References
- 1902–1942 . Grundlegung References to the will be given in the text in this form: (G, 402). The number is the page on which the text referred to will be found in Volume 5 of Kant's Gesammelte Schriften (22 vols.; Berlin: Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,. This pagination is included in most English translations. References to other works by Kant will include the volume and page from this same edition. The translations in the text are from Paton (The Moral Law [3rd ed.; London: Hutchinson University Library, 1956].) In some cases I have altered Paton's translation.
- 1947 . The Categorical Imperative London : Hutchison & Co. . Paton,. Ross, Kant's Ethical Theory (London: Oxford University Press, 1954). A. R. C. Duncan, Practical Reason and Morality: A Study of Immanuel Kant's Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1957). T.C. Williams, The Concept of the Categorical Imperative (London: Oxford University Press, 1968). Robert Shope, “Kant's Use and Derivation of the Categorical Imperative,” pp. 253–291 in Robert Paul Wolff Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals with Criticai Essays (Indianapolis: TheBobbs-Merrill Company, 1969).
- See op. cit., p. 52, and Chapter IV (pp. 57–74).
- 1 – 4 . See op. cit., pp.
- The title of Chapter I is “Passage from Ordinary Rational Knowledge of Morality to Philosophical.“
- Cf. G, beginning of Chapter II, 406.
- (op. cit. (3) is similar to what Paton pp. 18–19) takes to be the “first proposition.” A. R. C. Duncan on p. 59 of Practical Reason and Morality regards Kant's opening statement (our proposition (1)) as Kant's “first proposition.” It makes no difference who is correct.
- Critique of Practical Reason G, 400n., cf. G, 421n.; V, 18–19; Metaphysics of Morals, VI, 225.
- Critique of Practical Reason 18 – 19 . See the V
- Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone VI, 32–32, 36.
- Metaphysics of Morals 388 – 389 . VI
- Religion Kant argues that an agent Is responsible only for “a rule made by the faculty of choice for the use of its freedom, that is, in a maxim.” VI, 21.)
- Metaphysics of Morals 388 – 389 . For example, see VI
- Grundlegung The examples of the application of the categorical imperative in Chapter II of the (G, 421 ff.) seem to be this way.
- Religion That emerges from the discussion of action from duty, G, 397ff. Also see G, 407ff. and Book I, passim.
- We omit here a discussion of Kant's third proposition, “Duty is the necessity to act out of respect for the law” (G, 400). This proposition is discussed in the Appendix.
- Philosophia. This point is discussed in my paper, “How to Apply the Categorical Imperative,” forthcoming in
- In particular, its imperatival nature and the fact that it commands unconditionally or categorically are to be explained in Chapter II. Also a number of alternative formulations will be given of it there.
- It is thus surprising that Kant should say, as he does at G, 447, that “An absolutely good will is one whose maxim can always have as its content itself considered as a universal law” is synthetic a priori. Kant's argument in Chapter I seems to show that it is analytic. This passage has caused some interpreters of Kant much pain.
- 1965 . Studies in the Philosophy of Kant New York : The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. . See Lewis White Beck, “Kant's Theory of Definition,” in his
- Metaphysics of Morals It may seem that here and elsewhere in this section I am adopting the infamous Schiller interpretation of Kant, which held that “1. An action has no moral worth if any inclination to do the action is present or if any pleasure results from the satisfaction of this inclination; and 2. An action has no moral worth if any satisfaction arises from the consciousness of doing one's duty” (quotation from Paton, op. cit., p. 48). But I think that all that Kant and I say here (I am in this section aiming to give a close account of Kant's own words) is that actions motivated by any kind of inclination have no moral worth. This claim sometimes shades into the Schiller thesis if (1) it is noted that the presence of an inclination to do what is morally required likely prevents us from knowing for certain whether the action in accord with duty has any moral worth, or (2) if Kant puts forward his thesis, advanced throughout his critical ethical works (see VI, 386) that our inclination to pursue our own happiness, under ordinary circumstances, at any rate, prevents us from having an obligation to do that same thing. To make it quite clear that the Schiller interpretation is a distorted version of the Kantian doctrine as a whole, one needs to discuss the account of dispositions and the process of building moral strength of will that constitutes moral perfection, points that Kant puts forth in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, and the Metaphysics of Morals. But to introduce these matters here is not appropriate to our present purposes.
- Metaphysics of Morals Kant in later ethical works says that in such a case the actual duty is that of promoting our own moral character; avoiding unhappiness is simply a means to this obligatory end, and hence not obligatory in itself. See VI, 387.
- Critique of Practical Reason Kant's justification of the categorical imperative consists of showing that it is possible to act out of purely moral motives, i.e., of showing that an adequate moral basis for any morally required action is within the power of the agent. On this point, see the discussion of the question “How are all these imperatives possible?”, G, 417–420, and the discussion of the “fact of pure reason,” V, 31ff.
- Critique of Practical Reason See G, 436; V, 26–27; Metaphysics of Morals, VI, 384.
- Shope, op. cit.
- Ibid. 264 – 265 .
- Ibid. 266
- V, 21ff.
- Op. cit. 268
- Ibid. 269
- Ibid.
- Ibid. 270
- Critique of Practical Reason See both G, 432–433, and V, 21ff.
- 1960 . Religion John Silber sometimes seems to hold to this view in “The Ethical Significance of Kant's” printed as an introduction to Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans, by T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson (New York: Harper Torchbooks, pp. Ixxix-cxxxiv. See especially p. Ixxxv. Also Paton in op. cit., p. 45, writes, “We have now completed the examination of Kant's starting point and found it in the absolute and unique goodness of a good will. This requires to be stressed, because as the argument advances we shall find ourselves talking a great deal more about duty than about goodness. Kant is so commonly regarded as the apostle of duty that if we are to get his doctrine in true perspective we must remember that for him goodness is fundamental; and there is no warrant for supposing that he even entertained the conception of a duty divorced from goodness.”
- Practical Reason and Morality (op. cit.). In
- Critique of Practical Reason 402 – 403 . Compare Kant's remarks on respect in the V, Chapter III, and in the Metaphysics of Morals, VI