IV.: preliminary notions belonging to the metaphysic of morals. (Philosophia practica universalis.)

The concept of Freedom is a pure concept of the reason, and on this account it is as regards theoretical philosophy transcendent, that is, a concept for which there is no corresponding example in any possible experience, which therefore forms no object of any theoretic knowledge possible to us, and is valid not as a constitutive, but simply as a regulative principle of pure speculative reason, and that a negative one; but in the practical exercise of reason it proves its reality by practical principles , which, being laws of a causality of pure reason, determine the elective will independently on all empirical conditions (sensible conditions generally), and prove the existence of a pure will in us in which the moral concepts and laws have their origin.

On this concept of freedom, which (in a practical aspect) is positive, are founded unconditional practical laws which are called moral, and these, in respect of us, whose elective will is sensibly affected, and therefore does not of itself correspond with the pure will, but often opposes it, are imperatives (commands or prohibitions), and, moreover, are categorical (unconditional) imperatives, by which they are distinguished from technical imperatives (precepts of art), which always give only conditional commands. By these imperatives certain actions are permitted or not permitted, that is, are morally possible or impossible; some, however, or their opposites, are morally necessary, that is, obligatory. Hence arises the notion of a duty, the obeying or transgressing of which is, indeed, connected with a pleasure or displeasure of a peculiar kind (that of a moral feeling), of which, however, we can take no account in the practical laws of reason, since they do not concern the foundation of the practical laws, but only the subjective effect in the mind when our elective will is determined by these; and they may be very different in different persons without adding to or taking from the validity or influence of these laws objectively, that is, in the judgment of the reason.

The following notions are common to both parts of the Metaphysic of Morals:—

Obligation is the necessity of a free action under a categorical imperative of reason. The Imperative is a practical rule by which an action in itself contingent is made necessary; it is distinguished from a practical law by this , that while the latter exhibits the necessity of the action, it takes no account of the consideration whether this already inheres by an internal necessity in the agent (say, a holy being), or whether, as in man, it is contingent; for where the former is the case there is no imperative. Accordingly, the imperative is a rule, the conception of which makes necessary an action that is subjectively contingent, and hence represents the subject as one who must be constrained (necessitated) to agreement with this rule. The categorical (unconditional) imperative is one that does not command indirectly through the idea of an end that can be attained by the action, but immediately, through the mere conception of this action itself (its form), thinks it as objectively necessary and makes it necessary.

No example of an imperative of this kind can be supplied by any other practical doctrine but that which prescribes obligation (the doctrine of morals). All other imperatives are technical and conditioned. The ground of the possibility of categorical imperatives lies in this, that they refer to no other property of the elective will (by which any purpose could be ascribed to it), but only to its freedom. An action is allowed (licitum) which is not contrary to obligation; and this freedom which is not limited by any opposed imperative is called right of action (facultas moralis) [Befugniss]. Hence it is obvious what is meant by disallowed (illicitum).

Duty is the action to which a person is bound. It is therefore the matter of obligation, and it may be one and the same duty (as to the action), although the obligation to it may be of different kinds.

The categorical imperative, since it expresses an obligation in respect of certain actions, is a moral practical law. But since obligation contains not only practical necessity (which law in general expresses), but also constraint, the imperative mentioned is either a law of command or of prohibition, according as the performance or omission is represented as duty. An action which is neither commanded nor forbidden is merely allowed, because in respect of it there is no law limiting freedom (right of action), and therefore also no duty. Such an action is called morally indifferent (indifferens, adiaphoron, res meræ facultatis). It may be asked: are there any such, and if there are, then in order that one may be free to do or forbear a thing as he pleases, must there be, besides the law of command (lex præceptiva, lex mandati) and the law of prohibition (lex prohibitiva, lex vetiti), also a law of permission (lex permissiva)? If this is the case, then the right of action would not be concerned with an indifferent action (adiaphoron); for if such an action is considered according to moral laws, it could not require any special law.

An action is called a deed, in so far as it comes under laws of obligation, and, consequently, in so far as the subject is regarded in it according to the freedom of his elective will, the agent is regarded as by such an act the author of the effect, and this, along with the action itself, may be imputed to him if he is previously acquainted with the law by virtue of which an obligation rests on him.

A Person is the subject whose actions are capable of imputation. Hence moral personality is nothing but the freedom of a rational being under moral laws (whereas psychological personality is merely the power of being conscious to oneself of the identity of one’s existence in different circumstances). Hence it follows that a person is subject to no other laws than those which he (either alone or jointly with others) gives to himself.

That which is not capable of any imputation is called a Thing. Every object of free elective will which is not itself possessed of freedom is, therefore, called a thing (res corporalis).

A deed is Right or Wrong in general (rectum aut minus rectum), according as it is consistent or inconsistent with duty (factum licitum aut illicitum), no matter what the content or the origin of the duty may be. A deed inconsistent with duty is called transgression (reatus).

An unintentional transgression, which, however, may be imputed, is called mere fault (culpa). An intentional transgression (that is, one which is accompanied by the consciousness that it is transgression) is called crime (dolus). That which is right according to external laws is called just (justum); what is not so is unjust (injustum).

A conflict of duties (collisio officiorum seu obligationum) would be such a relation between them that one would wholly or partially abolish the other. Now as duty and obligation are notions which express the objective practical necessity of certain actions, and as two opposite rules cannot be necessary at the same time, but if it is a duty to act according to one of them, it is then not only not a duty but inconsistent with duty to act according to the other; it follows that a conflict of duties and obligations is inconceivable (obligationes non colliduntur). It may, however, very well happen, that in the same subject and the rule which he prescribes to himself there are conjoined two grounds of obligation (rationes obligandi), of which, however, one or the other is inadequate to oblige (rationes obligandi non obligantes), and then one of them is not a duty. When two such grounds are in conflict, practical philosophy does not say that the stronger obligation prevails (fortior obligatio vincit), but the stronger ground of obligation prevails (fortior obligandi ratio vincit).

Binding laws, for which an external lawgiving is possible, are called in general external laws (leges externæ). Amongst these the laws, the obligation to which can be recognized by reason à priori even without external legislation, are natural though external laws; those on the contrary which, without actual external legislation, would not bind at all (and, therefore, would not be laws), are called positive laws. It is possible, therefore, to conceive an external legislation which would only contain [positive] laws; but then a natural law must precede, which should supply the ground of the authority of the lawgiver (that is, his right to bind others by his mere will).

The principle which makes certain actions a duty is a practical law. The rule which the agent adopts from subjective grounds as his principle is called his Maxim; hence with the same laws the maxims of the agents may be very different.

The categorical imperative, which only expresses in general what obligation is, is this: Act according to a maxim which can at the same time hold good as a universal law. You must, therefore, examine your actions in the first place as to their subjective principle; but whether this principle is also objectively valid can only be recognized by this, that when your reason puts it to the test of conceiving yourself as giving therein a universal law, it is found to be adapted to this universal legislation.

The simplicity of this law, compared with the great and manifold requirements which can be drawn from it, must at first appear surprising, as must also the authoritative dignity it presents, without carrying with it perceptibly any motive.

But when, in this astonishment at the power of our reason to determine choice by the mere idea of the fitness of a maxim for the universality of a practical law, we learn that it is just these practical (moral) laws that first make known a property of the will which speculative reason could never have arrived at, either from à priori grounds or from experience—and if it did arrive at it could by no means prove its possibility, whereas those practical laws incontestably prove this property, namely, freedom—then we shall be less surprised to find these laws, like mathematical axioms, undemonstrable and yet apodictic, and at the same time to see a whole field of practical cognitions opened before us, in which reason in its theoretic exercise, with the same idea of freedom, nay, with any other of its supersensible ideas, must find everything absolutely closed to it. The agreement of an action with the law of duty is its legality (legalitas); that of the maxim with the law is its morality (moralitas). Maxim is the subjective principle of action, which the subject makes a rule to itself (namely, how he chooses to act). On the contrary, the principle of duty is that which Reason commands him absolutely and therefore objectively (how he ought to act). The supreme principle of the order is therefore: Act on a maxim which can also hold good as a universal law. Every maxim which is not capable of being so is contrary to morality.

Laws proceed from the Rational Will; maxims from the elective will. The latter is in man a free elective will. The Rational Will, which is directed to nothing but the law only, cannot be called either free or unfree, because it is not directed to actions, but immediately to the legislation for the maxims of actions (and is therefore practical reason itself). Consequently it is absolutely necessary, and is even incapable of constraint. It is therefore only the elective will that can be called free.

Freedom of elective will, however, cannot be defined as the power of choosing to act for or against the law (libertas indifferentiæ) as some have attempted to define it; although the elective will as a phenomenon gives many examples of this in experience. For freedom (as it becomes known to us first through the moral law) is known to us only as a negative property in us, namely, the property of not being constrained to action by any sensible motives. Considered as a noumenon, however, that is, as to the faculty of man merely as an intelligence, we are quite unable to explain theoretically how it has a constraining power in respect of the sensible elective will—that is, we cannot explain it in its positive character. Only this we can very readily understand: that although experience tells us that man as an object in the sensible world shows a power of choosing not only according to the law but also in opposition to it, nevertheless his freedom as a being in the intelligible world cannot be thus defined, since phenomena can never enable us to comprehend any supersensible object (such as free elective will is). We can see also that freedom can never be placed in this, that the rational subject is able to choose in opposition to his (legislative) reason, even though experience proves often enough that this does happen (a thing, however, the possibility of which we cannot comprehend). For it is one thing to admit a fact (of experience); it is another to make it the principle of a definition (in the present case, of the concept of free elective will) and the universal criterion between this and arbitrium brutum seu servum; since in the former case we do not assert that the mark necessarily belongs to the concept, which we must do in the latter case. Freedom in relation to the inner legislation of the reason is alone properly a power; the possibility of deviating from this is an impotence. How then can the former be defined from the latter? A definition which over and above the practical concept adds the exercise of it as learned from experience is a bastard definition (definitio hybrida) which puts the notion in a false light.

A Law (a moral practical law) is a proposition which contains a categorical imperative (a command). He who gives commands by a law (imperans) is the lawgiver (legislator). He is the author (auctor) of the obligation imposed by the law, but not always author of the law. If he were so, the law would be positive (contingent) and arbitrary. The law which binds us à priori and unconditionally by our own reason may also be expressed as proceeding from the will of a Supreme Lawgiver, that is of one who has only rights and no duties (namely, from the Divine Will). But this only involves the idea of a moral being whose will is law for all, without his being conceived as the author of it.

Imputation (imputatio) in the moral sense is the judgment by which any one is regarded as the author (causa libera) of an action, which is then called a deed (factum), and to which laws are applicable; and if this judgment brings with it the legal consequences of this deed it is a judicial imputation (imputatio judiciaria s. valida), otherwise it is only discriminating imputation (imputatio dijudicatoria). The person (whether physical or moral (who has right to exercise judicial imputation is called the judge or the court (judex s. forum).

What anyone does in accordance with duty beyond what he can be compelled to by the law is meritorious (meritum); what he does only just in accordance with the law is duty owed (debitum); lastly, what he does less than the law demands is moral demerit (demeritum). The legal effect of demerit is punishment (pæna); that of a meritorious act, reward (præmium) , provided that this, promised in the law, was the motive). Conduct which agrees with duty owed has no legal effect. Fair recompense (remuneratio s. repensio benefica) stands in no legal relation to the deed.

The good or bad consequences of an obligatory action, or the consequences of omitting a meritorious action, cannot be imputed to the agent (modus imputationis tollens).

The good consequences of a meritorious action, and the bad consequences of an unlawful action, can be imputed (modus imputationis ponens).

Subjectively considered, the degree of imputability (imputabilitas) of actions must be estimated by the greatness of the hindrances which have to be overcome. The greater the natural hindrances (of sensibility) and the less the moral hindrance (of duty), the higher the imputation of merit in a good deed. For example, if at a considerable sacrifice I rescue from great necessity one who is a complete stranger to myself.

On the other hand, the less the natural hindrance, and the greater the hindrance from reasons of duty, so much the more is transgression imputed (as ill desert). Hence the state of mind of the agent, whether he acted in the excitement of passion or with cool deliberation, makes an important difference in imputation.