Reason is therefore necessary to
choice,--to freedom. There can, therefore, no more be goodness without
reason than there can be without will. Yet there might be, as Kant
justly argues, if good were to be in any case identified with mere
happiness. "For," says he, "all the actions which man has to perform
with a view to happiness, and the whole rule of his conduct, would be
much more exactly presented to him by instinct, and that end had been
much more certainly attained than it ever can be by reason; and should
the latter also be bestowed on the favored creature, it must be of use
only in contemplating the happy predisposition lodged in instinct,
to admire this, to rejoice in it, and be grateful for it to the
beneficent Cause; in short, Nature would have prevented reason from
any practical use in subduing appetite, etc., and from excogitating
for itself a project of happiness; she would have taken upon herself
not only the choice of ends, but the means, and had with wise care
intrusted both to instinct merely." The fact, then, that reason has
been given, and has been endowed with a practical use, is sufficient
to prove that some more worthy end than felicity is designed,--namely,
a will good in itself,--rationally good,--that is, _from choice_.
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