Term Papers on Kants Fundamental Principles Of The Metaphysics Of Moral

Term Paper Title	Kants Fundamental Principles Of The Metaphysics Of Moral
# of Words	765
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.06

Kant's Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Moral

     The central concept of Kant's Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of
Morals is the categorical imperative.  “The conception of an objective principle,
in so far as it is obligatory for a will, is called a command (of reason), and
the formula of the command is called an Imperative.” (Abbott, 30)  An imperative
is something that a will ought or shall do because the will is obligated to act
in the manner in which it conforms with moral law.  The categorical imperative
is an obligation by the will to act so that the action can be classified as a
universal law.  When one acts in conformity with the universal law at all times,
they are following out the categorical imperative.  This differs from the
hypothetical imperative in that the hypothetical imperative acts on the basis
that the will in the end will gain something (not a means to an end).  The
categorical imperative is a means to an end, and the action to obtain the end
must have moral worth.  Stipulations of the categorical imperative are that all
actions should act only on the maxim, that actions have moral worth, and the end
is necessary.  From these stipulations, it can be derived that the categorical
imperative should be 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 and therefore cann...

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