Categorical Imperative

The concept of categorical imperative is one of the most important notions of Kant's practical philosophy. This concept falls under the Kantian project of the foundation of morality. To be precise, Kant does not attempt to create a new morality, but to propose a new formulation of it. From this point of view, the categorical imperative must provide a criterion that makes it possible for any human to differentiate with certainty the moral actions from those actions that are not moral.

Generally, Kant calls “imperative” the formula of a command, that is, the representation of an objective principle that is constraining for the will.

Since the human will is subjected to subjective motives that stem from the sensibility, the actions that are objectively necessary remain subjectively contingent so that their necessity appears for the agent as a constraint. Consequently, all imperatives are expressed by the word “ought” and indicate the relation of an objective law of reason to a will, the subjective constitution of which is not necessarily determined by this law.

Kant distinguishes two sorts of imperatives: hypothetical and categorical. When the imperative expresses the practical necessity of an action only in order to obtain something desirable, the imperative ishypothetical (these are imperatives of skill and of prudence). When the imperative expresses the practical necessity of an action as good in itself and for itself, the imperative is categorical and is a law of morality.

There is no difficulty in regard to the possibility of hypothetical imperatives: The constraint on the will is simply the application of the principle: “Whoever wills the end, wills also the means in his power that are indispensably necessary thereto.” By contrast, the[Page 450]possibility of the categorical imperative presents a real difficulty because the necessity of this sort of imperative does not depend on any antecedent condition or of any consecutive end: This necessity unconditionally connects the will with the law.

To resolve this difficulty, Kant suggests considering if the conception of a categorical imperative would not supply the formula with it. Since beside the law, the categorical imperative contains only the necessity that the maxims shall conform to this law, and since the law contains no conditions restricting it, there remains only the general statement that the maxim of the action should conform to a universal law. Consequently the (first) formula of the categorical imperative is: Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

The categorical imperative requires the ability to will that a maxim of one's action should be a universal law. To clarify this claim, we can take the four examples of maxims-duties (suicide, false promising, noncultivation of one's natural talents, and indifference to the misfortune of others) that Kant mobilizes. It appears in these examples that a maxim can be raised to the universality of a law, when we can conceive and/or want it without contradiction. Exactly, Kant distinguishes the action's maxims that cannot without contradiction be conceived as a universal law; these are the action's maxims that are logically contradictory (these maxims violate strict or rigorous [inflexible] duty, that is, the duty that admits no exception in favor of inclination), and the actions for which it is impossible towill that their maxim should be raised to the universality of a law; these are the actions maxims that are practically contradictory (these maxims violate the laxer, meritorious duty, that is, the duty whose application's modalities are left for the consideration of the agent). It is the practical non-contradiction, more than the logical noncontradiction, that makes it possible to distinguish the morally defended maxims of the morally allowed maxims (duties). It is thus false to consider, as Hegel does, for example, that the formal identity and the empty logicism of Kant's morality authorize the universalization of any maxim of action. From Kant's point of view, it is the will, more than the understanding, that must refuse to be contradicted by setting up certain maxims in universal laws.

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