categorical imperative

David Hume

Immanuel Kant

deontology

morality

practical reason

lying

truth-telling

action

behavior

morals

is an idea of ‘impersonal duty’ that is dangerous to life and a recipe for decadence, destroying any man who works, thinks, or feels without inner necessity or deep personal desire.

Nothing works a more complete and penetrating disaster than every "impersonal" duty, every sacrifice before the Moloch of abstraction.—To think that no one has thought of Kant's categorical imperative as dangerous to life! … What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty? That is the recipe for decadence, and no less for idiocy. … Instinct at fault in everything and anything, instinct as a revolt against nature, German decadence as a philosophy—that is Kant!

is about applying the perfect law in the imperfect state in order to to create the ideal community by acting as if we already belonged to it.

—this too, as we directly feel, is part of the categorical imperative. Let us live up to such a principle, and we shall soon create an ideal community of rational beings; to create it we need only act as if we already belonged to it; we must apply the perfect law in the imperfect state. It is a hard ethic, you say,—this placing of duty above beauty, of morality above happiness; but only so can we cease to be beasts, and begin to be gods.

is grounded in that idea that you must treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of another, in every case as an end, never only as a means.

To achieve perfection in yourself and happiness in others, "so act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of another, in every case as an end, never only as a means":

is not about happiness, but about perfection, regardless of it it brings us happiness or pain.

Let us seek the happiness in others; but for ourselves, perfection—whether it bring us happiness or pain.

is not properly the doctrine how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

"Morality is not properly the doctrine how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

is the idea that an action is good not because it has good results, or because it is wise, but because it is done in obedience to this inner sense of duty.

And an action is good not because it has good results, or because it is wise, but because it is done in obedience to this inner sense of duty, this moral law that does not come from our personal experience, but legislates imperiously and & priori for all our behavior, past, present, and future.

is dangerous to life. What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty?

Nothing works a more complete and penetrating disaster than every "impersonal" duty, every sacrifice before the Moloch of abstraction.—To think that no one has thought of Kant's categorical imperative as dangerous to life! … What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty? That is the recipe for decadence, and no less for idiocy. … Instinct at fault in everything and anything, instinct as a revolt against nature, German decadence as a philosophy—that is Kant! Nietzsche in The Antichrist (1895), section 11, H. L. Mencken's translation

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categorical imperative