I—-The STANDARD of morally good action (or rather Will), as expressed in the different forms of the Categorical Imperative, is the possibility of its being universally extended as a law for all rational beings. His meaning comes out still better in the obverse statement: The action is bad that cannot be, or at least cannot be wished to lie, turned unto a universal law.
II.—Kant would expressly demur to being questioned as to his PSYCHOLOGY of Ethics; since he puts his own theory in express opposition to every other founded upon any empirical view of the mental constitution. Nevertheless, we may extract some kind of answers to the usual queries.
The Faculty is the (pure Practical) Reason. The apprehension of what is morally right is entirely an affair of Reason; the only element of Feeling is an added Sentiment of Awe or Respect for the law that Reason imposes, this being a law, not only for me who impose it on myself, but at the same time for every rational agent. The Pure Reason, which means with Kant the Faculty of Principles, is Speculative or Practical. As Speculative, it requires us to bring our knowledge (of the understanding) to certain higher unconditioned unities (Soul, Cosmos, God); but there is error if these are themselves regarded as facts of knowledge. As Practical, it sets up an unconditional law of Duty in Action (unconditioned by motives); and in this and in the related conception of the Summum Bonum is contained a moral certainty of the Immortality (of the soul), Freedom (in the midst of Natural Necessity), and of God as existent.
As to the point of Free-will, nothing more need be said.
Disinterested Sentiment, as sentiment, is very little regarded: disinterested action is required with such rigour that every act or disposition is made to lose its character as moral, according as any element of interested feeling of any kind enters into it. Kant obliterates the line between Duty and Virtue, by making a duty of every virtue; at least he conceives clearly that there is no Virtue in doing what we are strongly prompted to by inclination—that virtue must involve self-sacrifice.
III.—His position with respect to Happiness is peculiar. Happiness is not the end of action: the end of action is rather the self-assertion of the rational faculty over the lower man.
If the constituents of Happiness could be known—and they cannot be—there would be no morality, but only prudence in the pursuit of them. To promote our own happiness is indeed a duty, but in order to keep us from neglecting our other duties.
Nevertheless, he conceives it necessary that there should be an ultimate equation of Virtue and Happiness; and the need of Happiness he then expressly connects with the sensuous side of our being.
IV.—His MORAL CODE may here be shortly presented from the second part of his latest work, where it is fully given. Distinguishing Moral Duties or (as he calls them) 'Virtue-duties,' left to be enforced internally by Conscience, from Legal Duties (Rechtspflichten), externally enforced, he divides them into two classes—(A) Duties to Self; (B) Duties to Others.
(A) Duties to Self. These have regard to the one private Aim or End that a man can make a duty of, viz., his own Perfection; for his own Happiness, being provided for by a natural propensity or inclination, is to himself no duty. They are (a) perfect (negative or restrictive) as directed to mere Self-Conservation; (b) imperfect (positive or extensive) as directed to the Advancement or Perfecting of one's being. The perfect are concerned about Self (a), as an Animal creature, and then are directed against—(1) Self-destruction, (2) Sexual Excess, (3) Intemperance in Eating and Drinking; (B) as a Moral creature, and then are directed against—(1) Lying, (2) Avarice, (3) Servility. The imperfect have reference to (a) physical, (B) moral advancement or perfection (subjectively. Purity or Holiness).