To hate vice in men is neither duty nor against duty, but a mere
feeling of horror of vice, the will having no influence on the feeling
nor the feeling on the will. Beneficence is a duty. He who often
practises this, and sees his beneficent purpose succeed, comes at last
really to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said:
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," this does not mean,
"Thou shalt first of all love, and by means of this love (in the
next place) do him good"; but: "Do good to thy neighbour, and this
beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit
of inclination to beneficence)."

  The love of complacency (amor complacentiae,) would therefore
alone be direct. This is a pleasure immediately connected with the
idea of the existence of an object, and to have a duty to this, that
is, to be necessitated to find pleasure in a thing, is a
contradiction.

                     D. OF RESPECT

  Respect (reverentia) is likewise something merely subjective; a
feeling of a peculiar kind not a judgement about an object which it
would be a duty to effect or to advance. For if considered as duty
it could only be conceived as such by means of the respect which we
have for it. To have a duty to this, therefore, would be as much as to
say to be bound in duty to have a duty. When, therefore, it is said:
"Man has a duty of self-esteem," this is improperly stated, and we
ought rather to say: "The law within him inevitably forces from him
respect for his own being, and this feeling (which is of a peculiar
kind) is a basis of certain duties, that is, of certain actions
which may be consistent with his duty to himself." But we cannot say
that he has a duty of respect for himself; for he must have respect
for the law within himself, in order to be able to conceive duty at
all.

  XIII. General Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals in the

               treatment of Pure Ethics

  First. A duty can have only a single ground of obligation; and if
two or more proof of it are adduced, this is a certain mark that
either no valid proof has yet been given, or that there are several
distinct duties which have been regarded as one.

  For all moral proofs, being philosophical, can only be drawn by
means of rational knowledge from concepts, not like mathematics,
through the construction of concepts. The latter science admits a
variety of proofs of one and the same theorem; because in intuition
a priori there may be several properties of an object, all of which
lead back to the very same principle. If, for instance, to prove the
duty of veracity, an argument is drawn first from the harm that a
lie causes to other men; another from the worthlessness of a liar
and the violation of his own self-respect, what is proved in the
former argument is a duty of benevolence, not of veracity, that is
to say, not the duty which required to be proved, but a different one.
Now, if, in giving a variety of proof for one and the same theorem, we
flatter ourselves that the multitude of reasons will compensate the
lack of weight in each taken separately, this is a very
unphilosophical resource, since it betrays trickery and dishonesty;
for several insufficient proofs placed beside one another do not
produce certainty, nor even probability. They should advance as reason
and consequence in a series, up to the sufficient reason, and it is
only in this way that they can have the force of proof. Yet the former
is the usual device of the rhetorician.

  Secondly. The difference between virtue and vice cannot be sought in
the degree in which certain maxims are followed, but only in the
specific quality of the maxims (their relation to the law). In other
words, the vaunted principle of Aristotle, that virtue is the mean
between two vices, is false.* For instance, suppose that good
management is given as the mean between two vices, prodigality and
avarice; then its origin as a virtue can neither be defined as the
gradual diminution of the former vice (by saving), nor as the increase
of the expenses of the miserly. These vices, in fact, cannot be viewed
as if they, proceeding as it were in opposite directions, met together
in good management; but each of them has its own maxim, which
necessarily contradicts that of the other.

  *The common classical formulae of ethics- medio tutissimus ibis;
omne mimium vertitur in vitium; est modus in rebus, etc., medium
tenuere beati; virtus est medium vitiorum et utrinque reductum-
["You will go most safely in the middle" (Virgil); "Every excess
develops into a vice"; "There is a mean in all things, etc." (Horace);
"Happy they who steadily pursue a middle course"; "Virtue is the
mean between two vices and equally removed from either" (Horace).]-
contain a poor sort of wisdom, which has no definite principles; for
this mean between two extremes, who will assign it for me? Avarice (as
a vice) is not distinguished from frugality (as a virtue) by merely
being the lat pushed too far; but has a quite different principle;
(maxim), namely placing the end of economy not in the enjoyment of
one's means, but in the mere possession of them, renouncing enjoyment;
just as the vice of prodigality is not to be sought in the excessive
enjoyment of one's means, but in the bad maxim which makes the use
of them, without regard to their maintenance, the sole end.

  For the same reason, no vice can be defined as an excess in the
practice of certain actions beyond what is proper (e.g.,
Prodigalitas est excessus in consumendis opibus); or, as a less
exercise of them than is fitting (Avaritia est defectus, etc.). For
since in this way the degree is left quite undefined, and the question