Kant’s Categorical Imperative, Categorically Explained
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Time to read 11 min
Questions Answered in This Blog Post
What is the Categorical Imperative and what makes it different from other ethical systems?
How do you universalize a maxim to figure out the right thing to do?
How can this duty-based ethical system be problematic in the practical details?
The meme to start with:
Ethics is one of the most easily understood and easily misunderstood subjects of philosophical study. We all practice ethics, whether we want to or not. When you choose between several possible behaviors that will impact others or your environment, you are doing ethics. When you decide to give a few bucks to a homeless person on the street, ethics. When you decide to kick a puppy, ethics. You get the gist.
In philosophy, the study of ethics tends to revolve around two mindsets: ethical theory, that is, ethical systems that back up what actions we decide in the moral sphere; and applied ethics, that is, situations that need to be examined regarding their morality, learning what we should or shouldn’t do in a specific instance. While the latter might be more interesting to those of us who want to know what we should do, the former is often fascinating in its own right.
Ethical theory, which we’ve discussed here before, usually involves a whole system of core values, core logic, even, to back up actions that are seen as good or bad, in moral terms. Utilitarianism, for instance, is one such theory of how we ought to behave.
Deontology is another rather prominent ethical system. Founded by big name Immanuel Kant, this system, which takes a universalist approach to ethics, is best illustrated in the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). One of Kant’s shorter works (thankfully), the book gives us a framework for morality. Let’s open it up.
We Kant Even: The Groundwork
We hope by now that Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) needs no introduction. He is pivotal to Western philosophy, German idealism, and a heck of a lot of things we still have to contend with. Even if you don’t love him, you’re gonna mention him as a student or practitioner of philosophy.
Kant, who woke from his dogmatic slumber at the ripe age of 40, penned a number of works in which he created a complete system of philosophy all his own. An academic at heart, Kant wrote on everything from metaphysics to time to moral theory. In The Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (I am fond of the translation of my Hackett copy), Kant decided to add to his system of philosophy a system of moral theory. After all, you can’t do philosophy without ethics.
We’ve discussed what Kant called the Categorical Imperative in various of our articles here at The Philosopher’s Shirt, but now is the time for an in depth summary of the CI in one of Kant’s shortest but most important works.
The Categorical Imperative: A Rational System
Let’s talk Categorical Imperative. It’s been a buzzword (buzzwords?) for a few centuries now in philosophy. But what is it and what does it do? In the Grounding, Kant creates an ethical system that runs from his broader philosophy. What can he say? He does like matchy matchy.
The foundation of this system is the Categorical Imperative, which is something of a moral formula for how to proceed in ethical conundrums, in the way that a mathematical formula will help solve an equation. A very rational dude, Kant has a whole process for how to determine the morality of a prospective action.
For Kant, we should not determine the ethical worth of an action by its consequences. For Kant, the consequences are irrelevant. Instead, we should act from a sense of duty that transcends ourselves, a moral law. If we do this, we have done something ethically right, or good.
How do we figure out what our duty is, though? We use the Categorical Imperative, of course!
Let’s look at what Kant himself says:
“Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature.”
Kant has a way with words. And by “a way with words,” I mean he uses them but often they don’t make sense unless you have someone else to help you out. So, here goes.
Universalizing Your Maxim: Will It Never End (Yay, bad pun?)
Well, TPS, you might say, when did we get maxims in here? And what is up with this will and universality? And what is up with that sentence in general? Look, great writing was not really Kant’s strong suit here.
A maxim is a big part of that little formula that I told you about. Let’s break down the steps of the Categorical Imperative and how to use a maxim.
You’ve got an action that you are thinking about doing. You want to know if it’s going to be a moral action, because you want to do the right thing. Say, for instance, you want to know if it’s OK to lie to your friends, to your family, to your barista, to your professors, etc.
You take this potential action and you think about if it is something that everyone should and would do, because there is an overarching moral imperative. In other words, is this something that should be done universally?
You get your maxim from this. As an example:
I will always lie to my barista about what kind of milk I am willing to take in my coffee. (I hate oat!)
You ask yourself if you can universalize this maxim. That is, can you apply it to every case? Can you apply it to every situation? Because, in the end, you are questioning if you get to lie as a moral thing. According to Kant, you can not.
You have to ditch this as a moral action. You can try the inverse, about telling your barista you hate oat milk with every fiber of your being, and see if you can universalize this. Rinse and repeat.
This is duty, universal ethics. They have to be applied to every situation, every possibility. There is no room for lying in Kant’s system. We will get to this more later.
For Kant, the ethical worth of an action lies not in what might happen as a consequence of the action. The ethical worth is if it can and should be reproduced universally, by everyone of good will. By willing it to be universal, you do a thought experiment where you consider if this is an action everyone ever should be taking.
The theory is incredibly systematic, incredibly rational, and comes from Kant’s broader ideas in his philosophy.
One of your writer's brilliant book photographs, with her personal copies of the (well beaten up) Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals and (better condition) After Virtue. Don't ask to see the inside; it's tragic.
But Wait, There’s More!: Transcendental Idealism in Morality
To understand why you would not want to go by what might happen if you do the thing, it’s important to understand two pivotal concepts in Kant’s oeuvre. Kant likes to use two very Latin phrases in his broader work, maybe to sound fancy, but probably because it made him seem more legit among his peers. These terms are a posteriori and a priori, and are still used to explain things in philosophy. The simple translations of these terms are “after” (a posteriori) and “before” (a priori).
Things that we experience by way of the senses, for instance, are experienced a posteriori. They are experienced after the fact, because what makes us human is our reason, which exists a priori to us, exists within but also outside of us, in a larger framework. Reason understands the world that exists before the world of the senses, before the world of experience. These are important things that we understand outside of our senses, before experience. For Kant, morality is one of those.
We don’t want to get carried away by the realms of noumena and phenomena, but ethical theory being outside of or before experience is essential to understanding why Kant goes very hardline about consequences not mattering. When questioned on this, he doubles down.
Criticism of Call of Duty (in Kant’s Ethics)
The insistence of taking consequences and other factors out of play in Kantian ethics is a huge red flag for some working philosophers, and you will definitely hear about it in Ethics 101. Trust me.
Professors will present scenarios when following a universal maxim is a dangerous thing. For instance, one of my now-ancient professors suggested, what if you are in a situation where your friend has to hide because someone is angry and is going to beat her up or worse? Obviously, you do not want that dude to do violence to your friend. So, what do you do when the dude asks, “Where is she?”
If you are a Kantian, my professor explained, you have a duty to tell the truth. And that’s fair, as Kant also has a whole essay entitled, “On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns.” He’s not playing.
You’re stuck with this conundrum. You could lie to this jerk and save your friend, hiding in the closet. Most of us today would say that is a noble exception to the rule about lying. But not Kant. You have to tell the truth. So, suggested my professor, you end up saying, “Well, Dan, she’s in the closet.” Then run away, presumably.
You can’t account for every possibility in creating a universal maxim.
The late Alasdair MacIntyre, the guy who brought virtue ethics back into popularity, offered Kant another criticism in After Virtue. According to MacIntyre, there is honestly a flaw in the idea of making a maxim. MacIntyre suggested you could universalize a maxim that is even evil, like “Persecute all those who hold false religious beliefs.” If the maxim maker considers it to be an a priori truth, why not?
Furthermore, MacIntyre argues, you can frankly use the Categorical Imperative for things that are morally irrelevant, like “Always eat mussels on Mondays in March.” For MacIntyre, you can universalize all of this, even though it doesn’t have any ethical import. So, basically, you could sit there and just make up silly maxims all day, if you wanted to, but you’re not really working with a viable ethical theory about what is good and what is bad, right and wrong.
He had a point, because sticking something about the real world in which we live outside of the real world in which we live can honestly reap very flat or even heartless results.
Kant Stop Won’t Stop: A Second, Gentler Formulation of the Categorical Imperative
If you read an ethics (especially applied) textbook, what you’re likely to get is the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative and that’s it. Nice, fun ethical formula. Kant, you silly little man!
But this isn’t where Kant stops (I Kant stop the puns, either). To supplement the first formulation, Kant allows us to think of duty-based ethics in a different way:
“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.”
I don’t know about you, but this seems more poetic and kinder than the cold mathematical style of the first formulation. While Kant brings out this formula to prop up the first, it’s your writer’s personal opinion that the second is the more important and enduring of the two. It also offers more leeway than Kant actually allowed.
Let’s talk means and ends. When you treat someone as a means, you are using them in some way, to get to another goal. In lying to your barista, you are treating them as a means of getting a quicker coffee, while you seethe about it each time, rolling your eyes as they ask the question again and again. A retail worker is a human being too.
In thinking about people as ends in themselves, we understand that everyone has their own purpose, their own humanity, their own path. In treating someone else as an end rather than means, you are honoring something that is in you as a fellow human being, as well as in that other person. It’s more than a kindness. It is a form of respect.
I think of this often in my dealings with others in the real world, and online. Harassing people online, for instance, treats the bullied people as a means for you to feel better about yourself, or feel some sort of moral superiority you clearly don’t possess. Paying retail workers subpar wages is treating them as a means, because you want cheap labor so you can have more money.
There are so many ways this rule applies in your everyday life that don’t at all have to involve high-minded ideals. After the intense intellectual complexities of the first formula, with all its maxims and universality, there is something very simple and human about the second. I feel, sometimes, that you get a glimpse of an earnest son of a saddlemaker here, which doesn’t come about often in Kant’s work.
In reading this article, it might be good homework to consider ways in which you have and haven’t treated your fellow humans as ends instead of means. It might change the way you think about basic interactions in your life, hopefully for the better!
Summary:
Kant's Categorical Imperative is a universal, duty-based form of ethics.
In the CI, you create a maxim, a thought experiment to determine the morality of an action.
Kantian ethics do not put consequences into the equation. At all.
Critics of the Kant's system suggest that it has very little bearing on every day actions, and that you can't rely on universal maxims.
Kant's second formulation of the CI, however, offers a more human idea of how to treat people.
C. M. Black
C. M. Black holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Wesleyan College and an M.A. in Technical and Professional Writing from Middle Georgia State University. A lifelong goth, she resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where she works as a professional writer. You can view more of her work on Substack, or follow her on Bluesky and Facebook.
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