3.2.1 - Kantian ethics - categorical imperative formulations

The Problem Of A Moral Test

Kantian ethics needs more than the claim that morality is about duty. It needs a way to test an action before doing it. Suppose someone says, "I will lie because it benefits me this time." The Kantian question is not first "What will happen?" or "How do I feel?" It is: could the principle behind this action be a moral law for any rational agent?

The key word is maxim.

A maxim is not just a physical movement. The same movement could express different maxims:

Kant's formulations test maxims, not bare movements. That matters because a moral test must judge the agent's principle of action.

Carry forward only the background from the previous lesson that is needed here:

• A categorical imperative commands unconditionally, not only if we happen to want some further goal.
• A right action is one whose maxim is compatible with rational moral law.
• The previous lesson explains moral worth and acting from duty; this lesson focuses on how the formulations identify right and wrong action.

The philosophical issue is therefore:

Can reason test the principle of an action in a way that applies to every rational agent, rather than depending on preference, advantage, or predicted consequences?

First Formulation: Universal Law

In classroom terms, the test is:

Could I rationally will everyone to act on this same maxim in relevantly similar circumstances?

This is not a popularity test. It is not asking whether the world would be pleasant if everyone did it. It asks whether the maxim can be made into a law for all rational agents without undermining itself or contradicting what a rational will must will.

A careful universalisation test has four steps:

1. State the maxim honestly.
2. Universalise it: imagine it as a law for all rational agents in relevantly similar circumstances.
3. Ask whether the maxim can be conceived as a functioning universal law.
4. Ask whether a rational agent could will that universal law.

The argument behind the first formulation can be reconstructed like this:

1. P1: Moral requirements must apply universally to rational agents, not only to one person's desires or advantages.
2. P2: A maxim is morally permissible only if it can be willed as a universal law for rational agents.
3. P3: If a maxim cannot be willed as a universal law, then it makes an exception for the agent's own case.
4. Therefore, C: A wrong action is one whose maxim cannot pass universalisation.

Hidden assumption: rational agents should not treat their own inclinations as special exemptions from moral law.
Inference type: practical and conceptual reasoning about what a moral law must be.
Main pressure point: whether the universalisation test gives a clear result for the maxim being tested.

Example: the maxim "When I need money, I will make a false promise to repay it" cannot be universalised in the relevant way. If false promising were a universal law, the practice of promising would lose the trust that makes promising possible. The maxim depends on a practice that the universalised maxim destroys.

Contradiction In Conception And Will

Kant's first formulation produces two different kinds of failure.

A contradiction in conception is the sharper failure. False promising is the standard example. The maxim uses the institution of promising to gain trust, but if everyone made false promises when useful, promising would no longer work as a trust-generating practice. The maxim defeats the condition of its own success.

A contradiction in will is different. Imagine a maxim of never helping anyone in need. A world where nobody helps is conceivable. It does not make helping logically impossible in the way universal false promising makes promising collapse. But a rational agent cannot consistently will such a law, because rational agents inevitably have ends and vulnerabilities for which they may need others' assistance. The problem is not that the world cannot be imagined; it is that willing it clashes with what rational agency involves.

The distinction can be reconstructed like this:

1. P1: A maxim fails morally if it cannot be rationally universalised.
2. P2: Some maxims cannot be conceived as universal laws because universalising them destroys the practice or purpose they presuppose.
3. P3: Other maxims can be conceived as universal laws but cannot be rationally willed by agents who necessarily have ends, capacities, and vulnerabilities.
4. Therefore, C: Universalisation can fail either through contradiction in conception or contradiction in will.

Hidden assumption: rational willing is constrained not only by logical coherence but also by the conditions of agency.
Inference type: conceptual distinction within a practical moral test.
Main pressure point: deciding whether a particular failure is really in conception or in will.

Two exam cautions matter here.

First, do not say "if everyone did it, bad consequences would follow" and stop there. Kant's point is not simple consequence-counting. The question is whether the maxim can be law for rational agents.

Second, do not treat contradiction in will as mere dislike. The agent must be unable to will the maxim consistently as a rational agent, not merely find the world unpleasant.

Second Formulation: Humanity As End

Here humanity does not mean the biological species in a sentimental sense. It means rational nature: the capacity to set ends, understand reasons, and choose principles of action.

An end is something valued or pursued. A means is something used to achieve an end. Kant does not forbid using people as means in every sense. Normal cooperation does this all the time: a student uses a teacher's expertise, a patient uses a doctor's skill, and a customer uses a worker's service. The problem is using a person merely as a means, where their rational agency is bypassed, manipulated, coerced, or treated as though it has only instrumental value.

The second formulation tests action like this:

Does this maxim respect each person's rational agency, or does it involve using someone as a tool for my purposes without regard for their capacity to choose ends?

False promising fails again, but now for a different reason. If I make a lying promise to get money, I manipulate the lender's decision. They cannot rationally consent to my actual maxim because I hide the real terms of my action. I make their choice serve my end while preventing them from choosing with the relevant information.

The argument behind the second formulation can be reconstructed like this:

1. P1: Rational agents have value as beings capable of setting ends and acting for reasons.
2. P2: Moral action must respect that value in oneself and in others.
3. P3: A maxim that treats rational agency merely as a tool fails to respect that value.
4. Therefore, C: A wrong action is one whose maxim treats humanity in oneself or others merely as a means rather than also as an end.

Hidden assumption: rational agency has a status that cannot be reduced to usefulness for someone else's purposes.
Inference type: practical and conceptual reasoning from the value of rational agency to a constraint on action.
Main pressure point: what counts as respecting someone as an end, rather than merely using them.