The Online Library of Liberty

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• Translator’s Preface.
• Bibliographical Note.
• Prefatory Explanations.
• Prolegomena. General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals.
• I.: The Relation of the Faculties of the Human Mind to the Moral Laws.
• II.: The Idea and Necessity of a Metaphysic of Morals.
• III.: The Division of a Metaphysic of Morals.
• General Divisions of the Metaphysic of Morals.
• I.: Division of the Metaphysic of Morals As a System of Duties Generally.
• II.: Division of the Metaphysic of Morals According to Relations of Obligation.
• IV.: General Preliminary Conceptions Defined and Explained.
• Introduction to the Science of Right.
• General Definitions and Divisions.
• A.: What the Science of Right Is.
• B.: What Is Right?
• C.: Universal Principle of Right.
• D.: Right Is Conjoined With the Title Or Authority to Compel.
• E.: Strict Right May Be Also Represented As the Possibility of a Universal Reciprocal Compulsion In Harmony With the Freedom of All According to Universal Laws.
• F.: Supplementary Remarks On Equivocal Right.
• Division of the Science of Right.
• A.: General Division of the Duties of Right.
• B.: Universal Division of Rights.
• C.: Methodical Division of the Science of Right.
• The Science of Right. Part First. Private Right. the System of Those Laws Which Require No External Promulgation.
• Private Right. the Principles of the External Mine and Thine Generally.
• Chapter First. of the Mode of Having Anything External As One’s Own.
• Private Right: Chapter Second. the Mode of Acquiring Anything External.
• First Section. Principles of Real Right.
• Second Section. Principles of Personal Right.
• Third Section. Principles of Personal Right That Is Real In Kind.
• The Rights of the Family As a Domestic Society.
• Title First. Conjugal Right. (husband and Wife.)
• Rights of the Family As a Domestic Society.: Title Second. Parental Right. (parent and Child.)
• Rights of the Family As a Domestic Society.: Title Third. Household Right. (master and Servant.)
• Systematic Division of All the Rights Capable of Being Acquired By Contract.
• Episodical Section. the Ideal Acquisition of External Objects of the Will.
• Private Right.: Chapter Third. Acquisition Conditioned By the Sentence of a Public Judicatory.
• Transition From the Mine and Thine In the State of Nature to the Mine and Thine In the Juridical State Generally.
• The Science of Right. Part Second. Public Right. the System of Those Laws Which Require Public Promulgation.
• Public Right. the Principles of Right In Civil Society.
• Public Right.
• I.: Right of the State and Constitutional Law.
• Constitutional and Juridical Consequences Arising From the Nature of the Civil Union.
• Public Right.
• II.: The Right of Nations and International Law.
• Public Right.
• III.: The Universal Right of Mankind.
• Conclusion.
• Supplementary Explanations of the Principles of Right.
• Objection As to the Faculty of Desire.
• Apologia. Kant’s Vindication of His Philosophical Style.

I.

Division of the Metaphysic of Morals as a System of Duties generally.

1. All Duties are either Duties of Right, that is, Juridical Duties (Officia Juris), or Duties of Virtue, that is, Ethical Duties (Officia Virtutis s. ethica). Juridical Duties are such as may be promulgated by external Legislation; Ethical Duties are those for which such legislation is not possible. The reason why the latter cannot be properly made the subject of external Legislation is because they relate to an End or final purpose, which is itself, at the same time, embraced in these Duties, and which it is a Duty for the individual to have as such. But no external Legislation can cause any one to adopt a particular intention, or to propose to himself a certain purpose; for this depends upon an internal condition or act of the mind itself. However, external actions conducive to such a mental condition may be commanded, without its being implied that the individual will of necessity make them an End to himself.

• But why, then, it may be asked, is the Science of Morals or Moral Philosophy, commonly entitled—especially by Cicero—the Science of Duty and not also the Science of Right, since Duties and Rights refer to each other? The reason is this. We know our own Freedom — from which all Moral Laws and consequently all Rights as well as all Duties arise — only through the Moral Imperative, which is an immediate injunction of Duty; whereas the conception of Right as a ground of putting others under Obligation has afterwards to be developed out of it.

2. In the Doctrine of Duty, Man may and ought to be represented in accordance with the nature of his faculty of Freedom, which is entirely supra-sensible. He is, therefore, to be represented purely according to his Humanity as a Personality independent of physical determinations (homo noumenon), in distinction from the same person as a Man modified with these determinations (homo phenomenon). Hence the conceptions of Right and End when referred to Duty, in view of this twofold quality, give the following Division:—