and wrong (aut fas aut nefas). It is assuredly the conception of the
activity of the free-will in general. In like manner, the expounders
of ontology start from something and nothing, without perceiving
that these are already members of a division for which the highest
divided conception is awanting, and which can be no other than that of
thing in general.

     IV. GENERAL PRELIMINARY CONCEPTIONS DEFINED AND EXPLAINED.

              (Philosophia practica universalis).

  The conception of freedom is a conception of pure reason. It is
therefore transcendent in so far as regards theoretical philosophy;
for it is a conception for which no corresponding instance or
example can be found or supplied in any possible experience.
Accordingly freedom is not presented as an object of any theoretical
knowledge that is possible for us. It is in no respect a constitutive,
but only a regulative conception; and it can be accepted by the
speculative reason as at most a merely negative principle. In the
practical sphere of reason, however, the reality of freedom may be
demonstrated by certain practical principles which, as laws, prove a
causality of the pure reason in the process of determining the
activity of the will that is independent of all empirical and sensible
conditions. And thus there is established the fact of a pure will
existing in us as the source of all moral conceptions and laws.

  On this positive conception of freedom in the practical relation
certain unconditional practical laws are founded, and they specially
constitute moral laws. In relation to us as human beings, with an
activity of will modified by sensible influences so as not to be
conformable to the pure will, but as often contrary to it, these
laws appear as imperatives commanding or prohibiting certain
actions; and as such they are categorical or unconditional
imperatives. Their categorical and unconditional character
distinguishes them from the technical imperatives which express the
prescriptions of art, and which always command only conditionally.
According to these categorical imperatives, certain actions are
allowed or disallowed as being morally possible or impossible; and
certain of them or their opposites are morally necessary and
obligatory. Hence, in reference to such actions, there arises the
conception of a duty whose observance or transgression is
accompanied with a pleasure or pain of a peculiar kind, known as moral
feeling. We do not, however, take the moral feelings or sentiments
into account in considering the practical laws of reason. For they
do not form the foundation or principle of practical laws of reason,
but only the subjective effects that arise in the mind on the occasion
of our voluntary activity being determined by these laws. And while
they neither add to nor take from the objective validity or
influence of the moral laws in the judgement of reason, such
sentiments may vary according to the differences of the individuals
who experience them.

  The following conceptions are common to jurisprudence and ethics
as the two main divisions of the metaphysic of morals.

  Obligation is the necessity of a free action when viewed in relation
to a categorical imperative of reason. An imperative is a practical
rule by which an action, otherwise contingent in itself, is made
necessary. It is distinguished from a practical law in that such a
law, while likewise representing the action as necessary, does not
consider whether it is internally necessary as involved in the
nature of the agent- say as a holy being- or is contingent to him,
as in the case of man as we find him; for where the first condition
holds good, there is in fact no imperative. Hence an imperative is a
rule which not only represents but makes a subjectively contingent
action necessary; and it, accordingly, represents the subject as being
(morally) necessitated to act in accordance with this rule. A
categorical or unconditional imperative is one which does not
represent the action in any way immediately through the conception
of an end that is to be attained by it; but it presents the action
to the mind as objectively necessary by the mere representation of its
form as an action, and thus makes it necessary. Such imperatives
cannot be put forward by any other practical science than that which
prescribes obligations, and it is only the science of morals that does
this. All other imperatives are technical, and they are altogether
conditional. The ground of the possibility of categorical
imperatives lies in the fact that they refer to no determination of
the activity of the will by which a purpose might be assigned to it,
but solely to its freedom.

  Every action is allowed (licitum) which is not contrary to
obligation; and this freedom not being limited by an opposing
imperative, constitutes a moral right as a warrant or title of
action (facultas moralis). From this it is at once evident what
actions are disallowed or illicit (illicita).

  Duty is the designation of any action to which anyone is bound by an
obligation. It is therefore the subject-matter of all obligation. Duty
as regards the action concerned may be one and the same, and yet we
may be bound to it in various ways.

  The categorical imperative, as expressing an obligation in respect
to certain actions, is a morally practical law. But because obligation
involves not merely practical necessity expressed in a law as such,
but also actual necessitation, the categorical imperative is a law
either of command or prohibition, according as the doing or not
doing of an action is represented as a duty. An action which is
neither commanded nor forbidden is merely allowed, because there is no
law restricting freedom, nor any duty in respect of it. Such an action
is said to be morally indifferent (indifferens, adiaphoron, res