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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

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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.

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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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