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  • 2 - Formal principles and the form of a law

  • Edited by Andrews Reath, University of California, Riverside, Jens Timmermann, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book:
    Kant's 'Critique of Practical Reason'
    Published online:
    06 August 2010
    Print publication:
    08 April 2010, pp 31-54

  • Summary

    This chapter deals with the features of practical laws and fundamental practical principles that centre on the notion of 'form'. It examines what Kant means by a 'formal principle' that explains why formal principles are uniquely suited to apply with normative necessity. The formal principle of some rational activity would be the guiding internal or constitutive norm that a subject must follow in order to engage in that activity. The form of a law would be the defining features that a principle must have in order to qualify as a practical law. A formal principle involves some abstraction from content: the form is what remains when one sets aside those features that differentiate one instance of an activity from any other. The chapter gives readings of the arguments for Kant's Theorems I and III and Problem I.