Kantian Ethics

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a person intends to do good to another person, that makes his effort fit within the categorical imperative. Kant believed that there was one command that was binding on all rational agents—the categorical imperative, that says that we must always act so that the maxim of our action can be consistently willed to be universal law. By maxim, Kant meant the principle or rule that people formulate to determine their conduct. If a maxim could not be universally applied without contradiction then it would not pass the test of the categorical imperative, and hence could not lead to a moral act.
By contrast, a hypothetical imperative is one that tells us what to do if we desire a particular outcome. Let’s look at universal acceptability. We could look at the categorical imperative as enjoining us to prescribe moral laws for everyone; such laws must have universal acceptability. There are laws that are the same across all cultures, and this would be an example of universal ...

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