Categorical imperative
Kant's test of an act's maxim by asking whether it could be a universal law.
What it commits you to
The categorical imperative asks whether one could will one's maxim to become a universal law without contradiction, and whether the act treats humanity always as an end and never merely as a means. It is the first serious attempt to specify a moral procedure that yields the same answer for everyone regardless of their ends. It is also the ancestor of nearly every rule-based alignment proposal.
Which realms lean on this
Philosophy carries the arguments the other four kinds are downstream of — what an agent is, what a person owes, what a rule is for.
philosophy · 8 realms — The Care Weft, The Contractual Court, The Existential Wilds, The Kantian Citadel, The Longview Foundry, The Middle Kingdom, The Pragmatic Wharf, The Sangha Terraces.
Canon that discusses this
See also
Deontology
ethicsDuty-first ethics: some things are wrong regardless of the totals they produce.
Hypothetical imperative
philosophyA command that binds only if you happen to want the end it presupposes.
Reasonable rejectability
philosophyThe standard that a principle is unacceptable if someone could reasonably refuse to live under it.
Doctrine of double effect
ethicsSome harms are permitted when foreseen but unintended, provided they are not means to the good.