Kant Universal Law of Nature

Kant had previously described his categorical imperative in section one, that “I ought to never act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” In section two, he splits up this ultimate rule into smaller ideas, the first one being the universal law of nature (4:421). Kant describes two ways in which a maxim can fail. The first is that the maxim as a universal law cannot contradict a universal law of nature because that would interfere with duty. An example of this would be someone who does not keep their promise to pay back a loan. If everyone accepted this way of thinking, promises would have no meaning and the system itself would fall apart. This violates Kant’s idea of a “perfect duty” because a perfect duty is a “negative” one. We discussed negative and positive duties in class, though not in those terms, when we compared actively doing something bad or passively failing to do something good.  Not paying back a loan would be criminal, bad, or a violation of perfect duty. The second way a maxim can fail is if it violates an imperfect duty, or fails to do “something rational agents necessarily will.” For example, one could not successfully declare a maxim of never helping someone in trouble, because most people would will to help the person and it violates an imperfect duty.