Satisfaction, to Kant, is something ‘imposed upon him by his finite nature itself, because he is needy’, and this satisfaction is something relating to pleasure or displeasure. These feelings are determined by what he needs in order to be satisfied.
This problem of satisfaction is impossible to regard as law, for pleasure and desire varies from person to person. These are ‘general names for subjective determining grounds, and it determines nothing specific about it’. For ‘needs differ as feeling changes’: it is different in different subjects, and hence can never yield a law.
Even if finite rational beings were thoroughly agreed with respect to their feelings of pleasure and the means to this pleasure, this could not constitute a law. ‘This unanimity itself would still be only contingent’, viz. the fact that everyone feels the same, does not make this feeling necessary.
‘It would be better to maintain that there are no practical laws at all, for such laws must be cognized a priori by reason, not by experience. What this satisfation has as its basis is not objective but subjective conditions of choice, so should be ‘represented as mere maxims, never as practical laws’
Viz. Happiness is not objective, or a law which can be met, as Aristotle held. It is reliant on subjective features, which at best can be expressed as maxims: ‘an expression of a general truth or principle’.
The doctrine of happiness rests on empirical principles, whereas the doctrine of morals does not.
If a man who is hohnest is confronted with the moral law in which he cognizes the worthlessness of a liar, his practical reason at once abandons the advantage [of lying]…
‘Reason does not require that one should renounce claims of happiness but only that as soon as duty is in question on should take no account [of happiness]‘. It can sometimes be a duty to attend to ones happiness as this enables one to meet other duties more fully, ‘however, it can never be a direct duty to promote one’s happiness…they must without exception be separated from the supreme moral principle and never be incorporated with it as a condition, since this would destroy all moral worth.
Viz. Happiness and morals should be kept separate. Morality should never be subject to happiness.
