During the Enlightenment in the late-17th to 18th century, Europe started turning its head away from Christianity, and into an era of thought and reason, in pursuit of knowledge. But as the world slowly changed, and people were no longer tied down to the chains of religion, would the morality of people remain?
Philosopher Immanuel Kant thought so. Comparing the world’s faiths, he spotted a common similarity, that they all share a general moral code. So how would this translate to the realm of reason?
He proposed the Categorical Imperative, a teest that tells you whether the maxim (or motivation) behind your action is morally fit.
The Categorical Imperative is split into 3 formulations:
1. Law of Nature
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
Essentially, don’t do things to others you don’t want done to you. For example, if i wanted to ghost a person via text, and everyone did so, then the idea of communication and friendship woul have lost its meaning.
2. Humanity
"So act that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means."
Don’t treat somebody as a means to an end. Copying notes from a classmate just to boost a grade treats their effort as disposable. Kant thinks that everyone is good intrinsically, and that we should never exploit another person.
3. Kingdom of Ends
"Every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a law-making member in the universal kingdom of ends.
Our own actions should be judged on the idea that everyone else is acting morally, like a law making member of a universal kingdom of rational beings, where everyone is treated as an end in themselves. This means that laws are then written for people and not around them.