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The Kant scholar Allen W. Wood characterizes the essay as "famous (or infamous)". [3] Helga Varden has written, "Kant's example of lying to the murderer at the door has been a cherished source of scorn for thinkers with little sympathy for Kant's philosophy and a source of deep puzzlement for those more favorably inclined...
Central to Kant's theory of the moral law is the categorical imperative. Kant formulated the categorical imperative in various ways. His principle of universalizability requires that, for an action to be permissible, it must be possible to apply it to all people without a contradiction occurring.
The Doctrine of Virtue further develops Kant's ethical theory, which he had already laid the foundation in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and the Critique of Practical Reason. It develops Kant’s conception of virtue and expositions of particular ethical duties we have as rational human beings.
Kant believes that a teleological argument may be given to demonstrate that the “true vocation of reason must be to produce a will that is good.” [iv] As with other teleological arguments, such as the case with that for the existence of God, Kant's teleological argument is motivated by an appeal to a belief or sense that the whole universe ...
There are some objections posited against Kant's view. For instance, in Kohl's essay "Kant on Determinism and the Categorical Imperative", there is the question about the imperfect will, if one's will compels them to obey the universal law, but not for "recognizing the law's force of reason."
Kant's ethics are founded on his view of rationality as the ultimate good and his belief that all people are fundamentally rational beings. This led to the most important part of Kant's ethics, the formulation of the categorical imperative , which is the criterion for whether a maxim is good or bad.
The typical dichotomy in choosing ends is between ends that are right (e.g., helping someone) and those that are good (e.g., enriching oneself). Kant considered the right prior to the good; to him, the latter was morally dependent on the former. In Kant's view, a person cannot decide whether conduct is right, or moral, through empirical means.
Kant did not initially plan to publish a separate critique of practical reason. He published the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in May 1781 as a "critique of the entire faculty of reason in general" [1] [2] (viz., of both theoretical and practical reason) and a "propaedeutic" or preparation investigating "the faculty of reason in regard to all pure a priori cognition" [3] [4] to ...