Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~31,600 words · 150 passages
Cite this work
- APAImmanuel Kant. (n.d.). Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/immanuel-kant/fundamental-principles-of-the-metaphysic-of-morals
- MLAImmanuel Kant. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/immanuel-kant/fundamental-principles-of-the-metaphysic-of-morals.
- ChicagoImmanuel Kant. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/immanuel-kant/fundamental-principles-of-the-metaphysic-of-morals.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The search for the supreme principle of morality, and the finding: act only on a maxim you could at the same time will as universal law — and treat humanity always as an end, never merely as a means.
Context and history
Published in 1785 as a brief preparation for a larger work that became the 'Critique of Practical Reason'. In about a hundred pages it contains the most influential moral idea of modernity: that human dignity has no price and no equivalent, and that the moral law comes neither from God nor from happiness but from reason giving the law to itself. It is still the text with which nearly every ethics course begins, and its imprint reaches from declarations of human rights to bioethics committees.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
morality, and this alone constitutes a study complete in itself and one which ought to be kept apart from every other moral investigation. No doubt my conclusions on this weighty question, which has hitherto been very unsatisfactorily examined, would receive much light from the application of the same principle to the whole system, and would be greatly confirmed by the adequacy which it exhibits throughout; but I must forego this advantage, which indeed would be after all more gratifying than useful, since the easy applicability of a principle and its apparent adequacy give no very certain proof of its soundness, but rather inspire a certain partiality, which prevents us from examining and estimating it strictly in itself and without regard to consequences. I have adopted in this work the method which I think most suitable, proceeding analytically from common knowledge to the determination of its ultimate principle, and again descending synthetically from the examination of this principle and its sources to the common knowledge in which we find it employed. The division will, therefore, be as follows: 1 FIRST SECTION. Transition from the common rational knowledge of morality to the philosophical. 2 SECOND SECTION. Transition from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysic of morals. 3 THIRD SECTION. Final step from the metaphysic of morals to the critique of the pure practical reason. SEC_1 FIRST SECTION TRANSITION FROM THE COMMON RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF MORALITY TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will.…