1785 INTRODUCTION TO THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS by Immanuel Kant translated by W. Hastie DIVISIONS GENERAL DIVISIONS OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS I. DIVISION OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS AS A SYSTEM OF DUTIES GENERALLY. 1. All duties are either duties of right, that is, juridical duties (officia juris), or duties of virtue, that is, ethical duties (officia virtutis s. ethica). Juridical duties are such as may be promulgated by external legislation; ethical duties are those for which such legislation is not possible. The reason why the latter cannot be properly made the subject of external legislation is because they relate to an end or final purpose, which is itself, at the same time, embraced in these duties, and which it is a duty for the individual to have as such. But no external legislation can cause any one to adopt a particular intention, or to propose to himself a certain purpose; for this depends upon an internal condition or act of the mind itself. However, external actions conducive to such a mental condition may be commanded, without its being implied that the individual will of necessity make them an end to himself. But why, then, it may be asked, is the science of morals, or moral philosophy, commonly entitled- especially by Cicero- the science of duty and not also the science of right, since duties and rights refer to each other? The reason is this. We know our own freedom- from which all moral laws and consequently all rights as well as all duties arise- only through the moral imperative, which is an immediate injunction of duty; whereas the conception of right as a ground of putting others under obligation has afterwards to be developed out of it. 2. In the doctrine of duty, man may and ought to be represented in accordance with the nature of his faculty of freedom, which is entirely supra-sensible. He is, therefore, to be represented purely according to his humanity as a personality independent of physical determinations (homo noumenon), in distinction from the same person as a man modified with these determinations (homo phenomenon). Hence the conceptions of right and end when referred to duty, in view of this twofold quality, give the following division: DIVISION OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS ACCORDING TO THE OBJECTIVE RELATION OF THE LAW OF DUTY. I. The Right of Humanity. I. Juridical Oneself in our own person (juridicial Duties to or duties towards oneself) Perfect Others Duty II. The Right of Mankind. in others (juridical duties towards others.) III. The End of Humanity. II. Ethical Oneself in our person (eithical duties Duties to or towards oneself) Imperfect Others Duty IV. The End of Mankind. in others (ethical duties towards others.) II. DIVISION OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS ACCORDING TO RELATIONS OF OBLIGATION. As the subjects between whom a relation of right and duty is apprehended- whether it actually exists or not- admit of being conceived in various juridical relations to each other, another division may be proposed from this point of view, as follows: DIVISION POSSIBLE ACCORDING TO THE SUBJECTIVE RELATION OF THOSE WHO BIND UNDER OBLIGATIONS, AND THOSE WHO ARE BOUND UNDER OBLIGATIONS. 1. The juridical relation of man to beings who have neither right nor duty: Vacat. There is no such relation, for such beings are irrational, and they neither put us under obligation, nor can we be put under obligation by them. 2. The juridical relation of man to beings who have both rights and duties: Adest. There is such a relation, for it is the relation of men to men. 3. The juridical relation of man to beings who have only duties and no rights: Vacat. There is no such relation, for such beings would be men without juridical personality, as slaves of bondsmen. 4 The juridical relation of man to a being who has only rights and no duties (God): Vacat. There is no such relation in mere philosophy, because such a being is not an object of possible experience. A real relation between right and duty is therefore found, in this scheme, only in No. 2. The reason why such is not likewise found in No. 4 is because it would constitute a transcendent duty, that is, one to which no corresponding subject can be given that is external and capable of imposing obligation. Consequently the relation from the theoretical point of view is here merely ideal; that is, it is a relation to an object of thought which we form for ourselves. But the conception of this object is not entirely empty. On the contrary, it is a fruitful conception in relation to ourselves and the maxims of our inner morality, and therefore in relation to practice generally. And it is in this bearing that all the duty involved and practicable for us in such a merely ideal relation lies. III. DIVISION OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS AS A SYSTEM OF DUTIES GENERALLY. According to the constituent principles and the method of the system. I. Principles I. Duties of Right I. Private Right. II. Public Right II. Duties of Virtue, etc. And so on, including all that refers not only to the materials, but also to the architectonic form of a scientific system of morals, when the metaphysical investigation of the elements has completely traced out the universal principles constituting the whole. II. Method I. Didactics II. Ascetics GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS I. THE RELATION OF THE FACULTIES OF THE HUMAN MIND TO THE MORAL LAWS. The active faculty of the human mind, as the faculty of desire in its widest sense, is the power which man has, through his mental representations, of becoming the cause of objects corresponding to these representations. The capacity of a being to act in conformity with his own representations is what constitutes the life of such a being. It is to be observed, first, that with desire or aversion there is always connected pleasure or pain, the susceptibility for which is called feeling. But the converse does not always hold; for there may be a pleasure connected, not with the desire of an object, but with a mere mental representation, it being indifferent whether an object corresponding to the representation exist or not. And second, the pleasure or pain connected with the object of desire does not always precede the activity of desire; nor can it be regarded in every case as the cause, but it may as well be the effect of that activity. The capacity of experiencing pleasure or pain on the occasion of a mental representation is called "feeling," because pleasure and pain contain only what is subjective in the relations of our mental activity. They do not involve any relation to an object that could possibly furnish a knowledge of it as such; they cannot even give us a knowledge of our own mental state. For even sensations,* considered apart from the qualities which attach to them on account of the modifications of the subject- as, for instance, in reference to red, sweet, and such like- are referred as constituent elements of knowledge to objects, whereas pleasure or pain felt in connection with what is red or sweet express absolutely nothing that is in the object, but merely a relation to the subject. And for the reason just stated, pleasure and pain considered in themselves cannot be more precisely defined. All that can be further done with regard to them is merely to point out what consequences they may have in certain relations, in order to make the knowledge of them available practically. *The sensibility as the faculty of sense may be defined by reference to the subjective nature of our representations generally. It is the understanding that fir refers the subjective representations to an object; it alone thinks anything by means of these representations. Now, the subjective nature of our representations might be of such a kind that they could be related to objects so as to furnish knowledge of them, either in regard to their form or matter- in the former relation by pure perception, in the latter by sensation proper. In this case, the sense-faculty, as the capacity for receiving objective representations, would be properly called sense perception. But mere mental representation from its subjective nature cannot, in fact, become a constituent of objective knowledge, because it contains merely the relation of the representations to the subject, and includes nothing that can be used for attaining a knowledge of the object. In this case, then, this receptivity of the mind for subjective representations is called feeling. It includes the effect of the representations, whether sensible or intellectual, upon the subject; and it belongs to the sensibility, although the representation itself may belong to the understanding or the ...
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