Before being commanded or prohibited by God actions are neither good nor evil. By commanding certain actions, God makes doing those actions good. We ought to follow God's commands, because God says to. If God commands certain principles because they are good, doing one's duty is not the highest good, it is only a means for achieving that which God knows is good. It may even be possible to understand what is good independently of knowing what God's commands are.
All ethical principles have a categorical form.
Two Kinds of Imperatives 1. They apply to individuals provided that they have the appropriate wants or desires. Categorical Imperatives are principles of reason. They apply to individuals regardless of what desires they have. Kant believed that all moral obligations were categorical and not hypothetical.