Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative

Immanuel Kant’s philosophy can be further evaluated through the Categorical Imperative. The Categorical Imperative is based upon Kant’s idea that morality is derived from rationality and all moral judgments are rationally supported. The Categorical Imperative is an absolute nonnegotiable universal moral that holds up regardless of context and circumstance. What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. The Categorical Imperative is broken down into different formulations. The first formulation is that all of one’s actions must have universality, in other words one should only do something if he or she thinks it would be okay if everyone in the world did all the time. The second formulation is that every person must be treated as an end rather than a means to an end. Basically, one is never allowed to manipulate anyone no matter what. This stands up against the ‘greater good’, Kant thought that the greater good was irrelevant, each person is his own rational agent, no one person may be manipulated to achieve the goals of another. This means that you can never lie to anybody under any circumstances for any reason. A major criticism of Kant’s second formulation is that if someone came to your door with an ax and asked you to kindly tell him the location of your

The best way to obtain happiness is to cultivate a virtuous character. Of the two kinds of virtue he recognizes, intellectual and moral, moral virtue is not surprisingly the one to focus on in order to develop a virtuous character. According to Aristotle, while we are all born with the capacity to be virtuous, actually being virtuous is like a skill like carpentry that we need to learn and practice to be good at. To be virtuous one must avoid extreme in actions and emotions. To be virtuous is to cultivate the right amount, not too little nor too much, of the many human