Morality Without a Heart: Kant’s Cold, Hard Categorical Imperative

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), a German philosopher from Königsberg, is considered one of the most influential figures in Western philosophy. He’s best known for his work in ethics and metaphysics, particularly his attempt to ground morality not in God or emotions, but in reason itself.

By: Anisa Chandra

Kant’s ethics is where “follow your heart” goes to die. In its place? A rigid, rational law that asks: “Would you want everyone else to do this too?” Through the next 1250 words, we’ll be exploring Kant’s “categorical imperatives", arguably the most important of all of his main beliefs. But before we dive into maxims and moral duties, it helps to understand where Kant came from — and why his obsession with order may have started long before he picked up a pen.

Surprisingly, however, Kant wasn’t always the anti-religion, anti-empathy man we know him to be today. Kant grew up Pietist¹, a subgenre of Christianity that focuses more on reliance on grace and the experience of religious emotion in contrast to following certain rules. Though this may seem like it would give way to Kant’s future as a philosopher, he remained unsatisfied, causing him to turn to the Latin classics as a guide regarding how to live his life. Regardless of religion being what pushed him towards Latin, it still wasn’t this that best influenced Kant’s later philosophies — instead, it was his crippling OCD². It was this that led to not only many of his specific beliefs, for example, the focus on duties rather than their consequences. Kant thought in black and white, arguing that actions such as lying and stealing are always wrong, regardless of context. With that, let’s look more specifically into Kant’s black and white ideas — first dissecting them before next comparing them to those of other philosophers of his time.

For those of you interested in a summary of Kant, look towards the next four words: always obey the rules. For those of you interested in the longer, more accurate version, keep reading. According to the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Kant believed that in order for something to be moral, it had to be universal. It cannot be right to do something in one circumstance, but wrong to do so in any other. These universalized ethical principles were deemed "categorical imperatives”, and their idea relies on three simple points: the formula of universal law, the formula of humanity, and the formula of autonomy.

The formula of universal law can best be summarized with a quote from Kant himself — “Act as if the maxims of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature.”. Essentially, Kant believed that if we all acted how we wanted everyone around us to act, we would reach an ideal world. Secondly, the formula of humanity states that you must treat both yourself and others as an “end”, not just simply a “means”. For those of us without a psychology degree, that simply states not to use other people as a tool to act as a means to reach an end, as people themselves should be the “end” (respected for their autonomy). It was because of this that Kant refused to justify slavery and other systems of oppression — if a slave owner uses slaves as a means to reach their end goal of a good harvest, then the slave’s autonomy is not respected, and slavery is, ergo, immoral. This also caused Kant to look downwards upon capitalism, as seeing people simply as a means to purchase a product is immoral as well. Lastly, the formula of autonomy asks people to act as if it is their duty to be a moral lawgiver in a society of equals. If your decision doesn’t respect not only your autonomy, but the autonomy of others and the other two formulas, then it shouldn’t be made. Though this may seem simple at first, the combination of these three principles leads to some confusing situations — for example, say you helped a homeless man by giving him a sandwich. Kant argues that we all have a duty to do that action, and therefore, completing it is moral. But if you did it due to the kindness of your heart instead of because you have a duty to, it doesn’t contain moral value, because the only thing that determines morality is the categorical imperative (not feelings!).

On a different note, let’s take a look at those of us who focus on our emotions instead of Kant’s “categorical imperative”. What do Kantian ethics state about what will happen to us? Thankfully, Kant didn’t believe in heaven or hell. Instead, he simply believed that failure to adhere to morality would result in suffering in your daily life for yourself and those around you.

Now, reader, you may be thinking “this Kant guy is CRAZY!” and thankfully, it’s not just you who thinks so. Specifically, in this section, we’ll be exploring two different philosophers with two different critiques of Kant’s work: Christian Wolff³ and Friedrich Nietzsche. To begin, Wolff’s philosophies centered around God, which already differentiates him from Kant’s agnostic ones. He attributes all moral assessment to a Creator, the most perfect being, as he is the one who actualizes the existing relationships between things. Wolffian ethics sees perfectionism as a goal — something which the Creator has reached, and something everyone else should strive for by doing what’s moral in the Creator’s eyes — and therefore benefiting both ourselves and others. Additionally, the morality of an action is subject to the Creator, meaning that something could be either moral or immoral depending on the situation. On the other hand, Kantians often strive for morality instead of perfection, and their means of doing so is by obeying categorical imperatives instead of aiming to please a divine being. Because of this, the works of Wolff and Kant are often used to oppose one another, as they have been for centuries. 

Another philosopher commonly used to contradict Kant’s beliefs is none other than  Friedrich Nietzsche⁴. In contrast to striving to achieve morality, Nihilists believe that the type of morality Kantians followed, known as “slave morality”, is simply a product of the weak attempting to control the strong. Nietzsche argued that those who lack power use the excuse of slave morality as a reason to judge the powerful and attempt to condemn their actions. In contrast, Nietzsche looked towards “master morality”, a philosophy that values individual power, self affirmation to the extent of putting others down, and other, more self-centered values. Nihilists believe that slave morality simply creates “herd mentality” and causes everyone to adhere to the same set of values — the opposite of what Nietzsche wants for the world. Instead, he’d rather have an environment in which people are free thinkers with opposing values, something reflected in our society today. However, as rational as Nietzsche may sound, he wasn’t free from scrutiny either — his “God is dead” mindset, combined with his ideas of eternal recurrence, meant that he wasn’t necessarily popular among the Christian majority.

When I told my mom about this post, she asked me one question: why spend hours of your life researching a random dead philosopher? And to that, I answered with only one word — legacy. Ever heard of the League of Nations? Though it was established almost a century after Kant’s death, the idea is still accredited to his 1975 essay “On Perpetual Peace”, in which he suggested a league of nations as a community of federal states. However, it’s not just through this that Kant’s legacy can be seen, as for those of us lucky enough to live in a democracy, that simply wouldn’t be possible without the work of Mr. Immanuel Kant. He was the first person ever to envision a governing body to guarantee peace. Additionally⁵, he inspired Einstein’s discovery of relativity, came up with the idea that animals could have rights, and resolved the 200-year philosophical debate of rationalism vs. empiricism in just a few hundred pages. By overthrowing ideas that had been in place since Aristotle himself, Kant not only threw Western civilization on its head, but carved his name into the history books read for generations to come. 

Immanuel Kant isn’t an easy man to understand — not even close. However, upon deeper exploration surrounding his “categorical imperatives" and looking further into not only his three formulas but also conflicting philosophies, we can attempt to understand a fraction of what he aimed to express. Whether you follow all of Kantian ethics is up to you, but regarding whether or not you ignore them entirely? You simply Kant. 

¹ Rohlf, Michael. “Immanuel Kant.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 31 July 2024, plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/#toc.

² Fiori, Gigi. “The OCD of Immanuel Kant: A Comparison of His Philosophical Ideas and Personal Life- and Mine.” Medium, ginerva’sgarden, 26 Mar. 2023, medium.com/ginervasgarden/the-ocd-of-immanuel-kant-a-comparison-of-his-philosophical-ideas-and-personal-life-and-mine-5bfbc64bd8c.

³ A.B. “Ethical Theories of Immanuel Kant and Christian Wolff: Similarities and Differences.” PhilPapers, 2024, philpapers.org/rec/ETOMFM.

⁴ Bradford, Fred. “Kant vs. Nietzsche on Moral Judgment.” History, 2025, vocal.media/history/kant-vs-nietzsche-on-moral-judgment.

⁵ Manson, Mark. “The One Rule For Life.” Mark Manson, Mark Manson, 8 Feb. 2023, markmanson.net/the-one-rule-for-life.

7.24.2025