Evil

Even if the new interpretation of Fichte’s theory of conscience presented in Chapter 5 is correct, it remains unclear why he believes we all have a tendency to render our conscience obscure. This brings us to his theory of evil in §16 and the appendix to §16 in the System of Ethics. The aim of the present chapter is to show that Fichte’s effort to link evil and ‘laziness’ (Trägheit) does not run the risk of rendering immoral action unfree. On the contrary, there is evidence to show that Fichte understood laziness as a form of culpable self-deception, whereby we avoid the demands that morality places upon us. A secondary aim of this chapter is to show that Fichte’s remarks about the dominion of the I over the not-I, or of our striving for independence from nature, give voice to an incomplete (and ultimately pathological) step in the dialectic of agency.

Community

This chapter and the next consider the final shape of Fichte’s moral philosophy as it appears in Part III of the System of Ethics. It has surprised many readers that Fichte ends up defending a vision of our ethical vocation in terms of acting for the sake of the rational community to which we belong. This chapter traces the origin of this claim to Fichte’s social theory of intersubjective relations, in particular his theory that we require a ‘summons’ issued by another rational being to exercise free choice at all. A crucial feature of Fichte’s moral philosophy comes to light when we begin to understand the parallels between his view of our natural drive, which strives to unite with objects in reciprocal interaction, and his view of our ethical vocation to agree with others in open dialogue.

Conscience

Building upon Fichte’s theory of drives discussed in the previous chapter, the present chapter offers a new interpretation of his theory of conscience from §§14–15 of the System of Ethics. At the heart of this interpretation is the idea that we can access the alignment between our actual willing and our original drive only in the mode of feeling. When that alignment occurs, Fichte explains, we feel a pleasurable self-harmony; when that alignment does not occur, we feel a painful self-disharmony. For this reason only the feelings of self-harmony and self-disharmony afforded by the power of conscience give immediate certainty to our convictions of duty. That is the basis of Fichte’s claim that conscience gives us an unerring criterion in practical deliberation.

Drive

This chapter offers a close analysis of Fichte’s second foundational argument in the System of Ethics, his deduction of the moral law’s applicability in §§4–13. The discussion begins by clarifying the sense in which Fichte’s first deduction, from §§1–3, was ‘formal and empty’ and so did not yet establish the reality of the moral law. It is here that Fichte introduces his claim that what we call our lower and higher capacities of desire are but mere expressions of a single drive, what he calls our ‘original drive’ (Urtrieb), which becomes divided only in reflection. The aim of this chapter is to show how Fichte’s theory of drives culminates in his theory of our higher capacity of feeling, or what he calls our power of conscience, which completes the second main deduction of the System of Ethics.

Origins

After touching upon the conflicted reception of Fichte’s 1798 System of Ethics, this chapter explores Fichte’s early efforts to reconcile the needs of the heart with the demands of the understanding. The chapter then investigates the impact of Kant’s ethics on Fichte’s emerging philosophical position, focusing on Kant’s view of our higher and lower faculties of desire. Working through this material provides a background for understanding the path to Fichte’s System of Ethics, which ultimately rejects Kant’s faculty psychology. The alternative that Fichte proposes centers on his notion of an ‘original drive’ (Urtrieb), which he defines as our state of undivided wholeness. By way of conclusion, the chapter proposes that Fichte’s idea of an Urtrieb holds the key to rethinking his moral philosophy as an ethics of wholeness.

Freedom

This chapter introduces a constellation of thinkers who had a major influence on Fichte: Kant, Reinhold, and Maimon. It begins with Kant’s effort to defend the coexistence of freedom and causal mechanism, leading up to his thesis that a free will and a will under moral laws are ‘reciprocal concepts.’ Reinhold criticizes this thesis on the grounds that it renders free yet immoral action impossible, and he proposes a new definition of freedom as our capacity to choose between our ‘selfish drive’ and our ‘unselfish drive.’ However, as Maimon observes, this new definition gives rise to the question of what, if anything, determines the agent to act one way or the other. The solution Fichte proposes in §10 of the System of Ethics comes in the form of his Genetic Model of freedom: the idea that indeterminacy and determinacy of choice are but stages in the emergence of freedom.

Morality

This chapter offers a close analysis of Fichte’s first foundational argument in the System of Ethics, his deduction of the moral law in §§1–3. The discussion begins with Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason: the idea that our consciousness of the moral law warrants the belief that we are free. While many commentators assume that Fichte rejects this doctrine, there is evidence to show that he sides with Kant in making our consciousness of the moral law a necessary condition for cognizing our freedom. What is novel about Fichte’s argument in §§1–3 of the System of Ethics is that it treats freedom and morality not as two separate thoughts but as different aspects of one and the same thing, which he calls the principle of I-hood (Ichheit) as such.

Conclusion

The goal of this conclusion is to summarize the main discoveries of the present book, with a focus on Fichte’s idea of wholeness. What animates this idea is Fichte’s claim that our higher and lower capacities of desire are but two expressions of a single drive, our ‘original drive’ (Urtrieb), which only becomes divided in the space of reflection. This serves to highlight the overarching thesis of the present book: that our highest vocation is one of striving for wholeness and re-uniting our fragmented natures. In the final section, this conclusion returns to Fichte’s view of what it means to ground a system of ethics, ending with a reminder to the reader that a system of ethics has ‘science’ (Wissenschaft) as its primary end.

Perfection

After considering recent efforts to read Fichte as a deontologist or as a consequentialist, this final chapter gives evidence for understanding the final shape of Fichte’s moral philosophy as a form of social perfectionism. The chapter then returns to what looks like a final puzzle threatening the integrity of Fichte’s position in the System of Ethics: the puzzle of whether cases of moral disagreement are resolvable on the basis of a personal principle (one’s own conscience) or on the basis of an interpersonal principle (rational dialogue). The solution this chapter proposes is that, for Fichte, the verdicts of one’s own conscience are never meant to overrule the process of rational dialogue that makes a living community between persons possible.