Similarities and Differences Between Kant’s Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule
A brief comparison
Immanuel Kant’s famous Categorical Imperative and the well-known, long-established Golden Rule are often compared and seen as similar. The Golden Rule has even been posed by philosophers as ‘the ultimate grounding principle of the major moral-philosophic traditions — of a Kantian-like categorical imperative’ (Puka, n.d.). However, despite their similarities, in particular recognition of shared humanity between individuals, both principles differ in various aspects. Kant himself, in fact, considered his Categorical Imperative superior to the Golden Rule in the sense that it does away with subjectivity and adds universality as a requirement of moral considerations. (Kvalnes, 2015, p. 36). The following is therefore an investigation of their similarities and differences.
The great philosopher Immanuel Kant first formulated his Categorical Imperative as a formula of universal law in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. The guiding idea was ‘Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature.’ (Kant, 1998, p. 422), whereby a maxim is defined as a subjective rule that serves as a guideline for our actions. Further, Kant’s maxim stipulates that we can test whether or not any action is moral by checking if it can be applied universally without any contradiction.
This principle of universalisation rests on the notions of what if everybody else performs the same action and that an action can only be considered morally good if we would like the same action done unto us. Although the latter aspect seems at first glance congruent with the Golden Rule, we cannot deduct that the Golden Rule is implied by the Categorical Imperative or that it can be derived from it.
Notably, the initial formulation of the Golden Rule is rooted in a religious context (Herztler, 1934, p. 423), and the Golden Rule — or a similar idea — is promoted in many religions such as Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism and Hellenism (Hirst, 1934, p.332). For example, in Christianity as per Jesus’ stipulation ‘“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31); […] in Confucianism: “what you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others” (Analects/Lunyu 12.2 and 6.30); in Buddhism: “hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful” (Udana-Varga 5,1); in Hinduism: “this is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you” (Mahabharata 5,1517); in Islam: “no one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself” (40 Hadith of an-Nawawi 13); in Judaism: “what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary” (Talmud, Shabbat 3id), amongst others.’ (Walker, 2018).
This does not mean, however, that the ancient moral principle of the Golden Rule is implicitly included in Kant’s moral law. In fact, Kant’s concept of us having autonomous will, i.e. we act in line with our moral duty, is a central aspect of his definition of the Categorical Imperative (Fletcher, 1987, p. 537). It goes contrary to the heteronomous essence of the Golden Rule, which is based on us acting in accordance with our desires and influenced by external factors rather than based on reason.
Some great philosophers have maintained that the Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule are not antagonistic. One famous proponent of this idea is S.B. Thomas, who argues that the Golden Rule as personified by Jesus Christ adopts an existential form, while the Categorical Imperative provides the rational justification from which morality is developed, and both are therefore merely ‘two sides of the same coin’ (Thomas, 1970, p. 199). As Kant has objected to any heteronomous principle determining morality, interpreting his Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule in this way would be either taking the analogy too far or misinterpreting Kant’s attempt at developing a moral system purely based on reason.
According to Thomas, however, Kant’s Categorical Imperative ‘provides the rational “form” for the decision-making procedure that a Christian would follow [intuitively] anyway’ (Thomas, 1970, p. 195). Thomas further claims that Jesus is the personified expression of Kant’s moral system grounded exclusively in our rational will, and that his life and teachings make the abstract moral law concrete in its existential form. This Christian interpretation of the Categorical Imperative means that acts that are considered moral based on the Kantian standard become merely intuitive as they are in line with Christian ethics.
As a result, the Categorical Imperative would become redundant as only the Golden Rule remains. Thomas (1970, p. 191), however, strives to demonstrate that Kant’s views on morality are ultimately the same as Jesus’ actions and his expression of the Golden Rule. The difference here being that instead of our autonomous will, God is defined as the master of the universal law, effectively making the Categorical Imperative the Golden Rule without the religious aspect. The Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule therefore clearly differ with respect to their dependence on religion.
While it is true that Kant’s definition of morals seems to become an empty shell and a merely theoretical construct if not actualised in an existential form, Kant’s synthetic a priori requirement seems less problematic if it appeals to a priori truths provided by religion. Bearing in mind though that Kant strongly objected to the heteronomous will, including such a will driven by religious motives, we can deduct that he would object to such an interpretation (Hirst, 1934, p. 334). In fact, Kant did not entertain the concept of a sovereign rational being, as he believed that ordinary men can easily grasp morality by rationalising and applying their common as long as the law of non-contradiction is satisfied. After all, according to Kant, we can only will something that is consistent for us to will as a universal law applicable to everyone alike as determined by us as rational agents.
According to the Christian doctrine, ‘the ultimate ground for the rightness or wrongness of a particular act is […] not within the grasp of the finite individual himself’ (Thomas, 1970, p. 188), and a divine instance is needed to provide such moral knowledge of what is right and wrong. But Kant argued that as we can neither know what God’s will is, nor can we reason about it, morality can never equate the mere fulfilment of God’s will. It is hence impossible for the Categorical Imperative to have an existential form, as this would mean replacing it with God’s will, which cannot be known or determined through reasoning.
E.W. Hirst (1934, p. 334), also addresses this aspect when he draws the conclusion that one difference between the Golden Rule and the Categorical Imperative is their dependence, or lack of dependence, on religion. According to the Golden Rule, in this interpretation, the principles of interpersonal love and universal application can thus only become coherent by including the concept of God. So to universalise interpersonal love, both self-love and neighbourly love must relate to God’s supreme love (Hirst, 1934, p. 334).
As a consequence, one could then interpret the Categorical Imperative as a secular version of Hirst’s definition of the Golden Rule. However, the universalisation principle cannot ultimately be derived from the Golden Rule in this way; the reason being that the Categorical Imperative does not make any reference or accept the concept of God, whereas the Golden Rule seems to rely on this very notion. By the same token, Kant rejects the notion that any Christian ethics can be derived from the Categorical Imperative (Chng, 2018). Rather, the Categorical Imperative is considered an autonomous principle that serves as a law of reason which humans impose on themselves.
Hirst’s understanding of the Golden Rule is similar to that of Thomas in that it includes the idea of a God. However, the Golden Rule evidently has a universal appeal beyond religion and has been widely adopted throughout human history and in diverse cultures and societies (Huang, 2005, p. 395). Hetzler (1934, p. 427) even considers it the result of generations of careful observation and analysis of relationships among individuals and in groups over the centuries. The maxim to do unto others as you want others to do unto you can be easily understood and applied universally. This is in line with Kant’s idea that moral laws must apply universally and be binding for all rational beings.
It must be noted though that Kant did not accept that any principles with an empirical basis can be universalised, as these are derived from human nature. He stipulated that all valid moral principles must be fully independent of empirical premises of any kind (Buchanan, 1982, p. 422). Examples of such principles include self-love and the human pursuit of happiness. Instead, Kant claimed, all rational beings are bound by a priori moral principles, i.e. which are derived from theoretical deduction and rationalisation rather than from observation or experience. Moral laws can therefore, according to Kant, not be derived from personal experiences or empirical observations.
This is further clarified by Fletcher’s (1987, p. 533) distinction between rule and law. He posits that rules, on the one hand, are based on the empirical, while laws, on the other hand, are a priori concepts of pure reason. So despite the fact that the Golden Rule appeals universally and is interpreted as a practical guideline by Kant, we cannot consider it a moral law like the Categorical Imperative. This is because the Categorical Imperative represents an ideal, and it is doubtful ‘whether Kant intended to relate this noumenal sense of morality with the phenomenal realm of lawfulness emanating out of nature’ (Chng, 2018).
There are debates among philosophers around how Kant’s moral law applies to a world full of rational beings motivated by self-interest and social demands. As we have seen, Thomas has argued that adhering to Kant’s Categorical Imperative can be likened to a devoutness to God as a universal source of law. Any differences between both principles can thus be regarded as a mere matter of interpretation, seeing one as descriptive and metaphysical, and the other as prescriptive and phenomenological. However, if, as Kant suggests, moral acts as defined by the Categorical Imperative represent the expression of the noumenal realm, then moral acts as defined by the Golden Rule must be the expression of the phenomenal realm rather than of religion (Chng, 2018). Furthermore, the maxim of doing unto others as you want others to do unto you suggests partiality and is purely self-referential, whereas willing for a maxim to become a universal law means submitting oneself to a universally accepted and applicable standard. Further, Kant not merely states that if we think we ought to perform an action, we must believe that everyone else in the same position ought to perform the same action, but we must also ‘will that other people should act similarly in similar circumstances’ (Hirst, 1934, p. 329).
We can therefore conclude that when Thomas (1970, p. 199) perceives the Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule to be two side of the same coin when it comes to morality, his conclusion is based on his exposition of the Golden Rule in the spirit of the universalisation principle. However, this is a mistake because ultimately the Golden Rule is ultimately merely an empirically based moral principle and, as such, we cannot derive a universalisation principle from it. Walker (2018), for example, posits that it might be morally inappropriate to universally apply the Golden Rule when the other person’s circumstances are significantly different. Consequently, we see a significant difference between the Golden Rule and the Categorical Imperative in how their notion of morality relates to both the self and to other beings.
Another distinction between the Golden Rule and the Categorical Imperative is the theory how we derive at moral principles. According to Kant, humans are by nature rational beings with autonomous will. He posits that ‘we have internal freedom to act exclusively according to reason’ (Fletcher, 1987, p. 537). At the core of Kant’s approach to morality is the notion of acting out of duty alone. By focusing on his duty, the actor can separate and thus abstract his conduct from experiential input from the outside (Fletcher, 1987, p. 537). Free from heteronomous influences, we can therefore rationalise and act according to pure reason alone. Such reasoning provides the basis for moral law and this the foundation for developing all other moral principles.
The idea behind the Golden Rule, on the other hand, sees humans as naturally self-centred, with the starting point being the individual’s own desires with respect to his own welfare (Hertzler, 1934, p. 429). Humans, however, are forced to live in a community with fellow self-centred beings in a way that aids their own social benefits, and in doing so they need to take on different social roles and incur different moral obligations depending on their level of social responsibility (Wang, 1999, p. 430). This situation has led to the Golden Rule becoming an integral part of human morality. Some philosophers, like James Q. Wilson, in fact, deem morality as arising from empirical experience, thus likening it to other human sentiments such as lust (Madsen, 1949, p. 492), or, like David Hume (2000, p. 182), defining them as a human instinct and convention requiring an innate capacity for empathy and guilt rather than reason. The Golden Rule, therefore, is empathic and specific in that it requires us to put ourselves in others’ shoes. This is not the case for the Categorical Imperative, which impersonal despite its universal application.
A further difference between the Golden Rule and the Categorical Imperative is the principle of reciprocity. For one, the principle of reciprocity is essential to the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule requires the existence and interaction with other persons, and people’s attitude to one another is an essential component of the principle, whereas the Categorical Imperative, on the other hand, has no such requirement. As Hirst (1934, p. 329) explains, if we can will our action to be universalised without contradiction, then the action is moral. So morality depends to some extend on our ability to will without contradiction. It is not enough for us to perform a moral action; rather we also need to be able to will others to perform the same action. An example Kant gives is that of suicide, which he considers immoral (Hirst, 1934, p. 329) out of a contradiction that arises between our need to preserve life and destroying life, and because the person committing suicide is regarding themselves as a means rather than an end in themselves. Kant’s morality can thus be considered uni-personal, i.e. it can be established and followed based on our own reasoning without external interference, while the Golden Rule seems to be inter-personal, i.e. reliant on interaction and the presence of other people.
Interestingly, Kant’s Categorical Imperative encourages us to act as members of a ‘kingdom of ends’ in the sense of a ‘social community of individuals each of whom is reciprocally ends and means to the others’ (Hirst, 1934, p. 330) on the basis of common laws shared by rational individuals. Still, Kant sees the self as able to attain moral perfection through independent rational thought alone, focusing on reverence before the abstract law as the necessary form of the applicable moral standard. Never are our moral decisions and actions based on respect for another human being but always on respect for the moral law. As Hirst (1934, p. 331) puts it, ‘other persons possess only instrumental value as exhibitors of something considered in abstraction from themselves’.
The Golden Rule, in contrast, goes beyond this abstract extra-personal perspective, arriving at an inter-personal principle; it deals with real persons rather than just abstract moral units (Wang, 1999, p. 418). According to Kant (1998), the Golden Rule neither comprises principles of duties to our own moral will nor to other people, which in itself prohibits it from becoming adopted as a universal law. The Golden Rule seems to lose objectivity and rely on individual situations and desires. A masochist, for example, might find it perfectly justifiable to torture other people (Carmichael, 1973, p. 412). In fact, one of the most common criticisms of the Golden Rule is that it permits reciprocity in evil (Hirst, 1934, p. 333).
By the same token, the universal application of the Categorical Imperative can be deemed as problematic in some cases such as the famous ‘murderer at the door scenario’. Kant would consider it imperative to tell the truth and give away our friend’s presence to the murderer as lying is deemed immoral in all circumstances without exception. This is because Kant stressed that humans should always be treated, and treat others, as ends in themselves, never as mere means to an end (Pecorino, 2000). Kant sees duty as unconditional and an end in itself, and the categorial imperative stands in contrast to such imperatives — hypothetical in nature — that arise only in relation to some ulterior motive or end (Hems, 1971, p. 531). So ‘for the Categorical Imperative, the question of “means to an end” does not arise, since the Categorical Imperative is unconditionally an end itself’ (Hems, 1971, p. 531). The Golden Rule, on the other hand, would take into account individual circumstances and the end result rather than rigidly applying a universal rule in all situations. This is a clear difference between the two principles. Specifically, the Golden Rule requires individuals to make their choices the standard for everyone else, while the Categorical Imperative requires everyone to submit to universal standards (Carmichael, 1973, p. 412).
The Golden Rule thus refers to the relation of oneself to others. It requires us to both recognise our own desires, attaching moral importance to them and then strive to transcend them by recognising that these same desires are shared by others. This requirement has direct ethical implications, for it forbids us to act on individual desires that are inherently contrary to the desires of others. At the same time, however, this stipulation also points towards ethical universality, which is precisely what Kant seeks to emphasise. The Categorical Imperative effectively states that I should test my actions by asking if they could be universalised. Kant conceives of an individual moral action as not just following a law but creating a law for a universal ethical subject, and then at the same time binding oneself to such law.
Finally, Hegel and others have argued that Kant’s Categorical Imperative goes too far in abstracting away from the inherent particularity of desire, making it too formal. Consequently, the Golden Rule, by refusing to dissolve the relation between self and others into ethical universality, is actually superior to the Categorical Imperative.
In conclusion, it has become evident that while the Categorical Imperative and the Golden Rule may at first glance appear similar in that they are both universal principles of morality, they are ultimately based on different premises and thus fundamentally different in nature.
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