Immanuel Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Vocabulary

Key vocabulary terms and philosophical concepts from Section II of Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.

Duty

The concept of acting from pure moral grounds in conformity with reason, rather than from inclination or experienced results.

A priori

Knowledge or principles that have their origin completely in pure reason independent of all experience.

Self-love

A disposition in human actions where the real determining cause of the will is personal interest or inclination rather than moral duty.

Metaphysics of morals

A completely isolated investigation of moral principles, mixed with no anthropology, theology, or physics, that serves as the substratum of all distinct cognition of duties.

Will

Nothing other than practical reason, or the capacity of a rational being to act in accordance with the representation of laws or principles.

Imperative

The formula of a command of reason indicating the relation of an objective law of reason to a will that is not necessarily determined by it.

Hypothetical imperative

A conditional command: If you want X, then do Y.

Categorical imperative

An unconditional moral command that applies to everyone regardless of desires or goals.

Rules of skill

Instructions for achieving a specific goal or skill. Example: "If you want to be a good pianist, practice daily."

Counsels of prudence

Pragmatic imperatives referring to the choice of means to promote one's own happiness or greatest well-being.

Commands of morality

Moral requirements that must be followed regardless of personal desires.

Analyic practical proposition

A practical statement whose conclusion is already contained in the concept of the goal. Example: If you want to build a house, you need building materials.

Synthetic a priori practical proposition

A practical proposition that connects a deed with the will necessarily and immediately without deriving it from another presupposed volition or inclination.

Maxim

The subjective principle of acting, containing the practical rule determined by reason according to the conditions and inclinations of the subject.

Practical law

The objective principle valid for every rational being, according to which one ought to act.

Universal imperative of duty

The formula: 'act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.'

Perfect duty

A duty that admits of no exception in favor of inclination, whether internal or external.

Imperfect duty

A duty where the maxim cannot be willed as a universal law of nature because the will would contradict itself, although the maxim itself contains no inner impossibility.

Happiness

An indeterminate concept borrowed from experience that requires an absolute whole of well-being in one's present and future condition.

Inclination

The dependence of the faculty of desire upon feelings, which always indicates a need.

Interest

The dependence of a contingently determinable will on principles of reason; it is practical when it depends on principles in themselves and pathological when it depends for the sake of inclination.

Holy will

A perfectly good will for which the 'ought' is out of place because volition is of itself necessarily in accord with the law.

Anthropology

The study of the special nature of human reason and human nature, which is needed for the application of morals to human beings but is distinct from pure philosophy.

Prudence (narrowest sense)

Skill in the choice of means to one's own greatest well-being, including 'knowledge of the world' or 'private prudence.'