In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Philosopher Georg Hegel critiques the ethical

theory of his rival, Immanuel Kant. Most notably, he attacks Kant's use of the Categorical
Imperative as a valid logical structure through which one can discern moral value. He does this
on the basis of what he calls the Imperative's 'empty formalism,' or its lack of substance beyond
rhetorical rules. Should this criticism be proven valid, it exposes a significant weakness in Kant's
philosophy, as it undercuts his first normative reality. The following essay will explore Hegel's
reasoning for his criticism, determine its validity, examine potential Kantian remedies to it, and
provide a judgment on whether Kant's Categorical Imperative truly is an example of empty
formalism.

First and foremost, it behooves us to analyze the reasoning for Hegel's criticism of the
Categorical Imperative. He bases his critique on what he believes to be the shallowness of the
Categorical Imperative, as detailed below. According to Hegel, the Categorical Imperative's
purely logical structure makes it incapable of validating any piece of determinate moral content
because it remains empty of undergirding content, such as the preexistence of cultural institutions
or standards. For example, Kant believes that theft can be proven immoral through the
Categorical Imperative's test. The maxim 'I will steal to get rich' fails the universality
formulation, as theft's universalization would make everyone poor and make property non-
existent. Thus, theft must be determined immoral by the Categorical Imperative. However, the
Hegelian would argue that this is an inadequate justification and wholly misses the point, as it
assumes the existence of the institution of private property. Without the institution of private
property, which the Categorical Imperative cannot presuppose while remaining the first
normative reality, said maxim doesn't fail the Categorical Imperative.

Furthermore, the assumed institution of private property doesn't tell us anything about the
morality of that institution and therefore fails twice over to declare theft immoral. This lack of
deeper grounding is the crux of all subpoints of the Hegelian attack on the Categorical
Imperative. Thus, it behooves us to explore these subpoints next to grasp the Hegelian argument
further.

In "Empty, Useless, and Dangerous? Recent Kantian Replies to the Empty Formalism
Objection," Fabian Freyenhagen explores three interconnected points of Hegelian criticism of the
Categorical Imperative, all working off the Imperative's aforementioned lack of underlying
institutions. Firstly he finds that according to Hegelians, "it is not possible to arrive at a doctrine
of duties on the basis of the mere idea of duty for duty's sake" as pure rational willing alone fails
to guide duties with reason to act beyond a simple assertion that you should do so. Secondly,
Freyenhagen argues that though a candidate's duty may be consistent with rational willing, the
test "does not provide a criterion for determining whether... the candidate duties are genuine
duties." Though the Kantian may buck this claim as the authenticity of duties seems somewhat
unfalsifiable, the claim relies, once again, on the lacking depth of the Categorical Imperative but
is also evidenced by his third claim. Said claim is that the Categorical Imperative can give false
positives and is thus inadequate as moral law. Take, for example, a man obsessed with the well-
being of his lawn, as Russ Shafer-Landau writes about in The Fundamentals of Ethics. He argues
that there is no obvious reason why the maxim "I will kill anyone who sets foot on my lawn
without permission, to protect the well-being of my lawn" violates the Categorical Imperative
without the underlying standard of fair and equal retribution. Thus the Imperative cannot
function as the essence of the moral law.
All of these points have a common theme that pervades the entire Hegelian argument. Said
theme is the Categorical Imperative's lack of undergirding values, institutions, or standards.
Hegel asserts that, if it can function at all, the Imperative must have underlying entities to
provide moral guidance. These entities may be things such as natural law, divine mandate, or the
metaphysical value that Kantians like Oliver Senson argue Kant never conceived of in his
writings. If undergirded by these more fundamental truths, a Hegelian might say the Categorical
Imperative becomes more viable, as it relies on more than logical procedures to come to
conclusions about morality.

In review, the Hegelian critique that the Categorical Imperative is not feasible so long as it lacks
institutional aid seems thoroughly well-designed. It sits on the laurels of its points as well-argued
and validates its claims by pointing out weaknesses in the Categorical Imperative's viability as
the moral law. However, before one can issue a judgment on the Imperative's feasibility as the
primary source of the moral law, one must give a fair shake to the Kantian perspective by
examining their responses to Hegel's empty formalism critique. Next, this essay will explore the
Kantian responses to Hegel's criticism and determine their merit, ultimately issuing a judgment
on whether or not the Categorical Imperative is an example of empty formalism.

In analyzing the Kantian defenses against empty formalism, this paper will refer again to Fabian
Freyenhagen's "Empty, Useless, and Dangerous? Recent Kantian Replies to the Empty
Formalism Objection" to potentially rebut his three previously articulated Hegelian criticisms. It
will also refer to Oliver Senson's "Kant's Conception of Inner Value" to attempt to remedy the
broader theme of the Imperative's lack of institutional grounding.

Beginning with the response to Freyenhagen's first Hegelian claim that the Categorical
Imperative cannot provide "an immanent doctrine of duties," the Kantian has three potential
replies to this claim. The first of these is an attribution of moral realism to Kant. This argument
claims that Kant takes moral duties as a given and thus has no requirement to offer a
comprehensive doctrine or device to derive duties. According to Freyenhagen, this view argues
that "the categorical imperative is only meant to be a useful tool to counteract our tendency to
rationalize away the fact that a specific moral duty applies to us." If this is, in fact, the case, it
essentially nullifies Hegel's criticism in that there would be no disagreement between the two on
the possibility of offering a doctrine of duties via duty for duty's sake. However, many Kantians
would staunchly disagree with Kant being a moral realist and thus must search for another
solution.

The second Kantian counter to the previously mentioned criticism is to concede that an
immanent doctrine of duties is impossible but to deny that Kant desired to provide one. One can
point to the preface of Kant's Groundwork, in which he states that "he is not concerned with the
application of the moral law (and thereby, one presumes, not concerned with arguing for or
deriving specific duties)." However, selecting this argument essentially invalidates much of
Kant's work, rendering its examples of duties "illustrations in the process of clarifying the
highest principle of morality, not actually derivations of specific duties" and invalidating every
duty Kant ever wrote about deriving from his Imperative. Thus, it's hard to imagine a serious
Kantian arguing this perspective without compromising their previously held beliefs.
A third Kantian response is to argue that some duties are, in fact, contained within the idea of
duty for duty's sake. This argument hinges on the idea that "the very concept of duty only makes
sense as applied to finite rational creatures" and that we can therefore find duty in our knowledge
of human beings, at least in that, we can recognize the form of the moral law from innate
knowledge. However, this argument stipulates that we can't discern more normative ideas or
duties without outside influence, making it something of an adjustment to traditional Kantianism.

Next, we transition to the second Hegelian attack Freyenhagen identifies, the Categorical
Imperative's weak criterion for "counteracting our tendency to rationalize our [immoral]
behavior" by determining whether our maxims or actions are morally permissible or required.
Hegel's primary point on this issue is that the Categorical Imperative's criterion for ruling in
genuine maxims and ruling out immoral ones is wholly inadequate, as Kant's universality
formulation doesn't establish duty as any higher entity than non-contradiction. He illustrates his
stance by analyzing Kant's example from the Critique of Practical Reason, where a man receives
an undocumented deposit with another, then passes away. Kant says that this is an opportunity to
test the maxim "to increase my wealth by every safe means," but finds that said maxim could not
be willed as if it were universal law to keep outstanding undocumented deposits of the deceased;
all deposits would become documented. While this logic may be up for debate, Hegel goes in a
different direction altogether, arguing -as previously discussed- that without presuming that
property is a morally permissible institution and theft is morally impermissible, one cannot prove
that this maxim is morally problematic. Like the first Hegelian point, Kantians could remedy this
criticism by asserting that Kant acts as a moral realist and doesn't need to justify new institutions,
instead working with the existing ones around him. However, such a position may contradict
Kant's assertion that the Categorical Imperative serves as the first normative reality and cannot
presuppose anything underneath it.

Another potential Kantian response to Hegel's criticism of the Categorical Imperative's criterion
is to argue that while it's true that Kant doesn't justify moral institutions, their existence, or lack
thereof, doesn't make the maxim's conceptive contradictory nature obsolete. The Kantian may
say that we're looking for contradictions in conception rather than in willing. The false promises
maxim isn't contradictory exclusively because of the institutions of property and promise-
making. The maxim's nature conflicts with itself once universalized, making its existence
impossible. According to Kantians, that contradiction is enough to strike down the maxim
independent of existing institutions. Freyenhagen points out, however, that a Hegelian may find
it disingenuous to completely separate the evaluation of a maxim from its associated institution.
In any case, this leads us to Freyenhagen's third Hegelian point on the false positives and
negatives that occasionally appear in the Categorical Imperative.

Continuing on the example of the deposit of a deceased individual, Hegel establishes that one
can create a tautology, which remains non-contradictory, to make the false promises maxim fit
into the Categorical Imperative. Freyenhagen writes that without underlying institutions, nothing
prevents him from seeing uncollected deposits of the deceased as "my rightful property' or 'an
unowned object" and thus as free for the taking. Hegel articulates this stance in The
Phenomenology of Spirit, writing, "If I should keep for myself what is entrusted to me, then
according to the principle I follow in testing laws, which is a tautology, I am not in the least
guilty of contradiction." This creates a significant problem for Kantians, as it proves that, in
theory, any maxim can be contorted to fit the Categorical Imperative if appropriately structured.
However, the Kantian would argue that changing one's perspective is a cynical tactic to
rationalize their actions despite the Categorical Imperative and that one's attempt to change their
point of view indicates that their proposition or activity is likely immoral and would fail the
Imperative if tested honestly.

While some of these issues appear to be rebuttable or at least rectifiable, there remains an
overarching merit to the empty formalism critique. The Categorical Imperative's lack of
underpinning values seems to be a significant issue when searching for a judgment on certain
maxims and actions. Kantian scholar Oliver Senson acknowledges this issue in "Kant's
Conception of Inner Value" and seeks to determine whether Kantian philosophy can have an
undergirding value to remedy the empty formalism critique and ascertain Kant's view on innate
value more broadly. He reviews the objective, relational, subjective, and prescriptive value types
to investigate their viability as an underlying or otherwise innate value.

He finds that while subjective value fails to support the Imperative, as it obsoletes the
universality formulation, and relational value does the same to humanity, prescriptive value is
slightly more viable, and objective value far more. He says that while prescriptive values would
typically be untenable as they are primarily conditional, the Categorical Imperative is, in fact, its
own prescriptive value. However, undergirding it with more prescriptive values would create a
redundancy and violate the Imperative's nature as the first normative reality. The same goes for a
metaphysical objective value that could be theoretically attributed to moral actions and
propositions. Sensen also claims that Kant hadn't conceived said objective value. As such, he
argues that there cannot be a value underlying the Categorical Imperative, and there must instead
be a supplemental piece of value, which Sensen claims is prescriptive in nature. Sensen believes
that while the objective value may be tenable as an external piece of value, such a notion was
equally foreign to Kant and couldn't be conceived by his ilk.

While Sensen may be correct in this analysis of Kantianism, he does not provide a remedy to the
Hegelian criticism of empty formalism. As such, Kantianism's broader inability to establish
underlying institutions remains. As it stands, the Categorical Imperative remains unable to
presuppose the existence of institutions and cultural standards so long as it insists upon itself
being the first normative reality.

This being the case, I, the essayist, would propose a new solution. The critical reason Dr. Sensen
cannot underpin the Categorical Imperative with objective or prescriptive value is its insistence
upon itself as the first normative reality. The logical resolution is to amend the larger Kantian
structure to allow for underpinning values and cultural or religious institutions.

To do this, Kantians must allow for more root normative realities. This resolution allows the
Categorical Imperative to remain an essential structure in determining the morality of proposed
maxims or taken actions while establishing the ability to rely on institutional staples to give
further guidance to moral questions. This satisfies the Hegelian critique by giving more content
to the Categorical Imperative and making morality lean into a source beyond logical rules and
still allows Kantians to continue operating with the Imperative at the heart of their ethical theory.
As such, notwithstanding a misunderstanding of the subject matter, I believe removing the
Categorical Imperative's mandate as the first normative reality is the most pragmatic resolution
to the question of empty formalism.
In conclusion, Hegel's critique of Kant's Categorical Imperative reveals a substantial weakness in
Kant's philosophy. So long as the Imperative serves as the first normative reality, it cannot
receive institutional support and cannot presuppose the existence of institutions or value, making
it subject to a lacking doctrine of duties, poor criteria for testing personal duties, and several false
positives and negatives. The Kantian insistence on the Imperative's standing as the first
normative reality makes its empty formalism very troublesome, and it is evident that the
Imperative must be remedied to contend with the critique. In my view, after analyzing the work
of Fabian Freyenhagen and Oliver Sensen, it seems that Kantians can either A: continue to rebut
the critique over and over again and maintain the status quo of their philosophy or B: resolve the
issue by altering their philosophy. The more lasting of these two is to resolve the issue by
removing the Categorical Imperative from its place as the first normative reality to allow for the
presupposition of institutions, cultural standards, and religious principles.