Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introductory note: text and translation
- Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
- Vorrede / Preface
- Erster Abschnitt / First Section
- Zweyter Abschnitt / Second Section
- Dritter Abschnitt / Third Section
- Editorial notes
- Index of names
- Index of words
- Index of key terms
Zweyter Abschnitt / Second Section
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introductory note: text and translation
- Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
- Vorrede / Preface
- Erster Abschnitt / First Section
- Zweyter Abschnitt / Second Section
- Dritter Abschnitt / Third Section
- Editorial notes
- Index of names
- Index of words
- Index of key terms
Summary
Transition from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysics of morals
If so far we have drawn our concept of duty from the common use of our practical reason, it is by no means to be inferred from this that we have treated it as an experiential concept. Rather, if we attend to our experience of the behaviour of human beings we meet frequent and, as we ourselves concede, just complaints that no reliable example can be cited of the disposition to act from pure duty; that, though much may be done that conforms with what duty commands, still it is always doubtful whether it is actually done from duty and thus has a moral worth. That is why there have been philosophers in every age who have absolutely denied the actuality of this disposition in human actions, and attributed everything to a more or less refined self-love, without however calling into doubt the correctness of the concept of morality because of this; rather, with intimate regret they made mention of the frailty and impurity of a human nature that is indeed noble enough to take an idea so worthy of respect as its prescription, but at the same time too weak to follow it, and that uses reason, which should serve it for legislation, only to take care of the interest of inclinations, whether singly or, at most, in their greatest compatibility with one another.
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- Information
- Immanuel Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of MoralsA German–English edition, pp. 40 - 119Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011