Definition of “Critique of Practical Reason” (1788)

lilen gomez | Feb. 2022
Professor in Philosophy

While in the first work the objective had been to delimit the scope of our knowledge, which was redirected to the field of experience, in the Critique of Practical Reason, the order of the will is transcendent with respect to experience. This is explained because there is a pure practical reason that is capable of determining the will without intervention of none motivation linked to experience.

The categorical imperative

There are certain practical principles that consist of general determinations of the will, on which particular practical rules depend. These are divided into maxims and imperatives: the former are subjective principles, which apply to individual subjects; while the latter are objective practical principles, which are valid for all human beings.

Imperatives imply general commands or duties. In turn, the imperatives can be hypothetical, when the will is conditioned under certain objectives, or categorical, when the will it is not determined with a view to attaining a certain goal, but is simply determined as will itself, regardless of its effects.

The categorical imperative, decisive for the theory of morality Kantian, consists of a law practice that is unconditionally valid for any rational being, regardless of all subjective conditioning. Categorical imperatives, then, are equivalent to universal and necessary moral laws.

The law moral It does not depend on the content of the principle, but on its form: only that which, as a subjective maxim, is desirable to become a universal (objective) law, is a categorical imperative. That is, according to the categorical imperative, we should only act in such a way that, if all mankind behaved identically, this would be desirable. For example, “thou shalt not kill” is a categorical imperative, to the extent that it would be desirable for all humanity to behave in accordance with it.

Freedom as a condition of the moral law

The categorical imperative, insofar as it determines the will without the conditioning of experience, is a priori, that is, the moral law depends on its pure form. This is imposed on the awareness as a fact of reason and, with the awareness of the categorical imperative, in turn, the awareness of freedom is communicated. Duty only makes sense when man is free to follow it or not to do it; otherwise, moral laws would be nothing but natural laws, as necessary.

In this sense, the moral law is an autonomous law, because the will gives itself the law, contrary to heteronomy, in which the will is determined by an external law. Thus, the pure form of the moral law, freedom and autonomy are mutually implied notions.

the moral good

For Kant, the moral good does not precede the law, but follows from it in its pure form. To act well, it is not enough that the content of the action coincides with that of the law, but that the will that directs the action must be solely determined by said law. In other words, it is not enough to act according to the legality, but in the action, the motor of the action has to be the duty itself. Otherwise, if the conformity to the law is merely accidental, then there is no moral action. For example, if one acts in accordance with the law to show himself upright before others, the motor of the action would not be, in this case, moral, but rather it would be merely a vain action.

Bibliographic references

Giovanni Reale and Dario Antiseri (1992) History of thought philosophical and scientific. II. Of

humanism to Kant. (Il pensiero occidentale dalle origini ad oggi. Volume II. Editrice La Scuola, Brescia, fifth ed. 1985), trans. by Juan Andres Iglesias, Barcelona.

Kant, I. (2003). Critique of Practical Reason. Buenos Aires: Losada.