[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-41062-en":3,"doc-seo-41062-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},41062,1099514068365,"Aurelia","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/10000253d8d9f28188e?_k=1776742907772140068",2,"Literature","Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals","Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals develops a systematic account of how rational knowledge is structured and how morality must be grounded in pure practical reason. The preface explains the three-branch classification of knowledge (natural science, ethics, and logic), then distinguishes material from formal knowledge and empirical from pure philosophy. It argues for a twofold metaphysics—of nature and of morals—each cleansed of empirical elements to determine what pure reason can establish a priori.","Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals  \nImmanuel Kant  \nCopyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017 . All rights reserved  \n[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots · enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . . indicates theomission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions are rerported between square brackets in normal-sized type.] In the title, `Groundwork' refers not to the foundation that is laid but to the work of laying it.  \nFirst launched: July 2005 Last amended: September 2008  \nContents  \nPreface 1  \nChapter 1: Moving from common-sense knowledge to philosophical knowledge about morality 5  \nChapter 2: Moving from popular moral philosophy to the metaphysic of morals 14  \nChapter 3: Moving from the metaphysic of morals to the critique of pure practical reason 41  \nPreface  \nAncient Greek philosophy was divided into three branches of knowledge: •natural science, •ethics, and •logic. This classification perfectly fits what it is meant to fit; the only improvement it needs is the supplying of the principle on which it is based; that will let us be sure that the classification does cover all the ground, and will enable us to define the necessary subdivisions ·of the three broad kinds of knowledge · . [Kant, following the Greek, calls the trio Physik, Ethik and Logik. Our word `physics' is much too narrow for Physik, which is why `natural science' is preferred here. What is lost is the surface neatness of the Greek and German trio, and of the contrast between natural science and metaphysics, Physik and Metaphysik]  \nThere are two kinds of rational knowledge:  \n•material knowledge, which concerns some object, and  \n•formal knowledge, which pays no attention to differences between objects, and is concerned only with the form of understanding and of reason, and with the universal rules of thinking.  \nFormal philosophy is called •`logic'. Material philosophy—having to do with definite objects and the laws that govern them—is divided into two parts, depending on whether the laws in question are laws of •nature or laws of •freedom. Knowledge of laws of the former kind is called •`natural science', knowledge of laws of the latter kind is called •`ethics'. The two are also called `theory of nature' and `theory of morals' respectively.  \n•Logic can't have anything empirical about it—it can't have a part in which universal and necessary laws of thinking are derived from experience. If it did, it wouldn't be logic—i.e. a set of rules for the understanding or for reason, rules that are valid for all thinking and that must be rigorously proved. The •natural and •moral branches of knowledge, on the other  \nhand, can each have an empirical part; indeed, they must do so because each must discover the laws ·for its domain · . For •the former, these are the laws of nature considered as something known through experience; and for •the latter, they are the laws of the human will so far as it is affected by nature. ·The two sets of laws are nevertheless very different from one another · . The laws of nature are laws according to which everything does happen; the laws of morality are laws according to which everything ought to happen; they allow for conditions under which what ought to happen doesn't happen.  \n•Empirical philosophy is philosophy that is based on experience. •Pure philosophy is philosophy that presents its doctrines solely on the basis of a priori principles. Pure philosophy ·can in turn be divided into two · : when it is entirely formal it is •logic; when it is confined to definite objects of the understanding, it is •metaphysics.  \nIn this way there arises the idea of a two-fold metaphysic—a metaphysic of nature and a metaphysic of morals. 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