Maxim (philosophy)

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A maxim is a moral rule or principle which can be considered dependent on one's philosophy. A maxim is often pedagogical and motivates specific actions. Simon Blackburn, in the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines it generally as: "any simple and memorable rule or guide for living ... associated with a simplistic 'folksy' or 'copy-book' approach to morality",providing as examples: "neither a borrower nor a lender be"; Tennyson's "little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart", from his 1835 poem, Locksley Hall. Blackburn also notes that in Immanuel Kant's usage,"each action proceeds according to a maxim or subjective principle in accordance with which it is performed, and it is the maxim that determines the moral worth of any action[.] The first form of the categorical imperative asserts that one can tell whether an action is right by seeing whether its maxim can consistently be willed to be universal law."

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