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Page 26
* I class the principle of moral feeling under that of happiness,
because every empirical interest promises to contribute to our
well-being by the agreeableness that a thing affords, whether it be
immediately and without a view to profit, or whether profit be
regarded. We must likewise, with Hutcheson, class the principle of
sympathy with the happiness of others under his assumed moral sense.
Amongst the rational principles of morality, the ontological
conception of perfection, notwithstanding its defects, is better
than the theological conception which derives morality from a Divine
absolutely perfect will. The former is, no doubt, empty and indefinite
and consequently useless for finding in the boundless field of
possible reality the greatest amount suitable for us; moreover, in
attempting to distinguish specifically the reality of which we are now
speaking from every other, it inevitably tends to turn in a circle and
cannot avoid tacitly presupposing the morality which it is to explain;
it is nevertheless preferable to the theological view, first,
because we have no intuition of the divine perfection and can only
deduce it from our own conceptions, the most important of which is
that of morality, and our explanation would thus be involved in a
gross circle; and, in the next place, if we avoid this, the only
notion of the Divine will remaining to us is a conception made up of
the attributes of desire of glory and dominion, combined with the
awful conceptions of might and vengeance, and any system of morals
erected on this foundation would be directly opposed to morality.
However, if I had to choose between the notion of the moral sense
and that of perfection in general (two systems which at least do not
weaken morality, although they are totally incapable of serving as its
foundation), then I should decide for the latter, because it at
least withdraws the decision of the question from the sensibility
and brings it to the court of pure reason; and although even here it
decides nothing, it at all events preserves the indefinite idea (of
a will good in itself free from corruption, until it shall be more
precisely defined.
For the rest I think I may be excused here from a detailed
refutation of all these doctrines; that would only be superfluous
labour, since it is so easy, and is probably so well seen even by
those whose office requires them to decide for one of these theories
(because their hearers would not tolerate suspension of judgement).
But what interests us more here is to know that the prime foundation
of morality laid down by all these principles is nothing but
heteronomy of the will, and for this reason they must necessarily miss
their aim.
In every case where an object of the will has to be supposed, in
order that the rule may be prescribed which is to determine the
will, there the rule is simply heteronomy; the imperative is
conditional, namely, if or because one wishes for this object, one
should act so and so: hence it can never command morally, that is,
categorically. Whether the object determines the will by means of
inclination, as in the principle of private happiness, or by means
of reason directed to objects of our possible volition generally, as
in the principle of perfection, in either case the will never
determines itself immediately by the conception of the action, but
only by the influence which the foreseen effect of the action has on
the will; I ought to do something, on this account, because I wish for
something else; and here there must be yet another law assumed in me
as its subject, by which I necessarily will this other thing, and this
law again requires an imperative to restrict this maxim. For the
influence which the conception of an object within the reach of our
faculties can exercise on the will of the subject, in consequence of
its natural properties, depends on the nature of the subject, either
the sensibility (inclination and taste), or the understanding and
reason, the employment of which is by the peculiar constitution of
their nature attended with satisfaction. It follows that the law would
be, properly speaking, given by nature, and, as such, it must be known
and proved by experience and would consequently be contingent and
therefore incapable of being an apodeictic practical rule, such as the
moral rule must be. Not only so, but it is inevitably only heteronomy;
the will does not give itself the law, but is given by a foreign
impulse by means of a particular natural constitution of the subject
adapted to receive it. An absolutely good will, then, the principle of
which must be a categorical imperative, will be indeterminate as
regards all objects and will contain merely the form of volition
generally, and that as autonomy, that is to say, the capability of the
maxims of every good will to make themselves a universal law, is
itself the only law which the will of every rational being imposes
on itself, without needing to assume any spring or interest as a
foundation.
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