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Categorical Imperatives Immanuel Kant

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Immanuel Kant is a well-known philosopher from the 18th century who argued that reason was essential when determining whether or not something was ethical or not. He also believed we should act rationally, and everyone should wish to do so. Kant viewed morality on the basis of categorical imperatives, which are commands that tell us which ends to pursue. These are rules that we are obligated without regards to whether or not we wish to follow them. The reasons we should follow these rules is because they are founded by moral reasonings. This intellect of knowing what right and wrong is internally known. Categorical imperatives can be seen in more than one formulation, including the Universal Law formula and the Human Law formula. (Arnold, Darrell) …show more content…

This principle would thus be “universalizable” because everyone would agree on following it. For example, if we want to lie, we would ask ourselves if we would be okay with everyone else lying to us. Also, if our country was deciding to start a war, we should be alright with other countries declaring war on us. With this formulation, we make moral decisions because we would only behave how we want others to behave with us. However, Kant states that there shouldn’t be a contradiction, but there is a possibility that there are people who think differently and would be alright with lying, stealing,

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