Kant's Fundamental Principles Of The Metaphysics Of Moral

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followed in order to live morally. “If an action is
conceived as good in itself and consequently as being necessarily the principle
of a will which of itself conforms to reason, then it is categorical.” (Abbott,
32) “There is therefore but one categorical imperative, namely, this: Act only
on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a
universal law.” (Abbott, 38) The categorical imperative must be found A Priori
and it excludes all interests and desires.
Kant uses four examples to better describe the working of the categorical
imperative in Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals. The first
example is of a man who is suffering from many misfortunes in life and wishes to
commit sucicide on the basis of self-love. Kant declares that this cannot be
the categorical imperative at work because the maxim derived from self-love, to
shorten his life to avoid more pain, is a contradiction in itself for no man can
kill himself painlessly ...

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