The Moral Imperatives of Sustainable Development: A Kantian Overview

The philosophy of Immanuel Kant based on the logical analysis of reason in general and moral reason in particular. To him, moral principles should come from reason not from experiences. The general formula based on reason is the Categorical Imperative; it is the Moral Law. In this paper Sustainable Development is revisited from Categorical Imperative point of view. Three aspects of sustainable development like need, justice and the environmental limitation is given equal importance and the entire discussion is broadly distinguished into three different categories viz., Kantian Social Imperative, Kantian Economic Imperative and Kantian Environmental Imperative.