Categorical Imperative

Traditionally throughout history, human beings have followed very explicit moral codes derived from their respective religious beliefs. A commonality across most religions is a concept that reads something like “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. This particular quote is the Christian version of the idea known as “The Golden Rule”. However, the age of the enlightenment brought to the world a period of secularization at a scale not seen prior in human history. Immanuel Kant was a philosopher alive during the enlightenment period who perceived a possibility for dangers that could result from large numbers of people in society no longer subscribing to religions and all of their subsequent moral teachings. Kant’s solution to this problem was to define the Categorical Imperative. According to Kant, the Categorical Imperative lays out a set of definitive conclusions that any “reasonable” individual should come to when approaching ethics with logic and reason. Furthermore, the Categorical Imperative is meant to be an improvement upon the traditional “Golden Rule” seen in religion. Unfortunately, the Categorical Imperative does not lay a realistic framework to create a system of morality in the real world. In order to understand why one should not use the

The counterexample used to contradict Kant’s “universality principle” should nullify the rational appeal of the Categorical Imperative for any individual who holds the belief that the preservation of human life is superior to ensuring that actions are applicable in any given circumstance. The example used in association with Kant’s second definition for the Categorical Imperative demonstrates issues caused by ambiguity. Kant does not aptly defines what it means for a person to be a