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It states that an action can only be moral if it is motivated by a sense of duty, and its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law. Central to Kant's theory of the moral law is the categorical imperative. Kant formulated the categorical imperative in various ways.
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.
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.
Kant thinks that the positive understanding of freedom amounts to the same thing as the categorical imperative, and that “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same.” [xviii] This is the key notion that later scholars call the reciprocity thesis, which states that a will is bound by the moral law if and only if it is free ...
Immanuel Kant [a] (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and controversial figures in modern Western philosophy.
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.
In deontological ethics, mainly in Kantian ethics, maxims are understood as subjective principles of action. A maxim is thought to be part of an agent's thought process for every rational action, indicating in its standard form: (1) the action, or type of action; (2) the conditions under which it is to be done; and (3) the end or purpose to be achieved by the action, or the motive.
Ought implies can" [1] is an ethical formula ascribed to Immanuel Kant that claims an agent, if morally obliged to perform a certain action, must logically be able to perform it: For if the moral law commands that we ought to be better human beings now, it inescapably follows that we must be capable of being better human beings. [2]