are ARE THERE ABSOLUTE MORAL RULES? 121 Kant called these "hypothetical imperatives" because they what to do provided that we have the relevant desires. A tell us son who did not want to improve her chess would have no rea son study Kasparov's games; someone who did not want to go to college would have no reason to take the SAT the binding force of the "ought" depends the desire, we can escape its force by renouncing the desire Thus, if someone no longer wants to go to college, he can escape the obligation to take the SAT Moral obligations, by contrast, do not depend on our having particular desires. The form of a moral obligation is not "If you want so-and-so, then you ought to do such-and-such." Instead, moral requirements are categorical They have the form "You ought to do such-and-such, period." The moral rule is not, for example that you ought to help people ifyou care for them or if you have some other purpose that helping them might serve. Instead, the rule is that you should help people regardless of your particular wants and desires. That is why, unlike hypothetical "oughts," moral requirements cannot be escaped simply by saying "But I don't care about that. Hypothetical "oughts" are easy to understand. They merely require us to adopt the means necessary to achieve the ends we seek. Categorical "oughts," on the other hand, are mysterious. How can we be obligated to behave in a certain way regardless of the ends we wish to achieve? Much of Kant's moral philosophy is an attempt to explain how this is possible. Kant holds that, just as hypothetical "oughts" are ble because we have desires, categorical "oughts" are possible because we have reason. Categorical "oughts" are binding on rational agents simply because they are rational. How can this be so? It is, Kant says, because categorical oughts are derived from a principle that every rational person must accept: the Categorical Imperative. In his Foundations of the Metaphysics of (1785), he expresses the Categorical Imperative in these terms Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law This principle summarizes for whether an act morally permissible. When you are contemplating ing a particular action, you have to ask what rule you would be