Categorical Imperative

German philosopher Immanuel Kant had an odd way of looking at morality. He believed that certain types of actions such as murder, theft and lying were prohibited no matter what. He believed there were two questions that we must ask ourselves before acting. The first being, can I rationally will that everyone act as I propose to act? The second being, does my action respect the goals of human beings rather than merely using them for my own purposes? If the answer is no to either question, we must not perform these acts. This belief was imperative unlike Aristotle's (1958) virtue which dictates conduct as a means to an end and requires only conditional acceptance. The categorical imperative specifies ethical conduct and obligatory conduct through the exercise of practical reason.

While studying the details of Kant's work, I found it difficult to understand but this is what I got out of it. Choose carefully how you act. I know how I would like for people to treat me therefore I should treat them the same way. I know that I like people to treat me fairly so I try to treat everybody else fairly. I do not steal from my fellow peers so I do not expect them to steal from me. It's a way of life and it is based on the ethics you grow up with and believe in.

A specific situation comes to mind when I think of the categorical imperative. A few months back, I was eating out at a restaurant with some friends. We paid our check and I realized that the waitress gave me too much change. I thought about keeping it because obviously money is hard to come by. Suddenly, my ethics kicked in and I thought, if I keep this money, then I would be saying that it is ok for everybody to steal money. The guiding moral rule in this circumstance is that it is wrong to steal. I work at a grocery store so I would hope that if I accidentally gave a customer too much change, they would do the right thing and return it to me.