Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
Immanuel Kant · Critical philosophy · Enlightenment · 1785
What does it mean?
A moral maxim, on the usual reading, is one that can be willed as a law for everyone without the willing collapsing into contradiction or into a world that cannot rationally be wanted. Inclination does not set the law. A rival reading turns the test into a poll of tastes, asking only whether one would like a world in which everyone did the same, which is softer than the contradiction he is after. The sentence is the first formula of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork, and he states further formulas he takes to be equivalent.
Did Immanuel Kant really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. The first formula of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in the English associated with Mary Gregor and the Paton and Ellington tradition. Kant states further formulas, humanity as an end and the kingdom of ends, which he takes to be equivalent. This wording is a translation.
Where it comes from
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section 2
Approximate date: 1785.
How to use it
State the maxim of an action under consideration, a plan to call in sick to a shift in Coventry in order to keep a free afternoon, in one sentence, and then imagine it as everyone's policy. If the plan only works because other people still turn up, the formula flags it. The test is not whether the afternoon would be pleasant; It is whether the maxim can be a law without undoing the practice it depends on.
A mindset reading
The test is not a question of taste about the world one would enjoy. It asks whether the maxim can be willed as universal law without contradicting itself, as when a lying promise works only if promising is still believed. People often replace that test with a survey of preferences, and then think they have used the formula; They have used a different one, closer to prudence than to duty.
Understand the philosophy
Kant thinks moral worth lies in acting from duty, not merely in step with it, and the formula is how practical reason gives itself a law. The key term is the categorical imperative, a command that holds without a private if attached, unlike a hypothetical imperative that says what to do only if one wants some end. Further formulas speak of humanity as an end and of a kingdom of ends. The Groundwork's English here follows the Gregor tradition, and the German is his.
- ethics
- justice
- virtue
FAQ
What does it mean?
A moral maxim, on the usual reading, is one that can be willed as a law for everyone without the willing collapsing into contradiction or into a world that cannot rationally be wanted. Inclination does not set the law. A rival reading turns the test into a poll of tastes, asking only whether one would like a world in which everyone did the same, which is softer than the contradiction he is after. The sentence is the first formula of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork, and he states further formulas he takes to be equivalent.
Did Immanuel Kant really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. The first formula of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in the English associated with Mary Gregor and the Paton and Ellington tradition. Kant states further formulas, humanity as an end and the kingdom of ends, which he takes to be equivalent. This wording is a translation.
Which work is it in?
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section 2 Approximate date: 1785.