Groundwork of the Metaphysics 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:
- ~37,100 words · 176 passages
Cite this work
- APAImmanuel Kant. (n.d.). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/immanuel-kant/groundwork-of-the-metaphysics-of-morals
- MLAImmanuel Kant. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/immanuel-kant/groundwork-of-the-metaphysics-of-morals.
- ChicagoImmanuel Kant. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/immanuel-kant/groundwork-of-the-metaphysics-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.
this case, if the general desire for happiness did not influence his will, and supposing that in his particular case health was not a necessary element in this calculation, there yet remains in this, as in all other cases, this law, namely, that he should promote his happiness not from inclination but from duty, and by this would his conduct first acquire true moral worth. It is in this manner, undoubtedly, that we are to understand those passages of Scripture also in which we are commanded to love our neighbour, even our enemy. For love, as an affection, cannot be commanded, but beneficence for duty's sake may; even though we are not impelled to it by any inclination—nay, are even repelled by a natural and unconquerable aversion. This is practical love and not pathological—a love which is seated in the will, and not in the propensions of sense—in principles of action and not of tender sympathy; and it is this love alone which can be commanded.