<P> The Formula of Autonomy takes something important from both the Formula for the Universal Law of Nature and the Formula of Humanity . The Formula for the Universal Law of Nature involves thinking about your maxim as if it were an objective law, while the Formula of Humanity is more subjective and is concerned with how you are treating the person with whom you are interacting . The Formula of Autonomy combines the objectivity of the former with the subjectivity of the latter and suggests that the agent ask what she would accept as a universal law . To do this, she would test her maxims against the moral law that she has legislated . The Principle of Autonomy is, "the principle of every human will as a will universally legislating through all its maxims ." (4: 432) Kant thinks that the Formula of Autonomy yields another "fruitful concept," the kingdom of ends . The kingdom of ends is the "systematic union" of all ends in themselves (rational agents) and the ends that they set . All ends that rational agents set have a price and can be exchanged for one another . Ends in themselves, however, have dignity and have no equivalent . In addition to being the basis for the Formula of Autonomy and the kingdom of ends, autonomy itself plays an important role in Kant's moral philosophy . Autonomy is the capacity to be the legislator of the moral law, in other words, to give the moral law to oneself . Autonomy is opposed to heteronomy, which consists of having one's will determined by forces alien to it . Because alien forces could only determine our actions contingently, Kant believes that autonomy is the only basis for a non-contingent moral law . It is in failing to see this distinction that Kant believes his predecessors have failed: their theories have all been heteronomous . At this point Kant has given us a picture of what a universal and necessary law would look like should it exist . However, he has yet to prove that it does exist, or, in other words, that it applies to us . That is the task of Section III . </P> <P> In section three, Kant argues that we have a free will and are thus morally self - legislating . The fact of freedom means that we are bound by the moral law . In the course of his discussion, Kant establishes two viewpoints from which we can consider ourselves . We can view ourselves as members of the world of appearances--which operates according to the laws of nature--or we can view ourselves as members of the intellectual world, which is how we view ourselves when we think of ourselves as having free wills and when we think about how to act . These two different viewpoints allow Kant to make sense of how we can have free wills, despite the fact that the world of appearances follows laws of nature deterministically . Finally, Kant remarks that whilst he would like to be able to explain how morality ends up motivating us, his theory is unable to do so . This is because the intellectual world - in which morality is grounded - is something that we cannot make positive claims about . </P> <Dl> <Dt> Freedom and Willing </Dt> </Dl> <Dt> Freedom and Willing </Dt>

Immanuel kant groundwork of the metaphysic of morals