categorical imperative

American  

noun

1. Ethics. the rule of Immanuel Kant that one must do only what one can will that all others should do under similar circumstances.

2. the unconditional command of conscience.

---

categorical imperative British  

noun

1. (in the ethics of Kant) the unconditional moral principle that one's behaviour should accord with universalizable maxims which respect persons as ends in themselves; the obligation to do one's duty for its own sake and not in pursuit of further ends Compare hypothetical imperative

---

Etymology

Origin of categorical imperative

First recorded in 1820–30

Example Sentences

If you pass through Rome, a visit to the poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, buried in the city’s Non-Catholic Cemetery, is a categorical imperative.

From New York Times • Sep. 28, 2022

Kant provides other formulations of the categorical imperative, where he states that one must always treat humans as “ends in themselves” rather than “a means to an end.”

From Textbooks • Jun. 15, 2022

This led him to a thought exercise known as the categorical imperative An action is right only if it is right for all people in all situations.

From Washington Post • Sep. 3, 2021

Kant introduced the world to the theory of the categorical imperative; Larry, the chat-and-cut.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 29, 2017

All the air of the fourteenth floor was sibilant with the categorical imperative.

From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley