《道德形而上学基础·第一节·从普通的道德理性知识过渡到哲学的道德理性知识》第10节
[Kant's note] A maxim is the subjective principle of volition. The objective principle (i.e., that which would also serve subjectively as a practical principle to all rational beings if reason had full power over the faculty of desire) is the practical law. Thus the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect expected from it, nor in any principle of action which requires to borrow its motive from this expected effect. For all these effects- agreeableness of one's condition and even the promotion of the happiness of others- could have been also brought about by other causes, so that for this there would have been no need of the will of a rational being; whereas it is in this alone that the supreme and unconditional good can be found. The pre-eminent good which we call moral can therefore consist in nothing else than the conception of law in itself, which certainly is only possible in a rational being, in so far as this conception, and not the expected effect, determines the will. This is a good which is already present in the person who acts accordingly, and we have not to wait for it to appear first in the result.
注释摘要
康德在这条注释里做了三件彼此紧扣的事。他先把准则与法则的区分摆到台前，再从道德价值的来源得出一个排除性的结论，最后把这一结论安放到他更根本的信念上：真正的道德善只能由理性自身的法则表象来规定，而不能由行动结果来规定。这段话承接了正文里那个著名的问题——一个出自义务的行动，其道德价值既然不在于预期的效果，那究竟还能在哪里——并且以一种相当凝练的方式给出了答案…