section_path: Philosophy/Moral thought/Categorical imperative
section_name: Categorical imperative
paragraph_text: Categorical imperative
  
  Kant makes a distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives. A hypothetical imperative is one that we must obey to satisfy contingent desires. A categorical imperative binds us regardless of our desires: for example, everyone has a duty to respect others as individual ends in themselves, regardless of circumstances, even though it is sometimes in our narrowly selfish interest to not do so. These imperatives are morally binding because of the categorical form of their maxims, rather than contingent facts about an agent. Unlike hypothetical imperatives, which bind us insofar as we are part of a group or society which we owe duties to, we cannot opt out of the categorical imperative, because we cannot opt out of being rational agents. We owe a duty to rationality by virtue of being rational agents; therefore, rational moral principles apply to all rational agents at all times. Stated in other terms, with all forms of instrumental rationality excluded from morality, "the moral law itself, Kant holds, can only be the form of lawfulness itself, because nothing else is left once all content has been rejected".
  
  Kant provides three formulations for the categorical imperative. He claims that these are necessarily equivalent, as all being expressions of the pure universality of the moral law as such; many scholars are not convinced. The formulas are as follows:
  
  Kant defines maxim as a "subjective principle of volition", which is distinguished from an "objective principle or 'practical law. ' " While "the latter is valid for every rational being and is a 'principle according to which they ought to act' a maxim 'contains the practical rule which reason determines in accordance with the conditions of the subject (often their ignorance or inclinations) and is thus the principle according to which the subject does act. ' "
  
  Maxims fail to qualify as practical laws if they produce a contradiction in conception or a contradiction in the will when universalized. A contradiction in conception happens when, if a maxim were to be universalized, it ceases to make sense, because the "maxim would necessarily destroy itself as soon as it was made a universal law". For example, if the maxim 'It is permissible to break promises' was universalized, no one would trust any promises made, so the idea of a promise would become meaningless; the maxim would be self-contradictory because, when it is universalized, promises cease to be meaningful. The maxim is not moral because it is logically impossible to universalize — that is, we could not conceive of a world where this maxim was universalized. A maxim can also be immoral if it creates a contradiction in the will when universalized. This does not mean a logical contradiction, but that universalizing the maxim leads to a state of affairs that no rational being would desire.