Written in March 2025
The philosophy of Immanuel Kant was a clear separation from utilitarianism in that he believed the outcomes of an action are not the ultimate test of its morality. The attempted murderer acted immorally, even if no one was hurt and not a soul noticed the attempt. Cutting the line, even if no one objected, is still wrong. It is these intuitions—that the intent, or reasoning, behind an action is supremely relevant to its morality—that fuel Kantian ethics.
Kant believed that humans are rational beings, meaning we act in a way consistent with pure reason. Our rational will, the driving force behind all of our actions, must be consistently logical. One of the most well-known versions of the idea of a connection between immorality and irrationality is the Golden Rule, which states that we should only treat others in ways that we want to be treated, because it would be inconsistent not to do so. The rule makes a lot of sense, but it’s inadequate in its dependence entirely on the desires of others. This starts to make less sense if your desires are impure or violent. If I enjoy being punched, I would then have the authority to go around punching everyone I see. Therefore, morality cannot be determined by the constantly changing and unchecked desires of human agents, for these desires can be completely irrational.
It isn’t obvious, however, that immorality necessarily implies irrationality in general. Why couldn’t someone just rationally believe that morality doesn’t matter? They would have a reason (the hallmark of rationality) for their amorality: they just don’t care. The billionaire that evades taxes, for example, could know exactly what he wants, act intelligently out of reason, and be successful in his fraud. There is something intuitively immoral about this action, yet he seems to be acting rationally. Morality, then, cannot only be defined by our rationality, or our ability to achieve desired ends through selected means.
This is where Kant differentiates between the different types of principles behind our actions, what he calls imperatives, that describe what an agent ought to do. The first type—the one by which the rational criminal abides—is the hypothetical imperative. These are structured as conditional statements and tell agents what they ought to do if they desire to achieve certain ends, whatever those are. Kant distinguishes, however, between rules that guide to subjective ends and rules that are unconditional. This idea of an unwavering principle is what Kant produced in his categorical imperative, which states, in its first form, that no one should ever act on a maxim that they couldn’t also will to become universal law. That is, it’s not rational to act on a maxim on which one couldn’t accept everyone else acting. There is an inherent contradiction in an agent that allows themselves to act on a particular maxim while expecting others not to do the same. Making a rule or exception just for oneself is not only immoral because it's contradictory and selfish: one is willing inconsistently.
To better understand what Kant means by this principle of universalizability, I will present a scenario in which it clearly outlines the morality of certain actions. Consider the simple act of lying. Let’s say that it isn’t yet clear to us whether telling the truth is morally required, so we test this action against the principle of universalizability. For our lie to be successful, others must believe it. The only reason others believe the lie is because, in general, people tell the truth. Already, lying is having us make an exception for ourselves, which is an irrational contradiction according to Kant. However, the principle goes further and has us ask: what would the world look like if everyone lied? Well, if everyone lied, then no one would have any reason to believe that anything anyone said was true, meaning your lie wouldn’t even get through. Therefore, we are potentially participating in the defeat of our own goals, and we are applying different rules to ourselves than to others, and therefore being inconsistent. We are acting on a principle we cannot support in every case, and therefore acting immorally.
The most popular, and likely the most substantive, objection to Kant’s first form of the categorical imperative is that intuitively immoral maxims can be universalizable. The first manner in which objectors present these extensional inadequacies of the theory is by introducing specificity. For example, my maxim could be if my name is X and I am Y years old and I live in Z City and drive a blue car and I feel like it, then I will murder the next person I see. The hypothesis of this conditional statement is sufficiently specific that it could likely be universalized without much actual harm. Well, then, are you therefore morally justified to act on this universalizable maxim?
In Kant’s defense, I think that his principle of universalizability and the ideas behind his first categorical imperative have a strong response to this objection. The maxim suggested is universalizable, but it’s too particular for a discussion of its universalizability to be at all interesting. Kant would first argue that maxims, considering we are about to apply them to everybody else, must be general enough to be at all relevant. If someone can’t even achieve the hypothetical of a conditional maxim, then their decision to act on it doesn’t hold much moral weight; they didn’t have a choice. Moreover, we must remember that Kant’s ethics are not rooted in consequentialism, so the fact that very few people will get murdered as a result of this maxim’s universalization is irrelevant from its morality. The most important response to this specificity objection is that although it abides, on the surface, by the principle of universalizability, formulating the conditions around the action to fit the agent is still making an exception for that agent. This maxim only applies to people who fit the requirements, and therefore sets rules that only apply to certain people. Kant explains that in these moments, the agent is willing inconsistently and holding a double standard for themselves.
A seemingly even more problematic objection to the principle of universalizability is that some fanatic maxims, without being overly specific, are still universalizable. It would certainly not undermine the goal of Nazism if everyone acted on their maxim and aided in their genocide. All members of a given hate group could simultaneously act on their maxim and will that it become universal law—they might prefer it to become so. Is this maxim truly universalizable? I think Kant’s response would begin with the identification of the maxim really in use here. The maxim any hate group acts on is if they don’t like someone, then they will persecute them. The hate group would then be sanctioning a world in which everyone can violently act on any prejudice—including towards the hate group itself. Therefore, for hate group A to be consistent, they would have to be willing to accept a world in which they lived in constant fear of violence. Certainly, whether the members of A were merely worried or actually harmed, universalization is counterproductive to their hateful goal and even self-defeating. A common counterexample to this explanation is that there may exist members of A so devoted to their cause that they would accept their own harm or death in exchange for their hateful desires. The simplest response to this point is that these agents cannot be considered rational, and definitely not worthy or moral consideration. They are willing to give up their rational agency (in death) for the sake of their rational agency. This is blatantly contradictory. Whether these agents are depending, somewhat, on everyone else not being hateful or they are simply insane, they are willing inconsistently. Therefore, this maxim is not universalizable.
Kant’s unique approach to ethical decision-making challenges the idea that the outcomes of an action are the most important when reasoning about its morality. He suggested that the intent, especially the reason, behind the act itself is its defining quality. The objection to his principle of universalizability is a weak one, and it doesn’t understand the true nature of Kant’s claim that all immorality is at some level irrational. The specificity of the maxim and the possibility that its immoral outcomes would be improved through universalization cannot outweigh inconsistent, selfish logic and general contradictions. I believe that the first form of Kant’s categorical imperative survives these objections and is, in general, an incredibly accurate way to evaluate the morality of our actions.
Thanks for reading!