e., assuming the
idea of a reason possessing full power over all subjective motives).
This is accordingly a practical proposition which does not deduce
the willing of an action by mere analysis from another already
presupposed (for we have not such a perfect will), but connects it
immediately with the conception of the will of a rational being, as
something not contained in it.
In this problem we will first inquire whether the mere conception of
a categorical imperative may not perhaps supply us also with the
formula of it, containing the proposition which alone can be a
categorical imperative; for even if we know the tenor of such an
absolute command, yet how it is possible will require further
special and laborious study, which we postpone to the last section.
When I conceive a hypothetical imperative, in general I do not
know beforehand what it will contain until I am given the condition.
But when I conceive a categorical imperative, I know at once what it
contains. For as the imperative contains besides the law only the
necessity that the maxims* shall conform to this law, while the law
contains no conditions restricting it, there remains nothing but the
general statement that the maxim of the action should conform to a
universal law, and it is this conformity alone that the imperative
properly represents as necessary.
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