Hi
I am using this board as an archive to store extracts of this book. It will be edited on ongoing basis to update as i finish the book. This initial message will deleted and the forum can be used for discussion. Until then plz refrain from quoting . Below is the link of the full book.
spiritual-minds.com/philosophy/Immanuel%20Kant/Immanuel%20Kant%20-%20Religion%20within%20the%20Limits%20of%20Reason%20Alone.pdfSo far as morality is based upon the conception of man as a free
agent who, just because he is free, binds himself through his reason to
unconditioned laws, it stands in need neither of the idea of another Being
over him, for him to apprehend his duty, nor of an incentive other than the
law itself, for him to do his duty. At least it is man's own fault if he is
subject to such a need; and if he is, this need can be relieved through
nothing outside himself: for whatever does not originate in himself and his
own freedom in no way compensates for the deficiency of his morality.
Hence for its own sake morality does not need religion at all (whether
objectively, as regards willing, or subjectively, as regards ability [to act]);
by virtue of pure practical reason it is self-sufficient.
It is true,
therefore, that morality requires no end for right conduct; the law, which
contains the formal condition of the use of freedom in general, suffices. Yet
an end does arise out of morality; for how the question, What is to result
from this right conduct of ours? is to be answered, and towards what, as an
end--even granted it may not be wholly subject to our control--we might
direct our actions and abstentions so as at least to be in harmony with that
end: these cannot possibly be matters of indifference to reason. Hence the
end is no more than an idea of an object which takes the formal condition of
all such ends as we ought to have (duty) and combines it with whatever is
conditioned, and in harmony with duty, in all the ends which we do have
(happiness proportioned to obedience to duty)--that is to say, the idea of a
highest good in the world for whose possibility we must postulate a higher,
moral,
[5]
most holy, and omnipotent Being which alone can unite the two elements of
this highest good