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  • 9 - Freedom, primacy, and perfect duties to oneself

  • Edited by Lara Denis, Agnes Scott College, Decatur
  • Book:
    Kant's Metaphysics of Morals
    Published online:
    10 January 2011
    Print publication:
    28 October 2010, pp 170-191

  • Summary

    Kant attributes primacy to duties to oneself in general and perfect duties to oneself (PDS) in particular. Kant describes morality as "based on the conception of the human being as one who is free but who also, just because of that, binds himself through reason to unconditional laws". For the relationship between freedom and perfect duties to oneself to explain the primacy of PDS, especially tight, deep, or otherwise significant relations must hold between them. This chapter explicates three accounts of perfect duties to oneself. Within all three, Kant equates violating PDS with degrading oneself, subordinating one's rational freedom to other objects, impairing one's agency, and treating oneself as a thing or mere means. Kant's lectures on ethics and the Doctrine of Virtue provide distinct accounts of perfect duties to oneself.