Do Colleges Teach Liberalism, Or Are Educated People Simply More Likely to Be Liberals?
The college professor quoted here believes the correct answer to the question in the headline above is the latter of the two possibilities offered, and I agree.
Immanuel Kant’s concept of the categorical imperative (i.e., a moral statement that always needs to be followed, regardless of our desires) is a restatement of the golden rule, and translates from the German as “act only in accordance with rules of conduct that you would declare to be universal laws.”
From Columbia University: In lay terms, this simply means that if you do an action, then everyone else should also be able to do it.
Now, that Kant wrote this is a fact. I read it with my own eyes. It’s not the interpretation of some bearded Marxist somewhere; it’s an important part of the history of Western philosophy.