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Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (tr. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, 1873)

Immanuel Kant · c. 1785

The book opens with

Nothing in the world, or out of it, can be called good without qualification except a good will

Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will.

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Immanuel Kant did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this book, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The book prints chapter headings its extracted text does not preserve, so the claims below are in the book's order but not grouped. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will.
  2. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.
  3. The third proposition, which is a consequence of the two preceding, I would express thus: Duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the law.
  4. There is therefore but one categorical imperative, namely, this: Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
  5. Accordingly the practical imperative will be as follows: So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.
  6. In the kingdom of ends everything has either value or dignity. Whatever has a value can be replaced by something else which is equivalent; whatever, on the other hand, is above all value, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity.
  7. Autonomy then is the basis of the dignity of human and of every rational nature.

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