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Heteronomy of the Will as the Source of all spurious Principles of
Morality

If the will seeks the law which is to determine it anywhere else
than in the fitness of its maxims to be universal laws of its own
dictation, consequently if it goes out of itself and seeks this law
in the character of any of its objects, there always results
HETERONOMY. The will in that case does not give itself the law, but
it is given by the object through its relation to the will. This
relation whether it rests on inclination or on conceptions of reason
only admits of hypothetical imperatives: I ought to do something
BECAUSE _I_ WISH FOR SOMETHING ELSE. On the contrary, the moral, and
therefore categorical, imperative says: I ought to do so and so,
even though I should not wish for anything else. Ex. gr., the former
says: I ought not to lie if I would retain my reputation; the latter
says: I ought not to lie although it should not bring me the least
discredit. The latter therefore must so far abstract from all
objects that they shall have no INFLUENCE on the will, in order that
practical reason (will) may not be restricted to administering an
interest not belonging to it, but may simply show its own commanding
authority as the supreme legislation. Thus, ex. gr., I ought to
endeavour to promote the happiness of others, not as if its
realization involved any concern of mine (whether by immediate
inclination or by any satisfaction indirectly gained through
reason), but simply because a maxim which excludes it cannot be
comprehended as a universal law [Footnote: I read allgemeines
instead of allgemeinem.] in one and the same volition.

Classification of all Principles of Morality which can be founded on
the Conception of Heteronomy.

Here as elsewhere human reason in its pure use, so long as it was
not critically examined, has first tried all possible wrong ways
before it succeeded in finding the one true way.

All principles which can be taken from this point of view are either
EMPIRICAL or RATIONAL. The FORMER, drawn from the principle of
HAPPINESS, are built on physical or moral feelings; the LATTER,
drawn from the principle of PERFECTION, are built either on the
rational conception of perfection as a possible effect, or on that
of an independent perfection (the will of God) as the determining
cause of our will.

EMPIRICAL PRINCIPLES are wholly incapable of serving as a foundation
for moral laws. For the universality with which these should hold
for all rational beings without distinction, the unconditional
practical necessity which is thereby imposed on them, is lost when
their foundation is taken from the PARTICULAR CONSTITUTION OF HUMAN
NATURE, or the accidental circumstances in which it is placed. The
principle of PRIVATE HAPPINESS, however, is the most objectionable,
not merely because it is false, and experience contradicts the
supposition that prosperity is always proportioned to good conduct,
nor yet merely because it contributes nothing to the establishment
of morality--since it is quite a different thing to make a
prosperous man and a good man, or to make one prudent and sharp-
sighted for his own interests, and to make him virtuous--but because
the springs it provides for morality are such as rather undermine it
and destroy its sublimity, since they put the motives to virtue and
to vice in the same class, and only teach us to make a better
calculation, the specific difference between virtue and vice being
entirely extinguished. On the other hand, as to moral feeling, this
supposed special sense [Footnote: I class the principle of moral
feeling under that of happiness, because every empirical interest
promises to contribute to our well-being by the agreeableness that a
thing affords, whether it be immediately and without a view to
profit, or whether profit be regarded. We must likewise, with
Hutcheson, class the principle of sympathy with the happiness of
others under his assumed moral sense.] the appeal to it is indeed
superficial when those who cannot THINK believe that FEELING will
help them out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides,
feelings which naturally differ infinitely in degree cannot furnish
a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has anyone a right to form
judgments for others by his own feelings: nevertheless this moral
feeling is nearer to morality and its dignity in this respect, that
it pays virtue the honour of ascribing to her IMMEDIATELY the
satisfaction and esteem we have for her, and does not, as it were,
tell her to her face that we are not attached to her by her beauty
but by profit.

Amongst the RATIONAL principles of morality, the ontological
conception of PERFECTION, notwithstanding its defects, is better
than the theological conception which derives morality from a Divine
absolutely perfect will. The former is, no doubt, empty and
indefinite, and consequently useless for finding in the boundless
field of possible reality the greatest amount suitable for us;
moreover, in attempting to distinguish specifically the reality of
which we are now speaking from every other, it inevitably tends to
turn in a circle, and cannot avoid tacitly presupposing the morality
which it is to explain; it is nevertheless preferable to the
theological view, first, because we have no intuition of the Divine
perfection, and can only deduce it from our own conceptions, the
most important of which is that of morality, and our explanation
would thus be involved in a gross circle; and, in the next place, if
we avoid this, the only notion of the Divine will remaining to us is
a conception made up of the attributes of desire of glory and
dominion, combined with the awful conceptions of might and
vengeance, and any system of morals erected on this foundation would
be directly opposed to morality.

However, if I had to choose between the notion of the moral sense
and that of perfection in general (two systems which at least do not
weaken morality, although they are totally incapable of serving as
its foundation), then I should decide for the latter, because it at
least withdraws the decision of the question from the sensibility
and brings it to the court of pure reason; and although even here it
decides nothing, it at all events preserves the indefinite idea (of
a will good in itself) free from corruption, until it shall be more
precisely defined.

For the rest I think I may be excused here from a detailed
refutation of all these doctrines; that would only be superfluous
labour, since it is so easy, and is probably so well seen even by
those whose office requires them to decide for one of these theories
(because their hearers would not tolerate suspension of judgment).
But what interests us more here is to know that the prime foundation
of morality laid down by all these principles is nothing but
heteronomy of the will, and for this reason they must necessarily
miss their aim.

In every case where an object of the will has to be supposed in
order that the rule may be prescribed which is to determine the
will, there the rule is simply heteronomy; the imperative is
conditional, namely, IF or BECAUSE one wishes for this object, one
should act so and so: hence it can never command morally, that is
categorically. Whether the object determines the will by means of
inclination, as in the principle of private happiness, or by means
of reason directed to objects of our possible volition generally, as
in the principle of perfection, in either case the will never
determines itself IMMEDIATELY by the conception of the action, but
only by the influence which the foreseen effect of the action has on
the will; _I_ OUGHT TO DO SOMETHING, ON THIS ACCOUNT, BECAUSE _I_
WISH FOR SOMETHING ELSE; and here there must be yet another law
assumed in me as its subject, by which I necessarily will this other
thing, and this law again requires an imperative to restrict this
maxim. For the influence which the conception of an object within
the reach of our faculties can exercise on the will of the subject
in consequence of its natural properties, depends on the nature of
the subject, either the sensibility (inclination and taste), or the
understanding and reason, the employment of which is by the peculiar
constitution of their nature attended with satisfaction. It follows
that the law would be, properly speaking, given by nature, and as
such, it must be known and proved by experience, and would
consequently be contingent, and therefore incapable of being an
apodictic practical rule, such as the moral rule must be. Not only
so, but it is INEVITABLY ONLY HETERONOMY; the will does not give
itself the law, but it is given by a foreign impulse by means of a
particular natural constitution of the subject adapted to receive
it. An absolutely good will, then, the principle of which must be a
categorical imperative, will be indeterminate as regards all
objects, and will contain merely the FORM OF VOLITION generally, and
that as autonomy, that is to say, the capability of the maxims of
every good will to make themselves a universal law, is itself the
only law which the will of every rational being imposes on itself,
without needing to assume any spring or interest as a foundation.

HOW SUCH A SYNTHETICAL PRACTICAL a priori PROPOSITION IS POSSIBLE
and why it is necessary, is a problem whose solution does not lie
within the bounds of the metaphysic of morals; and we have not here
affirmed its truth, much less professed to have a proof of it in our
power. We simply showed by the development of the universally
received notion of morality that an autonomy of the will is
inevitably connected with it, or rather is its foundation. Whoever
then holds morality to be anything real, and not a chimerical idea
without any truth, must likewise admit the principle of it that is
here assigned. This section then, like the first, was merely
analytical. Now to prove that morality is no creation of the brain,
which it cannot be if the categorical imperative and with it the
autonomy of the will is true, and as an a priori principle
absolutely necessary, this supposes the POSSIBILITY OF A SYNTHETIC
USE OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON, which however we cannot venture on
without first giving a critical examination of this faculty of
reason. In the concluding section we shall give the principle
outlines of this critical examination as far as is sufficient for
our purpose.

THIRD SECTION

TRANSITION FROM THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS TO THE CRITIQUE OF PURE
PRACTICAL REASOH

The Concept of Freedom is the Key that explains the Autonomy of the
Will

The WILL is a kind of causality belonging to living beings in so far
as they are rational, and FREEDOM would be this property of such
causality that it can be efficient, independently on foreign causes
DETERMINING it; just as PHYSICAL NECESSITY is the property that the
causality of all irrational beings has of being determined to
activity by the influence of foreign causes.

The preceding definition of freedom is NEGATIVE, and therefore
unfruitful for the discovery of its essence; but it leads to a
POSITIVE conception which is so much the more full and fruitful
Since the conception of causality involves that of laws, according
to which, by something that we call cause, something else, namely,
the effect, must be produced [laid down]; [Footnote: (Gesetzt.-There
is in the original a play on the etymology of Gesetz, which does not
admit of reproduction in English. It must be confessed that without
it the statement is not self-evident.)] hence, although freedom is
not a property of the will depending on physical laws, yet it is not
for that reason lawless; on the contrary it must be a causality
acting according to immutable laws, but of a peculiar kind;
otherwise a free will would be an absurdity. Physical necessity is a
heteronomy of the efficient causes, for every effect is possible
only according to this law, that something else determines the
efficient cause to exert its causality. What else then can freedom
of the will be but autonomy, that is the property of the will to be
a law to itself? But the proposition: The will is in every action a
law to itself, only expresses the principle, to act on no other
maxim than that which can also have as an object itself as a
universal law. Now this is precisely the formula of the categorical
imperative and is the principle of morality, so that a free will and
a will subject to moral laws are one and the same.

On the hypothesis then of freedom of the will, morality together
with its principle follows from it by mere analysis of the
conception. However the latter is still a synthetic proposition;
viz., an absolutely good will is that whose maxim can always include
itself regarded as a universal law; for this property of its maxim
can never be discovered by analysing the conception of an absolutely
good will. Now such synthetic propositions are only possible in this
way: that the two cognitions are connected together by their union
with a third in which they are both to be found. The POSITIVE
concept of freedom furnishes this third cognition, which cannot, as
with physical causes, be the nature of the sensible world (in the
concept of which we find conjoined the concept of something in
relation as cause to SOMETHING ELSE as effect). We cannot now at
once show what this third is to which freedom points us, and of
which we have an idea a priori, nor can we make intelligible how the
concept of freedom is shown to be legitimate from principles of pure
practical reason, and with it the possibility of a categorical
imperative; but some further preparation is required.

Freedom must be presupposed as a Property of the Will of all
Rational Beings

It is not enough to predicate freedom of our own will, from whatever
reason, if we have not sufficient grounds for predicating the same
of all rational beings. For as morality serves as a law for us only
because we are RATIONAL BEINGS, it must also hold for all rational
beings; and as it must be deduced simply from the property of
freedom, it must be shown that freedom also is a property of all
rational beings. It is not enough then to prove it from certain
supposed experiences of human nature (which indeed is quite
impossible, and it can only be shown a priori), but we must show
that it belongs to the activity of all rational beings endowed with
a will. Now I say every being that cannot act except UNDER THE IDEA
OF FREEDOM is just for that reason in a practical point of view
really free, that is to say, all laws which are inseparably
connected with freedom have the same force for him as if his will
had been shown to be free in itself by a proof theoretically
conclusive. [Footnote: I adopt this method of assuming freedom
merely AS AN IDEA which rational beings suppose in their actions, in
order to avoid the necessity of proving it in its theoretical aspect
also. The former is sufficient for my purpose; for even though the
speculative proof should not be made out, yet a being that cannot
act except with the idea of freedom is bound by the same laws that
would oblige a being who was actually free. Thus we can escape here
from the onus which presses on the theory. (Compare Butler's
treatment of the question of liberty in his "Analogy," part I., ch.
vi.)] Now I affirm that we must attribute to every rational being
which has a will that it has also the idea of freedom and acts
entirely under this idea. For in such a being we conceive a reason
that is practical, that is, has causality in reference to its
objects. Now we cannot possibly conceive a reason consciously
receiving a bias from any other quarter with respect to its
judgments, for then the subject would ascribe the determination of
its judgment not to its own reason, but to an impulse. It must
regard itself as the author of its principles independent on foreign
influences. Consequently as practical reason or as the will of a
rational being it must regard itself as free, that is to say, the
will of such a being cannot be a will of its own except under the
idea of freedom. This idea must therefore in a practical point of
view be ascribed to every rational being.

Of the Interest attaching to the Ideas of Morality

We have finally reduced the definite conception of morality to the
idea of freedom. This latter, however, we could not prove to be
actually a property of ourselves or of human nature; only we saw
that it must be presupposed if we would conceive a being as rational
and conscious of its causality in respect of its actions, i. e., as
endowed with a will; and so we find that on just the same grounds we
must ascribe to every being endowed with reason and will this
attribute of determining itself to action under the idea of its
freedom.

Now it resulted also from the presupposition of this idea that we
became aware of a law that the subjective principles of action,
i.e., maxims, must always be so assumed that they can also hold as
objective, that is, universal principles, and so serve as universal
laws of our own dictation. But why then should I subject myself to
this principle and that simply as a rational being, thus also
subjecting to it all other beings endowed with reason? I will allow
that no interest urges me to this, for that would not give a
categorical imperative, but I must take an interest in it and
discern how this comes to pass; for this "I ought" is properly an "I
would," valid for every rational being, provided only that reason
determined his actions without any hindrance. But for beings that
are in addition affected as we are by springs of a different kind,
namely, sensibility, and in whose case that is not always done which
reason alone would do, for these that necessity is expressed only as
an "ought," and the subjective necessity is different from the
objective.

It seems then as if the moral law, that is, the principle of
autonomy of the will, were properly speaking only presupposed in the
idea of freedom, and as if we could not prove its reality and
objective necessity independently. In that case we should still have
gained something considerable by at least determining the true
principle more exactly than had previously been done; but as regards
its validity and the practical necessity of subjecting oneself to
it, we should not have advanced a step. For if we were asked why the
universal validity of our maxim as a law must be the condition
restricting our actions, and on what we ground the worth which we
assign to this manner of acting--a worth so great that there cannot
be any higher interest; and if we were asked further how it happens
that it is by this alone a man believes he feels his own personal
worth, in comparison with which that of an agreeable or disagreeable
condition is to be regarded as nothing, to these questions we could
give no satisfactory answer.

We find indeed sometimes that we can take an interest [Footnote:
"Interest" means a spring of the will, in so far as this spring is
presented by Reason. See note, p. 391.] in a personal quality which
does not involve any interest of external condition, provided this
quality makes us capable of participating in the condition in case
reason were to effect the allotment; that is to say, the mere being
worthy of happiness can interest of itself even without the motive
of participating in this happiness. This judgment, however, is in
fact only the effect of the importance of the moral law which we
before presupposed (when by the idea of freedom we detach ourselves
from every empirical interest); but that we ought to detach
ourselves from these interests, i. e., to consider ourselves as free
in action and yet as subject to certain laws, so as to find a worth
simply in our own person whiph can compensate us for the loss of
everything that give worth to our condition; this we are not yet
able to discern in this way, nor do we see how it is possible so to
act--in other words, whence the moral law derives its obligation.

It must be freely admitted that there is a sort of circle here from
which it seems impossible to escape. In the order of efficient
causes we assume ourselves free, in order that in the order of ends
we may conceive ourselves as subject to moral laws: and we
afterwards conceive ourselves as subject to these laws, bjecause we
have attributed to ourselves freedom of will: for freedom and self-
legislation of will are both autonomy, and therefore are reciprocal
conceptions, and for this very reason one must not be used to
explain the other or give the reason of it, but at most only for
logical purposes to reduce apparently different notions of the same
object to one single concept (as we reduce different fractions of
the same value to the lowest terms).

One resource retrains to us, namely, to inquire whether we do not
occupy different points of view when by means of freedom we think
ourselves as causes efficient a priori, and when we form our
conception of ourselves from our actions as effects which we see
before our eyes.

It is a remark which needs no subtle reflection to make, but which
we may assume that even the commonest understanding can make,
although it be after its fashion by an obscure discernment of
judgment which it calls feeling, that all the "ideas" [Footnote: The
common understanding being here spoken of, I use the word "idea" in
its popular sense.] that comes to us involuntarily (as those of the
senses) do not enable us to know objects otherwise than as they
affect us; so that what they may be in themselves remains unknown to
us, and consequently that as regards "ideas" of this kind even with
the closest attention and clearness that the understanding can apply
to them, we can by them only attain to the knowledge of appearances,
never to that of things in themselves. As soon as this distinction
has once been made (perhaps merely in consequence of the difference
observed between the ideas given us from without, and in which we
are passive, and those that we produce simply from ourselves, and in
which we show our own activity), then it follows of itself that we
must admit and assume behind the appearance something else that is
not an appearance, namely, the things in themselves; although we
must admit that as they can never be known to us except as they
affect us, we can come no nearer to them, nor can we ever know what
they are in themselves. This must furnish a distinction, however
crude, between a world of sense and the world of understanding, of
which the former may be different according to the difference of the
sensuous impressions in--various observers, while the second which
is its basis always remains the same. Even as to himself, a man
cannot pretend to know what he is in himself from the knowledge he
has by internal sensation. For as he does not as it were create
himself, and does not come by the conception of himself a priori but
empirically, it naturally follows that he can obtain his knowledge
even of himself only by the inner sense, and consequently only
through the appearances of his nature and the way in which his
consciousness is affected. At the same time beyond these
characteristics of his own subject, made up of mere appearances, he
must necessarily suppose something else as their basis, namely, his
ego, whatever its characteristics in itself may be. Thus in respect
to mere perception and receptivity of sensations he must reckon
himself as belonging to the world of sense, but in respect of
whatever there may be of pure activity in him (that which reaches
consciousness immediately and not through affecting the senses) he
must reckon himself as belonging to the intellectual world, of
which, however, he has no further knowledge. To such a conclusion
the reflecting man must come with respect ito all the things which
can be presented to him: it is probably to be met with even in
persons of the commonest understanding, who, as is well known, are
very much inclined to suppose behind the objects of the senses
something else invisible and acting of itself. They spoil it,
however, by presently sensualizing this invisible again; that is to
say, wanting to make it an object of intuition, so that they do not
become a whit the wiser.

Now man really finds in himself a faculty by which he distinguishes
himself from everything else, even from himself as affected by
objects, and that is Reason. This being pure spontaneity is even
elevated above the understanding. For although the latter is a
spontaneity and does not, like sense, merely contain intuitions that
arise when we are affected by things (and are therefore passive),
yet it cannot produce from its activity any other conceptions than
those which merely serve to bring the intuitions of sense under
rulesf and thereby to unite them in one consciousness, and without
this use of the sensibility it could not think at all; whereas, on
the contrary, Reason shows so pure a spontaneity in the case of what
I call Ideas [Ideal Conceptions] that it thereby far transcends
everything that the sensibility can give it, and exhibits its most
important function in distinguishing the world of sense from that of
understanding, and thereby prescribing the limits of the
understanding itself.

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