Q&A: The Categorical Imperative
The Categorical Imperative
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Do you agree with the view that Kant did indeed succeed in proving that “pure practical reason” does in fact require, a priori, that we act in such a way that the maxims guiding our will could always serve as principles of a universal law, but that Kant did not address the need to prove that a person is in fact obligated at all to act in accordance with this famous “fact” of reason?
Thank you.
Answer
I do not agree with the very distinction you proposed. If reason obligates this, then nothing further needs to be proven beyond that. That is precisely what it means to say that reason obligates it.
Just as if someone were to say to me: I know that murder is immoral, but why is it forbidden to do something immoral? That question reflects a lack of understanding. When we say that something is immoral, we are saying, among other things, that it is forbidden to do it. That is the content of the concept “moral.”
Discussion on Answer
And if so, understand why understanding has the power/authority to compel. I explained why this is nonsense. That is the meaning of the moral imperative: that it is binding. If you do not understand that it is binding, then you have not really understood that this is the imperative of morality.
But I still don’t understand how the very concept of morality has the authority to compel me to follow morality.
The fact that reason has internalized an understanding of the concept of morality, the ways to follow it, and so on, doesn’t mean it can force my body, which is a dimension outside reason, to perform moral acts.