Transcript of Dr. Sahar Joakim, What is a Hypothetical Imperative?

[Music] thank you what is the hypothetical imperative well the hypothetical tells you that there's a condition or a maybe a hypothetical is not something that is certain or for sure or categorical the imperative tells you that there is something important or urgent or critical it's imperative so we can break down this idea and put them together hypothetical imperative that's what this video is going to be about it's about the cat it's about the hypothetical imperative compared to the categorical imperative so we're within the realm of Emmanuel cons normative ethics according to Emmanuel Kant morality is something that is objective morality is going to be objective morality is absolute morality is universal morality comes from reason the origin of morality is reason and rationality and Emmanuel Kant thinks that what is right and wrong what is your duty what is your obligation all of these things apply to everyone equally everywhere equally always equally and that your morality comes from this idea of the categorical imperative and that is very different from the hypothetical imperative so what is a hypothetical imperative and how does it compare to con categorical imperative well if you have some desire that's what this hypothetical is doing it's saying if imagine if if you have some particular desire then you have some action it is critical for you to do like here's a question should you study trigonometry trigonometry should you study trigonometry well if if you would like to be a um mechanic of cars or you want to engineer some really cool device then trigonometry is absolutely necessary like if you want to make a staircase you need to know trigonometry there's like all these shapes and all these formulas and all these maths that you have to learn some arithmetic you have to do for trigonometry uh so you should study trigonometry if you have that desire that thing you want to do if you have the desire of becoming some person with some job that requires knowledge of trigonometry then you should study trigonometry it's a hypothetical imperative it is critical for you to do this act on the condition that you have this goal in life hypothetical imperative are the things that you need to do given some goal that you have and for a manual Kant morality is not like that at all for Emmanuel Kant what is obligated for you to do according to reason has nothing to do with your desires your emotions the consequences that you want to bring out your goals or anything like that so the hypothetical imperative is all about what you should do given some goal you have and instead the categorical imperative tells you what you should do just because you are a human being so let's write categorical here a categorical imperative is the thing that it is critical for you to do no matter what there's no if there's no hypothetical there's just this thing there is just what you need to do [Music] thank you