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Page 14
Finally, there is an imperative which commands a certain conduct
immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be
attained by it. This imperative is categorical. It concerns not the
matter of the action, or its intended result, but its form and the
principle of which it is itself a result; and what is essentially good
in it consists in the mental disposition, let the consequence be
what it may. This imperative may be called that of morality.
There is a marked distinction also between the volitions on these
three sorts of principles in the dissimilarity of the obligation of
the will. In order to mark this difference more clearly, I think
they would be most suitably named in their order if we said they are
either rules of skill, or counsels of prudence, or commands (laws)
of morality. For it is law only that involves the conception of an
unconditional and objective necessity, which is consequently
universally valid; and commands are laws which must be obeyed, that
is, must be followed, even in opposition to inclination. Counsels,
indeed, involve necessity, but one which can only hold under a
contingent subjective condition, viz., they depend on whether this
or that man reckons this or that as part of his happiness; the
categorical imperative, on the contrary, is not limited by any
condition, and as being absolutely, although practically, necessary,
may be quite properly called a command. We might also call the first
kind of imperatives technical (belonging to art), the second
pragmatic * (to welfare), the third moral (belonging to free conduct
generally, that is, to morals).
* It seems to me that the proper signification of the word
pragmatic may be most accurately defined in this way. For sanctions
are called pragmatic which flow properly not from the law of the
states as necessary enactments, but from precaution for the general
welfare. A history is composed pragmatically when it teaches prudence,
i.e., instructs the world how it can provide for its interests better,
or at least as well as, the men of former time.
Now arises the question, how are all these imperatives possible?
This question does not seek to know how we can conceive the
accomplishment of the action which the imperative ordains, but
merely how we can conceive the obligation of the will which the
imperative expresses. No special explanation is needed to show how
an imperative of skill is possible. Whoever wills the end, wills
also (so far as reason decides his conduct) the means in his power
which are indispensably necessary thereto. This proposition is, as
regards the volition, analytical; for, in willing an object as my
effect, there is already thought the causality of myself as an
acting cause, that is to say, the use of the means; and the imperative
educes from the conception of volition of an end the conception of
actions necessary to this end. Synthetical propositions must no
doubt be employed in defining the means to a proposed end; but they do
not concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and its
realization. E.g., that in order to bisect a line on an unerring
principle I must draw from its extremities two intersecting arcs; this
no doubt is taught by mathematics only in synthetical propositions;
but if I know that it is only by this process that the intended
operation can be performed, then to say that, if I fully will the
operation, I also will the action required for it, is an analytical
proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something as
an effect which I can produce in a certain way, and to conceive myself
as acting in this way.
If it were only equally easy to give a definite conception of
happiness, the imperatives of prudence would correspond exactly with
those of skill, and would likewise be analytical. For in this case
as in that, it could be said: "Whoever wills the end, wills also
(according to the dictate of reason necessarily) the indispensable
means thereto which are in his power." But, unfortunately, the
notion of happiness is so indefinite that although every man wishes to
attain it, yet he never can say definitely and consistently what it is
that he really wishes and wills. The reason of this is that all the
elements which belong to the notion of happiness are altogether
empirical, i.e., they must be borrowed from experience, and
nevertheless the idea of happiness requires an absolute whole, a
maximum of welfare in my present and all future circumstances. Now
it is impossible that the most clear-sighted and at the same time most
powerful being (supposed finite) should frame to himself a definite
conception of what he really wills in this. Does he will riches, how
much anxiety, envy, and snares might he not thereby draw upon his
shoulders? Does he will knowledge and discernment, perhaps it might
prove to be only an eye so much the sharper to show him so much the
more fearfully the evils that are now concealed from him, and that
cannot be avoided, or to impose more wants on his desires, which
already give him concern enough. Would he have long life? who
guarantees to him that it would not be a long misery? would he at
least have health? how often has uneasiness of the body restrained
from excesses into which perfect health would have allowed one to
fall? and so on. In short, he is unable, on any principle, to
determine with certainty what would make him truly happy; because to
do so he would need to be omniscient. We cannot therefore act on any
definite principles to secure happiness, but only on empirical
counsels, e.g. of regimen, frugality, courtesy, reserve, etc., which
experience teaches do, on the average, most promote well-being.
Hence it follows that the imperatives of prudence do not, strictly
speaking, command at all, that is, they cannot present actions
objectively as practically necessary; that they are rather to be
regarded as counsels (consilia) than precepts precepts of reason, that
the problem to determine certainly and universally what action would
promote the happiness of a rational being is completely insoluble, and
consequently no imperative respecting it is possible which should,
in the strict sense, command to do what makes happy; because happiness
is not an ideal of reason but of imagination, resting solely on
empirical grounds, and it is vain to expect that these should define
an action by which one could attain the totality of a series of
consequences which is really endless. This imperative of prudence
would however be an analytical proposition if we assume that the means
to happiness could be certainly assigned; for it is distinguished from
the imperative of skill only by this, that in the latter the end is
merely possible, in the former it is given; as however both only
ordain the means to that which we suppose to be willed as an end, it
follows that the imperative which ordains the willing of the means
to him who wills the end is in both cases analytical. Thus there is no
difficulty in regard to the possibility of an imperative of this
kind either.
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