recognize the laws [governing] the employment of its powers and all its actions: first, as
belonging to the world of sense, under the laws of nature (heteronomy), and, second, as
belonging to the intelligible world under laws which, independent of nature, are not
empirical but founded on reason alone.
As a rational being and thus as belonging to the intelligible world, man cannot
think of the causality of his own will except under the Idea of freedom, for indepen-
dence from the determining causes of the world of sense (an independence which
reason must always ascribe to itself) is freedom. The concept of autonomy is insepara-
bly connected with the Idea of freedom, and with the former there is inseparably bound
the universal principle of morality, which is the ground in Idea of all actions of rational
beings, just as natural law is the ground of all appearances.
We have now removed the suspicion which we raised that there might be a hidden
circle in our reasoning from freedom to autonomy and from the latter to the moral law.
This suspicion was that we laid down the Idea of freedom for the sake of the moral law
in order later to derive the law from freedom, and that we were thus unable to give any
basis for the law, presenting it only as a petitio principii[begging the question] which
well-disposed minds might gladly allow us, but which we could never advance as a
demonstrable proposition. But we now see that, if we think of ourselves as free, we
transport ourselves into the intelligible world as members of it and know the autonomy
of the will together with its consequence, morality; whereas if we think of ourselves as
obligated, we consider ourselves as belonging both to the world of sense and at the
same time to the intelligible world.How Is a Categorical Imperative Possible?The rational being counts himself,quaintelligence, as belonging to the intelligible
world, and only as an efficient cause belonging to it does he call his causality will. On the
other side, however, he is conscious of himself as a part of the world of sense in which
his actions are found as mere appearances of that causality. But we do not discern how
they are possible on the basis of that causality which we do not know; rather, those
actions must be regarded as determined by other appearances, namely, desires and incli-
nations belonging to the world of sense. As a member of the intelligible world only, all
my actions would completely accord with the principle of the autonomy of the pure will,
and as a part only of the world of sense would they have to be assumed to conform
wholly to the natural law of desires and inclinations and thus to the heteronomy of
nature. (The former actions would rest on the supreme principle of morality, and the lat-
ter on that of happiness.) But since the intelligible world contains the ground of the world
of sense and hence of its laws, the intelligible world is (and must be conceived as)
directly legislative for my will, which belongs wholly to the intelligible world. Therefore
I recognize myself quaintelligence as subject to the law of the world of understanding
and to the autonomy of the will. That is, I recognize myself as subject to the law of rea-
son which contains in the Idea of freedom the law of the intelligible world, while at the
same time I must acknowledge that I am a being which belongs to the world of sense.
Therefore I must regard the laws of the intelligible world as imperatives for me, and
actions in accord with this principle as duties.
Thus categorical imperatives are possible because the Idea of freedom makes me
a member of an intelligible world. Consequently, if I were a member of that world only,
all my actions wouldalways be in accordance with the autonomy of the will. But since
I intuit myself at the same time as a member of the world of sense, my actions oughtto888 IMMANUELKANT
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