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.
Facts
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Associated With
Source Categorical Imperative (Wikipedia)
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Rejected Here
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.
In Branch
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Open Questions
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Sources
1. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Cambridge University Press, 1995
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and InformationStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Kant's Moral Philosophy, section 5 The Formula of the Universal Law of Nature
act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law
- Associated With: Immanuel Kant
- In Branch: Ethics
View the Source Categorical Imperative (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Deontology, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Deontology, Lead section
The categorical imperative is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
Open Questions (1 open question)
Are Kant's Several Formulas of the Categorical Imperative Truly Equivalent?
Kant claimed that his different formulas of the categorical imperative, including the Formula of Universal Law and the Formula of Humanity, were all equivalent, but never explained in what sense. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's Kant's Moral Philosophy entry surveys competing readings of that equivalence claim, meaning equivalent, logically interderivable, or equivalent only in the duties each formula generates, without settling on one.
What would resolve this A textual argument accepted across Kant scholarship showing precisely how one formula yields the others, or a demonstration that Kant's equivalence claim fails in every proposed sense, would resolve which reading is correct.
Kant scholarship (moral philosophy)Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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