that which represented an action as necessary of itself without
reference to another end, i.e., as objectively necessary.

Since every practical law represents a possible action as good
and, on this account, for a subject who is practically determinable by
reason, necessary, all imperatives are formulae determining an
action which is necessary according to the principle of a will good in
some respects. If now the action is good only as a means to
something else, then the imperative is hypothetical; if it is
conceived as good in itself and consequently as being necessarily
the principle of a will which of itself conforms to reason, then it is
categorical.

Thus the imperative declares what action possible by me would be
good and presents the practical rule in relation to a will which
does not forthwith perform an action simply because it is good,
whether because the subject does not always know that it is good, or
because, even if it know this, yet its maxims might be opposed to
the objective principles of practical reason.

Accordingly the hypothetical imperative only says that the action is
good for some purpose, possible or actual. In the first case it is a
problematical, in the second an assertorial practical principle. The
categorical imperative which declares an action to be objectively
necessary in itself without reference to any purpose, i.e., without
any other end, is valid as an apodeictic (practical) principle.

Whatever is possible only by the power of some rational being may
also be conceived as a possible purpose of some will; and therefore
the principles of action as regards the means necessary to attain some