Page:Philosophical Review Volume 9.djvu/186

170 accordance with any particular 'propension' which happened for the time being to be most prominent or the strongest. It is some such view that Kant seems to have in mind, when he says that "all the inclinations taken together (which can be reduced to a tolerable system,in which case their satisfaction is called happiness) constitute self-regard (Solipsisimis)" Action thus determined, however, cannot for Kant be considered moral, since, although all the inclinations are taken together, such action is nevertheless heteronomous because of the absence of a principle of reason; the sum of inclinations is viewed as a mere aggregate of particulars, and no universal principle can be derived. If Kant had recognized the existence of a principle that aimed at happiness, distinct in kind from all inclination, and belonging to man as a rational being, there is no apparent reason why he should have barred action in accordance with it from the moral sphere. Kant tells us that "the only objects of practical reason are those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason." Now the object of self-love in Butler's sense is just such a one, "necessarily desired according to a principle of reason"; consequently, it falls within Kant's definition, and might have been allowed, notwithstanding the hedonistic character of his psychology, as an object of practical reason. In this way, regard for our happiness as a whole becomes a rational principle, and is no longer the object of a mere sum of heteronomous inclinations. In other words, sentiency becomes rationalized through a principle of reason and the two sides of man's nature become organic through reason. Kant in a sense admits the rationality of self- love: "Pure practical reason only checks selfishness, looking on it as natural and active in us even prior to the moral law, and then it is called rational self-love" The difference on this point between Kant and Butler, however, still remains, since for Kant "everything that enters into self-love belongs to