What Is Kant's Categorical Imperative

What makes Immanuel Kant’s theory of moral so interesting is that it uses logical reasoning. He does not believe a set of rules that come from a divine being are correct or even come close to being right that reasoning can achieve. Why should something that claims to be all knowing create a sort of commandments if that being knows that not all humans will follow those codes of conduct? A part of Kant’s theory that intrigues me is his categorical imperative, and the two well know formulations of it. The first formulation basically states that any action that takes place should only happen if it can become a universal law. If the action becomes a universal law and it leads to a logical contradiction, then it fails the test and is not morally permissible.
For example, if someone wanted to break into house to steal, then apply what this break in as a universal law.
If everyone started to break in, it would only cause havoc and nothing good comes out of it. The second formulation states that humans should never merely be a means to an end and be only used for an end. It’s ok to use someone for an end, but never abuse that person along the way. Look at these two formulations from the categorical imperative, it prevents bad deeds from happening, but does it also help people and promote good deeds as well? The world does not function by only becoming neutral in a lot of situations since it only leads to more problems along the way because of not choosing sides whether good or bad. In fact, the world would be better off by doing better, and Kant’s categorical imperative allows that to happen. The first and second formulation of the categorical imperative does encourage people to do good
actions. To promote good endeavors, the first formulation was created to make sure to both prevent horrible actions as well as make god actions favorable. It is best to break down what Kant said and to reveal what it allows people to do in terms of being good. There are “bad maxims that are demonstrably ineligible on logical grounds to serve as norms for everyone” (Scarre 224). As previously stated, many actions cannot be done if everyone else started to do those same actions. All societies would start to fail and humans to become to be known as people who will lie and cheat to get to what they want in life. What if people started to think about good deeds and apply it to the first formulation instead of always just thinking about the potentially bad deeds? If someone started to think about donating money to a local charity and applied the first formulation, then everyone would start donating. This would give justification for many to even attempt any sort of good action and give motivation knowing that many would do the same if applied to all people. This can be thought as well to test for high fidelity of the action that will be committed. Anyone can do a well-intentioned undertaking, but is that undertaking good enough? This formulation can help a person improve their actions to become something greater. Someone can choose not to help people and be placed as a universal law, “but Kant argued that it could not consistently be willed to be one by someone who also willed (as human beings reasonably do) that he himself should be helped if he were ever in distressed” (Scarre 224). You want other people to do good, and if you don’t do good, you won’t receive good. One must do good for the universal law to become challenged and eventually become true and applied to all humans. Mankind has survival for this long because they helped each other out, and they knew that in time they would receive help in return.