Kant: The Categorical Imperative

“Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the reflection dwells on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” -Immanuel Kant

Welcome back to the Art of Discourse! We are excited to be back and feeling quite rejuvenated from our holiday on the beautiful Portuguese island of Madeira. We look forward to continuing to provide weekly essays and podcasts surrounding the ideas of the civic virtues, discourse, myth, and characters throughout history.

Without further ado, we thought we would begin with the preeminent German transcendental philosopher, Immanuel Kant.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher born in the Prussian city of Koenigsberg, Prussia now Kaliningrad, Russia, in 1724. As a young man, he studied at the prestigious Collegium Fridericianum gymnasium located in Königsburg. At the age of 16, he enrolled in university and began studying under the likes of Gottfried Leibniz and Christian Wolff, both rationalists that profoundly influenced Kant’s perspect of idealism, rationalism, and ultimately aided in the formation of Kant’s transcendental idealism espoused in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant was an enlightenment thinker of the first order, and he deeply impacted the course of western philosophy. He approached his work on metaphysics, ethics, and aestheticism systematically and thoroughly. Kant’s intellectual work has influenced political, religious, and individual philosophy across the globe and he has undoubtedly made an indelible mark on history. He even once advocated for a "League of Peace," which was the precursor to Woodrow Wilson's "League of Nations” and the subsequent United Nations that exists today. Regardless of contemporary or individual criticism, the impact of his work is felt the world over.

One of Kant’s foundational works was his analysis and theory about the romantic idea of the sublime, which can be best described as a feeling of incalculable greatness, whether witnessed through nature or the words or actions of other beings. As a moral transcendental idealist, Kant believed that the highest state of reality could be achieved through morality. Kant believed that the highest moral law could be achieved through deductive syllogism or a logical moral equations. He believed in using moral maxims and strict moral absolutism to govern behavior.

In his "Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals," Kant establishes three formulations through which we can analyze the motivations for individual moral actions and establish practical moral maxims. These formulations provide a logical framework to conduct ourselves in the world to bring about the best end through the highest and noblest principles.

The first formulation reads:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law

*it sounds overly complex in german too

This is also known as the law of universality. Put more simply, we must act in a way that, if we could, we would wish that this action be made a universal moral law. An example of unacceptable action in this framework would be falsehoods or deception. No one would want to live in a world where lying is universally accepted behavior. Kant uses the example of a man borrowing money without the intention of paying it back. No one would loan anyone money because they would never expect to see a return.

The second formulation reads:

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.

This second formulation, derived from the first, states that we should never abuse the humanity of ourselves or others by treating individuals as merely means to an end. This formulation is also known as the principle of respect for persons. Here Kant calls us to treat individuals as an end in and of themselves. This formulation strives to minimize the sense of agenda that we so often approach human interaction with. We cannot consider honorable actions honorable if they are being used to manipulate the opinions or the actions of others merely for our gain. From Kant’s deontological perspective, our actions must be honorable and done purely for the sake of principle, or duty. An good action should be done for its own sake, a beautiful illustration of this is found in Meditations by one of the Last Good Emperors of Rome, Marcus Aurelius: “Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying...or busy with other assignments……move from one unselfish act to another with God in mind…”

Kant and Marcus Aurelius are not advocating that we cannot use people as means at times. We are all using each other to some degree or another at all times. He is, however, advancing the idea that we must not use another person merely to attain our ends. We should view each other as sovereign coauthors of the human experience when we engage with others in social contexts.

The third formulation reads:

Thus the third practical principle follows as the ultimate condition of their harmony with practical reason: the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will

This third aspect of the categorical imperative is on the issue of individual autonomy, appropriately deemed the principle of autonomy. Deriving its rational basis from the first two principles, it establishes that actions must not violate an individual's autonomy. Where individuals treat themselves and others as ends and do not subordinate their wills to others or subordinate others to their will. We must respect others as logical autonomous individuals with their own free will and the power to make their own choices and universally legislate maxims that fall within these categorical imperatives.

Together these formulations chart the course to Kant's theoretical "Kingdom of Ends" that can be arrived at through reasoned syllogism and the real application of the categorical imperatives. This is something that is akin to the “Kingdom of God” or “Heaven”. A place where good rational people engage in contracts that operate under these three formulations.

These principles are brutal and admittedly extreme, and Kant found criticisms from his contemporaries and later philosophers. As a deontological moral philosopher, he believed that moral action must be judged independently of its consequences, something that the French philosopher Benjamin Constant challenged with his assertion that under the categorical imperative, one must tell a murderer the truth when asked about the location of his prey. He answered many of these criticisms through subsequent essays, but his ideas remain controversial.

Regardless of your position on Kant, the sublime, or his categorical imperative, his work made a profound and enduring mark on western philosophy. This fact alone makes his work worth deeper critical study.