Kant : Groundworks Of The Metaphisics Of Morals
(edited text)
Chapter 1
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the first proposition of morality:
For an action to have genuine moral worth it must be done from duty.
The second proposition is:
An action that is done from duty doesn't get its moral value from the purpose that's to be achieved through it but from the maxim [self-imposed rule] that it involves, giving the reason why the person acts thus. So the action's moral value doesn't depend on whether what is aimed at in it is actually achieved, but solely on the principle of the will from which the action is done, irrespective of anything the faculty of desire may be aiming at.
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Chapter 2
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suppose there were something whose existence in itself had absolute value, something which as an end in itself could support determinate laws. That would be a basis-indeed the only basis-for a possible categorical imperative, i.e. of a practical law.There is such a thing! It is a human being! I maintain that man-and in general every rational being-exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its discretion. Whenever he acts in ways directed towards himself or towards other rational beings, a person serves as a means to whatever end his action aims at; but he must always be regarded as also an end. [...]rational beings are called 'persons', because their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves (i.e. as not to be used merely as means)-which makes such a being an object of respect, and something that sets limits to what anyone can choose to do. Such beings are not merely subjective ends whose existence as a result of our action has value for us, but are objective ends, i.e. things [Dinge] whose existence is an end in itself. It is indeed an irreplaceable end: you can't substitute for it something else to which it would be merely a means.
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Act in such a way as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of anyone else, always as an end and never merely as a means.
[...]Empirical principles are not at all fit to serve as the basis of moral laws. For moral laws should be universal, valid for all rational beings without distinction [...] but this universality is lost if moral laws are derived from the specific constitution of human beings - a constitution that may not be shared by other rational beings - or the particular circumstance in which human beings happen to live. The principle of one's own happiness is the most objectionable of the empirical bases for morality. There are at least three reasons for this, of which the third is the weightiest. This basis for morality is just false: experience contradicts the allegation that well-being is always proportional to good conduct. The principle contributes nothing to the establishment of morality, because making a man happy is very different from making him good, and making him prudent and sharp in seeing what is to his own advantage is far from making him virtuous. Above all: this principle supports morality with action-drivers that undermine it and destroy all its sublimity, for it puts the motives to virtue and those to vice in the same class, obliterating the difference of kind between them, and teaching us merely to make a better job of calculating what will make us happy.
Chapter 3
there is not the slightest contradiction between (1) a thing in appearance (belonging to the sensible world) being subject to certain laws from which as (2) a thing in itself it is independent...
[...]Freedom as a negative determination-i.e. as something that involves not being interfered with by sensible causes-is also connected with a positive power and even a causality of reason, a causality that we call a 'will'.