XII. Preliminary Notions of the Susceptibility of the Mind for

Notions of Duty generally



{INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 135}

These are such moral qualities as, when a man does not possess them,
he is not bound to acquire them. They are: the moral feeling,
conscience, love of one's neighbour, and respect for ourselves
(self-esteem). There is no obligation to have these, since they are
subjective conditions of susceptibility for the notion of duty, not
objective conditions of morality. They are all sensitive and
antecedent, but natural capacities of mind (praedispositio) to be
affected by notions of duty; capacities which it cannot be regarded as
a duty to have, but which every man has, and by virtue of which he can
be brought under obligation. The consciousness of them is not of
empirical origin, but can only follow on that of a moral law, as an
effect of the same on the mind.



A. THE MORAL FEELING