Maxim (philosophy)

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."