“A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation — for investigating the source of the practical basic principles that lie a priori in our reason — but also because morals themselves remain subject to all sorts of corruption as long as we are without that clue and supreme norm by which to appraise them correctly…”

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation — for inves…" by Immanuel Kant?
Immanuel Kant photo
Immanuel Kant 200
German philosopher 1724–1804

Related quotes

Dante Alighieri photo

“Now the kind of philosophy under which we proceed in the whole and in the part is moral philosophy or ethics; because the whole was undertaken not for speculation but for practice.”
Genus vero philosophie, sub quo hic in toto et parte proceditur, est morale negotium, sive ethica; quia non ad speculandum, sed ad opus inventum est totum et pars.

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian poet

Letter to Can Grande (Epistle XIII, 40), as translated by Charles Latham in A Translation of Dante's Eleven Letters (1891), Letter XI, §16, p. 199.
Epistolae (Letters)

Sam Harris photo

“Mistaking no answers in practice for no answers in principle is a great source of moral confusion.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: 2010s, The Moral Landscape (2010), p. 3

David Hume photo
H. L. A. Hart photo
Antoine François Prévost photo

“One cannot reflect for long on moral precepts without being astonished at seeing them, at one and the same time, revered and neglected, and without wondering what could be the reason for this vagary of the human heart, whereby it clings to principles of goodness and perfection from which it deviates in practice.”

Antoine François Prévost (1697–1763) French novelist

On ne peut réfléchir sur les precepts de la morale sans être étonné de les voir tout à la fois estimés et négligés; et l'on se demande la raison de cette bizarrerie du cœur humain, qui lui fait goûter des idées de bien et de perfection dont il s'éloigne dans la pratique.
Avis de l'auteur, pp. 30-31; translation p. 4.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)

Daniel J. Boorstin photo

“While the easiest way in metaphysics is to condemn all metaphysics as nonsense, the easiest way in morals is to elevate the common practice of the community into a moral absolute.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Source: The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948), Ch. 3, The Physiology of Thought and Morals, Introduction, p. 111.

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Whenever racial discrimination exists it is a tragic expression of man’s spiritual degeneracy and moral bankruptcy. Therefore, it must be removed not merely because it is diplomatically expedient, but because it is morally compelling.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)

C.G. Jung photo
Benjamin N. Cardozo photo
Edmund Burke photo

Related topics