"Consciousness of an inner court in the human being ('before which his thoughts accuse or excuse one another') is conscience."
— Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Königsberg
Publisher
Friedrich Nicolovius
Date
1797-8, 1799
Metaphor
"Consciousness of an inner court in the human being ('before which his thoughts accuse or excuse one another') is conscience."
Metaphor in Context
Every concept of duty involves objective constraint through a law (a moral imperative limiting our freedom) and belongs to a practical understanding, which provides a rule. But the internal imputation of a deed, as a case falling under a law (in meritum aut demeritum), belongs to the faculty of judgment (iudicium), which, as the subjective principle of imputing an action, judges with rightful force whether the action as a deed (an action coming under a law) has occurred or not. Upon it follows the conclusion of reason (the verdict), that is, the connecting of the rightful result with the action (condemnation or aquittal). All of this takes place before a judicial proceeding (forum). — Consciousness of an inner court in the human being ("before which his thoughts accuse or excuse one another") is conscience.
(MS 6:437-8)
(MS 6:437-8)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Allen Wood's Kantian Ethics. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2007. p. 184.
Citation
Only 1 entry in ESTC (1799).
See The Metaphysic of Morals, Divided Into Metaphysical Elements of Law and of Ethics, by Emanuel Kant ... from the German by the Translator of Kant’s Essays and Treatises. in Two Volumes. (London [i.e. Hamburg]: printed for the translator; and sold by William Richardson, 1799). <Link to ESTC>
See also Die Metaphysik der Sitten in zwei Teilen (Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1797); 2nd edition: 1798. [Ak. 6:205-355, 373-493] -- Also reading "The Metaphysics of Morals." Trans. by Mary J. Gregor in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ed. Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 365-603.
See The Metaphysic of Morals, Divided Into Metaphysical Elements of Law and of Ethics, by Emanuel Kant ... from the German by the Translator of Kant’s Essays and Treatises. in Two Volumes. (London [i.e. Hamburg]: printed for the translator; and sold by William Richardson, 1799). <Link to ESTC>
See also Die Metaphysik der Sitten in zwei Teilen (Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1797); 2nd edition: 1798. [Ak. 6:205-355, 373-493] -- Also reading "The Metaphysics of Morals." Trans. by Mary J. Gregor in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ed. Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 365-603.
Date of Entry
02/04/2010
