Kant
The name Immanuel Kant meant little more than a name before reading Critique of Practical Wisdom and the Key Selections translations. In these works, Kant provides the reader with his philosophy on morality; I will explore and respond to some of Kant’s most perplexing questions and examples.
Kant writes about two types of imperatives, hypothetical and categorical. Hypothetical imperatives, according to Kant, are the “reason for action” which a person takes in order to reach a personal objective, end, or desire. An example of a hypothetical imperative is if a person’s grandma fell in the street. If the person has a end of a ‘fat’ inheritance check, they will pull grandma out of the road not because it is the morally right thing to do, but instead because it is a way to be sure to attain their goal; to be written into the will. Kant continues that these type of ends, “[have] no universal principals, for all rational beings…[And cannot] provide valid nor necessary principles for every willing”(G4). Categorical imperative it quite a bit different than hypothetical imperative, as it regards each person as an end in themselves, not as merely a means to an end (G4). The categorical imperative is the way of living, in which people do things simply because an action is morally ‘right.’ Going back to the grandma example, a categorically imperative person will help grandma up from the street for the simple fact that it is the moral, right thing to do; as grandma is not just a tool to get added to her will. She is instead an end in herself- something that cannot be substituted and has no equivalent (G5).
Kant writes about the highest good, in much the same ways ...