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Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785

Philosophy

The story behind the card

Kant's own sentence in English translation: the first and best-known wording of his ‘categorical imperative’, from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a German philosopher whose work reshaped Western thinking about knowledge and ethics. He called the rule categorical because it binds whatever a person happens to want. A ‘maxim’ is the personal rule behind an action, and the test is whether everyone could follow it. Kant's own example is a promise made with no intention of keeping it: if everyone did that, no one would believe a promise, so the rule defeats itself.

Türkçe oku
Yalnızca, aynı zamanda evrensel bir yasa olmasını isteyebileceğin ilkeye göre davran.
Immanuel Kant, Ahlak Metafiziğinin Temellendirilmesi, 1785

Bu, Kant'ın kendi cümlesinin çevirisidir: Ahlak Metafiziğinin Temellendirilmesi'nde (1785) ortaya koyduğu “kategorik buyruk”un ilk ve en bilinen ifadesi. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Batı'nın bilgi ve ahlak anlayışını kökten değiştiren Alman filozoftur. Buyruğa “kategorik” denir, çünkü insanın o an ne istediğinden bağımsız olarak koşulsuz geçerlidir. Buradaki “ilke”, bir davranışın ardındaki kişisel kuraldır; sınav da herkesin bu kurala uyup uyamayacağıdır. Kant'ın kendi örneği, tutulmayacağı baştan bilinen bir sözdür: Herkes böyle söz verseydi kimse verilen söze inanmazdı, yani kural kendi kendini ortadan kaldırırdı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Immanuel Kant
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