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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] Some have postulated a similarity between the first formulation of the categorical imperative and the Golden Rule.
According to Kant, rational beings occupy a special place in creation, and morality can be summed up in an imperative, or ultimate commandment of reason, from which all duties and obligations derive. He defines an imperative as any proposition declaring a certain action (or inaction) to be necessary. [ 2 ]
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785; German: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten; also known as the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, and the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals) is the first of Immanuel Kant's mature works on moral philosophy and the first of his trilogy of major works on ethics alongside the Critique of ...
In his Critique of Practical Reason he went on to argue that, despite the failure of these arguments, morality requires that God's existence is assumed, owing to practical reason. [6] Rather than proving the existence of God, Kant was attempting to demonstrate that all moral thought requires the assumption that God exists. [7]
Acting morally requires being directly motivated by the moral law. If the person complies with what the moral law requires, but only because of a presupposed feeling rather than for the sake of the moral law alone, then their action has legality but not morality. For Kant, moral actions must also be done out of the incentive of the moral law.
The Doctrine of Virtue develops Kant's ethical theory, which he had already laid the foundation in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). Kant particularly emphasizes treating humanity as an end in itself. The duties are analytically treated by Kant, who distinguishes duties towards ourselves from duties towards others.
According to Kant, only practical reason, the faculty of moral consciousness, the moral law of which everyone is immediately aware, makes it possible to know things as they are. [13] This led to his most influential contribution to metaphysics: the abandonment of the quest to try to know the world as it is "in itself" independent of sense ...
A moral imperative is a strongly-felt principle that compels a person "in question" to act. It is a kind of categorical imperative, as defined by Immanuel Kant. Kant took the imperative to be a dictate of pure reason, in its practical aspect. Not following the moral law was seen to be self-defeating and thus contrary to reason.