Đạo đức thuộc hình thái ý thức xã hội, là tập hợp những nguyên tắc, qui tắc nhằm điều chỉnh và đánh giá cách ứng xử của con người trong quan hệ với nhau, với xã hội,với tự nhiên trong hiện tại hoặc quá khứ cũng như tương lai chúng được thực hiện bởi niềm tin cá nhân, bởi truyền thống và sức mạnh của dư luận xã hội. | Personhood and Moral Rights 97 kindly or benevolent feelings but rather that such emotions must not be what directs the will towards the performance of duty. To act from a good will is to act from morally sound principles and to do this because it is what reason requires. But how are we to know which principles of action are morally sound Kant proposes a single universal principle from which all other moral principles may be derived. This principle he says is of such widespread significance as to hold not merely for men but for all rational beings as such not merely subject to contingent conditions and expectations but with absolute necessity .17 He calls this principle the Categorical Imperative by contrast with those imperatives that are hypothetical . that hold only when the agent has certain goals. Kant offers several formulations of the Categorical Imperative which he regards as logically equivalent. One of the most important of these is the Formula of Universal Law which requires that we act only upon principles that it is rational to want everyone to act upon at all times. In Kant s words I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law. 18 The maxim is the principle upon which one acts whether or not one has ever consciously formulated that principle. The Categorical Imperative requires us to act only upon maxims which any rational being could without contradiction agree to act upon all of the time. One example which Kant uses to illustrate the universalizability requirement is of a person who obtains money by making a false promise of repayment. The maxim of such an action Kant says contradicts itself when proposed as a universal moral law because if everyone made false promises for personal gain the very institution of promising would be Since it is irrational to will the universalization of a self-contradictory maxim we must conclude that it is always morally wrong to make a false
