can also take an interest in a thing without therefore acting from
interest. The former signifies the practical interest in the action,
the latter the pathological in the object of the action. The former
indicates only dependence of the will on principles of reason in
themselves; the second, dependence on principles of reason for the
sake of inclination, reason supplying only the practical rules how the
requirement of the inclination may be satisfied. In the first case the
action interests me; in the second the object of the action (because
it is pleasant to me). We have seen in the first section that in an
action done from duty we must look not to the interest in the
object, but only to that in the action itself, and in its rational
principle (viz., the law).



A perfectly good will would therefore be equally subject to
objective laws (viz., laws of good), but could not be conceived as
obliged thereby to act lawfully, because of itself from its subjective
constitution it can only be determined by the conception of good.
Therefore no imperatives hold for the Divine will, or in general for a
holy will; ought is here out of place, because the volition is already
of itself necessarily in unison with the law. Therefore imperatives
are only formulae to express the relation of objective laws of all
volition to the subjective imperfection of the will of this or that
rational being, e.g., the human will.

Now all imperatives command either hypothetically or
categorically. The former represent the practical necessity of a
possible action as means to something else that is willed (or at least
which one might possibly will). The categorical imperative would be