Two versions of universalizability principle in Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy

Two formulas of the universalizability principle of the categorical imperative - the formula of universal law and the formula of the law of nature - have been regularly interpreted in general philosophical literature as mutually specifying each other. The former one has been considered as representing the character of normativity peculiar to the categorical imperative, the latter one its ontological status. The law of nature has been interpreted as a physical law or as a “natural law” in the spirit of the natural law tradition. Not all commentators of Kant have taken into account his note on the concept of nature as an order of actions determined by laws. The issue of two versions of the universalizability principle, their interrelation, and functional and substantial peculiarities is important for understanding both the principle of universalizability and the concept of the categorical imperative. Taking into consideration the significance of the principle as a criterion of moral worth in Kant's ethics and the influence of this aspect of Kant's teaching on the succeeding moral philosophy, the issue of relation between two versions of the universalizability principle should be recognized as an important one for general discussion on the nature of morality. Following the critical-comparative analysis of discussion on this issue in Kant studies (A.P. Skripnik, E.Yu. Soloviev, A.K. Sudakov, H.J. Paton, A.W. Wood), the author points to the significance of analogy between moral law and the law of nature in Kant's doctrine, to the inner connection between formal and material features of the categorical imperative, and to the place of teleological component in Kant's moral philosophy. The latter puts forward the task of rethinking of the common understanding of Kant's ethics as exclusively formal and the first formula of the categorical imperative as the ‘standard' one.

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