Whatever in relation to mankind, to oneself,
and others, can be an end, that is an end for pure practical reason:
for this is a faculty of assigning ends in general; and to be
indifferent to them, that is, to take no interest in them, is a
contradiction; since in that case it would not determine the maxims of
actions (which always involve an end), and consequently would cease to
be practical reasons. Pure reason, however, cannot command any ends
a priori, except so far as it declares the same to be also a duty,
which duty is then cared a duty of virtue.
X. The Supreme Principle of Jurisprudence was Analytical; that of
Ethics is Synthetical
That external constraint, so far as it withstands that which hinders
the external freedom that agrees with general laws (as an obstacle
of the obstacle thereto), can be consistent with ends generally, is
clear on the principle of contradiction, and I need not go beyond
the notion of freedom in order to see it, let the end which each may
be what he will. Accordingly, the supreme principle of jurisprudence
is an analytical principle. On the contrary the principle of ethics
goes beyond the notion of external freedom and, by general laws,
connects further with it an end which it makes a duty. This principle,
therefore, is synthetic. The possibility of it is contained in the
deduction (SS ix).
This enlargement of the notion of duty beyond that of external
freedom and of its limitation by the merely formal condition of its
constant harmony; this, I say, in which, instead of constraint from
without, there is set up freedom within, the power of self-constraint,
and that not by the help of other inclinations, but by pure
practical reason (which scorns all such help), consists in this
fact, which raises it above juridical duty; that by it ends are
proposed from which jurisprudence altogether abstracts.
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