1.  Self-consciousness knows duty to be absolute essence.  Self-consciousness is only bound by duty and this substance is its own pure consciousness.  Duty cannot take the form of something alien for self-consciousness.  ²Determined, decided thus within itself, moral self-consciousness is not yet really established as consciousness, it has not yet been properly considered as consciousness.  ³The object is immediate knowledge; but permeated so purely by the self it is not really object.  ⁴On the other hand, essentially mediation and negativity, self-consciousness does have the relation to otherness in its concept and is consciousness.  ⁵Because duty constitutes its sole essential purpose and object, this otherness is for self-consciousness a completely meaningless reality.  ⁶In contrast to that, however, because this consciousness is so completely determined, decided within itself, it relates to this otherness with complete freedom and indifference, which means that the existence is thus one left completely free by self-consciousness, again relating only to itself.  The freer self-consciousness becomes, so much freer does the negative object of its consciousness become.  ⁷This makes of the object a world completed within itself into its own individuality, an independent whole of characteristic laws and an independent path and free realization of them – a nature as such whose laws and action belong to it as a being that is unconcerned with moral self-consciousness, as little as the latter is with it.

2.  From this point on a moral world view develops which consists in the relation between moral being in and for itself and natural being in and for itself.  ²At the foundation of this relation lie the complete indifference and autonomous independence of nature and moral purposes and activity to each other as well as, on the other side, the consciousness of the sole essential status of duty and that nature is complete dependent and inessential.  ³The moral world view contains the development of the moments that lie in this relationship between prerequisites so thoroughly antagonistic to each other.

3.  At first, then, the moral consciousness as such is assumed.  Duty is for it the essence, for the moral consciousness, that is, which is actual and actively fulfilling the duty in its actual reality and its action.  ²For this moral consciousness the freedom of nature is also assumed, i.e. it experiences that nature is not concerned about imparting to moral consciousness an awareness of the unity of its reality with that of nature, so it will perhaps let it be happy, but maybe also not.  ³Immoral consciousness, on the other hand, may by chance find its realization where moral consciousness sees only an occasion for action, even though that does not bring it the joy of execution and the pleasure of completion.  ⁴This is why it finds rather more reason for complaint about such conditions, of the mismatch between itself and existence, also of the injustice of being limited to only pure duty for its object while being denied performance of that duty and its own realization.

4.  Moral consciousness cannot do without happiness and leave this moment out of its absolute purpose.  ²Containing this single, individual self-consciousness is essential to the purpose declared to be pure duty.  Individual conviction and the knowledge of it constituted an absolute moment of morality.  ³This moment in the purpose that has become objective, in the fulfilled duty, is the single, individual consciousness that views itself as realized, i.e. pleasure, which thus now lies in the concept, not immediately of morality considered as disposition, but only in the concept of the realization of morality.  ⁴Given this, however, it also lies in morality as disposition; for morality is concerned not to remain disposition in opposition to action, but to act, i.e. to realize itself.  ⁵The purpose as the whole together with the consciousness of its moments is thus the fulfilled purpose, which is just as much purely moral action as realized individuality, with which nature, as the side of singularity against the abstract purpose, is one.

– ⁶As necessary as the experience of the disharmony of the two sides is, because nature is free, it is just as true that duty alone is essential and against it nature is selfless.  ⁷That whole purpose constituted by harmony contains reality within it.  ⁸It is simultaneously the thought of reality.  ⁹The harmony of morality and nature – or nature only comes under consideration to the extent that consciousness experiences nature's unity with it – the harmony of morality and happiness is thought as existing necessarily, i.e it is postulated.  ¹⁰For making demands expresses that something existing is being thought of that is not yet actual, which is a necessity not of the concept as concept, but of being.  ¹¹But necessity is also essentially the relation through the concept.  ¹²The being demanded thus does not belong to the image thinking of contingent consciousness, but lies in the concept of morality itself, whose true content is the unity of pure and single, individual consciousness.  The unity of what is happiness in the content of the purpose but in its form is existence as such, is for that pure and single consciousness an actual reality.

– ¹³This demanded existence, the unity of the two, is thus not a wish and, considered as a purpose, it is not the kind whose fulfilment would be as yet uncertain.  It is a demand of reason; it is an immediate certainty and prerequisite of reason.

5.  That first experience and this postulate are not the only ones.  What we have here is a whole circle of postulates.  ²Nature is not only this completely free, external mode in which consciousness is supposed to realize its goals as if they were pure objects.  ³Consciousness here is inherently and essentially one for which this other is a free reality; that is consciousness itself is something contingent and natural.  ⁴This nature, consciousness' own, is sensuousness, which, in the embodied form of willing, as instincts and inclinations, has for itself its own definite essence, its own goal, and is thus set opposed to pure will and its pure goal.  ⁵Against this opposition, however, the essence of pure consciousness is rather the relation of sensuousness to it, sensuousness' absolute unity with consciousness.  ⁶The two, pure thinking and the sensuousness of consciousness, are inherently one consciousness and pure thinking is precisely that for which and in which this pure unity consists.  For pure thinking as consciousness, however, the antithesis is that between itself and instinct.  ⁷In this conflict between reason and sensuousness, for the former the essence is that it resolves itself and the unity of both emerges as the result that is not that original unity of both existing within one individual, but one emerging from the known opposition between the two.  ⁸Such unity is where actual morality starts, for in it lies the opposition through which the self is consciousness, i.e. only then actual self and simultaneously universal.  This expresses that mediation which is, as we shall see, essential to morality.

– ⁹Of the two moments of the opposition, sensuousness as such is otherness, the negative, while pure thinking of duty is the essence of which nothing can be abandoned.  This suggests that the unity produced can only come about through overcoming sensuousness.  ¹⁰Sensuousness, however, is itself a moment of this development, this becoming, namely the moment of actual reality; so we will have to accept, initially at least, as sufficient for the expression of this unity that sensuousness should be congruent with morality.

– ¹¹This unity is also a postulated being; it is not there.  For what is there is consciousness or the opposition between sensuousness and pure consciousness.  ¹²The unity is also not an in itself, like the first postulate in which free nature constituted one side and the harmony of free nature with moral consciousness fell outside of moral consciousness.  Instead, nature is here the one that is in moral consciousness itself and we are concerned here with morality as such, with a harmony that is the acting self's own.  This is why consciousness itself must produce morality and must constantly make progress in morality.  ¹³The completion of this must be pushed out into infinity.  For if it really happened, moral consciousness would overcome, eliminate itself.  ¹⁴For morality is only moral consciousness as the negative essence for whose pure duty sensuousness only has the negative meaning of being simply not compatible.  ¹⁵In the harmony, however, morality, as consciousness or as morality's actual reality, vanishes just as in moral consciousness or actual reality their harmony vanishes.  ¹⁶The completion thus cannot be reached and is only to be thought of as an absolute task, i.e. as one that remains purely a task.  ¹⁷At the same time its content has to be thought of as something that simply must be and in that sense does not remain simply a task, whether one imagines that in this goal consciousness is completely overcome or not.  In the dark distance of infinity, where the achievement of the goal has to located, it is no longer possible to distinguish between the two.  ¹⁸It will have to be said that a definite picture is not interesting and should not be sought because this leads to contradictions – a task that remains a task but is also fulfilled, a morality that is not consciousness and that should not be anything more.  ¹⁹The suggestion that completed morality might contain a contradiction would damage the sanctity of the essential character of morality making absolute duty look simply unreal.

6.  The first postulate was the harmony of morality and objective nature, the ultimate goal of the world.  The other one was the harmony of morality and sensuous willing, the ultimate goal of self-consciousness as such.  The first was thus harmony in the form of being in itself and the other one was harmony in the form of being for itself.  ²The midpoint binding these two extreme ultimate goals, which are thought, is the motion of actual activity itself.  ³They are harmonies whose moments, in their abstract difference, have not yet become object; this happens in the actual reality into which the sides in the genuine consciousness, each as the other of the other, emerge.  ⁴The postulates arising from this contain the harmonies, previously only the separate harmonies given in itself and for itself, respectively, now each in and for itself.

7.  Moral consciousness, as the simple knowing and willing of pure duty in action, is related to the object set opposed to its own simplicity – to the reality of the multifaceted case and for that reason it has here a multifaceted moral relation.  ²This is where the many laws emerge, according to the content, while in terms of form what emerge are the contradictory powers of knowing consciousness and of what does not have consciousness at all.

– ³As far as the many duties go, for moral consciousness as such only pure duty counts in them; the many duties, being many, are determinate and thus as such nothing holy for moral consciousness.  ⁴At the same time they are necessary because of the concept of action which includes a multifaceted reality and for that reason also a multifarious moral relationship, so each must also be viewed as existing in and for itself.  ⁵Since, further, they can only be in a moral consciousness, that puts them also in a different one than the former, for which the purity of pure duty is what makes it in and for itself and holy.

8.  It is then postulated that there is another consciousness that sanctifies it, one that knows it and wills it as duties.  ²The first obtains pure duty indifferent to all determinate content, so duty is only this indifference to content.  ³The other, however, also contains the similarly essential relation to activity and the necessity of determinate content and since the duties count for it as determinate duties, this makes the content just as essential to it as the form that makes it duty.  ⁴This consciousness is then something in which the universal and the particular are simply one, so that its concept is the same as the concept of the harmony of morality and happiness.  ⁵For this opposition expresses just as much the separation of the self-identical moral consciousness of reality, which, as plural being, is in conflict with the simple, single essence of duty.  ⁶If the first postulate only expressed the existing harmony of morality and nature because nature in that is this negative of self-consciousness, the moment of being, then in contrast now this in itself is essentially consciousness.  ⁷For existing being now has the form of content of duty, i.e. it is the definition in the definite duty.  ⁸The in itself is thus the unity of those that are simple, single essences, essences of thought, and for that reason only exist in one single consciousness.  ⁹This consciousness is from now on a lord and dominator of the world, who produces the harmony of morality and happiness while simultaneously sanctifying the duties as many.  ¹⁰That last statement means that determinate duty cannot be immediately holy to the consciousness of pure duty.  Actual activity is a determinate, specific action, so determinate duty must also be necessary and consequently its necessity falls outside that consciousness into another one, which is what makes this the mediating consciousness between determinate and pure duty, providing the reason why the former is also valid.

9.  In actual activity, however, consciousness behaves as this self, as a completely single and individual self.  It is oriented directly to reality as such and has it for its target, for it wants to get something done.  ²Duty as such now falls out of it completely into another essence, which is consciousness of and holy law-maker of pure duty.  ³Pure duty's other is immediately valid for the agent simply because it is acting, so this pure duty is the content of another consciousness and only mediately – namely in that other consciousness – holy to acting duty.

10.  This implies that the validity of duty as being in and for itself  holy falls outside actual consciousness, which consequently now stands as incomplete moral consciousness to one side.  ²In terms of its knowledge too, it knows itself to be something whose knowledge and conviction are incomplete and contingent; similarly in terms of its willing, it knows itself as one whose goals are afflicted with sensuousness.  ³Because of its unfitness it can see happiness as not necessary, but as something contingent and only expect to receive it from grace.

11.  Although its reality is incomplete, duty does count for its pure willing and knowing as the essence.  In concept, to the extent that it is opposed to reality, i.e. in thought, it is complete.  ²The absolute being, absolute essence, however, is precisely this thought, something postulated beyond reality; it is thus the thought in which morally incomplete knowing and willing count as complete, and with that also, regarding them as of the highest importance, it dispenses happiness according to fitness, namely according to the merit assigned to them.

12.  This completes the world view, for in the concept of moral self-consciousness both sides, pure duty and actual reality, are established in one unity, which means that the one as well as the other does not exist here in and for itself, now both are moments, overcome.  ²In the last part of the moral world view this will come into being for consciousness; for pure duty establishes it in another essence than itself, i.e. it asserts it partly as something imagined, partly as something that is not what counts in and for itself so that what is immoral counts as complete.  ³Likewise it establishes itself as something whose reality, which is incompatible with duty, is overcome and as such, or in the image of absolute essence, no longer contradicts morality.

13.  For moral consciousness itself, however, its moral world view does not have the significance that it develops its own concept within it, making the concept into its object.  Moral consciousness has neither consciousness of this opposition in terms of its form nor of its content, whose parts it does not compare with or relate to each other, but just continues on in its own development without being the concept of the moments that binds everything together.  ²For moral consciousness knows only the pure essence, the object, to the extent that the object is duty, to the extent that the object is abstract object of its pure consciousness, pure knowledge, namely itself.  ³It is thus only thinking, not comprehending.  ⁴This is why the object of its actual consciousness is not yet transparent to it; it is not the absolute concept that alone grasps otherness as such, its absolute opposite, as itself.  ⁵Its own actual reality, just like all objective reality, is inessential to it now, but its freedom is the freedom of pure thinking, which for that reason also, in contrast to nature, has emerged as something just as free.  ⁶Both are in the same way in it – being's freedom and its confinement within consciousness – so its object becomes something existing and simultaneously only thought.  In the last part of its intuition the content will be essentially established so that its being is something imagined and this linkage of being and thinking will be declared to be what it in fact is, imagining.

14.  A perspective on the moral world view that sees this objective mode as nothing other than the concept of moral self-consciousness itself, a concept self-consciousness renders objective as far as it is concerned, leads to a very different pattern for its demonstration through this consciousness of the form of its origin.

– ²The demonstration usually starts with the actual moral self-consciousness, or rather the claim that such a thing exists.  ³For the concept asserts actual moral self-consciousness in the claim that for it all reality as such only has essence to the extent that it is congruent with duty, further claiming that this essence is knowledge, i.e. in immediate unity with the actual self.  This unity is then itself actual, a moral, actual consciousness.

– ⁴This now as consciousness imagines its content as object, namely as the ultimate goal of the world, as harmony of morality and all reality.  ⁵When it, however, imagines this unity as object so that it is not yet the concept with power over the object as such, the unity is for it a negative to self-consciousness, i.e. the unity falls outside self-consciousness, a beyond of its reality, something existing, but which is only thought.

15.  As self-consciousness it is something other than the object, so what remains to it is the lack of harmony between the consciousness of duty and actual reality, indeed, its own reality.  ²The statement now looks like this: there does not exist any morally complete actual self-consciousness.  And since the moral only exists to the extent that it is complete, for duty is the pure, unmixed in itself and morality consists solely in the congruence to this purity, then the second statement is: there is nothing morally actual.

16.  Now, since it is, thirdly, one self, that means it is the unity of duty and reality; this unity thus becomes its object as completed morality – only as a beyond of its actual reality – but which still should be actual.

17.  Arriving at this goal of the synthetic unity of the two first statements, we now have both self-conscious reality and duty only as moments overcome.  Their essential character is that each is free of the other, but in this unity they are no longer free of their respective others.  They are overcome and so each becomes, in terms of content, object for the other, while simultaneously, in terms of form, the exchange between them is only imagined.

– ²What is really not moral, because it is just pure thinking and superior to its reality, is in imagination indeed moral and is accepted as completely valid.  ³This generates the first statement, that there exists a moral self-consciousness, but now bound to the second, that no such thing exists.  The claim is then that there does exist such a thing but only in imagination, or no such thing exists, but another does indeed grant it validity.