One can quite make it out that the first condition to the living of such a life is to obey the voice of duty as though it were the voice of God. That is, to obey it without letting our obedience hang on our insight into the purpose to be worked out, or on the satisfaction we are to find in or because of the doing. Just so was the Decalogue presented for the acceptance of the Children of Israel. But for them the way of duty was revealed by God himself; for Kant it must be revealed by the reason which accepts it. What sort of a law does this “practical reason,” as Kant calls it, reveal? Kant’s first formulation is imperfect enough, and seems to be based on an effort to deduce the content of moral law from the meaning of law itself--as though to say, the command “Be law-abiding” furnished one with all needed information respecting the law by which one was to abide. For, as Kant puts the matter, law must prescribe a type of action that is possible for everybody--a meaning of law which is well rendered by the common phrase, “What is right for one is right for all.” And just as one might try to convince a man of the iniquity of some particular act of his by putting to him the question, Suppose everybody were to do that? so Kant at this stage feels that we could try out the validity of any given type of act by putting the same question to ourselves. Suppose the right to lie were up for consideration; if lying is morally right, then it must be possible for everybody to lie. But if everybody tried to lie, there would be no such thing as a lie, for a lie requires someone to believe it as well as someone to utter it. Universal lying would be impossible; the maxim, “Be a good liar,” could not be generalized into a law. “So act that the maxim of your conduct could become a universal law.”[6] This is the formula that Kant finds first of all for the full duty of man. But of course on this basis one could not sell a share of stock, for if everybody were to try it, there would be no market. On the other hand Kant himself has only a tortured and inadequate account to give of the reason why one should not commit suicide, for it looks as though we might all do that much together. More interesting is Kant’s second attempt to formulate the law of duty. Almost against his will, one would say, Kant is forced to consider the act from the point of view of its purpose. The purpose of a moral act must be such that everybody may pursue the same purpose.[7] An immoral world is one in which many want a thing that can not be shared--Kant recalls with humor the remark of King Francis, that he and his brother Charles were in perfect accord for both wanted the same thing--namely the possession of Milan. A moral world is one in which no desires are contradictory.