Post on 22-Feb-2023
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The Nature of Moral Action: Deriving Kant's Formula of a Law of Nature
Formulation of the Categorical Imperative
Ryan H. Wines
Abstract
This paper argues that Kant’s Formula of a Law of Nature formulation of the categorical
imperative in part two of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals determines the inner
nature of moral action in causal terms. According to Kant’s analysis of common morality in the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, a morally worthy action is performed for its own
sake, because of its inner nature, and not because it produces a desirable effect. However,
performing a morally worthy action because of its inner nature is impossible without knowledge
of this inner nature. Experience provides no examples of actions performed because of their
inner nature, so Kant argues that the nature of moral action must be determined a priori, in a
metaphysics of morals. In the second part of his Groundwork, Kant claims to derive content for
the categorical imperative, which represents an action as necessary because of its inner nature, by
analyzing the concept of such an imperative. This paper unpacks this compact derivation and
shows that Kant’s claim is correct: it is possible to determine the inner nature of moral action by
analyzing the concept of a categorical imperative. It concludes that the inner nature of moral
activity is that it is essentially self-causing or self-active. The key to this reading is that it shifts
the focus of the debate surrounding Kant’s derivation from moral judgment and epistemology to
moral metaphysics.
In the second part of his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant
claims that it is possible to derive content for the supreme principle of morality, the categorical
imperative, by analyzing the concept of such an imperative. This derivation concludes with two
formulations of the categorical imperative. The first, the Formula of Universal Law (FUL),
expresses a command to “act only according to that maxim through which you can at the same
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time will that it become a universal law.”1 This argument reiterates a similar derivation based on
an analysis of the common moral concept of duty in the first part of the Groundwork. The
second, the Formula of a Law of Nature, goes beyond FUL and expresses a command to “act as
if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.” The
derivation of these two formulations is extremely compressed. The aim of this paper is unpack
this compact derivation in Groundwork II to show that Kant’s claim is correct: it is possible to
derive content for the categorical imperative by analyzing its concept. It concludes that in the
Formula of a Law of Nature formulation of the categorical imperative, Kant determines the inner
nature of morally good action.
Many scholars believe that Kant’s attempt to derive content for the categorical imperative
in these passages fails. In recent decades, the most prominent objection to Kant’s derivation has
been raised by Bruce Aune, who argues that the argument contains a fatal gap between an
uncontroversial but empty prescription to “Conform your actions to universal law,” and FUL.
The empty prescription is a general command to follow whatever universal laws there are, but
tells us nothing about the nature of these laws, which could come from a variety of moral
theories. FUL’s command to act only on universalizable maxims, by contrast, does contain
1 GMS, 421.7-8. All page references to Kant’s works are to the Akademie Textausgabe. 29 vols. Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1968–, with the usual exception of the Critique of Pure Reason, which uses the A/B pagination. With the
exception of the Groundwork, translations are based, with some occasional modifications, on those of The
Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant in Translation, Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Series Editors.
Translations of the Groundwork are from Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by Mary J. Gregor
and revised by Jens Timmermann. The following abbreviations are used: KrV: Critique of Pure Reason
(1781/1787), PMW: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics that will be Able to Com Forward as Science (1783),
GMS: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), MANW: Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science
(1786), KpV: Critique of Practical Reason (1788), GTP: On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy (1788), KU: Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), EEKU: First Introduction to the Critique of the Power of
Judgment, RGV: Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason (1793), MS: Metaphysics of Morals (1797), JL: Jäsche
Logic (1800), VL: Vienna Logic, MHe: Herder Lectures on Metaphysics, MMr: Mrongovius Lectures on
Metaphysics, ML1: L1 Lectures on Metaphysics, ML2: L2 Lectures on Metaphysics, MoC: Collins Lectures on Ethics,
MoV: Vigilantius Lectures on Ethics, MoMr: Mrongovius Lectures on Ethics.
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content with “practical import” which the first principle lacks.2 On Aune’s view, Kant provides
no explanation for how this gap is to be filled.
Interpreters have adopted various strategies to fill the gap or to show that none exists.
Allen Wood3 has argued that this gap must be filled with normative content by the Formula of
Humanity formulation of the categorical imperative (FH), which, on his view, does not follow
from the mere concept of a categorical imperative. Jens Timmermann4 and Henry Allison
5 have
argued more recently that there is no gap in the derivation. Nevertheless, many scholars remain
in agreement with Wood’s assessment of Kant’s attempt to derive substantive content for the
categorical imperative from its very concept: “Do either FUL or FLN follow merely from CI or
from the idea of a categorical imperative or objectively grounded principle? The answer to this
question unfortunately is, No, they do not.”6
This paper argues that, when Kant’s compressed derivation is elaborated and
reconstructed from other texts, it can be shown to succeed in furnishing substantive content for
the categorical imperative without importing extraneous content. The key to this reading is that
it shifts the focus of the debate from moral judgment and epistemology to moral metaphysics. In
the literature, the discussion of the derivations of FUL and FLN has been primarily
epistemological. The focus has generally been on producing a decision procedure that will allow
us to reconstruct the common moral judgments found in Kant’s examples.7 However, on Kant’s
own view, this epistemological undertaking presupposes that a metaphysical question concerning
2 Aune, 1979, 30. See Kerstein, 2002, 73ff. for an overview of the debate. 3 Wood, 1999, 81 4 Timmermann, 2007, 73ff. 5 Allison, 2011, 138ff. 6 Wood, 1999, 81 7 See O’Neill, 1975 and 1989 and Rawls, 1989.
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the inner nature of moral action has been answered. It is this metaphysical question about the
nature of moral action that will guide this investigation.
Kant claims in both the Groundwork’s Preface and its second part that a metaphysical
investigation into the supreme principle of morality, or “metaphysics of morals,”8 is
“indispensably necessary.”9 Such a metaphysics of morals investigates the synthetic a priori
laws of freedom, and is the counterpart of the metaphysics of nature, which investigates the
synthetic a priori laws of sensible nature.10
A metaphysics of morals is necessary not merely for speculative reasons, but for practical
ones. According to Kant’s analysis of common morality, a morally worthy action is performed
for its own sake, because of its inner nature, and not because it produces a desirable effect. Thus
Kant concludes his analysis in Groundwork I with his third proposition of duty: “Duty is the
necessity of an action from respect for law.”11
He clarifies this conclusion in Groundwork II:
“We saw in the first section: that in an action from duty one must pay attention not to the interest
in the object, but merely to that in the action in itself and in its principle in reason (the law).”12
Kant expresses this position clearly in the Collins lectures on ethics: “All morality, however,
rests on the fact that the action is performed because of the inner nature of the act itself; so it is
not the action that makes for morality, but the disposition from which I do it.”13
These texts
show that moral action must be performed for its own sake, because of its inner nature, and that
this inner nature is the moral law.
8 See Schönecker and Wood, 2004, 10-11 for a discussion of Kant’s use of this term. 9 GMS, 389 10 GMS, 388, cf. 409.20-24; 410.3-412.25 11 GMS, 400.18-19 12 GMS 413-4n. Cf. GMS 414.23-5, GMS 415.2-5, 416.7-14, 416.20-23. 13
MoC, 262
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If common moral cognition is to perform moral action for its own sake, then it must know
what the inner nature of this action is.14
However, since we have no experience of the inner
nature of things themselves, we cannot see into the depths others’ motives, or even into our own.
Common moral experience can only provide examples of actions that are in outer conformity
with generally acknowledged moral precepts, but not ones that are done for the sake of their
inner nature.15
The practical problem is that without knowledge of the inner nature of moral
action, the best that one can achieve is the appearance of moral virtue instead of the reality.
There is no external mark in appearance to distinguish commonly moral actions done because of
their morally good nature and those done from self-interest. Thus when common moral
cognition begins to cultivate itself and look into the grounds for common moral precepts, there is
always a danger of it coming to regard purported virtue as a mask for self-love, and thus falling
into cynicism, hypocrisy and moral corruption.16
Since knowledge of the inner nature of moral action cannot be derived from experience
of the appearances of moral actions, it must be derived a priori, from metaphysics. Kant’s
analysis of common morality poses a theoretical problem: it shows that the nature of morally
worthy action is thought to be specifically different from the nature of actions performed to
produce desirable consequences. Whereas actions performed for the sake of their consequences
are conditionally necessary, because of their good effects, moral action is unconditionally and
absolutely necessary, because of its inner nature.17
On Kant’s view, this specific difference is to
be conceived in causal terms. Whereas practical principles for producing consequences are
governed by physical causal laws, and can thus be accounted for by the metaphysics of nature,
14 GMS, 389.36-390.8 15 GMS, 407.1-16; 419.15-35 16 GMS, 389.36-390.8; 404.37-405.35; cf. KpV, 71-72 17
GMS, 414.12-25
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free moral action is specifically different from it in terms of its causal nature. Thus Kant writes
that for such technical practical principles, “a special kind of philosophy is not required for
insight into the connection of grounds with their consequences.”18
Investigation the nature of moral action therefore requires a new branch of metaphysics
in order to determine the causal law that constitutes this form of causality, which Kant calls the
“moral law.” This causal law is the nature of moral action: “The moral law is, in fact, a law of
causality through freedom and hence a law of the possibility of a supersensible nature, just as the
metaphysical law of events in the sensible world was a law of the causality of sensible nature.”19
This study will follow Kant in developing the causal metaphysics of the nature of moral action.
It will culminate in the derivation of the Formula of a Law of Nature, which determines the
nature of moral action in causal terms.20
It will conclude with the claim that the nature of moral
action is that is a purely self-subsisting or self-causing self-activity.
Kant undertakes this “transition from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysics of
morals” in Groundwork II. Kant describes this transition as follows:
[I]n order to progress in this work by its natural steps […] from a popular philosophy […]
to metaphysics […], we must trace and distinctly present the practical rational faculty
18 EEKU, 196-7. See also EEKU, 199, KU, 171-3. Cf. KpV, 25-26 and 26n. In the final section of this paper, we
shall see that this has significant consequences for recent attempts to naturalize Kant’s ethical view. 19 KpV, 47; cf. KpV, 16, 49, and 50. Kant does not consistently distinguish between the categorical imperative and
the moral law. In this paper, I follow Kant’s definition of the concept of “imperative” on GMS, 413 and use
“categorical imperative” to refer to an unconditioned command of reason, or the linguistic expression of this
command. I use “moral law” to refer to the “objective law of reason” that absolutely necessitates the will. The moral law is identical to the nature of morally worthy action and the causal law that constitutes the form of the
realm of ends. The categorical imperative represents this absolute necessitation of the will by the moral law. For a
classical discussion of this distinction, see Paton, 1948, 70-1. 20 This causal interpretation is supported by Kant’s understanding of the will as a causal power to act according to
the representation of laws. See GMS, 446.7ff. KpV, 44-45.
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from its general rules of determination up to where there arises from it the concept of
duty.21
This paper will follow Kant’s analysis from where it begins in “popular philosophy” with the
“practical rational faculty” and “its general rules of determination,” i.e., the concept of the will.22
It will then follow his metaphysics of morals up to where it gives rise to “the concept of duty,”
i.e. the concept of a categorical imperative, and then derive the formal content of this imperative
as it is articulated in FLN.23
The first two parts of this paper examine the first two sentences of
this investigation, respectively. The first part focuses on Kant’s claim that “Every thing in nature
works according to laws” in order to develop the notions of nature, law, and causality that lie
behind Kant’s definition of the will and derivation of FLN in order to facilitate this derivation in
the last section of the paper. The second part unpacks the second sentence, where Kant defines
the will as “the capacity to act according to the representation of laws.” It argues that the laws
in question are causal laws, which are the natures of the activities that constitute the objects of
the will. It examines how the notion of an imperative emerges from an analysis of the concept of
the will. Part three discusses discuses the problem of the possibility of an imperative in general
and Kant’s solution to the problem of the possibility of a hypothetical imperative in particular.
Parts four and five of the paper use the semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical resources
developed in the previous parts of the paper in order to reconstruct Kant’s derivation of FUL and
21 GMS, 412.15-25 22 Cf. Laberge, 1989, 83ff. 23 Kant claims to have given “content” to the categorical imperative on GMS, 425, after the derivation of FUL and
FLN. However, as is indicated on GMS, 426-7 and GMS, 444-5, his metaphysics of morals continues through the derivation of the other three formulations of the categorical imperative to the conclusion of Groundwork II only to
transition into a critique of pure practical reason in Groundwork III. The complete analysis of the content of the
categorical imperative thus continues through the remainder of Groundwork II, with the Formula of Humanity
providing material content, and the Formula of Autonomy and Formula of the Realm of Ends formulations
concluding with a complete determination of this content as a synthesis of its form and matter.
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FLN. Part four argues that FUL does not determine the inner nature of moral action, but merely
“indicates” that a morally good maxim has the same universally lawful nature that the law does,
whatever it might be. Part five reconstructs the derivation of FLN and gives a causal account of
what the nature of morally good action is in itself. Part six will conclude by examining some of
the systematic consequences of this conclusion.
Part I: Nature and Causality
Kant opens his presentation of the practical rational faculty with a definition of the will.
He writes:
Every thing in nature works [wirkt] according to laws. Only a rational being has the
capacity to act according to the representation of laws, i.e. according to principles, or a
will.24
Kant’s definition has a classical Aristotelian genus-species form. He begins by defining the
genus: nature as a law-governed order of things that bring about effects (wirkt) in accordance
with causal laws. He then introduces a specific difference to distinguish the rational being from
the rest of the beings in nature: rational beings are things that act according to representations of
laws. This part of the paper focuses on the genus concept, while the following one discusses the
species. It will conclude by providing textual evidence that Kant conceives of the nature of
moral action as a form of self-activity in order to guide the rest of this investigation and give
support to its results of the reconstructed derivation in part five.
24
GMS, 412
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The first sentence reflects two senses of the term “nature” in Kant’s work: a substantive,
material sense and an adjectival, formal sense.25
When Kant writes of “every thing in nature,”
he is using the term in its material or substantive sense, referring to nature as “the sum total of
appearances insofar as these are in thoroughgoing connection through an inner principle of
causality.”26
Sensible material nature is a law-governed order of things constituted by the sum
total of all substances, regarded as appearances, and the causal laws of nature, through which
these substances are related and connected to each other. The general lawful order of sensible
material nature as such is not derived from experience, but rather imposed upon it by the
categories of the understanding. As was mentioned above, the synthetic a priori laws of sensible
nature are the object of the metaphysics of nature.
The specific empirical causal laws of sensible nature are determinations of the categories
of the understanding. However, these empirical causal laws cannot be derived a priori from the
categories.27
Rather, experience of sensible nature is required in order for there to be knowledge
of particular empirical causal laws. On Eric Watkins’ recent reconstruction of Kant’s views on
causality, specific empirical causal laws are dependent not only on the categories of the
understanding, for their form, but on what Kant calls the formal natures of the substances
according to which they express their causal powers, or “work.”28
Thus when Kant writes that
“everything in nature works according to laws,” he is expressing in condensed form his account
of nature and causality. Nature, regarded materially, consists of substances that are related to
each other by causal laws. These substances are endowed with causal powers that are grounded
25 The latter, formal, sense of nature will be the focus of FLN below. 26 KrV, A418-9n./B446n. Cf. PMW, 295-6, 318 and MANW, 467 27 KrV, A126-8, B164-6 28
Watkins, 2005, 286-91 and 344-6
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on their formal natures. When they exercise these powers “according to laws,” they act
according to their formal natures, which ground these causal laws.
In the first Critique, Kant defines the formal nature of a substance as the “connection of
determinations of a thing in accordance with an inner principle of causality.”29
The formal
nature is to be understood in causal terms, as the real ground of a thing’s attributes, as real
consequences. The nature of a thing “must contain the real ground of all of its consequences"30
as “the first general inner objective principle of that which belongs to the existence of the
causality of a thing.”31
So the causal powers of substances “work” according to their formal
natures, which are the real, inner grounds of these powers.32
This description of the formal nature of a substance as the first, real, inner ground of the
existence of a substance raises a difficult, but familiar, problem: are the substances, their powers,
and their formal natures appearances, or things in themselves?33
Kant addresses this problem in
his metaphysics lectures by drawing a Lockean distinction between the real essence of a thing,
which he identifies with its formal nature as the first real ground of the determinations of that
thing, and the logical essence of the concept of a thing, which contains the first logical or
conceptual ground for deriving all of the predicates we ascribe to that thing.34
He claims that we
have no direct knowledge of the nature or real essence as the “first general inner objective
principle” of sensible things, since this is the thing as it is completely independently of its
29 KrV, A418-9n./B446n. Cf. PMW, 295-6, 318 and MANW, 467 30 MHe, 28:49 31 MMr, 29:933. See also MANW, 467, where Kant describes the formal nature of a thing as “the first inner
principle of all that belongs to the existence of a thing.” 32 See Watkins, 2005 , 230-97 for an account of Kant’s theory of causality in terms of substances with causal powers
that act in accordance with the essential natures of these substances. Watkins writes: “[R]ather than thinking of causes and effects as events, as Hume often did, Kant held that one substance determines the state of another by
actively exercising its causal powers in accordance with its essential grounds (or nature) and the (changing)
circumstances in which they exist.” Watkins, 2005, 425. 33 Fredrick Rauscher raises this objection in his review of Watkins’ book. See Rauscher, 2005. 34
MMr, 29:820-1; ML2, 552-3
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relations to other things, including ourselves and our concepts. Rather, we have only knowledge
of the sensible appearances that are grounded on these natures.35
As Kant writes in the
Prolegomena, “There are things given to us as objects of our senses existing outside us, yet we
know nothing of them as they may be in themselves, but are acquainted only with their
appearances, i.e., with the representations that they produce in us because they affect our
senses.”36
The knowledge of the appearances of a thing is contained in the empirical concept of that
thing, as its logical essence. When we call some property the real essence or nature of a sensible
thing, we are doing it only comparatively, relative to our concept of that thing. This comparative
“real essence” is merely thought of as the first real ground in appearance of whatever properties
are represented in the logical essence of our concept, and are not thought to belong to the thing
absolutely, as that thing is in itself and independently of our concept.37
The comparative real
essence or formal nature is a relatively, but not absolutely, inner ground for the determinations of
the thing. These logical essences contain knowledge of the appearance of a thing in relation to
other appearances, and not knowledge of the thing in itself. Thus the distinction between the
nature of a substance and its properties and the causal relation between two substances is a
comparative one as well: The representation of the nature of the sensible substance is always the
representation of the substance in relation to some other substance in accordance with a causal
law, and not of the inner nature of the substance as it is in itself.38
Kant’s view on definitions reflects this view: on this view, definitions of objects of
experience can only express the logical essences of their concepts in the form of ever richer
35 ML2,28:553 36 PMW, 288-9 37 MMr, 29:821. There is debate in the literature on Locke’s view of real essences whether he held that they are
always relative to nominal essences. See Jones, 2014. 38
This relativity will be important for the account of the possibility of hypothetical imperatives below.
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nominal definitions.39
Such definitions can never articulate the real essence of a sensible object
as it is in itself, but only as it appears in relation to the appearances of other objects.
By contrast, Kant claims that we must seek real definitions of the real essence or formal
nature of the objects morality. Thus, whereas Kant does not believe that we are capable of
obtaining knowledge of the inner nature of sensible nature, he does believe that practical
philosophy aims to determine knowledge of the real essence of its object as it is in itself.40
This
is precisely what Kant seeks in the account of the inner nature of moral action.
The formal and material senses of sensible nature have practical analogues in the
formulations of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork. In his short discussion of FLN,
Kant makes use of the formal notion of nature:
the universality of the law according to which effects happen constitutes that which is
actually called nature in the most general sense (according to its form), i.e. the existence
of things in so far as it is determined according to universal laws.41
While this passage does not furnish a detailed argument for FLN, it provides some useful
indications of what a fully elaborated derivation of FLN must provide. First, FLN will provide
an account of the formal nature of moral action. Second, this account of the formal nature of
moral action will be given in causal terms: “the universality of law according to which effects
happen” is “the first general inner objective principle of that which belongs to the existence of
the causality of the thing” that we saw earlier. This nature is identical with the moral law itself,
which Kant will later identify as the “essential constitution of a rational cause.”42
39 JL, 144n 40 JL, 144n; BL, 270; VL, 921 41 GMS, 421.14-17 42
GMS, 458, modification of Timmermann’s translation.
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The material sense of nature as a law-governed order of things has a practical analogue as
well, in the Realm of Ends, which is the focus of the Formula of the Realm of Ends formulation
of the categorical imperative (FRE). The realm of ends is “a systematic union of several rational
beings through common laws.”43
This moral order is in turn constituted by a material element,
“several rational beings,” and a formal element, which determines their “systematic union …
through common laws.”44
The material element, the rational being as an end in itself, is the subject of the “Formula
of Humanity” formulation of the categorical imperative. However, what interests us here is the
formal element of the realm of ends – the common laws by means of which rational beings are
united into a systematic whole – since this formal element is the subject of FLN. Here, the moral
law, which functioned as the inner nature of moral action in FLN, functions as a causal law
relating the members of the realm of ends. Thus Kant claims in the second Critique that the
moral law, as the nature of moral action, is “the fundamental law of a supersensible nature and of
a pure world of the understanding.”45
Scholars have recognized that both FLN and FRE are teleological principles. H. J.
Paton’s account is the locus classicus for a teleological understanding of FLN,46
which he
elaborates with material from the Typik section of the Critique of Practical Reason. Allen Wood
has recently advocated a teleological understanding of FRE, where the members of the realm of
ends, by analogy with the parts an organism, are reciprocally related to each other as means and
43 GMS, 433.17-18 44 GMS, 436.15-26 45 KpV, 43 46
Paton, 1948, 146-164
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ends.47
This interpretation is supported by the fact that Kant consistently expressed his ethical
views in teleological terms, even referring to morals as a “pure practical teleology.”48
This information allows us to draw additional conclusions about what to expect from the
results of FLN. We have already seen that FLN will be expressed in terms of the formal nature
or real essence of the object of the will, and that this form will be expressed in causal terms. The
discussion of formal and material nature and the realm of ends shows that this formal nature is a
teleological form. Thus to complete the picture, we must look to Kant’s texts for an account of
teleological form in causal terms.
Kant provides a causal account of the nature of a teleologically organized being in the
second half of the Critique of the Power of Judgment, “Critique of Teleological Judgment.”
There, he gives a provisional definition of a natural end as a thing that is “cause and effect of
itself.”49
He develops this notion to argue that the parts or organs of a natural end are judged to
be functionally related to each other as means and ends,50
just as the members of the realm of
ends are. Kant provides a definitive causal account of a natural end that underlies this functional
account:
Now for a thing as a natural end it is requisite, […] that its parts be combined into a
whole by being reciprocally the cause and effect of their form.51
These passages from the third Critique provide a causal account of the formal nature of a
teleologically organized material nature, and thus indicate what to expect from the results of the
47 Wood, 1999, 166. Wood is cited approvingly by Allison, 2011, 242. Paton considers the relation between FLN and FRE as well on Paton, 1948, 190-1. 48 GTP, 182-3 49 KU, 370-1 50 KU, 376 51
KU, 373
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derivation of FLN. The argument for FLN determines the nature of morally worthy action in
causal terms. The action will have a teleological form, and thus involve a form of reciprocal
causality – the activity will be cause and effect of itself in some sense – a kind of self-
maintaining self-activity or spontaneity. So we should expect Kant’s argument to show that
moral action has this teleological causal form as well. Indeed, since Kant writes that form of
teleological causality is something “we merely borrow from ourselves and ascribe to other
beings,” when we “represent the possibility of the object in accordance with the analogy of such
a causality (like the kind we encounter in ourselves),” the argument for FLN is the first place in
Kant’s work where this causal teleological form should appear.52
Part II: The Concept of the Will
With this account of Kant’s conception of nature in hand, we can now specify our
investigation by looking more closely at his definition of rational nature.
Every thing in nature works according to laws. Only a rational being has the capacity to
act according to the representation of laws, i.e. according to principles, or a will.53
We can begin our analysis of the concept of the will by considering the “laws” according to the
representation of which a will acts. The most natural way to read this definition is that Kant uses
52 KU, 360-1 53
GMS, 412.26-28
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“laws” here in the same sense that he does in the previous sentence54
– the laws in question are
causal laws, which are grounded on the formal natures of the objects of will. This is consistent
with the claim that Kant is providing a genus-species definition of the will. The first sentence
defines the genus, the things of nature, in terms of the causal laws or natures that ground their
causality. The second sentence then introduces a specific difference – a thing in nature which
works or acts according to the representations of causal laws or formal natures of objects,
whatever they might be. They function as practical principles whenever the objects that they
constitute are represented as objects of a will.
The specific difference between a rational being and other beings in nature is the role that
representations play in its activity. In general, the representation mentioned in this definition,
call it “R,” is that by means of which the will represents its object. The first specific mark that
distinguishes a rational being’s willing the object of its representation from thinking about the
logical essence of that representation (in logic) or cognizing the existence or properties of that
object in space and time (in cognition of sensible nature) is the causal role that the representation
plays in grounding the existence of its object.55
The will is a causal power to bring about or
maintain the existence of its objects by means of representations of the nature of those objects.56
When the representation of an object is related to the subject in such a way that the
representation is the real ground for the existence of its object, this constitutes an instance of
desiring that object, or a determination of the faculty of desire.57
So a determination of the will
is a kind of determination of the faculty of desire, and willing is a species of desiring.
54 There is debate about whether Kant equivocates in his usage of the term “laws.” See Lebarge, 1989 for a
discussion of the various positions in this debate. I address this issue elsewhere, but my reasons for understanding these laws as causal laws will become clear throughout the rest of the paper. 55 KpV, 89-90 56 KU, 219-20 57 “The faculty of desire is the faculty to be, by means of one’s representations, the cause of the objects of these
representations,” MS, 211. “If the representation is a ground for determining us for the object, then we desire the
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As a next step, willing an object must be distinguished from merely desiring an object.
The will is defined as the capacity to act in accordance with the representations of laws. Thus
whereas desiring can take anything as its object, the object of the will is always the agent’s own
action or activity – as Kant writes later in the Groundwork, the will is “a capacity to determine
itself to action in conformity with the representation of certain laws.”58
The nature of this
activity is the “law” according to the representation of which the subject is determined to act.
This representation is the real ground for an object of this nature, that is, it is the cause of the
subject acting in accordance with this law, or performing an action with that nature.
When these laws are represented as constituting the nature of the object of the will, they
function as either subjective or objective practical “principles,” i.e., they function either as
maxims or as the practical law.59
A maxim is a subjective principle in that it constitutes the
nature of the object of the will of a particular agent at a particular time. It is the causal law
according to which the agent actually acts (or is disposed to act). The practical law is the moral
law, which is the causal law that constitutes the nature of the necessary object of the will of all
agents at all times.
I say that causal laws “function” as practical principles here instead of saying that they
“are” practical principles in order to reflect Kant’s view that, with the exception of the practical
law, i.e., the moral law, these laws are merely physical causal laws according to which a subject
brings about an effect by using its natural causal powers.60
Thus, there is nothing essentially
practical about these causal laws. It is only when they stand in specific semantic and causal
relations – when the representation of these laws grounds the subject’s acting according to them
object,” ML1, 253-4. In this formal sense, even a holy being has a faculty of desire. Its representations play their
causal role by merely maintaining its holy activity, rather than bringing it about. 58 GMS, 427.19-20, the emphases on “itself” and “action” are mine. 59 GMS, 420-1n. 60
KpV, 25-6 and 26n. Cf. EEKU, 196-7, 199; KU, 171-3
18
– that they play the role or function of a practical principle. It is only the moral law, as the law
of freedom, that is essentially practical, and thus requires a new branch of philosophy – a
metaphysics of morals – to investigate it.
The next step in the analysis of the concept of the will introduces two new concepts that
are applicable only to finite wills: necessitation and an imperative. Kant introduces the concept
of practical necessitation by contrasting the finite human will with the will of a perfect, holy
being, which fully and necessarily realizes whatever activity it represents as its object. Its
maxims, or “subjective constitution,” are “determined only by the representation of the good.”61
The representation of the nature of this activity plays its causal role not by determining the
subject to bring about good activity, but by maintaining the existence of this objectively
necessary activity.
By contrast, in imperfect, human beings, the subject has not necessarily realized the
object of its will, and the subject’s actions are not necessarily in accord with the laws it
represents as “objectively necessary.” This entails two points.
First, the representation of the nature of this object plays its causal, practical role not by
maintaining the existence of this object, as in a holy will, but by determining the subject to bring
about the existence of this object, thereby disposing the subject to make it the case that it acts in
accordance with the law it represents as necessary. Kant calls this determination of the will to
bring about the object an interest in the object. An interest is that by means of which reason
becomes practical in finite rational beings62
– if there is no interest, there is no finite willing.
Second, in willing, the subject represents some laws as objectively necessary even if it
does not actually act in accordance with them. A law must, then, play at least some role in
61 GMS, 414.1-5 62
GMS, 459n., GMS, 460.8-12
19
grounding this determination of the will – otherwise it is not the nature of the object of the will.
This law does not ground the necessity of the subject actually acting in accordance with it, as it
does in a holy will. Rather, it plays some role in grounding the subject’s disposition or interest
to act in accordance with it. The way in which a law does this depends upon the kind of
imperative in question. Kant calls this grounding relation between a law and the will in a finite
rational being the necessitation of the will by that law. Kant describes practical necessitation as
follows:
If, however, reason all by itself does not sufficiently determine the will, if it is also
subject to subjective conditions (to certain incentives) that are not always in agreement
with the objective ones; in a word, if the will does not in itself completely conform with
reason (as is actually the case with human beings), then actions objectively recognized as
necessary are subjectively contingent, and the determination of such a will, in conformity
with objective laws, is necessitation; i.e. the relation of objective laws to a will not
altogether good is represented as the determination of the will of a rational being by
grounds of reason, to which this will is not, however, according to its nature necessarily
obedient.63
This account of practical necessitation can be clarified by using the interpretation of Kant’s
account of the will given up to this point. This account has been formulated in terms of the
semantic and causal relations between the subject, the object and its nature, and the subject’s
representation of this object. In this formal schema, the representation of the nature of an object
(an action) is the ground for determining the subject to bring about the existence of an object of
63
GMS, 412.35-413.8
20
this nature (the performance of the action). The nature of this action (the law) plays some role in
grounding, or necessitating, this determination of the will.
This formal schema of the necessitation of the will by a law is the core of Kant’s theory
of imperatives. Kant defines an imperative as follows:
The representation of an objective principle in so far as it is necessitating for a will is
called a command (of reason), and the formula of the command is called IMPERATIVE.
All imperatives are expressed by an ought, and by this indicate the relation of an
objective law of reason to a will that according to its subjective constitution is not
necessarily determined by it (a necessitation).64
According to this definition, an imperative is the “formula” of a command of reason, which is
expressed linguistically with an “ought.” Just as Kant gives the name “principle” or “practical
principle” to the causal laws that stand in the appropriate causal and semantic relations, he gives
a name to the representation “R” that represents the action and grounds the performance of this
action. When a representation stands in these relations, it functions as a “command of reason” to
perform an action: “The representation of an objective principle in so far as it is necessitating for
a will is called a command (of reason).”65
Thus the imperatival “ought,” which expresses this
command, is a linguistic expression of a certain configuration of causal and semantic relations
between the subject, its object and its nature, and the subject’s representation of its object. With
the exception of the pure practical command of morality expressed by the categorical imperative,
these representations are not intrinsically practical commands of reason. Rather, they are merely
64 GMS, 413.10-15. Confusingly, the “objective law of reason” in this definition corresponds to the practical
“principles” in Kant’s definition of the will. Thus both subjective practical principles (maxims) and the objective
practical principle (the moral law) function as “objective laws of reason” in imperatives. A maxim functions as an
“objective law of reason” simply in virtue of being the nature of the object of the will. 65
GMS, 413.9-10
21
empirical concepts that represent physical causal relations between the subject’s natural causal
powers and the effects of the activities of these powers.
It is helpful to compare Kant’s understanding of imperatives, or “ought” statements, with
his analysis of existence, or “is” statements. In his criticism of the ontological argument, Kant
argues that the existence of an object is not a mark that is built into the intensional content
[Inhalt] of its concept. The copula “is” does not refer to an object or substance called “Being,”66
nor does it pick out an additional property or determination of the object itself, called
“existence.”67
Rather, it is the way of expressing the subject’s act of positing an object
corresponding to a concept, or determining an object in the way represented by a concept in
space and time. That is, it expresses a certain relation between a subject, an object, and the
subject’s representation of that object.
Just as the existence (Sein) of a thing is not a mark or predicate that could be contained in
the concept of that thing, the “ought-to-existence” (Sein-Sollen),68
“commandingness” or
“prescriptivity” does not belong to the logical essence or content (Inhalt) of the concept of an
object.69
An imperative is merely a linguistic formula that expresses a particular semantic and
causal configuration of subject, representation, and object and its nature – namely, the
necessitation of the subject by an objective law of reason. The concepts that function as
commands of reason could function just as well in the theoretical cognition of objects without
66 ML2, 554 “Existence is not a separate reality, although everything that exists must have reality.” 67 KrV, A598-9/B626-7: “Being is obviously not a real predicate, i.e., a concept of something that could add to the
concept of a thing. It is merely the positing of a thing or of certain determinations in themselves. In the logical use
it is merely the copula of a judgment. The proposition God is omnipotent contains two concepts that have their
objects: God and omnipotence; the little word “is” is not a predicate in it, but only that which posits the predicate in
relation to the subject.” Cf. ML2, 554: “Through existence I think nothing more of the thing than through possibility, but only the manner of positing is different, namely the relation to me. Existence thus gives no further
predicate to the thing.” 68 KU, 404 69 Again, except for the categorical imperative, which is intrinsically practical and cannot be used to express
theoretical content in abstraction from its practical function.
22
changing their intensional content, but merely by modifying their relation to the subject and the
object, or as Kant writes, the “way in which they represent” (Vorstellungsart).70
Part III: Imperatives and Their Possibility
The derivation of FUL and FLN occurs within the context of a discussion of the
possibility of the various kinds of imperatives. Kant writes that determining an imperative’s
possibility amounts to determining how to conceive of the content that it expresses, namely, the
necessitation of the will by an objective law of reason.
Now the question arises: how are all these imperatives possible? This question does not
call for knowledge of how to conceive the execution of the action that the imperative
commands, but merely of the necessitation of the will that the imperative expresses in its
task.71
The analysis of the concept of the will above shows that solving this problem of practical
necessitation is equivalent to determining the truth conditions of the imperative: what is the
specific configuration of semantic and causal relations between a subject, an object and its
nature, and the subject’s representation of the object that would make a particular imperative
valid for a particular agent?
In taking up the problem of the possibility of a categorical imperative, Kant remarks that
a categorical imperative poses special difficulties that are not found with the possibility of
70 EEKU, 196-7, 199; cf. KU, 171-3 and KpV, 25-26 and 26n. 71
GMS, 417.3-6
23
hypothetical imperatives. Thus Kant postpones the question of the possibility and necessity of
the categorical imperative to Groundwork III and merely seeks to determine the content of the
categorical imperative in Groundwork II.72
The special problems posed by the categorical imperative, in contrast with a hypothetical
imperative, are semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical. I shall begin by looking at the
“easy” problem of a hypothetical imperative, and then look to how Kant solves the “hard”
problem of the categorical imperative in his derivation of FUL and FLN.
A hypothetical imperative commands the subject to perform an action as a means to bring
about some end distinct from that action, and thus represents this action as conditionally
necessary. By contrast, a categorical imperative commands the performance of an action as
such, regardless of its relation to some other end, and thus represents the action as
unconditionally necessary.73
Kant claims that it is possible to establish the possibility of a hypothetical imperative by
analyzing the concept of willing and end.74
He argues that there is no problem in determining
the semantic content of a hypothetical imperative, since the condition of the necessity of the
action it represents is given – the willing of an end. As we have seen, it is constitutive of willing
that it takes the subject’s action as its object. Thus it is constitutive of willing an end that one
wills that end as an effect of one’s acting in some way = x:75
“in the willing of an object, as my
effect, my causality is already thought, as an acting cause, i.e. the use of means, and the
imperative already extracts the concept of actions necessary to this end from the concept of a
72 GMS, 420.18-23; GMS, 444.35-445.15. 73 GMS, 414.12-17 74 GMS, 417.8-15. Here, I consider rules of skill, which direct us to take the means to our arbitrary ends, and not
counsels of prudence, which direct us to take the necessary means to the necessary end of happiness, since the latter
pose special difficulties due to our lack of a determinate concept of the nature of happiness. See GMS, 417.27ff. 75
Finlay, 2009 makes a similar point.
24
willing of this end.”76
Thus, in a hypothetical imperative, the subject does not represent the
means and the ends as two distinct entities related by a causal law, which would have to be
willed independently. It treats them as one complex entity with a particular inner structure or
nature – the object is the end as an effect of an action. The complex object with this nature is the
object of the will. However, in spite of willing to take the means to its end, the addressee of the
imperative does not take them, and reason thus lacks “decisive influence”77
over the will, which
is why an imperative must tell it to take the means. How is it possible to will and not to will the
means at the same time?78
The addressee of a hypothetical imperative must be told to take the means to its end
because it lacks sufficient knowledge of the nature the means to it end.79
The addressee wills
these means merely notionally – whatever they turn out to be = x – without knowing their nature
substantively.80
The epistemic function of a hypothetical imperative is to give the subject
substantive information about the nature of this activity. This information is contained in
“synthetic propositions”81
based on experience or on mathematical principles. This
representation of the substantive means then functions practically, as a command of reason, and
grounds the subject’s performance of the activity it represents.
Kant’s analysis of the possibility of a hypothetical imperative depends on two ways in
which a concept can contain a “ground of cognition” of its object: externally and internally.82
76 GMS, 417.11-15 77 GMS, 417.9 78 As Allison puts it: “this does not appear to create conceptual space for the possibility of an agent for whom reason
did not have decisive influence actually willing an end without willing the requisite means.” Allison, 2011, 159.
See Korsgaard, 1997, 229-30 and Schroeder, 2005, 363 as well. 79 See Allison 2011, 160 and Ludwig 2006, 149 for the epistemic interpretation of “decisive influence.” 80 Stephen Finlay takes a similar approach to this problem in Finlay, 2009, 163. I avoid his use of the de dicto/de re
distinction here to avoid complications in adapting it to Kant’s transcendental idealism. For sensible objects, the
distinction should relate to possible experience, and not to possible worlds. 81 GMS, 417.15-18 82
JL, 58
25
This distinction will be important for understanding Kant’s derivation of FUL and FLN. When
the subject wills the means to its end merely notionally, its concept functions as an external
ground of cognition for the action. The concept contains the ground for distinguishing
necessary, and thus instrumentally good, actions from all other actions in virtue of their effects.
However, it does not determine the nature of the action sufficiently for bringing about these
effects. In willing an end as an effect, the concept merely designates83
the action by means of its
effects, as “that action x which brings about the end e as an effect.”
By contrast, when the hypothetical imperative represents substantive information about
the nature of this activity, which is sufficient for bringing about the effect, it uses concept of the
action as an internal ground of cognition. Not only does the concept distinguish the action from
other actions in terms of its effects, as an external ground of cognition. It is a ground for
deriving the concept of that end as an effect from the concept of the action as cause, as an
internal ground of cognition of the nature of the action. It identifies the property of the action in
virtue of which it brings about this effect in accordance with a causal law. It does not require
knowledge of the nature of the action as it is in itself, which is impossible, but merely insofar as
it brings about the end as effect. It thus provides inner knowledge of the nature of the action
only in a comparative sense, relative to the subject’s concept of its end as an effect of this action,
and not in an absolute sense, as the action is in itself.
With this distinction in mind, we can see why Kant claims that hypothetical imperatives
do not pose any special semantic, epistemological or metaphysical issues. Our concept of the
nature of the action is an empirical concept, generated by empirical investigation of appearances.
The imperative contains physical causal relations between the subject and its object, which
governed by physical causal laws: “all of this is represented as an immediate consequence from
83
Cf. Kant’s discussion of the designative function on KrV A728-9/B755-6.
26
the theory of the object in relation to the theory of our own nature (ourselves as cause).”84
Thus
accounting for the possibility of a hypothetical imperative does not require any metaphysical
investigation over and above the metaphysics of nature in order to account for these causal
relations: “the practical precept here differs from a theoretical one in its form, but not in its
content, and thus a special kind of philosophy is not required for insight into the connection of
grounds with their consequences.”85
Part IV: The Formula of Universal Law
This analysis of the possibility of a hypothetical imperative helps to illuminate the
semantic, epistemic, and metaphysical challenges posed by the categorical imperative and
provides an additional context for reconstructing Kant’s argument for FUL and FLN. We begin
with Kant with the semantic issue of the content of the categorical imperative. A categorical
imperative expresses the unconditional necessity of an action of a certain kind. This
unconditional necessity raises a problem compared with the conditional necessity of an action
represented by a hypothetical imperative. In a categorical imperative, we cannot refer to a
condition – the willing of an end as an effect – to distinguish necessary actions from the rest.
Without this condition, we lack an external ground of cognition for distinguishing moral from
non-moral action.
84 EEKU, 196 85 EEKU, 196-7. This shows that Kant sees no need to introduce a metaphysically mysterious, sui generis norm of
instrumental reasoning called “The Hypothetical Imperative” or the “Instrumental Principle” to explain the
possibility of hypothetical imperatives. See, for example, Hill, 1973; Korsgaard, 1997; and Wood, 1999, 60ff. who
endorse such a principle. See Schroeder, 2005, 360; Timmermann, 2007, 70; and Allison, 2011, 165-6 for critiques
of Hill’s view.
27
Faced with this difficulty, Kant proposes a different strategy. He claims that we can
generate content for the categorical imperative by analyzing its concept. He writes:
When I think of a hypothetical imperative as such I do not know in advance what it will
contain, until I am given the condition. But when I think of a categorical imperative I
know at once what it contains. For since besides the law the imperative contains only the
necessity of the maxim to conform to this law, whereas the law contains no condition to
which it was limited, nothing is left but the universality of a law as such, with which the
maxim of the action ought to conform, and it is this conformity alone that the imperative
actually represents as necessary.86
Kant’s claim that it is possible to derive content for the categorical imperative by analyzing its
concept is grounded on a key difference between the nature of the action represented by a
hypothetical imperative and the nature of the action represented by the categorical imperative.
We know nothing about the nature of the action that constitutes the content of a hypothetical
imperative until we have a condition – willing a specific end. Only then do we have an external
ground of cognizing the object of the will as whatever action = x that brings about that end as an
effect.
By contrast, we do know something a priori about the nature of the action that constitutes
the content of the categorical imperative. We know that whatever the nature of this action is in
itself = x (and this is what we are ultimately interested in), the categorical imperative represents
86
GMS, 420.24-26
28
it as the unconditionally necessary object of the will because of this inner nature, and not
because it is necessary for bringing about some willed end as its effect.87
What does this entail?
An action of a particular nature is the object of a subject’s will just in case a subject has a
determination of the will, or maxim, to perform an action of that nature. If this action of this
nature is the necessary object of the will, then the subject necessarily has a maxim of this
nature.88
And if the subject necessarily has this maxim of this nature because of its inner nature,
then whatever the nature of this action turns out to be in itself (=x), the nature of the action, as
“the first general inner objective principle of that which belongs to the existence of the causality
of a thing,”89
must be such that it is the real90
ground of the necessity of a maxim to perform an
action of this very nature.
This does not mean that the agent necessarily performs the action because of its nature –
this is the case only for a holy will. The agent with this maxim could merely be disposed to
perform the action, or interested in it because of its inner nature, in which case it the subject is
necessitated to perform the action by its inner nature.91
It is the categorical imperative that
expresses this necessitation.
Thus the categorical imperative contains “the law” [the nature of the unconditionally
necessary action] and the absolute “necessity of the maxim [the nature of the subject’s action] to
87 GMS, 414.12-17 88 This does not mean that the subject is necessarily virtuous or good. In the Religion, Kant claims that the
incentives of morality and self-love are always present in the maxim of a finite rational being. What distinguishes
virtuous from vicious agents is the priority they give to these when they incorporate them into maxims. “Hence the
difference, whether the human being is good or evil, must not lie in the difference between the incentives that he
incorporates into his maxim […], but in their subordination,” RGV, 36. 89 MMr, 29:933 90Again, the nature of a thing “must contain the real ground of all of its consequences" MHe, 28:49 91 In the case of a finite rational being, the moral incentive is a necessary determination of the will, as a necessary
component of moral personality, RGV, 27-8, 45-6. However, this original predisposition is corrupted by radical
evil, RGV, 93-4. It must therefore be reincorporated into the subject’s maxim in a constant endeavor to reestablish
the original purity of this disposition. RGV, 45-6.
29
conform with this law.”92
The categorical imperative contains this a priori knowledge of the
nature of moral action: that it is the real ground of the necessity of a maxim of the same inner
nature. If this configuration of subject, representation, and object and its nature can be first
understood, and then shown to obtain, then the categorical imperative is valid. If not, then
morality, on Kant’s conception anyway, is “an empty delusion and a chimerical concept.”93
Kant’s name for the moral law’s property of “absolute will-determiningness” is universal
lawfulness94
[allgemeine Gesetzmäßigkeit]. This relational property provides an external mark
that distinguishes the moral law specifically from other, merely contingently practical principles.
As we have seen, all practical principles determine the will and thereby function as “objective
laws of reason.” Kant’s name for this relational “will-determining” property of an objective law
of reason is its Gesetzmäßigkeit or lawfulness. Mere maxims are natural causal laws governing
the production of ends as effects. They determine the will, and thereby serve as practical
principles, only insofar as they are represented as such, and not because of their nature. They
thus possess the property of lawfulness only accidentally, under this condition. By contrast, the
objective practical principle, the moral law, is conceived as a practical principle by its very
nature, and not merely because we represent it as such. It determines all wills in virtue of its
very nature, and thus possesses universal lawfulness.95
The law’s relational property of universal lawfulness is in turn grounded on the law’s
inner property, which Kant calls the “form of universality, which […] makes it capable of being
a law (or perhaps a law of nature) [der Form der Allgemeinheit […] die sie ein Gesetz (allenfalls
92 GMS 420.26-421.1 93 GMS, 401.12-13 94 I use this translation of Gesetzmäßigkeit instead of Timmerman’s “conformity to law” in order to capture the idea
that it is a property of the law, and not just a property of other things that can conform to the law. 95 GMS, 420.3-11. Note that Kant conflates the distinction between the categorical imperative and the moral law in
this passage. The law cannot be an imperative by definition, since the law applies to a holy will, which is not
subject to imperatives. The point of the passage is that only the practical law is an essentially practical principle.
30
Naturgesetz) zu sein fähig macht].”96
In the second Critique, Kant clarifies that this “form of
universality” is the form of a universal lawgiving or will-determining: the moral law is
characterized by “the mere form of a universal lawgiving” (die bloße Form einer allgemeinen
Gesetzgebung)97
or “the mere universal lawgiving form” (die bloße allgemeine gesetzgebende
Form).98
The form of universal lawgiving or universal will-determination is that inner property
of the law in virtue of which it determines the will, thereby making this form the inner nature of
morally worthy action. Thus whatever the nature of morally worthy action is in itself, that is,
whatever this universal lawful form consists in, we know a priori that this form grounds the
law’s relational property of universal lawfulness. The aim of Kant’s derivation is to give an
account of the universal lawgiving form that grounds the law’s universal lawfulness, since this is
the inner nature of moral action.
The analysis of the content of the categorical imperative up to this point prepares us to
understand the next step in the derivation of FUL, which is contained in the second clause of the
passage. Kant writes that “the law contains no condition to which it was limited.” Kant’s claim
that the moral law “contains no condition” is puzzling, since it indicates that he is treating the
moral law as a concept, which has content, and not as a nature.
Kant treats the moral law as a concept because it plays the same functional role that a
concept does in grounding the cognition of moral maxims, as a principium diiudicationis. That
is, it contains both the external and the internal grounds of cognition for moral maxims. It
thereby contains the ground for distinguishing maxims for moral action from all other maxims by
comparison, and it contains the first ground for deriving all other determinations of moral action.
96 GMS, 431.11-12, my emphasis. Cf. GMS, 436.15 and KpV, 27. 97 KpV, 27 98
KpV, 33
31
We can elucidate Kant’s treatment of the moral law as a concept of moral maxims by
comparing the categorical imperative with hypothetical imperatives. We saw that in a
hypothetical imperative, the subject’s concept of the object of its will served as the ground for
determining which actions were necessary and which laws served as practical principles. By
contrast, the status of the moral law as a practical principle is not dependent upon our subjective
concepts, desires, and attitudes. The categorical imperative represents the moral law as
completely determining the nature of a good maxim, and thus it completely determines the
content of this representation.99
Moral consciousness in the categorical imperative is the
consciousness of the nature of something that completely determines this moral consciousness,
independently subjective attitudes or interests. That is to say, moral consciousness is the
consciousness of an independent reality.
Thus in the derivation of FUL, Kant analyzes the ML, considered as a concept of the
nature of moral maxims for action, in order to determine what this nature is. In FUL, Kant
shows how the moral law contains an external ground of cognition for distinguishing moral
maxims from all other maxims by means of an external relation, but it does not provide the
resources for determining the inner nature of such maxims until his derivation of FLN.
99 Thus since the law not only grounds the properties of morally worthy action, as its nature, but also grounds the
cognition or intelligibility of morally worthy action, as a concept, Kant treats the moral law as a substantial form.
This interpretation was already suggested by the discussion of the law’s universal lawfulness and its form of
universal lawgiving. As we have seen, Kant accepted the empiricist critique of substantial forms and followed
Locke in distinguishing between the real essences or natures of things, which are responsible for their properties and
which are beyond our knowledge, and the nominal or logical essences of things, by means of which the mind
categorizes things into a logical system of genera and species according to their sensible qualities. See Ayers, 1991,
vol. II, 18-30 and 65-77. He went beyond Locke’s empiricism to argue that the understanding imposes intelligibility upon sensible appearances by means of its a priori categories. However, it should not be surprising that Kant
maintains elements of traditional metaphysics in his practical philosophy that he rejects in his theoretical
philosophy. He does this in the case of the moral law as the inner nature or real essence of moral action and the
(substantial) form of the realm of ends. Along these lines, see Lucas Thorpe, 2010, 484-5, who suggests, but
ultimately rejects, an interpretation of the law as the intellectual soul (or substantial form) of the realm of ends.
32
In order to understand Kant’s treatment of the moral law as a concept of moral maxims
that “contains no condition to which it was limited,” we must look at Kant’s theory of concepts
and their content. This analysis will show that the moral law plays a special role in this theory at
its ideal limits. This special role explains why determining the moral law’s content poses such
great difficulties, and why Kant’s solution to these difficulties must be exceptional. The benefit
of this approach will be that it can explain Kant’s conception of a good maxim as one that can
contain itself as a universal law.
On Kant’s theory of concepts, a concept “contains” something in two senses. All
concepts have a content (Inhalt) and a extension (Umfang).100
The content of a concept is the set
of concepts contained in that concept as marks. For example, the concept “human being”
contains the concepts “rational” and “animal” in it. These concepts are revealed by analysis.
The extension of a concept is the set of concepts and things that are contained under a certain
concept. For example, the concept “human being” contains the concepts “woman,” “man,” and
“child” under it. These lower, more specific concepts are produced through synthesis. It also
contains concrete individual women, men, and children under it.101
Concepts form a hierarchy of genera and species, where a concept contains higher, more
general concepts in it, as “human being” contains the more general concepts “rational” and
“animal” in it, and lower, more specific concepts under it, as “human being” contains “woman,”
“man,” and “child” under it.102
The content and extension of a concept are reciprocally related,
so that adding concepts to a concept’s content renders a more specific concept with a more
limited extension, thereby moving down the hierarchy of genera and species.103
On the other
100 JL, 95 101 See Hanna, 2001, 130, 136-8 for the distinction between “notional” and “objectual” extension. 102 JL, 96-7 103
JL, 96
33
hand, subtracting concepts from a concept’s content renders a more general concept with a
greater extension, thereby moving up the hierarchy.
The ideal limit of specification is the complete determination or individuation of objects
by means of concepts in a lowest species that is no longer a genus (infima species). Kant argues
that the complete specification of individual objects by means of concepts is impossible, since it
is always possible to add another concept to a concept’s content.104
Rather, specification
bottoms out in concrete individuals or examples. This is why, on Kant’s view, the extension of a
concept consists not only of those concepts that fall under it, but also the concrete individual
beings that instantiate it.
The ideal limit of abstraction is a “highest genus” “which is not a species.”105
What
remains after abstracting all of the content from a concept is the pure, universal form of a concept
as such, “the universal and true horizon”106
containing all manifoldness of genera and species
under itself. This form of universality itself is constitutive of a concept as such, and cannot be
removed from this highest, most abstract concept without the concept disappearing altogether.107
This highest concept has no determinate content, but is rather the mere thought of “something”108
completely indeterminate.
As was noted above, the moral law is exceptional as a concept because it operates at
these very limits of the conceptual hierarchy. When Kant writes that the moral law “contains no
condition to which it was limited,” he is claiming that he has abstracted all marks from the
content of the moral law that would limit its extension. The conditions he sets aside are all
empirical concepts of actions that bring about ends as effects in accordance with physical laws as
104 JL, 97; KrV, A655-6/B683-4 105 JL, 97 106 KrV, A658ff/B686ff. 107 JL, 97 108
VL, 911
34
conditions in its content. He thereby sets aside all of those causal laws as candidates for maxims
of absolutely necessary actions as its extension. As he puts it in the derivation in Groundwork I,
he has “robbed the will of all impulses that could arise for it from following some particular
law.”109
When Kant has abstracted all of these empirical concepts from the moral law’s content,
and all of these empirical maxims from its extension, “nothing is left but the universality of a law
as such,” and the question of the content of the moral law becomes pressing. If the moral law
were an empirical concept, then Kant could define it analytically or intensionally, by moving up
the conceptual hierarchy and defining the moral law in terms of the more general concepts in its
content. However, this strategy fails because the moral law is the highest genus, which is not a
species, and therefore does not contain any higher concepts in it.
Another strategy for giving content to the moral law would be to define it extensionally,
or as Kant puts it, in concreto, by means of examples, either conceptual or real. He could add a
mark to the content of the law, and thereby generate the more specific concept of a concrete
moral maxim lower in the hierarchy. However, adding a mark to the moral law’s content would
limit its essential universality, so the law cannot be given content in this way. Another
possibility would be to provide concrete, individual actions that fall under it in its extension.
However, providing a concrete example of moral action presupposes that we already have a
concept that distinguishes good maxims from the rest,110
which is precisely what the (currently
empty) moral law is supposed to be.
Thus, having exhausted these possibilities for furnishing content to the moral law, and
thereby to the categorical imperative, Kant then claims that the moral law itself, by means of “the
109 GMS, 402 110
GMS, 408,28-409.8
35
universality of law as such,” provides its own content. The analysis of the moral law is thus
grounded on the necessary connection between the subject concept and the predicate concept,
which is thought through strict identity.111
The moral law is a concept that contains itself in
itself, as its content, that is, as an intensional mark.
We have seen that when a concept, say, “human being,” contains a concept, say
“rational,” in itself, as content, the contained concept, “rational,” contains the containing
concept, “human being,” under itself, as its comprehension. Thus since the law contains itself in
itself, as content, the law, qua contained in itself, contains the law, qua containing, under itself,
as its extension. The moral law is contained under itself as a concept, as conceptual
comprehension, but not as a more specific concept, since this would require adding a mark to the
content of the law, thereby limiting its essential universality. Furthermore, it is contained under
itself as an objectual comprehension, that is, as something real: as a nature. Thus the moral law,
qua concept, represents itself, qua nature, as instantiating the nature of morally good maxims in
concreto. The moral law is given real content in concreto, by means of an example. However,
instead of pointing beyond itself to an empirically given example as an instance of morally good
maxim, the law points to itself as an archetype112
for the nature of a morally good maxim in
concreto. Thus the moral law functions as a concept, but it makes use of the notions of content
and extension in exceptional ways by functioning as its own content and extension.
Initially, it might seem as if this interpretation does not move the argument forward. We
know already that the moral law is the nature of morally worthy action, and that it is the concept
of morally worthy maxims. Thus, we already know that it picks out maxims that have the same
111 KrV, A6-7/B10-11 112 Cf. KpV, 43, where Kant states that the moral law is the fundamental law of a supersensible nature, and that this
nature is “the archetypical world (natura archetypa) which we cognize only in reason.”
36
nature as the law as necessary maxims. But if we don’t know the nature of the law in itself, and
if we don’t know the content of the law, then why should it help to say that it is its own content?
While Kant has not yet characterized the law in itself, since this is the very point at issue,
he has already shown that we know a real property of the moral law a priori, which allows the
derivation to break out of this logical circle. Namely, the moral law stands in a real and
necessary relation of universal lawgiving to the will. The law is not merely a purely universal
concept that contains itself as a mark. It is the nature of morally good action, and as such it is the
real ground of the necessity of a maxim of the same nature and thus has the property of universal
lawfulness (allgemeine Gesetzmäßigkeit).
Thus when the law, considered as a concept, represents itself as the nature of morally
good action, it is picking out this real, universal will-determining, maxim-grounding relation as
an external mark of morally good maxims. This is what Kant means when he writes that
“whereas the law contains no condition to which it was limited, nothing is left but the
universality of a law as such [die Allgemeinheit eines Gesetzes überhaupt], with which the
maxim of the action ought to conform,”113
or, as he puts it in Groundwork I, “nothing remains
but as such the universal conformity of actions with law [die allgemeine Gesetzmäßigkeit der
Handlungen überhaupt], which alone is to serve the will as its principle.”114
Thus the law contains itself not merely qua purely universal concept, but qua universally
lawgiving or universally will-determining nature. The categorical imperative tells us that our
maxims ought to be able to contain themselves qua universally lawgiving. This is why Kant
writes that “an absolutely good will is that whose maxim can always contain itself, considered as
113 GMS, 421.2-3 114
GMS, 402.5-7
37
a universal law.”115
It explains Kant’s formulation of FUL: “act only according to that maxim
through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.”116
The maxim
“through which” or according to which one acts must at the same time be able to contain itself as
a universally lawgiving.
In this formulation, the moral law serves as an external ground of cognition of morally
good maxims by distinguishing morally good maxims from all other maxims in virtue of their
relational property of universal lawfulness. We have seen that the universal lawfulness of the
law distinguishes the moral law from all other practical principles externally, in virtue of its
relation to the will, but not internally, as it is in itself. FUL says that precisely this property of
universal lawfulness distinguishes good maxims from all other maxims, but without determining
their inner nature, i.e., their form of universal lawgiving in virtue of which they can stand in this
relation.
This preliminary nature of Kant’s results is reflected in the text following the derivation
of FUL. He writes:
Now, if from this one imperative all imperatives of duty can be derived as from their
principle, then, even though we leave it unsettled whether what is called duty is not as
such an empty concept, we shall at least be able to indicate what we think by it and what
the concept means.117
In this passage, Kant claims that he has at least been able to “indicate (anzeigen) what we think”
by “duty” and indicate “what this concept means.” However, duty might still be “an empty
concept.” While Kant’s claim that the categorical imperative is meaningful and yet possibly
115 GMS, 447.10-12 116 GMS, 421.7-8 117
GMS, 421.9-13
38
empty might seem to reflect a confusion on Kant’s part, a comparison with his analysis of
hypothetical imperatives shows that this passage accurately reflects his results at this stage of the
derivation.
In a hypothetical imperative, the will’s concept of its object begins by designating the
nature of an instrumentally good action as that action = x which causes its end as an effect, but
without determining what the nature of this action is. By analogy, FUL “indicates” the inner
nature of morally good action as that = x which is the real ground of an absolutely necessary
determination of the will as its real consequence. However, it does so without determining
positively what the inner nature of this ground is, in virtue of which it grounds this consequence.
In both cases we have external grounds of cognition of the actions in terms of their real
consequences, but lack knowledge of their inner nature. Kant merely has a name for what it is
about the law in itself that “makes it capable of being a law” and allows it to stand in this will-
determining relation and thereby ground its relational property of universal lawfulness: the law’s
universal lawgiving form.
Thus with FUL, Kant is satisfied that he has resolved the semantic issue of the
meaningfulness of the categorical imperative. In FLN, he moves on to consider the
epistemological and metaphysical issues posed by the categorical imperative. In the case of a
hypothetical imperative, empirical investigation could show that the concept of the action that
brings about my end as an effect of that action turns out to be empty. Likewise, this passage
shows that Kant recognizes that his analysis could reveal that this description of a “universal
lawgiving form” is empty, and does not pick out the form of any real or possible kind of activity.
Duty could be an “empty concept,” “universal lawfulness” could be a merely occult quality118
and the “universal lawgiving form” could be as non-explanatory and empty as a scholastic
118
GMS, 410.21
39
substantial form. However, no amount of empirical investigation could decide whether duty is
an empty concept. Kant must determine the inner nature of moral action a priori.
So as with the derivation in Groundwork I, Kant recognizes here that he has not yet given
an account of what the inner nature of moral action is in itself, but only an external criterion for
distinguishing moral maxims from others. He sees that there might be a kind of “gap” in his
argument, albeit not the gap that Aune has suggested. The gap is not between an empty
prescription to conform one’s actions to universal laws, whatever they might be, and a contentful
prescription to act only on maxims fit for universal laws. The derivation of FUL does not
contain any such bare prescription to conform to indeterminate universal laws. Kant shows that
the moral law and thus moral maxims have a real relational property that distinguishes them
from all other practical principles – the property of universal lawgiving.
Thus the problem is not that the derivation of FUL contains a bare prescription that fails
to provide any criterion for distinguishing moral from non-moral maxims. Rather, the problem is
that FUL provides a merely nominal or logical definition of the nature of moral action in relation
to other things,119
as an external ground of cognition. However, in morals, we seek not merely a
nominal definition, but real definition of the nature of moral action in itself, in virtue of which it
is universally lawful, as an internal ground of cognition.120
Kant’s analysis of common moral
cognition has shown that such an account is necessary if we are to perform morally good actions
for their own sake, that is, because of their inner nature, and not merely because of their effects.
It is to this account of the universal lawgiving form that we now turn, in Kant’s Formula of a
Law of Nature.
119 JL, 143 120
JL, 144n.
40
Part V: The Formula of a Law of Nature
Kant’s derivation of the Formula of a Law of Nature formulation of the categorical
imperative is even more condensed and obscure than his derivation of the Formula of Universal
Law. He writes:
Since the universality of the law according to which effects happen constitutes what
which is called nature in the most general sense (according to its form), i.e. the existence
of things in so far as it is determined according to universal laws, the universal imperative
of duty could also be expressed as follows: so act as if the maxim of your action were to
become by your will a universal law of nature.121
Although by using the word “since,” (weil) Kant indicates that he is providing some kind of
argument in this passage, it is difficult to find either the premises or the conclusion of an
argument. Thus I shall make use of the resources developed in this paper to determine the nature
of this derivation and its results.
The conclusion of the argument for FUL suggests that FLN will determine the nature of
morally worthy action in itself, and not just in relation to other things. That is, it will give an
account of the form of universal lawgiving, in virtue of which the law is universally lawful, i.e.,
in virtue of which the grounds an absolutely necessary determination of the will as its
consequence.
As we have seen, the text of FLN supports this view: it shows that it will give an account
of the formal nature of moral action. Furthermore, this account will be given in causal terms
(“according to which effects happen”). Finally, the textual analysis from the first part of the
121
GMS 421.14-20
41
paper shows that this formal nature will be teleological, and therefore consist in an activity of a
self-causing or self-active nature.
We can begin the reconstruction of Kant’s derivation with the conclusion of FUL, where
we have an account of the nature of moral action, i.e., the moral law, in relation to something
else – the will. We know that the law has the relational property of universal lawfulness. That
is, it is the real ground of an absolutely necessary determination of the will – the subject’s maxim
– as a real consequence.
The next step in unpacking Kant’s derivation is to remember that such necessary relations
of real ground and consequence are causal relations.122
The causal relata here are the law, as real
ground or cause, and the maxim, as real consequence or effect.123
As we have seen, Kant calls that in virtue of which the law grounds a maxim, and is thus
“universally lawful,” the “universal lawgiving form” of the law. In the derivation of FLN, Kant
refers to this form of universal lawgiving as “the universality of the law according to which
effects happen,” which “constitutes that which is called nature in the most general sense
(according to its form), i.e. the existence of things in so far as it is determined according to
universal laws.” This form is the inner nature of morally good action, as it is in itself.
Since the determination of the will by the law is a causal relation, the law’s universal
lawgiving form is that in virtue of which the law causes a morally good maxim, as an effect. In
his theory of causality, Kant calls that in virtue of which a cause grounds the existence of its
effect the “causality of a cause”: “Causality is the determination of a cause by which it becomes
122 KpV, 111: “Two determinations necessarily combined in one concept must be connected as ground and
consequent, and so connected that this unity is considered either as analytic (logical connection) or as synthetic (real connection), the former in accordance with the law of identity, the latter in accordance with the law of causality.”
See Watkins, 2005, 113-4, 199f. and De Pierris and Friedman, 2008 for a discussion of Kant’s conception of
causality as concerning relations of real ground and consequence. 123 See, e.g., GMS, 401n., KpV, 72, where Kant describes the determination of the will by the law as a causal
relation.
42
a cause.”124
Thus the form of universal lawgiving is the causality of the law, as a cause. The
causality of a cause is “the continuous action of causality,”125
or, as Eric Watkins puts it, a
“continuously efficacious activity”126
of the cause grounding the existence of its effect. Thus as
the causality of the law as cause, the form of universal lawgiving is an activity, which we can call
the “universal lawgiving activity.” As the form of universal lawgiving, this universal lawgiving
activity is the inner nature of moral action. That is, this universal lawgiving activity is the moral
law in itself. But how should this activity be conceived?
From FUL, we have an account of this universal lawgiving activity in terms of its effects.
The universal lawgiving activity of the law grounds the existence of a maxim. According to
FUL, this maxim has the same universal lawgiving form that the law has. This maxim is thus a
determination of the will to perform this very universal lawgiving activity. So whatever the
law’s universal lawgiving activity is in itself, it causally determines the will to perform precisely
this universal lawgiving activity, as an effect. Thus whatever the inner nature of the law’s
universal lawgiving activity is in itself, we know that it stands in an internal relation of cause,
and thus effect, of itself.
But how, one might wonder, should we conceive of this activity in itself? What is the
nature of this activity, in virtue of which it is capable of having this relation of cause and effect to
itself? This question suggests that a regress of activities, natures, causes, and causalities of
causes threatens. The way out of the regress is to remember what we are looking for: the inner
nature of moral action – the first, real, inner ground of the determinations of moral action. This
analysis has shown that the universal lawgiving activity itself is its own first, inner, real ground.
That is to say, the universal lawgiving activity itself is its own inner nature, and it neither has,
124 MMr, 29:893 125 KrV, A208-9/B253-4, quoted by Watkins, 2005, 256. 126
Quoting Watkins, 2005, 257.
43
nor needs any further ground of explanation in some more fundamental nature, activity, or
substance. Pure moral activity is essentially self-causing: the nature of this activity in itself is
that is universally and necessarily both cause and effect of itself.127
Thus whereas Kant determines the nature of morally good action in relation to something
else in FUL, in terms of its effect, in FLN he determines the nature of morally good action in
relation to itself, in terms of its effect and cause. This inner relation of moral action as cause and
effect of itself explains why it counts as an account of the inner nature of morally worthy action.
It thus satisfies common morality’s need for an account of the inner nature of moral action, for
the sake of which it can act.
Part VI: Concluding Systematic Reflections
With these results in hand, we can now look to Kant’s texts in order to understand them
in a broader systematic context. We can begin by distinguishing the self-causing activity
characteristic of moral action from physical causation, where causes are temporally prior to and
distinct from their effects. The lawgiving activity determines the will absolutely and
unconditionally, and not just at particular times and places, so it is not constrained by
spatiotemporal conditions as natural causality is. The determination of the will by the law should
thus be conceived as a timeless activity, rather than a spatiotemporally indexed event. Kant has
various names for this timeless self-causing activity: it is pure self-activity,128
pure
127 Thus the moral law, as the nature of moral action, just is this pure self-activity. 128
KrV, A418/B446; GMS, 452.10-11
44
spontaneity,129
or “transcendental freedom.”130
This connection is made explicit in the
discussion of formal nature from the Mrongovius metaphysics lectures: “Freedom is also a
nature, insofar as it is not determined by others but by itself. Human beings have this.”131
This
reconstruction of Kant’s derivation of FUL and FLN has the virtue of explaining Kant’s link
between morality and freedom in terms of the causal nature of moral action.132
A second virtue of this interpretation is that it can explain Kant’s insistence that an
inquiry into the foundations of morals requires a special branch of metaphysics. As we have
already seen, the ground for the distinction is causal:133
the relation between causes and effects
in morals is of a specifically different nature from physical causation. A special branch of
philosophy is required – a metaphysics of morals, and not a metaphysics of nature – in order to
investigate the “laws of freedom”134
that govern this causality.135
This causal distinction is
reflected in the fundamental distinction in Kant’s ethics, between heteronomy and autonomy:
“Natural necessity was a heteronomy of efficient causes; for every effect was possible only
according to the law that something else determines the efficient cause to causality; what else,
then, can freedom of the will be, but autonomy, i.e. the property of the will of being a law to
itself?”136
Autonomous self-activity has a causal nature that is specifically different from
heteronomous action.
129 KrV, A446/B474, A448/B476; GMS, 452.18 130 See, e.g., GMS, 446ff. and KpV, 3, 48, 99-101 for systematic discussions of freedom and morality. 131 MMr 29:933-5 132 See MoV, 27:493-4, where Kant claims that moral activity is grounded on “self-activity (spontaneity).” 133 In addition to the texts already cited, see KrV, A532/B560. 134 GMS, 397.14-15 135 See, once again, EEKU, 196-9, KU, 171-3, and KpV, 25-26 and 26n. 136 GMS, 446.21-447.2. Note that Kant only establishes that it is the subject’s own lawgiving, and not, for example, God’s, that determines the subject’s will in the derivation of the Formula of Autonomy formulation of the
categorical imperative. However, as we have seen, he has already established that the formal nature of morally good
action is self-determining in FLN. FA merely determines that, for the categorical imperative to be valid, this
lawgiving activity must exist (since otherwise the will would not be determined by anything), and it must be the
subject’s own lawgiving activity (since otherwise it would not be a determination of the will).
45
The fundamental metaphysical distinction between the causal natures of the objects of the
metaphysics of nature and the metaphysics of morals shows that recent attempts to make Kant’s
ethical view compatible with contemporary scientific naturalism fail as interpretations of his
view. A clear articulation of such an attempt is presented by John Rawls, who describes his
influential “constructivist” interpretation of Kant’s view as follows:
Kant’s constructivism does not say that moral facts, much less all facts, are constructed.
Rather, a constructivist procedure provides principles and precepts that specify which
facts about persons, institutions, and actions, and the world generally, are relevant in
moral deliberation. Those norms specify which facts are to count as reasons. […] The
facts are there already, so to speak, available in our everyday experience or identified by
theoretical reason, but apart from a constructivist moral conception they are simply facts.
[…] Viewed in this way, a constructivist conception is not at odds with our ordinary idea
of truth and matters of fact.137
On Rawls’ interpretation, moral facts and natural facts, (or, in Kant’s terms, the objects of the
metaphysics of morals and the objects of the metaphysics of nature) have the same causal nature.
As we have seen, this is not Kant’s view. On Kant’s view, physical causality and free causality
are specifically different in terms of “the connection of grounds with their consequences,”138
or
causes and effects. It is because of this specific causal difference that Kant believes that a
metaphysics of morals is absolutely necessary. Rawls’ naturalist interpretation does not
recognize the specific causal difference between physical and free causality. Consequently, it
137 Rawls, 1989, 101-2 138
EEKU, 196-7
46
cannot explain the necessity of a metaphysics of morals and therefore it must be rejected as an
interpretation of Kant’s view, whatever its other virtues might be.
We can now conclude by considering how to conceive of the self-active nature of moral
action more intuitively. Kant claims that the nature of morally worthy action can be made more
intuitive by means of analogy between the natural order and the moral order.139
This analogy is
present in the Groundwork140
and developed in the Typik of the second Critique and in the
second part of the third Critique. In the second Critique he claims that the lawful form of
sensible nature as a natural order can be used as a symbol141
for thinking and judging about
whether our maxims are compatible with the moral order. While there is controversy as to how
to construe this analogy,142
the reconstruction of FLN here provides a natural interpretation.
According to the third Critique, we reflect on nature as if it were an objectively purposive,
teleologically ordered system, with various species, organisms, and ecosystems reciprocally
dependent upon each other as means and ends to, and cause and effect of each other’s form and
existence. We do this because the structure or form of these systems is unintelligible to us unless
we view them as purposively or functionally organized.
This reflective conception of nature as a whole, and natural organisms in particular, as
empirical examples of self-preserving, self-maintaining, and “self-causing” systems gives us a
way of thinking about the pure self-active nature of moral action. Such self-subsisting systems
are to be thought of in terms of equilibrium, harmony, and balance. If our maxims could not
have the same self-maintaining nature, if they could “not subsist as a nature,”143
and thus be a
139 Kant draws the second analogy in §59 of the third Critique, where he claims that beauty is the symbol of morality. 140 GMS, 436n. and 438.23-9 141 KpV, 67-71 142 See Allison, 2011, 184n.20 143
GMS, 422.11
47
part of an “enduring natural order,”144
then they must be rejected. Since the focus here is on
moral metaphysics, and not moral epistemology, I leave to one side whether Kant’s Typik is an
adequate account of moral judgment. The fundamental metaphysical conclusion is that these
texts support the claim that the inner nature of moral activity is not that it serves as a means to
produce good effects in accordance with physical laws, no matter how beneficent and kind the
motives are and regardless of how good the consequences might be. The causal nature of moral
action is of a specifically different causal form and requires a specifically different branch of
metaphysics to investigate it. Moral action is a form of pure, self-maintaining, purposive self-
activity. This analogy between moral activity and organized systems shows that, on Kant’s
account of morals as pure practical teleology, moral activity is conceived of as a form of pure
life.
144
KpV, 44; cf. KpV, 69.
48
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