In the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant seeks to establish the supreme principle of morality (Kant. 392), the categorical imperative, to act as a standard to which actions can be evaluated for their moral worth. Kant believes that actions motivated by personal experience, whether through observation, indoctrination or some other capacity, lack moral worth because such actions are not determined by the conception of moral law. When empirical considerations such as effects, habit, consequence or material objets shape, alter and manipulate the will and thus constitute the foundation for an individual's formation of decisions, moral problems abound. Empirical knowledge-upbringing, culture tradition, desire, aim and consequence prevents moral action because it provides grounds for inconsistencies, biases and inclinations to influence the individual's will. Therefore, Kant believes that morality must be separated from the conceptions that develop posteriori, through or after human experience and that moral action must rely on the unalterable element of pure reason. As pure reason and respect for moral law direct moral action by influencing will and the conception

The Formula of the End in Itself considers the difficulties in the determining of moral action that result when empirical knowledge and experience lead individuals to treat themselves or others as means to some end. As rational beings, by nature, are ends themselves (Kant 428), individuals should "act so that they treat humanity whether in [their] own person or in that of another, always as and ends and never as a means merely" (429). When experience and empirical knowledge that act as motivation for a desired end, the treatment of another individual or the self is dependent on the desired end. Although empirical conditions do not always lead to immoral action, the aim for the end ensures that moral action will not occur because the moral worth of such an action lies in its intent, the good will, and not in the desired result (Kant 394). By prohibiting empirical considerations from determining the desires that result, an individual's humanity remains intact.

Kant's formula of autonomy addresses moral problems, like a moral promise, that can occur when action is guided by a will that is constrained by influence, empirical knowledge or experience, and lacks governance by pure experience. Kant explains that individuals should "act so that [their] will can regard itself at the same time as making universal law through its maxim" (431). As individuals are rational beings, they have the will, or the capacity to act according to principle. This right to the autonomy of the will is the essence of humanity (430) and rationality, and must be free to determine action on its own grounds through the use of pure reason. When empirical knowledge is not separated from the motivation for decision and action, pure reason, the element of the mind uninfluenced by the empirical, is unable to fully direct the will. Because Kant recognizes that experience corrupts objectivity and shadows the function of pure reason, he explains that if the will "goes outside and seeks law in the property of any of its objects, heteronomy always results. For then the will does not give itself the law but the object through its relation to the will gives the law to it" (441). By eliminating the posteriori reasoning when act

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