Tugend zu sein) sich zum beständigen, obgleich unerreichbaren Ziele seiner Bestrebung zu machen. Denn an dem, was wir hochschätzen, aber doch (wegen des Bewußtseins unserer Schwächen) scheuen, verwandelt sich durch die mehrere Leichtigkeit ihm Gnüge zu thun die ehrfurchtsvolle Scheu in Zuneigung und Achtung in Liebe; wenigstens würde es die Vollendung einer dem Gesetze gewidmeten Gesinnung sein, wenn es jemals einem Geschöpfe möglich wäre sie zu erreichen.
Diese Betrachtung ist hier nicht sowohl dahin abgezweckt, das angeführte evangelische Gebot auf deutliche Begriffe zu bringen, um der Religionsschwärmerei in Ansehung der Liebe Gottes, sondern die sittliche Gesinnung auch unmittelbar in Ansehung der Pflichten gegen Menschen genau zu bestimmen und einer blos moralischen Schwärmerei, welche viel Köpfe ansteckt, zu steuren, oder wo möglich vorzubeugen. Die sittliche Stufe, worauf der Mensch (aller unserer Einsicht nach auch jedes vernünftige Geschöpf) steht, ist Achtung fürs moralische Gesetz. Die Gesinnung, die ihm, dieses zu befolgen, obliegt, ist, es aus Pflicht, nicht aus A 151 freiwilliger Zuneigung und auch allenfalls unbefohlener, von selbst gern unternommener Bestrebung zu befolgen, und sein moralischer Zustand, darin er jedesmal sein kann, ist Tugend, d. i. moralische Gesinnung im Kampfe, und nicht Heiligkeit im vermeintlichen Besitze einer völligen Reinigkeit der Gesinnungen des Willens. Es ist lauter moralische Schwärmerei und Steigerung des Eigendünkels, wozu man die Gemüther durch Aufmunterung zu Handlungen als edler, erhabener und großmüthiger V:85 stimmt, dadurch man sie in den Wahn versetzt, als wäre es nicht Pflicht, d. i. Achtung fürs Gesetz, dessen Joch (das gleichwohl, weil es uns Vernunft selbst auferlegt, sanft ist) sie, wenn gleich ungern, tragen müßten, was den Bestimmungsgrund ihrer Handlungen ausmachte, und welches sie immer noch demüthigt, indem sie es befolgen (ihm gehorchen); sondern als ob jene Handlungen nicht aus Pflicht, sondern als baarer Verdienst von ihnen erwartet würden. Denn nicht allein daß sie durch Nachahmung solcher Thaten, nämlich aus solchem Princip, nicht im mindesten dem Geiste des Gesetzes ein Genüge gethan hätten, welcher in der dem Gesetze sich unterwerfenden Gesinnung, nicht in der Gesetzmäßigkeit der Handlung (das Princip möge sein, welches auch wolle) besteht, und die Triebfeder pathologisch (in der Sympathie oder auch Philautie), nicht moralisch (im Gesetze) setzen, so bringen sie auf diese Art eine windige, überfliegende, phantastische Denkungsart hervor, sich mit einer freiwilligen A 152 Gutartigkeit ihres Gemüths, das weder Sporns noch Zügel bedürfe, für welches gar nicht einmal ein Gebot nöthig sei, zu schmeicheln und darüber ihrer Schuldigkeit, an welche sie doch eher denken sollten als an Verdienst, zu vergessen. Es lassen sich wohl Handlungen anderer, die mit großer Aufopferung und zwar blos um der Pflicht willen geschehen sind, unter dem Namen edler und erhabener Thaten preisen, und doch auch nur so fern Spuren da sind, welche vermuthen lassen, daß sie ganz aus Achtung für seine Pflicht, nicht aus Herzensaufwallungen geschehen sind. Will man jemanden aber sie als Beispiele der Nachfolge vorstellen, so muß durchaus die Achtung für Pflicht (als das einzige ächte moralische Gefühl) zur Triebfeder gebraucht werden: diese ernste, heilige Vorschrift, die es nicht unserer eitelen Selbstliebe überläßt, mit pathologischen Antrieben (so fern sie der Moralität analogisch sind) zu tändeln und uns auf verdienstlichen Werth was zu Gute zu thun. Wenn wir nur wohl nachsuchen, so werden wir zu allen Handlungen, die anpreisungswürdig sind, schon ein Gesetz der Pflicht finden, welches gebietet und nicht auf unser Belieben ankommen läßt, was unserem Hange gefällig sein möchte. Das ist die einzige Darstellungsart, welche die Seele moralisch bildet, weil sie allein fester und genau bestimmter Grundsätze fähig ist.
Wenn Schwärmerei in der allgemeinsten Bedeutung eine nach A 153 Grundsätzen unternommene Überschreitung der Grenzen der menschlichen Vernunft ist, so ist moralische Schwärmerei diese Überschreitung der Grenzen, die die praktische reine Vernunft der Menschheit setzt, dadurch V:86 sie verbietet den subjectiven Bestimmungsgrund pflichtmäßiger Handlungen, d. i. die moralische Triebfeder derselben, irgend worin anders als im Gesetze selbst und die Gesinnung, die dadurch in die Maximen gebracht wird, irgend anderwärts als in der Achtung für dies Gesetz zu setzen, mithin den alle Arroganz sowohl als eitele Philautie niederschlagenden Gedanken von Pflicht zum obersten Lebensprincip aller Moralität im Menschen zu machen gebietet.
Wenn dem also ist, so haben nicht allein Romanschreiber, oder empfindelnde Erzieher (ob sie gleich noch so sehr wider Empfindelei eifern), sondern bisweilen selbst Philosophen, ja die strengsten unter allen, die Stoiker, moralische Schwärmerei statt nüchterner, aber weiser Disciplin der Sitten eingeführt, wenn gleich die Schwärmerei der letzteren mehr heroisch, der ersteren von schaler und schmelzender Beschaffenheit war, und man kann es, ohne zu heucheln, der moralischen Lehre des Evangelii mit aller Wahrheit nachsagen: daß es zuerst durch die Reinigkeit des moralischen Princips, zugleich aber durch die Angemessenheit desselben mit den A 154 Schranken endlicher Wesen alles Wohlverhalten des Menschen der Zucht einer ihnen vor Augen gelegten Pflicht, die sie nicht unter moralischen geträumten Vollkommenheiten schwärmen läßt, unterworfen und dem Eigendünkel sowohl als der Eigenliebe, die beide gerne ihre Grenzen verkennen, Schranken der Demuth (d. i. der Selbsterkenntniß) gesetzt habe.
Pflicht! du erhabener, großer Name, der du nichts Beliebtes, was Einschmeichelung bei sich führt, in dir fassest, sondern Unterwerfung verlangst, doch auch nichts drohest, was natürliche Abneigung im Gemüthe erregte und schreckte, um den Willen zu bewegen, sondern blos ein Gesetz aufstellst, welches von selbst im Gemüthe Eingang findet und doch sich selbst wider Willen Verehrung (wenn gleich nicht immer Befolgung) erwirbt, vor dem alle Neigungen verstummen, wenn sie gleich ingeheim ihm entgegen wirken: welches ist der deiner würdige Ursprung, und wo findet man die Wurzel deiner edlen Abkunft, welche alle Verwandtschaft mit Neigungen stolz ausschlägt, und von welcher Wurzel abzustammen, die unnachlaßliche Bedingung desjenigen Werths ist, den sich Menschen allein selbst geben können?
Es kann nichts Minderes sein, als was den Menschen über sich selbst (als einen Theil der Sinnenwelt) erhebt, was ihn an eine Ordnung der Dinge knüpft, die nur der Verstand denken kann, und die zugleich die A 155 ganze Sinnenwelt, mit ihr das empirisch bestimmbare Dasein des Menschen V:87 in der Zeit und das Ganze aller Zwecke (welches allein solchen unbedingten praktischen Gesetzen als das moralische angemessen ist) unter sich hat. Es ist nichts anders als die Persönlichkeit, d. i. die Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit von dem Mechanism der ganzen Natur, doch zugleich als ein Vermögen eines Wesens betrachtet, welches eigenthümlichen, nämlich von seiner eigenen Vernunft gegebenen, reinen praktischen Gesetzen, die Person also, als zur Sinnenwelt gehörig, ihrer eigenen Persönlichkeit unterworfen ist, so fern sie zugleich zur intelligibelen Welt gehört; da es denn nicht zu verwundern ist, wenn der Mensch, als zu beiden Welten gehörig, sein eigenes Wesen in Beziehung auf seine zweite und höchste Bestimmung nicht anders als mit Verehrung und die Gesetze derselben mit der höchsten Achtung betrachten muß.
Auf diesen Ursprung gründen sich nun manche Ausdrücke, welche den Werth der Gegenstände nach moralischen Ideen bezeichnen. Das moralische Gesetz ist heilig (unverletzlich). Der Mensch ist zwar unheilig genug, aber die Menschheit in seiner Person muß ihm heilig sein. In der ganzen Schöpfung kann alles, was man will, und worüber man etwas vermag, auch blos als Mittel gebraucht werden; nur der Mensch und mit ihm jedes vernünftige Geschöpf ist Zweck an sich selbst. Er ist nämlich A 156 das Subject des moralischen Gesetzes, welches heilig ist, vermöge der Autonomie seiner Freiheit. Eben um dieser willen ist jeder Wille, selbst jeder Person ihr eigener, auf sie selbst gerichteter Wille auf die Bedingung der Einstimmung mit der Autonomie des vernünftigen Wesens eingeschränkt, es nämlich keiner Absicht zu unterwerfen, die nicht nach einem Gesetze, welches aus dem Willen des leidenden Subjects selbst entspringen könnte, möglich ist; also dieses niemals blos als Mittel, sondern zugleich selbst als Zweck zu gebrauchen. Diese Bedingung legen wir mit Recht sogar dem göttlichen Willen in Ansehung der vernünftigen Wesen in der Welt als seiner Geschöpfe bei, indem sie auf der Persönlichkeit derselben beruht, dadurch allein sie Zwecke an sich selbst sind.
Diese Achtung erweckende Idee der Persönlichkeit, welche uns die Erhabenheit unserer Natur (ihrer Bestimmung nach) vor Augen stellt, indem sie uns zugleich den Mangel der Angemessenheit unseres Verhaltens in Ansehung derselben bemerken läßt und dadurch den Eigendünkel niederschlägt, ist selbst der gemeinsten Menschenvernunft natürlich und leicht bemerklich. Hat nicht jeder auch nur mittelmäßig ehrliche Mann bisweilen gefunden, daß er eine sonst unschädliche Lüge, dadurch er sich entweder V:88 selbst aus einem verdrießlichen Handel ziehen, oder wohl gar einem geliebten und verdienstvollen Freunde Nutzen schaffen konnte, blos darum A 157 unterließ, um sich ingeheim in seinen eigenen Augen nicht verachten zu dürfen? Hält nicht einen rechtschaffenen Mann im größten Unglücke des Lebens, das er vermeiden konnte, wenn er sich nur hätte über die Pflicht wegsetzen können, noch das Bewußtsein aufrecht, daß er die Menschheit in seiner Person doch in ihrer Würde erhalten und geehrt habe, daß er sich nicht vor sich selbst zu schämen und den inneren Anblick der Selbstprüfung zu scheuen Ursache habe? Dieser Trost ist nicht Glückseligkeit, auch nicht der mindeste Theil derselben. Denn niemand wird sich die Gelegenheit dazu, auch vielleicht nicht einmal ein Leben in solchen Umständen wünschen. Aber er lebt und kann es nicht erdulden, in seinen eigenen Augen des Lebens unwürdig zu sein. Diese innere Beruhigung ist also blos negativ in Ansehung alles dessen, was das Leben angenehm machen mag; nämlich sie ist die Abhaltung der Gefahr, im persönlichen Werthe zu sinken, nachdem der seines Zustandes von ihm schon gänzlich aufgegeben worden. Sie ist die Wirkung von einer Achtung für etwas ganz anderes als das Leben, womit in Vergleichung und Entgegensetzung das Leben vielmehr mit aller seiner Annehmlichkeit gar keinen Werth hat. Er lebt nur noch aus Pflicht, nicht weil er am Leben den mindesten Geschmack findet.
So ist die ächte Triebfeder der reinen praktischen Vernunft beschaffen; A 158 sie ist keine andere als das reine moralische Gesetz selber, so fern es uns die Erhabenheit unserer eigenen übersinnlichen Existenz spüren läßt und subjectiv in Menschen, die sich zugleich ihres sinnlichen Daseins und der damit verbundenen Abhängigkeit von ihrer so fern sehr pathologisch afficirten Natur bewußt sind, Achtung für ihre höhere Bestimmung wirkt. Nun lassen sich mit dieser Triebfeder gar wohl so viele Reize und Annehmlichkeiten des Lebens verbinden, daß auch um dieser willen allein schon die klügste Wahl eines vernünftigen und über das größte Wohl des Lebens nachdenkenden Epikureers sich für das sittliche Wohlverhalten erklären würde, und es kann auch rathsam sein, diese Aussicht auf einen fröhlichen Genuß des Lebens mit jener obersten und schon für sich allein hinlänglich bestimmenden Bewegursache zu verbinden; aber nur um den Anlockungen, die das Laster auf der Gegenseite vorzuspiegeln nicht ermangelt, das Gegengewicht zu halten, nicht um hierin die eigentliche bewegende Kraft, auch nicht dem mindesten Theile nach, zu setzen, wenn von Pflicht die Rede ist. Denn das würde so viel sein, als die moralische Gesinnung V:89 in ihrer Quelle verunreinigen wollen. Die Ehrwürdigkeit der Pflicht hat nichts mit Lebensgenuß zu schaffen; sie hat ihr eigenthümliches Gesetz, auch ihr eigenthümliches Gericht, und wenn man auch beide noch so sehr zusammenschütteln wollte, um sie vermischt gleichsam als Arzeneimittel A 159 der kranken Seele zuzureichen, so scheiden sie sich doch alsbald von selbst, und thun sie es nicht, so wirkt das erste gar nicht, wenn aber auch das physische Leben hiebei einige Kraft gewönne, so würde doch das moralische ohne Rettung dahin schwinden.
9 Man kann von jeder gesetzmäßigen Handlung, die doch nicht um des Gesetzes willen geschehen ist, sagen: sie sei blos dem Buchstaben, aber nicht dem Geiste (der Gesinnung) nach moralisch gut.
10 Wenn man den Begriff der Achtung für Personen, so wie er vorher dargelegt worden, genau erwägt, so wird man gewahr, daß sie immer auf dem Bewußtsein einer Pflicht beruhe, die uns ein Beispiel vorhält, und daß also Achtung niemals einen andern als moralischen Grund haben könne, und es sehr gut, sogar in psychologischer Absicht zur Menschenkenntniß sehr nützlich sei, allerwärts, wo wir diesen Ausdruck brauchen, auf die geheime und wundernswürdige, dabei aber oft vorkommende Rücksicht, die der Mensch in seinen Beurtheilungen aufs moralische Gesetz nimmt, Acht zu haben.
11 Mit diesem Gesetze macht das Princip der eigenen Glückseligkeit, welches einige zum obersten Grundsatze der Sittlichkeit machen wollen, einen seltsamen Contrast; dieses würde so lauten: Liebe dich selbst über alles, Gott aber und deinen Nächsten um dein selbst willen.
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.
Chapter III. On the Incentives of Pure Practical Reason.
What is essential to all moral worth in actions is that the moral law determine the will immediately. If the will is determined in accordance with the moral law, but only through a feeling, of whatever kind, that A 127 must be presupposed for the law to become a sufficient determining ground of the will, and thus not for the sake of the law, then the action will contain legality but not morality. If, V:72 then, by an incentive (elater animi) we understand the subjective determining ground of the will of a being whose reason is not, by its nature, already necessarily in conformity with the objective law, it follows first that no incentives at all can be attributed to the divine will. The incentive of the human will, however—and of the will of every created rational being—can never be anything other than the moral law. Thus the objective determining ground must always, entirely on its own, also be the subjectively sufficient determining ground of the action, if the action is not merely to fulfill the letter of the law without containing its spirit.9
For the sake of the moral law, then, and to give it influence over the will, we must not seek some other incentive that would allow us to dispense with the incentive of the moral law; for all this A 128 would produce nothing but hypocrisy without substance. It is even questionable to let any other incentives, such as those of advantage, cooperate alongside the moral law. Nothing therefore remains but to determine carefully how the moral law becomes an incentive, and what happens to the human faculty of desire, as an effect of that determining ground upon it, when the law is such an incentive. For how a law can of itself and immediately be a determining ground of the will—which is nevertheless the essence of all morality—is a problem insoluble for human reason, and is identical with the problem of how a free will is possible. We shall therefore have to indicate a priori, not the ground from which the moral law in itself supplies an incentive, but what it effects—or, better, must effect—in the mind insofar as it is an incentive.
What is essential to every determination of the will through the moral law is that the will, as a free will, be determined by the law alone: thus not merely without the cooperation of sensible impulses, but even by rejecting them all and restricting every inclination insofar as it might conflict with that law. To this extent, then, the effect of the moral law as incentive is only negative, and as such this incentive can be cognized a priori. For every inclination and every sensible impulse is founded on A 129 V:73 feeling, and the negative effect upon feeling, through the restriction imposed on inclinations, is itself feeling. Consequently we can discern a priori that the moral law, as the determining ground of the will, must, by thwarting all our inclinations, produce a feeling that can be called pain. Here we have the first, and perhaps the only, case in which we could determine from concepts a priori the relation of a cognition—here, a cognition of pure practical reason—to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. All inclinations together, which can also be brought into a tolerable system whose satisfaction is then called one's own happiness, constitute selfishness (solipsismus). This is either self-love, a benevolence toward oneself that takes precedence over everything (Philautia), or satisfaction with oneself (Arrogantia). The former is specifically called self-love, the latter self-conceit. Pure practical reason merely restricts self-love: since it is natural and already active in us before the moral law, reason only limits it to the condition of agreement with that law, whereupon it is called rational self-love. But it strikes self-conceit down altogether. For all claims to self-esteem that precede conformity with the moral law are null A 130 and wholly unjustified, since certainty of a disposition conforming to this law is precisely the first condition of all personal worth, as we shall soon make clearer; and every pretension prior to it is false and contrary to law. Now the propensity to self-esteem, insofar as it rests merely on sensibility, belongs among the inclinations that the moral law restricts. The moral law therefore strikes down self-conceit. Yet this law is something positive in itself, namely the form of an intellectual causality, that is, of freedom. Thus, as it weakens self-conceit by opposing its subjective antagonist, the inclinations within us, it is at the same time an object of respect; and as it even strikes down, that is, humiliates self-conceit, it is an object of the greatest respect. Hence it is also the ground of a positive feeling that is not empirical in origin and is cognized a priori. Respect for the moral law is therefore a feeling produced by an intellectual ground, and this feeling is the only one that we cognize completely a priori and whose necessity we can discern.
V:74 In the preceding chapter we saw that everything presenting itself as an object of the will before the moral law is, by that law itself as the supreme condition of practical reason, A 131 excluded from the determining grounds of the will under the name of the unconditionally good. We also saw that the mere practical form, consisting in the fitness of maxims for universal legislation, first determines what is good in itself and without qualification, and establishes the maxim of a pure will, which alone is good in every respect. Yet we now find our nature as sensible beings so constituted that the matter of the faculty of desire—objects of inclination, whether of hope or fear—presses itself upon us first. Our self, determinable by feeling, although wholly unfit through its maxims for universal legislation, nevertheless strives to assert its claims beforehand as the first and original claims, just as if it constituted our entire self. This propensity to make oneself, according to the subjective determining grounds of one's power of choice, the objective determining ground of the will in general may be called self-love. When it makes itself legislative and an unconditional practical principle, it may be called self-conceit. Now the moral law, which alone is truly objective, namely in every respect, entirely excludes the influence of self-love on the supreme practical principle and infinitely restricts self-conceit, which prescribes the subjective conditions of self-love as laws. Whatever restricts our self-conceit in our own judgment humiliates us. Thus A 132 the moral law inevitably humiliates every human being when he compares with it the sensible propensity of his nature. That whose representation as a determining ground of our will humiliates us in our self-consciousness arouses respect for itself insofar as it is positive and a determining ground. The moral law is therefore also subjectively a ground of respect. Now everything found in self-love belongs to inclination, and every inclination rests on feelings. Hence whatever restricts all the inclinations together in self-love necessarily influences feeling by that very fact. We thus comprehend how it is possible to discern a priori that the moral law, by excluding inclinations and the propensity to make them the supreme practical condition—that is, self-love—from any participation in supreme legislation, can exert an effect upon feeling V:75 that is on the one hand merely negative, but on the other, with regard to the restricting ground of pure practical reason, positive. For this purpose no special kind of feeling, under the name of practical or moral feeling, need be assumed as preceding the moral law and lying at its foundation.
The negative effect upon feeling, that of disagreeableness, is, like A 133 every influence upon it and like every feeling in general, pathological. But as an effect of consciousness of the moral law, and hence in relation to an intelligible cause, namely the subject of pure practical reason as supreme legislator, this feeling of a rational subject affected by inclinations is indeed called humiliation, or intellectual contempt. Yet in relation to its positive ground, the law, it is at the same time respect for that law. No feeling on behalf of the law takes place; rather, in reason's judgment, insofar as the law clears resistance out of the way, the removal of a hindrance is reckoned equivalent to a positive furthering of causality. Thus this feeling can now also be called a feeling of respect for the moral law, and on both grounds together a moral feeling.
Thus, just as the moral law is, through pure practical reason, the formal determining ground of the action, and just as it is also the material, though only objective, determining ground of the objects of action under the names of good and evil, so it is also the subjective determining ground, that is, the incentive, to this action. For it influences the subject's sensibility and produces a feeling conducive to the law's influence on the will. Here A 134 no feeling attuned to morality precedes in the subject. That is impossible, because all feeling is sensible, whereas the incentive of a moral disposition must be free of every sensible condition. Rather, sensible feeling, which underlies all our inclinations, is indeed the condition of the sensation we call respect; but the cause determining it lies in pure practical reason. This sensation, because of its origin, therefore cannot be called pathological, but must be called practically produced. For the representation of the moral law deprives self-love of its influence and self-conceit of its delusion, thereby diminishing the hindrance to pure practical reason. By removing the counterweight, it produces in reason's judgment the representation of the superiority V:76 of reason's objective law over the impulses of sensibility, and thus the relative weight of the former with regard to a will affected by the latter. Respect for the law is therefore not an incentive to morality; it is morality itself, considered subjectively as an incentive. Pure practical reason, by rejecting every claim of self-love in opposition to itself, gives authority to the law, which now alone has influence. Here we must note that, since respect is an effect upon feeling, and hence upon A 135 the sensibility of a rational being, it presupposes this sensibility, and therefore also the finitude of those beings upon whom the moral law imposes respect. Respect for the law cannot be attributed to a supreme being, or even to a being free from all sensibility, for whom sensibility therefore cannot hinder practical reason.
This feeling, under the name of moral feeling, is thus produced solely by reason. It serves neither to judge actions nor, still less, to establish the objective moral law itself, but merely as an incentive to make that law one's maxim. Yet what name could more fittingly be given to this singular feeling, which cannot be compared with any pathological feeling? It is of so distinctive a kind that it seems to be at the command of reason alone, and indeed of pure practical reason.
Respect is always directed only toward persons, never toward things. Things can arouse inclination in us and, if they are animals, such as horses, dogs, and so forth, even love; or they can arouse fear, as do the sea, a volcano, or a beast of prey, but never respect. Something closer to this feeling is admiration, which as an emotion—astonishment—can also be directed toward things: for example, mountains towering to the sky; the size, A 136 number, and distance of the heavenly bodies; the strength and speed of certain animals, and so on. But none of this is respect. A human being, too, can be an object of love, fear, or admiration, even to the point of astonishment, without thereby being an object of respect. His playful humor, his courage and strength, his power through his rank among others, can inspire such sensations in me, yet inward respect for him is still lacking. Fontenelle says: “Before a person of rank I bow, but my spirit V:77 does not bow.” I can add: before a humble, ordinary citizen in whom I perceive an uprightness of character to a degree of which I am not conscious in myself, my spirit bows, whether I will it or not, however high I hold my head to keep him from overlooking my superior position. Why? His example holds before me a law that strikes down my self-conceit when I compare it with my conduct; and I see before me its observance, hence its practicability, proved in deed. I may even be conscious of an equal degree of uprightness myself, and still the respect remains. For since everything good in a human being is always imperfect, the law, made vivid through A 137 an example, always strikes down my pride. The man I see before me provides a standard for this: any impurity that may still cling to him is not known to me as my own is, so he appears to me in a purer light. Respect is a tribute we cannot refuse to merit, whether we will it or not. We may at most withhold it outwardly, but we cannot prevent ourselves from feeling it inwardly.
Respect is so far from being a feeling of pleasure that we yield to it toward another person only reluctantly. We try to discover something that can lighten its burden for us, some fault to compensate us for the humiliation such an example brings upon us. Even the dead are not always safe from this criticism, especially when their example seems beyond imitation. Even the moral law itself, in its solemn majesty, is exposed to this effort to ward off respect for it. Can we really suppose there is any other reason why we would gladly lower it to the level of our familiar inclination, or why everyone takes such pains to make it the favored precept of our own well-understood advantage, than the desire to be rid of that daunting respect which holds our own unworthiness before us so A 138 sternly? Yet, conversely, there is also so little displeasure in it that once we have laid aside self-conceit and allowed that respect a practical influence, we cannot gaze enough upon the splendor of this law. The soul believes itself elevated in the same measure as it sees the holy law exalted above itself and its frail nature. Great talents and V:78 activity proportionate to them can indeed also produce respect, or a feeling analogous to it; it is entirely fitting to accord it to them, and here admiration seems identical with that sensation. On closer inspection, however, we notice that, since it always remains uncertain how much of the ability is due to inborn talent and how much to cultivation through one's own diligence, reason conjecturally represents it to us as the fruit of cultivation, and hence as merit. This perceptibly lowers our self-conceit and either reproaches us on that account or imposes upon us the emulation of such an example in a manner suited to us. The respect we show such a person—properly speaking, the law his example holds before us—is therefore not mere admiration. This is also confirmed by the fact that when the common crowd of admirers believes it has learned from elsewhere of the bad character of such a man, for instance Voltaire, A 139 it abandons all respect for him, while the true scholar still feels it, at least from the standpoint of his talents. For the scholar himself is engaged in a task and calling that makes emulation of that man, to a certain extent, a law for him.
Respect for the moral law is therefore the sole and at the same time indubitable moral incentive, just as this feeling is directed toward an object only on this ground alone. First, the moral law determines the will objectively and immediately in reason's judgment. But freedom, whose causality is determinable solely through the law, consists precisely in limiting all inclinations, and hence the estimation of the person himself, to the condition of observing its pure law. This limitation now has an effect upon feeling and produces a sensation of displeasure that can be cognized a priori from the moral law. But to that extent it is merely a negative effect, which, as arising from the influence of pure practical reason, above all restricts the activity of the subject insofar as inclinations are its determining grounds, and hence diminishes the opinion of his personal worth, which is reduced to nothing without agreement with the moral law. Thus the effect of this law A 140 upon feeling is merely humiliation. We can indeed discern this a priori, but in it we can recognize not the force of the pure practical law as incentive, but only the resistance to incentives of sensibility. V:79 Yet the same law is objectively—that is, in the representation of pure reason—an immediate determining ground of the will, so this humiliation occurs only in relation to the purity of the law. Consequently, lowering the claims of moral self-esteem, that is, humiliation on the sensible side, is an elevation of the moral, that is, practical estimation of the law itself on the intellectual side: in a word, respect for the law. It is thus also a feeling positive in its intellectual cause, cognized a priori. For every reduction of hindrances to an activity furthers that activity itself. Acknowledgment of the moral law, however, is consciousness of an activity of practical reason from objective grounds that fails to manifest its effect in actions only because subjective, pathological causes hinder it. Respect for the moral law must therefore also be regarded as its positive but indirect effect upon feeling, insofar as the law weakens the obstructive influence of inclinations by humiliating self-conceit. It must thus be regarded as a subjective ground of activity, that is, as an incentive to observing the law, and A 141 as a ground for maxims of a way of life conforming to it. From the concept of an incentive arises that of an interest. This is never attributed to any being except one possessing reason, and means an incentive of the will insofar as it is represented through reason. Since in a morally good will the law itself must be the incentive, moral interest is a pure interest of practical reason alone, free from sensibility. The concept of a maxim is also founded on that of an interest. A maxim is therefore morally genuine only when it rests on the mere interest one takes in observing the law. All three concepts, however—an incentive, an interest, and a maxim—can be applied only to finite beings. For they all presuppose a limitation in a being's nature: the subjective constitution of its power of choice does not of itself agree with the objective law of practical reason. They presuppose a need to be impelled to activity by something, because an inner hindrance opposes it. They cannot, therefore, be applied to the divine will.
There is something so singular in the boundless esteem for the pure moral law, stripped of every advantage, as practical A 142 V:80 reason presents it to us for observance—reason whose voice makes even the boldest offender tremble and compels him to hide from its sight—that we should not be surprised to find this influence of a merely intellectual idea upon feeling unfathomable to speculative reason. We must be content that we can nevertheless discern this much a priori: such a feeling is inseparably connected with the representation of the moral law in every finite rational being. If this feeling of respect were pathological, and thus a feeling of pleasure founded on inner sense, it would be futile to discover a connection of it with any idea a priori. But it is a feeling directed solely toward the practical, attached to the representation of a law merely on account of its form, not on account of any object of it. It can therefore be counted neither as enjoyment nor as pain, and yet it produces an interest in observing the law that we call moral. Indeed, the capacity to take such an interest in the law—or respect for the moral law itself—is properly moral feeling.
Consciousness of a free submission of the will to the law, yet combined with an unavoidable constraint imposed on all inclinations, A 143 though only by one's own reason, is respect for the law. The law that demands and also inspires this respect is, as we see, none other than the moral law, for no other excludes all inclinations from immediately influencing the will. An action objectively practical according to this law, with every determining ground drawn from inclination excluded, is called duty. Because of this exclusion, duty contains in its concept practical necessitation, that is, determination to actions however reluctantly they may be performed. The feeling arising from consciousness of this necessitation is not pathological, as if produced by an object of the senses, but is possible only practically, that is, through a preceding objective determination of the will and causality of reason. As submission to a law, that is, to a command announcing constraint for the sensibly affected subject, it therefore contains no pleasure, but rather, to this extent, displeasure in the action. Yet since this constraint is exercised solely through the legislation of one's own reason, it also contains elevation. The V:81 subjective effect upon feeling, insofar as pure practical reason is its sole cause, can thus be called only self-approval with regard to that reason: one recognizes oneself as determined to the action without any interest, solely by the A 144 law, and now becomes conscious of an entirely different interest, subjectively produced through it, which is purely practical and free. Taking this interest in an action conforming to duty is not something an inclination advises; rather, reason commands it unconditionally through the practical law and also actually produces it. It therefore bears a name entirely its own: respect.
The concept of duty thus requires of the action objectively that it agree with the law, but of its maxim subjectively that it contain respect for the law as the sole way in which the law determines the will. On this rests the distinction between consciousness of having acted in conformity with duty and of having acted from duty, that is, from respect for the law. The former, legality, is also possible if inclinations alone have been the determining grounds of the will; but the latter, morality, or moral worth, must be placed solely in the action's being done from duty, that is, merely for the sake of the law.10
In all moral judgments it is of the greatest importance A 145 to attend with the utmost precision to the subjective principle of every maxim, so that all morality of actions is placed in their necessity from duty and from respect for the law, not from love and fondness for what the actions are to produce. For human beings and all created rational beings, moral necessity is necessitation, that is, obligation; and every action founded on it must be represented as duty, not as a way of proceeding that we already favor of ourselves or could come to favor. It is as though we could ever reach a point where, without respect V:82 for the law, which is connected with fear or at least apprehension of transgression, we could ever attain holiness of will of ourselves, like the Deity exalted above all dependence. This would require a conformity of the will with the pure moral law that had, as it were, become our nature and could never be disturbed; since we could never be tempted to be unfaithful to the law, A 146 it might finally cease altogether to be a command for us.
For the will of a supremely perfect being, the moral law is a law of holiness; but for the will of every finite rational being it is a law of duty, of moral necessitation, and of the determination of its actions through respect for this law and reverence for its duty. No other subjective principle must be assumed as incentive. Otherwise the action may indeed turn out as the law prescribes, but since it conforms to duty without being done from duty, the disposition behind it is not moral—and in this legislation it is the disposition that really matters.
It is very beautiful to do good to human beings out of love and sympathetic benevolence, or to be just out of love of order. But this is not yet the genuine moral maxim of our conduct suited to our position among rational beings as human beings, if we presume, as volunteers, so to speak, to set ourselves above the thought of duty with proud conceit, and, as though independent of command, to will merely from our own pleasure what would require no command for us. We stand under a discipline of A 147 reason, and in all our maxims must not forget our subjection to it. We must withdraw nothing from it, nor diminish the authority of the law, although our own reason gives it, through the self-loving delusion of placing the determining ground of our will, even when in conformity with the law, in anything other than the law itself and respect for it. Duty and obligation are the only names we must give to our relation to the moral law. We are indeed legislative members of a moral kingdom possible through freedom, presented to us by practical reason as an object of respect; but we are at the same time subjects, not its sovereign. To mistake our lower station as creatures, and in self-conceit to resist the authority of the V:83 holy law, is already to desert it in spirit, even if its letter were fulfilled.
The possibility of a command such as “Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself”11 is entirely consistent with this. For as a command it demands respect for a law that A 148 commands love, and does not leave it to arbitrary choice to make love one's principle. But love for God as inclination—pathological love—is impossible, for he is not an object of the senses. The same love toward human beings is indeed possible, but cannot be commanded, for no human being has it in his power to love someone merely on command. It is therefore only practical love that is meant in this core of all laws. To love God in this sense means to carry out his commands gladly; to love one's neighbor means to fulfill every duty toward him gladly. But the command that makes this a rule cannot command us to have this disposition in actions conforming to duty, but only to strive for it. For a command that one should do something gladly is self-contradictory, because if we already know of ourselves what we are obliged to do, and were also conscious of doing it gladly, a command concerning it would be wholly unnecessary; and if, on the other hand, we do it, but not gladly, only out of respect for the law, a command making this respect the incentive of the maxim would work directly against the disposition commanded. Thus that law of all laws, like every moral precept of the Gospel, presents the moral A 149 disposition in its complete perfection. As an ideal of holiness, this is unattainable by any creature, yet it is the archetype we should strive to approach and to equal in an unbroken but infinite progress. For if a rational creature could ever reach the point of obeying all moral laws entirely gladly, this would mean that within it there was not even the possibility of a desire tempting it to deviate from them. Overcoming such a desire always costs the subject a sacrifice, and thus requires self-constraint, that is, inner necessitation to do what one V:84 does not do altogether gladly. But a creature can never reach this degree of moral disposition. For since it is a creature, and hence always dependent with regard to what it requires for complete satisfaction with its condition, it can never be wholly free from desires and inclinations. Because these rest on physical causes, they do not of themselves agree with the moral law, which has entirely different sources. They therefore always make it necessary, in relation to them, to found the disposition of one's maxims on moral necessitation, not on ready devotion; on respect, which demands observance of the law even if it is reluctant, not on love, A 150 which fears no inner resistance of the will to the law. Nevertheless, a creature must make the latter, mere love of the law, the constant though unattainable goal of its striving (since the law would then cease to be a command, and morality, now passing subjectively into holiness, would cease to be virtue). For in the case of what we esteem highly yet shrink from because we are conscious of our weaknesses, greater ease in satisfying it transforms reverential awe into affection and respect into love. At least, this would be the perfection of a disposition devoted to the law, if any creature could ever attain it.
This reflection is intended here not so much to bring the Gospel command cited above into clear concepts in order to check religious fanaticism concerning the love of God, as to determine precisely the moral disposition directly concerning duties toward human beings as well, and to restrain, or if possible prevent, a merely moral fanaticism that infects many minds. The moral level on which the human being stands—and, so far as we can discern, every rational creature—is respect for the moral law. The disposition incumbent upon him in observing it is to obey it from duty, not from A 151 voluntary affection, nor even from an unbidden striving gladly undertaken of his own accord. The moral condition in which he can always find himself is virtue, that is, moral disposition in struggle, not holiness in the supposed possession of a complete purity of the will's dispositions. It is sheer moral fanaticism and an inflation of self-conceit to attune minds by encouraging actions as noble, sublime, and magnanimous V:85 in such a way as to delude them. For then they suppose that the determining ground of their actions is not duty, that is, respect for the law, whose yoke they must bear, even reluctantly—though it is gentle, since reason itself imposes it upon us—and which still humbles them as they observe it, or obey it. Instead, they suppose that those actions are expected of them not from duty but as pure merit. For by imitating such deeds from such a principle they would not in the least have satisfied the spirit of the law, which consists in the disposition submitting to the law, not in the action's conformity to law, whatever its principle may be. They place the incentive in the pathological, in sympathy or even self-love, rather than in the moral, in the law. Moreover, in this way they produce a flighty, extravagant, fantastical way of thinking, flattering themselves with the spontaneous A 152 goodness of their mind, which supposedly needs neither spur nor bridle, nor even a command at all. In doing so they forget their obligation, which ought to occupy their thoughts before merit does. Actions of others performed with great sacrifice and indeed solely for duty's sake may certainly be praised as noble and sublime deeds—but only insofar as there are signs suggesting that they were done entirely from respect for duty, not from surges of feeling. If, however, one wishes to present them to someone as examples to follow, respect for duty, as the sole genuine moral feeling, must absolutely be employed as the incentive: this earnest, holy precept does not leave our vain self-love free to play with pathological impulses insofar as they are analogous to morality, or to pride ourselves on meritorious worth. If we only search carefully, we shall find for every praiseworthy action a law of duty that commands, and does not leave to our pleasure what might gratify our propensity. This is the only way of presenting things that morally forms the soul, because it alone admits firm and precisely determined principles.
If fanaticism, in its most general meaning, is a transgression of the limits of human reason undertaken A 153 on principles, then moral fanaticism is this transgression of the limits pure practical reason sets to humanity. V:86 Reason forbids placing the subjective determining ground of actions conforming to duty, that is, their moral incentive, in anything other than the law itself, or placing the disposition thereby introduced into maxims anywhere other than in respect for this law. It therefore commands us to make the thought of duty, which strikes down all arrogance as well as vain self-love, the supreme principle of life of all morality in the human being.
If this is so, then not only novelists and sentimental educators, however vehemently they denounce sentimentality, but sometimes even philosophers—indeed, the strictest of all, the Stoics—have introduced moral fanaticism in place of a sober but wise moral discipline. The fanaticism of the latter was more heroic, that of the former insipid and melting. Without hypocrisy, one can say with complete truth of the moral teaching of the Gospel that it first, through the purity of its moral principle and at the same time through that principle's fitness for the A 154 limitations of finite beings, subjected all good human conduct to the discipline of a duty set before their eyes. This duty does not let them indulge in fantasies of imagined moral perfections; and it sets bounds of humility, that is, self-knowledge, to both self-conceit and self-love, which alike are eager to mistake their limits.
Duty! Sublime and mighty name, embracing nothing endearing or ingratiating, but demanding submission; yet threatening nothing that would arouse natural aversion in the mind and frighten it, in order to move the will. You merely set forth a law that of itself finds entry into the mind, and yet wins reverence even against our will, though not always obedience—a law before which all inclinations fall silent, even as they secretly work against it. What origin is worthy of you? Where is the root of your noble descent, which proudly rejects all kinship with inclinations, and from which to descend is the indispensable condition of that worth which human beings can receive only from themselves?
It can be nothing less than what raises the human being above himself as a part of the sensible world, what binds him to an order of things that only the understanding can think, and that at the same time has beneath it the A 155 whole sensible world, together with the human being's empirically determinable existence V:87 in time and the entirety of all ends, which alone is adequate to unconditional practical laws such as the moral law. It is nothing other than personality: freedom and independence from the mechanism of the whole of nature, yet considered at the same time as a faculty of a being subject to distinctive pure practical laws given by its own reason. Thus the person, as belonging to the sensible world, is subject to his own personality insofar as he also belongs to the intelligible world. It is therefore no wonder that the human being, belonging to both worlds, must regard his own being in relation to his second and highest vocation only with reverence, and its laws with the greatest respect.
On this origin rest various expressions that designate the worth of objects according to moral ideas. The moral law is holy, inviolable. The human being is indeed unholy enough, but humanity in his person must be holy to him. In the whole of creation, anything one wishes and has power over may also be used merely as a means; only the human being, and with him every rational creature, is an end in itself. For he is A 156 the subject of the moral law, which is holy, by virtue of the autonomy of his freedom. Precisely because of this autonomy, every will—even each person's own will directed toward himself—is limited by the condition of agreement with the autonomy of the rational being. It must not subject that being to any purpose impossible according to a law that could arise from the will of the affected subject himself; thus it must never use him merely as a means, but always at the same time as an end himself. We rightly ascribe this condition even to the divine will with regard to rational beings in the world as its creatures, since it rests on their personality, through which alone they are ends in themselves.
This respect-inspiring idea of personality, which sets before our eyes the sublimity of our nature in its vocation, while at the same time making us notice our conduct's failure to measure up to it and thereby striking down self-conceit, is natural and readily apparent even to the most ordinary human reason. Has not every even moderately honest man sometimes found that he refrained from an otherwise harmless lie, by which he could either V:88 extricate himself from an unpleasant affair or even benefit a beloved and deserving friend, merely A 157 so that he would not have to despise himself secretly in his own eyes? In the greatest misfortune of life, which he could have avoided had he only been able to set duty aside, is an upright man not still sustained by the consciousness that he has nevertheless preserved and honored the dignity of humanity in his person, that he has no cause to be ashamed before himself or to shrink from the inward gaze of self-examination? This comfort is not happiness, nor even the smallest part of it. For no one will wish for an occasion for it, or perhaps even for a life in such circumstances. But he lives, and cannot endure being unworthy of life in his own eyes. This inward reassurance is therefore merely negative in relation to everything that might make life agreeable: it wards off the danger of sinking in personal worth after he has already wholly surrendered the worth of his condition. It is the effect of respect for something quite different from life, in comparison and contrast with which life, with all its agreeableness, has no worth at all. He lives on only from duty, not because he finds the slightest relish in living.
Such is the genuine incentive of pure practical reason. A 158 It is none other than the pure moral law itself, insofar as it lets us sense the sublimity of our own supersensible existence and subjectively produces respect for their higher vocation in human beings who are at the same time conscious of their sensible existence and their consequent dependence on their nature, so strongly affected in that respect by feeling. Now so many charms and amenities of life can readily be joined with this incentive that even for their sake alone the most prudent choice of a rational Epicurean, reflecting on life's greatest well-being, would favor morally good conduct. It can also be advisable to combine this prospect of a cheerful enjoyment of life with that supreme motive, already sufficiently determining on its own—but only to counterbalance the enticements that vice never fails to hold out on the other side, not to place in it even the smallest part of the actual moving force when duty is at issue. For that would amount to wishing to contaminate the moral disposition V:89 at its source. The venerability of duty has nothing to do with the enjoyment of life. Duty has its own distinctive law and its own distinctive tribunal; and however vigorously one tried to shake the two together in order to administer their mixture as a medicine A 159 for the sick soul, they would immediately separate of themselves. If they do not, the former has no effect at all; and even if physical life gained some strength in the process, moral life would nevertheless fade away beyond rescue.
9 Of every action conforming to law that nevertheless was not done for the sake of the law, one can say that it is morally good merely according to the letter, but not according to the spirit, the disposition.
10 If one carefully considers the concept of respect for persons as set out above, one will notice that it always rests on consciousness of a duty that an example holds before us. Respect can therefore never have any ground other than a moral one. Wherever we use this expression, it is very good—and even, from a psychological standpoint, very useful for understanding human beings—to attend to the secret and remarkable, yet frequently occurring regard that a human being pays to the moral law in his judgments.
11 With this law, the principle of one's own happiness, which some wish to make the supreme principle of morality, forms a strange contrast. It would read: “Love yourself above all, but God and your neighbor for your own sake.”
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the same German text, including all eighteen author notes.
Chapter III. The Incentives of Pure Practical Reason.
What is essential to all moral worth in actions is that the moral law determine the will directly. Suppose the will is determined in conformity with the moral law, but only through a feeling, of whatever kind, that A 127 must be presupposed to make the law a sufficient determining ground of the will. If the will is thus not determined for the sake of the law, the action will have legality, but not morality. Now V:72 by an incentive (elater animi) we mean the subjective determining ground of the will of a being whose reason does not, by its nature, already conform necessarily to the objective law. It follows, first, that we cannot attribute any incentives to the divine will. But the incentive of the human will, and that of every created rational being, can never be anything other than the moral law. So the objective determining ground must always, entirely on its own, also be the subjectively sufficient determining ground of the action, if the action is not merely to fulfill the letter of the law without its spirit.9
We must therefore not seek another incentive on behalf of the moral law to give it influence over the will, one that could make the law's own incentive unnecessary. All that A 128 would produce is hollow, unstable pretense. It is even questionable to let other incentives, such as advantage, cooperate alongside the moral law. So all that remains is to determine carefully how the moral law becomes an incentive, and what happens to the human faculty of desire as an effect of this determining ground when it does so. For how a law can by itself directly determine the will—which is essential to all morality—is a problem human reason cannot solve. It is the same problem as how a free will is possible. We therefore have to show a priori not why the moral law itself supplies an incentive, but what effect it has—or, better, must have—on the mind insofar as it is an incentive.
What is essential to every determination of the will by the moral law is that, as a free will, it be determined by the law alone. This means not merely without the cooperation of sensible impulses, but even while rejecting all of them and restraining every inclination insofar as it might conflict with that law. To this extent, the effect of the moral law as an incentive is merely negative, and as such this incentive can be cognized a priori. For every inclination and every sensible impulse rests on A 129 V:73 feeling, and a negative effect on feeling, through the restraint of inclinations, is itself a feeling. We can therefore understand a priori that the moral law, as the will's determining ground, must produce a feeling that can be called pain, because it interferes with all our inclinations. Here we have the first, perhaps the only, case where we could determine from a priori concepts the relation of a cognition—here, one belonging to pure practical reason—to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. All inclinations together, which can also be brought into a tolerable system whose satisfaction is then called personal happiness, constitute self-centeredness (solipsismus). This is either self-love, a goodwill toward oneself that takes precedence over everything (Philautia), or self-satisfaction (Arrogantia). The former is specifically called love of self, the latter self-conceit. Pure practical reason merely restricts love of self. Since it is natural and active in us even before the moral law, reason limits it only to the condition of agreeing with that law. It is then called rational self-love. But reason strikes self-conceit down altogether. For all claims to self-esteem preceding agreement with the moral law are null A 130 and completely unwarranted. Certainty of a disposition agreeing with that law is the first condition of any personal worth, as we will soon make clearer. Any pretension before that is false and contrary to law. Now the tendency toward self-esteem belongs among the inclinations the moral law restrains, insofar as that self-esteem rests merely on sensibility. So the moral law strikes down self-conceit. Yet the law is itself something positive: the form of an intellectual causality, or freedom. As it weakens self-conceit in opposition to its subjective counterpart, the inclinations in us, it is at the same time an object of respect. As it even strikes down, or humiliates, self-conceit, it is an object of the greatest respect. It is therefore also the ground of a positive feeling that is not empirical in origin and is cognized a priori. Respect for the moral law is thus a feeling produced by an intellectual ground. It is the only feeling we can cognize completely a priori and whose necessity we can understand.
V:74 In the previous chapter we saw that the moral law, as the supreme condition of practical reason, A 131 excludes everything presenting itself as an object of the will before that law from being a determining ground of the will under the name of unconditional good. We also saw that the mere practical form, consisting in maxims' fitness for universal lawgiving, first determines what is good in itself and without qualification, and grounds the maxim of a pure will, which alone is good in every respect. But we find that our nature as sensible beings is such that the matter of the faculty of desire—objects of inclination, whether of hope or fear—presses itself on us first. Our self, insofar as it can be determined by feeling, is completely unfit through its maxims for universal lawgiving. Yet it strives to assert its claims beforehand as the first and original claims, just as if it constituted our whole self. This tendency to make oneself, according to the subjective determining grounds of one's choice, the objective determining ground of the will in general can be called self-love. When it makes itself lawgiving and an unconditional practical principle, it can be called self-conceit. Now the moral law, which alone is truly objective, that is, objective in every respect, completely excludes self-love's influence on the supreme practical principle. It infinitely restricts self-conceit, which prescribes self-love's subjective conditions as laws. Whatever restricts our self-conceit in our own judgment humiliates us. So A 132 the moral law inevitably humiliates every human being who compares the sensible tendency of their nature with it. That whose representation as a determining ground of our will humiliates us in our self-consciousness awakens respect for itself insofar as it is positive and a determining ground. The moral law is therefore also subjectively a ground of respect. Everything found in self-love belongs to inclination, and every inclination rests on feelings. Whatever restricts all inclinations together in self-love must therefore affect feeling. So we can understand how it is possible to see a priori that the moral law can have an effect on feeling. It excludes inclinations and the tendency to make them the supreme practical condition—that is, self-love—from any participation in supreme lawgiving. The effect V:75 is merely negative on one side, but positive on the other, with regard to the restricting ground of pure practical reason. No special kind of feeling called practical or moral need be assumed to precede the moral law and serve as its basis.
The negative effect on feeling, the discomfort, is pathological, as is A 133 every influence on feeling and every feeling in general. But this feeling is an effect of consciousness of the moral law. It therefore relates to an intelligible cause: the subject of pure practical reason as supreme lawgiver. In a rational subject affected by inclinations, it is called humiliation, or intellectual contempt. Yet in relation to its positive ground, the law, it is also respect for that law. No feeling for the law is present as such. Rather, reason judges that removing a hindrance, by clearing away resistance, is equivalent to positively promoting causality. That is why this feeling can also be called a feeling of respect for the moral law, and, on both grounds together, a moral feeling.
Through pure practical reason, the moral law is the formal determining ground of an action. It is also the material, though only objective, determining ground of the action's objects under the names of good and evil. In the same way it is the subjective determining ground, or incentive, for that action. For it influences the subject's sensibility and produces a feeling that promotes the law's influence on the will. Here A 134 no feeling attuned to morality precedes the law in the subject. That is impossible, since every feeling is sensible, whereas the incentive of a moral disposition must be free of every sensible condition. Instead, the sensible feeling underlying all our inclinations is indeed the condition of the sensation we call respect. But the cause that determines it lies in pure practical reason. Because of its origin, this sensation therefore cannot be called pathological, but must be called practically produced. This is because the representation of the moral law deprives self-love of its influence and self-conceit of its delusion. It thus reduces the hindrance to pure practical reason. By removing the counterweight, it produces in reason's judgment a representation of the superiority V:76 of its objective law over the impulses of sensibility, and thus the relative weight of that law with regard to a will affected by sensibility. So respect for the law is not an incentive to morality. It is morality itself, considered subjectively as an incentive. By rejecting every claim of self-love opposed to it, pure practical reason gives authority to the law, which now alone has influence. We must note here that respect is an effect on feeling, and thus on A 135 a rational being's sensibility. It therefore presupposes this sensibility and consequently the finitude of the beings on whom the moral law imposes respect. Respect for the law cannot be attributed to a supreme being, or to any being free of all sensibility, for which sensibility could therefore pose no hindrance to practical reason.
This feeling, called moral feeling, is thus produced solely by reason. It does not serve to judge actions, much less to ground the objective moral law itself. It serves only as an incentive to make that law one's maxim. But what name could be more suitable for this unusual feeling, which cannot be compared with any pathological feeling? It is so distinctive that it seems to be at the command of reason alone, specifically pure practical reason.
Respect always concerns persons, never things. Things can awaken inclination in us, and animals such as horses and dogs can even awaken love. Things can also awaken fear, as the sea, a volcano, or a predator does, but never respect. Something closer to this feeling is admiration. As an emotion, wonder, it can also concern things: for example, mountains reaching into the sky, the size A 136, number, and vast distances of heavenly bodies, the strength and speed of certain animals, and so on. But none of this is respect. A human being can also be an object of love, fear, or admiration, even to the point of wonder, without thereby being an object of respect. A person's sense of humor, courage and strength, or power arising from rank among others can inspire such feelings in me. Yet inward respect for that person is still missing. Fontenelle says: "I bow before a person of rank, but my mind V:77 does not bow." I can add: before a humble, ordinary citizen in whom I perceive an integrity of character to a degree I am not conscious of possessing myself, my mind bows. It does so whether I want it to or not, however high I hold my head to keep him from overlooking my superior position. Why? His example holds before me a law that strikes down my self-conceit when I compare it with my conduct. I see its observance, and thus its practicability, proved before me in fact. I may even be conscious of an equal degree of integrity, yet the respect remains. For all human goodness is always imperfect. So the law, made visible through A 137 an example, always strikes down my pride. The person before me supplies a standard for this. I do not know whatever impurity may still attach to him as I know my own, so he appears to me in a purer light. Respect is a tribute we cannot refuse to merit, whether we want to or not. We may withhold its outward expression, but we cannot prevent ourselves from feeling it inwardly.
Respect is so far from being a feeling of pleasure that we are reluctant to give ourselves over to it toward another person. We look for something that might ease its burden, some fault to compensate us for the humiliation such an example causes. Even the dead are not always safe from this criticism, especially when their example seems beyond imitation. Even the moral law itself in its solemn majesty is exposed to this effort to resist respect for it. Can anyone think there is another reason why people like to lower it to the level of a familiar inclination? Or that all their efforts to turn it into the favored prescription of their own well-understood advantage have some other cause than the wish to get rid of an intimidating respect that so A 138 sternly confronts them with their own unworthiness? Yet there is also so little displeasure in it that, once we have set self-conceit aside and allowed this respect practical influence, we cannot look enough at the law's splendor. The soul believes itself raised in proportion as it sees the holy law raised above itself and its frail nature. Great talents and V:78 activity proportionate to them can indeed also produce respect, or a feeling like it. It is entirely fitting to accord this to them, and here admiration seems identical with that feeling. But on closer examination we will notice something else. It always remains uncertain how much of a person's skill comes from inborn talent and how much from cultivation through personal effort. Reason therefore tentatively presents the skill to us as the fruit of cultivation, and thus as merit. This noticeably lowers our self-conceit and either reproaches us or requires us to follow that example in a way suited to us. So the respect we show such a person is not mere admiration. Strictly speaking, it is respect for the law that the example holds before us. This is also confirmed by the following fact: when the ordinary crowd of admirers believes it has learned from elsewhere of the bad character of such a man, such as Voltaire A 139, it gives up all respect for him. But the true scholar still feels respect, at least from the standpoint of his talents, because the scholar himself is involved in an occupation and calling that makes imitating him, to some extent, a law.
Respect for the moral law is therefore the only moral incentive, and one beyond doubt. This feeling is directed toward any object only on this ground. First, the moral law determines the will objectively and directly in reason's judgment. But freedom, whose causality can be determined by the law alone, consists precisely in restricting all inclinations, and thus our estimation of our own person, to the condition of following its pure law. This restriction affects feeling and produces a sensation of displeasure that can be cognized a priori from the moral law. But to this extent it is only a negative effect. Arising from the influence of pure practical reason, it chiefly restricts the subject's activity insofar as inclinations determine it, and thus lowers the subject's opinion of personal worth, which is reduced to nothing without agreement with the moral law. So the law's effect A 140 on feeling is merely humiliation. We can indeed understand this a priori. But in it we can cognize not the power of the pure practical law as an incentive, but only resistance to the incentives of sensibility V:79. Yet the same law is objectively a direct determining ground of the will, that is, in the representation of pure reason. This humiliation thus occurs only in relation to the law's purity. Consequently, lowering the claims of moral self-esteem—humiliation on the sensible side—raises the moral or practical estimation of the law itself on the intellectual side. In a word, it is respect for the law, and therefore also a feeling positive in its intellectual cause, cognized a priori. For every reduction of obstacles to an activity promotes the activity itself. Recognizing the moral law is consciousness of practical reason's activity from objective grounds. This activity fails to take effect in actions only because subjective, pathological causes hinder it. Respect for the moral law must therefore also be seen as its positive, though indirect, effect on feeling. The law weakens the inclinations' obstructing influence by humiliating self-conceit. Respect is thus a subjective ground of activity, an incentive to follow the law, and A 141 a ground for maxims of a way of life conforming to it. The concept of an incentive gives rise to that of an interest. This is attributed only to a being with reason and means an incentive of the will insofar as it is represented through reason. Since the law itself must be the incentive in a morally good will, moral interest is a pure interest of practical reason alone, free of sense. The concept of a maxim also rests on that of an interest. A maxim is therefore morally genuine only when it rests solely on the interest taken in following the law. But all three concepts—incentive, interest, and maxim—can apply only to finite beings. For they all presuppose a limitation in a being's nature: the subjective character of its power of choice does not automatically agree with the objective law of practical reason. Such a being needs something to impel it to activity because an inner obstacle opposes that activity. So these concepts cannot apply to the divine will.
There is something so distinctive in the boundless esteem for the pure moral law, stripped of every advantage, as practical A 142 V:80 reason presents it for us to follow. Its voice makes even the boldest wrongdoer tremble and forces him to hide from its gaze. So we should not be surprised that speculative reason cannot fathom this influence of a merely intellectual idea on feeling. We must be content that we can still understand this much a priori: such a feeling is inseparably connected with the representation of the moral law in every finite rational being. If this feeling of respect were pathological, and thus a feeling of pleasure grounded in inner sense, it would be pointless to seek an a priori connection between it and any idea. But it is a feeling directed solely toward the practical. It attaches to the representation of a law only because of its form, not because of any object of that law. It therefore cannot be counted as either enjoyment or pain. Yet it produces an interest in following the law, which we call moral. Indeed, the capacity to take such an interest in the law—or respect for the moral law itself—is properly moral feeling.
Respect for the law is consciousness of the will's free submission to the law, yet combined with an unavoidable constraint imposed on all inclinations A 143 by one's own reason alone. The law that demands and also inspires this respect is plainly none other than the moral law. For no other law excludes all inclinations from directly influencing the will. An action that is objectively practical according to this law, to the exclusion of all determining grounds from inclination, is called duty. Because of this exclusion, the concept of duty contains practical necessitation: determination to actions however unwillingly they may be done. The feeling arising from consciousness of this necessitation is not pathological, as if produced by an object of the senses. It is possible only practically, through a prior objective determination of the will and causality of reason. As submission to a law, a command announcing constraint for the sensibly affected subject, it therefore contains no pleasure. To that extent it contains instead displeasure in the action. Yet because this constraint is exercised only through the lawgiving of one's own reason, it also contains elevation. The V:81 subjective effect on feeling, insofar as pure practical reason alone causes it, can therefore be called only self-approval with regard to that reason. We recognize ourselves as determined to it without any interest, solely by the A 144 law. We then become conscious of an entirely different interest, subjectively produced in this way, which is purely practical and free. Taking this interest in an action conforming to duty is not something an inclination recommends. Reason, through the practical law, commands it unconditionally and actually produces it. That is why it has its own distinctive name: respect.
The concept of duty therefore requires objective agreement of the action with the law, but subjectively, in its maxim, respect for the law as the sole way the law determines the will. This is the basis of the distinction between consciousness of having acted in conformity with duty and from duty, that is, from respect for the law. The former, legality, is possible even if inclinations alone determined the will. But the latter, morality or moral worth, must be placed solely in the action's being done from duty, that is, solely for the sake of the law.10
In every moral judgment it is of the greatest importance A 145 to attend with the utmost precision to the subjective principle of all maxims. All morality in actions must be placed in their necessity from duty and from respect for the law, not from love and affection for what the actions are to produce. For humans and all created rational beings, moral necessity is necessitation, or obligation. Every action based on it must be represented as duty, not as conduct we already spontaneously like, or could come to like. It is as though we could ever reach a point where, without respect V:82 for the law, which is connected with fear or at least concern about transgressing it, we could possess a holiness of will. We would then be like the Deity, raised above all dependence, acting spontaneously through an unshakable agreement of will with the pure moral law that had, so to speak, become our nature. Since we could never be tempted to be unfaithful to it A 146, the law might finally even cease to be a command for us.
For the will of a supremely perfect being, the moral law is a law of holiness; for the will of every finite rational being, however, it is a law of duty, of moral necessitation, determining its actions through respect for this law and reverence for its duty. No other subjective principle must be assumed as an incentive. Otherwise, the action may indeed turn out as the law prescribes. But although it conforms to duty, it is not done from duty, and the disposition behind it is not moral. Yet that disposition is what this lawgiving is really concerned with.
It is very fine to do good to people from love and sympathetic goodwill, or to be just from love of order. But that is not yet the genuine moral maxim of conduct appropriate to our position among rational beings as humans if we presume, like volunteers, to put ourselves above the thought of duty in our proud imagination. We would then claim to want, independently of a command, to do solely from our own pleasure what would supposedly need no command for us. We stand under a discipline of A 147 reason. In all our maxims we must remember our submission to it, withhold nothing from it, and not diminish the law's authority through a self-loving delusion. Even though our own reason gives the law, we would diminish it by placing our will's determining ground anywhere other than in the law itself and respect for it, even if our will still conformed to the law. Duty and obligation are the only names we must give our relation to the moral law. We are indeed lawgiving members of a moral kingdom made possible through freedom and presented by practical reason as an object of respect. But we are also its subjects, not its sovereign. Failing to recognize our lower position as creatures, and self-conceit's resistance to the authority of the V:83 holy law, already amount to abandoning it in spirit, even if its letter is fulfilled.
This is entirely compatible with the possibility of a command such as: "Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself."11 For as a command it demands respect for a law that A 148 commands love. It does not leave it to our optional choice to make love our principle. But love of God as an inclination, pathological love, is impossible, since God is not an object of the senses. Such love toward human beings is possible, but cannot be commanded. For no human being can love someone merely on command. So only practical love is meant in this central statement of all laws. To love God in this sense means to carry out his commands gladly. To love one's neighbor means to perform every duty toward that person gladly. But the command making this a rule cannot command us to have this disposition in actions conforming to duty, only to strive for it. For a command to do something gladly contradicts itself, because if we already know on our own what we are obliged to do, and were also conscious of doing it gladly, a command about it would be entirely unnecessary. And if we do it, but not gladly, only from respect for the law, a command making that respect the incentive of the maxim would work directly against the disposition commanded. This law of all laws thus presents, like every moral precept of the Gospel, the moral A 149 disposition in its complete perfection. As an ideal of holiness, it is unattainable by any creature. Yet it remains the model we should strive to approach and equal in an uninterrupted but infinite progress. If a rational creature could ever reach the point of following all moral laws entirely gladly, that would mean it did not even have the possibility of a desire tempting it to depart from them. For overcoming such a desire always costs the subject a sacrifice. It therefore requires self-constraint: an inner necessitation to do what one V:84 does not do entirely gladly. But a creature can never reach this level of moral disposition. As a creature, it is always dependent with regard to what it needs for complete satisfaction with its condition. So it can never be entirely free of desires and inclinations. Since these rest on physical causes, they do not automatically agree with the moral law, which has entirely different sources. They therefore always make it necessary to base the disposition of one's maxims, with regard to them, on moral necessitation. It must be based not on willing devotion, but on respect, which demands observance of the law even if done unwillingly; not on love A 150, which fears no inner resistance of the will to the law. Yet the creature must make that latter love, the mere love of the law, the constant, though unreachable, goal of its striving. For the law would then cease to be a command, and morality, now passing subjectively into holiness, would cease to be virtue. For as it becomes easier to satisfy what we esteem but also fear because we know our weaknesses, reverent fear turns into affection and respect into love. At least, that would be the completion of a disposition devoted to the law, if any creature could ever attain it.
This discussion is not aimed primarily at clarifying the Gospel command just quoted in order to counter religious fanaticism concerning love of God. Rather, it aims to define the moral disposition precisely, directly with regard to duties toward people, and to check, or if possible prevent, a purely moral fanaticism that infects many minds. The moral level on which human beings stand—and, as far as we can see, every rational creature—is respect for the moral law. The disposition required of them in following it is to do so from duty, not from A 151 spontaneous affection, or even an uncommanded effort gladly undertaken on their own. The moral condition they can always occupy is virtue: a moral disposition in struggle, not holiness in the supposed possession of complete purity in the will's dispositions. Encouraging people to actions as noble, lofty, and generous V:85 attunes their minds to sheer moral fanaticism and heightens self-conceit. It gives them the delusion that duty, respect for the law, is not their actions' determining ground. Yet they must bear its yoke even unwillingly, a yoke that is gentle because reason itself imposes it. Duty still humiliates them as they follow or obey it. Instead, they are led to think these actions are expected from them not as duty but as sheer merit. For by imitating such deeds from such a principle, they would not in the least satisfy the law's spirit. That consists in a disposition submitting to the law, not in an action's lawfulness, whatever its principle may be. They place the incentive pathologically, in sympathy or self-love, rather than morally, in the law. Moreover, this produces an empty, high-flying, fanciful way of thinking. They flatter themselves with a spontaneous A 152 goodness of mind that needs neither spur nor bridle, and for which no command is needed at all. They thereby forget their obligation, which they should think about before merit. We may indeed praise others' actions, done with great sacrifice solely for duty's sake, as noble and lofty deeds. Even then, this is justified only insofar as there are signs suggesting that they arose wholly from respect for duty, not from surges of emotion. But if we present them as examples to follow, respect for duty must always serve as the incentive, since it is the only genuine moral feeling. This serious, holy precept does not leave our vain self-love free to play with pathological impulses insofar as they resemble morality, or to congratulate ourselves on meritorious worth. If we search carefully, we will find a law of duty for every praiseworthy action. It commands, rather than leaving to our choice what might please our inclination. This is the only way of presenting matters that morally forms the soul, because it alone is capable of firm, precisely determined principles.
If fanaticism in its most general meaning is an overstepping, undertaken according to A 153 principles, of the limits of human reason, then moral fanaticism is an overstepping of the limits pure practical reason sets for humanity. By setting them V:86, reason forbids us to place the subjective determining ground of actions conforming to duty—their moral incentive—anywhere except in the law itself. It also forbids us to place the disposition thereby introduced into maxims anywhere except in respect for this law. It therefore commands us to make the thought of duty, which strikes down all arrogance and vain self-love, the supreme principle of life for all morality in human beings.
If that is so, not only novelists and sentimental educators, however fiercely they attack sentimentality, but sometimes even philosophers, including the strictest of all, the Stoics, have introduced moral fanaticism in place of sober but wise moral discipline. The Stoics' fanaticism was more heroic, while that of the others was flat and sentimental. Without hypocrisy, we can truthfully say of the Gospel's moral teaching that it was the first to subject all good human conduct to the discipline of a duty set before people's eyes. It did so through both the purity of its moral principle and that principle's fitness for the A 154 limitations of finite beings. It does not let them wander among dreamed-of moral perfections. And it set limits of humility—that is, self-knowledge—to both self-conceit and self-love, which are equally eager to ignore their limits.
Duty! What a great, lofty name. You contain nothing pleasing that flatters us, but demand submission. Yet you threaten nothing that would stir natural aversion in the mind and frighten it, in order to move the will. You simply set up a law that finds its way into the mind on its own, yet wins reverence even against our will, though not always obedience. Before it, all inclinations fall silent, even when secretly working against it. What origin is worthy of you? Where can we find the root of your noble ancestry, which proudly rejects all kinship with inclinations? To descend from that root is the indispensable condition of the worth that people can gain only through themselves.
It can be nothing less than what raises human beings above themselves as parts of the world of sense. It binds them to an order of things that only understanding can think, and that at the same time has under it the A 155 whole world of sense, including humans' empirically determinable existence V:87 in time and the totality of all ends, which alone is appropriate to unconditional practical laws such as the moral law. It is nothing other than personality: freedom and independence from the mechanism of all nature, yet considered at the same time as the capacity of a being subject to special pure practical laws given by its own reason. The person, as belonging to the world of sense, is thus subject to their own personality insofar as they also belong to the intelligible world. No wonder, then, that human beings, belonging to both worlds, must regard their own being in relation to their second and highest vocation with reverence, and its laws with the highest respect.
This origin grounds various expressions designating the value of objects according to moral ideas. The moral law is holy, inviolable. Human beings are unholy enough, but the humanity in their person must be holy to them. In all creation, anything one chooses and has some power over can also be used merely as a means. Only a human being, and with them every rational creature, is an end in itself. For through the autonomy of freedom, that being is A 156 the subject of the moral law, which is holy. Because of this autonomy, every will, even a person's own will directed toward themselves, is restricted to the condition of agreement with the rational being's autonomy. That being must not be subjected to any purpose that is impossible according to a law that could arise from the will of the affected subject itself. The subject must therefore never be used merely as a means, but always also as an end. We rightly attribute this condition even to the divine will in relation to rational beings in the world as God's creatures. For it rests on their personality, through which alone they are ends in themselves.
This respect-awakening idea of personality shows us the loftiness of our nature in its vocation. At the same time it reveals how far our conduct falls short of it, and thus strikes down self-conceit. The idea is natural and readily apparent even to the most ordinary human reason. Has not every even moderately honest person sometimes refrained from an otherwise harmless lie that could have either V:88 got them out of an annoying situation or even benefited a beloved, deserving friend, solely A 157 to avoid secretly despising themselves in their own eyes? In life's greatest misfortune, does not an upright person remain sustained by the consciousness that they have still preserved and honored the dignity of humanity in their person, and that they have no reason to feel ashamed before themselves or to fear the inward gaze of self-examination? They could have avoided that misfortune if only they could have disregarded duty. This consolation is not happiness, not even the smallest part of it. For no one would wish for the opportunity to have it, perhaps not even for a life in such circumstances. But this person lives and cannot bear to be unworthy of life in their own eyes. This inner reassurance is therefore merely negative in relation to everything that might make life agreeable. It wards off the danger of falling in personal worth after the value of their condition has already been completely given up. It is the effect of respect for something entirely different from life. Compared and contrasted with it, life with all its comforts has no value at all. This person lives on only from duty, not because they find the slightest enjoyment in life.
Such is the genuine incentive of pure practical reason A 158. It is nothing other than the pure moral law itself, insofar as it lets us feel the loftiness of our own supersensible existence. Subjectively, it produces respect for their higher vocation in human beings who are also conscious of their sensible existence and of their dependence on a nature to that extent strongly affected by feeling. Now so many attractions and comforts of life can be connected with this incentive that, even for their sake alone, the wisest choice of a rational Epicurean reflecting on life's greatest well-being would favor morally good conduct. It may also be advisable to connect this prospect of cheerful enjoyment of life with that supreme motive, which is already sufficient on its own to determine the will. But this must serve only to counterbalance the temptations that vice never fails to hold out on the other side. When duty is at issue, the actual motivating power must not be placed in those comforts, not even in the smallest part. For that would amount to contaminating the moral disposition V:89 at its source. The dignity of duty has nothing to do with the enjoyment of life. It has its own law and its own court. However much we might shake the two together to offer the mixture as medicine A 159 for the sick soul, they immediately separate on their own. If they do not, the first has no effect at all. Even if physical life gained some strength from the mixture, moral life would still fade away beyond saving.
9 Of every lawful action that was nevertheless not done for the law's sake, we can say that it is morally good merely in its letter, not in its spirit, or disposition.
10 If we carefully consider the concept of respect for persons as explained above, we will notice that it always rests on consciousness of a duty held before us by an example. So respect can never have anything but a moral ground. Wherever we use this expression, it is very helpful, even psychologically useful for understanding human beings, to attend to the hidden and remarkable, yet frequent, regard people have for the moral law in their judgments.
11 The principle of personal happiness, which some want to make the supreme principle of morality, forms a strange contrast to this law. It would read: "Love yourself above all, but God and your neighbor for your own sake."
About this section
Book I, Chapter III: The incentives 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 7 of 12 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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