HKB
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Often appears with: justice as a virtue · reason and the intellect · duty, conscience, and obligation · a priori moral law · will, choice, and freedom · universal legislation · the passions and the emotions · systems of morals as emotions · summum bonum as end · sensibility and reason · rational law · promise deceitfully
Usually: argument (5) · detachment (2) · skepticism (2) · reflection (1) · censure (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
“action done from duty we must look not to the interest in the object, but only to that in the action itself, and in its rational principle (viz., the law).” Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals · precept
“In short, systems of morals are only a SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS.” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil · insight
“Society is not a brand-new order of things supervening upon and superseding a state of nature, where the individual was entirely self-supporting.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind · insight
Nietzsche argues that moral systems reveal the emotions of their authors and function to justify, tranquilize, humble, or glorify them, rather than providing neutral truths.
pessimist, a repudiator of God and of the world, who MAKES A HALT at morality--who assents to morality, and plays the flute to laede-neminem morals, what? Is that really--a pessimist? 187. Apart from the value of such assertions as "there is a categorical imperative in us," one can always ask: What does such an assertion indicate about him who makes it? There are systems of morals which are meant to justify their au…
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 says practical extension requires a priori purposes and the summum bonum, which presupposes theoretical conceptions of freedom, immortality, and God; they gain objective reality only for practical use.
{BOOK*2|CHAPTER*2 ^paragraph 70} In order not to be too abstract, we will answer this question at once in its application to the present case. In order to extend a pure cognition practically, there must be an a priori purpose given, that is, an end as object (of the will), which independently of all theological principle is presented as practically necessary by an imperative which determines the will directly (a cat…
The author presents Fichte as advancing beyond Kant by making ethics immanent: law and morality arise from the same rational-social development that makes humans intelligent, rather than from an external “voice of duty,” and it contrasts this with Kant’s ascetic-leaning treatment of sensibility.
the concrete and empirical moral agent—the actual ego of actual life—from the abstract, unconditioned ego, which in order to be actual must condescend to be at once determining and determined. In all of this Fichte makes—especially formally—a decided advance upon Kant. In Ethics Kant in particular, (—especially for readers who never got beyond the beginning of his moral treatise and were overpowered by the categoric…
Kant argues that actions done from duty must follow the rational principle of law rather than interest, and introduces the distinction between hypothetical imperatives (means to ends) and categorical imperatives (necessary in themselves).
action done from duty we must look not to the interest in the object, but only to that in the action itself, and in its rational principle (viz., the law). A perfectly good will would therefore be equally subject to objective laws (viz., laws of good), but could not be conceived as obliged thereby to act lawfully, because of itself from its subjective constitution it can only be determined by the conception of good.…
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 …