ABSTRACT
Many philosophers believe that Immanuel Kant showed how to derive a version of the Golden Rule from reason alone, without benefit of divine revelation or religious authority. Kant began the Critique of Pure Reason not by proving the truth of the Newtonian physics that was then current but by taking it for granted and asking what Reason would have to be like for it to be true, as he had previously assumed. Kant's alleged proof of the rationality of Christian morality is no such thing. Unfortunately, both Kant and Plato misunderstood the fact. Both understood it as representing an inherent conflict between reason and desire, two separate faculties of the mind. As a self-conscious Rationalist, Kant was claiming that immorality produces self-contradiction; no other objection would suffice. The Categorical Imperative rules out immorality because it rules out everything.
