Categorical imperative

The Categorical Imperative is the central concept in Kant’s ethics. It refers to the “supreme principle of morality”, from which all our moral duties are derived. The basic principle of morality is an imperative because it commands certain courses of action. It is a categorical imperative because it commands unconditionally, quite independently of the particular ends and desires of the moral agent. Kant formulates the Categorical Imperative in several different ways. According to the well-known ‘Universal Law’ formulation, you should act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it be a universal law. Since maxims are, roughly, general rules or principles of action, the Categorical Imperative commands that one should act only on universalizable principles, principles that could be adopted by all rational agents.

Imperatives: Hypothetical and Categorical

An imperative is a command (e.g. ‘shut the door!’). Kant thinks that imperatives can be expressed in terms of there being some action that one ‘ought’ to do. For example, the imperative ‘Be quiet!’ may be expressed as: ‘you ought to be quiet’. Kant distinguishes two types of imperatives: categorical imperatives and hypothetical imperatives. Hypothetical imperatives have the general form, ‘If you want Φ then you ought to do Ψ’. ‘If you want to lose weight, you should not eat chocolate’, is an example of a hypothetical imperative. Refraining from eating chocolate is something that is required of one insofar as one is committed to the end of losing weight. In this respect, the imperative commands conditionally: it applies only on the condition that one shares the end for which the imperative prescribes means. To the extent that this end is not one that is required (and someone may say, ‘losing weight is really not that important!’), one is not required to perform the actions instrumental to it. One can escape what is required by the imperative by giving up the end.

In contrast with hypothetical imperatives, which depend on one’s having particular desires or ends (such as wanting to lose weight), categorical imperatives describe what we are required to do independently of what we may desire or prefer. In this respect they prescribe behaviour categorically. A categorical imperative has the general form, ‘Do A!’ or ‘you ought to do A’. Kant argues that moral rules are categorical imperatives, since the content of a moral prohibition is supposed to apply quite independently of our desires and preferences. Consider, for example, the moral rule ‘You shall not murder’. This moral rule has application quite absolutely. It does not include any condition such as ‘You shall not murder if you want to avoid punishment’ or ‘You shall not murder if you want to be a moral person’. The categorical applies quite independently of out desires and preferences. We cannot escape its force insofar as we are rational moral agents.

Categorical imperatives and The Categorical Imperative

Kant believed that moral rules are categorical imperatives. Moral rules determine behaviour categorically, and do not depend on any particular desires, which a person may or may not happen to have. Kant thought that all our moral duties, which are themselves categorical imperatives, depend on a basic requirement of rationality, which he regards as the supreme principle of morality: this is the Categorical Imperative. The Categorical imperative, as opposed to categorical imperatives, is the basic form of the moral law.

An analogy with the biblical Golden Rule might help to make the relation between categorical imperatives and the Categorical Imperative somewhat clearer. According to the Golden Rule, as expressed in the Bible at Mathew 7:6 “All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them: this, in fact, is what the Law and the Prophets mean”. In this text Jesus prescribes the Golden Rule as a regulating principle for how we conduct ourselves and says that the Mosaic Law and sayings of the prophets may be summed up in terms of this rule. One way of understanding this claim is that the Golden Rule may be used to justify the moral codes expressed in the Mosaic Law. Or to take a particular example, a person should help those in distress because if he were in distress, he would wish that others would help him. Similarly, any proposed course of action, or policy of action, may be assessed in terms of whether it would be something that one would wish to be carried out in relation to one’s own person. The Golden Rule is a fundamental moral principle which could be used to explain why particular moral rules apply (those of the Mosaic Law), and, more generally, help to identify what we are obligated to do and refrain from doing.

The Categorical Imperative is significantly different from the Golden Rule, but the relation between it, as a basic moral principle, and higher order moral principles is the same. Kant argues is that all moral laws, such as those prohibiting telling lies, those requiring beneficence, forbidding murder, and others, can be derived from the basic moral principle, the Categorical Imperative. This means that the Categorical Imperative may be employed to tell us what our duties are. (This point will be discussed further in the next section.) Moreover, the Categorical Imperative explains why our moral duties, whatever they might be, bind us as rational moral agents. The Categorical Imperative exemplifies a standard of consistency to which all rational agents are by bound, and since all moral imperatives (duties and prohibitions) derive from the Categorical Imperative, all moral imperatives are binding precisely because they are expressions of this basic standard of rational consistency.

Kant’s derivation of the Categorical Imperative

Kant attempts to derive our moral duties from the very concept of a categorical or moral imperative. A categorical imperative is a moral obligation or requirement. Since categorical imperatives apply to rational agents without regard to their particular ends and purposes, categorical imperatives cannot be explained in terms of what a person has self-interested reason to do. Categorical imperatives prescribe nothing other than ‘obey the law’, or ‘Do your duty!’ Kant argues that categorical imperatives, or moral laws, are universal in scope. They apply to all moral agents independently of facts about their own psychology and circumstances. Kant thinks that a categorical imperative prescribes nothing other than ‘obey the law!’ The essential property of a law is that it is universally applicable. Consequently, a categorical imperative is, in its essence, nothing other than ‘do what is universally acceptable’. From this line of thought, Kant infers the basic principle of morality, the Categorical Imperative, which says that one should ‘Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law’ [p. 30]. A maxim is a principle of action, or a policy prescribing some course of action. The maxim of an action gives the principle upon which an agent acts. It specifies the reason for which a person acts. Since the Categorical Imperative requires that the maxims upon which we act be capable of becoming universal laws, this is equivalent to the requirement that we act for reasons that are universally acceptable. We ought to act for reasons that could be adopted by all. C.I.: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. Is your maxim consistent with the idea of law? The term “will that it should become a universal law” means universally applicable, or universalisable. C.I. (*) “Act only according to that maxim which is universalisable” This yields the following criterion for right action: C.I. (**) An act is morally right if and only if its maxim is universalisable.