HKB
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Often appears with: reason and the intellect · natural law and higher law · duty, conscience, and obligation · categorical imperative · universal legislation · the problem of evil and theodicy · skepticism about moral exemplars · self-love masquerading as duty · pure philosophy · pure duty not verifiable by experience · promise deceitfully · practical anthropology
Usually: argument (4) · skepticism (2) · detachment (1) · reverence (1)
“We may call the consciousness of this fundamental law a fact of reason, because we cannot reason it out from antecedent data of reason, e.g., the consciousness of freedom (for this is not antecedently given), but it forces itself on us as a synthetic a priori proposition, which is not based on any intuition, either pure or empirical.” Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason · insight
Kant argues that the moral maxim of universal legislation is an unconditional, a priori rule of practical reason, experienced as a “fact of reason,” determining the will without borrowing anything from experience.
{BOOK*1|CHAPTER*1 ^paragraph 70} REMARK. Pure geometry has postulates which are practical propositions, but contain nothing further than the assumption that we can do something if it is required that we should do it, and these are the only geometrical propositions that concern actual existence. They are, then, practical rules under a problematical condition of the will; but here the rule says: We absolutely must pr…
Kant argues that philosophy should separate the empirical from the rational parts—especially by adding a priori “metaphysics of nature” and “metaphysic of morals”—and that moral laws must be grounded in pure reason, not in human nature or circumstances.
rational part. It is the same with Ethics; but here the empirical part might have the special name of practical anthropology, the name morality being appropriated to the rational part. All trades, arts, and handiworks have gained by division of labour, namely, when, instead of one man doing everything, each confines himself to a certain kind of work distinct from others in the treatment it requires, so as to be able…
In the transition to the metaphysics of morals, Kant argues that experience cannot prove we ever act purely from duty, because motives hide; therefore morality must be grounded in reason a priori, not in empirical examples.
give it the law only for the purpose of providing for the interest of the inclinations, whether singly or at the best in the greatest possible harmony with one another. In fact, it is absolutely impossible to make out by experience with complete certainty a single case in which the maxim of an action, however right in itself, rested simply on moral grounds and on the conception of duty. Sometimes it happens that wit…
Kant insists moral imperatives may only be categorical if not secretly grounded in fear or self-interest, so he proposes an a priori inquiry into the possibility of a truly unconditional command.
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. On the other hand, the question how the imperative of morality is possible, is undoubtedly one, the only one, demanding a solution, as this is not at all hypothetical, and the objective necessity which it presents cannot rest on any hypothesis, as is the case …