Not Philosophy

With L ’ hour when L ’ information goes suddenly more quickly than the time of the reflexion, let us delay us here on a selection of philosophical texts and their contemporary lighting.

Let us take time to think our engagements.

Here an extract of the Bases of the metaphysics of manners D ’ Emmanuel Kant (2nd section, translated L ’ German by Victor Delbos starting from L ’ edition of 1792, Nathan, Paris, 1989, p. 56-60).

“But supposed that there is something whose existence in oneself has an absolute value, something which, like end in itself, could be a principle of determined laws, it is then in that and that only that would be the principle of a possible categorical imperative, i.e. of a practical law. However I say; the man, and in general any be reasonable, exist like end in itself, and not simply like means whose such or such will can use with its liking; in all its actions, as well in those which relate to it itself as in those which relate to other be reasonable, it must always be regarded at the same time as end. All the objects of the inclinations have only one conditional value; because if the inclinations and the needs which derive from it did not exist, their object would be without value.

But the same inclinations, like sources of the need, have if little an absolute value which gives them the right to be desired for themselves, that, well rather, in being fully freed must be the universal wish of any be reasonable. Thus the value of all the objects to be acquired by our action is always conditional. The beings whose existence depends, to tell the truth, not of our will, but of nature, do not have however, when they are beings deprived of reason, that a relative value, that of means, and for this reason they are named things; on the contrary, the be reasonable are called people, because their nature already indicates them like ends in itself, i.e. as something which cannot be employed simply like means, something which consequently limits of as much any faculty to act as good seems to us (and which is an object of respect). These are thus not there simply subjective ends, whose existence, like effect of our action, has a value for us: they are objective ends, i.e. things whose existence is an end in oneself, and even an end such as it can be replaced by no other, with the service of which the objective ends should be put, simply like means. Without that, indeed, one could never find nothing which had an absolute value. But if any value were conditional, and consequently fixes quotas for, it would be completely impossible to find for the reason a supreme practical principle.

If thus there must be a supreme principle practical, and in comparison with the human will a categorical imperative, one needs that it is such as, by the representation of what, being an end in itself, is necessarily an end for any man, it constitutes an objective principle of the will, which consequently he can be used as universal practical law. Here the base of this principle: reasonable nature exists like end in itself. The man represents his own existence necessarily thus; it is thus in this direction a subjective principle of human actions.

But any other be reasonable presents its existence also thus, consequently same rational principle which is also worth for me; it is thus at the same time an objective principle from which must be able to be deduced, like supreme practical principle, all the laws of the will. The requirement will be thus this one: Acted so that you as well treat humanity in your person as in the person of very other always at the same time like an end, and never simply like a means.”