Books: The Critique of Practical Reason
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Immanuel Kant >> The Critique of Practical Reason
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It must be remarked here that this moral necessity is subjective,
that is, it is a want, and not objective, that is, itself a duty,
for there cannot be a duty to suppose the existence of anything (since
this concerns only the theoretical employment of reason). Moreover, it
is not meant by this that it is necessary to suppose the existence
of God as a basis of all obligation in general (for this rests, as has
been sufficiently proved, simply on the autonomy of reason itself).
What belongs to duty here is only the endeavour to realize and promote
the summum bonum in the world, the possibility of which can
therefore be postulated; and as our reason finds it not conceivable
except on the supposition of a supreme intelligence, the admission
of this existence is therefore connected with the consciousness of our
duty, although the admission itself belongs to the domain of
speculative reason. Considered in respect of this alone, as a
principle of explanation, it may be called a hypothesis, but in
reference to the intelligibility of an object given us by the moral
law (the summum bonum), and consequently of a requirement for
practical purposes, it may be called faith, that is to say a pure
rational faith, since pure reason (both in its theoretical and
practical use) is the sole source from which it springs.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 45}
From this deduction it is now intelligible why the Greek schools
could never attain the solution of their problem of the practical
possibility of the summum bonum, because they made the rule of the use
which the will of man makes of his freedom the sole and sufficient
ground of this possibility, thinking that they had no need for that
purpose of the existence of God. No doubt they were so far right
that they established the principle of morals of itself
independently of this postulate, from the relation of reason only to
the will, and consequently made it the supreme practical condition
of the summum bonum; but it was not therefore the whole condition of
its possibility. The Epicureans had indeed assumed as the supreme
principle of morality a wholly false one, namely that of happiness,
and had substituted for a law a maxim of arbitrary choice according to
every man's inclination; they proceeded, however, consistently
enough in this, that they degraded their summum bonum likewise, just
in proportion to the meanness of their fundamental principle, and
looked for no greater happiness than can be attained by human prudence
(including temperance and moderation of the inclinations), and this as
we know would be scanty enough and would be very different according
to circumstances; not to mention the exceptions that their maxims must
perpetually admit and which make them incapable of being laws. The
Stoics, on the contrary, had chosen their supreme practical
principle quite rightly, making virtue the condition of the summum
bonum; but when they represented the degree of virtue required by
its pure law as fully attainable in this life, they not only
strained the moral powers of the man whom they called the wise
beyond all the limits of his nature, and assumed a thing that
contradicts all our knowledge of men, but also and principally they
would not allow the second element of the summum bonum, namely,
happiness, to be properly a special object of human desire, but made
their wise man, like a divinity in his consciousness of the excellence
of his person, wholly independent of nature (as regards his own
contentment); they exposed him indeed to the evils of life, but made
him not subject to them (at the same time representing him also as
free from moral evil). They thus, in fact, left out the second element
of the summum bonum namely, personal happiness, placing it solely in
action and satisfaction with one's own personal worth, thus
including it in the consciousness of being morally minded, in which
they Might have been sufficiently refuted by the voice of their own
nature.
The doctrine of Christianity, * even if we do not yet consider it
as a religious doctrine, gives, touching this point, a conception of
the summum bonum (the kingdom of God), which alone satisfies the
strictest demand of practical reason. The moral law is holy
(unyielding) and demands holiness of morals, although all the moral
perfection to which man can attain is still only virtue, that is, a
rightful disposition arising from respect for the law, implying
consciousness of a constant propensity to transgression, or at least a
want of purity, that is, a mixture of many spurious (not moral)
motives of obedience to the law, consequently a self-esteem combined
with humility. In respect, then, of the holiness which the Christian
law requires, this leaves the creature nothing but a progress in
infinitum, but for that very reason it justifies him in hoping for
an endless duration of his existence. The worth of a character
perfectly accordant with the moral law is infinite, since the only
restriction on all possible happiness in the judgement of a wise and
all powerful distributor of it is the absence of conformity of
rational beings to their duty. But the moral law of itself does not
promise any happiness, for according to our conceptions of an order of
nature in general, this is not necessarily connected with obedience to
the law. Now Christian morality supplies this defect (of the second
indispensable element of the summum bonum) by representing the world
in which rational beings devote themselves with all their soul to
the moral law, as a kingdom of God, in which nature and morality are
brought into a harmony foreign to each of itself, by a holy Author who
makes the derived summum bonum possible. Holiness of life is
prescribed to them as a rule even in this life, while the welfare
proportioned to it, namely, bliss, is represented as attainable only
in an eternity; because the former must always be the pattern of their
conduct in every state, and progress towards it is already possible
and necessary in this life; while the latter, under the name of
happiness, cannot be attained at all in this world (so far as our
own power is concerned), and therefore is made simply an object of
hope. Nevertheless, the Christian principle of morality itself is
not theological (so as to be heteronomy), but is autonomy of pure
practical reason, since it does not make the knowledge of God and
His will the foundation of these laws, but only of the attainment of
the summum bonum, on condition of following these laws, and it does
not even place the proper spring of this obedience in the desired
results, but solely in the conception of duty, as that of which the
faithful observance alone constitutes the worthiness to obtain those
happy consequences.
* It is commonly held that the Christian precept of morality has no
advantage in respect of purity over the moral conceptions of the
Stoics; the distinction between them is, however, very obvious. The
Stoic system made the consciousness of strength of mind the pivot on
which all moral dispositions should turn; and although its disciples
spoke of duties and even defined them very well, yet they placed the
spring and proper determining principle of the will in an elevation of
the mind above the lower springs of the senses, which owe their
power only to weakness of mind. With them therefore, virtue was a sort
of heroism in the wise man raising himself above the animal nature
of man, is sufficient for Himself, and, while he prescribes duties
to others, is himself raised above them, and is not subject to any
temptation to transgress the moral law. All this, however, they
could not have done if they had conceived this law in all its purity
and strictness, as the precept of the Gospel does. When I give the
name idea to a perfection to which nothing adequate can be given in
experience, it does not follow that the moral ideas are thing
transcendent, that is something of which we could not even determine
the concept adequately, or of which it is uncertain whether there is
any object corresponding to it at all, as is the case with the ideas
of speculative reason; on the contrary, being types of practical
perfection, they serve as the indispensable rule of conduct and
likewise as the standard of comparison. Now if I consider Christian
morals on their philosophical side, then compared with the ideas of
the Greek schools, they would appear as follows: the ideas of the
Cynics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Christians are: simplicity
of nature, prudence, wisdom, and holiness. In respect of the way of
attaining them, the Greek schools were distinguished from one
another thus that the Cynics only required common sense, the others
the path of science, but both found the mere use of natural powers
sufficient for the purpose. Christian morality, because its precept is
framed (as a moral precept must be) so pure and unyielding, takes from
man all confidence that be can be fully adequate to it, at least in
this life, but again sets it up by enabling us to hope that if we
act as well as it is in our power to do, then what is not in our power
will come in to our aid from another source, whether we know how
this may be or not. Aristotle and Plato differed only as to the origin
of our moral conceptions.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 50}
In this manner, the moral laws lead through the conception of the
summum bonum as the object and final end of pure practical reason to
religion, that is, to the recognition of all duties as divine
commands, not as sanctions, that is to say, arbitrary ordinances of
a foreign and contingent in themselves, but as essential laws of every
free will in itself, which, nevertheless, must be regarded as commands
of the Supreme Being, because it is only from a morally perfect
(holy and good) and at the same time all-powerful will, and
consequently only through harmony with this will, that we can hope
to attain the summum bonum which the moral law makes it our duty to
take as the object of our endeavours. Here again, then, all remains
disinterested and founded merely on duty; neither fear nor hope
being made the fundamental springs, which if taken as principles would
destroy the whole moral worth of actions. The moral law commands me to
make the highest possible good in a world the ultimate object of all
my conduct. But I cannot hope to effect this otherwise than by the
harmony of my will with that of a holy and good Author of the world;
and although the conception of the summum bonum as a whole, in which
the greatest happiness is conceived as combined in the most exact
proportion with the highest degree of moral perfection (possible in
creatures), includes my own happiness, yet it is not this that is
the determining principle of the will which is enjoined to promote the
summum bonum, but the moral law, which, on the contrary, limits by
strict conditions my unbounded desire of happiness.
Hence also morality is not properly the doctrine how we should
make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness. It
is only when religion is added that there also comes in the hope of
participating some day in happiness in proportion as we have
endeavoured to be not unworthy of it.
A man is worthy to possess a thing or a state when his possession of
it is in harmony with the summum bonum. We can now easily see that all
worthiness depends on moral conduct, since in the conception of the
summum bonum this constitutes the condition of the rest (which belongs
to one's state), namely, the participation of happiness. Now it
follows from this that morality should never be treated as a
doctrine of happiness, that is, an instruction how to become happy;
for it has to do simply with the rational condition (conditio sine qua
non) of happiness, not with the means of attaining it. But when
morality has been completely expounded (which merely imposes duties
instead of providing rules for selfish desires), then first, after the
moral desire to promote the summum bonum (to bring the kingdom of
God to us) has been awakened, a desire founded on a law, and which
could not previously arise in any selfish mind, and when for the
behoof of this desire the step to religion has been taken, then this
ethical doctrine may be also called a doctrine of happiness because
the hope of happiness first begins with religion only.
We can also see from this that, when we ask what is God's ultimate
end in creating the world, we must not name the happiness of the
rational beings in it, but the summum bonum, which adds a further
condition to that wish of such beings, namely, the condition of
being worthy of happiness, that is, the morality of these same
rational beings, a condition which alone contains the rule by which
only they can hope to share in the former at the hand of a wise
Author. For as wisdom, theoretically considered, signifies the
knowledge of the summum bonum and, practically, the accordance of
the will with the summum bonum, we cannot attribute to a supreme
independent wisdom an end based merely on goodness. For we cannot
conceive the action of this goodness (in respect of the happiness of
rational beings) as suitable to the highest original good, except
under the restrictive conditions of harmony with the holiness * of
his will. Therefore, those who placed the end of creation in the glory
of God (provided that this is not conceived anthropomorphically as a
desire to be praised) have perhaps hit upon the best expression. For
nothing glorifies God more than that which is the most estimable thing
in the world, respect for his command, the observance of the holy duty
that his law imposes on us, when there is added thereto his glorious
plan of crowning such a beautiful order of things with corresponding
happiness. If the latter (to speak humanly) makes Him worthy of
love, by the former He is an object of adoration. Even men can never
acquire respect by benevolence alone, though they may gain love, so
that the greatest beneficence only procures them honour when it is
regulated by worthiness.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 55}
* In order to make these characteristics of these conceptions
clear, I add the remark that whilst we ascribe to God various
attributes, the quality of which we also find applicable to creatures,
only that in Him they are raised to the highest degree, e.g., power,
knowledge, presence, goodness, etc., under the designations of
omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc., there are three that are
ascribed to God exclusively, and yet without the addition of
greatness, and which are all moral He is the only holy, the only
blessed, the only wise, because these conceptions already imply the
absence of limitation. In the order of these attributes He is also the
holy lawgiver (and creator), the good governor (and preserver) and the
just judge, three attributes which include everything by which God
is the object of religion, and in conformity with which the
metaphysical perfections are added of themselves in the reason.
That in the order of ends, man (and with him every rational being)
is an end in himself, that is, that he can never be used merely as a
means by any (not even by God) without being at the same time an end
also himself, that therefore humanity in our person must be holy to
ourselves, this follows now of itself because he is the subject of the
moral law, in other words, of that which is holy in itself, and on
account of which and in agreement with which alone can anything be
termed holy. For this moral law is founded on the autonomy of his
will, as a free will which by its universal laws must necessarily be
able to agree with that to which it is to submit itself.
VI. Of the Postulates of Pure Practical Reason Generally.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 60}
They all proceed from the principle of morality, which is not a
postulate but a law, by which reason determines the will directly,
which will, because it is so determined as a pure will, requires these
necessary conditions of obedience to its precept. These postulates are
not theoretical dogmas but, suppositions practically necessary;
while then they do [not] extend our speculative knowledge, they give
objective reality to the ideas of speculative reason in general (by
means of their reference to what is practical), and give it a right to
concepts, the possibility even of which it could not otherwise venture
to affirm.
These postulates are those of immortality, freedom positively
considered (as the causality of a being so far as he belongs to the
intelligible world), and the existence of God. The first results
from the practically necessary condition of a duration adequate to the
complete fulfilment of the moral law; the second from the necessary
supposition of independence of the sensible world, and of the
faculty of determining one's will according to the law of an
intelligible world, that is, of freedom; the third from the
necessary condition of the existence of the summum bonum in such an
intelligible world, by the supposition of the supreme independent
good, that is, the existence of God.
Thus the fact that respect for the moral law necessarily makes the
summum bonum an object of our endeavours, and the supposition thence
resulting of its objective reality, lead through the postulates of
practical reason to conceptions which speculative reason might
indeed present as problems, but could never solve. Thus it leads: 1.
To that one in the solution of which the latter could do nothing but
commit paralogisms (namely, that of immortality), because it could not
lay hold of the character of permanence, by which to complete the
psychological conception of an ultimate subject necessarily ascribed
to the soul in self-consciousness, so as to make it the real
conception of a substance, a character which practical reason
furnishes by the postulate of a duration required for accordance
with the moral law in the summum bonum, which is the whole end of
practical reason. 2. It leads to that of which speculative reason
contained nothing but antinomy, the solution of which it could only
found on a notion Problematically conceivable indeed, but whose
objective reality it could not prove or determine, namely, the
cosmological idea of an intelligible world and the consciousness of
our existence in it, by means of the postulate of freedom (the reality
of which it lays down by virtue of the moral law), and with it
likewise the law of an intelligible world, to which speculative reason
could only point, but could not define its conception. 3. What
speculative reason was able to think, but was obliged to leave
undetermined as a mere transcendental ideal, viz., the theological
conception of the first Being, to this it gives significance (in a
practical view, that is, as a condition of the possibility of the
object of a will determined by that law), namely, as the supreme
principle of the summum bonum in an intelligible world, by means of
moral legislation in it invested with sovereign power.
Is our knowledge, however, actually extended in this way by pure
practical reason, and is that immanent in practical reason which for
the speculative was only transcendent? Certainly, but only in a
practical point of view. For we do not thereby take knowledge of the
nature of our souls, nor of the intelligible world, nor of the Supreme
Being, with respect to what they are in themselves, but we have merely
combined the conceptions of them in the practical concept of the
summum bonum as the object of our will, and this altogether a
priori, but only by means of the moral law, and merely in reference to
it, in respect of the object which it commands. But how freedom is
possible, and how we are to conceive this kind of causality
theoretically and positively, is not thereby discovered; but only that
there is such a causality is postulated by the moral law and in its
behoof. It is the same with the remaining ideas, the possibility of
which no human intelligence will ever fathom, but the truth of
which, on the other hand, no sophistry will ever wrest from the
conviction even of the commonest man.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 65}
VII. How is it possible to conceive an Extension of Pure
Reason in a Practical point of view, without its
Knowledge as Speculative being enlarged at
the same time?
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 70}
In order not to be too abstract, we will answer this question at
once in its application to the present case. In order to extend a pure
cognition practically, there must be an a priori purpose given, that
is, an end as object (of the will), which independently of all
theological principle is presented as practically necessary by an
imperative which determines the will directly (a categorical
imperative), and in this case that is the summum bonum. This, however,
is not possible without presupposing three theoretical conceptions
(for which, because they are mere conceptions of pure reason, no
corresponding intuition can be found, nor consequently by the path
of theory any objective reality); namely, freedom, immortality, and
God. Thus by the practical law which commands the existence of the
highest good possible in a world, the possibility of those objects
of pure speculative reason is postulated, and the objective reality
which the latter could not assure them. By this the theoretical
knowledge of pure reason does indeed obtain an accession; but it
consists only in this, that those concepts which otherwise it had to
look upon as problematical (merely thinkable) concepts, are now
shown assertorially to be such as actually have objects; because
practical reason indispensably requires their existence for the
possibility of its object, the summum bonum, which practically is
absolutely necessary, and this justifies theoretical reason in
assuming them. But this extension of theoretical reason is no
extension of speculative, that is, we cannot make any positive use
of it in a theoretical point of view. For as nothing is accomplished
in this by practical reason, further than that these concepts are real
and actually have their (possible) objects, and nothing in the way
of intuition of them is given thereby (which indeed could not be
demanded), hence the admission of this reality does not render any
synthetical proposition possible. Consequently, this discovery does
not in the least help us to extend this knowledge of ours in a
speculative point of view, although it does in respect of the
practical employment of pure reason. The above three ideas of
speculative reason are still in themselves not cognitions; they are
however (transcendent) thoughts, in which there is nothing impossible.
Now, by help of an apodeictic practical law, being necessary
conditions of that which it commands to be made an object, they
acquire objective reality; that is, we learn from it that they have
objects, without being able to point out how the conception of them is
related to an object, and this, too, is still not a cognition of these
objects; for we cannot thereby form any synthetical judgement about
them, nor determine their application theoretically; consequently,
we can make no theoretical rational use of them at all, in which use
all speculative knowledge of reason consists. Nevertheless, the
theoretical knowledge, not indeed of these objects, but of reason
generally, is so far enlarged by this, that by the practical
postulates objects were given to those ideas, a merely problematical
thought having by this means first acquired objective reality. There
is therefore no extension of the knowledge of given supersensible
objects, but an extension of theoretical reason and of its knowledge
in respect of the supersensible generally; inasmuch as it is compelled
to admit that there are such objects, although it is not able to
define them more closely, so as itself to extend this knowledge of the
objects (which have now been given it on practical grounds, and only
for practical use). For this accession, then, pure theoretical reason,
for which all those ideas are transcendent and without object, has
simply to thank its practical faculty. In this they become immanent
and constitutive, being the source of the possibility of realizing the
necessary object of pure practical reason (the summum bonum);
whereas apart from this they are transcendent, and merely regulative
principles of speculative reason, which do not require it to assume
a new object beyond experience, but only to bring its use in
experience nearer to completeness. But when once reason is in
possession of this accession, it will go to work with these ideas as
speculative reason (properly only to assure the certainty of its
practical use) in a negative manner: that is, not extending but
clearing up its knowledge so as on one side to keep off
anthropomorphism, as the source of superstition, or seeming
extension of these conceptions by supposed experience; and on the
other side fanaticism, which promises the same by means of
supersensible intuition or feelings of the like kind. All these are
hindrances to the practical use of pure reason, so that the removal of
them may certainly be considered an extension of our knowledge in a
practical point of view, without contradicting the admission that
for speculative purposes reason has not in the least gained by this.
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