Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

by giving up the relevant desire. Categorical imperatives, by contrast, tell us what to do unconditionally and are not based on subjective considerations. Formulations of what defines a categorical imperative can be summarised as follows:

The moral question must be categorical, not hypothetical.

Only act on a maxim that you can at the same time will to be a universal law.

Act so as to treat others and yourself always as ends, never simply as means to ends. (Because humans have intrinsic value.)

There are some obvious problems with Kant’s categorical imperative. Why should it be assumed that people should be treated as ends rather than means? It could be said that ‘imperatives’ are just ‘sentiments’ — things that we would like to be true rather than absolute criteria for correct action somehow forced upon us. But it is impossible to formulate a universal maxim because everyone’s circumstances are so unique. And perhaps looking for morality to be such that it could be treated as a universal law seems to just pre-suppose that there are already universal laws that are just being discovered rather than invented.

Despite Kant’s rules-based system, he also aspired to a society where people loved to do the right thing from the heart, as it were, rather than because of the demands of ethics. This takes us to other approaches to ethics. We can usefully contrast Kant’s approach with a

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