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Kant, Immanuel

"Fundamental Principles Of The Metaphysic Of Morals"


This merely signifies the consciousness that my will is subordinate to
a law, without the intervention of other influences on my sense. The
immediate determination of the will by the law, and the
consciousness of this, is called respect, so that this is regarded
as an effect of the law on the subject, and not as the cause of it.
Respect is properly the conception of a worth which thwarts my
self-love. Accordingly it is something which is considered neither
as an object of inclination nor of fear, although it has something
analogous to both. The object of respect is the law only, and that the
law which we impose on ourselves and yet recognise as necessary in
itself. As a law, we are subjected too it without consulting
self-love; as imposed by us on ourselves, it is a result of our
will. In the former aspect it has an analogy to fear, in the latter to
inclination. Respect for a person is properly only respect for the law
(of honesty, etc.) of which he gives us an example. Since we also look
on the improvement of our talents as a duty, we consider that we see
in a person of talents, as it were, the example of a law (viz.


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