Immanuel Kant

The catalogue identifies Immanuel Kant with lifetime years 1724–1804 and names Thomas Kingsmill Abbott as translator of this English work. Matthew Stapleton receives the electronic preparation credit. The linked text separates sections moving from common moral knowledge toward philosophical principles. Its HTML ISBN identifies the electronic edition, not a checked original print. The related reading gives context for two archive extracts without assigning composition dates to them.

Project Gutenberg catalogue — Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals ↗Checked related reading — Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals ↗ Catalogue identity/lifetime and linked edition credits, framing or cast

The opening of the First Section argues that good will is needed for a person to be worthy of happiness and examines how advantages can be used. This is an argument about moral value, not an assertion that poverty or misfortune proves wrongdoing. In the Second Section, Kant calls happiness an ideal of imagination while explaining why empirical consequences cannot yield a definite universal rule for achieving it. He distinguishes that difficulty from the demands of duty. The passage does not simply dismiss happiness as worthless. Both selected extracts match Abbott’s checked English translation.

Checked related reading — Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals ↗ First Section; opening discussion of good will and worthiness of happiness; Second Section; happiness, imagination and prudence