The New Schaffherzog Encyclopedia

Book Id: WPLBN0000704927
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 1.64 MB.
Reproduction Date: 2004

Title:	The New Schaffherzog Encyclopedia
Author:
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Religion, Christian literature, Christian theology
Collections:	Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Christian Classics Ethereal Library


Citation APA MLA Chicago The New Schaffherzog Encyclopedia. (n.d.). The New Schaffherzog Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Excerpt
Excerpt: Kant's Grundlegung zur Metaplaysik der Sitten (Riga, 1785) and Kritik der praktisehen Vernunft (1788) contain his contribution to the subject. Naturally there were systems of moral law before Kant's time and moral legislators of all kinds, but the content of moral prescriptions had been derived from nature, custom, or arbitrary will. Man had indeed established himself as deciding moral questions on the basis of the individual conscience, but Kant in his critical analysis of the power of reason first recognized the secret of morality. The essence of moral legislation which he discovered was legislation by self. An act is moral which the will imposes upon itself in the consciousness that the maxim which it is following in any particular case can be erected into a universal law. Such acts are recognized as duty and done as duty. Man in giving moral commands to himself plays the role of both ruler and subject. The law once accepted must be followed even against man's will, neither threats nor flattery can be brought into relation with it. That will is good which fulfils duty on account of duty's sake, recognizing it as a principle of application. Universal and necessary elements condition morality, so the moral law is like the law of nature, but it expresses a necessity without force. It is an imperative act of will, not hypothetical but categorical, valid under all conditions. But, applicable only, to a reasonable being, it is not possible without freedom.