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Books: The Critique of Practical Reason

I >> Immanuel Kant >> The Critique of Practical Reason




Now if this science is in contradiction with a reason that admits
only empirical principles, as it inevitably is in the antinomy in
which mathematics prove the infinite divisibility of space, which
empiricism cannot admit; then the greatest possible evidence of
demonstration is in manifest contradiction with the alleged
conclusions from experience, and we are driven to ask, like
Cheselden's blind patient, "Which deceives me, sight or touch?" (for
empiricism is based on a necessity felt, rationalism on a necessity
seen). And thus universal empiricism reveals itself as absolute
scepticism. It is erroneous to attribute this in such an unqualified
sense to Hume, * since he left at least one certain touchstone (which
can only be found in a priori principles), although experience
consists not only of feelings, but also of judgements.



* Names that designate the followers of a sect have always been
accompanied with much injustice; just as if one said, "N is an
Idealist." For although he not only admits, but even insists, that our
ideas of external things have actual objects of external things
corresponding to them, yet he holds that the form of the intuition
does not depend on them but on the human mind.



{PREFACE ^paragraph 35}

However, as in this philosophical and critical age such empiricism
can scarcely be serious, and it is probably put forward only as an
intellectual exercise and for the purpose of putting in a clearer
light, by contrast, the necessity of rational a priori principles,
we can only be grateful to those who employ themselves in this
otherwise uninstructive labour.

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION.



Of the Idea of a Critique of Practical Reason.



The theoretical use of reason was concerned with objects of the
cognitive faculty only, and a critical examination of it with
reference to this use applied properly only to the pure faculty of
cognition; because this raised the suspicion, which was afterwards
confirmed, that it might easily pass beyond its limits, and be lost
among unattainable objects, or even contradictory notions. It is quite
different with the practical use of reason. In this, reason is
concerned with the grounds of determination of the will, which is a
faculty either to produce objects corresponding to ideas, or to
determine ourselves to the effecting of such objects (whether the
physical power is sufficient or not); that is, to determine our
causality. For here, reason can at least attain so far as to determine
the will, and has always objective reality in so far as it is the
volition only that is in question. The first question here then is
whether pure reason of itself alone suffices to determine the will, or
whether it can be a ground of determination only as dependent on
empirical conditions. Now, here there comes in a notion of causality
justified by the critique of the pure reason, although not capable
of being presented empirically, viz., that of freedom; and if we can
now discover means of proving that this property does in fact belong
to the human will (and so to the will of all rational beings), then it
will not only be shown that pure reason can be practical, but that
it alone, and not reason empirically limited, is indubitably
practical; consequently, we shall have to make a critical examination,
not of pure practical reason, but only of practical reason
generally. For when once pure reason is shown to exist, it needs no
critical examination. For reason itself contains the standard for
the critical examination of every use of it. The critique, then, of
practical reason generally is bound to prevent the empirically
conditioned reason from claiming exclusively to furnish the ground
of determination of the will. If it is proved that there is a
[practical] reason, its employment is alone immanent; the
empirically conditioned use, which claims supremacy, is on the
contrary transcendent and expresses itself in demands and precepts
which go quite beyond its sphere. This is just the opposite of what
might be said of pure reason in its speculative employment.

However, as it is still pure reason, the knowledge of which is
here the foundation of its practical employment, the general outline
of the classification of a critique of practical reason must be
arranged in accordance with that of the speculative. We must, then,
have the Elements and the Methodology of it; and in the former an
Analytic as the rule of truth, and a Dialectic as the exposition and
dissolution of the illusion in the judgements of practical reason. But
the order in the subdivision of the Analytic will be the reverse of
that in the critique of the pure speculative reason. For, in the
present case, we shall commence with the principles and proceed to the
concepts, and only then, if possible, to the senses; whereas in the
case of the speculative reason we began with the senses and had to end
with the principles. The reason of this lies again in this: that now
we have to do with a will, and have to consider reason, not in its
relation to objects, but to this will and its causality. We must,
then, begin with the principles of a causality not empirically
conditioned, after which the attempt can be made to establish our
notions of the determining grounds of such a will, of their
application to objects, and finally to the subject and its sense
faculty. We necessarily begin with the law of causality from
freedom, that is, with a pure practical principle, and this determines
the objects to which alone it can be applied.

BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1

FIRST PART.



ELEMENTS OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON.



BOOK I. The Analytic of Pure Practical Reason.



CHAPTER I. Of the Principles of Pure Practical Reason.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 5}



I. DEFINITION.



Practical principles are propositions which contain a general
determination of the will, having under it several practical rules.
They are subjective, or maxims, when the condition is regarded by
the subject as valid only for his own will, but are objective, or
practical laws, when the condition is recognized as objective, that
is, valid for the will of every rational being.



{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 10}

REMARK.



Supposing that pure reason contains in itself a practical motive,
that is, one adequate to determine the will, then there are
practical laws; otherwise all practical principles will be mere
maxims. In case the will of a rational being is pathologically
affected, there may occur a conflict of the maxims with the
practical laws recognized by itself. For example, one may make it
his maxim to let no injury pass unrevenged, and yet he may see that
this is not a practical law, but only his own maxim; that, on the
contrary, regarded as being in one and the same maxim a rule for the
will of every rational being, it must contradict itself. In natural
philosophy the principles of what happens, e.g., the principle of
equality of action and reaction in the communication of motion) are at
the same time laws of nature; for the use of reason there is
theoretical and determined by the nature of the object. In practical
philosophy, i.e., that which has to do only with the grounds of
determination of the will, the principles which a man makes for
himself are not laws by which one is inevitably bound; because
reason in practical matters has to do with the subject, namely, with
the faculty of desire, the special character of which may occasion
variety in the rule. The practical rule is always a product of reason,
because it prescribes action as a means to the effect. But in the case
of a being with whom reason does not of itself determine the will,
this rule is an imperative, i.e., a rule characterized by "shall,"
which expresses the objective necessitation of the action and
signifies that, if reason completely determined the will, the action
would inevitably take place according to this rule. Imperatives,
therefore, are objectively valid, and are quite distinct from
maxims, which are subjective principles. The former either determine
the conditions of the causality of the rational being as an
efficient cause, i.e., merely in reference to the effect and the means
of attaining it; or they determine the will only, whether it is
adequate to the effect or not. The former would be hypothetical
imperatives, and contain mere precepts of skill; the latter, on the
contrary, would be categorical, and would alone be practical laws.
Thus maxims are principles, but not imperatives. Imperatives
themselves, however, when they are conditional (i.e., do not determine
the will simply as will, but only in respect to a desired effect, that
is, when they are hypothetical imperatives), are practical precepts
but not laws. Laws must be sufficient to determine the will as will,
even before I ask whether I have power sufficient for a desired
effect, or the means necessary to produce it; hence they are
categorical: otherwise they are not laws at all, because the necessity
is wanting, which, if it is to be practical, must be independent of
conditions which are pathological and are therefore only
contingently connected with the will. Tell a man, for example, that he
must be industrious and thrifty in youth, in order that he may not
want in old age; this is a correct and important practical precept
of the will. But it is easy to see that in this case the will is
directed to something else which it is presupposed that it desires;
and as to this desire, we must leave it to the actor himself whether
he looks forward to other resources than those of his own acquisition,
or does not expect to be old, or thinks that in case of future
necessity he will be able to make shift with little. Reason, from
which alone can spring a rule involving necessity, does, indeed,
give necessity to this precept (else it would not be an imperative),
but this is a necessity dependent on subjective conditions, and cannot
be supposed in the same degree in all subjects. But that reason may
give laws it is necessary that it should only need to presuppose
itself, because rules are objectively and universally valid only
when they hold without any contingent subjective conditions, which
distinguish one rational being from another. Now tell a man that he
should never make a deceitful promise, this is a rule which only
concerns his will, whether the purposes he may have can be attained
thereby or not; it is the volition only which is to be determined a
priori by that rule. If now it is found that this rule is
practically right, then it is a law, because it is a categorical
imperative. Thus, practical laws refer to the will only, without
considering what is attained by its causality, and we may disregard
this latter (as belonging to the world of sense) in order to have them
quite pure.



II. THEOREM I.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 15}



All practical principles which presuppose an object (matter) of
the faculty of desire as the ground of determination of the will are
empirical and can furnish no practical laws.

By the matter of the faculty of desire I mean an object the
realization of which is desired. Now, if the desire for this object
precedes the practical rule and is the condition of our making it a
principle, then I say (in the first place) this principle is in that
case wholly empirical, for then what determines the choice is the idea
of an object and that relation of this idea to the subject by which
its faculty of desire is determined to its realization. Such a
relation to the subject is called the pleasure in the realization of
an object. This, then, must be presupposed as a condition of the
possibility of determination of the will. But it is impossible to know
a priori of any idea of an object whether it will be connected with
pleasure or pain, or be indifferent. In such cases, therefore, the
determining principle of the choice must be empirical and,
therefore, also the practical material principle which presupposes
it as a condition.

In the second place, since susceptibility to a pleasure or pain
can be known only empirically and cannot hold in the same degree for
all rational beings, a principle which is based on this subjective
condition may serve indeed as a maxim for the subject which
possesses this susceptibility, but not as a law even to him (because
it is wanting in objective necessity, which must be recognized a
priori); it follows, therefore, that such a principle can never
furnish a practical law.



{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 20}

III. THEOREM II.



All material practical principles as such are of one and the same
kind and come under the general principle of self-love or private
happiness.

Pleasure arising from the idea of the idea of the existence of a
thing, in so far as it is to determine the desire of this thing, is
founded on the susceptibility of the subject, since it depends on
the presence of an object; hence it belongs to sense (feeling), and
not to understanding, which expresses a relation of the idea to an
object according to concepts, not to the subject according to
feelings. It is, then, practical only in so far as the faculty of
desire is determined by the sensation of agreeableness which the
subject expects from the actual existence of the object. Now, a
rational being's consciousness of the pleasantness of life
uninterruptedly accompanying his whole existence is happiness; and the
principle which makes this the supreme ground of determination of
the will is the principle of self-love. All material principles, then,
which place the determining ground of the will in the pleasure or pain
to be received from the existence of any object are all of the same
kind, inasmuch as they all belong to the principle of self-love or
private happiness.



{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 25}

COROLLARY.



All material practical rules place the determining principle of
the will in the lower desires; and if there were no purely formal laws
of the will adequate to determine it, then we could not admit any
higher desire at all.



REMARK I.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 30}



It is surprising that men, otherwise acute, can think it possible to
distinguish between higher and lower desires, according as the ideas
which are connected with the feeling of pleasure have their origin
in the senses or in the understanding; for when we inquire what are
the determining grounds of desire, and place them in some expected
pleasantness, it is of no consequence whence the idea of this pleasing
object is derived, but only how much it pleases. Whether an idea has
its seat and source in the understanding or not, if it can only
determine the choice by presupposing a feeling of pleasure in the
subject, it follows that its capability of determining the choice
depends altogether on the nature of the inner sense, namely, that this
can be agreeably affected by it. However dissimilar ideas of objects
may be, though they be ideas of the understanding, or even of the
reason in contrast to ideas of sense, yet the feeling of pleasure,
by means of which they constitute the determining principle of the
will (the expected satisfaction which impels the activity to the
production of the object), is of one and the same kind, not only
inasmuch as it can only be known empirically, but also inasmuch as
it affects one and the same vital force which manifests itself in
the faculty of desire, and in this respect can only differ in degree
from every other ground of determination. Otherwise, how could we
compare in respect of magnitude two principles of determination, the
ideas of which depend upon different faculties, so as to prefer that
which affects the faculty of desire in the highest degree. The same
man may return unread an instructive book which he cannot again
obtain, in order not to miss a hunt; he may depart in the midst of a
fine speech, in order not to be late for dinner; he may leave a
rational conversation, such as he otherwise values highly, to take his
place at the gaming-table; he may even repulse a poor man whom he at
other times takes pleasure in benefiting, because he has only just
enough money in his pocket to pay for his admission to the theatre. If
the determination of his will rests on the feeling of the
agreeableness or disagreeableness that he expects from any cause, it
is all the same to him by what sort of ideas he will be affected.
The only thing that concerns him, in order to decide his choice, is,
how great, how long continued, how easily obtained, and how often
repeated, this agreeableness is. just as to the man who wants money to
spend, it is all the same whether the gold was dug out of the mountain
or washed out of the sand, provided it is everywhere accepted at the
same value; so the man who cares only for the enjoyment of life does
not ask whether the ideas are of the understanding or the senses,
but only how much and how great pleasure they will give for the
longest time. It is only those that would gladly deny to pure reason
the power of determining the will, without the presupposition of any
feeling, who could deviate so far from their own exposition as to
describe as quite heterogeneous what they have themselves previously
brought under one and the same principle. Thus, for example, it is
observed that we can find pleasure in the mere exercise of power, in
the consciousness of our strength of mind in overcoming obstacles
which are opposed to our designs, in the culture of our mental
talents, etc.; and we justly call these more refined pleasures and
enjoyments, because they are more in our power than others; they do
not wear out, but rather increase the capacity for further enjoyment
of them, and while they delight they at the same time cultivate. But
to say on this account that they determine the will in a different way
and not through sense, whereas the possibility of the pleasure
presupposes a feeling for it implanted in us, which is the first
condition of this satisfaction; this is just as when ignorant
persons that like to dabble in metaphysics imagine matter so subtle,
so supersubtle that they almost make themselves giddy with it, and
then think that in this way they have conceived it as a spiritual
and yet extended being. If with Epicurus we make virtue determine
the will only by means of the pleasure it promises, we cannot
afterwards blame him for holding that this pleasure is of the same
kind as those of the coarsest senses. For we have no reason whatever
to charge him with holding that the ideas by which this feeling is
excited in us belong merely to the bodily senses. As far as can be
conjectured, he sought the source of many of them in the use of the
higher cognitive faculty, but this did not prevent him, and could
not prevent him, from holding on the principle above stated, that
the pleasure itself which those intellectual ideas give us, and by
which alone they can determine the will, is just of the same kind.
Consistency is the highest obligation of a philosopher, and yet the
most rarely found. The ancient Greek schools give us more examples
of it than we find in our syncretistic age, in which a certain shallow
and dishonest system of compromise of contradictory principles is
devised, because it commends itself better to a public which is
content to know something of everything and nothing thoroughly, so
as to please every party.

The principle of private happiness, however much understanding and
reason may be used in it, cannot contain any other determining
principles for the will than those which belong to the lower
desires; and either there are no [higher] desires at all, or pure
reason must of itself alone be practical; that is, it must be able
to determine the will by the mere form of the practical rule without
supposing any feeling, and consequently without any idea of the
pleasant or unpleasant, which is the matter of the desire, and which
is always an empirical condition of the principles. Then only, when
reason of itself determines the will (not as the servant of the
inclination), it is really a higher desire to which that which is
pathologically determined is subordinate, and is really, and even
specifically, distinct from the latter, so that even the slightest
admixture of the motives of the latter impairs its strength and
superiority; just as in a mathematical demonstration the least
empirical condition would degrade and destroy its force and value.
Reason, with its practical law, determines the will immediately, not
by means of an intervening feeling of pleasure or pain, not even of
pleasure in the law itself, and it is only because it can, as pure
reason, be practical, that it is possible for it to be legislative.



REMARK II.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 35}



To be happy is necessarily the wish of every finite rational
being, and this, therefore, is inevitably a determining principle of
its faculty of desire. For we are not in possession originally of
satisfaction with our whole existence- a bliss which would imply a
consciousness of our own independent self-sufficiency this is a
problem imposed upon us by our own finite nature, because we have
wants and these wants regard the matter of our desires, that is,
something that is relative to a subjective feeling of pleasure or
pain, which determines what we need in order to be satisfied with
our condition. But just because this material principle of
determination can only be empirically known by the subject, it is
impossible to regard this problem as a law; for a law being
objective must contain the very same principle of determination of the
will in all cases and for all rational beings. For, although the
notion of happiness is in every case the foundation of practical
relation of the objects to the desires, yet it is only a general
name for the subjective determining principles, and determines nothing
specifically; whereas this is what alone we are concerned with in this
practical problem, which cannot be solved at all without such specific
determination. For it is every man's own special feeling of pleasure
and pain that decides in what he is to place his happiness, and even
in the same subject this will vary with the difference of his wants
according as this feeling changes, and thus a law which is
subjectively necessary (as a law of nature) is objectively a very
contingent practical principle, which can and must be very different
in different subjects and therefore can never furnish a law; since, in
the desire for happiness it is not the form (of conformity to law)
that is decisive, but simply the matter, namely, whether I am to
expect pleasure in following the law, and how much. Principles of
self-love may, indeed, contain universal precepts of skill (how to
find means to accomplish one's purpose), but in that case they are
merely theoretical principles; * as, for example, how he who would
like to eat bread should contrive a mill; but practical precepts
founded on them can never be universal, for the determining principle
of the desire is based on the feeling pleasure and pain, which can
never be supposed to be universally directed to the same objects.



* Propositions which in mathematics or physics are called practical
ought properly to be called technical. For they have nothing to do
with the determination of the will; they only point out how a certain
effect is to be produced and are, therefore, just as theoretical as
any propositions which express the connection of a cause with an
effect. Now whoever chooses the effect must also choose the cause.



{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 40}

Even supposing, however, that all finite rational beings were
thoroughly agreed as to what were the objects of their feelings of
pleasure and pain, and also as to the means which they must employ
to attain the one and avoid the other; still, they could by no means
set up the principle of self-love as a practical law, for this
unanimity itself would be only contingent. The principle of
determination would still be only subjectively valid and merely
empirical, and would not possess the necessity which is conceived in
every law, namely, an objective necessity arising from a priori
grounds; unless, indeed, we hold this necessity to be not at all
practical, but merely physical, viz., that our action is as inevitably
determined by our inclination, as yawning when we see others yawn.
It would be better to maintain that there are no practical laws at
all, but only counsels for the service of our desires, than to raise
merely subjective principles to the rank of practical laws, which have
objective necessity, and not merely subjective, and which must be
known by reason a priori, not by experience (however empirically
universal this may be). Even the rules of corresponding phenomena
are only called laws of nature (e.g., the mechanical laws), when we
either know them really a priori, or (as in the case of chemical laws)
suppose that they would be known a priori from objective grounds if
our insight reached further. But in the case of merely subjective
practical principles, it is expressly made a condition that they rest,
not on objective, but on subjective conditions of choice, and hence
that they must always be represented as mere maxims, never as
practical laws. This second remark seems at first sight to be mere
verbal refinement, but it defines the terms of the most important
distinction which can come into consideration in practical
investigations.