Recall Kant's moral philosophy. He explains the unchanging rationality of the principles that govern our duties, and characterizes human nature as valuable in virtue of its essentially rational characteristics. Fundamental rights and duties are universally and equally held, and all rights are consistent with each other in a “Kingdom of Ends”. Reason is fundamental. Reason gives intelligibility. Reason sets the standards. And reason expresses the essence of what we ourselves really are. This unchanging, universally shared and consistent standard that essentially applies to the human condition ensures the applicability and acceptability of his theory.

Yet we disobey. We do not now live in a world in which everyone's autonomy is respected and in which everyone acts in a way that meets the requirements of Kant's categorical imperative. Why not? And does it matter? In general, moral ideals or legal standards are logically independent of actual behaviour: it is no refutation of either the ten commandments or the 30 miles per hour speed limit that they are frequently disobeyed.

However, when commenting on Plato's position, we noted two central approaches to the analysis of what it is to act wrongly. On the Socratic view, acting wrongly is due to ignorance of the right thing to do. We are to make sense of the nature of acting wrongly in terms of the intellectual apprehension of the Form of the Good. The philosophers among us, at least, always act as they ought in virtue of their character as rational beings, which ensures that they know the Form of the Good.