Kant: Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason And Other Writings

So far as morality is based on the conception of the human being as one who is free but who also, just because of that, binds himself through his reason to unconditional laws, it is in need neither of the idea of another being above him in order for him to recognize his duty, nor of an incentive other than the law itself in order for him to observe it. At least it is his own fault if such a need is found in him; but in this case too the need could not be relieved through anything else: for whatever does not originate from himself and his own freedom provides nothing to make up for a lack in his morality. – Hence on its own behalf morality in no way needs religion (whether objectively, as regards willing, or subjectively, as regards capability) but is rather self-sufficient by virtue of pure practical reason. – For, since its laws bind through the mere form of universal lawfulness of the maxims to be adopted in accordance with this lawfulness as the highest condition (itself unconditional) of all ends, morality needs absolutely no material determining ground of the free power of choice, that is no end, either in order to recognize what duty is or to impel its performance; on the contrary, when duty is the issue, morality can perfectly well abstract from ends altogether, and ought so to do. For example, to know whether I should (or even can) be truthful in my testimony before a court of justice, or faithful when someone else's goods entrusted to me are being reclaimed, there is no need to demand an end which I might perhaps propose to myself to realize by my declaration, for what sort of end this would be does not matter at all; rather, one who still finds it necessary to look around for some end when his testimony is rightfully demanded of him, is in this respect already contemptible.

But although on its own behalf morality does not need the representation of an end which would have to precede the determination of the will, it may well be that it has a necessary reference to such an end, not as the ground of its maxims but as a necessary consequence accepted in conformity to them.