conform to it, and this categorical “ought” presents a synthetic a prioriproposition,
since besides my will affected by my sensuous desires there is added the Idea of exactly
the same will as pure, practical of itself, and belonging to the intelligible world, which
according to reason contains the supreme condition of the sensuously affected will. It is
similar to the manner in which concepts of the understanding, which of themselves
mean nothing but lawful form in general, are added to the intuitions of the sensible
world, thus rendering possible a priorisynthetic propositions on which all knowledge
of a system of nature rests.
The practical use of ordinary human reason confirms the correctness of this
deduction. When we present examples of honesty of purpose, of steadfastness in fol-
lowing good maxims, and of sympathy and general benevolence even with great sacri-
fices of advantage and comfort, there is no man, not even the most malicious villain
(provided he is otherwise accustomed to using his reason), who does not wish that he
also might have these qualities, but because of his inclinations and impulses cannot
bring this about, yet at the same time wishes to be free from such inclinations which
are burdensome even to him. He thus proves that with a will free from all impulses of
sensibility, he in thought transfers himself into an order of things altogether different
from that of his desires in the field of sensibility. He cannot expect to obtain by that
wish any gratification of desires or any state which would satisfy his actual or even
imagined inclinations, for the Idea itself, which elicits this wish from him, would lose
its preeminence if he had any such expectation. He imagines himself to be this better
person when he transfers himself to the standpoint of a member of the intelligible
world to which he is involuntarily impelled by the Idea of freedom (i.e., of indepen-
dence from the determining causes in the world of sense); and from this standpoint he
is conscious of a good will, which on his own confession constitutes the law for his
bad will as a member of the world of sense. He acknowledges the authority of the law
even while he transgresses it. The moral “ought” is therefore his own volition as a
member of the intelligible world, and it is conceived by him as an “ought” only insofar
as he regards himself at the same time as a member of the world of sense.
On the Extreme Boundary of All Practical PhilosophyIn respect to their will, all men think of themselves as free. Hence arise all judg-
ments of acts as being such as ought to have been done, although they were not done.
But this freedom is not an empirical concept and cannot be such, for it continues to
hold even though experience shows the contrary of the demands which are necessar-
ily conceived to be consequences of the supposition of freedom. On the other hand it
is equally necessary that everything that happens should be inexorably determined by
natural laws, and this natural necessity is likewise no empirical concept because it
implies the concept of necessity and thus of a prioriknowledge. But this concept of a
system of nature is confirmed by experience, and it is inevitably presupposed if expe-
rience, which is knowledge of the objects of the sense interconnected by universal
laws, is to be possible. Therefore freedom is only an Idea of reason whose objective
reality in itself is doubtful, while nature is a concept of the understanding which
shows and must necessarily show its reality by examples of experience.
There now arises a dialectic of reason, since the freedom ascribed to the will seems
to stand in contradiction to natural necessity. At this parting of the ways reason in its
speculative aspect finds the path of natural necessity more well-beaten and usable than
that of freedom, but in its practical aspect the path of freedom is the only one on which it
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