Immanuel Kant is an 18th-century German philosopher whose work revolutionized the then existing theory of knowledge and law, ethics and aesthetics, and also ideas about man. The central concept of his philosophical ethical theory is a categorical imperative.
It is disclosed in his fundamental philosophical work "Critique of practical reason." Kant criticizes morality, which is based on utilitarian interests and the laws of nature, the pursuit of personal well-being and pleasures, instincts and various feelings. He considered such morality to be false, because a person who has perfectly mastered any craft and thanks to this flourishes, may, however, be completely immoral.
The Kantian categorical imperative (from the Latin “imperativus” - imperative) is a will that wants good for the sake of good itself, and not for the sake of something else, and has a goal in itself. Kant proclaims that man should act in such a way that his action may become the rule for all mankind. Only a firmly recognized moral duty to one’s own conscience forces one to behave morally. All temporary and private needs and interests are subject to this duty.
The categorical imperative differs from natural law in that it is not external but internal coercion, “free self-coercion”.
If external duty is the observance of the laws of the state and submission to the laws of nature, then for the ethical only “internal legislation” is significant.
Kant's ethical imperative is categorical, uncompromising, and absolute. Moral duty must be followed constantly, always and everywhere, regardless of circumstances. The moral law for Kant should not be conditional on any external purpose. If the previous pragmatic ethics focused on the result, on the benefits that this or that will bring, then Kant calls for a complete rejection of the result. On the other hand, the philosopher requires a strict way of thinking and excludes any reconciliation of good and evil or any intermediate forms between them: there can be no duality in characters or actions, the border between virtue and vice must be clear, definite, stable.
Kant's morality is combined with the idea of the divine, and its categorical imperative is close in meaning to the ideals of faith: a society in which morality dominates sensual life is the highest, from the point of view of religion, stage of human development. Kant gives this ideal empirically visual forms. In his reflections on ethics, as well as on the state system, he develops the idea of “eternal peace”, which is based on the economic inexpediency of war and its legal prohibition.
Georg Hegel, a 19th-century German philosopher, strongly criticized the categorical imperative, seeing his weakness in that he was actually devoid of any content: duty must be performed for the sake of duty, and what this duty is is unknown. In the Kant system, it is impossible to somehow specify and define it.