Categorical Imperative Immanuel Kant's Categorical Term Paper

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The concept of duty implies the need to overcome some obstacle in order to act, and it is foolish to speak of God as having to overcome any obstacles whatever. To explain further the notion of duty, Kant uses as an example a merchant who does not overcharge an inexperienced customer. This decision is completely in accord with duty. Assume, though that the merchant avoids overcharging so that he can give all his customers the same price in order to keep them coming to him for merchandise. He does this because it is to his advantage to do it. It is, in fact, just good business. He does not do it because there is a moral principle involved, though the result is the same as if he were doing it from duty. Because the merchant is not acting from moral duty, however, his action cannot be considered a moral action.

This is a very stringent definition and requires a knowledge of motivation to decide when an action is moral and when it is not. For one thing, the action is not moral or immoral (or at least non-moral) in itself.

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It is rather why the action is undertaken that decides that question. Kant uses another example in terms of the human desire to preserve one's own life.

Here again Kant sees the act of preserving one's life as being in accordance with duty but not as being from duty. Everyone has the duty to preserve their life, and they also have an inclination to do so. If they preserve their life because they have this inclination, then this act does not possess moral worth. To have moral worth, one must preserve one's life out of a sense of moral obligation. It is important to note that this does not mean an act that is not a moral act is therefore an immoral act, for this is not the opposition that Kant is setting up here. He is only emphasizing what is and is not a moral act rather than judging the immorality of an act, which is quite a different matter......

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