Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

Immanuel Kant

What is a maxim?
It is a subjective principle of acting. Practical rule developed by the subject with his reasons
and conditions of the subject, becoming the principle for how he acts (inclination or
ignorance).

Different from an objective principle of acting – the law. Objective principle valid for all
rational beings based on how one ought to act (an imperative).

What is a hypothetical imperative?

What is a categorical imperative? The only necessary role of the maxim is the conformity
with the universality of a law, while the law bears no limiting conditions in and of itself (page
31)
Difference between the two? You are sure of the content of CI but not of an HI unless given a
condition.

Single categorical imperative OR universal imperative of duty – act only in accordance with
that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law of
nature.
All your duties or ‘imperatives of duty’ are decided with reference to this CI. If a duty is to
have significance and force, it must be expressed as a CI.

How do you understand this? (Repeated wrt humanity principle)

1) Principle of self-love and the act of suicide
2) Borrowing money when you know you cannot pay back
3) Developing talents for use rather than amusement
4) A selfish man with no hardships looking at others

What is the point? That any maxim which once converted into a universal law of nature
would result in contradictions unto nature itself or create an impossible state of nature or
hurts the being himself cannot therefore be a reason for action.

Kant – we must be able to will that our maxim of action become universal law – this is the
canon of moral appraisal of action.

2 categories of situations here:

1) Opposition to strict/narrow (unremitting duties) – cannot even be thought of being a
universal law
2) Opposition to wide (meritorious duties) – the will to be nature will contradict itself

What is a transgression of duty?

Not willing our maxim to be universal law, the opposite should remain universal law, but we
carve out an exception for ourselves towards our inclination. This is a contradiction – because
if it allows for subjective exceptions how is it objectively universal? Kant says it is not a
contradiction, it is our inclinations resisting the force of reason, which results in a principle
not being universal but being general. Acc to him, this doesn’t mean the CI is not valid, it just
means that few exceptions become unavoidable.
How do you establish that there is an absolute law unto itself and the observance of the law is
a duty?
Caveat – this principle is not derived from a special property of human nature. It has to apply
to all rational beings and hence be a law for all human wills.
Something that is derived from a special property of humanity can be a maxim but not a law
i.e. it can be a subjective principle if you have the propensity or inclination, but not an
objective principle directing you to act in a certain way despite every inclination/natural
tendency. He thinks a command within a duty is stronger when there are fewer subjective
causes to it.

No divine tutelage or morals – philosophy as a sustainer of its own laws, because such a
priori principles would never be dictated by reason and have their source outside of it, expect
respect for the supremacy of laws and condemn the human for failure to obey it.
Proper worth of a good will is that the principle of action is free from all influences of
contingent grounds, hence it cannot be empirical per se either. Human reason based on such
grounds believes it to be morality but it is a mere illusion.

Is this method of appraisal always a necessary law for all human beings? Is it a priori – Kant
says for this you have to go into metaphysics instead of speculative philosophy. Practical
philosophy means you are concerned with what ought to happen, even if it never does.
Philosophy of nature based on empirical laws – how and why inclinations and desires arise,
and these may have their own maxims. This is different from objective practical laws, which
is what Kant is concerned with i.e. the relation of will to itself determined by reason, which
means it has to be a priori and not empirical.

What is will? Capacity of rational beings to determine will itself to acting in conformity with
the representation of certain laws. The objective ground for its self-determination is an end??
The ground of possibility of an action the effect of which is an end is a means. Subjective
grounds of desire rest on incentives, objective grounds of volition rest on motives. Practical
principles are formal when they abstract from subjective ends, and material if subjective ends
are their basis.
Ends that rational beings propose as the effect of his actions i.e. material ends are relative
because they depend on the subjective desire (hence all objects of inclination conditional
worth), which means they cannot be universal principles valid for all rational beings and
hence no practice laws. Thus, relative ends are the ground of hypothetical imperatives.
Distinction from something which is an end in and of itself, the existence of which has
absolute worth. This can be ground of a categorical imperative.

Hence all rational beings exists as an end in itself, and not a means to be used towards an end,
hence in all actions whether towards himself or others, he must be the end at the same time.
Rational beings are called persons because nature marks them out as an end in themselves,
and is an object of respect.

The worth of any object to be acquired by our action is always conditional, which is what
happens in the case of inclinations. The existence as an effect of our action has a worth for us
(subjective ends).

Distinction from persons - Things – the existence of which depends on nature and not our
will, and without reason, hence have a relative worth.
Hence ground of this supreme practical principle is that rational nature exists in an end in
itself, and this can serve as a universal practical law. From this you derive all laws of the will.
Hence imperative is – act that you use humanity, wrt yourself or others, always at the same
time as an end, and never as a means. He also calls this the supreme limiting condition of the
freedom of action of every human being i.e. limiting all our subjective ends, whatever they
may be, through reason.

Same 4 examples – with respect to developing talents, he brings up the idea of furtherance
of humanity rather than just its preservation. The point through these 4 examples is
showing different ways of how humanity must be considered to be an end.

Page 39 - the ground of all practical lawgiving lies (in accordance with the first principle)
objectively in the rule and the form of universality which makes it fit to be a law (possibly2 a
law of nature); subjectively, however, it lies in the end; but the subject of all ends is every
rational being as an end in itself (in accordance with the second principle); from this there
follows now the third practical principle of the will, as supreme condition of its harmony with
universal practical reason, the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving
universal law (through all its maxims).

Accepts that it is an assumption that these are categorical and free of incentives and
inclinations, this is where the third formula comes in to indicate the determination within the
CI which distinguishes it from HI and makes it free of interests. Humans are bound only to
act in conformity of their own will, which in accordance with the nature’s end, is the will
giving universal law. This means he is not subject to this law per se, and hence does not need
an incentive or constraint to follow it. This is why it becomes a moral command; Kant calls it
the principle of autonomy of the will.

The principle of autonomy is, therefore: to choose only in such a way that the maxims of your
choice are also included as universal law in the same volition

The goal here is what Kant calls the kingdom of ends. Kant: By a kingdom I understand a
systematic union of various rational beings through common laws. A rational being belongs
as a member to the kingdom of ends when he gives universal laws in it but is also himself
subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign11 when, as lawgiving, he is not subject to
the will of any other (without needs and with unlimited resources7 adequate to his will).
(Kant admits that this is an ideal).

Duty is necessity of action in accordance with this principle i.e. practical necessitation, and it
applies to all in equal measure but the sovereign.

How do we understand the role of reason and dignity here?

Reason accordingly refers every maxim of the will as giving universal law to every other will
and also to every action toward oneself, and does so not for the sake of any other practical
motive or any future advantage but from the idea of the dignity of a rational being, who obeys
no law other than that which he himself at the same time gives.
In the kingdom of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be
replaced by something else as its equivalent, what on the other hand is raised above all price
and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity.
Inner worth – does not depend on the success or the effects that they cause, and is not priced
in monetary or other fashions, instead depending on maxims.

How is this related to respect? Kant - they present the will that practices them as the object of
an immediate respect, and nothing but reason is required to impose them upon the will, not to
coax them from it, which latter would in any case be a contradiction in the case of duties.
Relation between respect and lawgiving - But the lawgiving itself, which determines all
worth, must for that very reason have a dignity, that is, an unconditional, incomparable
worth; and the word respect alone provides a becoming expression for the estimate of it that a
rational being must give. Autonomy is therefore the ground of the dignity of human nature
and of every rational nature.

In Kant’s view – morality enables this kingdom, hence humanity which has morality is alone
capable of dignity.
It also follows that this dignity (prerogative) he has over all merely natural beings brings with
it that he must always take his maxims from the point of view of himself, and likewise every
other rational being, as lawgiving beings (who for this reason are also called persons).
Consequently, every rational being must act as if he were by his maxims at all times a
lawgiving member of the universal kingdom of ends. The formal principle of these maxims
is, act as if your maxims were to serve at the same time as a universal law (for all rational
beings).

Difference between kingdom of ends and kingdom of nature.

Rational nature is different from the rest of nature because it is an end in itself. This end is
independently existing, and does not need to be effected per se. This end becomes the subject
of all ends and the subject of a possible absolutely good will.

This law exists in force because it commands categorically, even though you cannot be sure
that others are being as faithful to the imperative as you as a rational human being are.

And just in this lies the paradox that the mere dignity of humanity as rational nature, without
any other end or advantage to be attained by it - hence respect for a mere idea – is yet to serve
as an inflexible precept of the will, and that it is just in this independence of maxims from all
such incentives that their sublimity consists, and the worthiness of every rational subject to be
a lawgiving member in the kingdom of ends; for otherwise he would have to be represented
only as subject to the natural law of his needs.

For there is indeed no sublimity in him insofar as he is subject to the moral law, but there
certainly is insofar as he is at the same time lawgiving with respect to it and only for that
reason subordinated to it.

Summary of concepts:
Morality is thus the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is, to a possible giving
of universal law through its maxims. An action that can coexist with the autonomy of the will
is permitted; one that does not accord with it is forbidden. A will whose maxims necessarily
harmonize with the laws of autonomy is a holy, absolutely good will. The dependence upon
the principle of autonomy of a will that is not absolutely good (moral necessitation) is
obligation. This, accordingly, cannot be attributed to a holy being. The objective necessity of
an action from obligation is called duty.

Heteronomy:

If the will seeks the law that is to determine it anywhere else than in the fitness of its maxims
for its own giving of universal law - consequently if, in going beyond itself, it seeks this law
in a property of any of its objects - heteronomy always results.