Books: The Critique of Practical Reason

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IX. Of the Wise Adaptation of Man's Cognitive Faculties

to his Practical Destination.

If human nature is destined to endeavour after the summum bonum,
we must suppose also that the measure of its cognitive faculties,
and particularly their relation to one another, is suitable to this
end. Now the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason proves that this is
incapable of solving satisfactorily the most weighty problems that are
proposed to it, although it does not ignore the natural and
important hints received from the same reason, nor the great steps
that it can make to approach to this great goal that is set before it,
which, however, it can never reach of itself, even with the help of
the greatest knowledge of nature. Nature then seems here to have
provided us only in a stepmotherly fashion with the faculty required
for our end.

{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 100}

Suppose, now, that in this matter nature had conformed to our wish
and had given us that capacity of discernment or that enlightenment
which we would gladly possess, or which some imagine they actually
possess, what would in all probability be the consequence? Unless
our whole nature were at the same time changed, our inclinations,
which always have the first word, would first of all demand their
own satisfaction, and, joined with rational reflection, the greatest
possible and most lasting satisfaction, under the name of happiness;
the moral law would afterwards speak, in order to keep them within
their proper bounds, and even to subject them all to a higher end,
which has no regard to inclination. But instead of the conflict that
the moral disposition has now to carry on with the inclinations, in
which, though after some defeats, moral strength of mind may be
gradually acquired, God and eternity with their awful majesty would
stand unceasingly before our eyes (for what we can prove perfectly
is to us as certain as that of which we are assured by the sight of
our eyes). Transgression of the law, would, no doubt, be avoided; what
is commanded would be done; but the mental disposition, from which
actions ought to proceed, cannot be infused by any command, and in
this case the spur of action is ever active and external, so that
reason has no need to exert itself in order to gather strength to
resist the inclinations by a lively representation of the dignity of
the law: hence most of the actions that conformed to the law would
be done from fear, a few only from hope, and none at all from duty,
and the moral worth of actions, on which alone in the eyes of
supreme wisdom the worth of the person and even that of the world
depends, would cease to exist. As long as the nature of man remains
what it is, his conduct would thus be changed into mere mechanism,
in which, as in a puppet-show, everything would gesticulate well,
but there would be no life in the figures. Now, when it is quite
otherwise with us, when with all the effort of our reason we have only
a very obscure and doubtful view into the future, when the Governor of
the world allows us only to conjecture his existence and his
majesty, not to behold them or prove them clearly; and on the other
hand, the moral law within us, without promising or threatening
anything with certainty, demands of us disinterested respect; and only
when this respect has become active and dominant, does it allow us
by means of it a prospect into the world of the supersensible, and
then only with weak glances: all this being so, there is room for true
moral disposition, immediately devoted to the law, and a rational
creature can become worthy of sharing in the summum bonum that
corresponds to the worth of his person and not merely to his
actions. Thus what the study of nature and of man teaches us
sufficiently elsewhere may well be true here also; that the
unsearchable wisdom by which we exist is not less worthy of admiration
in what it has denied than in what it has granted.

PART_2|METHODOLOGY

SECOND PART.

Methodology of Pure Practical Reason.

By the methodology of pure practical reason we are not to understand
the mode of proceeding with pure practical principles (whether in
study or in exposition), with a view to a scientific knowledge of
them, which alone is what is properly called method elsewhere in
theoretical philosophy (for popular knowledge requires a manner,
science a method, i.e., a process according to principles of reason by
which alone the manifold of any branch of knowledge can become a
system). On the contrary, by this methodology is understood the mode
in which we can give the laws of pure practical reason access to the
human mind and influence on its maxims, that is, by which we can
make the objectively practical reason subjectively practical also.

Now it is clear enough that those determining principles of the will
which alone make maxims properly moral and give them a moral worth,
namely, the direct conception of the law and the objective necessity
of obeying it as our duty, must be regarded as the proper springs of
actions, since otherwise legality of actions might be produced, but
not morality of character. But it is not so clear; on the contrary, it
must at first sight seem to every one very improbable that even
subjectively that exhibition of pure virtue can have more power over
the human mind, and supply a far stronger spring even for effecting
that legality of actions, and can produce more powerful resolutions to
prefer the law, from pure respect for it, to every other
consideration, than all the deceptive allurements of pleasure or of
all that may be reckoned as happiness, or even than all threatenings
of pain and misfortune. Nevertheless, this is actually the case, and
if human nature were not so constituted, no mode of presenting the law
by roundabout ways and indirect recommendations would ever produce
morality of character. All would be simple hypocrisy; the law would be
hated, or at least despised, while it was followed for the sake of
one's own advantage. The letter of the law (legality) would be found
in our actions, but not the spirit of it in our minds (morality);
and as with all our efforts we could not quite free ourselves from
reason in our judgement, we must inevitably appear in our own eyes
worthless, depraved men, even though we should seek to compensate
ourselves for this mortification before the inner tribunal, by
enjoying the pleasure that a supposed natural or divine law might be
imagined to have connected with it a sort of police machinery,
regulating its operations by what was done without troubling itself
about the motives for doing it.

It cannot indeed be denied that in order to bring an uncultivated or
degraded mind into the track of moral goodness some preparatory
guidance is necessary, to attract it by a view of its own advantage,
or to alarm it by fear of loss; but as soon as this mechanical work,
these leading-strings have produced some effect, then we must bring
before the mind the pure moral motive, which, not only because it is
the only one that can be the foundation of a character (a
practically consistent habit of mind with unchangeable maxims), but
also because it teaches a man to feel his own dignity, gives the
mind a power unexpected even by himself, to tear himself from all
sensible attachments so far as they would fain have the rule, and to
find a rich compensation for the sacrifice he offers, in the
independence of his rational nature and the greatness of soul to which
he sees that he is destined. We will therefore show, by such
observations as every one can make, that this property of our minds,
this receptivity for a pure moral interest, and consequently the
moving force of the pure conception of virtue, when it is properly
applied to the human heart, is the most powerful spring and, when a
continued and punctual observance of moral maxims is in question,
the only spring of good conduct. It must, however, be remembered
that if these observations only prove the reality of such a feeling,
but do not show any moral improvement brought about by it, this is
no argument against the only method that exists of making the
objectively practical laws of pure reason subjectively practical,
through the mere force of the conception of duty; nor does it prove
that this method is a vain delusion. For as it has never yet come into
vogue, experience can say nothing of its results; one can only ask for
proofs of the receptivity for such springs, and these I will now
briefly present, and then sketch the method of founding and
cultivating genuine moral dispositions.

{PART_2|METHODOLOGY ^paragraph 5}

When we attend to the course of conversation in mixed companies,
consisting not merely of learned persons and subtle reasoners, but
also of men of business or of women, we observe that, besides
story-telling and jesting, another kind of entertainment finds a place
in them, namely, argument; for stories, if they are to have novelty
and interest, are soon exhausted, and jesting is likely to become
insipid. Now of all argument there is none in which persons are more
ready to join who find any other subtle discussion tedious, none
that brings more liveliness into the company, than that which concerns
the moral worth of this or that action by which the character of
some person is to be made out. Persons, to whom in other cases
anything subtle and speculative in theoretical questions is dry and
irksome, presently join in when the question is to make out the
moral import of a good or bad action that has been related, and they
display an exactness, a refinement, a subtlety, in excogitating
everything that can lessen the purity of purpose, and consequently the
degree of virtue in it, which we do not expect from them in any
other kind of speculation. In these criticisms, persons who are
passing judgement on others often reveal their own character: some, in
exercising their judicial office, especially upon the dead, seem
inclined chiefly to defend the goodness that is related of this or
that deed against all injurious charges of insincerity, and ultimately
to defend the whole moral worth of the person against the reproach
of dissimulation and secret wickedness; others, on the contrary,
turn their thoughts more upon attacking this worth by accusation and
fault finding. We cannot always, however, attribute to these latter
the intention of arguing away virtue altogether out of all human
examples in order to make it an empty name; often, on the contrary, it
is only well-meant strictness in determining the true moral import
of actions according to an uncompromising law. Comparison with such
a law, instead of with examples, lowers self-conceit in moral
matters very much, and not merely teaches humility, but makes every
one feel it when he examines himself closely. Nevertheless, we can for
the most part observe, in those who defend the purity of purpose in
giving examples that where there is the presumption of uprightness
they are anxious to remove even the least spot, lest, if all
examples had their truthfulness disputed, and if the purity of all
human virtue were denied, it might in the end be regarded as a mere
phantom, and so all effort to attain it be made light of as vain
affectation and delusive conceit.

I do not know why the educators of youth have not long since made
use of this propensity of reason to enter with pleasure upon the
most subtle examination of the practical questions that are thrown up;
and why they have not, after first laying the foundation of a purely
moral catechism, searched through the biographies of ancient and
modern times with the view of having at hand instances of the duties
laid down, in which, especially by comparison of similar actions under
different circumstances, they might exercise the critical judgement of
their scholars in remarking their greater or less moral
significance. This is a thing in which they would find that even early
youth, which is still unripe for speculation of other kinds, would
soon Become very acute and not a little interested, because it feels
the progress of its faculty of judgement; and, what is most important,
they could hope with confidence that the frequent practice of
knowing and approving good conduct in all its purity, and on the other
hand of remarking with regret or contempt the least deviation from it,
although it may be pursued only as a sport in which children may
compete with one another, yet will leave a lasting impression of
esteem on the one hand and disgust on the other; and so, by the mere
habit of looking on such actions as deserving approval or blame, a
good foundation would be laid for uprightness in the future course
of life. Only I wish they would spare them the example of so-called
noble (supermeritorious) actions, in which our sentimental books so
much abound, and would refer all to duty merely, and to the worth that
a man can and must give himself in his own eyes by the consciousness
of not having transgressed it, since whatever runs up into empty
wishes and longings after inaccessible perfection produces mere heroes
of romance, who, while they pique themselves on their feeling for
transcendent greatness, release themselves in return from the
observance of common and every-day obligations, which then seem to
them petty and insignificant. *

* It is quite proper to extol actions that display a great,
unselfish, sympathizing mind or humanity. But, in this case, we must
fix attention not so much on the elevation of soul, which is very
fleeting and transitory, as on the subjection of the heart to duty,
from which a more enduring impression may be expected, because this
implies principle (whereas the former only implies ebullitions). One
need only reflect a little and he will always find a debt that he
has by some means incurred towards the human race (even if it were
only this, by the inequality of men in the civil constitution,
enjoys advantages on account of which others must be the more in
want), which will prevent the thought of duty from being repressed
by the self-complacent imagination of merit.

{PART_2|METHODOLOGY ^paragraph 10}

But if it is asked: "What, then, is really pure morality, by which
as a touchstone we must test the moral significance of every
action," then I must admit that it is only philosophers that can
make the decision of this question doubtful, for to common sense it
has been decided long ago, not indeed by abstract general formulae,
but by habitual use, like the distinction between the right and left
hand. We will then point out the criterion of pure virtue in an
example first, and, imagining that it is set before a boy, of say
ten years old, for his judgement, we will see whether he would
necessarily judge so of himself without being guided by his teacher.
Tell him the history of an honest man whom men want to persuade to
join the calumniators of an innocent and powerless person (say Anne
Boleyn, accused by Henry VIII of England). He is offered advantages,
great gifts, or high rank; he rejects them. This will excite mere
approbation and applause in the mind of the hearer. Now begins the
threatening of loss. Amongst these traducers are his best friends, who
now renounce his friendship; near kinsfolk, who threaten to disinherit
him (he being without fortune); powerful persons, who can persecute
and harass him in all places and circumstances; a prince, who
threatens him with loss of freedom, yea, loss of life. Then to fill
the measure of suffering, and that he may feel the pain that only
the morally good heart can feel very deeply, let us conceive his
family threatened with extreme distress and want, entreating him to
yield; conceive himself, though upright, yet with feelings not hard or
insensible either to compassion or to his own distress; conceive
him, I say, at the moment when he wishes that he had never lived to
see the day that exposed him to such unutterable anguish, yet
remaining true to his uprightness of purpose, without wavering or even
doubting; then will my youthful hearer be raised gradually from mere
approval to admiration, from that to amazement, and finally to the
greatest veneration, and a lively wish that be himself could be such a
man (though certainly not in such circumstances). Yet virtue is here
worth so much only because it costs so much, not because it brings any
profit. All the admiration, and even the endeavour to resemble this
character, rest wholly on the purity of the moral principle, which can
only be strikingly shown by removing from the springs of action
everything that men may regard as part of happiness. Morality, then,
must have the more power over the human heart the more purely it is
exhibited. Whence it follows that, if the law of morality and the
image of holiness and virtue are to exercise any influence at all on
our souls, they can do so only so far as they are laid to heart in
their purity as motives, unmixed with any view to prosperity, for it
is in suffering that they display themselves most nobly. Now that
whose removal strengthens the effect of a moving force must have
been a hindrance, consequently every admixture of motives taken from
our own happiness is a hindrance to the influence of the moral law
on the heart. I affirm further that even in that admired action, if
the motive from which it was done was a high regard for duty, then
it is just this respect for the law that has the greatest influence on
the mind of the spectator, not any pretension to a supposed inward
greatness of mind or noble meritorious sentiments; consequently
duty, not merit, must have not only the most definite, but, when it is
represented in the true light of its inviolability, the most
penetrating, influence on the mind.

It is more necessary than ever to direct attention to this method in
our times, when men hope to produce more effect on the mind with soft,
tender feelings, or high-flown, puffing-up pretensions, which rather
wither the heart than strengthen it, than by a plain and earnest
representation of duty, which is more suited to human imperfection and
to progress in goodness. To set before children, as a pattern, actions
that are called noble, magnanimous, meritorious, with the notion of
captivating them by infusing enthusiasm for such actions, is to defeat
our end. For as they are still so backward in the observance of the
commonest duty, and even in the correct estimation of it, this means
simply to make them fantastical romancers betimes. But, even with
the instructed and experienced part of mankind, this supposed spring
has, if not an injurious, at least no genuine, moral effect on the
heart, which, however, is what it was desired to produce.

All feelings, especially those that are to produce unwonted
exertions, must accomplish their effect at the moment they are at
their height and before the calm down; otherwise they effect
nothing; for as there was nothing to strengthen the heart, but only to
excite it, it naturally returns to its normal moderate tone and, thus,
falls back into its previous languor. Principles must be built on
conceptions; on any other basis there can only be paroxysms, which can
give the person no moral worth, nay, not even confidence in himself,
without which the highest good in man, consciousness of the morality
of his mind and character, cannot exist. Now if these conceptions
are to become subjectively practical, we must not rest satisfied
with admiring the objective law of morality, and esteeming it highly
in reference to humanity, but we must consider the conception of it in
relation to man as an individual, and then this law appears in a
form indeed that is highly deserving of respect, but not so pleasant
as if it belonged to the element to which he is naturally
accustomed; but on the contrary as often compelling him to quit this
element, not without self-denial, and to betake himself to a higher,
in which he can only maintain himself with trouble and with
unceasing apprehension of a relapse. In a word, the moral law
demands obedience, from duty not from predilection, which cannot and
ought not to be presupposed at all.

Let us now see, in an example, whether the conception of an
action, as a noble and magnanimous one, has more subjective moving
power than if the action is conceived merely as duty in relation to
the solemn law of morality. The action by which a man endeavours at
the greatest peril of life to rescue people from shipwreck, at last
losing his life in the attempt, is reckoned on one side as duty, but
on the other and for the most part as a meritorious action, but our
esteem for it is much weakened by the notion of duty to himself
which seems in this case to be somewhat infringed. More decisive is
the magnanimous sacrifice of life for the safety of one's country; and
yet there still remains some scruple whether it is a perfect duty to
devote one's self to this purpose spontaneously and unbidden, and
the action has not in itself the full force of a pattern and impulse
to imitation. But if an indispensable duty be in question, the
transgression of which violates the moral law itself, and without
regard to the welfare of mankind, and as it were tramples on its
holiness (such as are usually called duties to God, because in Him
we conceive the ideal of holiness in substance), then we give our most
perfect esteem to the pursuit of it at the sacrifice of all that can
have any value for the dearest inclinations, and we find our soul
strengthened and elevated by such an example, when we convince
ourselves by contemplation of it that human nature is capable of so
great an elevation above every motive that nature can oppose to it.
Juvenal describes such an example in a climax which makes the reader
feel vividly the force of the spring that is contained in the pure law
of duty, as duty:

{PART_2|METHODOLOGY ^paragraph 15}

Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem

Integer; ambiguae si quando citabere testis

Incertaeque rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis

Falsus, et admoto dictet periuria tauro,

Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori,

{PART_2|METHODOLOGY ^paragraph 20}

Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. *

* [Juvenal, Satirae, "Be you a good soldier, a faithful tutor, an
uncorrupted umpire also; if you are summoned as a witness in a
doubtful and uncertain thing, though Phalaris should command that
you should be false, and should dictate perjuries with the bull
brought to you, believe it the highest impiety to prefer life to
reputation, and for the sake of life, to lose the causes of living."]

When we can bring any flattering thought of merit into our action,
then the motive is already somewhat alloyed with self-love and has
therefore some assistance from the side of the sensibility. But to
postpone everything to the holiness of duty alone, and to be conscious
that we can because our own reason recognises this as its command
and says that we ought to do it, this is, as it were, to raise
ourselves altogether above the world of sense, and there is
inseparably involved in the same a consciousness of the law, as a
spring of a faculty that controls the sensibility; and although this
is not always attended with effect, yet frequent engagement with
this spring, and the at first minor attempts at using it, give hope
that this effect may be wrought, and that by degrees the greatest, and
that a purely moral interest in it may be produced in us.

{PART_2|METHODOLOGY ^paragraph 25}

The method then takes the following course. At first we are only
concerned to make the judging of actions by moral laws a natural
employment accompanying all our own free actions, as well as the
observation of those of others, and to make it as it were a habit, and
to sharpen this judgement, asking first whether the action conforms
objectively to the moral law, and to what law; and we distinguish
the law that merely furnishes a principle of obligation from that
which is really obligatory (leges obligandi a legibus obligantibus);
as, for instance, the law of what men's wants require from me, as
contrasted with that which their rights demand, the latter of which
prescribes essential, the former only non-essential duties; and thus
we teach how to distinguish different kinds of duties which meet in
the same action. The other point to which attention must be directed
is the question whether the action was also (subjectively) done for
the sake of the moral law, so that it not only is morally correct as a
deed, but also, by the maxim from which it is done, has moral worth as
a disposition. Now there is no doubt that this practice, and the
resulting culture of our reason in judging merely of the practical,
must gradually produce a certain interest even in the law of reason,
and consequently in morally good actions. For we ultimately take a
liking for a thing, the contemplation of which makes us feel that
the use of our cognitive faculties is extended; and this extension
is especially furthered by that in which we find moral correctness,
since it is only in such an order of things that reason, with its
faculty of determining a priori on principle what ought to be done,
can find satisfaction. An observer of nature takes liking at last to
objects that at first offended his senses, when he discovers in them
the great adaptation of their organization to design, so that his
reason finds food in its contemplation. So Leibnitz spared an insect
that he had carefully examined with the microscope, and replaced it on
its leaf, because he had found himself instructed by the view of it
and had, as it were, received a benefit from it.

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