knowledge. Much less does it deserve the name of moral philosophy, since by this
confusion it spoils the purity of morals themselves, and works contrary to its own end.
It should not be thought that what is here required is already present in the cel-
ebrated Wolff’s propaedeutic to his moral philosophy (i.e., in what he calls Universal
Practical Philosophy) and that it is not an entirely new field which is to be opened.
Precisely because his work was to be universal practical philosophy, it contained no
will of any particular kind, such as one determined without any empirical motives by
a prioriprinciples; in a word, it had nothing which could be called a pure will, since
it considered only volition in general with all the actions and conditions which pertain
to it in this general sense. Thus his propaedeutic differs from a metaphysic of morals
in the same way that general logic is distinguished from transcendental philosophy,
the former expounding the actions and rules of thinking in general, and the latter pre-
senting the actions and rules of pure thinking (thinking by which objects are known
completely a priori). For the metaphysics of morals is meant to investigate the Idea
and principles of a possible pure will and not the actions and conditions of human
volition as such, which for the most part are drawn from psychology.
That universal practical philosophy discussed (though improperly) laws and
duty is no objection to my assertion. For the authors of this science remain even here
true to their idea of it. They do not distinguish the motives which are presented com-
pletely a prioriby reason alone and which are thus moral in the proper sense of the
world, from empirical motives which the understanding raises to universal concepts
by comparing experiences. Rather, they consider motives without regard to the differ-
ence in their source but only with reference to their larger or smaller number (as they
are considered to be all of the same kind); they thus formulate their concept of oblig-
ation, which is anything but moral, but which is all that can be desired in a philosophy
which does not decide whether the origin of all possible practical concepts is a priori
or a posteriori.
As a preliminary to a Metaphysics of Moralswhich I intend to publish someday,
I issue these Foundations. There is, to be sure, no other foundation for such a metaphysics
than a critical examination of pure practical reason, just as there is no other foundation for
metaphysics than the already published critical examination of pure speculative reason.
But, in the first place, a critical examination of pure practical reason is not of such extreme
importance as that of the speculative reason, because human reason, even in the common-
est mind, can easily be brought to a high degree of correctness and completeness in moral
matters while, on the other hand, in its theoretical but pure use it is wholly dialectical. In
the second place, I require of a critical examination of pure practical reason, if it is to be
complete, that its unity with the speculative be subject to presentation under a common
principle, because in the final analysis there can be but one and the same reason which
must be different only in application. But I could not bring this to such a completeness
without bringing in observations of an altogether different kind and without thereby con-
fusing the reader. For these reasons I have employed the title,Foundations of the
Metaphysics of Morals,instead of Critique of Pure Practical Reason.
Because, in the third place, a Metaphysics of Morals,in spite of its forbidding
title, is capable of a high degree of popular adaptation to common understanding, I find
it useful to separate this preliminary work of laying the foundation, in order not to have
to introduce unavoidable subtleties into the latter, more comprehensible work.
The present foundations, however, are nothing more than the search for and estab-
lishment of the supreme principle of morality. This constitutes a task altogether complete in
design and one which should be kept separate from all other moral inquiry. My conclusions
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