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Kant claims that the first formulation lays out the objective conditions on the categorical imperative: that it be universal in form and thus capable of becoming a law of nature. Likewise, the second formulation lays out subjective conditions: that there be certain ends in themselves, namely rational beings as such. [ 12 ]
Kant argued that the objective law of reason is a priori, existing externally from rational being. Just as physical laws exist prior to physical beings, rational laws (morality) exist prior to rational beings. Therefore, according to Kant, rational morality is universal and cannot change depending on circumstance. [21]
Morality, therefore, is acting out of reverence for all universal laws which make the Kingdom of Ends possible. In a true Kingdom of Ends, acting virtuously will be rewarded with happiness. In his writings on religion, Kant interprets the Kingdom of God as a religious symbol for the moral reality of the Kingdom of Ends. As such, it is the ...
Central to the work is the role of what Kant refers to as the categorical imperative, which states that one must act only according to maxims which one could will to become a universal law. Kant argues that the rightness of an action is determined by the principle that a person chooses to act upon.
The concept of universalizability was set out by the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant as part of his work Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.It is part of the first formulation of his categorical imperative, which states that the only morally acceptable maxims of our actions are those that could rationally be willed to be universal law.
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law. [ 1 ] 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.
The categorical imperative is stated canonically as: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law." [2] In his Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant provided the following example of a maxim and of how to apply the test of the categorical imperative:
However Kant's Formula of Universal Law only identifies these contradictions in cases where the maxim is universally practiced; for Gewirth they can also occur in cases where some (but not all) persons' performing the behavior would deprive you of the necessary condition of agency.