But in this reasoning there is also a contradiction. For, on the one
side, he must obey his duty, without asking what effect this will have
on his happiness, consequently, from a moral principle; on the other
side, he can only recognize something as his duty when he can reckon
on happiness which will accrue to him thereby, and consequently on a
pathological principle, which is the direct opposite of the former.
I have in another place (the Berlin Monatsschrift), reduced, as I
believe, to the simplest expressions the distinction between
pathological and moral pleasure. The pleasure, namely, which must
precede the obedience to the law in order that one may act according
to the law is pathological, and the process follows the physical order
of nature; that which must be preceded by the law in order that it may
be felt is in the moral order. If this distinction is not observed; if
eudaemonism (the principle of happiness) is adopted as the principle
instead of eleutheronomy (the principle of freedom of the inner
legislation), the consequence is the euthanasia (quiet death) of all
morality.
The cause of these mistakes is no other than the following: Those
who are accustomed only to physiological explanations will not admit
into their heads the categorical imperative from which these laws
dictatorially proceed, notwithstanding that they feel themselves
irresistibly forced by it.
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