 So the question we are dealing with today, what question is Kant trying to answer? Now if you remember all the philosophers who looked at before were all trying to answer the question how should you live your life by answering a second question, a different question. When we looked at Hume and Sumner, they were trying to answer how should you live your life by answering the question, how are moral beliefs justified? If you remember Hume's answer was your passions and Sumner's answer was the culture. And we moved on to Glaucon and Hobbes, and they were trying to answer the question how should you live your life by answering the question, whose interests are most important? If you remember they both said your own interest is most important, but Glaucon said since your interest is most important justice is bad, Hobbes said since your interest is most important justice is good. Next we had Aristotle and Epicurus, at least the first reading for Aristotle, and they were trying to answer the question, what has more worth? For Epicurus it was pleasure, for Aristotle it was eudaimonia, this good spirit. The second reading for Aristotle he is asking, trying to answer a different question, how does one acquire what has more worth? And his answer to that question was virtue. After Aristotle we took a look at Locke, and the question he was trying to answer is what are your rights? And if you remember he said you can live your life as you see fit, according to the law of nature. Following Locke we had John Stuart Mill, he was actually trying to answer two different questions, what has more worth, and how does one acquire what has more worth? The answer to the first was pleasure, following Epicurus, the answer to the second was one step at a time, or one act at a time, it was a consequentialist's view for Mill, the pleasure generated by an act determined its moral worth. Okay, so now that brings us up to Kant. So what question is Kant trying to answer? Is he trying to answer one of the questions we've already looked up before? Or is he doing something different? Just because a philosopher has asked a question before and come up with an answer doesn't mean that a philosopher later on asks the same question that comes up with a different answer. Well in this case, Kant is not trying to do pleasure, he's not trying to do virtues, he's not trying to talk about your interests even. In fact, pleasure, virtues, and even your own interests are kind of irrelevant. In his theory of morality, he's trying to answer the question, what is your duty? He is providing a view that's called moral absolutism, that no matter what you must follow, it is your duty to follow these moral rules. And the moral duty he thinks you have, or the duty he thinks you have, is called the categorical imperative. You act upon that maxim upon which you could will into universal law.