The value of autonomy and the foundations of ethics

In his theoretical philosophy, Kant argued that we can be certain of the principles that arise
from the combination of the forms of our sensibility and understanding, as products of our
own intellectual autonomy; but he also argued that any attempt to see human reason as an
autonomous source of metaphysical insight valid beyond the bounds of human sensibility
leads to illusion. But in his practical philosophy, Kant argues that human reason is an
autonomous source of principles of conduct, immune from the blandishments of sensual
inclination in both its determinations of value and its decisions to act, and indeed that human
autonomy is the highest value and the limiting condition of all other values.

Traditionally, Kant has been seen as an ethical formalist, according to whom all judgments on
the values of ends must be subordinated to the obligatory universality of a moral law derived
from the very concept of rationality itself. This interpretation has drawn support from Kant's
own characterization of his 'paradoxical' method in the Critique of Practical Reason, where
he holds that the moral law must be derived prior to any determination of good or evil, rather
than vice versa (5: 62-3). But this passage does not do justice to the larger argument of Kant's
practical philosophy, which is that rationality itself is so valuable precisely because it is the
means to freedom or autonomy. Kant expressed this in his classroom lectures on ethics, when
he said that 'the inherent value of the world, the summum bonum, is freedom in accordance
with a will which is not necessitated to action' (27: 1482), and even more clearly in lectures
on natural right given in the autumn of 1784, the very time he was writing the Groundwork of
the Metaphysics of Morals, where he said that 'If only rational beings can be ends in
themselves, that is not because they have reason, but because they have freedom. Reason is
merely a means' (27: 1321). Kant makes the same point in the Groundwork when he says that
the incomparable dignity of human beings derives from the fact that they are 'free with regard
to all laws of nature, obeying only those laws which' they make themselves (4: 435 ).

The strategy of the Groundwork is by no means obvious, and the real character of Kant's
view emerges only gradually. In Section I, Kant tries to derive the fundamental principle of
morality from an analysis of 'ordinary rational knowledge of morality.' The key steps in his
analysis are: virtue lies in the good will of an agent rather than any natural inclination or any
particular end to be achieved; good will is manifested in the performance of an action for the
sake of fulfilling duty rather than for any other end; and what duty requires is the
performance of an action not for the sake of its consequences but because of its conformity to
law as such; thus the maxim, or subjective principle, of virtuous action can only be that 'I
ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a
universal law' (4: 402). In Section II, Kant apparently tries to reach the same conclusion from
more philosophical considerations: by arguing on the one hand that a moral or practical law
must be a categorical rather than hypothetical imperative, that is, one commanding
unconditionally rather than depending upon the adoption of some antecedent and optional
end, and on the other hand that happiness is too indeterminate an end to give rise to such an
imperative, Kant concludes that a categorical imperative can contain 'only the necessity that
our maxim should conform to this law', thus that 'there remains nothing to which the maxim
has to conform except the universality of a law as such' (4: 421 ). This version of the
categorical imperative is known as the Formula of Universal Law.

Kant then furnishes further formulations of the categorical imperative, especially the Formula
of Humanity as an End in Itself - 'Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether
in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the
same time as an end' ( 4: 429), which at the very least requires the possibility of rational
consent to your action from any agent affected by it - and the formula of the kingdom of
ends, the requirement that any proposed course of action be compatible with 'a whole of all
ends in systematic conjunction (a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and
also of the personal ends which each may set before himself' (4: 433). The usual
interpretation is that these two formulations are supposed to follow from the Formula of
Universal Law. However, several factors suggest that Kant did not mean the derivation of
that formula from either common sense or 'popular moral philosophy' to be self-sufficient,
and it is only with the introduction of the notion that humanity is an end in itself because of
its potential for freedom, that the real 'ground of a possible categorical imperative' is
discovered (4: 428 ). If so, then this is Kant's theory: the ultimate source of value is human
freedom as an end in itself, manifested in interpersonal contexts in the possibility of freely
given consent to the actions of others; conformity to the requirement of universal law is the
way to ensure that this value is preserved and fostered; and the ideal outcome of the
observation of such a law would be a kingdom of ends as a system of freedom, in which all
agents freely pursue their freely chosen ends to the extent compatible with a like freedom for
all.

Kant’s Ethics

It is rare for a philosopher in any era to make a significant impact on any single topic in
philosophy. For a philosopher to impact as many different areas as Kant did is extraordinary.
His ethical theory has been as, if not more, influential than his work in epistemology and
metaphysics. Most of Kant’s work on ethics is presented in two works. The Foundations of
the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) is Kant’s “search for and establishment of the supreme
principle of morality.” In The Critique of Practical Reason (1787) Kant attempts to unify his
account of practical reason with his work in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant is the primary
proponent in history of what is called deontological ethics. Deontology is the study of duty.
On Kant’s view, the sole feature that gives an action moral worth is not the outcome that is
achieved by the action, but the motive that is behind the action. The categorical imperative is
Kant’s famous statement of this duty: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at
the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

a. Reason and Freedom

For Kant, as we have seen, the drive for total, systematic knowledge in reason can only be
fulfilled with assumptions that empirical observation cannot support. The metaphysical facts
about the ultimate nature of things in themselves must remain a mystery to us because of the
spatiotemporal constraints on sensibility. When we think about the nature of things in
themselves or the ultimate ground of the empirical world, Kant has argued that we are still
constrained to think through the categories, we cannot think otherwise, but we can have no
knowledge because sensation provides our concepts with no content. So, reason is put at odds
with itself because it is constrained by the limits of its transcendental structure, but it seeks to
have complete knowledge that would take it beyond those limits.

Freedom plays a central role in Kant’s ethics because the possibility of moral judgments
presupposes it. Freedom is an idea of reason that serves an indispensable practical function.
Without the assumption of freedom, reason cannot act. If we think of ourselves as completely
causally determined, and not as uncaused causes ourselves, then any attempt to conceive of a
rule that prescribes the means by which some end can be achieved is pointless. I cannot both
think of myself as entirely subject to causal law and as being able to act according to the
conception of a principle that gives guidance to my will. We cannot help but think of our
actions as the result of an uncaused cause if we are to act at all and employ reason to
accomplish ends and understand the world.

So reason has an unavoidable interest in thinking of itself as free. That is, theoretical reason
cannot demonstrate freedom, but practical reason must assume for the purpose of action.
Having the ability to make judgments and apply reason puts us outside that system of
causally necessitated events. “Reason creates for itself the idea of a spontaneity that can, on
its own, start to act–without, i.e., needing to be preceded by another cause by means of which
it is determined to action in turn, according to the law of causal connection,” Kant says. (A
533/B 561) In its intellectual domain, reason must think of itself as free.

It is dissatisfying that he cannot demonstrate freedom, nevertheless, it comes as no surprise

that we must think of ourselves as free. In a sense, Kant is agreeing with the common sense
view that how I choose to act makes a difference in how I actually act. Even if it were
possible to give a predictive empirical account of why I act as I do, say on the grounds of a
functionalist psychological theory, those considerations would mean nothing to me in my
deliberations. When I make a decision about what to do, about which car to buy, for instance,
the mechanism at work in my nervous system makes no difference to me. I still have to
peruse Consumer Reports, consider my options, reflect on my needs, and decide on the basis
of the application of general principles. My first person perspective is unavoidable, hence the
deliberative, intellectual process of choice is unavoidable.

b. The Duality of the Human Situation

The question of moral action is not an issue for two classes of beings, according to Kant. The
animal consciousness, the purely sensuous being, is entirely subject to causal determination.
It is part of the causal chains of the empirical world, but not an originator of causes the way
humans are. Hence, rightness or wrongness, as concepts that apply to situations one has
control over, do not apply. We do not morally fault the lion for killing the gazelle, or even for
killing its own young. The actions of a purely rational being, by contrast, are in perfect
accord with moral principles, Kant says. There is nothing in such a being’s nature to make it
falter. Its will always conforms with the dictates of reason. Humans are between the two
worlds. We are both sensible and intellectual, as was pointed out in the discussion of the first
Critique. We are neither wholly determined to act by natural impulse, nor are we free of non-
rational impulse. Hence we need rules of conduct. We need, and reason is compelled to
provide, a principle that declares how we ought to act when it is in our power to choose

Since we find ourselves in the situation of possessing reason, being able to act according to
our own conception of rules, there is a special burden on us. Other creatures are acted upon
by the world. But having the ability to choose the principle to guide our actions makes us
actors. We must exercise our will and our reason to act. Will is the capacity to act according
to the principles provided by reason. Reason assumes freedom and conceives of principles of
action in order to function.

Two problems face us however. First, we are not wholly rational beings, so we are liable to
succumb to our non-rational impulses. Second, even when we exercise our reason fully, we
often cannot know which action is the best. The fact that we can choose between alternate
courses of actions (we are not determined to act by instinct or reason) introduces the
possibility that there can be better or worse ways of achieving our ends and better or worse
ends, depending upon the criteria we adopt. The presence of two different kinds of object in
the world adds another dimension, a moral dimension, to our deliberations. Roughly
speaking, we can divide the world into beings with reason and will like ourselves and things
that lack those faculties. We can think of these classes of things as ends-in-themselves and
mere means-to-ends, respectively. Ends-in-themselves are autonomous beings with their own
agendas; failing to recognize their capacity to determine their own actions would be to thwart
their freedom and undermine reason itself. When we reflect on alternative courses of action,
means-to-ends, things like buildings, rocks, and trees, deserve no special status in our
deliberations about what goals we should have and what means we use to achieve them. The
class of ends-in-themselves, reasoning agents like ourselves, however, do have a special
status in our considerations about what goals we should have and the means we employ to
accomplish them. Moral actions, for Kant, are actions where reason leads, rather than
follows, and actions where we must take other beings that act according to their own
conception of the law, into account.

c. The Good Will

The will, Kant says, is the faculty of acting according to a conception of law. When we act,
whether or not we achieve what we intend with our actions is often beyond our control, so the
morality of our actions does not depend upon their outcome. What we can control, however,
is the will behind the action. That is, we can will to act according to one law rather than
another. The morality of an action, therefore, must be assessed in terms of the motivation
behind it. If two people, Smith and Jones, perform the same act, from the same conception of
the law, but events beyond Smith’s control prevent her from achieving her goal, Smith is not
less praiseworthy for not succeeding. We must consider them on equal moral ground in terms
of the will behind their actions.

The only thing that is good without qualification is the good will, Kant says. All other
candidates for an intrinsic good have problems, Kant argues. Courage, health, and wealth can
all be used for ill purposes, Kant argues, and therefore cannot be intrinsically good.
Happiness is not intrinsically good because even being worthy of happiness, Kant says,
requires that one possess a good will. The good will is the only unconditional good despite all
encroachments. Misfortune may render someone incapable of achieving her goals, for
instance, but the goodness of her will remains.

Goodness cannot arise from acting on impulse or natural inclination, even if impulse
coincides with duty. It can only arise from conceiving of one’s actions in a certain way. A
shopkeeper, Kant says, might do what is in accord with duty and not overcharge a child. Kant
argues, “it is not sufficient to do that which should be morally good that it conform to the
law; it must be done for the sake of the law.” (Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals,
Akademie pagination 390) There is a clear moral difference between the shopkeeper that does
it for his own advantage to keep from offending other customers and the shopkeeper who
does it from duty and the principle of honesty.(Ibid., 398) Likewise, in another of Kant’s
carefully studied examples, the kind act of the person who overcomes a natural lack of
sympathy for other people out of respect for duty has moral worth, whereas the same kind act
of the person who naturally takes pleasure in spreading joy does not. A person’s moral worth
cannot be dependent upon what nature endowed them with accidentally. The selfishly
motivated shopkeeper and the naturally kind person both act on equally subjective and
accidental grounds. What matters to morality is that the actor think about their actions in the
right manner.

We might be tempted to think that the motivation that makes an action good is having a
positive goal–to make people happy, or to provide some benefit. But that is not the right sort
of motive, Kant says. No outcome, should we achieve it, can be unconditionally good.
Fortune can be misused, what we thought would induce benefit might actually bring harm,
and happiness might be undeserved. Hoping to achieve some particular end, no matter how
beneficial it may seem, is not purely and unconditionally good. It is not the effect or even the
intended effect that bestows moral character on an action. All intended effects “could be
brought about through other causes and would not require the will of a rational being, while
the highest and unconditional good can be found only in such a will.” (Ibid., 401) It is the
possession of a rationally guided will that adds a moral dimension to one’s acts. So it is the
recognition and appreciation of duty itself that must drive our actions.

d. Duty

What is the duty that is to motivate our actions and to give them moral value? Kant
distinguishes two kinds of law produced by reason. Given some end we wish to achieve,
reason can provide a hypothetical imperative, or rule of action for achieving that end. A
hypothetical imperative says that if you wish to buy a new car, then you must determine what
sort of cars are available for purchase. Conceiving of a means to achieve some desired end is
by far the most common employment of reason. But Kant has shown that the acceptable
conception of the moral law cannot be merely hypothetical. Our actions cannot be moral on
the ground of some conditional purpose or goal. Morality requires an unconditional statement
of one’s duty.

And in fact, reason produces an absolute statement of moral action. The moral imperative is
unconditional; that is, its imperative force is not tempered by the conditional “if I want to
achieve some end, then do X.” It simply states, do X. Kant believes that reason dictates a
categorical imperative for moral action. He gives at least three formulations of the
Categorical Imperative.

1. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should
become a universal law.” (Ibid., 422)
2. “Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of
nature.” (Ibid)
3. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an
end and never as a means only.” (Ibid., 429)

What are Kant’s arguments for the Categorical Imperative? First, consider an example.
Consider the person who needs to borrow money and is considering making a false promise
to pay it back. The maxim that could be invoked is, “when I need of money, borrow it,
promising to repay it, even though I do not intend to.” But when we apply the universality
test to this maxim it becomes clear that if everyone were to act in this fashion, the institution
of promising itself would be undermined. The borrower makes a promise, willing that there
be no such thing as promises. Thus such an action fails the universality test.

The argument for the first formulation of the categorical imperative can be thought of this
way. We have seen that in order to be good, we must remove inclination and the
consideration of any particular goal from our motivation to act. The act cannot be good if it
arises from subjective impulse. Nor can it be good because it seeks after some particular goal
which might not attain the good we seek or could come about through happenstance. We
must abstract away from all hoped for effects. If we remove all subjectivity and particularity
from motivation we are only left with will to universality. The question “what rule
determines what I ought to do in this situation?” becomes “what rule ought to universally
guide action?” What we must do in any situation of moral choice is act according to a maxim
that we would will everyone to act according to.

The second version of the Categorical Imperative invokes Kant’s conception of nature and
draws on the first Critique. In the earlier discussion of nature, we saw that the mind
necessarily structures nature. And reason, in its seeking of ever higher grounds of
explanation, strives to achieve unified knowledge of nature. A guide for us in moral matters
is to think of what would not be possible to will universally. Maxims that fail the test of the
categorical imperative generate a contradiction. Laws of nature cannot be contradictory. So if
a maxim cannot be willed to be a law of nature, it is not moral.

The third version of the categorical imperative ties Kant’s whole moral theory together.
Insofar as they possess a rational will, people are set off in the natural order of things. They
are not merely subject to the forces that act upon them; they are not merely means to ends.
They are ends in themselves. All means to an end have a merely conditional worth because
they are valuable only for achieving something else. The possessor of a rational will,
however, is the only thing with unconditional worth. The possession of rationality puts all
beings on the same footing, “every other rational being thinks of his existence by means of
the same rational ground which holds also for myself; thus it is at the same time an objective
principle from which, as a supreme practical ground, it must be possible to derive all laws of
the will.” (Ibid., 429)

9. Kant’s Criticisms of Utilitarianism

Kant’s criticisms of utilitarianism have become famous enough to warrant some separate
discussion. Utilitarian moral theories evaluate the moral worth of action on the basis of
happiness that is produced by an action. Whatever produces the most happiness in the most
people is the moral course of action. Kant has an insightful objection to moral evaluations of
this sort. The essence of the objection is that utilitarian theories actually devalue the
individuals it is supposed to benefit. If we allow utilitarian calculations to motivate our
actions, we are allowing the valuation of one person’s welfare and interests in terms of what
good they can be used for. It would be possible, for instance, to justify sacrificing one
individual for the benefits of others if the utilitarian calculations promise more benefit. Doing
so would be the worst example of treating someone utterly as a means and not as an end in
themselves.

Another way to consider his objection is to note that utilitarian theories are driven by the
merely contingent inclination in humans for pleasure and happiness, not by the universal
moral law dictated by reason. To act in pursuit of happiness is arbitrary and subjective, and is
no more moral than acting on the basis of greed, or selfishness. All three emanate from
subjective, non-rational grounds. The danger of utilitarianism lies in its embracing of baser
instincts, while rejecting the indispensable role of reason and freedom in our actions.
"Critique of Practical Reason"

Kant, it has often been said, tore down in order to build up. What he took away in the first
"Critique" he gave back in the second. In the "Critique of Pure Reason" he showed that the
truths which have always been considered the most important in the whole range of human
knowledge have no foundation in metaphysical, that is, purely speculative, reasoning. In the
"Critique of Practical Reasoning" he aims at showing that these truths rest on a solid moral
basis, and are thus placed above all speculative contention and the clamour of metaphysical
dispute. He has overthrown the imposing edifice which Cartesian dogmatism had built on the
foundation "I think"; he now sets about the task of rebuilding the temple of truth on the
foundation "I ought." The moral law is supreme. In point of certainty, it is superior to any
deliverance of the purely speculative consciousness; I am more certain that "I ought" than I
am that "I am glad", "I am cold", etc. In point of insistence, it is superior to any consideration
of interest, pleasure or happiness; I can forego what is for my interest, I can set other
considerations above pleasure and happiness, but if my conscience tells me that "I ought" to
do something, nothing can gainsay the voice of conscience, though, of course, I am free to
obey or disobey. This, then, is the one unshakable foundation of all moral, spiritual, and
higher intellectual truth. The first peculiarity of the moral law is that it is universal and
necessary. When conscience declares that it is wrong to tell a lie, the voice is not merely
intended for here and now, not for "just this once", but for all time and for all space; it is valid
always and everywhere. This quality of universality and necessity shows at once that the
moral law has no foundation in pleasure, happiness, the perfection of self, or a so-called
moral sense. It is its own foundation. Its voice reaches conscience immediately, commands
unconditionally, and need give no reason for its behests. It is not, so to speak, a constitutional
monarch amenable toreason, judgment, or any other faculty. It exacts unconditional, and in a
sense unreasoned obedience. Hence the "hollow voice" of the moral law is called by Kant
"the categorical imperative". This celebrated phrase means merely that the moral law is a
command (imperative), not a form of advice or invitation to act or not to act; and it is an
unconditional (categorical) command, not a command in the hypothetical mood, such as "If
you wish to be a clergyman you must study theology." One should not, however, overlook
the peculiarly empty character of the categorical imperative. Only in its most universal
"hollow" utterances does it possess those qualities which render it unique in human
experience. But as soon as the contingent data, or contents of a specific moral precept, are
presented to it, it imposes its universality and necessity on them and lifts them to its own
level. The contents may have been good, but they could not have been absolutely good; for
nothing is absolutely good except good will--the acceptance, that is, of the moral law.

We know the moral law not by inference, but by immediate intuition. This intuition is, as it
were, the primum philosophicum. It takes the place of Descartes' primary intuition of his own
thought. From it all the important truths of philosophy are deduced, the freedom of the will,
the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. The freedom of the will follows from
the existence of the moral law, because the fact that "I ought" implies the fact that "I can." I
know that I ought to do a certain thing, and from this I infer that I can. In the order of things,
of course, freedom precedes obligation. In the order of knowledge, I infer freedom from the
fact of obligation. Similarly, the immortality of the soul is implied in the moral law. The
moral law demands complete fulfilment of itself in absolute human perfection. But the
highest perfection that man can attain in this life is only partial or incomplete perfection,
because, so long as the soul is united with the body, there is always in our nature a mixture of
the corporeal with the spiritual; the striving towards holiness is accompanied by an
inclination towards unholiness, and virtue implies a struggle. There must, therefore, be a life
beyond the grave in which this "endless progress", as Kant calls it, will be continued. Finally,
the moral law implies the existence of God. And that in two ways. The authoritative "voice"
of the law implies a lawgiver. Moreover, the nature of the moral law implies that there be
somewhere a good which is not only supreme, but complete, which embodies in its perfect
holiness all the conditions which the moral law implies. This supreme good is God.

Kant: The Moral Order

<MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207"
HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA
COORDS="0,0,10000,10000"
HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/philosophypages" ></MAP><img
src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240"
border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com"> Having mastered epistemology and
metaphysics, Kant believed that a rigorous application of the same methods of reasoning would yield
an equal success in dealing with the problems of moral philosophy. Thus, in the Kritik der practischen
Vernunft (Critique of Practical Reason) (1788), he proposed a "Table of the Categories of Freedom in
Relation to the Concepts of Good and Evil," using the familiar logical distinctions as the basis for a
catalog of synthetic a priori judgments that have bearing on the evaluation of human action, and
declared that only two things inspire genuine awe: "der bestirnte Himmel über mir und das
moralische Gesetz in mir" ("the starry sky above and the moral law within"). Kant used ordinary
moral notions as the foundation ffor a derivation of this moral law in his Grundlegung zur Metaphysik
der Sitten (Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals) (1785).

From Good Will to Universal Law

We begin with the concept of that which can be conceived to be good without qualification, a
good will. Other good features of human nature and the benefits of a good life, Kant pointed
out, have value only under appropriate conditions, since they may be used either for good or
for evil. But a good will is intrinsically good; its value is wholly self-contained and utterly
independent of its external relations. Since our practical reason is better suited to the
development and guidance of a good will than to the achievement of happiness, it follows
that the value of a good will does not depend even on the results it manages to produce as the
consequences of human action.

Kant's moral theory is, therefore, deontological: actions are morally right in virtue of their
motives, which must derive more from duty than from inclination. The clearest examples of
morally right action are precisely those in which an individual agent's determination to act in
accordance with duty overcomes her evident self-interest and obvious desire to do otherwise.
But in such a case, Kant argues, the moral value of the action can only reside in a formal
principle or "maxim," the general commitment to act in this way because it is one's duty. So
he concludes that "Duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for the law."

According to Kant, then, the ultimate principle of morality must be a moral law conceived so
abstractly that it is capable of guiding us to the right action in application to every possible
set of circumstances. So the only relevant feature of the moral law is its generality, the fact
that it has the formal property of universalizability, by virtue of which it can be applied at all
times to every moral agent. From this chain of reasoning about our ordinary moral concepts,
Kant derived as a preliminary statement of moral obligation the notion that right actions are
those that practical reason would will as universal law.

Imperatives for Action

More accurate comprehension of morality, of course, requires the introduction of a more

precise philosophical vocabulary. Although everything naturally acts in accordance with law,
Kant supposed, only rational beings do so consciously, in obedience to the objective
principles determined by practical reason. Of course, human agents also have subjective
impulses—desires and inclinations that may contradict the dictates of reason. So we
experience the claim of reason as an obligation, a command that we act in a particular way, or
an imperative. Such imperatives may occur in either of two distinct forms, hypothetical or
categorical.

A hypothetical imperative conditionally demands performance of an action for the sake of

some other end or purpose; it has the form "Do A in order to achieve X." The application of
hypothetical imperatives to ethical decisions is mildly troublesome: in such cases it is clear
that we are morally obliged to perform the action A only if we are sure both that X is a
legitimate goal and that doing A will in fact produce this desirable result. For a perfectly
rational being, all of this would be analytic, but given the general limitations of human
knowledge, the joint conditions may rarely be satisfied.

A categorical imperative, on the other hand, unconditionally demands performance of an

action for its own sake; it has the form "Do A." An absolute moral demand of this sort gives
rise to familiar difficulties: since it expresses moral obligation with the perfect necessity that
would directly bind any will uncluttered by subjective inclinations, the categorical imperative
must be known a priori; yet it cannot be an analytic judgment, since its content is not
contained in the concept of a rational agent as such. The supreme principle of morality must
be a synthetic a priori proposition. Leaving its justification for the third section of the
Grounding (and the Second Critique), Kant proceeded to a discussion of the content and
application of the categorical impetative.
The Categorical Imperative

Constrained only by the principle of universalizability, the practical reason of any rational
being understands the categorical imperative to be: "Act only according to that maxim
whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." That is, each
individual agent regards itself as determining, by its decision to act in a certain way, that
everyone (including itself) will always act according to the same general rule in the future.
This expression of the moral law, Kant maintained, provides a concrete, practical method for
evaluating particular human actions of several distinct varieties.

Consider, for example, the case (#2 in the text) of someone who contemplates relieving a
financial crisis by borrowing money from someone else, promising to repay it in the future
while in fact having no intention of doing so. (Notice that this is not the case of finding
yourself incapable of keeping a promise originally made in good faith, which would require a
different analysis.) The maxim of this action would be that it is permissible to borrow money
under false pretenses if you really need it. But as Kant pointed out, making this maxim into a
universal law would be clearly self-defeating. The entire practice of lending money on
promise presupposes at least the honest intention to repay; if this condition were universally
ignored, the (universally) false promises would never be effective as methods of borrowing.
Since the universalized maxim is contradictory in and of itself, no one could will it to be law,
and Kant concluded that we have a perfect duty (to which there can never be any exceptions
whatsoever) not to act in this manner.

On the other hand, consider the less obvious case (#4 in the text) of someone who lives
comfortably but contemplates refusing any assistance to people who are struggling under
great hardships. The maxim here would be that it is permissible never to help those who are
less well-off than ourselves. Although Kant conceded that no direct contradiction would
result from the universalization of such a rule of conduct, he argued that no one could
consistently will that it become the universal law, since even the most fortunate among us
rightly allow for the possibility that we may at some future time find ourselves in need of the
benevolence of others. Here we have only an imperfect duty not act so selfishly, since
particular instances may require exceptions to the rule when it conflicts either with another
imperfect duty (e.g., when I don't have enough money to help everyone in need) or a perfect
duty (e.g., if the only way to get more money would be under a false promise).

Kant also supposed that moral obligations arise even when other people are not involved.
Since it would be contradictory to universalize the maxim of taking one's own life if it
promises more misery than satisfaction (#1), he argued, we have a perfect duty to ourselves
not to commit suicide. And since no one would will a universalized maxim of neglecting to
develop the discipline required for fulfilling one's natural abilities (#3), we have an imperfect
duty to ourselves not to waste our talents.

These are only examples of what a detailed application of the moral law would entail, but
they illustrate the general drift of Kant's moral theory. In cases of each of the four sorts, he
held that there is a contradiction—either in the maxim itself or in the will—involved in any
attempt to make the rule under which we act into a universal law. The essence of immorality,
then, is to make an exception of myself by acting on maxims that I cannot willfully
universalize. It is always wrong to act in one way while wishing that everyone else would act
otherwise. (The perfect world for a thief would be one in which everyone else always
respected private property.) Thus, the purely formal expression of the categorical imperative
is shown to yield significant practical application to moral decisions.

Alternative Formulae for the Categorical Imperative

Although he held that there is only one categorical imperative of morality, Kant found it
helpful to express it in several ways. Some of the alternative statements can be regarded as
minor variations on his major themes, but two differ from the "formula of universal law"
sufficiently to warrant a brief independent discussion.

Kant offered the "formula of the end in itself" as: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end
and never simply as a means." This places more emphasis on the unique value of human life
as deserving of our ultimate moral respect and thus proposes a more personal view of
morality. In application to particular cases, of course, it yields the same results: violating a
perfect duty by making a false promise (or killing myself) would be to treat another person
(or myself) merely as a means for getting money (or avoiding pain), and violating an
imperfect duty by refusing to offer benevolence (or neglecting my talents) would be a failure
to treat another person (or myself) as an end in itself. Thus, the Kantian imperative agrees
with the Christian expression of "The Golden Rule" by demanding that we derive from our
own self-interest a generalized concern for all human beings.

Drawing everything together, Kant arrived at the "formula of autonomy," under which the
decision to act according to a maxim is actually regarded as having made it a universal law.
Here the concern with human dignity is combined with the principle of universalizability to
produce a conception of the moral law as self-legislated by each for all. As Kant puts it, A
rational being belongs to the kingdom of ends as a member when he legislates in it universal
laws while also being himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign, when as
legislator he is himslf subject to the will of no other. A rational being must always regard
himself as legislator in a kingdom of ends rendered possible by freedom of the will, whether
as member or as sovereign. In this final formulation, the similarity of Kant's moral theory
with his epistemology should be clear. Just as the understanding in each of us determines the
regulative principles of natural science that all must share, so the practical reason in each of
us determines the universal maxims of morality that all must obey.

Autonomy of the Will

In fact, this final formula for the categorical imperative brings us back to the original concept
of the will itself as that which is good without qualification. At this point in the argument,
Kant can provide a more technical statement of its intrinsic moral value by distinguishing
between autonomy and heteronomy of the will. A heteronomous will is one in obedience to
rules of action that have been legislated externally to it. Such a will is always submitting
itself to some other end, and the principles of its action will invariably be hypothetical
imperatives urging that it act in such a way as to receive pleasure, appease the moral sense, or
seek personal perfection. In any case, the moral obligations it proposes cannot be regarded as
completely binding upon any agent, since their maxim of action comes from outside it. An
autonomous will, on the other hand, is entirely self-legislating: The moral obligations by
which it is perfectly bound are those which it has imposed upon itself while simultaneously
regarding them as binding upon everyone else by virtue of their common possession of the
same rational faculties. All genuinely moral action, Kant supposed, flows from the freely
chosen dictates of an autonomous will. So even the possibility of morality presupposes that
human agents have free will, and the final section of the Grounding is devoted to Kant's
effort to prove that they do.

Human Freedom

As we might expect, Kant offered as proof of human freedom a transcendental argument

from the fact of moral agency to the truth of its presupposed condition of free will. This may
seem to be perfectly analogous to the use of similar arguments for synthetic a priori
judgments in the First Critique, but the procedure is more viciously circular here. Having
demonstrated the supreme principle of morality by reference to autonomy, Kant can hardly
now claim to ground free will upon the supposed fact of morality. That would be to exceed
the bounds of reason by employing an epistemological argument for metaphysical purposes.
Here's another way of looking at it: Each case of moral action may be said to embody its own
unique instance of the antinomy between freedom and causal determination. For in order to
do the right thing, it must at least be possible for my action to have some real effect in the
world, yet I must perform it in complete independence from any external influence. Morality
requires both freedom and causality in me, and of course Kant supposes that they are. I can
think of myself from two standpoints: I operate within the phenomenal realm by participating
fully in the causal regularities to which it is subject; but as a timeless thing in itself in the
noumenal realm I must be wholly free. The trick is to think of myself in both ways at once, as
sensibly determined but intelligibly free. Kant rightly confesses at the end of the Grounding
that serious contemplation of morality leads us to the very limits of human reason. Since
action in accordance with the moral law requires an autonomous will, we must suppose
ourselves to be free; since the correspondence of happiness with virtue cannot be left to mere
coincidence, we must suppose that there is a god who guarantees it; and since the moral
perfection demanded by the categorical imperative cannot be attained in this life, we must
suppose ourselves to live forever. Thus god, freedom, and immortality, which we have seen
to be metaphysical illusions that lie beyond the reach of pure reason, turn out to be the three
great postulates of practical reason. Although the truth about ourselves and god as noumenal
beings can never be determined with perfect certainty, on Kant's view, we can continue to
function as responsible moral agents only by acting as if it obtains. Things could hardly have
been otherwise: the lofty dignity of the moral law, like the ultimate nature of reality, is the
sort of thing we cannot know but are bound to believe.

Morality and Peace

Kant's interest in moral matters was not exclusively theoretical. In Die Metaphysik der Sitten
(Metaphysics of Morals) (1797) he worked out the practical application of the categorical
imperative in some detail, deriving a fairly comprehensive catalog of specific rules for the
governance of social and personal morality. What each of us must actually will as universal,
Kant supposed, is a very rigid system of narrowly prescribed conduct. In Zum ewigen Frieden
(On Perpetual Peace) (1795), Kant proposed a high-minded scheme for securing widespread
political stability and security. If statesmen would listen to philosophers, he argued, we could
easily achieve an international federation of independent republics, each of which reduces its
standing army, declines to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, and agrees to be
governed by the notion of universal hospitality.