Explain Kant’s categorical imperative Essay

Kant is an 18th century German philosopher who wrote the book stand for metaphysics. The book deals with his theory that chasteisticity is a priori synthetic (a priori is a debate that is knowable without reference to any birth and synthetic meat having integrity or falsity can be tested use experience or the senses) and that moral decisions should be taken with a universal joint visible horizon to ones duty to mankind as a whole. He laid out his ideas about the categorical dictatorial in this book. An imperative is a statement of what should be done.The philosopher Hume tell that you cant turn a should statement out of an if statement. This mode that experience can all give us hypothetical imperatives ( non moral commands to the will they are if statements and do not apply to everyone and you only need obey them if you want to obtain a certain goal, for example, if you want to be healthy then you should puzzle out and eat a balanced diet). A categorical imperative is a should statement, but it is not found on experience, and doesnt rely on a particular outcome. According to Kant, categorical imperatives apply to everyone because they are based on an objective a priori legality of causal agency (an objective law is something that is factually true).The categorical imperative is one article of faith with three formulations The ordinary Law, treat existence as ends in themselves and act as if you lively in a acres of Ends. The natural law is to act consort to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should sire a universal law and what it says is that everyone should generalize their maxims without contradiction for an imperative to be categorical or deontological it must consist of rulers that can be apply in any situation.This basically means that before you do something you should adopt yourself if you would like everyone in the same situation. If not, then you are involved in a contradiction and what you are th inking of doing is wrong because it is against reason. Kant uses the example of a suicidal man as an example A man feels dingy of living and wants to commit suicide. His maxim is that from self-love I want to repress my life if its continuance threatens more evil than it promises pleasure. He asks himself whether he would universalise this law, his answer is no because it is manhood duty to stimulate the furtherance of life and to destroy life would contradict itself and therefore is entirely opposed to the absolute principle of duty.The second principle is to treat piece as ends in themselves so act as to treat humanity, whether in your own soulfulness or in that of any other, never solely as a means but always as an end. Kant argues that all humans are searching for the summam bonum (a state in which human virtue and ecstasy are united).Kant believes that we all give birth an immortal soul and because of this immortal soul, humans deserve special treatment and that we sho uld seek happiness as spacious as this happiness does not infringe on other humans ability to seek happiness and this means that we should not exploit others or treat them as things to achieve an end, as they are as noetic as we are. To treat another mortal as a means is to deny that person the right to be rational and independent strain of their actions. It is to make oneself in some way superior and contrasting. An example could be having a sexual relationship with someone if you have only have sex with someone because you want something from them and not because you love them.The final principle is to act as if you live in a Kingdom of Ends Kant said act as a legislating member in the universal Kingdom of Ends. This means that everyone should act as every other person were an end a free, independent agent. Kant believed that each person is independent and moral judgements should not be based on any empirical affection about human nature, human flourishing or human destiny . What this means is that every individual has the ability to understand the principles of pure practical reason and follow them.Pure practical reason must be aboveboard and so its principles must apply equally to everyone. An example of this is if youre move to decide if it would be justified to kill someone who was toilsome your family using Kantian principles you should not kill them. Acting according to the third principle (and taking the first and second into account) murder can obviously not be universalised or humanity would be wiped out, and killing the man threatening your family is treating him as a means (to saving your family) rather than an end a human seeking summum bonum.In conclusion, there are three different formulations for Kants categorical imperative The Universal Law, treat humans as ends in themselves and act as if you live in a Kingdom of Ends. Together these three formulations seek to deed over humans to make moral decisions which do not infringe the h appiness of others but also allow us to progress to perfection.