The moral ought is entirely out of place, here, since the willing is of itself necessarily in agreement with the law. Consequently, imperatives are only formulas for expressing the relation of objective laws of the will in general to the subjective imperfection of the will of this or that rational being, such as a human will. In any imperative , the element of command is either hypothetical or it is categorical . It is a hypothetical imperative when we are aware of the practical necessity of a possible action as a means to attaining something else we might want. It is a categorical imperative when we are aware of an action as objectively necessary, without relating it to any other purpose.
Every law concerned with practice presents a possible action as good.
Thus that action is presented as a necessary choice for any self-determining subject acting through reason. This means that all imperatives are formulas for determining an action according to the principle of choice made by a good will. Now if the action is only good as a means for achieving some other end, the imperative is hypothetical . If, however, the action is presented as good in itself and consequently as a necessary choice for a will that conforms to reason as its principle, the imperative is categorical. Therefore, the hypothetical imperative merely says that the action is good for a possible or actual purpose.