View source for Pure practical reason

{{Short description|Philosophical concept popularized by Immanuel Kant}}
'''Pure practical reason''' ({{langx|de|reine praktische Vernunft}}) is reasoning that deals with what ought to be; namely, what actions we ought to do, appearing in [[Immanuel Kant]]'s ''[[Critique of Practical Reason]]'' and ''[[Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals]]''.

Being the opposite of impure (or sensibly-determined) practical reason, it is the reason that drives actions without any sense-dependent incentives. Human reasoning chooses such actions simply because those actions are good in themselves; this is the nature of [[Good faith|good will]], which Kant argues is the only concept that is good without any justification, it is good in itself and is a derivative of a transcendental law which affects the way humans practically reason (see [[practical philosophy]]). The possibility of pure practical reason is explored in the ''[[Critique of Practical Reason]]'' where he tackles the question of whether reason by itself, independently of empirical conditions, can be a source of knowledge about what we ought to do, or whether the knowledge about what we ought to do that is given by reason can only be empirically conditioned.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kant |first=Immanuel |title=Critique of Practical Reason|publisher=Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. |year=2002 |isbn=9780872206175 |pages=xix|translator-last=Pluhar |translator-first=Werner}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}
* Immanuel Kant, ''Kritik der praktischen Vernunft'', Stuttgart 1961, "Vorrede".
* Immanuel Kant, ''Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten'', Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004, p. 106.

==External Links/Resources==
* [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-reason/#PracReasMoraPrimPurePracReas Kant’s Account of Reason], ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''

[[Category:Kantianism]]


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