Do Hypothetical Imperatives Require Categorical Imperatives?, JEREMY SCHWARTZ

In Kantian terms, we interpret the NAP as a hypothetical imperative, not a categorical one.

(27.) As I have argued elsewhere, this way of thinking of the effect of instrumental reasoning does not get us to an adequate conception of the hypothetical imperative, that is, to a normative principle of instrumental reason.

Hypothetical imperatives, Kant writes, "stellen die praktische Notwendigkeit einer moglichen Handlung als Mittel zu etwas anderem, was man will (oder doch moglich ist, dass man es wolle), zu gelangen vor" (represent the practical necessity of a possible action as a means for attaining something else that one wants [or may possibly want] [25]).

Utilitarianism is only one moral system justified by the hypothetical imperative; a more rational argument can be made for a system that utilizes the hypothetical imperative but does not have as its primary goal the maximization of societal wealth and happiness (although these may be byproducts of that system).

Even though it is in my nature to want to be happy, the application of the requirement expressed by an imperative of prudence is still dependent on an end that I have-if I did not want to seek my own happiness, I would have no reason to do what the hypothetical imperative of prudence instructed that I ought to do.

In effect, medicine decided to adopt as a methodological rule the following hypothetical imperative 'In order to cure diseases, prevent diseases, and so on (a list of specific aim may be substituted), then adopt and employ the methods and theories of the natural sciences'.

Even though institutional norms appear to take a categorical form, they must in fact harbor a hypothetical imperative somewhere in the chain of supporting reasons (1977, pp.

Papineau's response is not to deny the existence of such norms of judgment but rather to deny their sui generis character; "truth-seeking," for example, is a hypothetical imperative founded upon prior moral or personal values.

Similarly, given Kant's scant attention to happiness in the Groundwork, Allison Hills' 'Happiness in the Groundwork' (Chapter 2), which considers Kant's distinctive desire-satisfaction theory of happiness, the kind of end that happiness is, and the status of the imperatives of prudence as assertoric hypothetical imperatives (rather than problematic hypothetical imperatives or categorical imperatives), sheds light on an important topic all too easy to overlook.

Hypothetical imperatives are principles that require an individual to perform or not to perform an action only if the outcome is personally desired (i.e., the action is subjectively required).

With this groundwork in place, Kant formulates the categorical imperative, which he sets in opposition to hypothetical imperatives. Hypothetical imperatives appear in the form of "if you want x to happen, do y." But Kant doesn't care about results.

Hypothetical imperatives are no less imperatives for being hypothetical.

presents intentional action descriptions (expressing a "conative [volitional] propositional attitude about actions in one's best interests") as a prelude to a reconstruction of Kantian hypothetical imperatives of prudence, concluding with moral implications in light of a formal, semantical.

In Chapter 4, Sedgwick offers an account of categorical and hypothetical imperatives that seems to lose sight of the essential difference between the two kinds of imperatives.