Thus we shall have to investigate purely a priorithe possibility of a categorical
imperative, for we do not have the advantage that experience would show us the reality
of this imperative so that the [demonstration of its] possibility would be necessary only
for its explanation, and not for its establishment. In the meantime, this much at least
may be seen: the categorical imperative alone can be taken as a practical law, while all
other imperatives may be called principles of the will but not laws. This is because what
is necessary merely for the attainment of some chosen end can be regarded as itself con-
tingent and we get rid of the precept once we give up the end in view, whereas the
unconditional command leaves the will no freedom to choose the opposite. Thus it
alone implies the necessity which we require of a law.
Secondly, in the case of the categorical imperative or law of morality, the cause of
the difficulty in discerning its possibility is very weighty. This imperative is an a priori
synthetical practical proposition* and since to discern the possibility of propositions of
this sort is so difficult in theoretical knowledge it may well be gathered that it will be no
less difficult in practical knowledge.
In attacking this problem, we will first inquire whether the mere concept of a cat-
egorical imperative does not also furnish the formula containing the proposition which
alone can be a categorical imperative. For even when we know the formula of the
imperative, to learn how such an absolute command is possible will require difficult and
special labors which we shall postpone to the last Section.
If I think of a hypothetical imperative as such, I do not know what it will contain
until the condition is stated [under which it is an imperative]. But if I think of a categori-
cal imperative, I know immediately what it will contain. For since the imperative
contains, besides the law, only the necessity of the maxim** of acting in accordance with
the law, while the law contains no condition to which it is restricted, nothing remains
except the universality of law as such to which the maxim of the action should conform;
and this conformity alone is what is represented as necessary by the imperative.
There is, therefore, only one categorical imperative. It is: Act only according to that
maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
Now if all imperatives of duty can be derived from this one imperative as a prin-
ciple, we can at least show what we understand by the concept of duty and what it
means, even though it remain undecided whether that which is called duty is an empty
concept or not.
The universality of law according to which effects are produced constitutes what
is properly called nature in the most general sense (as to form) (i.e., the existence of
things so far as it is determined by universal laws). [By analogy], then, the universal
imperative of duty can be expressed as follows: Act as though the maxim of your action
were by your will to become a universal law of nature.870 IMMANUELKANT
421
*I connect a priori, and hence necessarily, the action with the will without supposing as a condition
that there is any inclination [to the action] (though I do so only objectively, i.e., under the Idea of a reason
which would have complete power over all subjective motives). This is, therefore, a practical proposition
which does not analytically derive the willing of an action from some other volition already presupposed (for
we do not have such a perfect will); it rather connects it directly with the concept of the will of a rational being
as something which is not contained within it.
**A maxim is the subjective principle of acting and must be distinguished from the objective principle
(i.e., the practical law). The former contains the practical rule which reason determines according to the condi-
tions of the subject (often his ignorance or inclinations) and is thus the principle according to which the subject
acts. The law, on the other hand, is the objective principle valid for every rational being, and the principle by
which it ought to act, i.e., an imperative.420