Immanuel Kant's central principle of moral duty, first fully stated in the 1785 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and developed further in the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant distinguishes a categorical imperative, a command that binds unconditionally regardless of what one happens to want, from a hypothetical imperative, which binds only if one already wants some further end. He states the categorical imperative in several formulations he argues are equivalent: the formula of universal law, act only according to a maxim you could at the same time will to become a universal law; and the formula of humanity, act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means. The idea is meant to ground morality in reason alone, independent of consequences, feelings, or divine command, so that an act like lying fails the test not because it produces bad outcomes but because a world in which everyone lied whenever convenient would make lying, and the trust it depends on, incoherent.
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Kant's deontological ethics ground the rightness of an act in duty and universalizable maxims rather than in consequences, explicitly rejecting the utilitarian calculus that could justify treating a person merely as a means to a greater aggregate good.
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