Tentative Answer: Kant's Hypothetical and Categorical Imperatives

2. What’s the difference between a categorical and a hypothetical imperative? Why isn’t the following ‘hypothetical’: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”?

The fundamental difference between categorical and hypothetical imperatives is that hypothetical imperatives describe an action that serves as a means to an end - a process that is conditional upon some desired end result. As Kant puts it specifically, a hypothetical imperative is the “necessity of a possible action as a means to attain something. . ..” On the other end of things, a categorical imperative describes an action that is “objectively necessary for itself, without any reference to another end.” Essentially, a categorical imperative is an imperative to something that has intrinsic value in and of itself.

Kant furthers distinguishes between these two different classes of imperative by arguing that an action driven by a hypothetical imperative is “good merely as a means to something else,” and an action driven by a categorical imperative is “good in itself.”

The language in question is Kant’s formulation for the categorical imperative; this specific phrasing - “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become universal law.” - speaks directly to the sense that a categorical imperative drives action that is right/good in all circumstances. In other words, the imperative drives action that would naturally fit within a universal law. If the actor in question “wills” any other end aside from the reason for action being a universal law, then the imperative in question would be hypothetical. But, because there is no other sought after end aside from acting in accordance with universal law, for no other reason than the action itself, then the statement is categorical and not hypothetical.