Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperatives

One of the toughest decisions perhaps that you have to make in your life is choosing the moral path you have to take. For sure, every one of us has troubles in identifying what is right and what is wrong. It is good that we do have these Categorical Imperatives by Immanuel Kant which we can consider as one of his greatest contributions in the field of morality.

Because of these Categorical Imperatives, we now have a model or standard to follow if we wanted to judge something as moral or not. We ask ourselves these three questions developed by Kant before we engage in a certain action. First is that we should act according to maxim. I do agree with this because I usually do this before I carry out a particular thing. I try to think how it would also impact other individuals around me. I consider whether it would also correspond to the universal rule and not just a rule to me. For example, I ask myself if killing someone you hate would be a good thing to do. I would then begin to reflect on this. If it is normal to kill anyone you hate then probably everyone could be dead by now. If the answer to that question will be no then I can say that it cannot be deemed to be moral.

Next is that we should treat humanity not just as a mean but also as an end. Same with Kant, I am also against dealing with human beings as just as mean just like in slavery. I oppose to situations wherein an individual is being under the control of another person. Slaveholding must be put into an end.

Third and the last imperative is to Act as a Law making member of a Kingdom of Laws that would benefit all mankind. What he means by this is that we would only make laws that of course would benefit all mankind and not just yourself. These laws must be ethical laws. Who would pass laws making murder or stealing a legitimate act? Likely, no one will do that.

Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative is not that complicated. You do not have to earn the highest academic degree conferred by a university to get his idea. It is because it is more derived from our intuition. You just need to have this instinctive knowing to understand his Categorical Imperatives.