The Categorical Imperative

What is right, and what is wrong, and is it possible to tell the difference between the two?

The answer lies in who you are asking.

If one was to ask the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophical minds of the last several hundred years, he likely would have responded that the answer to this last question is yes, absolutely.

Kant focused a great deal of his philosophical thought in determining this very thing. What he developed became perhaps the most important system for determining morality ever created by man – The Categorical Imperative.

Kant developed what would become the Categorical Imperative over the course of three works: Groundworks of the Metaphysic of Morals, Critique of Practical Reason and Metaphysics of Morals. Within these works, Kant developed a system of three questions which should be asked of any action before it is taken in order to decide upon the morality of the action.

The categorical imperative helps us to know which actions are obligatory and which are forbidden.

The formulation is as follows:

1. The universal law – All moral statements should be general laws, which apply to everyone under all circumstances. There should be no occasion under which an exception is made.

2. Treat humans as ends in themselves – Kant argues that you should never treat People as a means to some end. People should always be treated as ends in themselves. This promotes equality.

3. Act as if you live in a kingdom of ends – Kant assumed that all rational agents were able to deduce whether an argument was moral or not through reason alone and so, all rational humans should be able to conclude the same moral laws.

Kant says that humans all have intrinsic worth, and that is exactly what this blog is all about.