The moral law first determines the
will objectively and directly in the judgement of reason; and freedom,
whose causality can be determined only by the law, consists just in
this, that it restricts all inclinations, and consequently
self-esteem, by the condition of obedience to its pure law. This
restriction now has an effect on feeling, and produces the
impression of displeasure which can be known a priori from the moral
law. Since it is so far only a negative effect which, arising from the
influence of pure practical reason, checks the activity of the
subject, so far as it is determined by inclinations, and hence
checks the opinion of his personal worth (which, in the absence of
agreement with the moral law, is reduced to nothing); hence, the
effect of this law on feeling is merely humiliation. We can,
therefore, perceive this a priori, but cannot know by it the force
of the pure practical law as a motive, but only the resistance to
motives of the sensibility. But since the same law is objectively,
that is, in the conception of pure reason, an immediate principle of
determination of the will, and consequently this humiliation takes
place only relatively to the purity of the law; hence, the lowering of
the pretensions of moral self-esteem, that is, humiliation on the
sensible side, is an elevation of the moral, i.
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