being must so act as if he were by his maxims in every
case a legislating member in the universal kingdom
of ends. The formal principle of these maxims
is: So act as if thy maxim were to serve likewise
as the universal law (of all rational beings).
A kingdom of ends is thus only possible on the analogy
of a kingdom of nature, the former however only by
maxims, that is self-imposed rules, the latter only
by the laws of efficient causes acting under necessitation
from without. Nevertheless, although the system
of nature is looked upon as a machine, yet so far
as it has reference to rational beings as its ends,
it is given on this account the name of a kingdom
of nature. Now such a kingdom of ends would be
actually realised by means of maxims conforming to
the canon which the categorical imperative prescribes
to all rational beings, if they were
universally followed. But although a rational
being, even if he punctually follows this maxim himself,
cannot reckon upon all others being therefore true
to the same, nor expect that the kingdom of nature
and its orderly arrangements shall be in harmony with
him as a fitting member, so as to form a kingdom of
ends to which he himself contributes, that is to say,
that it shall favour his expectation of happiness,
still that law: Act according to the maxims of
a member of a merely possible kingdom of ends legislating
in it universally, remains in its full force, inasmuch
as it commands categorically. And it is just
in this that the paradox lies; that the mere dignity
of a man as a rational creature, without any other
end or advantage to be attained thereby, in other words,
respect for a mere idea, should yet serve as an inflexible
precept of the will, and that it is precisely in this
independence of the maxim on all such springs of action
that its sublimity consists; and it is this that makes
every rational subject worthy to be a legislative
member in the kingdom of ends: for otherwise he
would have to be conceived only as subject to the
physical law of his wants. And although we should
suppose the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of ends
to be united under one sovereign, so that the latter
kingdom thereby ceased to be a mere idea and acquired
true reality, then it would no doubt gain the accession
of a strong spring, but by no means any increase of
its intrinsic worth. For this sole absolute lawgiver
must, notwithstanding this, be always conceived as
estimating the worth of rational beings only by their
disinterested behaviour, as prescribed to themselves
from that idea [the dignity of man] alone. The
essence of things is not altered by their external
relations, and that which abstracting from these, alone
constitutes the absolute worth of man, is also that
by which he must be judged, whoever the judge may
be, and even by the Supreme Being. Morality
then is the relation of actions to the autonomy of
the will, that is, to the potential universal legislation