ABSTRACT
The title Metaphysic of Morals, in other words, indicates the nature and the limits of this work. Since the key-word in the difficulty is ‘metaphysics’, an attempt to clarify Immanuel Kant’s conception of a metaphysic of morals should begin by situating the problem within the context of his views on metaphysics in general. Kant’s theoretical metaphysics, in refuting the claims of traditional metaphysics to knowledge of supersensible objects, leaves room beyond experience for supersensible objects whose existence or non-existence can never be known. Kant’s failure to clarify the concept of a metaphysic of morals has its source in the preoccupations which he brings to his discussions of pure moral philosophy. Metaphysics formulates a priori propositions, not merely in the sense in which any law is an a priori proposition, but in the sense that no further experience is required for them beyond the experience of matter in motion.
