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The categorical imperative (German: kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , it is a way of evaluating motivations for action.
Hypothetical imperatives tell us how to act in order to achieve a specific goal and the commandment of reason applies only conditionally, e.g. "I must study to get a degree." To put it simply, a hypothetical imperative is the blueprint for the use of reason in the interest of achieving a goal.
Unlike hypothetical imperatives, which bind them insofar as people are part of a group or society that they owe duties to, they cannot opt out of the categorical imperative because we cannot opt out of being rational agents. The categorical imperative makes people's duty to the moral law a requirement of reason which holds for them as rational ...
The Kingdom of Ends is a hypothetical state of existence that is derived from Kant's categorical imperative.A Kingdom of Ends is composed entirely of rational beings, whom Kant defines as those capable of moral deliberation (though his definition expands in other areas) who must choose to act by laws that imply an absolute necessity.
Therefore, a moral law could never rest on hypothetical imperatives, which only apply if one adopts some particular end. Rather, the imperative associated with the moral law must be a categorical imperative. The categorical imperative holds for all rational agents, regardless of whatever varying ends a person may have. If we could find it, the ...
The categorical relation (A is x) is simply the general connection of a subject concept with a predicate concept in a statement. It includes the hypothetical and disjunctive sub-relations. It also includes the judgments of quality (affirmation, negation) and judgments of quantity (inclusional relationships between concepts).
Kant believed that the ability of the human understanding (German: Verstand, Greek: dianoia "διάνοια", Latin: ratio) to think about and know an object is the same as the making of a spoken or written judgment about an object. According to him, "Our ability to judge is equivalent to our ability to think."
Kant concludes that the source of the nomological character of the moral law derives not from its content but from its form alone. The content of the universal moral law, the categorical imperative, must be nothing over and above the law's form, otherwise it will be dependent and based on the desires that the law's possessor has. The only law ...