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Page 30
Now man really finds in himself a faculty by which he
distinguishes himself from everything else, even from himself as
affected by objects, and that is reason. This being pure spontaneity
is even elevated above the understanding. For although the latter is a
spontaneity and does not, like sense, merely contain intuitions that
arise when we are affected by things (and are therefore passive),
yet it cannot produce from its activity any other conceptions than
those which merely serve to bring the intuitions of sense under
rules and, thereby, to unite them in one consciousness, and without
this use of the sensibility it could not think at all; whereas, on the
contrary, reason shows so pure a spontaneity in the case of what I
call ideas [ideal conceptions] that it thereby far transcends
everything that the sensibility can give it, and exhibits its most
important function in distinguishing the world of sense from that of
understanding, and thereby prescribing the limits of the understanding
itself.
For this reason a rational being must regard himself qua
intelligence (not from the side of his lower faculties) as belonging
not to the world of sense, but to that of understanding; hence he
has two points of view from which he can regard himself, and recognise
laws of the exercise of his faculties, and consequently of all his
actions: first, so far as he belongs to the world of sense, he finds
himself subject to laws of nature (heteronomy); secondly, as belonging
to the intelligible world, under laws which being independent of
nature have their foundation not in experience but in reason alone.
As a rational being, and consequently belonging to the
intelligible world, man can never conceive the causality of his own
will otherwise than on condition of the idea of freedom, for
independence of the determinate causes of the sensible world (an
independence which reason must always ascribe to itself) is freedom.
Now the idea of freedom is inseparably connected with the conception
of autonomy, and this again with the universal principle of morality
which is ideally the foundation of all actions of rational beings,
just as the law of nature is of all phenomena.
Now the suspicion is removed which we raised above, that there was a
latent circle involved in our reasoning from freedom to autonomy,
and from this to the moral law, viz.: that we laid down the idea of
freedom because of the moral law only that we might afterwards in turn
infer the latter from freedom, and that consequently we could assign
no reason at all for this law, but could only [present] it as a
petitio principii which well disposed minds would gladly concede to
us, but which we could never put forward as a provable proposition.
For now we see that, when we conceive ourselves as free, we transfer
ourselves into the world of understanding as members of it and
recognise the autonomy of the will with its consequence, morality;
whereas, if we conceive ourselves as under obligation, we consider
ourselves as belonging to the world of sense and at the same time to
the world of understanding.
How is a Categorical Imperative Possible?
Every rational being reckons himself qua intelligence as belonging
to the world of understanding, and it is simply as an efficient
cause belonging to that world that he calls his causality a will. On
the other side he is also conscious of himself as a part of the
world of sense in which his actions, which are mere appearances
[phenomena] of that causality, are displayed; we cannot, however,
discern how they are possible from this causality which we do not
know; but instead of that, these actions as belonging to the
sensible world must be viewed as determined by other phenomena,
namely, desires and inclinations. If therefore I were only a member of
the world of understanding, then all my actions would perfectly
conform to the principle of autonomy of the pure will; if I were
only a part of the world of sense, they would necessarily be assumed
to conform wholly to the natural law of desires and inclinations, in
other words, to the heteronomy of nature. (The former would rest on
morality as the supreme principle, the latter on happiness.) Since,
however, the world of understanding contains the foundation of the
world of sense, and consequently of its laws also, and accordingly
gives the law to my will (which belongs wholly to the world of
understanding) directly, and must be conceived as doing so, it follows
that, although on the one side I must regard myself as a being
belonging to the world of sense, yet on the other side I must
recognize myself as subject as an intelligence to the law of the world
of understanding, i.e., to reason, which contains this law in the idea
of freedom, and therefore as subject to the autonomy of the will:
consequently I must regard the laws of the world of understanding as
imperatives for me and the actions which conform to them as duties.
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