Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was born and lived his entire life in what was then called Prussia. By all accounts, he was a quiet intellectual whose studious life ran like clockwork, day after day, and year after year. Despite his reserved lifestyle, Kant was a popular figure in his home town of Königsburg, in eastern Prussia, and he became world-famous in his own lifetime. In a period of just under ten years at the end of the 18th century, Immanuel Kant produced some of the most influential philosophical work of his or any other time. Through various volumes covering a huge array of topics, he developed a systematic view of the universe such as had not been seen since the time of the Greeks.

Along with his other achievements, Kant also created an ethical system based solely on the human ability to reason and the belief that all moral actions were the result of virtuous intent.

Good Will

Kant held that nothing was good in itself except good will. In other words, no action, in and of itself, was either wrong or right. Only the motive of the actor lent the action its morality. If a person acted out of a vested interest (because of a possible consequence) then the act was non-moral—it had no moral implications whatsoever. But, if a person acted because she thought she was doing the right thing, then she was acting out of good will and the act was a moral act.
In Kant’s view, actions have true moral worth only when they spring from a recognition of a duty and a choice to discharge it. For example, using Kantian logic, an advertiser who avoided untruthful advertising because he was afraid of getting caught and fined would not necessarily be acting morally. However, if the advertiser recognized a duty to his constituents to tell the truth, and that is the reason he didn't lie, then the act would be a moral act.

Kant defined good will as the uniquely human capacity to act according to one's principles, not out of an expectation of potential consequences. In fact, Kant had learned through the writings of the Italian philosopher and royal counselor, Niccolo Machiavelli, that basing decisions solely on likely consequences could excuse any action, even the most abhorrent. In his famous treatise, The Prince, Machiavelli had proposed that any action taken by a monarch should be based on an assessment of the best outcome for the monarch himself. Under this guideline (which is also known as egoism), actions such as murder could be excused if they are in the best interest of the person making the decision.

Like other Enlightenment theorists, Kant believed that human beings were endowed with the ability to reason, and reasoning would logically lead to an understanding of how to construct moral rules to live by. Rational beings would, then, logically abide by the rules they set for themselves. In this, he was in accord with the social contractarians. Rules arrived at in this manner would also become morally obligatory, and Kant saw obligation (or duty) as the overriding determinant of morality. He believed that we would recognize our duty when we saw it because we could reason, and reason would lead us logically to recognition.

For Kant, there were two obvious types of duties: perfect duties and imperfect duties. Perfect duties were those that we must always observe; however, he framed these as proscriptions, or negative obligations. For example, "Never lie," or "Never kill." We must always refrain from these actions, no matter what. Imperfect duties were those that we must observe only on some occasions. These were framed as positive obligations, or prescriptions—such as: "Give to charity." He realized that some duties, such as "give to charity," could only be observed by those capable of doing so, while others, such as "don't kill," should, and could, be observed by everyone. Of course, he knew that rational beings would recognize when a duty was completely binding and when it was not. In this, Kant was an intuitionist, believing that human beings naturally knew right from wrong. The question remains, however, as to exactly how we should come up with the rules by which to live a moral life.

The Categorical Imperative

We should act in such a way that we could wish the maxim of our action to become a universal law." That's the way Kant believed we would be able to develop rules of order, or duties. Maxim, in this sense, means the principle on which the action was based—the type of principle that people formulate in determining their conduct. So, if a person won't lie out of principle, he should be willing to apply that principle as a law, universally. Many have pointed out that this is simply a reformulation of the Golden Rule, and it's easy to see why. Under the Categorical Imperative, we would only act in ways that we would want everyone else to act, all the time. Thus, if we wished everyone to lie all the time, then it would be permissible for us to lie. We could murder with impunity only if we would allow others to do so. Kant reasoned that rational beings wouldn't tolerate a state of existence in which everyone could lie or kill without compunction. And, of course, that's true. How could we live in a society in which we would expect a lie for every question we asked, or one in which murder were the rule rather than the exception? Kant knew that social order could only come from rules formulated by all and obeyed by all. In fact, a key component of his Imperative is that those who legislate the laws are also bound by them.

Kant, writing as he did at the end of the 18th century, was probably heartened by the birth of democracy as a potentially viable form of government. In fact, his idea of a moral community was very much akin to the concepts of democracy given voice by the movers and shakers of the American and French revolutions (although he probably disagreed with the methods of both, since he viewed political change as most properly evolutionary, not revolutionary). If we look at his Categorical Imperative as a method of achieving a political state that promotes individual autonomy along with the general good, we can better understand the importance of his method. For example, using the Categorical Imperative, we begin by considering the formulation of laws that will be binding on all citizens all the time, with no exceptions. These laws will not only benefit individuals, but also the state as a whole—or the public good. These laws would also be binding on those whose responsibility it is to legislate and enforce them, because they are categorical. And, these laws would respect the citizens of the state and their individual rights as human beings.

This recognition of the inherent worth of human beings is a key feature of Kant’s Categorical Imperative. As part of his method for recognizing moral duties, Kant insisted that we always act so as to treat others as ends in themselves and never completely as means to an end. In other words, we are not to use other people or treat them merely as objects. He rationalized that all human beings were owed a minimum of respect simply because they were human beings and capable of reason—in the same way as other natural rights philosophers believed that we are all born with "certain inalienable rights." For Kant, we all had the right to basic respect as human beings. Only if we demonstrated that we did not deserve to be respected would we relinquish that right. In other words, every person’s autonomy would be respected except in cases in which the exercise of that autonomy conflicted with the public good (as represented by the laws of the state). So, we can see that Kant’s method of arriving at moral rules allows not only individuals to construct moral guidelines for themselves, but it also permits whole communities to formulate laws for the governance of an entire political system under which individual rights are also clearly recognized.