Hypothetical and categorical imperatives: summary

It is much easier to defend the idea that if you know what you want, reason will help you secure it. This kind of guidance Kant calls 'hypothetical imperatives'.

Kant thinks that reason also issues categorical imperative. This is what he calls reason's guidance when it tells us that we should not act in a way that involves an inconsistency of will.

That is one formulation of the categorical imperative. Kant has other formulations: