never be satisfied with what you already know. That is why I have chosen to do my final paper on Immanuel Kant. He is a philosopher who we did not talk about at all this semester in class, but none the less his contributions are immense. I did not want to write the typical paper on Aristotle or Plato because I already learned so much about them in class. I wanted to expand my knowledge of the subject, and this is exactly what I did. My farther died when I was very young and throughout my entire life I have asked my mother countless questions about him. One day when I was still in middle school she gave me a few boxes that had some of his belongings in it. I assumed my mother felt they were too painful to have lying around the house. In one box were a few books about Immanuel Kant. I asked my mother who that was and she had less of an idea than I did. Over the years I have glanced at these books from time to time not ever thinking much of them or the name Immanuel Kant. During this semester while I was flipping through the pages of our textbook I came across Kant’s name. My interest to find out more about him was rekindled. This report gave m

Sullivan continues later in his book by investigating the limits of the categorical imperative. He says that expecting the categorical imperative to help us to make moral decisions is a huge and common misconception. What it does do is offer is a set of principles that serve as negative boundaries or extreme positive guidelines (Sullivan, p. 94). Kant writes, “The explanation of the possibility of a categorical imperative, then, is, that the idea of freedom makes me a member of the intelligible world. But as I perceive myself to be also a member of the world of sense, I can say only, that my actions ought to conform to the autonomy of the will” (Kant, Watson, p. 255). This quote exemplifies the prior point made by Sullivan. Kant says that the categorical imperative makes him a member of a thinker’s world, and that because of this he is allowed into an entire world of sense as well, this world in which he makes his decisions. Therefore, the categorical imperative does not make his decisions, but only serve as a guideline for his decision.

There were four foundations that Kant used when he derived his moral theory of categorical imperative. First, moral norms cannot be based on experience (Sullivan, p. 22). Kant’s reasoning behind this was that experience shows that people have been exposed to all sorts of conduct and therefore destroy the possibility of constructing a moral point of view. Situations such as this, Kant declares empirical, or of an outside reasoning. Second, it is crucial to situate morality firmly within the public forum (Sullivan, p. 22). This means that any law proposed or propagated needs to be, in a sense, tested in public by the citizens of the area where this is to be imposed. If this law does not gain the respect of citizens, it will not be fulfilled to its maximum potential, whether it is their duty or not. This is the true first step to the categorical imperative. Third, necessity is never an adequate excuse for violating moral standards, for they hold universally and absolutely (Sullivan, p. 22). This concept was used by Kant to test the governing policies of Machiavelli, lying and making lying promises. He found that there is no excuse to break morality down in order to make personal gains. Finally, effectiveness is not a measure of moral character, for effectiveness can be used to justify immortality (Sullivan, pp. 22-23). This is where Kant determined effectiveness to be prudential. That is an amoral, not a moral norm in society and that it is not a test for identifying the good will of the people (Sullivan, p. 23). These for tests and steps that Kant utilized allowed him to compose his ideas that e

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