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The Critique of Practical Reason

Immanuel Kant · translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

Kant's second Critique, on practical reason: how reason alone can determine the will, and what follows for freedom and morality.

The Critique of Practical Reason develops Kant's moral philosophy after the Groundwork. It treats the moral law as a fact of reason, connects it with freedom, and discusses the highest good and the postulates of God and immortality.

This edition is the English translation by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott.

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The commonest understanding can distinguish without instruction what form of maxim is adapted for universal legislation, and what is not. Suppose, for example, that I have made it my maxim to increase my fortune by every safe means. Now, I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of which is dead and has left no writing about it. This is just the case for my maxim. I desire then to know whether that maxim can also bold good as a universal practical law. I apply it, therefore, to the present case, and ask whether it could take the form of a law, and consequently whether I can by my maxim at the same time give such a law as this, that everyone may deny a deposit of which no one can produce a proof. I at once become aware that such a principle, viewed as a law, would annihilate itself, because the result would be that there would be no deposits. A practical law which I recognise as such must be qualified for universal legislation; this is an identical proposition and, therefore, self-evident. Now, if I say that my will is subject to a practical law, I cannot adduce my inclination (e.g., in the present case my avarice) as a principle of determination fitted to be a universal practical law; for this is so far from being fitted for a universal legislation that, if put in the form of a universal law, it would destroy itself.

Contents

  1. 01Preface.
  2. 02Introduction.
  3. 03Of the Idea of a Critique of Practical Reason.
  4. 04First Part — Elements of Pure Practical Reason.
  5. 05Book I. The Analytic of Pure Practical Reason.
  6. 06Chapter I. Of the Principles of Pure Practical Reason.
  7. 07I. Definition.
  8. 08Remark.
  9. 09II. Theorem I.
  10. 10III. Theorem II.
  11. 11Remark I.
  12. 12Remark II.
  13. 13IV. Theorem II.
  14. 14Remark.
  15. 15V. Problem I.
  16. 16Remark.
  17. 17VII. Fundamental Law of the Pure Practical Reason.
  18. 18Remark.
  19. 19Corollary.
  20. 20Remark.
  21. 21VIII. Theorem IV.
  22. 22Remark.
  23. 23Remark II.
  24. 24Practical Material Principles of Determination taken as the Foundation of Morality, are:
  25. 25Book1/chapter1 ^paragraph 105
  26. 26I. Of the Deduction of the Fundamental Principles of Pure
  27. 27II. Of the Right that Pure Reason in its Practical use has to an Extension which is not possible to it in its Speculative Use.
  28. 28Chapter II. Of the Concept of an Object of Pure Practical Reason.
  29. 29Table of the Categories of Freedom relatively to the Notions of Good
  30. 30Of the Typic of the Pure Practical Judgement.
  31. 31Chapter III. Of the Motives of Pure Practical Reason.
  32. 32Critical Examination of the Analytic of Pure Practical Reason.
  33. 33Book II. Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason.
  34. 34Chapter I. Of a Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason Generally.
  35. 35Chapter II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the Conception of the "Summum Bonum".
  36. 36I. The Antinomy of Practical Reason.
  37. 37II. Critical Solution of the Antinomy of Practical Reason.
  38. 38III. Of the Primacy of Pure Practical Reason in its Union with the Speculative Reason.
  39. 39IV. The Immortality of the Soul as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason.
  40. 40V. The Existence of God as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason.
  41. 41VI. Of the Postulates of Pure Practical Reason Generally.
  42. 42VII. How is it possible to conceive an Extension of Pure Reason in a Practical point of view, without its Knowledge as Speculative being enlarged at the same time?
  43. 43VIII. Of Belief from a Requirement of Pure Reason.
  44. 44IX. Of the Wise Adaptation of Man's Cognitive Faculties to his Practical Destination.
  45. 45Second Part.
  46. 46Methodology of Pure Practical Reason.
  47. 47Conclusion.

About this edition

Author
Immanuel Kant
Translator
Thomas Kingsmill Abbott
Era
Early modern (c. 1500–1800)
Reading level
Advanced: for close, demanding reading
Formats
EPUB, PDF
Length
141 pages
First published
1788
This edition
Modern Philosophers