Fichte's Moral Philosophy 0190086599, 9780190086596

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
1. Origins
2. Freedom
3. Morality
4. Drive
5. Conscience
6. Evil
7. Community
8. Perfection
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Fichte’s Moral Philosophy

Fichte’s Moral Philosophy OW E N WA R E

1

3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ware, Owen, author. Title: Fichte’s moral philosophy / Owen Ware. Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020009278 (print) | LCCN 2020009279 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190086596 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190086619 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 1762–1814. | Ethics. | Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 1762–1814. System der Sittenlehre nach den Prinzipien der Wissenschaftslehre. | Ethics—Early works to 1800. Classification: LCC B2848 .W37 2020 (print) | LCC B2848 (ebook) | DDC 170.92—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009278 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009279 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

One of the principle rules of all philosophizing to any purpose is this: We should always bear in mind the whole. No matter how trivial or subtle a particular inquiry appears to be, we should at least retain within ourselves a feeling for the whole. This feeling should always accompany us, and we should not make a single step along our path which is not in the spirit of the whole. —​Fichte, ‘On the Difference between the Spirit and Letter in Philosophy,’ lecture delivered in 1794; in Breazeale (1988: 213)

Contents Preface Abbreviations

ix xiii

1. Origins

1

2. Freedom

23

3. Morality

46

4. Drive

78

5. Conscience

99

6. Evil

119

7. Community

144

8. Perfection

166

Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

187 193 229 239

Preface Kant tells us a story in the Critique of Pure Reason about how the established sciences we know today, from mathematics to chemistry, were brought about through a ‘sudden revolution in the way of thinking’—​in each case, he adds, ‘by the happy inspiration’ of a single person (B xii). It is here that Kant introduces the metaphor of a ‘new light’ breaking upon those who discovered the inner principles of a science (B xii). Such is the ‘transformation’ Kant attributes to the birth of systematic cognition, and he proposes that philosophers, too, should emulate this model of revolution if they wish to find the ‘royal path’ of a science (B xiv). In the summer of 1790, a twenty-​eight-​year-​old tutor from Rammenau began to study Kant’s first Critique at the prompting of his student. Unimpressed at first, he nonetheless pushed forth to read Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Later that summer J. G. Fichte confessed the impact this second book had on his entire way of thinking: I have been living in a new world ever since reading the Critique of Practical Reason. Propositions which I thought could never be overturned have been overturned for me. Things have been proven to me which I thought never could be proven—​for example, the concept of absolute freedom, the concept of duty, etc. . . . Thus I was deceived by the apparent consistency of my previous system, and thus are thousands of persons perhaps still deceived. (GA III/​2, No. 63; in Breazeale 1988: 357).

* I wish I could claim to have experienced my own ‘new light’ in the study of Fichte. But looking back to the ten years since I have read his work, my journey has been marked by struggle, at times to the point where I despaired over the prospect of grasping Fichte’s thought as a whole. I have been fortunate, however, to receive help from a number of people along the way, all of whom have contributed to shaping, refining, and improving the set of views

x Preface I put forward in this book. First of all, I would like to thank Paul Franks for introducing me to Fichte when I was a graduate student at the University of Toronto. I was able to pursue this interest during the academic year 2007–​ 2008, having chosen the topic of ‘conscience in modern thought’ for my area examination. During that time I spent long hours reading Luther, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, and in retrospect I see how much that year planted seeds for the interpretations I had the opportunity to publish only years later. My work on Fichte was reignited in the spring of 2013 when I taught a Kant-​Fichte seminar at Temple University, and I  have taught subsequent versions of that seminar at both Simon Fraser University and the University of Toronto. I am thankful to all the participants in those seminars for what was often a reciprocal exchange of learning. In recent years I  have also benefited from a number of individuals who, either in person or in written correspondence, have provided me with constructive input. Thanks to Karl Ameriks, Dan Breazeale, Anthony Bruno, James Clarke, Ben Crowe, Yolanda Estes, Sebastian Gardner, Kristin Gjesdal, Kien-​How Goh, Gabe Gottlieb, Paul Guyer, Dai Heide, Karolina Hübner, Andrew Huddleston, Markus Kohl, Michelle Kosch, Wayne Martin, Mike Morgan, Dean Moyar, Nedim Nomer, Arthur Ripstein, Lisa Schapiro, Ulrich Schlösser, Nick Stang, Bob Stern, Martin Sticker, Krista Thomason, Evan Tiffany, Jens Timmermann, Günter Zöller, Ariel Zylberman, as well as audience members at Indiana University, the University of Oslo, the University of Toronto, the University of Tübingen, and York University. Special thanks are due to Allen Wood for inviting me to coteach his Kant-​Fichte seminar at Stanford University (June 12–​14, 2018), which became the inspiration for Chapters 2–​3, and to my two Oxford University Press referees, whose excellent feedback made numerous refinements to my manuscript.1 Lastly, but surely not least, I owe a debt of gratitude to Peter Ohlin for his impeccable editorial guidance and ongoing support. While I cannot claim to have received a sudden revolution in my understanding of Fichte, many of the individuals just listed contributed to the gradual improvement in my way of reading him. If during this time I felt any­ thing like a transformative insight into Fichte’s moral philosophy, it came not through my study of his System of Ethics but through my study of his Jena Wissenschaftslehre, which brought before my eyes the principles of his entire philosophy. I am happy to present my contribution in this book as an attempt to understand, not Fichte’s ethics in isolation, but Fichte’s system of ethics as a whole, and to foreground the essential but often hidden links between

Preface  xi this system and his larger doctrine of science. In this regard I have tried my best to stay true to Fichte’s own injunction that ‘we should not make a single step along our path which is not in the spirit of the whole.’2 I have therefore devoted the first chapter of my study to understanding the path leading to Fichte’s mature philosophical position, as well as his subsequent path to the foundational portion of the System of Ethics. In all this I have been guided by a conviction that if we wish to understand Fichte’s moral philosophy, we must understand Fichte’s system, his methodology, and the ‘spirit of the whole’ permeating his corpus. It is an exciting time to be working on Fichte. Wood’s (2016) book is a landmark study, and together with Breazeale’s (2013) superb collection of essays, English readers now have a wealth of high-​quality scholarship to draw upon as they venture into Fichte’s difficult texts. If I ever speak of a ‘renaissance’ of Fichte scholarship, I do so with some reservation, for there has been a steady flow of work coming out of Germany and Italy since the 1980s. Aside from a large number of monographs, the forty-​plus volumes of Fichte-​Studien (currently edited by Marco Ivaldo and Alexander Schnell) attest to the fact that scholarship on Fichte has enjoyed healthy activity for many decades now. Moreover, as I hope to show in the coming chapters, many interpretations of Fichte’s moral philosophy on offer today have been worked out, with care and systematicity, by scholars of the past. In this respect we may find that going forward in the English literature is a matter of going back—​for example, to the work of Karl Stäudlin, Friedrich Jodl, Kuno Fischer, Eric Fuchs, Maria Raich, Georg Gurwitsch, and Hans Verweyen, not to mention the excellent recent work of Stefano Bacin, Bärbel Frischmann, Jacinto Rivera de Rosales, Wen-​ berng Pong, Teresa Pedro, Jakub Kloc-​Konkołowicz, and Yukio Irie, to name only a few. I have learned a great deal from all of them. Of course, writers receive support in many ways beyond the feedback of colleagues, students, and reviewers. I  am grateful to have received financial support in the form of an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, as well as institutional support in the form of a teaching leave from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. Almost all of the chapters of this book were written while living on the meeting place of Toronto, which belongs to the Dish With One Spoon treaty.3 The Dish With One Spoon treaty binds the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas, and Haudenosaunee people to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and peoples, Europeans, and all newcomers have been invited into this treaty in a spirit of peace, friendship,

xii Preface and respect. The meeting place of Toronto is still home to many Indigenous people, and I  am grateful to have the opportunity to work on their land. I would like to acknowledge the covenants broken with the elders of the Dish With One Spoon treaty and to honor a collective need to strive for truth and forgiveness with all our relations, both past and present. I am pleased to express my heartfelt thanks to J.-​P. Tamblin, Shawna Turner, Gregmar Newman, and my Ahimsa family, who have offered me more support than they could possibly know. It is also with a loss for words that I am grateful for the love, support, and friendship of Leah Ware. She makes it all worth it. This book is dedicated to her. Owen Ware Toronto, Canada August 2020

Abbreviations References to Fichte appear in the order of abbreviation, volume number, and page number from Johann Gottlieb Fichtes sämmtliche Werke, 8 volumes, edited by I. H. Fichte (Berlin: Veit, 1845–​46) (e.g., SL 4:214). Where texts from this edition are not available, I  refer to J. G.  Fichte:  Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 42 volumes, edited by Erich Fuchs, Reinhard Lauth, Hans Jacobs, and Hans Gliwitzky (Stuttgart-​Bad Cannstatt:  Frommann, 1964–​2012) (e.g., GA I/​4:307). References to Kant appear in the order of abbreviation, volume number, and page number from the Akademie Ausgabe, Kants Gesammelte Schriften, edited by Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Translation decisions are my own, although I  have consulted (and sometimes followed) the current English translations of Fichte cited below, as well as translations from The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (1992–​), edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. In the case of the Critique of Pure Reason, I follow the standard practice of referring to the 1781 (A) and 1787 (B) editions.

Fichte A 1790: Aphorismen über Religion und Deismus (Aphorisms Concerning Religion and Deism). BEIW 1795: ‘Ueber Belebung und Erhöhung des reinen Interesse für Wahrheit’ (‘On Stimulating and Raising the Pure Interest Truth’). BdM 1800: Die Bestimmung des Menschen (The Vocation of Human Beings). Translated by Peter Preuss (1988). CR 1793: ‘Recension Creuzer’ (‘Review of Leonhard Creuzer, Skeptical Reflections on the Freedom of the Will (1793).’ Translated by Daniel Breazeale (2001b). EIW 1794: ‘Ueber Belebung und Erhöhung des reinen Interesse für Wahrheit’ (‘On Stimulating and Increasing the Pure Interest in Truth’). Translated by Daniel Breazeale (1988). ErE 1797: ‘Erste Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre’ (‘First Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre’). Translated by Daniel Breazeale (1994).

xiv Abbreviations J. G. Fichte-​Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Reihe/​Band: Seite) GGW 1798: ‘Ueber den Grund unsers Glaubens an eine göttliche Weltregierung’ (‘On the Basis of Our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World’). Translated by Daniel Breazeale (1994). GNR 1996/​97: Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien der Wissenschaftslehre (Foundations of Natural Right According to the Principles of the Wissenschaftslehre). Translated by Michael Baur (2000). GR 1793: ‘Recension Gebhard’ (‘Review of Gebhard’). Translated by Daniel Breazeale (2001a). GWL 1794/​95: Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre). Translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs (1982). RA 1793: ‘Recension Aenesidemus’ (‘Review of Aenesidemus’). Translated by Daniel Breazeale (1988). SL 1798: Das System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre (The System of Ethics According to the Principles of the Wissenschaftslehre). Translated by Daniel Breazeale and Günter Zöller (2005). VBG 1794: Einige Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten (Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar’s Vocation). Translated by Daniel Breazeale (1988). VKO 1792/​93: Versuch einer Critik aller Offenbarung (Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation). Translated by Garrett Green (2010). WLnm 1796/​99: Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy [Wissenschaftslehre] novo methodo). Translated by Daniel Breazeale (1992). WM 1794: ‘Ueber die Würde des Menschen’ (‘On the Dignity of Human Beings’). Translated by Daniel Breazeale (1988). ZwE 1797: ‘Zweite Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre’ (‘Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre’). Translated by Daniel Breazeale (1994). GA

Kant 1781/​87: Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason). Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. G 1785: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals). Translated by Mary J. Gregor and Jens Timmermann (2012). A/​B

Abbreviations  xv IaG

1784: ‘Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichtein weltbürgerlicher Absicht’ (‘Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View’). Translated by Allen W. Wood (2007). KpV 1788: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Critique of Practical Reason). Translated by Mary J. Gregor (2015). KU 1790: Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of the Power of Judgment). Translated by Eric Matthews (2000). MS 1797: Die Metaphysik der Sitten (The Metaphysics of Morals). Translated by Mary J. Gregor (1996). R 1793: Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason). Translated by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni (2018). Refl Various dates: Reflexionen (Reflections). WA 1784: ‘Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?’ (‘An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?’). Translated by Mary J. Gregor (1996).

Fichte’s Moral Philosophy

1 Origins I was deceived by the apparent consistency of my previous system, and thus are thousands of persons perhaps still deceived. —​Fichte (GA III/​2, No. 63; in Breazeale 1992: 357).

1.1.  The Hero or the Fool? Published at the height of his career in Jena, the System of Ethics by Johann Gottlieb Fichte marked a crucial development in his project of grounding all human knowledge in a new idealist philosophy. Like the author himself, the 1798 System of Ethics suffered various turns of fate, rising from active readership in the nineteenth century and falling to general neglect in the twentieth. Yet what has remained a regular theme in the reception of this work over the past two hundred years is an absence of agreement among its readers—​ and this remains true in the renaissance of Fichte’s ethics we are witnessing today. Some have read Fichte’s work as advocating an ethics of conviction, grounding morality in the voice of conscience within; others have read it as advocating an ethics of communication, grounding morality in rational discourse; still others have found in the System of Ethics an apology for modern technologism and have viewed his doctrine as a form of consequentialism. With such a variety of interpretations, it is only natural to wonder: What progress can be made in understanding Fichte’s moral philosophy? And what, if anything, is its lasting value? Some time ago Arthur Schopenhauer summarized his answer to these questions in his prize essay on morality. Referring to Fichte’s ethics as a ‘magnifying glass’ (Vergrößerungsspiegel) for the faults of Kant’s ethics, Schopenhauer wrote: In the same way that the student of anatomy does not see things so easily in preparations and natural products as they are in engravings, which represent the same with exaggeration; so to anyone who, after the critique given Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Owen Ware, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190086596.001.0001

2  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy in the above paragraphs, does not yet fully see the nullity [Nichtigkeit] of the Kantian foundation of ethics, I can recommend Fichte’s System of Ethics as a means to the elucidation of this knowledge. (1841/​2007: §11)

As if to add insult to injury, Schopenhauer continued: Just as in old German puppet shows the king or other hero was given a fool who repeated everything the hero said or did according to his manner and with exaggeration; so behind the great Kant stands the author of the Wissenschaftslehre, or more properly stated, Wissenschaftsleere. (1841/​ 2007: §11)

This comparison was one that haunted Fichte in his own day, as his first major publication, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, appeared without his name, and the intellectual public celebrated it not as a work of Fichte’s but as a work of Kant’s. However, for many readers Fichte was not the fool who merely aped Kant’s system with exaggeration, but rather the hero who lifted this system up to new heights. Writing just before Schopenhauer, Ludwig Feuerbach described Fichte’s ideas as ‘more lofty than Kant’s,’ going so far as to portray Fichte as ‘the hero who alone sacrificed to ethical ideas the whole power, beauty, and splendor of the world’ (1838: 81).1 When we turn to Fichte’s writings themselves, it is clear why critics and sympathizers alike would compare Fichte so closely to Kant. In the ‘First Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre,’ Fichte makes this comparison explicit: I have long asserted, and repeat once more, that my system is nothing other than the Kantian; this means that it contains the same view of things, but is in method quite independent of the Kantian presentation. I have said this not to hide behind a great authority, nor to seek an external support for my teaching, but to speak the truth and to be just. . . . My writings seek neither to explain Kant nor to be explained by him; they must stand on their own, and Kant does not come into it at all. (ErE 1:420)

If we take Fichte at his word, the difference between his system and Kant’s is only one of presentation. But then we must ask: Is Fichte’s new method only a different means for arriving at the philosophical standpoint already articulated by Kant? If so, where does Fichte depart from Kant? And are these

Origins  3 departures mere exaggerations, as Schopenhauer claimed? Or are they genuine improvements, as Feuerbach believed? My aim in this opening chapter is to take some first steps toward answering these questions with the goal of setting the stage for a closer examination of Fichte’s System of Ethics. Of course, a complete reply to these questions would require nothing less than a full-​scale comparison of Kant and Fichte, which far exceeds the scope of any single book.2 But I shall simplify the task ahead, without sacrificing the details necessary to make such a comparison compelling, by focusing on a crucial period of Fichte’s early intellectual development: namely, the period from his initial encounter with Kant’s philosophy (in 1790) to the publication of his first book (in 1792).

1.2.  Fichte in Despair: The Summer of 1790 Early in the summer of 1790 Fichte began to study Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason at the insistence of his pupil. Unimpressed at first, he nonetheless pushed ahead to read Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Later that summer Fichte confessed to his friend F. A. Weisshun the impact this second book had on his entire way of thinking: I have been living in a new world ever since reading the Critique of Practical Reason. Propositions which I thought could never be overturned have been overturned for me. Things have been proven to me which I thought never could be proven—​for example, the concept of absolute freedom, the concept of duty, etc.—​and I feel all the happier! It is unbelievable how much respect for humankind and how much strength this system gives us! . . . Thus I  was deceived by the apparent consistency of my previous system, and thus are thousands of persons perhaps still deceived. (GA III/​2, No. 63; in Breazeale 1992: 357)

If only Fichte had said more in this letter about what it was in the second Critique that inspired such a revolution in his way of thinking. All he says, beyond making references to Kant’s arguments for freedom and duty, is ‘etc.’ Sadly not much is known about Fichte’s early philosophical views prior to 1792. Yet it is telling that in this letter to Weisshun there is mention of a previously held ‘system,’ since there is evidence to show that by the age of twenty-​ eight Fichte had spent a good deal of time engaged in speculation, enough to

4  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy have put his thoughts together into an organized whole. Thanks to the editorial work of his son, Immanuel Hermann Fichte, we have access to a set of aphorisms that Fichte penned sometime in 1790 prior to his Kantian turn. What is most striking about these aphorisms is that Fichte advocates a brand of necessitarianism (in a manner reminiscent of Spinoza’s (1677/​1986: IP29) claim that ‘all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way’). But an equally important theme of this text is the palpable conflict one finds the young Fichte struggling over between the ‘needs of the heart’ (Bedürfnisse des Herzens) and those of the ‘understanding’ (Verstand) (A 5:3). What we learn from these Aphorisms is that the ‘needs of the heart’ stem from what Fichte calls a feeling of one’s ‘miserable sin’ (Sündenelendes) and ‘punishability’ (Strafbarkeit), feelings which the Christian religion draws upon to make its principles convincing. ‘The Christian religion,’ he writes, ‘therefore appears more fit for the heart than for the understanding,’ adding, ‘it is for good and simple souls.—​The strong require no doctor, only the sick’ (Die Starken bedürfen des Arztes nicht, sondern die Kranken) (A 5:5). For the ‘strong’—​and Fichte no doubted wanted to count himself among this elite group—​one need only follow one’s understanding consistently, ‘without looking either right or left,’ and without deciding upon the outcome of speculation in advance. When one proceeds in this manner, Fichte maintains, the results point to a thoroughgoing deism that strips God of all anthropomorphic qualities and that views all events under the rule of strict necessity. Here Fichte makes mention of Kant’s noble but unsuccessful defense of freedom in the first Critique, saying that Kant proceeded inconsistently and drew upon freedom only from feeling rather than from necessity. But Fichte’s air of confidence is betrayed in the final lines of the text, which take an unexpected turn. In these final lines he observes that there are ‘certain moments where the heart avenges itself against speculation,’ where the heart turns to God with an ‘urgent longing for reconciliation’ (eine dringende Sehnsucht nach einer Versöhnung), encouraged by a ‘sensation of visible help’ (Empfindung einer sichtbaren Hülfe) (A 5:7). At this point Fichte asks, ‘How should one treat such a person?’ That is, how should one treat someone caught between his heart, which longs for reconciliation with God, and his understanding, which reduces the world to strict necessity? As Fichte describes the state of this person:

Origins  5 In the field of speculation he appears immovable. He cannot be helped with the truths of the Christian religion; for he admits them as much as they can be proved to him: but he invokes the impossibility of applying them to his own self. He can see the advantages of these principles which escape him; he can wish with the deepest yearning; but it is impossible for him to believe. (A 5:7).

What remedy does Fichte propose? The only means of salvation for him would be to cut off those speculations beyond the borderline. But can he do that, even when he wants to? Even when he is so convinced by the dreadfulness of these speculations, can he? Can he cut off from those speculations when this manner of thinking is already so natural, already so interwoven into his whole turn of mind? (A 5:8).

With this question the Aphorisms end abruptly, without answer, a sign that 1790 was a time of conflict between the desires of Fichte’s heart and the demands of his head—​that is, until the second Critique changed his frame of mind. Rereading the remainder of Fichte’s letter to Weisshun in the context of the Aphorisms serves to clarify this otherwise obscure period of Fichte’s life: Please forgive me for saying so, but I cannot convince myself that prior to the Kantian critique anyone able to think for himself thought any differently than I did, and I do not recall ever having met anyone who had any fundamental objections to make against my system. I encountered plenty of sincere persons who had different—​not thoughts (for they were not at all capable of thinking)—​but different feelings. (GA III/​2, No. 63; in Breazeale 1993: 357)

The rules of the understanding point to the denial of freedom, which Fichte had argued is the result of proceeding consistently in speculation. But now Fichte’s point is that the consistency of this system was one-​sided, since it stood at odds with the very thing he could not uproot from his self-​understanding:  the needs of the heart. It is not surprising, then, that after describing how the second Critique proved to him things he ‘never thought could be proved,’ such as the concept of freedom, Fichte adds, ‘It is

6  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy unbelievable how much respect for humankind and how much strength this system gives us!’ Quite a different attitude permeates the Aphorisms when Fichte speaks down to those ‘good and simple souls’ who are more aligned with feeling than reason. In fact, what seems to have cured Fichte of his despair was Kant’s commitment to reorient philosophy from the standpoint of our shared pretheoretical or ‘common’ life. The second Critique brought ‘faith’ back into Fichte’s life in the summer of 1790, but not the blind faith he was so resistant to accept previously that year. What Kant’s ethics showed was that the dilemma Fichte had found himself in, between a mindless heart and a heartless mind, was a false one. All of this fits with Kant’s effort in the second Critique to reconcile one’s heart with one’s head. One’s heart feels a lively interest in morality and freedom of will, and one’s heart holds conviction in the existence of a soul and in the existence of a wise, all-​powerful creator of the world. Speculation creates conflict with one’s heart precisely because it follows a different order of explanation. One’s head seeks a cause to every effect according to a rule of causal mechanism, which appears to govern all events in the natural world. Nowhere is Kant’s effort to reconcile heart and head more pronounced than in his doctrine of the ‘fact of reason’ (Factum der Vernunft). For, by appealing to our common moral consciousness, Kant hopes to show that the principle of morality ‘does not need to be searched for or devised,’ that it ‘has long been present’ in all persons ‘and incorporated in their being’ (KpV 5:105). It is only because of this pretheoretical Factum, our everyday consciousness of duty, that we have an actual basis to affirm our freedom as the possibility of acting contrary to our inclinations. And so it is only by reorienting ourselves from a standpoint of common life that we can reconcile heart and head, the needs of feeling and the needs of the understanding—​or, what was most urgent for Fichte, between faith and the principle of causal necessity. For Fichte, this pointed the way to vindicating the idea of our higher vocation as moral beings, which speculative reason reaches for but cannot justify. There is no need to hypothesize about how the second Critique shaped Fichte’s philosophical outlook at the time. We find the results of Fichte’s study laid out in his first book, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, composed one year after his Kantian conversion. A cursory glance at this text shows that Fichte aligned himself closely with the opening moves of the second Critique. To begin with, he distinguishes the ‘lower capacity of desire’ (das niedere Begehrungsvermögen) on the basis of its receptivity to the matter of sensation and the ‘higher capacity of desire’ (das obere Begehrungsvermögen) on

Origins  7 the basis of its self-​determining character (VKO 3:24). He also distinguishes these capacities in terms of their respective ends: the end of the lower capacity is structured around the idea of happiness, produced by the imagination on the basis of past pleasures, whereas the end of the higher capacity comes from the form of this faculty as such. With reference to Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason, Fichte writes that the form of the higher faculty of desire, as a self-​determining activity, ‘proclaims itself to consciousness’ and is thus a ‘fact of consciousness’ (Thatsache des Bewusstseins) (VKO 3:23). Moreover, Fichte takes this ‘fact’ as evidence of our possession of a capacity for self-​determination, adopting Kant’s position in the second Critique that our consciousness of the moral law ‘discloses’ the reality of freedom to us. ‘By this fact,’ Fichte writes, ‘it first becomes certain that the human being has a will’ (VKO 3:24). This is quite the statement coming from someone who, not that long ago, had accused Kant of proceeding ‘inconsistently’ in defending the idea of freedom. Yet one should not be misled in thinking that Fichte had become insensitive to skeptical problems surrounding the free will question. Just prior to reformulating Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason, Fichte warns the reader against being ‘too hasty’ in making the inference from (1) ‘consciousness of self-​activity in volition’ to (2) the ‘actual existence of this self-​activity,’ given that the appearance of freedom might be deceptive (VKO 3:22). He goes on to argue that it would be fallacious to conclude that we are actually free on the grounds that we are aware of no further cause determining our actions, since it could be the case that we are simply unaware of this further cause, thereby rendering our sense of freedom illusory (VKO 3:22). As he puts it, ‘There would also be no willing at all, the appearance of willing would be demonstrable illusions’ (VKO 3:22). The human being would be ‘a machine in which representations would mesh with representations, like the wheels of a clock’ (VKO 3:22), just as Fichte had viewed himself in the Aphorisms.3 But whereas the Aphorisms left us with no alternative, the Attempt points to a path inspired by Kant. ‘There is no salvation against these consequences,’ Fichte writes, ‘derived from concise inferences, other than through the recognition of practical reason and what it expresses, the categorical imperative’ (VKO 3:22). Fichte even refers to the latter as the ‘one and only universally valid principle of all philosophy’ (letzte, einzig allgemeingeltende Princip aller Philosophie) (VKO 3:22). Fichte would soon embrace a broader first principle from which to lay the foundation of his new doctrine of science, what he would eventually call the

8  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy principle of ‘I-​hood’ (Ichheit). Yet it is remarkable to see how much of Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason, clearly present in the Attempt, survives into this mature period leading up to the System of Ethics. My own view, which I shall develop over the course of Chapters 2 and 3, is that scholars have not given due attention to this continuity in Fichte’s commitment to what we might call moral primacy. As a result there remains much confusion in the literature about the first argument in Part I of the System of Ethics, titled ‘Deduction of the Principle of Morality.’ By and large scholars have read Fichte as giving the sort of deduction Kant allegedly sought in the final section of his Groundwork: a deduction of the moral law’s authority on the basis of a nonmoral conception of freedom. But a closer examination of the text shows that Fichte at no point seeks an argument with this structure of proof, namely, an argument that seeks to establish the necessity of the moral principle on the basis of non-​moral premises. Instead, Fichte argues for the necessity of this principle on the grounds that it is the only possible ‘form of thought’ (Denkform) for determining our consciousness of freedom. Consciousness of the moral law, he argues, does not permit us to rationalize away the appearance of freedom, and that gives us a basis to say ‘I am free’ in place of the much weaker claim, ‘I appear to be free.’

1.3.  Kant’s Architectonic Method That Fichte found inspiration in Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason is evident, both from his letter to Weisshun and from his explicit endorsement of this doctrine in the Attempt and the System of Ethics. But there are many other sources of influence on Fichte’s moral philosophy that can be traced back to the second Critique. One concerns Kant’s statement of method: When it is a matter of determining a particular faculty of the human soul as to its sources, its contents, and its limits, then, from the nature of human cognition, one can begin only with the parts, with an accurate and complete presentation of them. (KpV 5:10)

This is the analytic path Kant identifies with the beginning of an investigation. But as he goes on to say, in a passage that must have made an impact on Fichte:

Origins  9 There is a second thing to be attended to, which is more philosophic and architectonic: namely, to grasp correctly the idea of the whole and from this idea to see all those parts in their reciprocal relation [wechselseitigen Beziehung] to each other by means of their derivation from the concept of that whole in a pure rational faculty. (KpV 5:10)

Kant adds that this ‘examination and guarantee is possible only through the most intimate acquaintance with the system,’ so that those ‘who find the first inquiry too irksome’ will never arrive at ‘the second stage, namely the overview, which is a synthetic return [Wiederkehr] to what had previously been given analytically’ (KpV 5:10). On its own Kant’s statement of method is not particularly edifying. But it contains important clues, I believe, for shedding light on the structure and organization of Fichte’s System of Ethics. First, we see Kant follow the analytic path in Chapter I when he considers the faculty of practical reason in isolation from all conditions of human sensibility (such as feeling, desire, and interest). Making this separation allows us to see that what is essential to the faculty of practical reason as such is its form: the way in which practical reason is self-​determining. Kant describes this activity as a ‘higher’ faculty of desire because reason supplies determining grounds of choice through its own representations. Absent any feeling, desire, and interest—​any empirical element for conditioning the will—​the only representations left to direct action or the omission of action are formal, that is, they are representations of what is lawful or unlawful. The guiding principle of a higher faculty of desire is then equivalent to a principle of universal lawfulness. And since representations of universal law can only have their seat in a pure faculty, this principle is equivalent to what Kant calls autonomy, legislating oneself according to one’s faculty of pure practical reason. For Kant, this means that we cannot speak of a genuine principle of ‘happiness’ (Glückseligkeit) that would be coequal to the principle of pure practical reason. There is only one source of legislation for the faculty of practical reason, the moral law, which comes to light when we separate this faculty from all material conditions. The question then becomes: On what grounds are we entitled to assume our possession of such a faculty? Kant’s initial task in the second Critique is to analyze the concept of a higher faculty of desire in which reason, not inclination, supplies determining grounds of choice. But by what right can we ascribe such a higher faculty to ourselves? In reply, Kant appeals to the fact that consciousness of the separation between

10  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy morality and happiness is something to which even the common person can attest. Consciousness of this separation is, he says, a ‘fact of reason’ because it precedes the kind of artificial thinking we produce in the course of speculation. And Kant’s aim is to reproduce this original ‘fact’ with the aid of thought experiments, all of which show how we pretheoretically distinguish morality from happiness and recognize the authority of the former. An important result follows from this, of which Fichte was no doubt aware. The moral law, while admitting of no independent proof, serves to warrant our belief in freedom of the will, something theoretical philosophy could show was logically possible but not real. However, there are further steps Kant must undertake to complete this line of argument, which he pursues in Chapters II and III of the second Critique. An easily overlooked point is that by Kant’s own lights the analytic path can never demonstrate the necessary connection of the moral law to the will of human beings, what Fichte will later call the moral law’s ‘applicability’ (Anwendbarkeit). Up to this point Kant has shown that the concept of the moral law is necessary for us to determine our consciousness of freedom, and that amounts to a ‘deduction’ (Deduktion) of the latter. But he has yet to show that the concept of the moral law also bears a necessary connection to our powers of judgment and feeling, which are parts of our faculty of practical reason as well. To complete his argument, then, Kant adopts the synthetic path which considers all the parts of practical reason together as a whole. The question of applicability then becomes: How is the moral law operative in our capacity to judge, and how is it operative in our capacity to feel? As we shall see, Fichte will follow a similar line of argument in the System of Ethics. To sum up, Kant’s aim in the first part of the second Critique is to show that the moral law is the legislative form of practical reason as such, the ‘idea of the whole’ from which we can derive a necessary reciprocal relation between all the parts of this faculty, including those parts normally tied to our pursuit of happiness (i.e., in judging and feeling what is agreeable to us). Indeed, what Kant refers to as the ‘second stage’ of his method culminates in Chapter III when he seeks to show how the moral law can play the role of an ‘incentive’ (Triebfeder) and thereby give rise to a motivating ‘feeling’ (Gefühl). What Kant aims to reveal in this chapter is a necessary connection between the moral law and the parts of practical reason tied to the faculty of sensibility, namely, feeling, desire, and interest. Rather than separate the faculty of practical reason from all material conditions (the analytic path described earlier), Kant now wants to demonstrate the applicability of the

Origins  11 moral law by recombining this faculty with its material conditions, in turn showing how all the parts of practical reason, both the pure and the empirical, form a reciprocal relation. If successful, the synthetic path marked by Chapter III would show how pure practical reason can give rise to a ‘feeling of respect’ (Gefühl der Achtung), whose expression in our faculty of sensibility would show that the moral law is applicable to a human will after all.4

1.4.  A System of Ethics With this sketch of the second Critique in hand, our initial question comes into sharper focus:  What about this text might have inspired the young Fichte (then twenty-​eight years old) to experience a conversion to Kant’s philosophy? I suggested in passing that Kant’s statement of method must have made a strong impression on Fichte, and I said this because we find a similar analytic-​synthetic approach in many of his early writings. What Kant says about the ‘second thing to be attended to, which is more philosophic and architectonic,’ goes to the very heart of Fichte’s effort to present a new doctrine of science based on the principle of the I in his 1794 Wissenschaftslehre. It would not be an exaggeration to say that every major philosophical treatise Fichte published during the 1790s proceeds according to this ‘architectonic’ method, first by separating a concept from its object (the analytic path) and then by recombining the concept and its object (the synthetic path). What makes Fichte’s use of this strategy original in comparison to Kant’s is that it serves as the basis for a deduction of all philosophical concepts: the activity of Fichte’s pure I is simultaneously theoretical and practical and hence prior to the separation of our cognitive and volitional powers. For Fichte, this is the path to a true system of philosophy, the ‘idea of the whole’ from which we can justify concepts—​such as the external world, the body, and other rational beings—​by grasping their reciprocal relation to each other by means of their derivation from the concept of the pure I as such. As a book constructed ‘according to the principles of the Wissenschaftslehre,’ Fichte’s aim in the System of Ethics is to derive the concept of morality from the principle of I-​hood as a means of establishing ethics as a science. This much is evident from the title of the book and from what Fichte says in the introduction. What is less evident, however, is that the entire System of Ethics exemplifies the analytic-​synthetic paths of Kant’s architectonic method, first by separating the concept of willing from its object (in Part I), and then by

12  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy recombining the two (in Parts II and III). Thus Fichte offers a ‘deduction of the principle of morality’ that begins, in §§1–​3, by analyzing willing in isolation. This reveals the appearance of the will’s freedom and shows by way of elimination that the moral law is the only ‘form of thought’ for determining our consciousness of freedom. In Part II, Fichte proceeds to offer a ‘deduction of the reality and applicability of the principle of morality’ that brings willing back together with its object. The first stage, in §§4–​9, proceeds to break down the elements of our ‘lower capacity of desire’ (whose aim is happiness); the second stage, in §§10–​11, proceeds to break down the elements of our ‘higher capacity of desire’ (whose aim is independence); and the third stage, in §§12–​13, proceeds to synthesize the two in terms of our ‘ethical vocation’ (sittliche Bestimmung), whose sensible expression, Fichte argues, operates through our ‘conscience’ (Gewissen). The remainder of the book, in Part III, completes the synthetic path by offering a ‘systematic application’ of the principle of morality leading to a ‘doctrine of duties’ (Pflichtenlehre) (§§19–​33). One way to frame Fichte’s project in the System of Ethics is in terms of a generalized analytic-​synthetic method. I  say this because the ‘idea of the whole’ from which Fichte hopes to derive the concepts of ethics is not the idea of reason in its practical capacity alone, as it is for Kant in the second Critique, but rather the idea of reason as such, or the idea of freedom as such; in short, the ‘idea of the whole’ is what Fichte calls the principle of I-​hood. All the key concepts of the System of Ethics (such as morality, feeling, drive, conscience, and community) receive a warrant by means of their derivation from this single principle. So when Fichte says, ‘My system is nothing other than the Kantian . . . [insofar as it] contains the same view of things, but is in method quite independent of the Kantian presentation’ (ErE 1:420), we can better appreciate his point. At the same time, it does not take much probing beneath the surface of the text to see that Fichte’s generalized method leads to important departures from Kant’s moral philosophy, not just in presentation but also in substance. One of the more significant of these departures, I shall argue, concerns Fichte’s notion of our ethical vocation, for unlike Kant, he does not link this vocation to our identity as persons who are ‘elevated’ above nature. Rather, Fichte defines our ethical vocation in terms of reuniting with our nature, which he views as a state of undivided wholeness. Every valid prescription of what we ought to do, whether to cultivate our bodies, our minds, or our relations with others, stems from a striving for wholeness that, in Fichte’s eyes, is an accurate description of who we are.

Origins  13

1.5. The Urtrieb We shall have the opportunity to unpack this claim further in Chapter 4, where I shall investigate Fichte’s concept of a ‘drive’ (Trieb). Already in the Attempt one can see Fichte trying to distance himself from a theory of drives articulated by Karl Reinhold, one of Kant’s first advocates, who popularized the language of drives in his effort to reconstruct Kant’s faculty psychology. In place of a higher faculty of desire, Reinhold introduced the concept of an ‘unselfish drive,’ and in place of the lower faculty of desire, he introduced the concept of a ‘selfish drive.’ Fichte adopts this language in the Attempt by defining a ‘drive’ as the ‘medium’ through which one can be both active in representing a sensation and passive in receiving the influence of that sensation (VKO 3:17). And he goes on to distinguish a ‘sensible drive’ (sinnliche Trieb) and an ‘ethical drive’ (sittliche Trieb) in a way that corresponds to Kant’s own distinction between empirically conditioned and pure practical reason. Yet Fichte adds, with a critical nod to Reinhold, that both of these drives have a self-​directed point of orientation, and thus the selfish/​unselfish distinction is unfitting (VKO 3:28). Nevertheless, it is important to see that in this text Fichte still accepts Kant’s distinction of passive and active powers of the mind, since in 1792 he had yet to discover the fundamental principle from which to derive this distinction, the principle of I-​hood. As we shall see, the implications of this discovery bear directly upon Fichte’s mature moral philosophy, leading him to rethink our ethical vocation in terms of wholeness, or what I will call the ‘whole person’ thesis. This development is most evident in the System of Ethics when Fichte speaks of our original nature as a ‘fundamental’ or ‘original drive’ (Urtrieb) (SL 4:101, 130, 133, 144, 146, 149, 206, 207). No longer committed to Kant’s faculty psychology, Fichte now argues that what we call the lower and higher capacities of desire are but different aspects of a single drive, of which reflection separates for us sequentially as a drive for happiness and a drive for independence. We are originally undivided, and it is only through acts of reflection that we become objects of self-​awareness and hence become ‘two’—​an I reflecting and an I reflected upon. While it is true that our pure drive for independence reveals our elevation above the needs of our sensible nature, there is no sense in which we are separate from our natural drive. Consequently, our ethical vocation does not consist in our identity as persons who are striving to overcome the limitations of our nature. Rather, as subjects divided in reflection, morality requires that we act in ways that

14  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy harmonize with the conditions of our nature. And since we live in a network of formative relations, morality requires that we cultivate (in the manner of preserving and perfecting) the relations we have to our bodies, to our minds, and to others. On the reading I defend in this book, Fichte’s moral philosophy emerges from a robustly transcendental theory of agency whose central concept is the Urtrieb and whose specific imperatives (at embodied, cognitive, and intersubjective levels) all speak to the original nonduality of the I. Of course, one can find a precursor to Fichte’s idea of self-​unification in the second Critique, although it is not immediately evident from the text itself. Quite late in the book Kant admits that the moral law, while the ‘supreme’ good (Oberste or supremum), is not for that reason the ‘complete’ good (Vollendete or consummatum), since the moral law abstracts from the material conditions of our faculty of desire (KpV 5:109). Because the moral law concerns only the form of this faculty, that of universal lawfulness, it has no ‘matter’ (Materie) and hence supplies us with no ‘object’ (Object) of volition (KpV 5:109). This entails that the argument of Chapters I–​III contains a gap, which even the synthesis of pure and empirical practical reason in the feeling of respect has yet to fill. Kant’s solution is to push the synthetic method further in the second part of the text, where he examines how our interest in happiness can combine with the moral law, the result of which yields the ideal of happiness measured according to virtue, or what Kant calls ‘the highest good’ (das höchste Gut) (KpV 5:109). As Kant goes on to explain, the object of the highest good gives content to an otherwise empty law. Striving to realize this ideal, the ‘endless progression’ (unendliche Progressus) of bringing our will into conformity with the law and becoming ‘worthy of happiness’ (Glückseligkeit würdig), constitutes our complete vocation (KpV 5:125). While these contours of Kant’s ethics may be less familiar to contemporary readers, I believe they made a deep impact on the young Fichte. Much of what is novel in the Attempt speaks to the puzzling relationship in Kant’s system between morality and happiness, and one sees Fichte proposing his own rationale for the ideal of the highest good in terms of bringing ‘unity’ (Einheit) to the individual as an empirical-​rational being. ‘It is to be expected,’ he writes, ‘that the moral law will also positively affect the drive for happiness qua drive for happiness [Glückseligkeitstrieb], at least mediately, in order to bring unity to the whole, pure, and empirically determined human being’ (VKO 3:34). In a footnote to this passage Fichte adds that neglecting this part of the theory of will, by which he means the part that considers how our drive

Origins  15 for happiness is positively determined by the moral law, ‘leads necessarily to Stoicism in the doctrine of ethics—​whose principle is self-​contentedness [Selbstgenügsamkeit]—​and to the denial of God and the immortality of the soul’ (VKO 3:34n). With his mature doctrine of the Urtrieb, which we shall return to in Chapter 4, one finds Fichte embracing a much stronger version of the ‘whole person’ thesis first articulated in the Attempt, such that the doctrine of the highest good comes to play virtually no role in the System of Ethics. Nor should this come as a surprise, since the idea that our original nature is undivided and that only reflection splits us into two drives (one striving for happiness, the other striving for independence) preempts the problem of duality which Kant’s doctrine of the highest good was meant to solve. When we take up a properly ‘transcendental’ point of view, Fichte argues, ‘we have nothing twofold, containing two elements independent of each other, but rather something that is absolutely simple; and surely where there is no difference there can be no talk of harmony nor any question concerning the ground of such harmony’ (SL 4:133). Given this new ontology of the drives, we no longer face the problem of measuring happiness according to virtue, since happiness and virtue are no longer taken to be—​as they were for Kant—​ expressions of different volitional faculties. Thus by the time of the System of Ethics Fichte comes to endorse a monistic drive theory, according to which the lower and higher capacities of desire are but different manifestations of a primordial yearning, distinguishable in time only as an individual becomes split in self-​reflection. Even the most basic expression of agency, what Fichte previously called the drive for happiness, reveals a connection to the first principle of his system, the principle of the I as such. Fichte’s new ontology of the drives still remains true to the spirit of Kant’s ethics insofar as it embraces a vision of moral life in terms of ‘endless progression’ (unendliche Progressus). In fact, one can hear echoes of what Kant calls the archetype of ‘holiness’ (Heiligkeit) (KpV 5:32, 84, 127n, 129) reverberating in the System of Ethics, although Fichte himself does not use this terminology. As Kant argues, holiness is the idea of a will in perfect conformity with the moral law, where not even the possibility of transgression threatens the will’s purity, and for that reason it is not an attribute any finite rational being can claim to possess. Kant argues further that this archetype frames the character of our striving for perfection in the right way, namely, as endless progression. Curiously, there are various points in the second Critique where Kant frames the ‘endlessness’ of moral striving as a feature of Christian

16  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy ethics that distinguishes it from Stoic ethics. While both represent morality as commanding perfection of will, the latter doctrine puts forth rational ‘self-​contentedness’ (Selbstgenügsamkeit) as an end attainable in time. While ‘objectively’ correct as a presentation of moral perfection, Kant argues, it is ‘subjectively’ false, since the Stoics overestimate the capacity of the human will to become independent. Christian ethics avoids this by characterizing moral perfection instead in terms of holiness, an ideal, he adds, which ‘is not attainable by any creature but is yet the archetype which we should strive [streben] to approach and resemble in an uninterrupted but endless progress’ (KpV 5:83). I believe Kant’s conception of Christian ethics reveals a more fine-​grained set of comparisons between his moral philosophy and Fichte’s. On the one hand, both Kant and Fichte formulate the moral law in explicitly non-​Stoic terms, namely, as a form of autonomy that is unachievable in any duration of time. A recurring theme of the System of Ethics, as we shall see, is that what the moral law demands of us, the absolute self-​sufficiency of reason as such, is an infinite goal we can only approximate but never attain (SL 4:66, 132, 150). In this respect what Fichte calls the ‘final end’ (Endzweck) of human reason is similar to Kant’s archetype of holiness: it is a form of complete freedom, independence, or perfection of will that we can, as finite rational agents, only ever move toward. On the other hand, Fichte is careful to distinguish the concept of our final end from that of our ‘ethical vocation’ (sittliche Bestimmung)—​ though this distinction is easy to overlook. The final end of human reason is set by our pure drive, which strives for independence, and that is the formal command of the moral law. But Fichte is quick to point out that the pure drive on its own cannot yield positive actions, and for that reason the moral law is empty of content. The question then becomes: How can we understand our ethical vocation as a vocation to act in determinate ways? Fichte’s answer marks another important departure from Kant’s position. In the System of Ethics Fichte no longer treats the pure drive and the ethical drive as identical, as he did in the Attempt. In addition to endorsing a monistic drive theory, according to which all volitional activity is but an expression of a single Urtrieb, Fichte comes to reframe our ethical drive as a determinate striving to harmonize our higher and lower capacities of desire. Our ethical vocation is no longer understood in terms of complete purity of will, as it is for Kant, since such an archetype cannot specify positive actions we ought to perform in striving for self-​sufficiency. As Fichte now sees things, ‘if one considers only the higher power of desire, then one obtains

Origins  17 a mere metaphysics of morals [Metaphysik der Sitten], which is formal and empty’ (SL 4:132). The synthesis demanded by the ethical drive requires that the pure drive ‘surrender the purity of its activity (that is, the fact that it is not determined by any object), while the lower drive has to surrender enjoyment as its end’ (SL 4:132; emphasis added). For Fichte, this is the key to a genuine system of moral philosophy: ‘The only way to obtain a doctrine of ethics [Sittenlehre], which must be real, is through the synthetic unification of the higher and lower powers of desire’ (SL 4:132). Our ethical vocation lies, not in holiness of will, but in wholeness of will.

1.6.  Conviction versus Communication On my reading, much of what is original to Fichte’s moral philosophy lies precisely in the idea that our ethical vocation demands self-​unity, or that the pure drive has to ‘surrender the purity of its activity (that is, the fact that it is not determined by any object), while the lower drive has to surrender enjoyment as its end’ (SL 4:132). This passage shows that our ethical vocation asks us to stand in a relationship of reciprocity with the natural drive, a relationship that is mutually active (in shaping objects of desire) and passive (in being shaped by such objects). While the pure drive seeks absolute independence from everything external to the I, everything belonging to what Fichte calls the ‘not-​I’ (nicht-​Ich), our ethical vocation requires that we give up this striving for purity—​since its aim is entirely negative, as he says (SL 4:147). The only way the moral law can have reality and applicability, then, is through its synthesis with the natural drive, which is why a doctrine of ethics requires a theory of how our apparently separate drives for happiness and independence can be brought into alignment with each other. This is what saves the moral law from being reduced to an empty imperative to strive for self-​sufficiency: for Fichte, the moral law is valid only because it accurately describes our original wholeness. And that is the sense in which the System of Ethics preserves Kant’s commitment to the ‘endless progression’ of moral striving, but with a twist, since it recasts this process in terms of harmonizing our deeds with the original unity of the Urtrieb. This way of framing Fichte’s ethics departs from a long-​standing tradition of interpretation, according to which the aim of moral striving is the complete dominion of the I over everything not-​I. A venerable series of readers (including Hegel, Coleridge, Horkheimer, and Beiser) have found Fichte

18  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy guilty of advocating the same kind of dualism that plagued Kant’s ethics, whereby the moral law requires a subordination of one’s sensible nature to the faculty of reason. Few have challenged this reading,5 and I believe it is one of the primary causes for the reluctant reception of Fichte’s moral philosophy today. As I hope to show, this reading rests on a mistake: the evidence of Fichte’s view of the I’s dominion is, on closer scrutiny, merely a stage in his account of the dialectic of agency, whereby the pure drive (which does indeed strive for total independence from nature) has yet to acquire a positive direction toward self-​unity. So when Fichte writes, for example, ‘I am not only separated from nature, but I am also elevated above it’ and ‘When I see the power of nature beneath me, it becomes something that I do not respect’ (SL 4:142), he is speaking from the standpoint of the pure drive. After all, it is precisely this striving for purity and for independence from the natural drive and its objects that must be surrendered for the sake of our ethical vocation. Several payoffs follow from taking this more charitable line of interpretation. First, when we distinguish the final end of human reason from our ethical vocation proper, it becomes clear why Fichte gives a systematic role to ‘conscience’ as a higher ‘capacity of feeling’ (Gefühlvermögen). As we shall see in Chapter 5, what many commentators overlook is that Fichte introduces the concept of conscience as the final step of his argument in Part II, devoted to the question of how the moral law can have reality and applicability. His goal is to explain how our striving for wholeness can have sensible expression, such that we can act upon our duties with resolute conviction. His answer is that this expression takes the form of higher feelings of self-​approval and self-​reproach. It is thanks to a feeling of harmony between our present willing and our original drive for wholeness that we have, as it were, an affective criterion for acting in line with what we judge we ought to do; it is, conversely, thanks to a feeling of disharmony that we have cause to rethink our moral commitments. In this light, Fichte’s theory of conscience plays a role analogous to Kant’s theory of respect in the second Critique, which seeks to reveal a necessary connection between the moral law and the faculty of feeling. Tellingly, Fichte even adopts the same language Kant uses to describe the experience of respect as a two-​sided feeling of self-​approval (which arises when we are aligned with our striving for unity) and of self-​reproach (which arises when we are not aligned with our striving for unity). Second, when we understand conscience as giving sensible expression to our striving for wholeness, it becomes clear why Fichte gives a systematic role to ‘evil’ as the self-​deceptive activity of avoiding our ethical vocation. As

Origins  19 we shall see in Chapter 6, what many commentators overlook is that Fichte introduces the concept of evil in §16 ‘in order to shed the clearest light on the doctrine of freedom and in order to pursue fatalism into its last refuge’ (SL 4:198). His goal is to explain how avoiding the resolute convictions made possible by the higher feelings of conscience comes about, such that we can explain the phenomenon of egoism or evil in human behavior. The lingering worry is that such behavior might be caused by factors external to the will; that is why Fichte frames the topic in terms of fatalism, a view that would reduce immoral action to unfree action. By way of reply, Fichte offers a detailed account of the dialectic of agency, moving from the stages of prereflective existence all the way to moral autonomy, showing how our refusal to sustain a clear consciousness of duty is itself a free act—​and is thus something for which we are responsible—​even though, somewhat paradoxically, it leaves our consciousness of duty ‘obscure.’ On this picture, Fichte is committed to locating freedom at the root of evil, but he is also keen to explore the dynamics of self-​deception in a way that anticipates what Sartre and other existentialists call ‘bad faith.’ Third, when we understand evil as a form of self-​obscurity, it becomes clear why Fichte places so much emphasis on the social dimension of our ethical vocation in Part III of the System of Ethics. As we shall see in Chapters 7 and 8, what many commentators overlook is that Fichte derives a set of moral duties by offering a closer analysis of our nature as a system of drives. After showing how conscience plays the role of an affective criterion for acting in line with what we judge we ought to do, Fichte then asks how we, as philosophers, can determine what actions make up our duties. On my reading, Fichte’s solution is neither deontological, since it does not amount to bringing our will into conformity with the principle of morality, nor consequentialist, since it does not amount to maximizing an objective good external to the will itself. Fichte maintains instead that all moral prescriptions are valid only as commands to preserve and perfect the original conditions of our nature, and he regards our nature in a thoroughly teleological manner—​as a system of drives whose ‘final end’ can be realized only through an ongoing process of reciprocal cultivation. What is more, he claims that each individual I’s vocation can be realized only in the social whole of which it is a part, such that the self-​cultivation demanded by morality acquires its orientation from the community of rational beings with whom one interacts. In its final shape, then, Fichte’s moral philosophy amounts to a form of social perfectionism that has no equivalent in Kant or anywhere else in the landscape of contemporary ethics.

20  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy This brings us, however, to a final puzzle that threatens the integrity of Fichte’s moral philosophy as a whole. If the feelings of conscience provide an unerring criterion for staying on course with our judgments of duty, as Fichte maintains, then how do we adjudicate cases of conflicting convictions between two or more persons? While it is true that the System of Ethics culminates in a social view of our ethical vocation, whereby each individual I realizes its freedom in reciprocal interaction with others, it remains unclear by what standard Fichte can resolve cases of moral disagreement. The difficulty is twofold. If we place emphasis on a principle of conviction, we save Fichte’s commitment to the infallibility of conscience at the cost of making intersubjective agreement potentially intractable, and that lies in tension with Fichte’s goal of defining our vocation in terms of arriving at communally shared convictions. On the other hand, if we place emphasis on a principle of communication, we acquire a way of adjudicating between conflicting consciences at the cost of losing the infallibility of conscience, and that lies in tension with Fichte’s goal of securing the applicability of the moral law in our higher capacity of feeling. This puzzle goes to the core of Fichte’s moral philosophy, which seems to oscillate between an overly subjective and an overly objective principle, either making conviction or communication the final standard by which to understand the basis of our duties. I shall propose a solution to this puzzle in Chapter 8.

1.7. Looking Ahead As this brief sketch of Fichte’s moral philosophy shows, one can discern the outlines of two dramatis personae animating the System of Ethics: the moral subjectivist who bids us to act with personal conviction and listen to the voice of conscience within, and the moral objectivist who bids us to enter into rational discourse with others and produce communally shared convictions. The figure of the subjectivist joins hands with another popular image of Fichte as basing all reality on the activity of ‘the ego.’6 Coleridge’s ‘burlesque’ on Fichte from his Biographia Literaria (which begins with the opening line, ‘Here on this market-​cross aloud I cry: /​I, I, I! I itself I!’) presents us with an amusing illustration of this view.7 But this image would color Fichte’s reception well into the twentieth century, and by the time of Bertrand Russell’s 1945 History of Western Philosophy Fichte is portrayed as a kind of metaphysical solipsist who believed that ‘the Ego is the only ultimate reality,’ a view

Origins  21 Russell correctly judged as approaching ‘a kind of insanity’ (1945/​2005: 650–​ 51). While most scholars would agree that Russell’s portrait is a false one, the view that Fichte is a subjectivist remains largely unquestioned in historical studies of post-​Kantian idealism.8 Uprooting this image proves to be difficult, even when we move past superficial interpretations like Russell’s, since Fichte is committed to establishing a new science of knowledge on the principle of the I as such. Is an ethics of conviction, which grounds morality in the voice of conscience within, not just the consequence of making all philosophical knowledge depend on the I and its self-​activity? Another perceived consequence of Fichte’s idealism is that it seems to portray the activity of the I as one of endless struggle with the not-​I. In the Eclipse of Reason, for example, Horkheimer (1947/​2008) cites Fichte’s early work as illustrating the pathology of humanity’s quest to control and master the natural environment. In such work, Horkheimer writes, the relationship between the ego and nature is one of tyranny. The entire universe becomes a tool of the ego, although the ego has no substance or meaning except in its own boundless activity. Modern ideology, though much closer to Fichte than is generally believed, has cut adrift from such metaphysical moorings. . . . Nevertheless, nature is today more than ever conceived as a mere tool of man. It is the object of total exploitation that has no aim set by reason, and therefore no limit. (1947/​2008: 76)

On this reading the flaw of Fichte’s idealism is that by giving primacy to the boundless activity of the I, it requires a relationship of subordination to everything that is not-​I, including the body and the natural environment. No wonder, then, that Fichte’s moral philosophy has failed to receive a positive reception. With only a handful of exceptions,9 most thinkers have shared Horkheimer’s view that our desire to control, master, and dominate nature is a pathology to be diagnosed, not a principle to be celebrated. If it were as simple as pointing to a text and settling the matter once and for all, there would no cause for further debate. But one can find evidence to support the figure of Fichte who grounds all morality in subjective conviction and who reduces nature to a mere object for the I to control. And one can also find evidence to support the figure of Fichte who grounds all morality in rational discourse and who upholds (contrary to Horkheimer’s depiction) an organic model of nature. Our question then becomes: Which of these is the real Fichte? Out of charity, I shall try my best in this book to

22  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy find the element of truth in each of these personas, and the interpretations they have inspired, from Fichte the subjectivist to Fichte the objectivist—​for I believe that the real Fichte lies at times in between these two extremes and at other times in their connection. Fichte is, for lack of a better word, a dialectical thinker. His philosophical positions resist normal categorization because they are synthetic, and this is true of both his foundational writings on the doctrine of science and his writings on political and moral philosophy. In this book I have sometimes found it helpful to employ terms that shed light on what I find distinctive about Fichte’s ethical thought, such as his monistic drive theory, his genetic model of freedom, or his social perfectionism. But these labels should be viewed as provisional descriptions that serve only to mark the path to a better understanding of his system. In order to prepare for my reading it will be necessary to understand the foundational ideas of Fichte’s System of Ethics, starting in Chapter 2 with his concept of freedom and then turning to his concept of morality in Chapter 3. As a way of motivating these topics, I shall place Fichte’s concepts in the context of his engagement with Kant and some early post-​Kantians who had a strong influence on him, such as Karl Reinhold, Leonard Creuzer, and Solomon Maimon. What comes to light when we trace this constellation of thinkers is that Fichte remains close to Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason, and one of my main tasks in the coming chapters is to clarify how Fichte preserves, and modifies, this doctrine in his mature moral philosophy. My secondary aim in these chapters is to solidify evidence for my claim that Fichte divides his treatise into an analytic path in Part I, and a synthetic path in Parts II and III, much in the spirit of Kant’s second Critique. My guiding conviction going forward is that in order to understand the individual parts of Fichte’s ethics, we must first grasp the idea of the whole forming its very structure. If we can achieve insight into this whole and the interconnection of its parts, we may then be in a position to answer the question of whether Fichte’s moral philosophy is an improvement upon Kant’s or a slide backward. Whether the System of Ethics amounts to nothing more than what Schopenhauer called a ‘magnifying glass’ for highlighting the faults of Kant’s ethics is a question, however, that I shall leave the reader to decide.

2 Freedom My system is the first system of freedom. —​Fichte to Baggesen, spring 1795; in Breazeale (1992: 385)

2.1.  Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to set the stage for a closer examination of the System of Ethics by clarifying the different senses of freedom at work in Fichte’s moral philosophy. I  will begin by taking a historical approach, starting with a sketch of Kant’s defense of the possibility of freedom in the first Critique and then considering his thesis, introduced in Groundwork III, that freedom and morality are ‘reciprocal concepts’ (G 4:450). One of Kant’s early advocates, Karl Reinhold, took issue with this thesis on the grounds that it draws too close a connection between moral action and free action; as a result, he argued, it leaves no room to explain how immoral action can be imputed to an agent. Over the course of this chapter I will trace this development to another important but less discussed post-​Kantian thinker, Solomon Maimon, who criticized Reinhold’s effort to redefine freedom in terms of an agent’s indifferent choice to follow a ‘selfish drive’ and an ‘unselfish drive.’ As Maimon argued, such a definition comes at the cost of removing all determining grounds of freedom, effectively reducing choice either to mere chance or, what is worse, to necessity. In the second half of this chapter we shall see how Maimon’s position influenced Fichte by making him sensitive to the idea that a theory of freedom must satisfy an actuality requirement: it must explain the determining grounds of free choice. As we shall see, however, Fichte’s way of fulfilling this requirement in the System of Ethics leads him to a position at once removed from Maimon’s and yet close to Kant’s, as he ends up arguing that the determining grounds of free choice can come only from the moral law. An important date in this story is 1793, the year Maimon published a letter posing a dilemma to Reinhold’s theory of freedom.1 The dilemma was that by Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Owen Ware, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190086596.001.0001

24  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy defining freedom as indifferent choice, Reinhold was forced either to explain the determining grounds of freedom in terms of natural laws or to explain those determining grounds in terms of mere chance—​but in either case, Maimon argued, the concept of freedom was destroyed. To give the reader context for this debate, my first task ahead is to trace a line of influence from Kant’s theory of freedom to Reinhold’s, and then I want to examine Maimon’s objection in greater detail. My next task is to consider a development internal to Fichte’s work, who was first drawn—​as we saw in Chapter 1—​to a type of necessitarianism before his conversion to Kant in 1790.2 While Fichte had a high opinion of Maimon’s work, he never engaged directly with Maimon’s critique of Reinhold. Nevertheless, this critique offers a helpful framework for interpreting Fichte’s mature theory of freedom as it appears in §10 of the System of Ethics. On the reading I will defend, Fichte aims to offer a theory of freedom that combines (1) the Reinholdian idea of indifferent choice and (2) the Maimonian requirement to think of freedom in a determinate way. The key to this combination lies in what I will call Fichte’s Genetic Model of freedom, according to which indeterminacy and determinacy of choice constitute distinct stages of the will. Whether this model is successful in meeting Maimon’s dilemma rests upon Fichte’s deduction of the moral law in Part I of the System of Ethics. But I will save my account of these details for Chapter 3. The free will debate that would occupy German thinkers during the late eighteenth century was the product of more than one cause, although the controversy inspired by F. H. Jacobi’s 1785 treatise on Spinoza was without question a central factor. What Jacobi brought to the foreground was a claim particularly threatening for Kant and his immediate successors, the claim that our commitment to freedom admits of no rational proof but must be accepted on the basis of faith. There is no doubt that Fichte’s work evolved in part as an attempt to counter Jacobi’s claim—​to defend freedom within a rational system of thought—​and this chapter in the history of post-​Kantian idealism has been well-​documented. One of my aims in the following pages is to open up a small yet significant sub-​chapter within this history by uncovering two almost forgotten texts by Maimon from the early 1790s.3 Although Maimon has gathered increasing attention from scholars in recent decades, his impact on Fichte’s theory of freedom has gone surprisingly overlooked. Recovering this debt to Maimon is of value for understanding the specific form Fichte’s theory takes: that of a genetic account of our transition from indeterminacy to determinacy of choice. On a deeper level, I shall argue, it also shows that what previous commentators have perceived as an

Freedom  25 ambiguity in Fichte’s theory is in fact an expression of a coherent doctrine of freedom.

2.2.  Background: Kant’s Causal Model of Freedom Although Kant held to a compatibilist theory of freedom during the early years of his dogmatic slumber, while still under the sway of Wolffian and Leibnizian thought, he had no kind words for this theory by the time he reached a fully critical position in the 1780s. The concept of compatibilist freedom (or freedom alongside naturally necessitating causes) earned the title of a ‘wretched subterfuge’ (KpV 5:96), a subterfuge Kant likened to a turnspit, ‘which, when it is wound up, also accomplishes its movements of itself ’ (KpV 5:97). The concept of freedom Kant wanted to redeem in his critical philosophy was what he variously called freedom in the ‘cosmological,’ ‘absolute,’ or ‘transcendental’ sense, that is, freedom independent from naturally necessitating causes. A review of this theory, and its role in what I will call Kant’s Causal Model of freedom, will prepare the ground for investigating the work of his immediate successors. While it is true that Kant came to reject a compatibilist theory of freedom, the goal of his critical philosophy was still to defend the coexistence of transcendental freedom, on the one hand, and natural mechanism, on the other. As he puts it in the first Critique, the goal is to defend the ‘logical possibility’ of this coexistence, which is Kant’s term for a concept that contains no contradiction. What Kant then sets out to demonstrate is relatively modest, since he wants to show merely that the coexistence of transcendental freedom and natural mechanism is thinkable, that the very idea does not conflict with itself. The well-​known solution of the first Critique is that both a commitment to transcendental freedom (the thesis) and a commitment to natural mechanism (the antithesis) can be reconciled if we restrict the latter to the domain of things-​as-​they-​appear. The rule that every cause must have an effect can retain its validity, then, but only for appearances. Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism therefore removes what looks like a deep contradiction between the thesis and the antithesis, the topic of the Third Antinomy. The coexistence of freedom and mechanism is thinkable (and so logically possible) when we limit the latter to appearances and the former to things-​in-​themselves.

26  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy Already in the first Critique it is clear that the threat to freedom is not the idea of causality in general but the idea of natural causality in particular. It is the assumption of an unrestricted rule of mechanism, or mechanism ‘all the way down’ to things-​in-​themselves, that threatens to destroy freedom (and with it, Kant claims, the basis of all morality and religion). Yet it is important to see that in the first Critique Kant is not opposed to thinking of freedom as a kind of causality that operates in accordance with laws. On the contrary, he makes this connection explicit in the definition of the ‘thesis’ to the Third Antinomy, writing, ‘Causality in accordance with laws of nature is not the only one from which all the appearances of the world can be derived. It is also necessary to assume another causality through freedom in order to explain them’ (A444/​B472). The subsequent ‘proof ’ Kant supplies (speaking on the thesis side) is that ‘a causality must be assumed through which something happens without its cause being further determined by another previous cause, i.e., an absolute causal spontaneity beginning from itself’ (A446/​ B474). This connection between freedom and causality then becomes a focal point in the ‘resolution’ to the Third Antinomy, where we are told, ‘In respect of what happens, one can think of causality in only two ways: either according to nature or from freedom’ (A533/​B561). What Kant now adds to the resolution is the claim that transcendental freedom refers to a faculty, namely, the ‘faculty of beginning a state from itself, the causality of which does not in turn stand under another cause determining it in time’ (A533/​ B561). In saying this, Kant is aware that a skeptic will likely find the connection between freedom and causality mysterious, and it is easy to see why. The concept of causality entails the concept of laws, since causal operations must be rule-​governed. Yet as Kant points out (speaking on the antithesis side), ‘if freedom were determined according to laws, it would not be freedom, but nothing other than nature. Thus nature and transcendental freedom are as different as lawfulness and lawlessness’ (A447/​B475). In what way, then, does it make sense to speak of freedom as a causality, or as a faculty governed by laws, when the only ‘causal laws’ we know of are those pertaining to a sequence of objects in time? Rather than retreat from this connection, however, Kant takes it further in his discussion of how transcendental freedom and natural mechanism pertain to a single faculty, when we regard that faculty under a ‘double aspect’ (A538/​B566). Natural causality pertains to this faculty as an object of sense, under the aspect of its ‘empirical character,’ whereas causality through freedom pertains to this same faculty as a thing-​in-​itself,

Freedom  27 under the aspect of its ‘intelligible character’ (A539/​B567). Here we find Kant advance a claim that will play a central role in his moral philosophy, that ‘every effective cause must have a character, i.e., a law of its causality, without which it would not be a cause at all’ (A539/​B567; emphasis added). As a matter of definition, he is saying, the intelligible character we associate with the faculty of freedom must have a law, though a law consistent with the idea of absolute spontaneity. None of this helps to alleviate the skeptical objection Kant identified with the antithesis, the objection that nature and freedom are ‘as different as lawfulness and lawlessness.’ But it does serve to illuminate how Kant wants us to understand the idea of freedom in terms of lawful yet nonnatural causality. In this regard he concedes as a truism that the notion of lawfulness and lawlessness are opposed, but he wants to deny the skeptic’s further assumption that we can think of freedom only in relation to the latter. Although the official goal of the first Critique is to show that the coexistence of freedom and mechanism is coherent, Kant does veer at times into speculations about the real possibility of freedom and our possession of an intelligible character. In a much-​discussed passage, he writes that a human being ‘cognizes himself ’ (erkennt sich) through the ‘inner determinations’ of understanding and reason, adding that he ‘obviously is,’ in regard to these faculties, a ‘merely intelligible object’ (A546–​547/​B574–​575; emphasis added). In the next paragraph Kant builds upon this claim, arguing that evidence for the ‘causality’ of our reason ‘is clear from the imperatives that we propose as rules to our powers of execution in everything practical’ (A547/​B575). Imperatives concern what actions ‘ought’ to occur, but natural causality concerns only what ‘is.’ Thus the concept of an ‘ought,’ Kant concludes, is an expression of a different causality, what he calls a causality through freedom.

2.3.  Kant’s Reciprocity Thesis These brief but suggestive claims receive fuller treatment in Kant’s first major publication on ethical theory, the 1785 Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. In this text Kant explains that practical philosophy concerns not laws ‘for what happens, but laws for what ought to happen, even if it never does happen, i.e., objectively practical laws’ (G 4:427). Kant also defines the ‘ought’ (Sollen) as an expression of practical reason, but now he is more clear about identifying practical reason and the ‘will’ (Wille). ‘Every thing in nature

28  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy works in accordance with laws,’ he writes. ‘Only a rational being has the faculty to act in accordance with the representation of laws, i.e., in accordance with principles, or a will’ (G 4:412). Kant then says that the principles of practical reason appear to us as imperatives because, as finite and sensibly affected creatures, we do not always follow the dictates of reason. What is novel in the Groundwork comes into view only when Kant expands upon his definition of the will in Section II as a faculty of ‘determining itself to act’ (sich selbst zum Handeln zu bestimmen) in accordance with principles (G 4:427). For then the question becomes what laws follow from the concept of a practical faculty that determines itself, and the answer we receive is that they can only be laws of a ‘universally legislating will’ (G 4:432). Expressed as an imperative, this yields a rule of acting only on those maxims of choice that accord with the will’s autonomy, which Kant explicitly defines as the ‘property of the will through which it is a law to itself ’ (G 4:440). There is no better candidate, he argues, for thinking of a ‘supreme principle’ of morality, that is, a principle that is categorical and unconditionally normative. The reach of this argument is limited, however. Kant explains that all he has done up to the end of Section II of the Groundwork is ‘elucidate’ the principle of morality by analyzing the faculty of practical reason in general. ‘Autonomy’ emerges as our only candidate for thinking a supreme principle of morality, but the argument does not warrant the stronger claim that this principle is actually binding upon us. The task of securing such a warrant is what motivates the transition to Section III, where Kant begins by introducing the concept of freedom as ‘the key’ (der Schlüssel) to understanding autonomy of will (G 4:446). What he writes, drawing implicitly from the first Critique, is that the ‘will is a species of causality of living beings, insofar as they are rational, and freedom would be that quality of this causality by which it can be effective independent of alien causes determining it’ (G 4:446). In the next paragraph he then explains that this sense of freedom is negative, since it only characterizes freedom as independence, but that further analysis reveals a positive sense of freedom as self-​determination (G 4:447). Two essential points follow: first, that the positive sense of freedom as self-​ determination is identical to autonomy, and second, that autonomy is identical to the principle of morality. Accordingly, Kant writes, the law governing the causality of freedom is none other than the moral law, and hence ‘a free will and a will under moral laws are the same [einerlei]’ (G 4:447).4 This is Kant’s Reciprocity Thesis.5

Freedom  29 But how, one might ask, is Kant’s argument for the Reciprocity Thesis supposed to work? Notice that the central premise linking freedom and morality brings us back to Kant’s claim from the first Critique that ‘every effective cause must have a character, i.e., a law of its causality, without which it would not be a cause at all’ (A539/​B567). Indeed, we find Kant repeating this very point in Groundwork III when he writes that the concept of causality ‘carries with it that of laws’ (G 4:446), wherein a causality according to laws of nature is only a kind. The concept of causality is inclusive of another kind, namely, a causality through freedom. I take it this is why Kant argues, within the same paragraph under discussion, that freedom, even though it is not a quality of the will in accordance with natural laws, is not for this reason lawless [gesetzlos], but rather it has to be a causality in accordance with unchangeable laws, but of a particular kind; for otherwise a free will would be a non-​entity [Unding]. (G 4:446)

We therefore have an answer to the skeptic of the Third Antinomy who thinks that freedom must be defined independently of laws and who argues that nature and freedom are as opposed as ‘lawfulness and lawlessness’ (A447/​ B475). The main point of the Causal Model of freedom is that a lawless will is just as impossible—​just as much a ‘non-​entity’—​as the idea of a lawless causality. For if every causality must have a law, then the causality of a free will must have a law too. The conclusion that the moral law is the causal law of a free will then follows as a matter of definition.6

2.4.  Objections to the Causal Model With the aim of rendering Kant’s critical philosophy accessible to a broader audience, Reinhold published a series of epistolary-​style letters in Der Teutsche Merkur between August 1786 and September 1787. These letters underwent several changes before they appeared in book form,7 the most striking of which was the inclusion of a newly composed piece for the second volume of 1792 (the Eighth Letter) devoted to an ‘elucidation’ of the concept of freedom. In this letter Reinhold promises to lift ‘a dark cloud’ (ein finsterer Nebel) that surrounds the concept, a cloud he saw engulfing both the writings of Kant and those of his recent students.8

30  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy

2.4.1.  The ‘Impossibility’ of Immoral Action: Reinhold’s Reaction What comes under attack in the Eighth Letter is the very definition of the will sketched in the previous section: the will as a faculty whose causal law is the moral law. Although Reinhold (1792:  268–​269) does not attribute this definition directly to Kant, he thinks the way Kant presents the concept in his writings, that is, as a ‘causality of reason’ or as a ‘capacity to act in accordance with the representation of laws,’ misleads his followers to view freedom exclusively in these terms.9 On Reinhold’s view, the fatal mistake is to confuse what is really a ‘mark’ (Merkmal) of freedom for ‘the whole of freedom’ (die ganze Freiheit). The mark in question is independence, or what we might call: Sensibility Independence: A will is free when its determining ground is independent from the pull of pleasure and displeasure.

The mistake, Reinhold explains, is to infer from this mark that a will is free only when it determines itself in accordance with practical reason, or what we might call: Reason Dependence:  A will is free when its determining ground is dependent on the laws of practical reason.

The undesirable implication of this view, as Reinhold (1792: 267) is quick to point out, is that it commits us to ‘the impossibility of freedom for all immoral actions’ (die Unmöglichkeit der Freiheit für alle unsittlichen Handlungen). For how can an immoral will count as free if, as Kant tells us, a free will and a will under moral laws are the same? ‘The moment one takes the freedom of a pure will to consist merely in the self-​activity of practical reason,’ Reinhold writes, ‘then one must also concede that the impure will, which is not effected by practical reason, can in no way be free’ (1792: 267–268). Fortunately, Reinhold tells us, a more coherent position is available when we regard freedom not only as independence from the determination of sensibility but also as independence from the determination of reason itself. This gives us what he thinks is a much better definition, what we might call:

Freedom  31 Indeterminism: A will is free when it is independent from both sensibility and reason, that is, when it is equally free to choose between these two determining grounds.

In the Eighth Letter Reinhold then speaks of the will as ‘the capacity of a person to determine itself to the satisfaction or nonsatisfaction of a desire, either according to the practical law or against it’ (1792: 271–​272). The implication is that freedom consists not merely in the ‘independence of the will from the coercion of instinct’ but, stronger yet, in ‘the independence of a person from the necessitation of practical reason itself’ (1792: 272). Properly understood, freedom is not determined by the practical law of morality; it is, rather, the capacity of ‘choice’ (Willkür) to act either ‘for or against the practical law’ (1792: 272).. In Reinhold’s own terminology, freedom is the capacity of a person to determine itself according to what he calls the ‘selfish drive’ (eigennützigen Trieb) or the ‘unselfish drive’ (uneigennützigen Trieb). The former is an expression of an ‘impure will,’ and the latter an expression of a ‘pure will’—​and both are fully free. So on this picture of the will we need not countenance the absurd implication, apparently unavoidable for the Kantian, that free yet immoral actions are impossible. On Reinhold’s alternative account, free yet immoral actions are simply the product of a will that determines itself according to the selfish drive alone. It is clear that by advancing a theory of indeterminism, Reinhold wants to drive a wedge between (a) the view of freedom as a kind of causality and (b) the view of freedom as a kind of spontaneity. And it would not be wrong to say, when we compare his account more closely to Kant’s, that Reinhold thinks spontaneity is ‘lawless’ but not for that reason ‘impossible.’ The spontaneity of ‘choice’ (Willkür), for Reinhold, is precisely what makes it a capacity independent of any determining ‘law,’ whether that law comes from nature or from reason itself. This is, he thinks, what makes the will free to choose between the incitements of sensibility and the demands of duty. However, without going further into the details of this account, it is worth asking how much progress Reinhold’s alternative makes. By separating the causality of freedom from its spontaneity, he appears to have offered us an attractive solution to the problem of how action contrary to the moral law can be free. But by making freedom indeterminate, Reinhold faces the difficulty of explaining what motivates the will to act according to the selfish drive or the unselfish drive. That is to say, he faces the difficulty of showing what determining ground informs one’s choice ‘for or against’ the moral law.10 And

32  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy yet Reinhold’s account seems to foreclose such an explanation, given that his ‘will’ has no determining ground whatsoever. The following worry now comes to light: that in an effort to preempt the absurdity of rendering immoral action impossible, Reinhold’s account has generated an absurdity of its own—​that of rendering free action itself impossible.

2.4.2.  An ‘Inexplicable Indeterminism’: Maimon’s Reaction Such is the line of criticism Maimon would raise against Reinhold’s theory of freedom soon after it appeared in print. First, in a letter he sent to Kant on November 30, 1792, Maimon reports his misgivings with the second volume of Reinhold’s Letters, writing that ‘his concept of the free will leads to the most inexplicable indeterminism’ (das allerunerklärbarste Indeterminismus).11 What Maimon means by this turn of phrase is hard to decipher from the letter itself, since he merely contrasts what he takes to be Kant’s view of freedom (as a ‘causality of reason’) and writes that on Reinhold’s alternative ‘the causality of reason would be a natural necessity.’ However, an important detail can be found in what Maimon goes on to say about Reinhold’s definition of freedom as the capacity to act either according to the selfish drive or according to the unselfish drive, namely, that this definition does not ‘in the least’ concern itself with the ‘determining ground’ of freedom. These remarks would take the shape of a pointed objection in a letter Maimon wrote to Reinhold himself (and which he published, without Reinhold’s consent, in 1793).12 In this letter Maimon asks how the will can make an actual decision between two opposed drives and what reason it can give for selecting one over the other. ‘The question,’ he writes, is why the will ‘in one moment follows the instruction of reason, and in another moment the selfish drive’ (1793: 230–​233). What Maimon says, in reply, is that Reinhold’s indeterminism about freedom gives rise to a dilemma, of which there is no escape within the premises of the Eighth Letter itself: • First horn. On the one hand, if the two opposed drives are opposed as ‘effective forces,’ where the stronger one wins and determines the action of the will, then the will is not free but depends on ‘natural laws’ (1793: 233–​234). • Second horn. On the other hand, if the will is not determined by the stronger of the two drives, then its actual decision (either for the selfish

Freedom  33 drive or for the unselfish drive) depends on mere ‘chance’ (Zufall) (1793: 234). The root of the dilemma, as Maimon’s letter makes clear, traces to Reinhold’s indeterminism, his claim that the will is independent from the operations of both sensibility and reason. As soon as we accept indeterminism about the will, there is no way to explain how the will can determine itself to act, and so there is no way at all to explain the structure of rational choice.13 Maimon (1794) voiced his dissatisfaction with Reinhold’s theory of freedom the next year in his essay ‘Attempt at a New Presentation of the Principle of Morality and a New Deduction of Its Reality,’ published in the Berlinische Monatschrift. But instead of placing Reinhold’s theory on the horns of a dilemma, Maimon argues now that the concept of an indifferent capacity of choice has no ‘objective reality’ (objektive Realität). The reason, he explains, is that the concept of a capacity as such must satisfy the following requirement: Actuality Requirement. ‘A capacity as such must be thought of in a determinate way—​if not through the objects to which it relates, then through the laws to which it acts—​if its concept is to have objective reality’ (1794: 407).

Maimon’s point is that there is no way Reinhold’s indifferentism about freedom can meet this requirement. According to indifferentism, freedom is the ‘capacity to choose between the interested and disinterested drives,’ which means that ‘nothing determines whether one should follow the interested or the disinterested drive’ (1794: 407). But therein lies the problem. For, according to the actuality requirement, a capacity must be thought of in a determinate way if the concept is to have objective reality. ‘Consequently,’ Maimon writes, Reinhold’s ‘will’ is entirely empty, the concept of a capacity ‘that cannot act where these drives are opposed’ (1794: 407). Does this mean that we should return to Kant’s Causal Model and revive what Reinhold had worked so hard to reject, the identification of the will and practical reason? For anyone who knows the least about Maimon’s intellectual character, it will not be surprising to learn that his answer is a clear no. Maimon was of the view that there is only one disinterested drive, the ‘drive for the cognition of truth’ (Trieb zur Erkenntnis der Wahrheit), which he claimed is governed by a theoretical principle, the principle of ‘universal validity’ (Allgemeingültigkeit) (1794: 407, 411). On his account, this norm

34  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy supplies the basis for a ‘new deduction’ of the principle of morality, and it also meets the actuality requirement. Later in his essay, for instance, Maimon paraphrases a passage from Kant’s second Critique,14 asking, ‘Assuming that the will is free, i.e., that the mere form of the will of a rational being in general contains a sufficient determining ground for each of its determinations, how is this form to be found?’ (1794: 436). However, rather than repeat Kant’s answer, that the moral law is ‘the only thing that can constitute a determining ground’ of a free will (KpV 5:29), Maimon argues that for all we know the moral law might be the product of ‘psychological deception’ (psychologicshe Täuschung). So if there is a valid determining ground for a free will, he argues, it must come from theoretical reason: it must come from the ‘form of cognition’ (Form der Erkenntnis) guided by the principle of universal validity (1794: 436).15

2.5.  Fichte’s Genetic Model of Freedom One would surely not expect, from the individual who described his philosophy as the ‘first system of freedom,’16 to discover an early and, by all measures, strong attachment to necessitarianism. That being said, Fichte’s early views prior to his conversion to Kant provide us with a helpful starting point for investigating the more detailed treatment of freedom we find in the System of Ethics. What is clear when we compare these two phases of his thinking is that Fichte was from the start occupied with questions of how causality, lawfulness, and freedom relate, and by the time of his mature period Fichte perceived no tension between indeterminacy (à la Reinhold) and determinacy (à la Maimon). As we shall see, his aim in 1798 was precisely to combine these two commitments in a unified theory of freedom. In the Aphorisms Fichte penned early in the summer of 1790, we find him stating, ‘If you go straight ahead with your thinking, without looking either right or left, and without even worrying about where you will arrive: then, it seems to me, the following results are certain’ (A 5:6). The results listed in Aphorism 15 afford us insight into Fichte’s brand of necessitarianism during this early phase of his career, of which there are five: 1. There is an eternal being whose existence and manner of existing is necessary.

Freedom  35 2. The world arose after and from the eternal and necessary thoughts of this being. 3. Every change in this world is necessarily determined, just as it is, by a sufficient cause. The first cause of every change is the original thought of the Godhead (der Urgedanke der Gottheit). 4. Every thinking and sensing being must also necessarily exist, just as it exists. Neither his action, nor his suffering, can without contradiction be otherwise than it is. 5. What common human perception calls ‘sins’ arises from the necessary, greater or lesser, limitation of finite beings. It has necessary consequences for the condition of these beings, which are as necessary as the existence of the Godhead, and are therefore ineradicable. Of special importance for our purposes is what Fichte says in a footnote to Aphorism 15, where he contrasts his own approach, which proceeds ‘straight ahead’ along a series of inferences, to the approach of those who wish to defend the concept of freedom. The latter, Fichte says, do not proceed straight ahead but ‘sometimes pause’: I know that philosophers come to prove their propositions to others just as sharply; but I also know that in the series of their inferences these philosophers sometimes pause in order to begin a new series with new principles given from elsewhere. So it is, for example, with the sharpest defender of freedom who ever was: in Kant’s Antinomies, etc., the concept of freedom as such is given from somewhere (from sensation, no doubt), but he does nothing in his proof to justify and explain it: on the contrary, Kant would never have come to a concept of this kind had he followed an undisturbed series of inferences from the first principles of human cognition. (A 5:6)

According to this passage, Kant would never have arrived at the idea of an absolute causal spontaneity, and so would never have arrived at the thesis side of the Third Antinomy, had he proceeded continuously. For when we proceed continuously from the ‘first principles’ of our cognition—​and here Fichte may be alluding to IP29 of Spinoza’s (1677/​1986) Ethics, according to which ‘all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way’—​the result is clear: everything is necessary.17 Yet to introduce the concept of freedom, one must begin a new series and thereby break the strict chain of necessity required by the

36  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy continuous path, all of which struck the young Fichte as admitting of no justification or explanation at all.

2.6.  A ‘Still Higher Question’ As was touched upon in Chapter  1, everything would suddenly change for Fichte in the summer of 1790 when he sat down and carefully studied Kant’s second Critique. Let us read once again the letter he sent to Weisshun documenting the impact this book had on his way of thinking: I have been living in a new world ever since reading the Critique of Practical Reason. Propositions which I thought could never be overturned have been overturned for me. Things have been proven to me which I thought never could be proven—​for example, the concept of absolute freedom, the concept of duty, etc. . . . Thus I was deceived by the apparent consistency of my previous system, and thus are thousands of persons perhaps still deceived. (GA III/​2, No. 63; Breazeale 1993: 357)18

Fichte’s rejection of necessitarianism and his turn to Kant was therefore complete. The next four years threw him into an intense examination of Kant’s system, with an eye to Kant’s sympathetic readers as well as his critics. But this Kantian phase, if one may call it that, was to be short-​lived. By the time he introduced the fruit of his labors to the public, in the 1794/​95 Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre, it was clear that Fichte was no mere disciple or expositor of the Kantian program. However, readers would have to wait another four years before Fichte would reveal, within the context of his new system—​the doctrine of science—​a fully developed theory of freedom. What is noteworthy about Fichte’s new theory is the way it seeks to reconcile the claims of our trio in this chapter: Kant, Reinhold, and Maimon. A clue to this reconciliation can be found near the start of the System of Ethics in one of the few places where Fichte mentions Kant directly by name: According to Kant, freedom is the capacity to begin a state (a being and subsistence) absolutely. This is an excellent nominal explanation, but it does not seem to have done much to improve our general insight, since the concepts still in circulation regarding freedom are almost entirely false. A still higher question remains to be answered, namely: how can a state

Freedom  37 begin absolutely, or how can the absolute beginning of a state be thought? In order to answer this question one would have to provide a genetic concept of freedom [einen genetischen Begriff der Freiheit]; one would have to generate this concept before our eyes. (SL 4:37)

As one might assume, an ‘excellent nominal explanation’ is weak praise coming from Fichte, given his preoccupation with the ‘grounds’ and ‘sources’ of our cognition. Nor should we overlook the fact that his gloss on Kant’s definition leaves out a few distinctive features. Kant describes the concept of freedom as ‘an absolute causal spontaneity beginning from itself ’ (A446/​ B474) and as the ‘faculty of beginning a state from itself, the causality of which does not in turn stand under another cause determining it in time’ (A533/​B561; emphasis added). In the passage just cited, Fichte speaks only of a capacity to begin a ‘state’ (Zustand), dropping any reference to causality. What he then wants to preserve from Kant’s definition is simply the connection between freedom and the idea of an absolute beginning.19 But what is the basis of Fichte’s complaint that this definition fails to address a ‘still higher question’? It will no doubt strike readers of Kant as puzzling that Fichte formulates the issue in terms of how the absolute beginning of a state can be thought. Kant is clear that ‘reason would overstep all its bounds if it took it upon itself to explain how pure reason can be practical, which would be exactly the same task as to explain how freedom is possible’ (G 4:458–​459). Yet it is crucial to see that Fichte’s question acquires a different meaning once we distinguish, as he has just done, the concept of freedom from any reference to causality. On the basis of this distinction, the question is not how freedom as a nonnatural causality can be thought (which is impossible, as Kant rightly maintained), but rather how freedom as an absolute beginning can be thought. And all Fichte wants to claim is that a capacity to begin a state absolutely implies a capacity that is ‘not determined in advance’ and is ‘purely and simply indeterminable’ (SL 4:134). He therefore distinguishes, in terminology reminiscent of the 1790 Aphorisms, a ‘natural series’ from a ‘series of freedom.’ The former is ‘continuous’ and ‘everything coheres in a strict chain,’ whereas the latter ‘consists of leaps’ and ‘the connection is broken off with each link in the chain’ (SL 4:134). Ironically, instead of disparaging such leaps as the ‘pauses’ of an inconsistent philosopher, Fichte now draws upon this same description with zeal, going so far as to characterize freedom with a host of related metaphors, such as ‘movement’ (Bewegung), ‘agility’ (Agilität), ‘wavering’ (Schweben), ‘tearing loose’ (losreisst), and ‘projecting’ (entwerfen).

38  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy I have placed emphasis on this shift in order to show why Fichte thinks characterizing freedom as the capacity to begin a new state requires, not a Causal Model, but a Genetic Model. When we say that freedom is not determined in advance, the further question Fichte thinks we must address is how an indeterminate state can become determinate or, likewise, how our consciousness of lacking determination can acquire determinate form. All Fichte means by a genetic explanation is one that gives insight into the transition from indeterminacy to determinacy in our thinking about freedom. This in itself suggests that from the standpoint of the System of Ethics the debate between Reinhold and Maimon is a false one: it assumes that freedom is either wholly indeterminate (that indeterminacy is its sole characteristic) or wholly determinate (that determinacy is its sole characteristic). Yet this leaves out an obvious third alternative, that freedom becomes determinate from an original state of indeterminacy. From this point of view, the mistake common to Reinhold and Maimon is to think nongenetically about the concept of freedom, to assume that it must be one thing or the other. Fichte’s aim is to reframe the free will debate in dynamic terms, and that is why he found it necessary to resort to cognitive imagery (such as ‘wavering’ and ‘tearing loose’). Rather than talk about freedom as a fixed abstraction, he wanted to aid his readers in producing a vivid intuition of ‘activity’ within themselves.20 Unfortunately, Fichte’s positive contribution to the free will debate is not evident, since he often assigns distinct senses to the concept of freedom (and uses it interchangeably with a variety of terms, including ‘independence’ and ‘self-​sufficiency’). To complicate matters further, Fichte draws an explicit distinction in the System of Ethics between what he calls ‘formal’ and ‘material’ freedom, though his own comments on this distinction are far from perspicuous (cf. SL 4:135, 139, 161). At times, ‘formal freedom’ seems to mean nothing more than the subject’s independence from the pull of desire. But, at other times, it conveys a stronger meaning:  the subject’s independence from its natural drive as such, or the subject’s absolute ‘indeterminability’ (Unbestimmbarkeit) from anything outside of it. What Fichte has in mind by ‘material freedom’ is equally unclear, since there is textual evidence to suggest it means nothing more than norm-​governed agency (where one is subject to a general principle for acting). But, at other times, it conveys a much stronger meaning:  agency governed by the norm of absolute indeterminability itself, or what amounts to the same thing for Fichte, agency governed by ‘the moral law’ (das Sittengesetz). In the past, scholars have tended to gloss over this variety of senses, or they have remained content to paraphrase Fichte’s

Freedom  39 formal/​material distinction without further exposition.21 On the other hand, those attuned to this variety have been struck by the apparent inconsistency in the senses I have just canvassed, leading one prominent scholar to conclude that Fichte’s theory of freedom is fraught with ‘ambiguity’ (Neuhouser 1990: 126).22 It is certainly not feasible to clear up this puzzlement within a single chapter, although what we have said about the dialectic between Fichte and his contemporaries should help dispel some of the murkiness before us. The key historical point from the previous sections is that Fichte knew of the dilemma Maimon had posed to Reinhold and that he worked toward an alternative in the System of Ethics.23 The deeper interpretive point I now wish to put forward is that Fichte’s effort to meet Maimon’s actuality requirement sheds novel light on his theory of freedom: what seems to be a profligacy of definitions for the concept of freedom is in fact a set of stages bearing upon a single, coherent model, what I  am calling the Genetic Model. My own view, going forward, is that commentators have been misled by Fichte’s terminology—​for, as we shall see, ‘indeterminacy’ and ‘determinacy’ of choice each admits of two senses for Fichte, and thus the genesis of freedom involves not one but two ‘transitions.’ A related upshot of this distinction is that, despite Fichte’s way of expressing himself, we should speak of two senses of ‘formal’ and ‘material’ freedom, where agency governed by the moral law is simply a higher form of determining the will. I shall return to this point momentarily, but for now it will serve us to examine Fichte’s Genetic Model in more detail. To set the stage for this model, Fichte begins by posing a simple question in §10 of the System of Ethics: ‘How do I posit myself as free?’ (SL 4:136).24 His answer is that I posit myself as free ‘when I become conscious of my transition from indeterminacy to determinacy’ (SL 4:136). What Fichte initially draws from this answer, much in the spirit of Reinhold, is that freedom is originally independent from any determining grounds, or what we might call: Indeterminacy. ‘Consciousness of my indeterminacy is a condition for my consciousness of determining myself through free activity’ (SL 4:137).

Fichte then clarifies that the kind of indeterminacy attaching to freedom is unique. The idea, he explains, is that the indeterminacy of freedom ‘is not simply not-​determinacy (= 0), but is an undecided hovering between several possible determinations (= negative magnitude)’ (SL 4:137; emphasis

40  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy added), and this is where the metaphor of ‘wavering’ comes into the account. Consciousness of my indeterminacy is consciousness of my wavering between several possible actions (SL 4:137). In this state I am independent from the pull of desire and so ‘formally’ free. The first transition from indeterminacy to determinacy is therefore the transition from finding myself in a state of wavering to ‘tearing myself loose’ from this state and deciding what to do. And that is what marks the first stage in which I am, in Fichte’s terms, ‘materially’ free. However, as I noted earlier, closer scrutiny shows that the transition from formal freedom (or indeterminacy of choice) to material freedom (or determinacy of choice) is more fine-​grained than Fichte’s language might lead one to think. A careful examination of the text shows that he is advancing the following outline: Formal Freedom (i) Insofar as I have a capacity to act, I find myself undetermined. (ii) In reflecting upon this state of indeterminacy, I see that my imagination wavers between various courses of action. Material Freedom (iii) Transition: I then ‘tear myself loose’ from this state of wavering and select one of these courses of action; that is, I project myself an end to be attained (cf. §§1, 10). (iv) In reflecting upon myself projecting an end, I  thereby ‘intuit’ my self-​activity. (v) Transition:  I then posit myself a new end, self-​activity as such, and thereby subsume myself under the concept of freedom (cf. §§3, 13). Interpretive confusion surrounding Fichte’s theory of freedom largely stems from the fact that when we read §10 of the System of Ethics in isolation, it seems that all he means by material freedom is what I have listed under Stage iii. He writes, for instance: Freedom in the second sense [viz., material freedom] consists in this: not only does a new force come upon the scene, but there is also a completely new series of actions, with respect to the content of the same. Not only does the intellect engage from now on in efficacious action, but it also accomplishes something completely different from what nature would ever have accomplished. (SL 4:139)

Freedom  41 Still, Fichte goes on to argue in §13 that ‘the only possible ground of a free action is that the action in question is a duty. Hence I ought to act solely in accordance with the concept of my duty, and I ought to allow myself to be determined only by the thought that something is a duty and by absolutely no other thought than this’ (SL 4:154). This is the second form of material freedom I have marked off in Stage v: freedom whose determining ground comes from the norm of self-​sufficiency as such. In the past, commentators have either placed priority on the first form of material freedom,25 or they have regarded these contrasting senses as evidence of an inconsistency in the text, with Neuhouser going so far as to claim that Fichte was ‘unaware of these crucial differences’ (1990: 121). Taken together, however, these senses form a set of stages that ‘generate’ the concept of freedom ‘before our eyes’ and hence show what was missing from Kant’s definition, namely, how the original indeterminacy of freedom can become determinate. As the stages also show, what becomes determinate is not just the concept of projecting my end (Stage iii) but, more crucially, the concept of projecting self-​sufficiency as my end (Stage v). That is how I ‘leap’ from the natural series, for Fichte, and initiate an entirely new course of action.26 It is how I become, in a higher sense, materially free.

2.7.  Between Natural Necessity and Blind Chance In case one doubted that Fichte had Reinhold in mind in formulating the concept of indeterminacy just introduced, we need only cite his remark that ‘the will is always a power of choosing, which is how it is quite correctly described by Reinhold. There is no will without choice [Es ist kein Wille ohne Willkür]’ (SL 4:159). The ‘choice of the will,’ Fichte adds a few pages later, ‘is further determined as a choice between the satisfaction of a selfish drive (namely, the natural drive) and an unselfish one (the ethical drive)’ (SL 4:161). Thus Fichte is evidently willing to concede this much to Reinhold: that freedom of will requires indifferent choice, or Willkür. But it is not difficult to see that his concession is limited, since Fichte is not going so far as to define freedom in terms of indifferent choice; rather, indifferent choice is the precondition for beginning a state absolutely or for determining myself through free activity. It is none other than the state of wavering between possible courses of action, but—​and this is where Fichte departs from Reinhold—​this state must be overcome. According to the Genetic Model, I must tear myself free

42  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy from a state of wavering and select a possible course of action; I must give my freedom a determinate shape by making a decision and resolving to act. The indeterminacy of ‘choice’ is a precondition for self-​actively determining myself, and not (as Reinhold argued in 1792) the essential mark of freedom as a whole. To say ‘there is no will without choice’ is simply to say that Stages iii through v rest upon Stages i and ii. But now the specter of Maimon’s dilemma resurfaces, since Fichte’s commitment to indeterminacy invites the same question Maimon (1793: 233) posed in his letter to Reinhold: In what way is it intelligible to speak of a determining ground of freedom, if freedom originally lacks all determination? If we say that the determining ground comes from either the selfish/​natural drive or the unselfish/​ethical drive, then we shall get caught on the first horn of Maimon’s dilemma: the will is reduced to natural laws. On the other hand, if we resist this conclusion by insisting that there is no determining ground in the choice between the two drives, then we shall get caught on the second horn: the will is reduced to mere chance (Maimon 1793: 234). Framed within the terms of the Genetic Model, the worry under consideration is that Fichte has said nothing to render the transition to determinacy intelligible. For even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that indeterminacy of choice is the original state of freedom, that I find myself wavering between possible courses of action, the question remains: What determining ground explains why I have selected one over the other? In the passages cited earlier, Fichte says nothing to clarify this crucial moment, other than giving us the images of ‘tearing loose’ and ‘projecting’ for oneself an end. Yet the question stands: What is the determining ground of this tearing loose and projecting? Though he never mentions Maimon by name in the System of Ethics, the stretch of text we have been discussing shows that Fichte is attuned to this worry. To begin with, Fichte takes on the first horn of Maimon’s dilemma in the context of explaining how freedom of will relates to the ‘natural drive,’ writing that it would be a mistake to assume ‘that several drives might operate at the same time’ and ‘that the stronger drive will be decisive’ in the outcome of one’s choice (SL 4:138). Fichte returns to this point when considering an objection that, in selecting a course of action, ‘you are simply surrendering to the stronger of the drives that are present within you’: To this I would respond as follows: even if this were always the case, the drive in question would not exist, I would not be conscious of it, if I had not exercised self-​control, if I had not deferred my decision, and if I had

Freedom  43 not freely reflected on all of my drives. Even under this presupposition, therefore, I  have still conditioned the object of my will through self-​ determination. (SL 4:162)

In order to dissolve the first horn of Maimon’s dilemma, Fichte claims that one could not be conscious of a drive without having reflected upon it, and one could not have reflected upon a drive without being indifferent to it (i.e., without being in a state of ‘self-​control’). The very idea of a ‘stronger drive’ dictating the outcome of my choice, for Fichte, is incoherent. But what about the second horn? Even if Fichte has rescued freedom from the jaws of natural necessity, how can he avoid the implication of reducing freedom to mere chance? In this case as well we find that Fichte is both attuned to the worry and equipped with an answer: A free being determines itself only through and only in accordance with concepts. Its choice therefore presupposes a concept of that choice, of what is to be chosen thereby. Let the choice be between A, B and C. If the free being in question chooses, let us say, C, then can it prefer C for no reason and without any ground—​that is, without any intelligible ground in a concept? Absolutely not, since in that case the choice would not occur through freedom but through blind chance. Freedom acts in accordance with concepts. There simply must be something in C that makes it stand out. (SL 4:179)

This passage provides the start of a reply to the worry that Fichte has said nothing to render the transition to determinacy intelligible. Here he is careful to distinguish between the initial indeterminacy of freedom, where the will is at liberty to choose among a range of possible actions (A, B, or C), and the stage when it selects one of these possible actions. This stage, Fichte explains, is not without any determining ground. At Stage iii, tearing myself loose from a state of wavering does not occur without any determining ground—​since that would reduce freedom to ‘blind chance’—​but rather occurs through concepts, the reasons or maxims or plans that make my projected course of action meaningful. In order to dissolve the second horn of Maimon’s dilemma, then, Fichte claims that freedom does indeed have a determining ground. I do not arbitrarily or randomly select C among the various options I have, but I select C for a reason, something that makes C choiceworthy.

44  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy This last point suggests that the Genetic Model might be able to satisfy Maimon’s actuality requirement, since it shows how the capacity of freedom can be thought of ‘in a determinate way’ (1794: 407).27 As discussed earlier, my freedom acquires a determinate form when I tear myself loose from a state of wavering between possible courses of action, at Stage iii. When I then reflect upon my activity, the activity of setting myself an end, I make self-​ activity my end, and my freedom comes to acquire a higher determinacy than before, at Stage v. At this higher stage I therefore resolve to choose the course of action that approximates that end. My reason for choosing C, instead of A or B, is that C is the action that approximates the realization of freedom, which I have ‘projected’ for myself as a norm. The characteristic mark of an action’s choiceworthiness is none other than the characteristic of an action that makes it conform to this norm—​what Fichte says we express in ordinary language in terms of our duties and obligations, or in terms of what we ‘ought’ to do. Thus the higher determinacy of material freedom that emerges on Fichte’s model is none other than the determinacy of acting according to the moral law. In fact, what I have listed as Stage v of the Genetic Model, that of ‘subsuming myself under the concept of freedom,’ is what Fichte identifies in terms of the moral ideal of striving for self-​sufficiency. ‘When you think of yourself as free,’ he writes, ‘you are required to think your freedom under a law; and when you think of this law, you are required to think of yourself as free’ (SL 4:53). The moral law is not the causal law of a free will, then, but the objective manner of thinking of a free will in its highest developmental stage. Now would this answer satisfy the Maimonian? Although Fichte’s account avoids the mistake of defining freedom in terms of indifferent choice, and although he tries to meet the actuality requirement by showing how freedom can be thought of in a determinate way, Maimon would be far from impressed by how Fichte has gone about doing this. The final shape of Fichte’s theory of freedom could not be more different than Maimon’s, since Fichte thinks that there is no way to give a fully determinate account of freedom without invoking the moral law. Yet Maimon consciously resists this line of argument, as I noted earlier, on the grounds that moral concepts are susceptible to psychological deception, which is why he appeals instead to our drive for the cognition of truth and its principle of universal validity. In this respect the parting of ways between Fichte and Maimon over the question of freedom reflects their different views of what has primacy in a philosophical system, with Maimon affirming the primacy of theoretical reason, and Fichte affirming the primacy of practical reason. For Fichte, I ‘ought’ to believe in

Freedom  45 my freedom, and the Maimonian is dogmatic for wanting to go beyond such moral resolve,28 but for Maimon it is the Fichtean who is dogmatic for having faith in what might be a grand illusion.

2.8. Closing Remarks Looking back, Kant’s effort to defend the coexistence of transcendental freedom and natural necessity surely stands out as one of the crowning achievements of the first Critique. Yet by identifying the will with practical reason in his moral philosophy, he lent support to the view that the moral law is the causal law of a free will—​the result of which, as Reinhold argued, left immoral action impossible. However, Reinhold’s attempt to separate the will from practical reason generated difficulties of its own, which Maimon was quick to point out. By identifying freedom with indifferent choice, Maimon claimed, Reinhold had no resources to explain why a will acts either according to the selfish drive or according to the unselfish drive. As we have seen, Fichte’s theory of freedom from the System of Ethics seeks to reconcile these two commitments: the key lies in what I have called the Genetic Model, according to which indifferent choice (‘wavering between options’) is the original condition of the will, but a condition we overcome (in ‘tearing ourselves loose’ and ‘projecting’ for ourselves an end). In this way Fichte’s alternative account combines (1) the Reinholdian idea of indifferent choice and (2) the Maimonian requirement to think of freedom in a determinate way. But for all that, it is clear that Fichte’s effort to meet Maimon’s requirement would never have satisfied Maimon himself, since it invokes the moral law as the highest norm of self-​determination. What this means in the context of our comparison is that the success of Fichte’s attempt to meet the actuality requirement rests directly on his commitment to the primacy of practical reason. Whether he has good grounds for this commitment is a pressing topic, then, which we shall revisit at greater length in the next chapter.

3 Morality That one does not explain this appearance of freedom further—​ there is no theoretical reason for this, but there is a practical one: the firm decision to grant primacy to practical reason, to hold the moral law as the true and final vocation of one’s being. —​Fichte, The System of Ethics (SL 4:53–​54)

3.1.  Introduction A widely held view among scholars is that Fichte’s goal in Part I of the System of Ethics is to provide a strict deduction of the moral law, the very thing that Kant, after years of unsuccessful attempts, deemed impossible. On this familiar reading, what Kant eventually viewed as an underivable fact, the authority of the moral law, is what Fichte traces to its highest ground in what he calls the principle of I-​hood.1 However, scholars have for the most part overlooked a passage in the System of Ethics where Fichte explicitly invokes Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason with approval, claiming that consciousness of the moral law grounds ‘faith’ (Glaube) in freedom (SL 4:54). On the reading I will defend in this chapter, Fichte’s invocation of the Factum is consistent with the structure of Part I when we distinguish the feeling of moral compulsion from the moral law itself. As we will see, a failure to draw this distinction led one of Fichte’s nineteenth-​century critics, Christfried Albert Thilo, to conclude that his deduction of the moral law is viciously circular.2 Although this objection misses its mark, I find it instructive for showing the extent to which Fichte is committed to the primacy of practical reason in grounding a science of ethics. But to prepare for this next stage of our investigation, it will be useful for us to step back one more time and consider the context in which Fichte’s position evolved. With this end in mind, I will return again to Kant and the constellation of his early critics, all of whom found Kant’s commitment to the primacy of practical reason open to suspicion.

Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Owen Ware, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190086596.001.0001

Morality  47 While Kant’s claim that the moral law discloses our freedom to us has been extensively discussed in recent decades, the reactions to this claim among Kant’s immediate successors have gone largely overlooked by scholars. Reinhold, Creuzer, and Maimon were among three prominent thinkers of the era unwilling to follow Kant in making the moral law the condition for knowing our freedom. Maimon went so far as to reject Kant’s method of appealing to our everyday awareness of duty on the grounds that common human reason is susceptible to error and illusion. In this context Fichte stands out as a striking exception, since his writings from the 1790s show a consistent interest in Kant’s commitment to moral primacy. Moreover, Fichte would end up radicalizing the idea of moral primacy by making it a necessary point of connection to his ‘science of knowledge’ (Wissenschaftslehre). In what follows I will examine how these skeptical reactions to Kant’s position shaped the background for Fichte’s method of moral justification, leading up to his own deduction of the moral law in §§1–​3 of the System of Ethics. Careful attention to §§1–​3 shows that Fichte's strategy of argument is dialectical, and not—​as Guyer (2015) has recently argued—​regressive. After defending this reading, I will conclude the chapter by proposing a new way of understanding how consciousness of the moral law serves as an entry point to Fichte’s idealism.

3.2. Background: Kant’s Factum of Reason While Kant struggled with questions of moral justification for the majority of his writing career, the second Critique set the agenda for thinking through the freedom-​ morality connection during this period. Kant’s approach in this work proceeds in two stages, with the first stage culminating in his Reciprocity Thesis, and the second culminating in his Disclosure Thesis. The first stage of the Reciprocity Thesis concerns the relationship between (1) the concept of a transcendentally free will and (2) the concept of an unconditional practical law. Kant argues, to begin with, that when we ask what law is fit to legislate a transcendentally free will, the answer is that it cannot be a material principle or a principle whose validity depends (in some way) on empirical interests, impulses, or inclinations. Only a formal principle, or a principle of the ‘mere lawgiving form of a maxim,’ is fit to legislate a will independent of such elements. And Kant’s point is that the reverse claim is also true. When we ask what constitution of will is suited to a formal principle,

48  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy the answer is that it cannot be an empirically conditioned will. It cannot be, for example, the will of a Humean agent whose ends are assigned by the passions. Only a will free from the passions (a transcendentally free will) presents the constitution suited to the concept of a formal law. Thus Kant concludes that ‘freedom and unconditional practical law reciprocally imply each other’ (KpV 5:29), echoing his claim from Groundwork III that ‘a free will and a will under moral laws are the same [einerlei]’ (G 4:447). The Reciprocity Thesis tells us that the concepts of freedom and formal law stand in a relation of co-​entailment. By virtue of analyzing one, we are led in our reflections to the other, and vice versa. Yet this is only the first stage of Kant’s argument. After stating the Reciprocity Thesis, he asks what term in this relation enjoys epistemic primacy over the other. The question now is ‘from what our cognition of the unconditionally practical starts,’ that is, ‘from freedom or from the practical law’? (KpV 5:29). In the second Critique Kant denies that freedom can enjoy such primacy, for two reasons. The first is that we are not immediately conscious of freedom in the positive sense of self-​ determination; rather, our first concept of freedom is merely negative, that of independence from natural causes. The second reason is that we do not obtain the concept of freedom from experience, since experience teaches us only the rule of mechanism (that every effect must have a cause). By elimination, then, Kant concludes that it must be ‘the moral law [das moralische Gesetz], of which we become immediately conscious (as soon as we draw up maxims of the will for ourselves), that first offers itself to us and . . . leads directly to the concept of freedom’ (KpV 5:29–​30).3 Now the Disclosure Thesis just stated invites the following question: ‘How is consciousness of that moral law possible?’ (KpV 5:30). Kant’s reply is that we can ‘become aware of pure practical laws just as we are aware of pure theoretical principles, by attending to the necessity with which reason prescribes them to us and to the setting aside of all empirical conditions to which reason directs us’ (KpV 5:30). What is distinctive about pure principles is that they bear the mark of necessity: they express what should obtain for an object of the will (in the practical sphere) or what must obtain for an object of possible experience (in the theoretical sphere). If we attend to this ‘should’ or ‘must,’ we then have reason to infer their pure source, since we cannot derive any species of necessity from experience. That is why Kant goes on to say in the second stage of his argument that the ‘concept of a pure will arises from the first, as consciousness of a pure understanding arises from the latter’ (KpV 5:30). In fact, this is the basis for his claim that consciousness

Morality  49 of the moral law gives us a warrant for thinking of ourselves as possessing a pure will. What the moral law brings to our attention (‘as soon as we draw up maxims of the will for ourselves’) is a kind of necessity that could not have arisen from an empirically conditioned faculty. This means that we have a warrant for thinking of ourselves as transcendentally free. What is it about this two-​stage argument that has caused so much debate among Kant’s readers? The answer, I believe, points us to the kind of primacy Kant assigns to the moral law in his Disclosure Thesis. Although he just explained that our awareness of pure practical principles is possible by attending to the necessity with which reason prescribes them to us, many commentators have been troubled by Kant’s further remark that our consciousness of the moral law ‘may be called a fact of reason [Factum der Vernunft] . . . because it instead forces itself upon us of itself as a synthetic a priori proposition that is not based on any intuition, either pure or empirical’ (KpV 5:30). The difficulty is that it is unclear why the moral law qualifies as a ‘fact,’ or why Kant would not seek to derive it from a more fundamental ground, or why he would not regard its underivability as a problem. Instead, Kant views this Factum as a basis to declare, with a surprising degree of confidence, that the moral law is ‘firmly established of itself ’ and the key to a deduction of freedom (KpV 5:47).4 But his immediate successors were not so optimistic in this regard, and much of the landscape of post-​Kantian ethics was shaped by an effort to rethink the freedom-​morality connection presented in the second Critique.

3.3. Early Reactions 3.3.1.  Reinhold Signs of dissatisfaction with how Kant framed the connection between freedom and morality are evident in Reinhold’s Attempt at a New Theory of Human Representation, first published in 1789. In this work Reinhold claims that ‘he who has not philosophized about freedom is as convinced about its actuality as his own existence’ (1789: 91). Freedom, in other words, qualifies as a ‘fact’ (Thatsache). However, Reinhold is careful to distance this fact from the moral law. Freedom is a Thatsache, he writes, that one ‘knows from his inner experience’ and that one is ‘conscious of through self-​feeling [das Selbstgefühl]’ (1789: 91–​92).5 The epistemic ground of freedom is therefore

50  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy independent of the concept of an absolute practical law. We have access to it, Reinhold argues, simply through an inner feeling of activity, of which only philosophers are in the habit of doubting. What is interesting is that Reinhold does not reject the status of the moral law as a fact; on the contrary, he argues that to ask ‘Is there a cognitive ground [Erkenntnisgrund] of the moral law?’ amounts to the question ‘Is there a moral law?,’ which he says nobody, not even philosophers, sincerely call into question (1789: 101). Yet it is clear, both from this text and from the book version of his Letters on Kantian Philosophy, that Reinhold accepts the status of the moral law as a fact without making it the basis for accessing our freedom.

3.3.2.  Creuzer A similar position appears in Creuzer’s 1793 Skeptical Observations on Freedom of the Will, where he argues that judgments concerning what ‘happens’ and what ‘ought to happen’ are part of the most common human understanding. One need only ‘hear’ the moral law, Creuzer says, to ‘understand immediately what it is, namely, an unconditioned, unlimited, unchangeable, and universally valid norm of our actions’—​a norm, he adds, that even the ‘greatest evildoer’ recognizes in his heart (1793:  3). For this reason Creuzer calls the moral law an ‘undeniable fact of human nature’ (unläugbaren Factum der menschlichen Natur), and he appears to side with Kant’s Disclosure Thesis in saying that one ‘cognizes himself as a member of the supersensible world’ through this fact (1793: 7). Indeed, Creuzer claims that ‘independence from foreign laws and freedom are therefore inseparably bound with one another’ and that ‘consciousness of freedom is, like consciousness of the moral law, a fact of reason [ein Factum der Vernunft]’ (1793: 8–​9). However, Creuzer qualifies his position in a footnote, saying that he agrees with Kant in making freedom the essential ground of the moral law (its ratio essendi), but he disagrees with Kant in making the moral law the cognitive ground of freedom (its ratio cognoscendi) (1793: 9n). In Creuzer’s view we have no reason to accept the Disclosure Thesis because consciousness of freedom is ‘already active before the development of the moral law’ (1793: 9n). In line with Reinhold, Creuzer recommends that we seek to explain freedom as its own ‘original immediate consciousness’ apart from our notions of duty, obligation, or law (1793: 9n).

Morality  51

3.3.3.  Maimon Nor were Reinhold and Creuzer alone in advocating this separation. It set the backdrop against which Maimon would propose to ‘improve’ upon Kant’s moral philosophy, starting with his 1794 essay ‘Attempt at a New Presentation of the Moral Principle and a New Deduction of Its Reality.’ What is unique about Maimon’s contribution, touched upon in Chapter 2, is that he criticizes Kant’s methodology for its ‘unscientific’ reliance upon ‘common human understanding’ (gemeinen Menschenverstandes). Common human understanding, he says, is prone to error and illusion, and so there is no reliable way to tell if the concepts we develop from this standpoint rest on mere ‘psychological deception’ (psychologische Täuschung) (1794: 404). It may be an ‘immediate fact of consciousness’ (unmittelbare Thatsache des Bewußtseins) that the moral law issues its commands unconditionally, but that in itself tells us nothing about the moral law’s objectivity. Even if we feel ourselves under moral constraint, for instance, how do we know that the moral law is really binding upon our will? In reply, Maimon offers a new methodology that begins with a more primary ‘fact of consciousness.’ The specific Thatsache he argues is more primary than our everyday consciousness of duty is our ‘drive for the cognition of truth’ (Trieb zur Erkenntnis der Wahrheit), a fact he says is not suspect of psychological deception (1794: 407). And this last point is crucial, since Maimon goes on to claim that as rational beings we necessarily strive to meet a principle of ‘universal validity’ (Allgemeingültigkeit) in our thoughts, the same principle, he contends, under which we necessarily strive to meet the ‘demands of duty’ in our actions (1794: 419). This link to universal validity—​a general principle of reason as such—​is what secures the objectivity of the moral law. Or so Maimon argues. In this way Maimon rejects, much more clearly than his contemporaries, Kant’s commitment to the primacy of the moral law, along with the Disclosure Thesis. By starting with our drive for the cognition of truth, Maimon does not presuppose Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason, insofar as this doctrine operates from the standpoint of common life. For Kant, the buck stops with our consciousness of the moral law, since there is no alternative means for accessing the concept of an absolute practical principle. That is why Kant says, in answer to the question ‘How is consciousness of that moral law possible?,’ that we need only attend to its necessity (KpV 5:30). While Reinhold and Creuzer seem to agree with this point, they both deny that the moral law reveals our freedom to us, either because we can access

52  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy our freedom through self-​feeling (Reinhold) or because our consciousness of freedom is active prior to the moral law (Creuzer). But neither of them went as far as Maimon in raising the skeptical possibility that Kant’s Factum might be a grand illusion, and neither of them went as far as Maimon in developing a foundationalist strategy for securing the moral law’s objectivity. It is these latter, more radical developments in the history of post-​Kantian ethics that shed light on Fichte’s commitment to moral primacy, which is our next topic of discussion.

3.3.4.  Fichte While questions of Fichte’s intellectual development are notoriously difficult to settle, it is safe to say that his commitment to moral primacy underwent two general phases during the 1790s: 1. In the second edition of his Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, published in 1793, Fichte distinguishes two ways our faculties of mind can disclose their existence to us. On the side of theoretical cognition, we have sensibility, understanding, and reason, along with their respective objects, intuitions, concepts, and ideas. In each case, Fichte explains, these faculties apply to their objects with strict necessity. As a result they ‘proclaim’ their existence to us through a consciousness of constraint: we experience their effects as something ‘given’ to us, not as something we ‘produce’ (VKO 5:22). On the side of practical cognition, however, Fichte thinks we find something special. With the higher faculty of desire, he argues, we have a power that applies to itself, not coercively, but spontaneously, through the representation of its own universal form.6 Accordingly, among the various ways our faculties of mind can influence us, only the higher faculty of desire elicits a ‘fact’ (Thatsache) through our common consciousness of duty that testifies to the existence of an autonomous will within us (VKO 5:22–​23). 2. A  further phase in Fichte’s commitment to moral primacy appears in the 1797 ‘Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre,’ where he argues that we have only one way to support ‘belief ’ or ‘faith’ (Glaube) in the reality of intellectual intuition: namely, ‘by exhibiting the moral law within us’ (ZwE 1:466). ‘Our intuition of self-​activity and freedom,’ he goes on to say, has its foundation in our consciousness of this law,

Morality  53 ‘which is unquestionably not a type of consciousness derived from anything else, but is instead an immediate consciousness’ (ZwE 1:466). Here Fichte speaks of a demand to self-​activity, adding, ‘It is only through the medium of the moral law that I catch a glimpse of myself; and insofar as I view myself through this medium, I necessarily view myself as self-​active’ (ZwE 1:466).7 One difference worth noting about the second phase, to which the System of Ethics belongs, is that Fichte seeks to derive our conviction in freedom, not from duty as it appears factually as a feeling of necessity in common consciousness, but from the moral law as it appears conceptually as the ground of this feeling in philosophical consciousness.8 Among the factors that contributed to this shift in his position there is no doubt that Maimon’s skepticism played a crucial role. As we have seen, Maimon argues that the feeling of necessity we attach to our ordinary experience of duty is open to suspicion. There is no way to tell, he explains, whether this experience has an objective basis or is the product of mere deception. For this reason Maimon claims that we need a new foundation for the moral law, one that is not only independent of the standpoint of common consciousness but also independent of practical reason altogether. The more fundamental ‘fact’ he thinks provides this foundation is theoretical, our drive for the cognition of truth. While Fichte agrees that a deduction must go beyond the facts of common consciousness, he does not think that these facts merit a skeptical response, as Maimon does. On the contrary, Fichte is careful to draw a distinction at the very start of the System of Ethics between two ways we can relate to the feeling of necessity attached to our ordinary experience of duty. One is common, and it involves ‘factual cognition’ (faktischen Erkenntnis) of this feeling; the other is philosophical, and it involves ‘genetic cognition’ (genetische Erkenntnis) of this feeling (SL 4:13–​14).9 What lies at the basis of this distinction, I believe, is Fichte’s view that common consciousness is the ‘original form of thinking’ (ursprüngliche Denkform) for the philosopher to work upon. ‘Is this original consciousness,’ he asks the reader at one point, ‘any different from the one that we, as philosophers, have just produced within ourselves? How could it be,’ he continues, ‘given that it is supposed to have the same object, and given that the philosopher, as such, certainly possesses no other subjective form of thinking than that common and original form that is present in all reason [die gemeinsame und ursprünglische aller Vernunft]?’ (SL 4:31). For Fichte, genetic cognition is cognition that goes beyond facts of common

54  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy consciousness to their higher ground, yet in a way that reproduces what is original to reason and hence common to all.10 What is therefore primary in Fichte’s system of ethics—​the ‘ground’ for the feeling of moral compulsion noted earlier—​is not itself a ‘fact’ on some more primitive level. Rather, it is an original ‘act’ of the I as such, which the philosopher can freely reproduce in the space of transcendental reflection. This is why by the time he formulates the first version of his Wissenschaftslehre in 1794, Fichte breaks decisively with Reinhold who characterized the first principle of philosophy in terms of a ‘fact’ (Thatsache), and Fichte coins the expression of a ‘fact/​act’ (Thathandlung) to convey the original spontaneity of his alternative first principle. In subsequent writings from the 1790s we find Fichte separating the concept of a ‘fact’ as what appears to common consciousness from the concept of a ‘fact/​act’ as what the philosopher can access by ‘reverting inward’ and ‘intuiting’ her own self-​activity. In one place he even claims that the idea of an immediate ‘intuition’ of our self-​activity is already present in Kant’s work, that is, in our consciousness of the moral law as a Factum (ZwE 1:472). Though Fichte does not elaborate upon this claim, it is worth noting that Kant sometimes speaks of a Factum in its original Latin sense, that of ‘something done’ (and in Roman law, as a ‘deed’ imputable to the agent).11 Looking ahead, I will be arguing that Fichte embraces some version of Kant’s claim that consciousness of the moral law ‘discloses’ our freedom to us (KrV 5:29–​30), the Disclosure Thesis. On my account, the real difference between their respective projects lies in Fichte’s claim that freedom and morality are not two thoughts but ‘one and the same thought’ (SL 4:53–​54), what I will call the Identity Thesis. Looking back, however, one might ask: Is the difference between Fichte and Maimon not simply that Maimon locates a basis for the moral law in theoretical reason (our drive for truth) and Fichte locates this basis in something broadly practical (the activity of the I as such)? To be sure, there is evidence to suggest that Fichte was attracted to foundationalism in some of his early writings, and some scholars have attempted to read the System of Ethics within this framework. But it is clear, when we turn to the details of this work, that Fichte’s strategy is more complex than any standard foundationalist approach. His deduction of the moral law does not proceed in a unilinear style, from a first premise to a chain of inferences, but rather approaches the concept of the I under three aspects: the objective, the subjective, and their reciprocal interaction.12 While a first principle is present in this progression, the multilateral style in which the principle operates is unique, and

Morality  55 I believe it is more distorting than clarifying to characterize Fichte’s method in foundationalist terms. This point of interpretation will be important when we turn to consider Fichte’s method of moral justification in greater detail, since he will end up siding with Kant in making our consciousness of the moral law a necessary condition for cognizing our freedom. As we will see, one difficulty facing a foundationalist reading is that it cannot explain why Fichte would invoke the Disclosure Thesis at all.

3.4.  The Doctrine of Science A reader entering Part I  of the System of Ethics for the first time faces a daunting challenge, since Fichte tells us that his deduction of the moral law is the point of connection to his philosophical system as a whole. Let us pause to consider this remark more carefully: In relation to the scientific whole of philosophy, the particular science of a doctrine of ethics [Sittenlehre] to be presented here is linked, by means of this deduction, with a foundation of the entire Wissenschaftslehre [mit einer Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre]. The deduction commences with propositions of the latter, and in the course of the deduction the particular science proceeds from the universal one and becomes a particular philosophical science. (SL 4:15)13

This passage calls to mind the very title of Fichte’s work, which is not only a system of ethics but a system of ethics ‘according to the principles of the Wissenschaftslehre.’ Yet it is far from clear, given these initial statements alone, how we are supposed to understand the connection between Fichte’s deduction of the moral law in Part I, his system of moral philosophy in particular, and his doctrine of science in general. I believe Fichte wants to convince his readers that true philosophical inquiry must have its starting point in the principle of the I, and in saying this he does not mask his debt to Kant for separating what is empirical in self-​ consciousness from what is pure. If we want to secure a ‘derivation of consciousness as a whole’—​the equivalent, in Fichte’s view, to a philosophical system—​then there is only one place we should begin. We should begin ‘with the pure I—​which is precisely how the Wissenschaftslehre does begin—​and the idea of such a science has already been provided by Kant himself ’ (ZwE

56  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy 1:477). When one enters Fichte’s doctrine of science for the first time, in any of its early versions, it is difficult to see the extent to which his concept of a ‘pure I’ adds anything new to Kant’s principle of self-​consciousness. In his ‘Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre,’ for example, Fichte appeals to Kant’s claim that the unity of my representations rests on the unity of the ‘I think’ attending my representations, asking, ‘Which “I” is being spoken of here?’ (ZwE 1:475). In his view the answer becomes clear when Kant writes that the I-​concept ‘must be able to accompany all other representations’ and is therefore ‘one and the same’ in all consciousness (B132). What this entails is that the pure I-​concept is not determined by anything contingent, anything that would pertain to the empirical consciousness of my individuality. Accordingly, Fichte argues, what is pure in self-​consciousness must be ‘determined solely by itself ’ (ZwE 1:476). And what is determined solely by itself is the absolute activity of the I, which is the first principle of the doctrine of science. On this basis Fichte concludes that we find ‘quite definitely’ in Kant ‘the concept of the pure I, exactly as it is set up in the Wissenschaftslehre’ (ZwE 1:476). Yet the textual evidence before us is not so straightforward. For when we enter deeper into Fichte’s writings at the time, a number of contrasts between his position and Kant’s come into view. The first and most obvious of these contrasts is that Fichte turns to the I-​concept from a conviction that ‘philosophy until now has been devoid of a highest, universally valid first principle, and only after establishing one will philosophy be able to raise itself to the level of a science’ (RA 1:4). This is the promise Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre holds out to the reader. If we want a philosophical system, we must begin with a universally valid first principle, that is, a principle that is itself unconditioned by any higher principle. If we then sort through every possible candidate, Fichte thinks it will be clear that only one reveals itself with indubitable certainty: namely, that I am active in positing myself, that ‘I am I.’ What this formulation shows is that Fichte’s first principle is not a mere ‘fact’ (Thatsache) of consciousness—​something we could discover through introspection alone—​but an original ‘fact/​act’ (Thathandlung) of the I (GWL 1:96). Interestingly, he also asserts that the best term we have to characterize our access to this act is ‘intellectual intuition,’ not because we can employ a category to a nonspatial/​nontemporal thing, but because we are aware of the self-​positing of the I without the mediation of concepts. Nowhere in Kant do we find the principle of self-​consciousness playing this privileged role, despite its importance for his theoretical philosophy.

Morality  57 That being said, the real novelty of Fichte’s position comes into focus when we consider the implications these departures have, each of which bears upon his concept of the I. In the first place Fichte thinks that if we take his founding principle seriously—​that I am active in positing myself, that ‘I am I’—​then we should acknowledge that all further talk of something beyond the I is problematic. For we must ask: What meaning could we assign to the concept of a ‘not-​I’ (as something given) once we concede that all certainty rests upon the I and its original activity? Of course, if we disregard this thought and assign absolute reality to something beyond the I, then we would effectively make the not-​I into a higher principle—​but that, Fichte points out, would contradict our initial insight: that only the I has a claim to the status of a first principle. How, then, can we proceed with consistency? The preliminary answer Fichte gives is that the not-​I cannot be a wholly independent concept, which is to say that the not-​I must acquire its positive determination in relation to the I itself (RA 1:20). Now if we accept this further point, that the I and the not-​I must stand in relation to each other, Fichte thinks it is obvious that the idea of a ‘thing in itself [Ding an sich], to the extent that this is supposed to be a not-​I not opposed to any I, is self-​contradictory’ (RA 1:20). One important implication of Fichte’s rejection of the thing in itself is that all thinking must be governed by the category of relation, including philosophical reflection on the I and its absolute activity. In fact, the priority of the category of relation underpins the entire doctrine of science and is without a doubt a leitmotif for the early post-​Kantians—​including Schelling, Schiller, and Hegel. In one place Fichte goes so far as to say that ‘community’ (Gemeinschaft) or ‘reciprocal interaction’ (Wechselwirkung) is not on a par with the others but is rather the ‘category of all categories’ (WLnm 212).14 ‘Substantiality and causality are coordinated with each other,’ he writes, ‘but both are subordinated to the category of reciprocal interaction’ (WLnm 212). In Fichte’s view the import of this priority is clear: ‘We can think of nothing but relations’ (WLnm 212). All of this explains why it would be a mistake to think of Fichte’s first principle of the I as a self-​contained principle. Guided by the category of relation, Fichte argues that we cannot think of the I on its own without simultaneously positing a not-​I—​and this introduces his second principle, the principle of opposition. Going further still, he argues that both the I and the not-​I must determine each other mutually—​and this introduces his third principle, the principle of interdetermination. Thus Fichte’s whole argument is of a relational character, since the intelligibility of the I is connected inseparably to the not-​I and vice versa (GWL 1:104–​108).15

58  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy What Fichte says in the introduction to the System of Ethics supports this line of interpretation, for he is explicit that the concept of I-​hood designates the unity of the I and the not-​I, which he also refers to as the unity of the Subject and Object. His guiding claim in this opening section of the text is that both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy share the task of explaining a relation of correspondence between what is ‘subjective’ and what is ‘objective’ (SL 4:1–​2).16 The difference between the two, Fichte now tells us, is that theoretical philosophy is the science of explaining how ‘what is subjective follows from what is objective; the former is supposed to agree with the latter,’ whereas practical philosophy is the science of explaining how ‘what is objective is supposed to follow from what is subjective; a being is supposed to result from my concept’ (SL 4:2). Simply stated, the claim here is that these relations of correspondence are intelligible only if we assume a point of absolute unity between the two, a point where the subjective and the objective are ‘not at all distinguished from one another but are completely one [ganz Eins]’ (SL 4:2). This is what Fichte calls the ‘absolute identity of the subject and the object in the I,’ or ‘I-​hood’ (Ichheit) for short (SL 4:2). I-​hood therefore serves as the first principle of his system as a whole, the single root from which particular theoretical and practical sciences can grow.17 My reason for foregrounding this statement from the introduction is that it sheds light on the relationship Fichte conceives between a deduction in general and the first principle of his system. In the first case, theoretical philosophy can have success only if it recognizes that what we designate with the category of the objective—​the feeling of necessity that comes with our representation of the world—​is nonetheless a representation. What we designate as objective is not a world given to us but a consciousness of a world given to us—​not a reality wholly independent of the I but a consciousness of a reality wholly independent of the I. But that is just to say that without a link to the I, we lose all grounds to speak intelligibly about what is. Theoretical philosophy is properly transcendental only when it treats what is objective as a form of ‘necessary thinking’ that traces back to the first principle of I-​hood (SL 4:2). Similarly, Fichte argues, practical philosophy can have success only if it recognizes that what we designate with the category of the objective—​the feeling of necessity that comes with our representation of duty—​is nonetheless a representation. So what we designate as objective is not a command given to us but a consciousness of a command given to us—​not an authority wholly independent of the I but a consciousness of authority wholly independent of the I.18 But that is just to say that without a link to the I, we lose

Morality  59 all grounds to speak intelligibly about what ought-​to-​be. Practical philosophy is properly transcendental only when it treats what is objective as a form of necessary thinking that traces back to the first principle of I-​hood (SL 4:10). Although this gives us nothing more than a sketch, what I have said should help explain why Fichte introduces Part I of the System of Ethics with a piece of moral phenomenology, which the reader might otherwise find puzzling: It is claimed that a compulsion [Zunöthigung] expresses itself in the mind of a human being, a compulsion to act entirely apart from external ends, but absolutely and simply to perform the action, and a compulsion to refrain from acting, equally apart from external ends, but absolutely and simply to leave the action undone. Insofar as such a compulsion manifests itself in someone necessarily, as surely as he is a human being, one calls this constitution the moral or ethical nature of a human being as such. (SL 4:13)

As I  understand it, what Fichte wants to highlight from the outset of his work is a particular feeling: the feeling of having to perform some actions simply for the sake of performing them, and the feeling of having to avoid other actions simply for the sake of avoiding them. The issue at hand, then, is not yet the content of our moral obligations but the way we experience them as binding, constraining, or limiting our activity. The ‘fact’ (Thatsache) Fichte uses to set the stage for his deduction of the moral law is therefore the fact of normativity itself. It is an analogue of our representation of objectivity in the world, since we also experience the world as limiting us. And that is why the System of Ethics proceeds according to the principles of the Wissenschaftslehre. The aim of Part I is to trace our common consciousness of normativity to its higher (indeed highest) ground in the principle of the I. That is the link between the doctrine of ethics (Sittenlehre) and the doctrine of science (Wissenschaftslehre). Of course, someone may be content to treat this felt compulsion as a fact, without asking after its highest ground of possibility, and someone may even decide to affirm it in an attitude of Glaube. This amounts to what Fichte calls factual or common cognition of our ethical nature, and he says quite explicitly that such cognition is all we need to cultivate ‘both a dutiful disposition and dutiful conduct’ (SL 4:14). The everyday phenomenology of moral compulsion indicates the presence of an imperative, and this imperative appears to be absolute (independent of extrinsic ends) and categorical (valid in all circumstances). Assenting to this appearance in an attitude of faith is

60  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy sufficient to live a moral life, Fichte argues, because it grants this feeling priority over all other motives, desires, or inclinations that may call upon our attention. A deduction becomes pressing, then, only for someone who wants genetic or scientific cognition of our ethical nature. Such a person must ‘raise himself above the standpoint of ordinary consciousness’ because he wants to know how this compulsion ‘originates’ (SL 4:14). Yet these two modes of cognition are not entirely separate. For Fichte, the kind of deduction appropriate to transcendental philosophy is one that vindicates the fact of normativity. Genetic cognition has the aim of uncovering the rational origin of this feeling in a way that defends, rather than deflates, our common moral consciousness. But how is such a defense possible? How are we to go about tracing the feeling of compulsion to its highest ground in the principle of I-​hood? One obstacle standing in the way of such a deduction is that the principle of I-​ hood is, by Fichte’s own admission, unthinkable. It designates the ‘absolute identity of the subject and the object in the I,’ but this identity, he is quick to point out, ‘can only be inferred’ (SL 4:1). The reason is this: In all cases consciousness requires a separation between what is subjective and what is objective. I am conscious of an object only insofar as I distinguish myself, as the one who is conscious, from the object of my consciousness—​even if that object is myself (SL 4:1–​2).19 Consequently, we cannot become conscious of the ‘point’ (Punct) where the subject and the object are one and the same, and so we cannot demonstrate the first principle of the entire doctrine of science as an ‘immediate’ fact of consciousness. In contemporary philosophical terms, we have no privileged access to this point. For this reason it would be a mistake to think that Fichte wants us to employ the principle of I-​hood in a unilinear manner (starting from a direct intuition of the I as a subject-​ object unity) and then proceed step-​by-​step to the feeling of compulsion just described. But then what role is this first principle suited to play, if any? If we cannot grasp the unity of the I as such, prior to its separation into what is subjective and what is objective, how can we hope to acquire genetic cognition of our ethical nature, as Fichte seeks to provide in the System of Ethics?

3.5.  Fichte’s Deduction of the Moral Law The answer brings us directly to what I find most innovative about Fichte’s deduction: its three-​part structure. The unthinkability of I-​hood leads him

Morality  61 to develop a multilateral strategy for deriving the feeling of compulsion.20 In this connection an important hint comes to light when Fichte describes the ‘path’ his deduction will follow: We will assign ourselves the task of thinking of ourselves under a certain specified condition and observing how we are required to think of ourselves under this condition. From the property of ourselves that we find in this way, we will then derive, as something necessary, the moral compulsion noted earlier. (SL 4:16)21

As we discover, the method Fichte employs in §§1–​3 of Part I involves issuing a task, seeking a solution, drawing a result, and then revealing a limit to that result, thereby motivating a new task.22 This gives us the following outline: 1. Our task in §1 is to isolate what is most essential to the I, and Fichte’s solution is to approach the I under its objective aspect, as it is given in reflection (as willing). This leads him to the desired result: that what is most essential to the I is a tendency to self-​activity. But the result is limited, since it does not show how we become conscious of this tendency (SL 4:30).23 2. Our task in §2 is then to show how we become conscious of our tendency to self-​activity. Fichte’s solution is to approach the I anew under its subjective aspect, as it is engaged in reflection (as intelligence). This leads him to the desired result: that we become conscious of our tendency to self-​activity the moment we grasp our indeterminacy or lack of a pregiven nature (SL 4:30), what he later describes as the state of ‘hovering’ or ‘wavering’ between a manifold of possible actions.24 3. However, Fichte tells us that this result is also limited. While it shows how we become conscious of our capacity to generate action from ourselves, it does not yet reveal a positive determination of this capacity (SL 4:34). For this reason Fichte formulates a new task in §3, to show how we become conscious of our tendency to self-​activity, not as a merely possible mode of willing but as an actual mode of willing.25 The task of §3 marks a decisive turning point in the System of Ethics, leading Fichte to argue, rather strikingly, that there is only one way our tendency to self-​activity can manifest itself to us, namely, as a ‘drive’ (Trieb), which he defines as ‘a real, inner explanatory ground of an actual self-​activity’ (SL

62  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy 4:39). Fichte adds right away that since the drive in question concerns our original self-​activity we must regard it as essential to the I as such, and at this point he adds an important remark: that the drive relates to ‘the entire I’ (das ganze Ich) (SL 4:40). In saying this I take him to mean that when we consider an I divided by self-​reflection, we now see that the I reflected upon is posited as a drive, that is, as an actual striving to self-​activity, and that the I engaged in reflection is an intellect, which then subsumes this drive under a concept. The drive relates to the entire I, in other words, because it concerns both the I given in reflection and the I engaged in reflection, appearing first as a real ground of activity (objectively), and then as the very concept through which we direct our self-​determination (subjectively) (SL 4:42–​43). Yet granting all this, we must still ask: How does the concept of a drive put us closer to the goal of solving the third task? What does this drive offer to consciousness, if not the awareness of a mere ‘capacity’ (Vermögen) to determine ourselves freely? Not far from the surface of this question we can detect the same objection Maimon (1794) leveled against Reinhold, discussed in Chapter 2, according to which the concept of a capacity without a determining ground is ‘empty.’ Anticipating Maimon’s objection, Fichte explains that the drive to self-​ activity offers itself to consciousness as a ‘thought’ (Gedanke) or ‘manner of thinking’ (Denken), for the simple reason that it engages our power of intelligence.26 In saying this, he seems to be claiming that all we must do to solve the task of §3 is analyze this manner of thinking further, and that is what Fichte will soon recommend. But there is a problem at hand, as he is also ready to point out. The concept of a drive that relates to the entire I is precisely the concept of a drive that relates to the I as a subject-​object unity, and here Fichte reminds us once again that this unity is unthinkable: ‘The entire I is determined by the drive to absolute self-​activity, and this determination is the thought we are considering. But the entire I cannot be grasped, and for this reason a determinacy of the entire I cannot be grasped immediately either’ (SL 4:47). This means that if we are to analyze the manner of thinking manifesting from our drive to self-​activity, we must take a multilateral approach—​employing what Fichte now calls the ‘law of reciprocal interaction’ (Gesetze der Wechselwirkung)—​whereby we first isolate the manner of thinking in its subjective and objective aspects, and then put the two together synthetically. ‘One can approximate the determinacy of the entire I,’ Fichte explains, ‘only by means of a reciprocal determination of what

Morality  63 is subjective by what is objective, and vice versa, and this is the path we shall take’ (SL 4:48).27

3.6.  The Law for Freedom Unfortunately, instead of moving to this path directly, Fichte raises the problem of an antinomy that, if left unresolved, would threaten the System of Ethics at its core.28 The antinomy emerges from a possible objection one could raise against the idea that a determinate thought or manner of thinking necessarily arises for the intellect. The worry is that by Fichte’s stated definition the intellect is supposed to be free, agile, and spontaneous—​the very characteristics that render it void of a pregiven nature—​such that ‘no thoughts can ever be produced in it’ (SL 4:45). To say that a determinate thought arises for the intellect therefore appears to commit us to a pair of contradictory claims: (the thesis) that our drive to self-​activity produces a thought in the intellect, and (the antithesis) that the intellect is absolutely free from such production. But Fichte says that when the thesis is properly qualified, ‘we will see that both [assertions] can very well stand alongside each other’ (SL 4:45). In this respect he thinks our way out of the antinomy is to apply what he later calls the ‘rules of synthetic method,’ whereby we resolve the contradiction between the thesis and the antithesis through a higher synthesis, ‘in such a way that the two would be posited as one and the same’ (SL 4:105). On my interpretation, Fichte arrives at this synthesis by invoking the law of reciprocal interaction mentioned earlier. It unfolds over the course of three steps: 1. In the first step, Fichte begins by inviting the reader to consider what is subjective in the manner of thinking arising from our drive to self-​ activity under the aspect of objectivity. The ‘essence’ of objectivity, he explains, is what is fixed, unchangeable, and stable (SL 4:48). So when we apply this category to the manner of thinking in question, we get a command for the intellect to give itself a fixed law. 2. In the second step, Fichte invites the reader to consider what is objective in the manner of thinking arising from our drive to self-​activity under the aspect of subjectivity. The ‘essence’ of subjectivity, he explains, is what is free, agile, and spontaneous (SL 4:48). So when we apply this

64  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy category to the law just derived, we get a command for the intellect to think of itself as free. 3. In the third and final step, Fichte reminds us that we can approximate the unity of the two preceding thoughts ‘in accordance with the law of reciprocal interaction,’ that is, ‘by thinking freedom as determining the law and the law as determining freedom’ (SL 4:53). When we then relate the objective aspect of the thought (that of the intellect giving itself a law) alongside the subjective aspect of the thought (that of the intellect thinking of itself as free), we get a command for the intellect to determine itself by its own law of freedom (SL 4:53). As Fichte expresses this last point, speaking now to the reader, ‘When you think of yourself as free, you are required to think your freedom under a law; and when you think of this law, you are required to think of yourself as free’ (SL 4:53). All of this brings Fichte to the central claim of Part I, the claim that freedom and morality ‘are not two thoughts, one of which would depend on the other,’ but are really two aspects of ‘one and the same thought’ (Ein und ebenderselbe Gedanke) (SL 4:53). Once we attain the result of this Identity Thesis, any tension between freedom and morality dissolves, Fichte argues, and we can put the threat of an antinomy to rest. There is nothing contradictory to the claim that our drive to self-​activity produces a necessary manner of thinking, not when we see—​having followed the course of Fichte’s deduction in Part I—​that this manner of thinking is a law the intellect gives to itself.

3.7.  The Higher Synthesis But does the Identity Thesis bring Fichte’s deduction to a close? Recall what he says at the beginning of Part I: We shall assign ourselves the task of thinking of ourselves under a certain specified condition and observing how we are required to think of ourselves under this condition. From the property of ourselves that we find in this way, we will then derive, as something necessary, the moral compulsion noted earlier. (SL 4:16)

The goal is to attain genetic cognition of our ethical nature, since we want to know where a shared feeling of ‘compulsion to act entirely apart from

Morality  65 external ends’ comes from. And Fichte’s point is that a successful deduction must trace all such feelings back to the principle of I-​hood. Yet the reason why he adopts a multilateral strategy, I have argued, is that the principle of I-​hood is an unthinkable unity of what is subjective and what is objective. So the only way we can attain genetic cognition of our ethical nature is to apply a synthetic method and reveal, through the law of reciprocal interaction, that we are required to think of ourselves under the law of our own freedom. Only then can we return to the ‘fact’ Fichte introduced at the beginning of Part I: as a result, the necessity of thinking our freedom under a law (itself a mere aspect of the unity of the I) reveals the origin of the feeling of compulsion in common life. That completes the deduction of Part I. One advantage of this reading is that it explains how we become conscious of our tendency to self-​activity, not as a merely possible mode of willing, but as an actual mode of willing. Remember that what was missing from §2, and the reason our analysis reached a limit, was that we only got as far as positing our capacity to act freely. This was important for illuminating the concept of freedom we assign to the intellect, the freedom to produce action from itself. But it got us no further than the concept of an ‘empty, undetermined capacity of self-​sufficiency’ (SL 4:51). ‘There lies in this concept,’ Fichte explains, in terms that echo Maimon’s complaint, ‘not the least datum indicating that or what kind of actuality is to be thought’ (SL 4:51). As we eventually learn in §3, the ‘datum’ by which we cognize ourselves as positively free appears only in the manner of thinking the intellect under its own law. The law Fichte introduces in this section arises from a real drive to self-​activity, the expression of which is a command for the intellect to be free. A related advantage of this interpretation is that it explains why, after concluding his deduction, Fichte invokes Kant’s claim that consciousness of the moral law discloses our freedom to us (KpV 5:29–​30). After saying that freedom and morality are ‘one and the same,’ Fichte writes that in ‘many places Kant derives conviction in our freedom from consciousness of the moral law’ (SL 4:54), adding: This is to be understood as follows. The appearance of freedom is an immediate fact of consciousness [unmittelbares Factum des Bewusstseyns], and by no means the consequence of another thought. However, as was recollected above, one could want to explain this appearance further and thereby change it into an illusion. That one does not explain this appearance further—​there is no theoretical reason for this, but there is a practical

66  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy one:  the firm decision to grant primacy to practical reason, to hold the moral law [das Sittengesetz] as the true and final vocation of one’s being, and not to go beyond the moral law through rationalization. (SL 4:53–​54)

What this passage makes clear is that Fichte interprets Kant’s Disclosure Thesis favorably as a claim about the reason we have for assenting to the appearance of freedom. Our faith in this appearance can be derived, as he puts it, ‘from consciousness of the moral law’ (SL 4:54). In Kantian terms, this means that while freedom is the essence of the law, the law is the ground for cognizing freedom, for only the moral law reveals the positive determination of our tendency to self-​activity.

3.8.  Viciously Circular? The textual evidence just reviewed makes it plain that, by Fichte’s lights, there is a close affinity between his deduction of the moral law and Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason. Yet what Kant says in the second Critique throws this affinity into question, at least at first glance. After showing why freedom and morality ‘reciprocally imply each other’ (KpV 5:29), Kant asks where our ‘cognition of the unconditionally practical starts,’ whether from freedom or from the law itself (KpV 5:29). As we discussed earlier, he then proceeds to eliminate both freedom (on the grounds that freedom is not an object of experience) and nature (on the grounds that nature teaches us only the rule of causal mechanism), concluding that it must be the moral law which first ‘leads’ us to a positive concept of freedom (KpV 5:29–​30). Kant prepared the reader for this claim in the preface when he explained why freedom is the ratio essendi of the moral law and the moral law the ratio cognoscendi of freedom: ‘For had not the moral law already been distinctly thought in our reason, we should never consider ourselves justified in assuming such a thing as freedom (even though it is not self-​contradictory). But were there no freedom, the moral law would not be encountered at all in ourselves’ (KpV 5:4n). While consciousness of the moral law is an underivable ‘fact of reason,’ admitting of no further proof, Kant argues that we can appeal to this fact to justify our belief in freedom (KpV 5:31).29 In light of such remarks, it is not surprising that many commentators have come to assume that Fichte rejects the Disclosure Thesis. After all, from what we have discussed so far, Fichte seems committed to the project of deriving

Morality  67 consciousness of the moral law, in the manner of a strict deduction, and so he seems committed to going beyond Kant, who was content (rightly or wrongly) to regard such consciousness as the ultimate bedrock of his moral system. Yet in hindsight this makes Fichte’s reference at SL 4:53–​54 all the more enigmatic, since there he invokes the Disclosure Thesis with approval. Nor has this enigma escaped the attention of Fichte’s critics: the presence of SL 4:53–​54 led one nineteenth-​century reader—​Christfried Albert Thilo—​ to argue that Fichte’s invocation of Kant is out of tune with the entire aim and organization of his deduction.30 As Thilo (1861) sees things, instead of exposing the defect of presenting the moral law as a ‘fact of pure reason,’ we find Fichte stopping at a Kantian position and asserting ‘against his will, as it were’ (gleichsame wider seinen Willen) that ‘one has the moral law first and then freedom’ (1861: 345). Thilo goes even further and argues that Fichte’s appeal to Kant undermines the cogency of his argument. For the apparent aim of Part I is to deduce the moral law from the absolute freedom of the I; so by now deriving this freedom from the moral law, Thilo alleges, ‘his deduction obviously turns in a circle and thus becomes superfluous’ (so dreht sich seine Deduction offenbar im Kreise und macht sich damit überflüssig) (1861: 345). By way of reply, I want to suggest that Fichte’s invocation of Kant is much less mysterious when we place it in the larger context of his work. We may recall that the task Fichte issued in §2, and then reissued in §3, was to show how we can become conscious of our tendency to self-​activity (SL 4:39). The reason our analysis in §2 reached a limit was that it gave us insight only into our capacity for free action, and a capacity remains problematic (or empty, as Maimon would say) without any ‘datum’ pointing to its actuality. By shifting attention to the I as a subject-​object unity in §3, Fichte was able to articulate this datum in terms of giving ourselves a fixed law, an insight he argued we attain when we frame our capacity for free action under the aspect of objectivity. What this shows, on my reading, is that behind Fichte’s claim that the unity of the I is unthinkable, he remains committed to the primacy of the moral law for specifying the essence of self-​sufficiency.31 For like Kant, he thinks that the sole datum of the actuality of freedom comes from our awareness of a law to legislate ourselves. In this way Fichte combines—​consistently, I would add—​both the idea that freedom and morality are mutually interrelated aspects of the same thing (the Identity Thesis) and the idea that the moral law is the sole medium through which our consciousness of freedom becomes determinate (the Disclosure Thesis).

68  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy This is not to say that commentators have been entirely wrong to detect differences between Fichte’s strategy of moral justification and Kant’s, but I worry that they have not correctly identified the root cause of those differences. Although Fichte accepts some version of the Disclosure Thesis, I read him as tacitly rejecting Kant’s view that freedom and morality stand in a relation of co-​entailment, for this assumes that freedom and morality are distinct thoughts sharing content and extension—​the two criteria for analytic reciprocity.32 While Fichte is willing to follow Kant in identifying the moral law as the epistemic ground of freedom, he is not willing to accept Kant’s Reciprocity Thesis, at least not without qualification, since in this context Fichte does not think we have an entailment relation before us. On Fichte’s alternative, freedom and morality form a ‘real synthetic whole,’ one whose separation into subjective and objective parts is merely a product of philosophical reflection. It is for this reason that Fichte offers a multilateral deduction in Part I of the System of Ethics, whose final result is that freedom and morality are reciprocal aspects of a single thought. But what are we to make of Thilo’s allegation that Fichte’s deduction moves in a vicious circle? No one will deny that it is problematic to treat the moral law first as something to be argued for, and then use it as a basis to be argued from—​since the first strategy regards the moral law as a conclusion, whereas the second strategy regards it as a presupposition. However, I do not think Fichte is guilty of committing this fallacy, and it is instructive to see why. What many commentators overlook is that Part I has both a moral starting point and a moral terminus, but the two are sufficiently distinct from each other. The starting point is our everyday moral phenomenology, or what we might call: Moral Compulsion: The feeling of having to perform some actions, simply for the sake of performing them, and the feeling of having to avoid other actions, simply for the sake of avoiding them.

By the end of Part I we are supposed to have acquired genetic cognition of this feeling, whereby we see it as the manifestation of a necessary mode of thinking our freedom under law—​the ground of which we apprehend, Fichte argues, only from a philosophical point of view. The deontic principle underlying the feeling of moral compulsion is what he eventually formulates as ‘the moral law’ (das Sittengesetz):

Morality  69 Moral Law: The law the intellect gives to itself—​namely, to determine its freedom in accordance with the concept of self-​sufficiency.

This shows us that the ‘fact’ at the starting point of the deduction and the ‘ground’ of this fact at the terminus are different ways of approaching moral normativity as such.33 The difference is explanatory:  the starting point considers moral normativity from the standpoint of common consciousness, whereas the terminus considers it from the standpoint of philosophical consciousness. In this regard Fichte’s deduction aspires to be internally self-​ grounding, since it does not seek to justify our experience of moral compulsion on the basis of morally neutral or theoretical premises (pace Reinhold and Maimon, respectively). Fichte even warns the reader against ‘being misled—​as has so often been the case—​into wanting to provide a further explanation of our consciousness of having duties (for this is what the thought to be described will prove to be) and wanting to derive it from grounds outside of itself, which is impossible and which would violate the dignity and absoluteness of the law’ (SL 4:47). When Fichte says in agreement with Kant that conviction in our freedom comes from consciousness of the moral law, he is not guilty of moving in a vicious circle. For when we pause to reread the stretch of text quoted earlier, it is clear that he is drawing upon the moral law (the terminus), and not the feeling of moral compulsion (the starting point), in an effort to justify our belief in absolute self-​activity. Nor is there any inconsistency in this claim, since Fichte has already shown that morality and freedom are but two aspects of one and the same thought, viewed either objectively as a fixed law or subjectively as sheer spontaneity.34 The moral law demands that we legislate ourselves according to the concept of self-​sufficiency. And this is just the objective manner of thinking our freedom, which otherwise appears to us as a fact of consciousness. When the question then becomes ‘On what basis should we assent to this appearance?,’ it makes sense for Fichte to invoke the moral law, since this law is the sole datum for the positive determination of our freedom. That is why if ‘one does not go beyond the moral law, then one also does not go beyond the appearance of freedom, which thereby becomes for us the truth’ (SL 4:54). The moral law in this way supports a fundamental decision for Fichte—​upon which his ‘entire philosophy is built’ (SL 4:54)—​ the decision to say ‘I am free’ and not merely ‘I appear to myself to be free’ (SL 4:54).

70  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy

3.9.  Regressive or Dialectical: Guyer’s Reading For these reasons I  have reservations with how Paul Guyer (2015) has presented Fichte’s deduction of the moral law, which is otherwise well-​ argued and sympathetic to the aims of the System of Ethics. Guyer interprets Fichte’s deduction as a paradigmatic case of a transcendental argument.35 On his reading, Fichte’s starting point concerns a distinction between the self as active and the self as passive, and the goal of the deduction is to investigate the conditions necessary for thinking of oneself in the former way. More specifically, Guyer takes Fichte to begin with the following claim: 1. In order to think of my self-​consciousness, I must think of myself as not merely having representations but as acting upon representations. According to Guyer, Fichte’s guiding question is what further conditions are necessary to think of ‘acting upon representations.’ The answer, he thinks, points us to the concept of willing, from which we can derive the following chain of inferences: 2. In order to think of myself as acting upon representations, I must think of myself as willing. 3. In order to think of myself as willing, I must think of myself as acting in accordance with the concept of an end. 4. In order to think of myself as acting in accordance with the concept of an end, I must conceive of that end as self-​sufficient and independent.36 5. An end that is self-​sufficient and independent is the concept of the moral law. 6. Therefore, given (1)–​(5), in order to think of my self-​consciousness, I must think of myself as willing in accordance with the moral law. On this reconstruction, Fichte is advancing a regressive style of argument, since it begins with the premise that we must think of ourselves as active in order to think of ourselves at all, and it then works ‘backwards’ to the conditions necessary to think of such activity. The moral law receives a warrant, on this account, because it emerges as the only concept fit to serve as the end of self-​active willing. In Guyer’s view, rather than treat the moral law as an undeniable ‘fact of reason’ that we must accept on the basis of ‘faith,’ Fichte’s

Morality  71 deduction has the form of a transcendental argument to the conditions of self-​consciousness, which he believes ‘eluded Kant’ (2015: 147). Now Guyer’s reading has the virtue of bringing clarity to what is, in fact, a long, convoluted, and even repetitive stretch of text. However, this clarity comes at the cost of overlooking some key distinguishing features of Fichte’s approach. One I have hinted at already is that Fichte organizes his deduction into three stages, and attention to these stages indicates that he is operating, not regressively (as Guyer assumes), but dialectically. Fichte proceeds by issuing a problem, that is, to think of the I under a certain aspect, and the goal for the reader is to proceed as far as possible under this aspect until we reach a limit, the discovery of which motivates a transition to a new aspect. Strictly speaking, the deduction does not begin with the assertion that I must think of myself as acting upon representations. As we have seen, the deduction begins with a task: §1. To think of oneself merely as oneself, i.e., as separated from everything that is not our self. (SL 4:18)

Granted, much more could be said about Fichte’s strategy, but it should now be clear why I am hesitant to follow Guyer who interprets Part I of the System of Ethics along the lines of a regressive argument. A drawback of this reading is that it renders Fichte’s final step in §3 puzzling, since the concept of the moral law emerges not as a transcendental condition of self-​activity (or a condition of its being) but as an epistemic condition of self-​activity (or a condition of its knowledge). A regressive interpretation would have us treat the moral law as the ‘ratio essendi’ of freedom, whereas Fichte—​and in this respect I take him to be following Kant—​wants us to treat the moral law as the ‘ratio cognoscendi’ of freedom. The moral law on Fichte’s view is the law of absolute self-​sufficiency, and this is the ‘medium’ for accessing our real tendency to self-​activity. Not surprisingly, Guyer believes that Fichte’s deduction has the form of an argument that ‘eluded Kant,’ who he says was content to treat the moral law as a Factum that we must accept on ‘faith’ (2015: 147). Yet Guyer does not mention that Fichte himself cites Kant’s Factum with approval, writing that ‘in many places Kant derives our conviction concerning freedom from our consciousness of the moral law’ (SL 4:53). In my understanding, this is yet more evidence to suggest that Fichte, in agreement with Kant, does not think that we have purely theoretical or morally neutral grounds to access our freedom in a positive sense.

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3.10.  Morality, Freedom, and Faith But now the kind of skeptical worries that animated Maimon’s alternative deduction of the moral law return with renewed force. If Fichte is rehabilitating some version of the Disclosure Thesis and assigning epistemic primacy to the moral law, it seems we have won an account of how we become conscious of our freedom at the cost of making the moral law (or our consciousness thereof) open to doubt. Maimon’s question ‘How do we know that the moral law is actually binding upon our will?’ appears to remain unanswered, and that means Fichte’s deduction has failed to satisfy a condition of objectivity. One obvious attraction of the Maimonian-​foundationalist strategy is that it promises to rule out skepticism about the moral law’s bindingness by deriving the law from a theoretical ‘fact’ about our drive for truth.37 Nonetheless, I think Fichte has resources to address this concern, since he is careful to distinguish between the specific actions we feel ‘should’ and ‘should not’ be done, and the conceptual formulation of the moral law as a law of self-​sufficiency. The aim of his deduction is to offer genetic cognition of the former, to trace the ‘fact’ of moral compulsion to its ‘ground’ in the reciprocal interaction of the I considered both objectively and subjectively. The bindingness of the moral law thereby receives a warrant on Fichte’s account, since it turns out to have a necessary connection to the first principle of his system.38 This puts us in a better position to see what motivates Fichte’s claim that idealism is for those who have ‘faith’ in freedom (SL 4:26; cf. 4:13). In the System of Ethics Fichte arrives at this point because on his view a derivation of freedom would destroy freedom: it would trace the appearance of absoluteness to another ground, and thereby render the appearance illusory. Freedom in this way counts as a fact of consciousness, and for that reason one is always at liberty to explain this appearance further. But if, Fichte adds, one nevertheless decides not to explain this appearance any further and decides to consider it to be absolutely inexplicable, i.e., to be the truth, and indeed our sole truth, according to which all other truth has to be measured and judged—​and our entire philosophy is based on precisely this decision—​then this is not because of any theoretical insight, but because of a practical interest. I will to be self-​sufficient, and I therefore take myself to be so. Such a taking-​to-​be-​true, however, is faith [Ein solches Fürwahrhalten aber ist ein Glaube]. (SL 4:25–​26)39

Morality  73 It is only at the end of the deduction in §3 that Fichte spells out this ‘practical interest’ in terms of Kant’s Factum, which he says ‘derives our conviction concerning freedom from our consciousness of the moral law’ (SL 4:53). Once again Fichte writes that one might wish to explain the appearance of freedom further and ‘thereby transform it into an illusion’ (SL 4:53). But now Fichte adds a new detail: he explicitly connects our practical interest for not transforming freedom into an illusion with our consciousness of the moral law: If, however, one does not go beyond the moral law, then one also does not go beyond the appearance of freedom, which thereby becomes for us the truth, inasmuch as the proposition, ‘I am free; freedom is the sole true being and the ground of all other being,’ is quite different from the proposition, ‘I appear to myself to be free.’ What can be derived from consciousness of the moral law, therefore, is faith in the objective validity of this appearance [of freedom]. (SL 4:54)

This passage shows that Fichte is radicalizing Kant’s Disclosure Thesis in two ways. First, he regards consciousness of the moral law as a basis to assent to the appearance of freedom, whereas Kant regards moral consciousness as a basis to infer a faculty of a pure will within us (the faculty of pure practical reason). Though Fichte speaks of a ‘derivation’ in this context, what is derived on his account is the subjective attitude of ‘taking-​to-​be-​true’ (Fürwahrhalten), and the object of that attitude is the sheer absoluteness of freedom as such, not an underlying faculty. Second, and relatedly, while Kant’s Disclosure Thesis would entitle one to affirm the first part of Fichte’s proposition, ‘I am free,’ it would not entitle one to affirm the second part, that ‘freedom is the sole true being and the ground of all other being’ (SL 4:54). For Kant, what the moral law brings to our awareness is the real possibility of acting against our sensible inclinations as a sum total, and that warrants our claim to possessing a higher faculty of self-​determination (a ‘pure will’). But there is no sense in which, for Kant, the real possibility of freedom extends our cognition to ‘the ground of all other being,’ even if we qualify all talk of ‘being’ to the strictly idealist (or nondogmatic) sense Fichte wants to uphold. Whatever we make of these two departures, there is no doubt that Fichte is putting the Disclosure Thesis to novel use by making consciousness of the moral law fundamental, not just to his doctrine of ethics but also to his doctrine of science as a whole.

74  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy

3.11.  Entering the Wissenschaftslehre This brings us at last to what has become a major interpretive controversy in recent Fichte scholarship. What lies at the heart of this controversy is the question of how Fichte frames the starting point of the Wissenschaftslehre, and how he considers the relationship between consciousness of the moral law and the indubitability of his first principle, the freedom of the I as such. On a nonmoralistic reading, as defended by Paul Franks (2005), Fichte’s strategy appeals first to the philosopher’s intellectual intuition of her own self-​activity, without referring to notions of duty, obligation, or law, and only after establishing the first principle on theoretical grounds does she then appeal to the moral law (among other concepts) in deriving a complete set of conditions for this principle’s application to the sensible world (Franks 2005: 319, 324, 325). On this line of interpretation, a form of nonmoral intellectual intuition of self-​activity provides access to the Wissenschaftslehre’s first principle (2005: 318). The starting point of the doctrine of science is therefore ‘practically neutral’:  The transcendental philosopher, in order to enter into the system of idealism, does not require consciousness of the moral law. On a moralistic reading, as defended by Karl Ameriks (2000), Frederick Beiser (2002), and Daniel Breazeale (2013), our point of entry into the doctrine of science is practical in a very strong sense.40 On this view, consciousness of the moral law is the philosopher’s precondition for adopting the system of idealism. As Breazeale presents this claim, Fichte did not think that such a system could be established on purely theoretical foundations, inasmuch as it presupposes the kind of practically grounded belief in the reality of human freedom that—​as he repeatedly conceded—​is based upon a morally motivated decision not to doubt the reality of the same. (2013: 266)

What Breazeale calls ‘the ultimate certainty of human freedom’ comes from ‘one’s “normative” intuition of actual moral obligations rather than any purely speculative or transcendental intuition of the original spontaneity of the I’ (2013: 267). In this way Breazeale denies that nonmoral intellectual intuition of self-​activity is prior to the ‘moral resolve’ at the basis of our conviction in the reality of freedom, and so it does not serve to establish (as Franks upholds) the philosopher’s entry point into the Wissenschaftslehre.

Morality  75 Where does the account I have presented in this chapter fit within this debate? As I see it, the way Fichte appropriates Kant’s Factum to support conviction in the reality of freedom as ‘the sole true being and the ground of all other being’ (SL 4:54) is evidence to suggest that consciousness of the moral law plays a central role in supporting his system of idealism. Yet that is not to say I agree entirely with the moralistic reading, since this reading admits of two versions that commentators are not always careful to distinguish. On a strong version of this reading, it is one’s experience of moral compulsion from the standpoint of common life that secures the first principle of Fichte’s idealism. On a weak version, by contrast, the entry point to this first principle comes from one’s cognition of the ground of this experience from the standpoint of philosophical reflection. In other words, the very notion of ‘moral primacy’ in Fichte’s system remains ambiguous unless we separate (i) duty as it appears factually in common consciousness from (ii) the moral law as it appears conceptually in philosophical consciousness, and it is the latter, on my reading, that reveals the underlying principle of duty in terms of self-​sufficiency. This is precisely the distinction Fichte draws in the System of Ethics that we discussed earlier between ‘factual’ and ‘genetic’ cognition of our moral nature. With this distinction in view, I am willing to endorse a weak moralistic reading, since it fits Fichte’s own use of the Disclosure Thesis. To quote the relevant passage once more, Fichte tells us that if ‘one does not go beyond the moral law, then one also does not go beyond the appearance of freedom’ (SL 4:54; emphasis added). As I read it, the sense of the ‘moral law’ in this passage is the ‘law of self-​sufficiency’ Fichte had formulated qua philosopher, not the feeling of moral ‘compulsion’ he introduced at the beginning of the work qua ordinary person. After all, the aim of his deduction is precisely to ‘go beyond’ the latter feeling as a fact of common consciousness and reveal its rational source. What strikes me as a flaw to the strong moralistic reading is that, by making an ordinary ‘normative’ intuition of moral obligations the basis for securing the first principle of the Wissenschaftslehre, it forces us to view Fichte as a kind of Reinholdian philosopher who argues regressively from facts of consciousness, which does not square with the textual evidence we have before us. Worse still, this reading renders Fichte’s deduction of the moral law viciously circular (as Thilo alleged long ago). For it would have us treat our common consciousness of obligations as a basis to derive conviction in the reality of freedom, whereas Fichte himself introduces such consciousness in Part I as precisely what stands in need of a deduction.41

76  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy It bears repeating that the ordinary person need not go beyond the feeling of compulsion that comes attached to her awareness of obligations,42 but the philosopher must, in Fichte’s view, if she wants to secure knowledge of her moral nature. Yet this does not mean the philosopher must go beyond the moral law itself; that is the mistaken strategy of those who, like Fichte’s contemporaries, want to ‘derive’ our consciousness of having duties ‘from grounds outside of itself,’ which Fichte says is impossible (SL 4:47). In other words, genetic cognition brings us to the moral law as the necessary manner of thinking our own freedom, but we should not then seek some independent ground to derive this manner of thinking (for example, by linking it to our drive for the cognition of truth). It is the dignity and absoluteness of the law, for Fichte, which supports one’s refusal to transform the appearance of freedom into an illusion. And that is the nature of his commitment to moral primacy, on my account. Of course, this is not to deny that Fichte appeals to nonmoral forms of intellectual intuition to initiate transcendental reflection. But it is to deny that such theoretical intuition serves to ground the subjective attitude of ‘taking’ freedom ‘to-​be-​true’ (Fürwahrhalten), which is, for Fichte, the all-​important ‘decision’ at the basis of his science of knowledge.

3.12 Closing Remarks Though Fichte would end up radicalizing Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason for the purposes of the Wissenschaftslehre, there is no question that he was the great champion of the Disclosure Thesis when compared to his contemporaries, all of whom were resistant to making the moral law a condition for knowing our freedom. Little did Fichte know, as fate would have it, that he would also be the last champion, as the course of philosophy in the nineteenth century redoubled the initial suspicions of Reinhold, Creuzer, and Maimon, leading some of the most prominent thinkers of the age to decry Kant’s Factum as ‘the last undigested log in our stomach, a revelation given to reason’ (Hegel) or as ‘a Delphic temple in the soul from whose dark holiness issue oracular sayings’ (Schopenhauer).43 On the more charitable reading I have defended in this chapter, Fichte’s deduction of the moral law seeks to trace our feeling of moral compulsion (as a fact of consciousness) to its highest ground, and the argument culminates in his thesis that morality and freedom are but two aspects of the I as such, considered either objectively or subjectively. For all its complexity, then, the goal of Fichte’s deduction is

Morality  77 simply to vindicate our common consciousness of moral normativity by revealing its rational source. That is to say, the deduction aims at nothing more than knowledge of our ethical nature,44 and Fichte is clear that knowledge is not ‘power’ (Kraft): In this way, while we gain insight into the grounds [of this compulsion] by means of a deduction, we do not gain any power to change this compulsion, because it is our knowledge, not our power, that reaches this far, and because the whole relation is necessary—​it is our own unchangeable nature itself. The deduction therefore produces nothing more than theoretical cognition, and one must not expect anything more from it. (SL 4:14)

At the same time, cognition of our ethical nature is no small achievement. For it is precisely this cognition that links the doctrine of ethics (Sittenlehre) to the doctrine of science (Wissenschaftslehre) and thereby brings a science of morality into being—​‘and science, wherever it is possible, is an end in itself [Zweck an sich]’ (SL 4:15).

4 Drive I am subject-​object, and my true being lies in the identity and inseparability of the two. —​Fichte, The System of Ethics (SL 4:130)

4.1.  Introduction Chapters 2 and 3 of this book attempted to clarify the foundations of Fichte’s moral philosophy by answering two main questions of interpretation: What does Fichte mean by freedom in the System of Ethics? and How does he provide a deduction of the moral law in Part I? In this chapter and the next we shall turn to the second stage of Fichte’s argument: his deduction of the reality and applicability of the moral law in Part II. Our present aim is to understand, first, what motivates this transition in Fichte’s argument—​why he distinguishes, in a manner reminiscent of Kant’s deduction of the categories, a deduction of the moral law’s necessity from a deduction of its applicability. Getting clear on this distinction will direct us to his notion of a ‘drive’ (Trieb), and much of this chapter will be devoted to presenting as coherently as possible this concept in Fichte’s work. By the end of the chapter I hope to make good on my claim, announced in Chapter  1, that Fichte’s monistic drive theory plays an central role in the System of Ethics. Of particular importance here is the concept of an ‘original drive’ (Urtrieb), which I will often refer to in German given that no English translation captures its meaning. The Urtrieb, for Fichte, designates our original state of wholeness, which becomes divided into lower and higher capacities of desire only in time through acts of reflection. On the reading I will defend, this concept points the way to an alternative picture of Fichte’s ethics, since moral actions turn out to be identical to those which reunify and reintegrate our divided self. It can be tempting to read Part I of the System of Ethics with the expectation that it will specify the conditions for a complete moral theory—​ including, above all, a substantive account of how we can derive content from Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Owen Ware, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190086596.001.0001

Drive  79 the moral law and use it to guide our actions in everyday life. However, those approaching the text with this hope will certainly be disappointed, since Fichte’s ambition in §§1–​3 is merely to provide insight into the source of our feeling of moral compulsion, which is a vital step, to be sure, but only the first step on the path to a doctrine of ethics proper. Fichte himself draws attention to the fact that the propositions of Part I are ‘formal and empty,’ which is to say: they yield no further insight into how the moral law is a necessary concept for willing an object, since Part I has considered willing only in isolation from an object. But then we must ask: How is Fichte able to take us from the analytic path of his moral philosophy, which is by his own concession empty, to the synthetic path, which aims to show how the moral law is applicable in willing an object? The answer to this question of applicability begins with Fichte’s drive theory in Part II of the System of Ethics, which we are now ready to consider in further detail. One of my central aims in this chapter is to trace this theory to Fichte’s derivation of the natural drive from an organicist view of ‘nature’ (Natur). This derivation, which unfolds over the course of §§8–​9, is the key to rethinking Fichte’s ethics as an ethics of wholeness, but it remains one of the least discussed sections of his moral philosophy in the secondary literature (and makes almost no appearance in the English scholarship). My hope is to remedy this oversight by showing why an organicist view of nature gives us a basis to explain the proper end of the natural drive: it is, Fichte argues, a striving to unite with an object, not to eliminate it or dominate it. The crucial upshot of this claim, I shall argue, is a new way of thinking about ‘desire’ (Begehren), even in its lowest expression, as the reciprocal activity of ‘forming and being formed’—​or what Fichte calls the activity of ‘formation’ (Bildung). When Fichte fleshes out the idea of our ethical vocation, he is clear that it requires, not the pursuit of independence from nature (the end of the pure drive) nor the pursuit of enjoyment (the end of the natural drive), but the mutual and reciprocal interaction of the two.

4.2.  Background: Empty Formula Philosophy In view of Fichte’s aim to provide a new foundation of human knowledge in the doctrine of the Wissenschaftslehre, it is understandable why he characterizes his subsequent writings on political and moral philosophy as branches of a general system. Both the 1796 Foundations of Natural Right

80  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy and the 1798 System of Ethics bear the subtitle ‘according to principles’ of the doctrine of science. The goal of these works is not to lay down the foundations of a system of human knowledge as such, but rather to derive a specific Wissenschaft from the principle of the I and its free activity. It is also noteworthy that Fichte organizes each text according to the same threefold structure: • Part I offers a Deduktion (deduction) of a concept, either of Recht (right) or of Sittlichkeit (morality). • Part II offers a deduction of the Anwendbarkeit (applicability) of this concept. • Part III offers a Systematische Anwendung (systematic application) of this concept, which yields a doctrine of rights and a doctrine of duties, respectively. This order of operations shows that a concern with questions of applicability was never far from Fichte’s mind during the 1790s, nor was it an isolated topic of investigation. One clear example of this concern appears in the introduction to the Natural Right, titled ‘How a Real Philosophical Science Distinguishes Itself from Mere Formula Philosophy.’ The formula philosopher, Fichte explains, analyzes the facts of consciousness as they are given to introspection, whereas the transcendental philosopher reproduces the activity of the I underlying these same facts. For this reason ‘the first procedure gives concepts without an object, an empty thinking; only in the second manner is the philosopher a spectator of the real thinking of his spirit.’1 Continuing in this vein, Fichte writes: The first is an arbitrary imitation of the original acts of reason [one has] heard from others. . . . The latter alone is the true observation of reason in its procedure. From the former arises an empty formula philosophy, which believes it has done enough if it can show that one can think of something, without being concerned about the object (about the conditions of the necessity of this thinking). A real philosophy holds concept and object together simultaneously, and never treats one without the other. The aim of the Kantian writings was to introduce such a philosophy and to abolish all merely formal philosophizing. (GNR 3:6)

Drive  81 Fichte is not claiming that Kant had presented the correct solution to the problem of ‘real philosophy,’ that of grounding all human knowledge in the absolute activity of the I.  But Fichte believed Kant had set up the task in the right way, alluding to his well-​known tenet from the first Critique:  ‘Thoughts without content are empty’ (A51/​B75). What motivates Fichte to preface the Natural Right with the problem of an empty formula philosophy is a misunderstanding he saw threatening this tenet at the time. In Fichte’s view, defenders of Kantian philosophy (like Reinhold) had produced nothing more than ‘empty thinking’ by analyzing the facts of consciousness given to introspection. And critics (like Maimon) had then concluded that Kantian philosophy itself amounts to empty thinking, unable to justify the applicability of its central concepts, as we saw in Chapters 2 and 3. Yet Fichte’s point is that the problem of empty formalism lies not with Kant’s system but with the Reinholdian version of it. The way past skepticism about applicability, in his view, lies in the Wissenschaftselehre, which the doctrine of right and the doctrine of ethics are meant to bring to completion.

4.3.  The Question of Applicability That Fichte is sensitive to the problem of empty formalism in the System of Ethics is clear when he stops to consider the path of Part I: All the principles established in Part I are merely formal, without any material meaning. We see that we should do something; but we grasp neither what we should do nor where we should do it. This was the result of how all merely formal philosophizing occurs: we set up abstract thoughts, which are in no way concrete, and we described a reflection in general without determining it, i.e., without showing the conditions of its possibility. (SL 4:76)

Fichte adds that proceeding in this manner was necessary at the beginning of his inquiry. Yet he wants to make it clear that ‘there was never any intention of concluding our investigation after merely setting forth these purely formal propositions, as if everything had already been accomplished’ (SL 4:76). As we discussed earlier, Fichte’s strategy in Part I is to show that when we consider our willing in the abstract, separated from a world of objects, our

82  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy willing appears to be free, and this is a ‘fact of consciousness’ (Thatsache des Bewusststein). When we then ask what grounds we have to assent to this fact, to believe that we really are free, he argues that our conviction has a moral basis. Only the concept of morality, understood as a law of self-​sufficiency, gives grounds to assent to the appearance of freedom. In this way Part I shows that the concept of morality is necessary for securing freedom as an ‘item of faith’ (Glaubensartikel), and this gives proof ‘that we should do something,’ that is, strive for self-​sufficiency. However, Fichte notes that this law on its own is merely formal and empty of content because it leaves two further issues unaddressed: (1) What should I do in striving for self-​sufficiency? and (2) Where should I strive for it?, each of which, he argues, bear upon the question of its applicability. As I  understand these further questions, Fichte is saying that in the course of transcendental reflection I can distinguish the insight ‘that’ (dass) I ought absolutely to do something from the insight ‘what’ (was) I ought to do and ‘where’ (wohin) I ought to do it. The first insight is what secures the deduction of the concept of morality in Part I of the System of Ethics: when I see that I ought to do something, I have grounds to assent to the appearance of freedom, which (like all appearances) is susceptible to doubt. That I ought not to go beyond morality and rationalize away its authority is what gives me a footing to say ‘I am actually free’ in place of ‘I appear to myself to be free.’ This is the Glaubensartikel mentioned earlier: ‘Belief in the objective validity of this appearance is therefore derivable from consciousness of the moral law. I am actually free is the first article of faith’ (SL 4:54). That I am warranted to think of myself as free, as capable of determining myself, is secure only on the basis of my consciousness of a law to strive for self-​ sufficiency, the moral law. And this makes the concept of morality the sole ground for accessing my freedom as a real possibility for me. ‘I am actually free’ becomes an item of belief once I realize, through my consciousness of the moral law, that I am not permitted to rationalize away the appearance of absoluteness in willing. As Fichte defines his terms, a deduction of the necessity of a concept need show only that it is a required condition for determining an object, whereas a deduction of a concept’s applicability must go further. ‘The concept of morality,’ he says, ‘has already now been derived in and for itself as a determinate form of thinking, as the only possible manner of thinking of our freedom’ (SL 4:64). At the beginning of Part II, Fichte writes that consciousness of freedom ‘has only been determined immediately. The concept of freedom might also

Drive  83 determine several other things mediately or indirectly, and that is here the question’ (SL 4:64–​65; emphasis added). This suggests that the question of necessity and the question of applicability are both transcendental—​they concern the connection of a concept and its object—​but they differ in scope. Whereas the question of necessity concerns only the general determination of my consciousness of freedom in abstract willing (i.e., in willing without an object), the question of applicability, which Fichte plans to secure over the course of Part II, concerns the specific determination of this consciousness in actual willing (i.e., in willing an object). Characterizing Fichte’s second deduction in these terms might not seem helpful at first glance. Yet I believe it sheds light on the text of the System of Ethics when we turn to consider how Fichte organizes the remainder of Part II. For instead of moving straight to the task of enumerating a set of duties we ought to perform in striving for self-​sufficiency, Fichte embarks upon what may seem like a long detour: • §§4–​9: These sections examine the concepts of activity, causality, drive, feeling, longing, desire, and nature, leading up to a deduction of our ‘lower capacity of desire’ (niedere Begehrungsvermögen). • §§10–​13: These sections examine the concepts of interest, deliberation, freedom, and conscience, leading up to a deduction of our ‘higher capacity of desire’ (obere Begehrungsvermögen). Part II eventually leads to what Fichte calls the norm of an applicable ethics:  ‘Act according to your conscience’ (handle nach deinem Gewissen) (SL 4:156)—​nearly one hundred pages after he raised the problem of applicability. Yet by the time Fichte introduces this explicitly deontic principle it can be difficult to see why the detailed account of our lower capacity of desire in §§4–​9—​however interesting—​is even necessary for the reader to plod through.2 Fichte’s motives become more clear when we remember that consciousness of freedom in general arises when we consider a rational being in the abstract, separate from a world of objects (the path of formal philosophizing). But to consider the specific form this consciousness takes in actual willing is to consider a rational being engaged in this world (the path of real philosophizing).3 On my reading, then, Fichte’s two deductions in the System of Ethics reflect his different ways of handling the concept of willing: the first

84  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy proceeds by way of analysis, the second by way of synthesis, what I earlier referred to as Fichte’s version of Kant’s architectonic method: • The way of analysis: In Part I, Fichte separates the concept of willing from its object in order to bring the following fact to light: the fact that willing appears to be free. This method of analysis allows him to show that only one concept suffices to determine consciousness of freedom and give it actuality: the concept of the moral law. • The way of synthesis: When Fichte next raises the question of applicability in Part II, his concern is not yet with the question of what doctrine of duties follows from the idea of self-​sufficiency. Rather, his concern is with the question of how the moral law is a required concept for willing an object. That is why Part II of the System of Ethics (§§4–​13) is considerably longer than Part I (§§1–​3). Fichte must recapitulate in the course of transcendental reflection the original conditions necessary for willing an object. From this point of view it starts to become clear why Fichte introduces the concepts of feeling, longing, and desire—​all the elements of his complex drive theory—​ because these elements speak to the connection between the will and its object. In short: If Fichte can show that the concept of morality makes this connection possible, too, then this concept will have genuine reality. All this puts us in a better position to see that Fichte’s aim of grounding ethics in a system of real philosophy rests on answering the following two questions: • The Question of Necessity:  Is morality required for the concept of willing, when we consider that concept in isolation from an object (Part I: §§1–​3)? • The Question of Applicability:  Is morality required for the concept of willing, when we consider that concept in connection to an object (Part II: §§4–​13)? Each question demands a deduction, after which it will be possible, Fichte argues, to present a doctrine of duties proper, a specific set of actions we ought to perform in striving for self-​sufficiency. Yet fulfilling this final requirement of the book requires only a ‘systematic application’ (Systematische Anwendung), not a deduction proper, because at this point the question of

Drive  85 the synthetic connection between the will and its object has been answered. That is not to say Part III of the System of Ethics (§§14–​33) falls outside the project of grounding Fichte’s doctrine of ethics, since only the enumeration of our duties will reveal the conditions in which our striving for self-​ sufficiency can be actualized (in relation to our body, our mind, the rational community to which we belong, the institutions of the church, the learned republic, the state, as well as the stations of life that make up the higher and lower classes). To this extent, what Fichte acknowledges as a threat of empty formalism is really the product of his own method of analysis, the same method he associates with formula philosophy: setting concepts in motion without connection to their objects. Putting this threat to rest will require the method of synthesis he takes to be the hallmark of real philosophy, that of recapitulating the conditions of actual willing and its connection to a world of objects. If successful, then, this new inquiry in Part II will culminate in a principle of an applicable ethics (in §§12–​13), which we will examine later in this chapter and again in Chapter 5.

4.4.  Wholeness and Self-​Division Without losing sight of this wide-​angle perspective on the System of Ethics, let us now slow down to examine the drive theory making up the deduction of Part II. If one had to summarize the basic thrust of this theory in a single sentence, one could say: All the activity of a finite rational being proceeds from a single, fundamental drive. This fundamental drive, which Fichte calls an Urtrieb, can be further analyzed in terms of a ‘natural drive’ (Naturtrieb), a ‘pure drive’ (reine Trieb), and a mixture of the two, the so-​called ‘ethical drive’ (sittliche Trieb). One point I should highlight from the beginning is that every element of willing Fichte will discuss over the course of Part II is an abstraction of a single ground of activity. An equally important point to call attention to is that no basic difference separates the lower and higher expressions of this activity. All the elements of the lower capacity of desire (such as drive and longing) make up the non-​self-​conscious expression of the Urtrieb, and all the elements of the higher capacity of desire (such as reflection and conscience) make up its self-​conscious expression. The Urtrieb is nothing more than pure activity as such, the pure striving of the I considered in its original wholeness (SL 4:130, 131, 143, 144). For Fichte, what distinguishes the lower and higher expressions of this drive is not agency or a lack thereof, but

86  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy self-​reflection or a lack thereof. The capacity of deliberation that we designate as ‘free choice’ is nothing more than the lower capacity transformed in the space of self-​reflection. This sheds light on Fichte’s drive theory. On a basic level his claim is that when I reflect upon an object I limit myself in relation to what I posit, and I thereby divide myself from it. I posit my I in contrast to a not-​I. If I now reflect upon myself, then the same activity of limitation and division occurs: I limit myself, as the subject of reflection, in relation to the object of reflection, and thus I become self-​conscious. While Fichte wants to characterize the pure I in terms of an original wholeness—​a unity of subject and object—​ his point is that reflection is the activity of breaking up this original wholeness. This explains why he thinks all activity, all doing and willing, are mere manifestations of a single, fundamental drive, the Urtrieb, which we break up through acts of self-​division. In the System of Ethics we therefore find the striking claim that acts of reflection break up an original wholeness at the heart of the self, the original wholeness of the I considered as sheer activity, sheer striving. And what Fichte wants to claim is that, qua drive, this fundamental striving at the heart of the self is a striving for something. It is not an abstract striving, but a striving for an object. But if that is the case, then we must ask: How does reflection separate the lower and higher expressions of this striving? And is this consistent with Fichte’s commitment to the ‘whole person’ thesis? The following passage shows that Fichte is sensitive to these questions: Are my drives as a natural being and my tendency as pure spirit two separate drives? No, from a transcendental viewpoint both are one and the same fundamental drive which constitutes my being, simply viewed from two separate sides. That is to say, I am subject-​object, and my true being lies in the identity and inseparability of the two. If I regard myself through the laws of sensible intuition and discursive thinking, then I am a completely determined object, which in fact my drive is as a natural drive, since in this regard I myself am nature. If I regard myself as subject, then this same single drive becomes for me a pure, spiritual drive, or it becomes the law of self-​sufficiency. (SL 4:130)

What Fichte goes on to say is equally illuminating:

Drive  87 All phenomena of the I rest solely upon the reciprocal interaction of these two drives, which is, properly speaking, only the reciprocal interaction of one and the same drive with itself.—​This immediately answers the question concerning how things as opposed to each other as these two drives can occur in a being that is supposed to be absolutely one. The two are in fact one, but I-​hood in its entirety rests on the fact that they appear to be different. The boundary separating them is reflection. (SL 4:130–​131)

I have quoted these passages to support my suggestion that, for Fichte, the pure I is an original wholeness—​a single drive whose various divisions, limitations, and levels (from low to high) are the product of reflection. What we regard as a dualism at the root of our nature as sensible and rational beings is nothing more than a difference of perspectives. My natural drive and my pure drive are expressions of one and the same activity, either considered before or after the boundary line of reflection. Yet the fundamental drive is not an abstract activity, as noted earlier. Rather, it is a real ground of activity, a striving for something determinate. This raises a new question: What is the object of this fundamental drive? Or better, how can we comprehend this object as philosophers reflecting upon it?

4.5.  Drive, Longing, and Desire The answer brings us to the central premise of Fichte’s deduction of applicability in Part II. However, in order to understand this premise, we must first get clear on the main elements making up the drive theory of the System of Ethics: • Drive. For Fichte, a drive is a real ground of activity and is therefore directed toward something. This is the essence of the I, he claims: it is ‘absolute activity and nothing other than activity: but activity taken objectively is drive’ (SL 4:105).4 But by what mode does one originally relate to this activity? Or how does it originally manifest itself to consciousness? Fichte’s answer is that the drive of the I originally manifests itself to consciousness in the form of ‘feeling’ (Gefühl), what we might call the non-​self-​conscious mode by which we relate to the activity of the drive. It is through feeling that I relate to my striving immediately, without yet

88  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy being conscious of myself as distinct from this striving, and so without yet being divided from myself in reflection. • Longing. If we isolate this sheer feeling of my drive in its non-​self-​ conscious state, then what can we say about this feeling itself? Fichte introduces a new term to capture its character:  ‘longing’ (Sehnen). Longing is a ‘sensation of a need,’ but an indeterminate one: it is a sensation of a need without any concept of the need’s end (SL 4:71). Longing is indeterminate because it is not yet mediated by what Fichte calls a ‘concept of an end,’ an idea best captured in German—​a Zweckbegriff—​ which he defines as a ‘prefiguration for something outside us’ (Vorbild für etwas ausser uns) (SL 4:71). Longing captures the feeling of a drive, understood as a real ground of activity directed toward an end, prior to the conceptualization of that end—​that is, prior to any act of reflection. (This is an important point, as we will see later on.)5 • Desire. What happens if reflection upon longing occurs? Fichte’s answer is that reflection makes it possible for me to posit a Zweckbegriff. When I divide myself in reflection from the activity of my drive, I can consider the aim of my drive: I can prefigure an object that would, if attained, satisfy my longing. This reflective act of prefiguration is what gives rise to ‘desire’ (Begehren), whose goal Fichte calls ‘enjoyment’ (Genuss) (SL 4:128). What I am seeking in positing an object for my longing is the satisfaction of my longing, the attainment of which produces ‘pleasure’ (Lust) and the frustration of which produces ‘displeasure’ (Unlust). We can then speak of desire as the activity of prefiguring ends for the satisfaction of the natural drive, all of which would not be possible, Fichte adds, without reflection. This last point is consistent with Fichte’s nonnaturalistic view of action (there are no brute elements of desire) and fits with his nonnaturalism in general (there are no brute elements of consciousness).6 Even what we might consider the lowest expression of human agency, our desiring of a natural object, bears a necessary link to freedom, which is more evidence that the System of Ethics unfolds, as Fichte says, according to the idealist principles of the Wissenschaftslehre. Insofar as desire requires reflection, Fichte has shown that desire requires the free activity of the I, and this amounts to a deduction of our Naturtrieb as a lower capacity of desire. However, Fichte does not think this deduction suffices to prepare for his account of the higher capacity of desire, which will occupy the final sections of

Drive  89 Part II (§§10–​13). In addition to a preliminary deduction of desire, he thinks it is also necessary to derive the natural drive from a more general concept of Natur.7 The nature of a finite rational being, he argues, ‘must be explained originally; it must be derived from the entire system of nature and grounded in the latter’ (SL 4:110). When Fichte provides this derivation in §§8–​9, he introduces a new concept in the System of Ethics: the concept of nature as an ‘organic whole’ (organisches Ganzes).8 Though many scholars pass over this idea without much commentary, or neglect it altogether, I  believe it holds the key to a novel reading of Fichte’s moral philosophy. For when we see why Fichte appeals to the concept of nature as an organic whole, we shall understand why he frames our ethical vocation as a project of unifying with—​rather than ruling over—​the natural drive within us.

4.6.  Nature as an Organic Whole At this point in the System of Ethics the reader is liable to forget the problem Fichte posed to motivate the transition to Part II: the problem of the moral law’s reality and applicability. Even if the concept of morality is necessary to determine freedom qua fact of consciousness, the question remains whether this concept is applicable when I reflect upon the conditions of actual willing, which involves an object to-​be-​attained. One way to view the goal of Fichte’s deduction of applicability is to say that he is seeking to illuminate the structure of agency itself, first by breaking down the most elemental conditions of drive, longing, and desire, and then by presenting their higher expression in one’s moral conscience. Ultimately Fichte will argue that the concept of morality is a required condition for the latter as a higher faculty of feeling. Yet his point is that the affective conditions of conscience are already built into the structure of action in its expression as non-​self-​conscious desire. And that is why the principle of an applicable doctrine of ethics Fichte introduces at the end of Part II—​‘Follow your own conscience’—​does not impose a law foreign to the structure of action, which would raise the specter of applicability anew, but is instead a law that arises internally from the conditions of actual willing. Still, the question stands: After the deduction of the lower capacity of desire, why does Fichte find it necessary to provide a further derivation of the natural drive from the ‘entire system of nature’? The answer, I believe, speaks to the end of the natural drive, that of prefiguring objects for the sake of enjoyment. As we know, enjoyment is the Zweckbegriff that orients the activity

90  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy of the natural drive, which Fichte later equates with the ‘maxim of one’s own happiness’ (Maxime der eigenen Glückseligkeit) (SL 4:180). But it is unclear from the discussion so far what the matter of this end contains, and so it is unclear for what and to what end the natural drive strives, given that Fichte has yet to clarify the concept of enjoyment itself. It is this lacuna in the text, on my account, that he hopes to fill in by providing a derivation of the natural drive from the system of nature. I say this because the claim Fichte goes on to develop for the remainder of §§8–​9 is that the concept of nature considered as an organic whole reveals the end of the natural drive, which in turn reveals the conceptually mediated end or Zweckbegriff of enjoyment. As we will see, what makes the model of organicism so pivotal here is that its more common alternative, that of mechanism, does not give us resources to understand ‘for what’ and ‘to what end’ the natural drive strives, which Fichte claims is a kind of harmony. To start with, what is it about the model of mechanism that is insufficient to the task at hand? According to this model of explanation, we have only the law of cause and effect at our disposal, and so we can only posit the connection between parts of nature in heteronomous terms: ‘Every member of such a series has its activity communicated to it by another member outside itself ’ (SL 4:111). Fichte points out, however, that this model cannot make sense of the character of a drive as an internally motivating force. ‘A drive,’ he explains, ‘is something that neither comes from outside nor is directed outside; it is an inner force of the substrate, directed upon itself ’ (SL 4:111). By its very character, a drive conveys a form of ‘self-​determination’ (Selbstbestimmung), not in the sense of rational self-​legislation but in the sense of self-​generated activity striving for a determinate end (SL 4:111). But how can we make sense of this? As I understand it, Fichte’s point is that we need a new model for explaining the system of nature ‘outside’ us—​a new way of positing the connection between parts of nature in autonomous terms—​if we are to understand nature ‘inside’ us, the natural drive. The alternative he pursues is organicism. According to this model of explanation, we do not posit the connection between parts of nature in heteronomous terms, with one part subordinated to the other in a causal series. Rather, organicism gives us a framework for thinking of parts and their whole standing in a connection of mutual determination, with each part relating to the whole and the whole in turn relating to each part. The operative category here is not cause and effect but ‘reciprocal interaction’ (Wechselwirkung) (SL 4:113, 117, 122, 125, 129, 130), which

Drive  91 permits us to think of a community between parts of nature and their whole. The reason this model is attractive to Fichte is that it makes room to explain two unique features of a Trieb: (a) its character as an internally motivating force, on the one hand, and (b) its character as a motivating force directed to something outside of itself, on the other. What is unique about a drive is not just its autonomy, the way in which it strives from itself, but also what we might call its teleology, the way in which it strives for something. Organicism gives us an appropriate model to understand these two features because of the way it frames the part-​whole structure of nature: parts are not subordinated to each other, but are coordinated. According to organicism, the system of nature as such is represented as a system whereby each part is what it is through its relationship to the whole, and vice versa: the whole is what it is through its relationship to each part (SL 4:113–​114).9 Elsewhere Fichte gives the example of a tree to illustrate this holistic structure (GNR 3:203). If we represent a tree as possessing consciousness and volitional powers, he explains, we can imagine that each of its individual parts would strive to preserve itself and maintain its own being. At the same time, we can also imagine that each of its individual parts would also will the preservation and maintenance of the tree itself. The striving for self-​preservation in each part would be coequal to each part’s striving for the preservation of the whole. The same cannot be said, Fichte adds, for the example of a pile of sand, ‘where each individual part can be indifferent to whether any other part is separated, trampled upon, or strewn about’ (GNR 3:203). What is special about the holistic structure of a tree is of course common to all living organisms, whereby every part stands in a relation of reciprocal interaction to the whole. Living organisms are not mere aggregates, but self-​organized systems in which each part works in coordination with all others. Fichte returns to this idea in the System of Ethics when he speaks of the inner dynamics of plants: ‘Here there is everywhere harmony, reciprocal interaction, and not, as it were, mere mechanism’ (SL 4:124). Now what exactly do we learn from viewing the natural drive through this organicist lens? Fichte’s answer is that it presents a new way of seeing the autonomy and teleology of our original striving, which is consistent, he claims, with a more general law of striving we can posit in the system of nature outside of us. This is what he calls the ‘formative law’ (Bildungsgesetz) of nature:

92  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy Formative Law of Nature: ‘Every part of nature strives to unite its being and efficacy with the being and efficacy of every other determinate part of nature’ (SL 4:121).

An essential point in the argument now opens up. On the assumption that nature operates according to this Bildungsgesetz, that all parts of nature strive to unite their being and efficacy with all other parts, it is possible to determine the character of the natural drive more precisely. We can say that what the natural drive strives for is a kind of unification, a unification, Fichte argues, that is both active and passive in character. It is a striving ‘to form and to be formed’ (zu bilden und sich bilden zu lassen) and hence a striving for mutual ‘formation’ (Bildung), or what Fichte here terms the ‘formative drive’ (Bildungstrieb) (SL 4:121).10 Thus the concept of a Bildungstrieb helps fill in the lacuna from his previous discussion of desire insofar as it specifies the end of the natural drive. What the natural drive strives for is enjoyment, but enjoyment understood in terms of the Formative Law, that is, enjoyment as the reciprocal interaction of shaping and being shaped. The broader implication of this claim, I want to propose, is that it brings a novel view of desire to the foreground. When we characterize the activity of the natural drive in terms of a striving for mutual Bildung, it follows that reciprocity is built into the most elemental structure of agency, prior to its higher expression in deliberation, choice, and conscience. Fichte calls attention to this when he says that what the natural drive seeks is not to absorb an object (which would result in its elimination) but rather to relate to it: There is in me a drive, one that has arisen through nature and that relates itself to natural objects in order to unite them with my own being: not to absorb them into my being outright, as food and drink are absorbed through digestion, but to relate them as such to my natural needs, to bring them into a certain relationship with me, concerning which we will learn more in the future. (SL 4:123)

As Fichte explains a few pages later, this view of desire can be thought of in two ways. My natural drive seeks a connection to objects as natural things, and this connection can be either immediate or mediate: My desiring has as its object things of nature, with the goal either of unifying these things with me immediately (as in the case of food and drink) or

Drive  93 of placing them in a certain relationship with me (as in the case of clear air, an extensive view, good weather, and the like). (SL 4:127)

That is to say, we find an activity of prefiguring a connection of mutual formation at the heart of desire, either by unifying an object with the natural drive immediately or by unifying an object with the natural drive mediately. What we then learn when we view the natural drive through an organicist lens is this: the Zweckbegriff of desire is not the elimination of its object, even if that happens to occur in the case of food and drink. The Zweckbegriff of desire is coordinative and—​to anticipate Fichte’s concept of the ethical drive—​ nondominating and noncontrolling. One might nonetheless wonder:  How does any of this bring us closer to demonstrating the moral law’s reality and applicability? The concept of a Bildungsgesetz sketched earlier allows us to understand what I previously called the teleology of the natural drive, its directedness to objects. We can now say that the natural drive aims at the mutual formation between itself and objects rather than one-​way consumption. The novelty of this claim, as I hinted at, is that it posits a form of primitive reciprocity in the very act of desiring: when we prefigure an object to satisfy the natural drive, it is a prefiguration structured around the end of unification, that of bringing together an object with the drive. In this respect, we can say that a basic form of harmony orients the activity of desire even in its lower capacity. As we shall see, the importance of rethinking desire as mutual Bildung becomes clear later in the System of Ethics when Fichte argues that the natural drive supplies the moral law with its content. Without understanding the model of organicism Fichte lays down in §§8–​9, we risk overlooking the fact that the material content of our duties stems from our original striving for reciprocal interaction with nature, as we represent it ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of us. This is the key to understanding Fichte’s ‘whole person’ thesis, in my view. Let us take stock. We have seen that after separating the concept of willing from its object in Part I (the way of analysis), Fichte faces the task of bringing the two back together with the aim of demonstrating the role of morality in their connection (the way of synthesis). That is the overarching goal of his deduction of applicability, which is why Part II of the System of Ethics devotes so much space to examining the original conditions of willing (drive, longing, desire). I have argued that §§8–​9 play a special role here because they derive the Zweckbegriff of the natural drive from a representation of nature as an organic whole, which yields a novel way of thinking about desire. For

94  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy Fichte, there is a basic form of reciprocity built into the activity of desiring in its lower expression, which only the model of organicism brings to light. Desiring amounts to striving to relate to an object, not to consume or destroy it, which is why Fichte ends up specifying the natural drive in terms of mutual Bildung, a drive to form and to be formed by objects. But now we must ask:  How does the original reciprocal activity of the formative drive help bring Fichte’s argument in Part II to completion? How does this establish the right kind of connection between willing and its object, such that the concept of morality is required for their synthesis?

4.7.  The Ethical Drive and Conscience Allen Wood (2016) has observed that if we read Fichte’s distinction between a natural drive and a pure drive according to Kant’s distinction between a lower (or empirically conditioned) and a higher (or pure) exercise of practical reason, ‘then we are in for a big surprise’ (2016: 156). This is certainly true. For Kant, the higher faculty of desire, which is equivalent to pure practical reason, is the very locus of moral worth. This is not the case for Fichte’s pure drive. In the theory of action he goes on to develop in §§10–​12, the pure drive arises through a second act of reflection. When I  bring my longing under reflection, I posit an end for my longing, and that end is already an instance of my free agency: it is a conceptually mediated end to-​be-​attained. Were I then to reflect on this activity of prefiguring an end for my natural drive, I would become aware of myself in a different light: I would see my I, which had previously been absorbed by the concept of an object, as distinct from that object. I would, in a word, become self-​aware of my free activity, the activity already contained in my original act of prefiguring an end for my natural drive. What Fichte now wants to claim, in developing this next part of his theory, is that a new drive emerges from this act of self-​reflection, a striving to be independent of the natural drive itself and its object. This is what he calls the pure drive (SL 4:141). It corresponds to what I previously termed stage iv in Fichte’s Genetic Model of freedom, that is, the stage when one intuits one’s own self-​activity. What is surprising is that Fichte does not locate the source of moral worth in actions that accord with the independence urged upon us by the pure drive, which we might have expected in light of his concept of self-​sufficiency. Instead, Fichte locates the source of moral worth in actions that accord with

Drive  95 the ethical drive, which he defines as a ‘mixed drive’ (gemischter Trieb) (SL 4:152). Regarding this drive, he writes: It obtains its material, toward which it is directed, from the natural drive; that is to say, the natural drive that is synthetically united and fused with the ethical drive aims at the same action that the ethical drive aims at, at least in part. All that the ethical drive obtains from the pure drive is its form. Like the pure drive, it is absolute; it demands something purely and simply, for no end outside of itself. (SL 4:152)

As I read this passage, Fichte is saying that the ethical drive is a striving for wholeness in a self divided by reflection. Just like the natural drive, it strives for a kind of relationship between an object and the drive, a relationship of mutual formation. Yet, unlike the natural drive, the relationship in question is not restricted to objects of nature (food, drink, good weather, etc.). As a striving for wholeness in a self divided by reflection, the ethical drive seeks a relationship of mutual formation between one’s actual willing and one’s original being as an Urtrieb. This is the extent to which the ethical drive maintains the end of the pure drive, since the Zweckbegriff of the former, the complete reunification of all my drives back to their primordial root, is equivalent to the idea of self-​sufficiency. The difference is that complete self-​sufficiency, as Fichte tells us time and again, is an empty concept. It is precisely the concept of the moral law with which we began in Part I by separating the will from its object. Only the ethical drive contains the principle of an applicable ethics, then, because it draws upon the matter of the natural drive, whose inner dynamics foreshadow the striving characteristic of what Fichte will dub our ‘ethical vocation’ (sittliche Bestimmung) (SL 4:150).11 But why does Fichte now locate the principle of an applicable ethics in one’s moral ‘conscience’ (Gewissen)? Let us consider his definition. ‘Conscience,’ Fichte writes, is the higher capacity of feeling by which I have immediate access to the alignment between my actual willing and my original drive. Just as the fittingness of an object for my natural drive produces a feeling of harmony, the fittingness of an object for my ethical drive produces a feeling of harmony too. It is not a feeling of simple pleasure, however, but a ‘feeling of approval’ (Gefühl der Billigung) or self-​respect that comes in the wake of aligning my actions with my deeper drive for wholeness (SL 4:145). Conversely, a failure to bring my actions into alignment with the ethical drive produces a feeling of pain—​not simple pain but a ‘feeling of disapproval’

96  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy (Gefühl der Misbilligung) or self-​contempt. All this provides strong evidence for reading Fichte as a philosopher for whom the feelings of conscience express the content of morality in a prereflective (and so prescientific) form.12 For we have seen that the content of morality comes from the natural drive, whereas the form comes from the pure drive. As a synthesis of the two, the power of conscience gives immediate expression to my striving for wholeness, and only through such a union, Fichte argues, ‘is the actual exercise of morality possible’ (ist Sittlichkeit in der wirklichen Ausübung möglich) (SL 4:151). What conscience expresses as a higher capacity of feeling helps to bring this last point into better focus. The higher pleasure of self-​respect arises when my actions accord with the end of the ethical drive, the complete reunification of all my drives back to their primordial root. Self-​respect is a feeling of harmony between my current striving and the fundamental Urtrieb, which precedes the fracturing of my selfhood in the space of reflection. All pleasure has this quality, for Fichte, since a feeling of harmony also arises when I bring objects into relationship with my natural drive, even objects I do not consume, like good weather and an extensive view. What makes the feeling of harmony unique in the case of conscience is that it arises not in relation to the goal of my natural drive (which is limited to my lower capacity of desire), nor in relation to the end of my pure drive (which is limited to my higher capacity of desire), but in relation to my entire being. It is a feeling of harmony between my striving and my fundamental drive considered as a unity of subject and object. And it makes sense that I can relate to the original unity of my being only through a Gefühl, since feeling (unlike reflection) does not divide subject and object. Feeling is the only mode by which I can access the alignment between my actual willing and my original I, the unification of which constitutes my ethical vocation. In all this let us not forget that even the lower capacity of desire requires an act of reflection to posit an end, the Zweckbegriff of enjoyment. When I reflect upon the activity of prefiguring an end for my natural drive, I become aware of my independence from it, and this gives rise to my pure drive for freedom. If there is a clue to understanding Fichte’s deduction of applicability, then I believe it lies in his claim that even the ethical drive requires an act of prefiguring an end, whose Zweckbegriff combines both the form of the pure drive (that of freedom) and the matter of the natural drive (that of mutual formation). The conceptually mediated product of this synthesis yields a determinate imperative to act upon the natural drive, with its inner dynamic

Drive  97 of mutual formation, but without limiting this inner dynamic to objects of nature. It is, Fichte says, an imperative that commands unconditionally and for its own sake, and it applies across all times and situations. In a word, the Zweckbegriff that emerges internally from the union of the pure and natural drives is precisely the concept of morality, but morality now understood in its material significance as a principle of action. In the case of abstract willing, Fichte was able to derive a principle of self-​sufficiency in Part I, but this principle remained merely formal and empty. Having shown that this same principle emerges as the only possible Zweckbegriff of the ethical drive in Part II, Fichte has now demonstrated its applicability. By way of concluding this section, let us return to the two questions I posed at the beginning of this chapter. By the end of Part II, Fichte’s doctrine of conscience grants us insight into the what and the where of our ethical vocation. In the first case, what I ought to do is act with thoughtfulness, and I ought never to allow myself to act blindly (SL 4:155). As Fichte develops this point, I ought to act with conviction of living up to my duty, and I ought never to succumb to self-​deception and render this conviction vague. In the second case, I ought always to act in this way, that is, in accord with my ethical vocation, at all times and in all places. In other words, I ought to act in accord with my conscience, as my way of relating to my drive for wholeness, and I ought to do so in each and every situation of choice. It would be wrong of me to pursue my natural drive alone and seek only to align myself with objects of sensible enjoyment. But it would be equally wrong of me to pursue my pure drive alone and seek only my independence from the natural drive and the natural world at large (SL 4:131). For Fichte, it is only the unification of the two drives that makes morality applicable, the doctrine of which rescues ethics in the end from being reduced to a set of empty formulas.

4.8. Looking Ahead In anticipation of Chapter 5, one last point is worth touching upon. When Fichte writes later in the System of Ethics that the power of conscience produces unshakable ‘conviction’ (Ueberzeugung) and a ‘feeling of certainty’ (Gefühl der Gewissheit), he means to describe how we relate to the end of the ethical drive. Conviction, he writes, ‘transfers one into harmony with the original I’ (SL 4:169). This harmony is ‘elevated above all time and above all temporal change; for that reason the empirical I likewise elevates itself in

98  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy this unification above all temporal change and posits itself as absolutely unchangeable. Hence the imperturbability of firm conviction’ (SL 4:169). What Fichte then calls the feeling of certainty is an ‘immediate agreement of our consciousness with our original I,’ again drawing attention to the fact that conscience is the only power by which we immediately relate to the striving for wholeness characteristic of the ethical drive (SL 4:169). No mode of reflection could track our alignment with this end in actual willing, and so no mode of reflection could be the hinge, as it were, for an applicable principle of ethics. As we will see in the next chapter, conscience serves as an unerring criterion for the correctness of our convictions concerning duty, what we judge we ought to do in any given situation, precisely because it gives sensible expression to the harmony of our deeds and our original drive for wholeness. While this sensible expression is necessary for us to stay on course with our judgments of duty in time, the absoluteness of the conviction itself speaks to the nonreflective and hence nontemporal dimension of the Urtrieb itself.

5 Conscience As soon as the power of judgment finds what was demanded, the fact that this is indeed what was demanded reveals itself through a feeling of harmony. —​Fichte, The System of Ethics (SL 4:167–​168)

5.1.  Introduction Building upon Fichte’s theory of drives discussed in the previous chapter, the present chapter offers a fresh interpretation of Fichte’s 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 of 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 (SL 4:173). Unfortunately, Fichte offers seemingly inconsistent accounts of how conscience operates. At times he appears to assign a material function to conscience, meaning that it determines the content of our moral duties (what we might call the material function view). At other times he appears to assign a formal function to conscience, meaning that it merely tests our certainty in having judged our moral duties with due care (what we might call the formal function view).1 The problem, however, is that each account draws us into a larger difficulty. On the one hand, if we endorse the material function view, we must explain how the criterion for determining our duties does not reduce to arbitrariness. On the other hand, if we endorse the formal function view, we must explain how the criterion for determining our convictions does not trigger an infinite regress. So whichever interpretive option we take, Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Owen Ware, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190086596.001.0001

100  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy we face a deeper threat, and worse yet, it is not clear whether Fichte has resources in the System of Ethics to solve it. In this light it is not surprising that many of Fichte’s readers, both past and present, have judged that there is little to redeem in his moral philosophy. This inconsistency we find in Fichte’s accounts of conscience has divided scholars into two camps. Some have claimed that conscience plays a contentful role by telling us what we should and should not do.2 Others have denied this, claiming that conscience plays a noncontentful role by only testing our moral convictions in any given case.3 My present aim is to offer a third alternative, according to which the feelings of conscience express a relation of harmony (or disharmony) between one’s actual willing and the ‘original drive’ (Urtrieb). After defending this line of interpretation, I  will then consider two worries readers might still have about Fichte’s theory: his claim that an erring conscience is impossible and his claim that moral deference is always wrong. Properly understood, I shall argue, these ideas are more compelling than they sound. In the first place, Fichte is committed to saying only that our moral feelings are epistemically trustworthy, even if our moral judgments are open to revision. In the second place, Fichte’s criticism of moral deference is tied to his view of what it means to have an ethical vocation: namely, that we must bear the responsibility of freedom. Evading this responsibility is the cause of what Fichte, following Kant, calls ‘evil,’ our topic of investigation in the next chapter.

5.2.  The Material Function View We may initially characterize the material function view as a collection of four claims: 1. That practical deliberation consists entirely in consulting our conscience. 2. That conscience determines the content of our moral duties (i.e., what we should and should not do) in any given situation. 3. That conformity with the verdicts of our conscience is the sole criterion of the moral correctness of actions. 4. That an individual’s conscientious decision is therefore immune to error.4

Conscience  101 The first question we must ask is whether this interpretation has a basis in the System of Ethics. At least two passages suggest so. First, in §15, Fichte says that morality ‘consists in deciding to do what conscience demands, purely and simply for conscience’s sake’ (SL 4:173). Following this remark he writes that conscience is ‘the immediate consciousness of our determinate duty’ (das unmittelbare Bewusstseyn unserer bestimmten Pflicht) (SL 4:173). Now if morality consists in following the dictates of conscience, and if these dictates supply our ‘determinate duty,’ then it appears conscience has a material function after all. Fichte seems to say as much later on, in §17, when he describes the process of practical deliberation. In every situation we face a manifold of possible actions to choose from, but Fichte claims there is ‘absolutely only one (a determinate part of this manifold) that is dutiful,’ which he symbolizes as ‘X’ (SL 4:207). He then asks, ‘Which of these possible ways of acting is the one that duty demands?,’ and in reply he directs us back to §15: ‘We answered this question by referring to an inner feeling [inneres Gefühl] within our conscience. In every case, whatever is confirmed by this inner feeling is a duty; and this inner feeling never errs so long as we simply pay heed to its voice’ (SL 4:207–​208). In light of such remarks it is hard not to find the material function view compelling, especially since Fichte appears to endorse claims (1) through (4) explicitly in the text. But if we assume that this line of interpretation is correct, we face a problem that threatens Fichte’s theory on a deep level. Once we assign conscience a material role, that is, the role of determining the content of our duties, we risk reducing the criterion of morality to something merely subjective: our privately felt convictions. Yet a criterion of morality based on privately felt convictions would be arbitrary, and radically so. For how could subjective convictions by themselves determine what we should do, morally speaking? If I judge that I ought to X because I am certain, after having consulted my conscience, that X-​ing is my duty, then what makes X-​ing morally ‘good’ is contingent upon what convictions I happen to feel. Hypothetically, had my conscience elicited a different response from me, I  would be duty-​bound not to X (i.e., if my conscience had disapproved of X-​ing). So characterized, Fichte’s theory appears to suffer from a problem often associated with divine command theories: the problem of reducing normative distinctions (good/​ bad, lawful/​unlawful, just/​unjust) to the capricious will of God—​except in this case we are dealing with the capricious voice of ‘Conscience.’ Either way we have a threat of arbitrariness, and my point is simply that this threat is unavoidable if we assign conscience a material role in Fichte’s ethics.

102  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy Readers of Hegel will not find anything I have just said surprising, since Hegel famously claimed that Fichte’s theory of conscience gives morality a merely subjective footing.5 On Hegel’s account, the self of conscience only has to appeal to its innermost convictions to decide what to do. ‘As conscience,’ he explains, ‘it has within its certainty of itself the content for the formerly empty duty’ (1807/​2018: §633). In this respect conscience replaces the categorical imperative (an objective criterion) with its own self-​certainty (a subjective criterion), effecting a kind of reversal of Kantian ethics. As Hegel puts it, ‘The immediate knowledge of the self which is certain of itself is law and duty; its intention, as a result of being its own intention, is what is right’ (1807/​2018:  §654; emphasis added). However, once the self of conscience decrees what is law and duty through its own convictions, there is nothing to stop it from putting ‘whatever content it pleases into its knowing and willing’ (1807/​2018: §655). In this process it is only a matter of time before conscience becomes the ‘moral genius’ that stands elevated ‘above all determinate law’ (1807/​2018: §655). Without having to answer to a standard beyond itself, the ‘arbitrary free choice of the individual as such’ (überhaupt die Willkür des Einzelnen) soon determines what is good and what is not (§643). In a revealing turn of phrase, Hegel even likens conscience to a divine power possessed with the ‘majesty of absolute autarky, to bind and to undo’ (1807/​ 2018: §646).6 Still, it is unclear whether this is the only interpretation of Fichte available to us. After hearing Hegel’s narrative, one would think that conscience exerts a quasi-​metaphysical power, as if its verdicts produced substantive normative truths in deciding what is dutiful and what is not. Yet when we turn to the details of the System of Ethics, talk of conscience ‘determining’ the content of our duties is surprisingly absent. Consider again Fichte’s remark that conscience is the ‘immediate consciousness of our determinate duty.’ On closer inspection this does not support Hegel’s reading, for it does not say that conscience creates our duties as if by divine decree. All it says, rather, is that conscience is the consciousness of our determinate duties—​indicating that their determination has already taken place. Fichte says as much in the passage following this quotation:  ‘Once something determinate has been given, however, the consciousness that this determinate something is a duty is an immediate consciousness. With respect to its form, the consciousness of duty is immediate’ (SL 4:173).7 Remarks like this suggest that the role of conscience is not material but formal. To neutralize the threat of arbitrariness, then, it seems all we need to do is reject the textual basis of (2), the claim that

Conscience  103 conscience determines the content of our moral duties. If we now say that conscience has nothing more than a formal role in practical deliberation, it follows that the criterion for determining our duties must lie elsewhere.8

5.3.  The Formal Function View Support for what I am calling the formal function view is not difficult to find in the System of Ethics. When Fichte introduces the deontic principle ‘Act according to your conscience,’ he treats it as a shortened version of the clause ‘Always act in accordance with your best conviction concerning your duty’ (SL 4:156). He is also careful to describe this as a ‘formal principle,’ meaning that it concerns only how we are to commit to our moral judgments (SL 4:163). Moreover, when we turn to the details of §15, we find Fichte speaking of a criterion of ‘conviction’ (Überzeugung), not a criterion of ‘duty’ (Pflicht), and this distinction is essential.9 Throughout the System of Ethics Fichte is clear that the criterion of duty comes from the final end of our ethical drive, and while he alters his formulations of this end (calling it the ‘self-​sufficiency of reason as such,’ ‘absolute freedom,’ ‘absolute independence from all nature,’ etc.),10 he does not confuse it with the faculty of conscience itself.11 To elaborate on this last point, Fichte thinks every situation presents us with a manifold of possible actions to choose from, but that only one part of this manifold is truly dutiful, that is, ‘X’ (SL 4:207). He is also clear that discovering X will require both practical and theoretical powers. The practical power in question is our ethical drive, whose function is to give us the criterion of morality. The theoretical power is our reflective use of judgment, whose function is to run through the manifold of possible actions before us. For Fichte, we balance the two by using our reflective judgment to discover the action that promotes the end of our ethical drive, agreement between our present willing and the Urtrieb. As he puts it, the ethical drive ‘demands some concept X, which is, however, insufficiently determined for the ethical drive; and to this extent the ethical drive formally determines the power of cognition: i.e., it drives the reflecting power of judgment to search for the concept in question’ (SL 4:172). Only after the discovery of X ‘does the moral law authorize this conviction and make it a duty to stick with it’ (SL 4:165). Within this account of practical deliberation, then, the role of conscience is not to answer a question of content, ‘Is X my duty?’; it is, rather, to answer a

104  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy question of conviction, ‘Am I convinced in the correctness of my judgment concerning X?’12 In this respect Fichte’s theory of conscience is not unlike Kant’s, at least at first blush.13 Kant is also careful to distinguish the question of content from the question of conviction, and he too identifies the faculty of conscience with the latter. ‘Now it is understanding,’ he writes, ‘not conscience, which judges whether an action is in general right or wrong. And it is not absolutely necessary to know, of all possible actions, whether they are right or wrong’ (R 6:186). Further, Kant argues that ‘with respect to the action that I want to undertake, I must not only judge, and be of the opinion, that it is right; I must also be certain that it is’ (R 6:186). This is where my conscience operates. What it does in Kant’s view is not to ‘pass judgment upon actions as cases that stand under the law, for this is what reason does so far as it is subjectively practical’ (R 6:186). What it does is judge the faculty of judgment itself, thereby determining ‘whether it has actually undertaken, with all diligence, that examination of actions (whether they are right or wrong), and it calls upon the human being himself to witness for or against himself whether this has taken place or not’ (R 6:186). Interestingly, Fichte quotes these remarks with approval in the System of Ethics, writing that conscience provides not the content of our duties but only the certainty that we have judged them properly (SL 4:173). Thus, even though Kant and Fichte measure our duties by different criteria, they agree that conscience has a noncontentful role.14 Textual support for this line of interpretation is strong. At one point, for example, Fichte writes: As soon as the power of judgment finds what was demanded, the fact that this is indeed what was demanded reveals itself through a feeling of harmony. The power of the imagination is now bound and compelled, as it is in the case of everything real. I cannot view this matter in any way other than in the way I do view it: constraint is present, as it is in the case of every feeling. This feeling provides cognition with immediate certainty, with which calm and satisfaction are connected. (SL 4:167–​168)

A few pages later he adds further clarification: Conscience, the power of feeling described above, does not provide the material of duty, which is provided only by the power of judgment, and

Conscience  105 conscience is not a power of judgment; conscience does, however, provide the evidential certainty, and this kind of evidential certainty occurs solely in the consciousness of duty. (SL 4:173)

Quite a few scholars since the nineteenth century have been attentive to the passages where Fichte denies that conscience supplies the material content of our duties, including Stäudlin (1824), Jodl (1882), Raich (1905), Friedmann (1904), Wohlrabe (1880), Rohs (1991a, 1991b), Pong (2002), and, in the more recent literature, Zöller (2005), Frischmann (2008), and Moyar (2013). But there is a problem with the formal function view in particular, as I hinted at earlier. To see why, suppose that I have run through a manifold of possible actions before me, and that I discover ‘X,’ the action most conducive to my ethical vocation. X, I now conclude, is my true duty in this situation. Before I can proceed to act, however, I must be certain that X really is my duty; I must ask myself whether I have exercised due care in running through the manifold, considering all the options open to me. I must then raise a question of conviction: ‘Am I convinced that X is my duty?’ This is where my conscience operates: condemning me if I have not exercised due care, and acquitting me if I have. Yet it is unclear why I should find any peace of mind at this point, even if I am convinced that X is my duty. For it is unclear why I should not get dragged into a higher-​order question (‘Am I convinced that I am convinced?’), and from there to yet another higher-​order question (‘Am I convinced that I am convinced that I am convinced?’), ad infinitum.15 The problem is that by characterizing the activity of conscience in terms of conviction, the formal function view invites a threat of infinite regress, because it appears that doubt can infect one’s convictions at any order of assessment. How, then, can we stop this ascent to higher and higher levels?

5.4.  Fichte’s Doctrine of Feeling To understand Fichte’s own position, we must return to a doctrine touched upon in Chapter 4: the doctrine of ‘feeling’ (Gefühl).16 Fichte introduces this doctrine in §11 with an account of ‘pleasure’ (Lust) and ‘displeasure’ (Unlust), describing them as a ‘feeling of harmony or disharmony’ between ‘what is actual’ and ‘what is demanded’ by our original drive (SL 4:144; cf. 4:43). As we have seen, Fichte believes that we have two basic drives, a ‘natural’ drive for enjoyment and a ‘pure’ drive for independence. Yet he also draws a further

106  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy distinction between their unified source in an ‘original drive’ (Urtrieb) and their reciprocal interaction in an ‘ethical drive’ (sittliche Trieb). To avoid confusion, we should remember that Fichte is a monist: he thinks our drives for enjoyment and independence are ‘absolutely simple’ from a transcendental perspective, meaning that they express one and the same power (SL 4:133).17 It is only when we take up an empirical perspective, he explains, that we see this original drive manifesting itself differently over the course of an agent’s history (SL 4:133). I  emphasize this because when Fichte subsequently speaks of ‘original’ and ‘ethical’ drives, he is not multiplying the number of our capacities beyond their lower and higher expressions.18 Rather, he is addressing the unity of our capacities from different points of view, where we see either their original source or their reciprocal interaction. All of this, I believe, plays an important role in his doctrine of feeling. To get a better grasp of this doctrine, consider the natural drive first. This drive aims at enjoyment for the sake of enjoyment. When I act upon it, one of two things can happen: either I fulfill its demand, or I fail to do so. In the first case there is a relation of fit between what the drive demands and my present state of affairs; in the second case there is a lack of fit—​and these relations, for Fichte, make up the class of ‘lower’ feelings. For example, I would be in harmony with my natural drive if I consumed food and drink suitable to my constitution, for my actual state would now align with my needs as an embodied being. ‘What satisfies the drive and produces the pleasure is the harmony of what is actual with what was demanded by the drive’ (SL 4:144).19 The reverse would be true if I consumed food and drink unsuitable to my constitution, for in that case there would be a lack of fit between my natural drive and my actual state. To complete this sketch, consider the ethical drive next. It strives for wholeness, the reunification of our drives for independence and freedom back to their primordial root. If I act in ways that cultivate this wholeness, I will experience pleasure (‘respect’ for myself); if I act in ways that fail to cultivate this end, I will experience displeasure (‘contempt’ for myself). These relations, for Fichte, make up the ‘higher’ class: they are feelings of harmony or disharmony with the Urtrieb (SL 4:147). Now we must ask: If higher and lower feelings exhibit the same general structure, how can we tell the two apart? All Fichte says initially is that if one satisfies the demand of one’s higher drive, ‘the subject of the drive and the one who actually acts will be in harmony, and then there will arise a feeling of approval—​things are right, what happened was what was supposed to happen.’ ‘The approval in question,’ he goes on to say, ‘is therefore necessarily

Conscience  107 connected with pleasure’ (SL 4:145–​146). For this reason feelings of respect and contempt depend entirely on our agency: whether we fulfill the demand of our ethical vocation is up to us, not up to anything outside of us. If I have made a sincere effort to act in ways that cultivate wholeness, then I am by virtue of that very effort aligned with my ethical drive. The higher pleasure that ensues is not a matter of luck, for in a sense I created the harmony in question by my deed. In contrast, Fichte wants to say that lower feelings of pleasure are only ever the result of a fortuitous connection between my body and the world I represent as outside of myself. However much I try to satisfy my natural drive, I am in a sense hostage to chance and circumstance. Returning to my former example, although I could guess, based on my previous experiences, that I would find the food and drink enjoyable, I could not predict this with any certainty. Harmony with our natural drive is, strictly speaking, not up to us (SL 4:146).

5.5.  The Feeling of Certainty The relevance of these points becomes clear at the end of §11 when Fichte writes that the ‘name of the power of feeling we have just described, which could well be called the higher power of feeling, is “conscience” ’ (SL 4:147). It is only in §15, though, that the doctrine of feeling enters explicitly into Fichte’s solution to the regress problem. As we soon discover, the central topic of §15 is whether we can find an ‘absolute criterion’ for the correctness of our moral convictions, that is, a criterion that would be immune to all possible doubt. After restating the deontic principle of morality (‘Act in accordance with your best conviction concerning your duty’), Fichte raises the following question: ‘But what if my conviction is mistaken? In this case, then what I have done is not my duty, but is what goes against my duty. How then can I be satisfied with this?’ (SL 4:163). As a first reply, Fichte answers that we must have a broader point of reference to test our convictions: I must not ‘simply hold up to my action the concept of my present conviction’; I must also ‘hold up to my present conviction the concept of my possible conviction as a whole’ (SL 4:164). He is aware that this answer will not work, however. ‘The entire system of my convictions,’ he points out, ‘cannot itself be given to me in any way other than by means of my present conviction concerning this system’ (SL 4:164). Consequently, my possible conviction as a whole is just as susceptible to doubt as my present conviction: ‘Just as I can err in

108  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy my judgment of an individual case, so can I also err in my judgment concerning my overall judgment as such: that is, in my conviction concerning my convictions as a whole’ (SL 4:164). But if this is how things stand, it means we cannot possibly hope to satisfy the formal principle of morality. For either we must take a leap of faith and act anyway, or we must enter into a state of perpetual indecision, ‘constantly swaying back and forth between pro and con’ (SL 4:164). The only solution, Fichte now affirms, is to find an ‘absolute criterion for the correctness of our conviction concerning duty’ (absolute Kriterium der Richtigkeit unserer Überzeugung von Pflicht) (SL 4:167). In preparation for his answer, Fichte writes that if I discover X, the action most conducive to my ethical vocation, ‘the original I and the actual I will now be in harmony, and from this there will arise a feeling—​as there always does in such cases, according to the proof provided earlier’ (SL 4:166–​167; emphasis added).20 He then asks, ‘What kind of feeling might this be, and what distinguishes it from other feelings?,’ and in reply he refers us back to §11, emphasizing once more that what makes this feeling of harmony different from the ‘lower’ sort is that it is knowable a priori. A lower feeling, he explains, always involves an ‘unforeseen pleasure that surprises us’ because it depends on how our body lines up with the external world (SL 4:166). We cannot foresee what objects or activities will satisfy the natural drive, since we cannot know a priori what objects or activities will be enjoyable. We can, on the other hand, foresee whether our moral strivings will satisfy the ethical drive, since the satisfaction of this drive rests entirely on our will. This means a higher feeling of respect must by necessity accompany the discovery of X, for that discovery exhibits a harmony between our actual I and our original I. ‘As soon as the power of judgment finds what was demanded,’ to quote Fichte again, ‘the fact that this is indeed what was demanded reveals itself through a feeling of harmony.’ ‘This feeling,’ he concludes, ‘provides cognition with immediate certainty’ (SL 4:167–​168).21 In a rather striking move, we find Fichte deriving a criterion of moral certainty not from a cognitive state but from an affective state, from the feeling of harmony just described (SL 4:167). To see how this derivation works, consider again why we have a regress problem in the first place. It all stems from the fact that I must be certain that my conviction concerning X is correct. But how, we must ask, is such conviction possible? If I use a diligence test, asking myself whether I was thorough in considering all of my options, a new doubt could still enter my mind: ‘Was I thorough just now in performing this test?’ Perhaps I was haphazard or lazy or self-​deceiving in some way. The problem

Conscience  109 is that if I cannot be certain about my own test, then I cannot be certain about my own conviction concerning X. In the System of Ethics Fichte characterizes the problem slightly differently, speaking in terms of argumentation, but the basic point is the same. Argumentation cannot establish moral certainty, he explains, ‘for this would require a new proof to establish the correctness of my first argument, and this new proof would require in turn yet another proof, and so on ad infinitum’ (SL 4:169). My criterion for moral certainty must therefore come from something that does not invite an interminable ascent to higher and higher levels—​and only a feeling of harmony, for Fichte, is fit for this role. I cannot doubt such a feeling, unlike my test of diligence, because it expresses an actual relation of fit. I stand in harmony with my ethical drive, and I know this (without the possibility of error) because I feel it.22 That is not to say that the role of conscience in practical deliberation is merely formal or ‘second order,’ as some scholars have argued.23 When I have run through a manifold of actions and fixed upon one as my duty, call it X, Fichte’s point is that X marks the point of agreement between my present willing and the Urtrieb. Only judgment can determine the content of X, and conscience, as we know, is not a power of judgment. But when I have discovered X, the consciousness that it is my duty is revealed to me only by a feeling of self-​harmony: a feeling that arises only when my present willing and my original drive to wholeness are in alignment. Since Gefühl is the only mode by which I can relate to my original wholeness—​given Fichte’s view that only feeling gives us immediate self-​consciousness, or consciousness unmarred by the dividing effects of reflection24—​it follows that only my conscience reveals to me with evidential certainty that X is my duty. As Fichte puts this point later in the System of Ethics: If I determine myself to do something that is actually demanded by my original drive, then I, the I that is determined in time, am placed into harmony with myself, with the original I that is present without any consciousness thereof on my part. From this there arises a feeling of constraint; for I now feel myself to be whole, and this feeling is a perception [denn ich fühle dann mich ganz, und dieses Gefühl ist eine Wahrnehmung]. (SL 4:206–​207; emphasis added)

In writing this, Fichte is clear that conscience grants me a kind of inner perception: it is a feeling of self-​harmony, but a feeling that plays a positive epistemic role in deliberation. This is what we miss if we assign conscience a

110  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy merely formal role. My conscience reveals to me in an immediate way that my willing agrees with my fundamental drive. When that agreement occurs, I am at once constrained; for the action before me is my duty, and I cannot act otherwise (lest I engage in self-​deception). Yet it is a constraint that it is also a source of elevating self-​approval, for in this agreement I feel myself to be whole, as Fichte says. As a higher capacity of feeling, my conscience reveals to me the wholeness of my original drive. And that is the only way Fichte can avoid the threat of an infinite regress. Conscience provides a criterion for the correctness of my convictions concerning duty because it gives expression to the alignment, or misalignment, between my actual I and my original I.

5.6.  Common and Philosophical Standpoints Having shown the importance of feeling for understanding Fichte’s theory of conscience, we are in a better position to see why his theory is often misunderstood. Recall that when Fichte asks in §17 how it is possible to determine our duties in any given situation, he points the reader back to §15: ‘We answered this question by referring to an inner feeling within our conscience. In every case, whatever is confirmed by this inner feeling is a duty; and this inner feeling never errs so long as we simply pay heed to its voice’ (SL 4:208). This offers prima facie support for the material function view, since it appears to confirm (1) the claim that practical deliberation consists entirely in consulting our conscience and (2) the claim that conscience determines the content of our moral duties. But we get a different picture of what Fichte is saying when we read the remainder of this passage. He writes that adhering to the feelings of conscience would suffice for actual acting, and nothing more would be required in order to make possible such acting. The educator of the people [Volkslehrer], for example, can leave it at that and can conclude his instruction in morals at this point . . . . This, however, is not sufficient for the purposes of science [Wissenschaft]. We must either be able to determine a priori what conscience will approve of in general, or else we must concede that a doctrine of ethics, as a real, applicable science, is impossible. (SL 4:208)

From the standpoint of common life, adhering to the feelings of conscience suffices for guiding practical deliberation, and nothing more is required for

Conscience  111 us to become effective agents striving to fulfill our ethical vocation, as we saw in Chapter 3. But this framework of explanation will not suffice for grounding a ‘doctrine of ethics’ (Sittenlehre). To do that, Fichte urges, we must take up the standpoint of philosophical reflection and investigate the ‘law’ of conscience. Only when we discover this law, he claims, shall we have ‘an answer a priori (that is, prior to any immediate decision on the part of conscience) to the question: What is our duty?’ (SL 4:208). Fichte repeats this distinction in the final part of his summary. Referring again to §15, he writes, ‘We were quite unable to see how we could determine a priori what our duty is . . . beyond the approval or disapproval of our conscience following the deed’ (SL 4:208). This analysis was a necessary step for fulfilling the task of Part II, that is, for securing the applicability of the moral law, but the result was still of limited value. While the feelings of conscience are adequate ‘for the purposes of acting in the course of life,’ they are not adequate ‘for the purposes of science’ (SL 4:209). Thus the investigation Fichte wants to advance for the remainder of Part II (and into Part III) concerns whether ‘there is an even higher principle—​if not within consciousness, then at least within philosophy—​a unitary ground of these feelings themselves’ (SL 4:210).25 As readers we were prepared for this transition when Fichte told us, in the very first paragraphs of Part I, that we can relate to our moral nature in a ‘twofold manner’ (SL 4:13). In one manner, we can accept our consciousness of duty at face value, and this will produce ‘ordinary cognition [gemeine Erkenntnis] both of our overall moral nature and of our specific duties, so long as, in the particular circumstances of our life, we carefully pay attention to the dictates of our conscience’ (SL 4:14). In another manner, we can seek to go beyond our consciousness of duty to its underlying ground, and this will produce genetic or ‘learned cognition’ (gelehrte Erkenntnis) of our moral nature (SL 4:14). To achieve this goal, as we have seen, Fichte says that we must go beyond our everyday moral phenomenology: we must take the more difficult path of a deduction. This distinction between common and philosophical standpoints is helpful, I think, for a number of reasons. First, it lets us appreciate the novelty of Fichte’s theory of conscience, which may otherwise appear Kantian in both letter and spirit. Earlier we saw that Kant and Fichte assign a noncontentful role to conscience, but I would not want to overstate the similarities between the two.26 Fichte himself is guilty of masking the originality of his position, though he does leave us a clue as to where he departs from Kant. After completing his argument in §15, he writes that Kant maintains ‘quite splendidly’

112  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy that my ‘consciousness that an action I am about to undertake is right is an unconditional duty’ (SL 4:168). But then he adopts a more critical tone: ‘Is such consciousness even possible,’ he asks, ‘and how do I recognize it?’ (SL 4:168). What Fichte goes on to say is revealing. ‘Kant,’ he writes, ‘seems to leave this up to each person’s feeling, which is indeed that upon which such consciousness must be based. Transcendental philosophy, however, is obliged to indicate the ground of the possibility of such a feeling of certainty, which is what we have just done’ (SL 4:168; emphasis added). By Fichte’s lights, then, the difference between his theory of conscience and Kant’s is a matter of completion. In the System of Ethics he provides a transcendental deduction of our consciousness of conviction, something he claims Kant failed to do, leaving such consciousness up to what each person happens to feel.27 A further advantage of this distinction is that it gives us a framework for reading Fichte’s later discussions of conscience, which may appear to conflict with the System of Ethics. In the 1800 Vocation of Humankind, for example, Fichte writes that conscience is the ‘origin’ of all truth (BdM 1:72). Later he says that the ‘voice of my conscience, tells me, in each particular situation in my life, what I definitely have to do or avoid in this situation. It accompanies me, if only I listen attentively, through all the events of my life, and it never denies me its advice when I have to act’ (BdM 1:75). At first glance such remarks invite the claim that conscience provides the content of our duties, contrary to the line of interpretation I have defended in this chapter. Yet in my view we can underline the continuity of Fichte’s position by distinguishing the level of explanation he employs in each text. The System of Ethics is primarily a philosophical treatise, and Fichte is self-​consciously adopting the role of a scholar, one who investigates the grounds of moral phenomena through a method of deduction and genetic explanation. The Vocation of Humankind is, by contrast, a popular work designed for an audience of nonspecialists, and Fichte is self-​consciously adopting the role of an educator, one who enlivens an interest in morality we already have.28 There is no tension here, in other words, because Fichte treats these two perspectives as entirely compatible.29 Last but not least, we are now in a position to correct the idea that conscience plays a merely formal role in Fichte’s moral philosophy.30 While versions of this interpretation have a long history, it runs the risk of conflating the ‘material’ function of conscience and its ‘first-​order,’ action-​ guiding role. As we can now see, the feelings of conscience do indeed play an action-​guiding role in the System of Ethics, though only from the standpoint

Conscience  113 of common life.31 The ordinary person need only attend to and follow the dictates of her conscience, which are precisely those affective states of respect and contempt discussed earlier. Only the transcendental philosopher, for Fichte, bears the burden of discovering the underlying principle of those states, and so only the philosopher bears the burden of specifying the content of our duties in a scientific manner. The important implication is that while the feelings of conscience on their own do not deliver such material, they play a noncontentful yet first-​order role in practical deliberation. Without the voice of conscience, we would not have certainty in our judgments concerning duty, and then we would be caught in the very dilemma Fichte brings to light in Part II: the dilemma of acting without conviction or of not acting at all (SL 4:164).

5.7.  Moral Error and Moral Deference Even if the alternative interpretation I  have proposed in this chapter is well-​supported, one might wonder:  Is Fichte’s theory of conscience at all plausible? At least two implications of his theory will, I suspect, strike contemporary readers as controversial. They are (1) the claim that an erring conscience is impossible and (2) the claim that moral deference is always wrong.32 Before concluding my discussion, I would like to examine these claims more closely.

5.7.1.  Is Conscience Unerring? First, one worry readers might have with Fichte’s theory concerns his claim that the verdicts of conscience are infallible. ‘The preceding deduction,’ he writes, ‘has forever removed and annihilated . . . the possibility of an erring conscience’ (SL 4:173). Developing this point further, he says: Conscience never errs and cannot err, for it is the immediate consciousness of our pure, original I, over and above which there is no other kind of consciousness; it cannot be examined nor corrected by any other kind of consciousness. Conscience is itself the judge of all convictions and acknowledges no higher judge above itself. (SL 4:173)

114  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy Readers may find this claim questionable if they read it through a Hegelian lens. For then Fichte would in fact be claiming something counterintuitive, namely, that our privately felt convictions can never be mistaken about the content of our moral duties.33 But we get a different verdict, I think, when we read this claim through the lens of the alternative view put forth earlier. On this alternative view, Fichte is claiming only that our moral feelings are epistemically trustworthy. According to his previous argument, building on the doctrine of feeling from §11, we cannot be mistaken about feelings of self-​ approval (‘respect’) and self-​disapproval (‘contempt’) because these feelings arise only when we stand in harmony or disharmony with our ethical drive. Notice, too, that Fichte says conscience never errs because ‘it is the immediate consciousness of our pure, original I, over and above which there is no other kind of consciousness’ (SL 4:173). Our conscience is infallible, I take him to be saying, because its feelings reveal the actual harmony or disharmony of our present state (what we are doing to fulfill the ethical drive) and our ‘original I’ (what the ethical drive demands of us). This would also explain why the cited passage appears in the ‘Corollaries’ to §15. The thesis that conscience ‘cannot err’ and the thesis that conscience is the ‘absolute criterion’ of moral conviction amount to the same thing.34 A related worry readers might have with Fichte’s theory is that if we grant his infallibility thesis, we make it very difficult to explain how conflicting consciences (between two or more persons) is even possible. If I am convinced of the correctness of my duty to φ, and you are convinced of the correctness of your duty not to φ, then we have what seems to be a genuine conflict—​especially if we have access to the same information and have reflected on the issue for the same amount of time. In reply, I think it is worth repeating that for Fichte our conscience is not responsible for determining our duties (that is the domain of judgment in its reflective capacity). So even if the infallibility thesis is true, and my conscience is not prone to error, I  might still be mistaken about my judgment concerning my duty to φ.35 What is more, Fichte is sensitive to the phenomenon of moral disagreement in the System of Ethics. ‘If the other person claims to have acted according to his best conviction,’ he writes, ‘and if I act differently in the same situation, then according to his conviction I am acting immorally, just as he is acting immorally according to mine. Whose conviction is supposed to guide that of the other?’ (SL 4:233). Fichte’s answer is that neither conviction should play a guiding role here. And the larger point he goes on to make is that, whenever we face disagreement with others, we have a duty to reflect critically on our

Conscience  115 own purported convictions as well as a duty to seek agreement (if possible) through open dialogue and communication (SL 4:233).36

5.7.2.  Moral Deference and Moral Expertise Readers might also have concerns with Fichte’s claim that ‘anyone who acts on authority necessarily acts unconscionably; for, according to the proof just provided, such a person is uncertain’ (SL 4:175). In contemporary terms, this means that moral deference (or relying upon the moral testimony of others) is always wrong. Some might find this conclusion too extreme, however. If we experience uncertainty about important ethical decisions, is not deferring to someone whose judgment is more reliable than our own (a ‘moral expert’) our best option? To sharpen this question, consider an example from the current literature: The Incompetent Judge. Claire has just been appointed as a judge and is very anxious to sentence people justly. But she finds it exceptionally difficult to work out the just punishment for various offenses, though she listens to the evidence presented carefully and tries her best to get the right answer. Luckily she has a mentor, a more experienced judge, Judith, who has excellent judgment. Claire always consults with Judith and gives her decision in accordance with Judith’s guidelines, offering Judith’s explanation of why the sentence is just to the defendants.37

Those optimistic about moral deference will react by saying that Claire is permitted to defer to Judith’s testimony, given the uncertainty she faces in making her decisions.38 Some will go so far as to say that she is required to act on the authority of her more experienced colleague, since the stakes of her decisions are quite high: no matter what verdict she draws, someone is going to be harmed. The only way she can minimize the chance of error—​of harming the wrong person—​is to trust the expertise of Judith’s judgment.39 However, those pessimistic about moral deference will disagree, claiming that what the above scenario illustrates is a failure on Claire’s part, perhaps a failure to understand the relevant reasons of the case.40 I think Fichte would have three substantive things to say about the case of Incompetent Judge and about the moral deference debate more generally:

116  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy • To begin with, he would likely permit Claire to turn to Judith for advice, and he would likely concede that turning to another for advice is appropriate, if not required, in cases where we experience enduring moral uncertainty.41 ‘One can, to be sure, guide human beings in their investigations,’ he writes; ‘one can provide them with the premises for an adjudication that they are supposed to make, and they might accept these premises provisionally, on the bases of authority’ (SL 4:176). But there are limits to this concession, since Fichte would still insist that Claire remains responsible in the end for making up her mind. ‘Before arriving at the point of acting,’ he argues, ‘everyone is bound by his conscience to judge for himself on the basis of those premises he has accepted in good faith’ (SL 4:176). Taking another’s word as a prompt for reflection is compatible with autonomous decision-​making; blindly accepting that word and acting upon it is not.42 • Second, Fichte believes that provisionally accepting the authority of others is ‘more or less the story of all human beings: by means of education they receive, as premises for their own judgments, what the human species has agreed upon up to this point and what has now become a matter of universal human belief ’ (SL 4:176). He elaborates on this claim later in the System of Ethics when he discusses duties that arise in a parent-​child relationship, arguing that children have a duty of ‘deference’ (Ehrerbietigkeit) toward their parents. ‘Deference,’ he writes, ‘consists precisely in this: one presupposes that the other person possesses higher wisdom and takes pains to find all his counsels to be wise and good. It betrays a lack of deference to dismiss out of hand what another person says’ (SL 4:342).43 However, it is clear that a duty of deference does not apply to Claire, since Claire is a mature moral agent, not a child—​and even if Judith were her mother, Claire would still be obliged to test her mother’s advice against her own conscience. • This last point brings us, I believe, to the core of Fichte’s objection to moral deference. Fichte thinks we should take as a default position the view that other people are ‘fully mature moral agents,’ that is, our equals. But this condition does not apply to children. ‘I do not,’ he writes, have to ‘regard my child as a fully cultivated moral being; instead, I regard my child as someone who first has to be cultivated’ (SL 4:342). In light of these remarks, Fichte would likely see Claire’s desire to defer authority to Judith as a symptom of her unwillingness to think and act for herself—​ that is, as her unwillingness to take on the burdens of moral adulthood.

Conscience  117 The reason Fichte is so opposed to moral deference, then, is that it stands contrary to the ongoing cultivation, development, and maturity he thinks is integral to our ethical vocation. Outside the context of education, the fact that we want to rely upon the testimony of others only reveals just how deep our desire to remain passive and child-​like runs.44 Aside from these three points, it is not difficult for us to conjecture what Fichte would say about the concept of moral experts. In the System of Ethics he argues that scholars have a duty to advance human cognition in all fields, including the field of ethics. We advance our understanding of moral phenomena, in particular, by uncovering their underlying laws—​which is of course what Fichte is attempting to do in his work. At the same time, as we saw in the Chapter 3, Fichte is clear that a scholar’s insight into the source of moral consciousness remains nothing more than that: theoretical insight. It has no immediate practical force or ‘power’ (Kraft). ‘Just as one does not posit objects differently in space and time after one has obtained insight into the grounds of this operation,’ he writes, ‘so does morality not manifest itself any differently in human beings after its deduction than before’ (SL 4:15). A ‘doctrine of ethics’ (Sittenlehre) is not a ‘doctrine of wisdom’ (Weisheitslehre), and Fichte reserves the latter to moral educators who aim ‘to animate and to strengthen’ a sense of morality already present in human beings. Thus the class of moral experts in Fichte’s system is twofold, since he would allow us to speak of theoretical experts (the privilege of scholars) and practical experts (the privilege of educators). Yet none of this contradicts his theory of conscience, since scholars seek only to understand the faculty of conscience, and educators seek only to amplify its voice in our everyday lives.

5.8. Closing Remarks In this chapter my main goal was to gain a better grasp of Fichte’s theory of conscience, but in the previous section I wanted to see what we can still learn from this theory today. Contemporary readers might be put off by his claim that an erring conscience is impossible and by his claim that moral deference is always wrong. Yet I have argued that these ideas are more compelling than they sound. In the first place, Fichte is committed only to the infallibility of our moral feelings, not to the infallibility of our moral judgments. In the second place, Fichte allows moral testimony to play an active role in our

118  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy childhood, but he insists that we must strive to think and act for ourselves as we enter into moral adulthood. Moreover, when we experience enduring moral uncertainty, we are permitted to turn to moral experts, in Fichte’s view, but only for advice. What we decide to do remains up to us. However, when our convictions conflict with others’, we have no right to believe our initial judgments were correct. We are obliged to reevaluate our initial judgments and open up dialogue with those with whom we disagree. Acting with conviction is not a zero-​sum game for Fichte, nor is it a private affair. As we shall see in Chapters 7 and 8, it is an ongoing task, and it requires a community of rational beings to be successful. That is why acting without or against one’s conscience is such a grave transgression: it is to let oneself act blindly. Beyond the realm of childhood, to let oneself act blindly is to avoid the responsibility of freedom—​something ‘evil,’ in Fichte’s eyes, because it speaks against one’s ethical nature. The question of how such evil is possible, and why Fichte thinks all of us are drawn to it, is the topic of the next chapter.

6 Evil This is similar to the case of the sailor who preferred to console himself with the hope that he might be able to bear up in hell rather than having had to improve himself in this life. In hell he was merely supposed to suffer, whereas in this life he would have had to do something. —​Fichte, The System of Ethics (SL 4:202–​203)

6.1.  Introduction Of the many philosophical doctrines Kant set forth in his lifetime, few caused as much scandal and surprise as his claim that all human beings have an innate propensity to ‘radical evil.’1 Aside from the fact that it appears contrary to the underlying spirit of his moral philosophy, the most vexing aspect of this doctrine is its glaring lack of argument. After presenting it in his 1793 Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant says that we can ‘spare ourselves the formal proof that there must be such a corrupt propensity rooted in the human being, in view of the multitude of woeful examples that the experience of human deeds parades before us’ (R 6:32–​ 33). As commentators have been quick to point out, however, no amount of empirical evidence can justify a universal claim, that all human beings are prone to evil.2 So despite what Kant says, it appears the doctrine of radical evil requires a ‘formal proof ’ after all. While this topic has become a point of dispute in recent Kant scholarship,3 I would like to shift focus in this chapter to Fichte’s struggle with the question of evil in §16 of the System of Ethics, titled ‘The Cause of Evil in a Finite Rational Being,’ for in the appendix to §16 we find Fichte seeking to provide the kind of proof Kant mentions but never delivers in the Religion. Here Fichte observes that mere experience cannot secure the universality of radical evil. ‘There must be some rational ground for this claim,’ he explains, beyond

Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Owen Ware, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190086596.001.0001

120  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy the many examples we have of our corrupt tendencies (SL 4:199). In the appendix, Fichte then locates this ground in the fact that all human beings are indolent, subject to what he calls a ‘force of inertia’ (SL 4:199). What is odd, aside from the argument itself, is that Fichte believes Kant draws the same conclusion as he does: that everyone is evil because, quite simply, everyone is lazy. But what basis does Fichte have for making this claim? And why does he associate it with Kant? In seeking to answer these questions, I shall distance myself from a view accepted by most scholars working in this area today: that Fichte was mistaken to consider his proof of evil Kantian in spirit.4 Historically, this view has its source in Schelling (1809/​2006), who accused Fichte of losing his nerve in §16 of the System of Ethics, attributing evil to a natural force rather than to an exercise of free will.5 Against this standard interpretation, I shall argue that the meaning of inertia is figurative: it is a tendency all of us have to prefer passivity over activity, resisting as we do the work of acting for ourselves. In this way the concept of ‘inertia’ is similar to what Kant, in his essay on enlightenment, calls our ‘self-​imposed immaturity’ (WA 8: 35). Evil in this sense stems from our unwillingness to be autonomous—​in short, it is laziness, but a form of laziness for which we are responsible. Our propensity to resist our ethical vocation is universal, then, because this vocation presents us with the most arduous of tasks: striving for wholeness. Contrary to Schelling’s verdict, I do not think Fichte lost his nerve in the System of Ethics, for he did not attribute evil to a force beyond the will. This goes some way toward vindicating Fichte’s self-​described Kantianism, although it does not completely defend his argument for evil. As I will show, Fichte’s proof suffers from a missing step. While it explains why all of us prefer passivity over activity, it does not elucidate evil itself, as our act of resisting our ethical vocation. One of my aims in this chapter is to reconstruct this missing step in Fichte’s argument using materials he provides elsewhere in the book. Beyond this, my more general aim is to show that Fichte’s theory of evil builds upon his Genetic Model of freedom discussed in Chapter 2, but with two novel additions: first, it accounts for an even earlier stage of prereflective agency characteristic of animals and infants, and second, it accounts for what we may call a pathology of self-​individuation characteristic of the pure drive.6 Understanding these additions will shed further light on the theory of agency underwriting Fichte’s doctrine of ethics as a whole.

Evil  121

6.2.  The Power of Reflection What I take to be unique about Fichte’s Genetic Model of freedom is easily obscured by his repeated emphasis on the capacity we have to raise ourselves up through reflection, or what we may call: Reflective Progress: Because we ought to raise ourselves up through reflection, we are always capable of doing so, no matter what obstacles we face (SL 4:181).7

Fichte is nevertheless sensitive to the fact that this process will take time: as embodied agents, we can raise ourselves up only step by step (SL 4:178). In effect, ‘it will take some time until everything that is originally in us and for us [i.e., our capacity for moral agency] is raised to the level of clear consciousness,’ and Fichte adds that ‘to describe this temporal course of the I’s reflections is to provide the history of an empirical rational being’ (SL 4:178). This last remark serves as a clear statement of Fichte’s methodology in Part II of the System of Ethics. Unlike Kant, who in the Religion starts from an analysis of a rational agent aware of the moral law,8 Fichte builds upon the Genetic Model discussed in Chapter 2, although in §16 he starts even further back with the stage of unreflective agency characteristic of animals and infants. His task is to uncover the higher stages of self-​consciousness we can attain over time, ending where Kant begins, with the perspective of fully developed rational beings. Interestingly, the further claim behind Fichte’s genetic approach, and the novel insight of §16, is that for embodied agents like us, all acts of reflection are ‘limited’ (begrenzt) (SL 4:178). Call this: Limited Reflective Authority: We cannot suspend the defining features of ourselves—​our inner drives or maxims of choice—​to the point where they appear normatively arbitrary.9

Now the point I want to stress is that while Fichte is committed to reflective progress—​we are always capable of reflecting on ourselves and ascending to higher levels of agency—​he does not think the authority we gain from such reflection is unbounded. We cannot step back from our natural drive, for example, to the point where pursuing pleasure (in any of its complex forms) appears optional to us. Reflection opens up space for us to change ourselves, but the change is only ever proximate to the aspect of our agency

122  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy we reflect upon—​whether it be our natural drive to enjoyment or our pure drive for independence. For this reason limited reflective authority informs Fichte’s entire approach in §16, namely, to chart the ‘history of an empirical rational being’ (SL 4:178). The significance of this thesis, however, goes well beyond understanding the complexities of the System of Ethics. As I shall argue later on, Fichte’s view of our limited reflective powers may resolve a particular skeptical threat facing contemporary Kantian theories of normativity, a threat that concerns why, if at all, we should care about being agents.

6.3.  Four Stages of Agency For now, let me sketch the four stages of Fichte’s account in §16. We begin with what I have called the stage of unreflective agency characteristic of animals and infants. At Stage 1, a being is wholly motivated by his drive to self-​preservation, and he is responsive to this drive in experience, say, by pursuing objects that promote his well-​being and by avoiding objects that hinder it. As spectators we can say this being is ‘free,’ for he is not acting blindly under a mechanical force of instinct. Yet we cannot say he is conscious of such freedom, since he is not aware of anything beyond what the natural drive highlights for him. From his own perspective, we can say, he is ‘only an animal’ (SL 4:178).10 If a being in this state reflects on his natural drive, he will then become conscious of himself ‘over and above’ it. In Fichte’s words, he will ‘tear himself loose from the natural drive by means of this reflection, and position himself as a free intellect independent of [it]’ (SL 4:179). This will gradually open up new deliberative powers that were previously unavailable to him. At Stage 2 he can begin to delay the satisfaction of his natural drive, postponing inclinations that otherwise would have pressed him into action, as well as select among multiple ways of fulfilling those inclinations. Yet in exercising these powers he is still absorbed by the pursuit of pleasure. Since ‘the only drive that occurs within his consciousness at this point is the natural drive, and since the latter aims only at enjoyment,’ his highest maxim will be: Happiness: ‘One must choose that which promises the greatest pleasure, in terms both of intension and of extension’ (SL 4:180).11

Evil  123 At this stage, if the agent steps back from this maxim, and granting reflective progress there is nothing preventing him from doing so,12 his attention will no longer be absorbed by the pursuit of pleasure. As a result he will have just enough room to consider another drive operating within him, what Fichte calls the pure drive for independence (SL 4:185).13 However, what is characteristic of Stage 3, for Fichte, is that an agent does not give full attention to this new drive. He is aware of it, but only obliquely, and for that reason it appears to him as something contingent, as if it belonged to his nature ‘for no higher reason’ (SL 4:185). The consequence, Fichte explains, is that if the agent now acts according to this drive, the ‘independence’ he pursues will be blind and despotic.14 In place of happiness, then, his highest maxim will be: Unrestricted Dominion: One must choose that which promises ‘unrestricted and lawless dominion over everything’ (SL 4:186; italics removed).15

As was discussed in Chapter  2, Fichte’s theory of drives is indebted to Reinhold (1792), who separates a ‘selfish drive’ (eigennützigen Trieb) from an ‘unselfish drive’ (uneigennützigen Trieb). An important difference is that Fichte’s pure drive is not inherently moral; indeed, the pure drive can become the basis of an impulse of the finite I to dominate the not-​I (where the ‘not-​ I’ includes both other rational beings and the natural environment at large) (SL 4:186). For Fichte, the pure drive must be brought into reciprocal interaction with the natural drive, the result of which he says produces the ‘ethical drive’ proper (SL 4:151). This is an essential point to bear in mind, since a failure to distinguish between the pure drive and the ethical drive has led one commentator to characterize the final end of self-​sufficiency in terms of our gradual dominion, control, or mastery over the natural environment.16 As Wood (2016) has pointed out—​correctly, in my view—​such a reading mistakes the final end of moral action with the end of the pure drive, which is in fact closer to what Fichte means by ‘evil’ action (our drive for ‘unrestricted and lawless dominion’) than it is to moral agency proper (SL 4:186). There is a fourth stage, but it will occur only if the agent steps back and reflects on his pure drive for independence.17 If he does this, Fichte explains, he will see that self-​sufficiency is his ‘true essence’ (wahren Wesen) as a rational being, not something that belongs to him contingently or ‘by chance’ (and certainly not something unique to his individual I).18 With this insight before him, the agent will see that acting according to a concept of self-​ sufficiency is categorically required of him, that he ought to do so for its own

124  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy sake. And then the same drive that had acquired a blind and despotic character for him—​the pursuit of unrestricted dominion—​will undergo a transformation. As Fichte explains this process: A human being has only to raise to clear consciousness this drive to absolute self-​sufficiency—​which, when it operates as a blind drive, produces a very immoral character—​and then, simply by means of this very act of reflection, this same drive will transform itself within him into an absolutely commanding law. (SL 4:191)

In the space of reflection, then, what had previously led the agent to seek lawless causality will become a deontic norm, the norm of letting nothing other than reason determine his will. So in place of unrestricted dominion, his highest maxim will be the formal principle discussed in the previous chapter: Conscience: One must act according to the convictions of one’s own conscience, and one must never omit this test (SL 4:191).

For Fichte, complying with this principle requires that an agent act according to those affective states of respect and contempt examined in Chapter  4, each of which provides the agent with a criterion for the correctness of his convictions concerning duty. This requires that the agent act only when he is aware of performing his duty, of determining himself, instead of letting something (or someone else) act for him. ‘The whole of moral existence,’ Fichte writes, ‘is nothing other than the continuous self-​legislation of a rational being; and where this self-​legislation ceases, there immorality begins’ (SL 4:56). At Stage 4, we are bound by the autonomy of our own conscience, and when we act, we are bound to act with conviction. Behaving any other way, Fichte maintains, would be ‘perverse and malicious’ (SL 4:156).

6.4.  The Nature of Evil Before turning to Fichte’s argument for why such perversion is universal, present in all rational human beings, let me clear up two possible sources of confusion. The first has to do with Fichte’s argument that we cannot act against our duty with ‘clear consciousness’ (SL 4:191). The second concerns his follow-​up argument, that we act immorally only by ‘obscuring’ our

Evil  125 consciousness of duty (SL 4:192). Taken at face value these claims suggest Fichte’s view of evil is at odds with Kant’s. But on further inspection, I shall argue, they turn out to be unexpectedly close.

6.4.1. Diabolical Evil Starting with the first argument, Fichte writes: It is absolutely impossible and contradictory that anyone with a clear consciousness of his duty [deutlichen Bewußtsein seiner Pflicht] at the moment he acts could with good consciousness decide not to do his duty, that he should rebel against the law, refusing to obey it and making it his maxim not to do his duty, because it is his duty. (SL 4:191)

At first this passage may sound very un-​Kantian, for in the Religion Kant defines evil in terms of an agent’s decision to subvert the moral law to self-​ love. In his view, if the moral law fails to motivate an agent from the standpoint of deliberation, an incentive opposed to it must have influence on the power of choice of the human being in question. . . . [Yet] by hypothesis, this can only happen because this human being incorporates the incentive (and consequently also the deviation from the moral law) into his maxim. (R 6:24; emphasis added)

On comparing these two passages, it appears Kant is claiming what Fichte says is ‘absolutely impossible’: that a rational human being can decide, if only implicitly, to make exceptions to the law on the occasions it suits him, thereby incorporating ‘deviation from the law’ into the maxim of his will. Despite these appearances, I  am not convinced that the two passages conflict. Notice, first, that Fichte denies only the possibility of an agent rebelling against the moral law ‘with a clear consciousness of his duty.’ Such rebellion would require the agent to form a maxim ‘not to do his duty, because it is his duty’ (SL 4:191). In other words, what Fichte finds contradictory is the concept of a ‘diabolical’ (teuflisch) being, a being who resolves to act contrary to the moral law while he is aware of its normative authority (SL 4:191). The difficulty is that we are now speaking of a being who, in the

126  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy moment he recognizes what the moral law demands of him, ‘demands of himself that he not do the very same thing’ (SL 4:192). ‘At one and the same moment,’ Fichte writes, ‘these contradictory demands would be placed upon him by one and the same power,’ that is, his power of free will. But that is not possible. Therefore, the concept of a diabolical being ‘annuls itself ’ (SL 4:192).19 Kant constructs a similar argument in the Religion. ‘To think of oneself as a freely acting being,’ he says, ‘yet as exempted from the one law commensurate to such a being (the moral law), would amount to the thought of a cause operating without any law at all,’ and that, he adds, is a ‘contradiction’ (R 6:35). So Kant concludes, ‘The human being (even the worst) does not repudiate the moral law, whatever his maxims, in rebellious attitude (by revoking obedience to it)’ (R 6:36). That is to say, when we subvert the moral law to self-​love, we do not have a positive incentive to violate the law; we do not seek evil for the sake of evil. What we do, rather, is invert the proper relationship between the moral law and self-​love. We incorporate both into the maxim of our will, but make compliance with the law conditional upon self-​love. That is why Kant thinks the best title for human evil is not devilishness but ‘perversity’ (Verkehrtheit) (R 6:36). Fichte, as we have seen, adopts this same terminology in the System of Ethics.

6.4.2.  Responsibility for Evil Another possible source of confusion concerns Fichte’s follow-​up argument, that we act immorally only by ‘obscuring’ our consciousness of duty (SL 4:192). After denying that it is possible to will evil for the sake of evil, Fichte writes: It is, however, quite possible for one to obscure [in sich verdunkle] within oneself the clear consciousness of what duty demands. For such consciousness arises only through an act of absolute spontaneity; and it endures only through the continuation of this same act of freedom. If one ceases to reflect, then this consciousness disappears. (SL 4:192)

It is tempting to read this passage as evidence that Kant and Fichte part ways on the question of our responsibility for evil.20 Fichte appears to be saying that evil is never something we will. Since our consciousness of duty can

Evil  127 never fail to motivate us, as he has argued, the only explanation for how we act immorally is that our consciousness of duty fades. Kant, on the other hand, is explicit in his view that evil stems from how we use (or better, misuse) our freedom of will. That is why, for example, Kant argues we cannot trace the source of evil to our natural inclinations (R 6:34–​35). Beyond the fact that such inclinations are morally neutral, we also cannot presume ourselves responsible for their existence (we cannot because . . . natural inclinations do not have us for their author), though we can well be responsible for the propensity to evil which, since it concerns the morality of the subject and hence is to be found in the latter as a freely acting being, must be capable of being imputed to the subject as itself guilty of it. (R 6:34–​35)

As before, I do not think these quotations express an opposition of views. We have seen that Kant and Fichte both deny it is possible for someone to revoke her consciousness of the moral law’s normative authority. (That is why they claim it is impossible for anyone to will evil for the sake of evil.) On this point it is safe to say in contemporary terminology that Kant and Fichte are both internalists about moral motivation: they think our consciousness of duty is sufficient by itself to motivate us.21 I would argue further that their rejection of diabolical evil is a result of this theoretical commitment. After all, if we accept motivational internalism, the only possible explanation of how we fail to act morally is that a countervailing force worked against us, something external to our consciousness of duty (though not necessarily external to our will). Still, from the passages I  have just cited, should we not conclude that Kant and Fichte understand this countervailing force differently? To make progress here, let us consider how Fichte thinks we ‘obscure’ our moral consciousness and what this process ends up looking like. Regarding the first point, Fichte is explicit that we are responsible for the obscurity itself. ‘It is up to our freedom,’ he states, ‘whether such consciousness continues or becomes obscured’ (SL 4:192). Note that when Fichte says ‘It is certainly not by means of any maxim, and hence not with any consciousness of what I am doing . . . that I obscure within myself the demand of the law,’ he is merely restating his argument against diabolical evil. Regarding the second point, among the various ways Fichte says we can render our consciousness of duty vague, the most dangerous one is this: obscuring the form of duty ‘as duty’

128  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy (als Pflicht) (SL 4:196).22 If we do this, he explains, ‘the command of duty no longer appears to us to be a command, but merely something similar to a good piece of advice, which one can follow if one wishes and if it does not require one to renounce too much, and which can even be bargained down a bit’ (SL 4:196).23 Kant also draws a close connection between evil and rationalization in the Religion, especially when he describes the biblical story of the Fall. In reconstructing this story from Adam’s point of view, Kant pays attention to the role of self-​deception in Adam’s eventual ‘sin.’ In particular, he highlights the moment when Adam began to explain away the authority of God’s prohibition: ‘He thereby began to question the stringency of the command, and thereupon to rationalize downgrading his obedience to the command to the status of the merely conditional obedience’ (R 6:42). Of course, the biblical story serves merely to narrate what is, for Kant, a mystery: our subversion of the moral law to self-​love. Yet it still has the value of giving us insight into the psychology of evil. Indeed, Kant thinks we should find Adam’s act of self-​deception familiar, if only we are honest with ourselves. The moral law ‘issues its precepts unremittingly,’ but in response, Kant says, we rationalize: we downplay their ‘purity and strictness’ (G 4:405). This seems to be precisely what Fichte has in mind by obscuring the form of duty ‘as duty.’ Like Adam, we bargain down what the moral law really demands of us. Looking back, two things should now be clear. First, it should be clear why Fichte argues we cannot act against our consciousness of duty, as that would entail willing evil for the sake of evil. Second, it should be clear why, granting motivational internalism, the only account left for why we fail to act morally is that we are subject to a countervailing force (something external to our consciousness of duty). On these points, I have argued, Kant and Fichte stand in agreement: they both maintain our consciousness of duty is sufficient by itself to motivate us; that the concept of diabolical evil is contradictory; and that human evil, while at bottom mysterious, involves a tendency to rationalize against the moral law’s stringency.24 In their view, instead of revoking obedience to the law, we effectively work to obscure what we know deep down is our duty; that is, we deceive ourselves. Keeping these points in view, we are ready to assess Fichte’s argument that all finite rational beings harbor a propensity to evil, a claim he first introduces in the appendix to §16 of the System of Ethics.

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6.5.  The Universality of Evil Unfortunately, this is where we run into major difficulties of interpretation. In the appendix Fichte defends the universality of evil on the grounds that everyone is, at bottom, lazy (SL 4:199). But it is not at all clear what he means by this. According to a long-​standing tradition of interpretation, the so-​called laziness at the root of evil is a product of inertia, where ‘inertia’ (Trägheit) is taken literally as a natural ‘force’ (a vis inertiae). As we shall see, there are some initial attractions to this reading. But the drawbacks, I shall argue, are too costly. For recent examples of the standard interpretation, consider the following two remarks: If we now ask what makes possible these various obfuscations and evasions of the call of conscience, then Fichte’s basic answer is—​torpor. As natural entities we tend, like everything natural, to persist in our current state of being. But when this persistence comes into conflict with the drive towards absolute self-​sufficiency, it manifests itself as a ‘force of inertia’ which holds us back from rational exertion. (Dews 2008: 56) For Fichte, however, we do not need to rest our case simply upon empirical observations of human inertia, for there is a deeper, transcendental explanation for the same: namely, the inertia of nature itself. . . . Nature, in Fichte’s view, is a realm of passivity. Consequently, it is precisely because of man’s necessary natural drive, precisely because of the dependence of the will’s efficacy upon a material, natural body, that human beings are, as it were, congenitally affected by the inertia itself—​predisposed, as it were, to laziness and thus to ‘evil.’ (Breazeale 2014: 28)25

As I mentioned earlier, the first advocate of this reading was Schelling (1809/​ 2006: 56), who argued that Fichte locates evil not in the will but in the ‘lethargy of human nature.’26 Given this tradition of interpretation, it is understandable why nearly every scholar working in this area today refuses to take Fichte at his word when he writes, in a spirit of camaraderie, that Kant ‘also makes the same inference’ from evil to inertia (SL 4:199).27 If Schelling and his followers are right—​and I  am going to question this—​then Kant and Fichte represent opposite ends of the explanatory spectrum: the former puts evil on the side of Freedom, the latter on the side of Nature.

130  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy In all fairness, the standard interpretation appears to have textual support. When Fichte first lays out his proof in the appendix, he begins by discussing how a vis inertiae operates in general. A passive object in nature endures, he explains, only because it has a force ‘to remain what it is,’ and this force holds it together, so to speak, giving it unity over time (SL 4:200). ‘If an opposing force now operates upon it,’ he continues, ‘then it will necessarily resist this with all its force in order to remain what it is; and only now, through its relation to the opposing activity, does what was previously only inertia become an activity’ (SL 4:200). Fichte extends this analysis in the following paragraph to encompass human beings. On the assumption that ‘what pertains to nature as a whole must also pertain to the human being insofar as he is nature’ (SL 4:200), it follows that we are also subject to a vis inertiae. Considered as embodied creatures, ‘we ourselves are nothing more than nature’ (SL 4:200), and our first drive is that of self-​preservation and the pursuit of happiness. We too have a tendency to persist in our state and to resist anything that compels us to change our state. Therefore, Fichte concludes, our propensity to resist the moral law is simply ‘inertia or laziness’ (SL 4:201). As we can see, the structure of Fichte’s proof is relatively simple: 1. All things in nature are subject to a vis inertiae: the tendency to resist anything opposing their state. 2. All human beings, as embodied creatures, are parts of nature. 3. Therefore, given (1)  and (2), all human beings are subject to a vis inertiae. Filling in the remaining details, we can say: 4. The moral law demands that we leave our natural state, that is, that we strive for self-​sufficiency. 5. Therefore, given (1)–​(4), all human beings [either (a) can or (b) actually do] resist the moral law. Without having to settle the disjunctive in Premise 5, we can already see what advocates of the standard interpretation are doing. They are taking the sense of a ‘force of inertia’ in Premise 1 to be the same as the ‘force of inertia’ in Premise 3. That explains why they read the laziness at the root of evil to express a natural power, a power all things display in resisting change. It also

Evil  131 explains why they repudiate Fichte’s self-​described Kantianism, for in the appendix it seems that he no longer traces evil to human freedom. Yet we must ask: Is it viable to interpret the ‘inertia’ in Premises 1 and 3 as identical? I will argue that it is not. However, aside from giving credit where it is due, I think it will be instructive to see where advocates of the standard interpretation seem to get things right.

6.6.  Requirements of a Formal Proof First, let us review what we know as readers prior to the appendix. At this point in §16 all we can say for certain is that evil involves obscuring the form of duty as duty, a stratagem of self-​deception whose ‘aim’ is to avoid the work of morality. Without much controversy, then, we can specify Premise 5 of Fichte’s proof by settling on the first disjunct: 5a. All rational human beings can be evil.

For Fichte, however, this statement would be insignificant, even if in some sense true (SL 4:199). That is, we can accept the possibility of evil, but given the problematic status of this claim, we cannot go further and assert the second, more substantive disjunct: 5b. All rational human beings are evil.

The reason for this explanatory limit is simple. Clarifying a concept does not amount to establishing its reality. This is a basic Kantian lesson. Yet the lesson presents a further challenge. Establishing a concept’s reality is not always a matter of experience. If a concept bears the mark of universality, for example, no amount of experience will prove that it exists. (We do not perceive universality in the way that we see, e.g., color.) What this implies, more straightforwardly, is that we cannot defend the truth of (5b)—​the existence of evil as a ‘universal human phenomenon’—​by observing others. Observing others would get us no further than experience, and experience, as Kant and Fichte both agree, cannot secure universal claims. Fichte draws these points together in an important passage, just after identifying laziness as ‘a truly positive radical evil’ (SL 4:199), asking:

132  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy And what entitles us to make such a presupposition? Is it merely a matter of experience? This is what Kant seems to assume, despite the fact that he also makes the same inference we are about to make. Mere experience [Erfahrung], however, would not entitle us to make such a universal presupposition. There must therefore be some rational ground [Vernunftgrund] for this claim, though one that does not yield necessity—​since that would destroy freedom [indem die Freiheit aufgehoben würde]—​but that only explains this universal experience. (SL 4:199)

Here Fichte is clear about the following. To prove that evil is more than a logical possibility, we need to show that there is an actual basis for it in finite rational beings. But then we face the difficulty of establishing the reality of evil as a universal phenomenon, since anything universal, as we have just seen, cannot be justified on experiential grounds. For this reason Fichte does not think we should, as Kant recommends, ‘spare ourselves the formal proof ’ of evil in light of ‘the multitude of woeful examples that the experience of human deeds parades before us’ (R 6:32–​33). Fichte’s point is just the reverse: the only way we can hope to establish (5b) is to offer a formal proof, that is, a proof that would uncover the rational ground of evil.28 The quoted passage is also noteworthy for specifying the requirements a ‘formal proof ’ must satisfy. In the first place, it must satisfy a reality condition: it must show that evil has a real basis in finite rational beings. Second, a formal proof must satisfy a universality condition: it must show that all of us (and not just a limited subset) are evil. These two conditions are present in the proposition ‘All rational human beings are evil.’ There is, however, a third condition Fichte thinks a formal proof must satisfy, though it is less obvious than the first two. It comes up in his last qualifying remark that a proof must uncover the rational ground of evil, ‘though one that does not yield necessity—​since that would destroy freedom—​but that only explains this universal experience’ (SL 4:199). Fichte’s claim is that proving the necessity of evil would be too strong; it would mean that we cannot act otherwise, try as we might. We can then take Fichte to be saying a formal proof must satisfy a third condition, what we may call an inevitability condition: it must show that evil is not unavoidable but inevitable for finite rational beings.29 In what way, then, do advocates of the standard interpretation seem to get things right? Returning to Fichte’s proof, recall that they would have us read the ‘force of inertia’ in Premise 3 as natural, the same as the vis inertiae in Premise 1. From this point of view the standard interpretation is surprisingly

Evil  133 effective in two ways. First, it is effective in meeting the reality condition. We can say evil has a real basis, since it originates from the very materiality that makes us embodied creatures. For the same reason the standard interpretation is effective in meeting the universality condition. We can say evil is a universal phenomenon, since it originates from a law governing all objects in the natural world. On this reading, the proposition ‘All rational human beings are evil’ is true because the proposition ‘All things are subject to a vis inertiae’ is true. And that is why the standard interpretation provides a transcendental style of proof after all: in seeking a rational ground for evil, it brings us to an a priori law of nature, which experience on its own could not secure for us. That makes it look quite promising. Nevertheless, when it comes to the inevitability condition, the standard interpretation begins to falter. The problem is that if we say evil originates from the materiality that makes us embodied creatures, we run the risk of making evil necessary for finite rational beings. But then we run the further risk of undermining our responsibility for evil, by making it a natural phenomenon. Fichte warns us about this, as we have seen. A proof that makes evil necessary would ‘destroy freedom,’ he says, since it would no longer relate to how we exercise our will (SL 4:199). That is why Fichte stipulates that a formal proof must satisfy a third requirement: it must show why evil is to be ‘expected’ (erwarten) but not ‘necessary’ (notwendig), for if evil were necessary we would lack any capacity to act otherwise. While it may sound overly subtle, Fichte’s distinction is important. To satisfy the inevitability condition, he is saying, we must explain the ubiquity of evil without resorting to a fatalistic picture of human agency. Once we acknowledge this, it is clear to me why the standard interpretation rests on a deceptive selling point: it gains purchase on the reality and universality conditions only at the cost of making evil unavoidable for us. After all, the basis of its ‘proof ’—​Nature’s vis inertiae—​is not something for which we could be responsible.

6.7.  Fichte’s Proof: An Alternative Interpretation The good news is that the task of finding an alternative interpretation is relatively easy. As a first step, all we have to do is show that when Fichte speaks of a ‘force of inertia’ in the context of human life (as stated in Premise 3), he is not speaking of a literal force (as stated in Premise 1). In other words, all we have to do is consider the possibility that in the context of human life,

134  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy the primary meaning of ‘inertia’ is figurative, a concept whose explanatory power works by analogy, rather than by strict identity, to the torpor of natural things. As promised, I shall now pursue this possibility. When in the appendix Fichte remarks that an inanimate object (a rock, for example) has a force to ‘remain what it is,’ it is safe to assume he does not mean a rock has a ‘will’ to remain what it is. Nor is it likely he means a rock has a ‘will’ to resist change when affected by an opposing force (SL 4:200). This much strikes me as uncontroversial. The sense of ‘force’ (Kraft) in a ‘force of inertia’ (Kraft der Trägheit) is not the same as a human ‘will.’30 I emphasize this because when Fichte extends his analysis to encompass human beings, on the principle that what pertains to nature as a whole must also pertain to us as parts of nature, we have good reason to suppose a shift of meaning has occurred. Like natural things, we have a tendency to remain in our current state; also like natural things, we have a tendency to resist changing our state. So, like natural things, we display a kind of ‘inertia’ (SL 4:200). The crucial difference is that our tendency to remain as we are is something we actively will. I take it this is where the analogy to the torpor of natural things breaks down. We will to remain in our current state; we will to resist changing our state; and even if these ‘willings’ are not fully conscious, they still express a form of agency entirely lacking in a thing’s inertia.31 This is enough, in my view, to challenge the guiding assumption behind the standard interpretation.32 The case for my alternative interpretation is not strictly conceptual, however. There is good textual support for it in the way Fichte characterizes evil earlier in §16 and elsewhere in the System of Ethics. First, let us not forget that Fichte claims we are responsible for obscuring our consciousness of duty—​ to quote him again, ‘It is up to our freedom [von unserer Freiheit abhänge] whether such consciousness continues or becomes obscured’ (SL 4:192). But we must ask: How could we be free in resisting the moral law, if the resistance was not something we actively willed? Second, recall that the most dangerous form of obscurity for Fichte involves rationalizing against the moral law, obscuring the form of duty ‘as duty’ (SL 4:196). But again, how could we rationalize against the moral law, if we were not freely exercising our will in the process? When we reexamine Fichte’s analysis prior to the appendix, we find that he defends a view of evil that is very much agency-​centered, tied closely to rationalization, deception, and (most centrally) self-​deception. Nor is this atypical for the System of Ethics as a whole. Later in the book, when Fichte discusses lying, for example, he writes, ‘The thought of lying requires something positively evil [Bösen]: a deliberate search for some crooked path

Evil  135 that will allow one to avoid proceeding along the straight path that offers itself to us’ (SL 4:288). Such remarks are hard to reconcile on the standard interpretation.33 It could be objected that if we shift interpretive weight to the agency of evil, as I am recommending, we end up contradicting or at least trivializing what Fichte has to say about inertia and laziness in the appendix. But that verdict would be too hasty. I would like to insist, on the contrary, that putting agency at the foreground of our interpretation provides a key for understanding Fichte’s formal proof. For when we read the appendix as I am suggesting, the figurative significance of ‘inertia’ and the analogy to nature become clear. To start with, consider what ‘inertia’ could mean from an agency-​centered perspective. Obviously it could not be something external to us, a force that literally immobilizes us or drags us down from rational exertion.34 Instead, it must be something internal to us, something we sustain through our will. This is the crux of the metaphor I believe Fichte wants to impress upon his readers: inertia speaks to a human (all-​too-​human) desire to be like a thing of Nature. If I am right about this, then the primary meaning of inertia is the psychological inverse of what the standard interpretation takes it to be. It is not a natural force that draws us back into the realm of passivity. Rather, it is an expression of our will, our will to passivity, we might say. Instead of trivializing the appendix, then, an agency-​centered perspective in fact explains how inertia manifests in human life. It manifests as our unwillingness to follow our own conscience—​and that, I submit, is ‘laziness’ in its most generalized form. There are a number of advantages to reading Fichte along these lines. To start with, it helps dispel the air of mystery surrounding his inference from evil to inertia. We desire to be like things in nature, directed by forces beyond our will.35 Morality demands that we be agents, directed by reason alone. More precisely, we desire heteronomy (governance from without), but morality demands autonomy (governance from within). This is why, as strange as it sounds, Fichte thinks ‘laziness’ is the positive root of evil—​a point he illustrates with the example of a sailor who took consolation at the thought of going to hell, where he only had to bear up and suffer, rather than remain alive, where he would have to work at improving himself (SL 4:202–​203). Like the sailor, we prefer anything to the work, and responsibility, of having to act for ourselves. So all of us are prone to obscure our consciousness of duty, to rationalize away its authority, because it demands that we step out of our passivity.36 In this respect, the interpretation I have presented explains

136  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy not only why all of us actually resist the moral law (meeting the reality and universality conditions) but also why this resistance is predictable (meeting the inevitability condition). Faced with what seems to be a Sisyphean task, all of us distort our moral consciousness. Yet since this distortion is something we will, there is no sense in which it is necessary. We are at all times free to act otherwise.37

6.8.  Completing Fichte’s Proof There are further advantages of my interpretation worth noting. One is that it lets us add a missing step from Fichte’s proof by explaining the sense in which evil is perverse. By tracing evil to generalized laziness, Fichte has identified a ‘rational ground’ for evil that is sufficiently removed from empirical evidence (i.e., from the many examples of human corruption). Yet for all that, he has not elucidated the element of perversity in evil, the sense in which we are conscious of what our ethical vocation demands of us and yet resort to rationalization all the same. To reconstruct this missing step, let us recall what Fichte says earlier in §16 about the third and fourth stages of agency. A being at Stage 3 is only obliquely aware of another drive operating within her, the drive to self-​sufficiency. For this reason ‘self-​sufficiency’ will appear contingent to her, something present in her ‘for no higher reason’ (SL 4:185). Recall also that Fichte thinks an agent advances to Stage 4 only when she realizes, through due reflection, that this drive is not contingent at all, that it is the essence of her rational nature. Then, and only then, will she become aware of conscience, the demand of only ever acting from her best conviction concerning her judgment of duty (SL 4:191). Putting these pieces together, we can say radical evil is perverse because by making our consciousness of duty obscure we are really making ourselves obscure—​to ourselves. This is not a diabolical attraction to evil for the sake of evil, but a deliberate twisting and warping of what we know on some level is our true nature as moral beings.38 Another advantage of my interpretation is that it sheds light on Fichte’s curious reference to Kant. As we have seen, after delivering his proof in the appendix, Fichte remarks that Kant makes the ‘same inference’ and argues ‘very correctly’ that all human beings are lazy (SL 4:202). Most commentators find this remark mysterious, if not misleading, given that they take Kant and Fichte to uphold opposing views of evil. Yet there is another puzzle veiled in this comment. Fichte gives the reader no further hint

Evil  137 as to which text of Kant he has in mind. On a quick survey, there are only a few passages in his corpus where Kant expresses the view Fichte attributes to him, namely, that all human beings are naturally ‘lazy’ (faul).39 Of these passages, the one Fichte likely has in mind comes from Kant’s 1784 essay, ‘An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?,’ which famously begins, ‘Enlightenment is the human being’s emergence from his self-​imposed immaturity [Unmiindigkeit]’ (WA 8:35). In the next paragraph Kant says where the root of our immaturity lies: ‘It is because of laziness and cowardice that so great a part of humankind, after nature has long since emancipated them from other people’s direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless gladly remains immature for life’ (WA 8:35).40 Now it is difficult to see what significance this remark could have for Fichte if we read his notion of inertia literally. However, once we read it figuratively, the potency of Fichte’s reference to Kant is easy to grasp. The original laziness all human beings display is like the torpor of natural things, and that is part of its metaphorical power, but what the notion really conveys is a propensity we all share to resist acting for ourselves. Transposed in the language of Kant’s essay, inertia is our self-​imposed passivity.41 A third payoff worth highlighting is that my reading does justice to Fichte’s aim in §16 ‘to pursue fatalism into its last refuge’ (SL 4:198). Read in isolation, this remark may not strike readers today as particularly important. But when we consider the broader context in which Fichte developed his position, I believe his engagement with the issue of fatalism offers further support to the interpretation I have proposed. We are well-​positioned to grasp the import of this context, having examined Reinhold’s claim in Chapter 2 that Kant’s identification of moral action and free action yields the absurd conclusion that immoral action is unfree. Fichte is sensitive to the fact that his own theory of evil invites a similar objection. As he explains, the ‘appearance of fatalism’ arises when we consider that ‘either one remains continually conscious of the moral law, in which case a moral action necessarily ensues, or else such consciousness disappears, in which case it is impossible to act morally’ (SL 4:192). In reply, Fichte says, ‘The appearance of fatalism disappears as soon as one notices that it is up to our freedom whether such consciousness continues or becomes obscured’ (Der Anschein des Fatalismus verschwindet sogleich, wenn man darauf merkt, dass es ja von unserer Freiheit abhänge, ob jenes Bewusstseyn fortdauere, oder sich verdunkele) (SL 4:192). Just a few lines later he adds that this ‘act’ of self-​obscurity is an expression of genuine freedom: it is ‘an absolutely primary and therefore inexplicable

138  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy act’ (SL 4:198). In light of this remark, it makes sense why Fichte takes up an agency-​centered view of evil, for only such a view could answer Reinhold’s worry that free but immoral action is impossible. And this is why Fichte frames his task in §16 as one of pursuing fatalism into its ‘last refuge,’ a task that would surely fail if the root of evil turned out to be a natural force external to the will, as the standard interpretation would have us believe.

6.9.  The Authority of Reflection These payoffs aside, a worry may surface that the interpretation I have offered collapses Fichte’s account of evil into Kant’s, and that stands in tension with my larger aim in this book: to show the originality of Fichte’s thinking in the System of Ethics. As we know, the view defended by Schelling, and picked up by most commentators since, is that Kant and Fichte represent two sides of a gulf. One locates evil on the side of Freedom, the other on the side of Nature. In rejecting this polarization, have I perhaps reduced any philosophically interesting difference between these two thinkers? I do not think so, mainly because I have not overlooked the fact that Fichte provides the very thing Kant thought was either impossible or unnecessary in the Religion: a ‘formal proof ’ of radical evil. That by itself preserves Fichte’s originality, even if the core thesis of his account (the laziness of human nature) builds upon and extends Kant’s notion of ‘immaturity.’42 Beyond this, it is worth repeating that my reading of §16 is more charitable than the standard interpretation. When we take an agency-​centered view, it is not difficult to see how we are responsible for evil, as well as how evil is a real propensity of will for us. We can then say everyone is disposed to rationalization and self-​deception—​ securing (5b) of Fichte’s proof, ‘All rational human beings are evil’—​without thereby making evil necessary or unavoidable for us. Since our passivity is self-​imposed, we are always free to improve ourselves. In this way my account is consistent with reflective progress, Fichte’s conviction in the permanent possibility of raising ourselves up through reflection. This last point folds back to the start of my discussion in this chapter. As I noted earlier, while Fichte is committed to reflective progress, he is also sensitive to the fact that we do not come into the world as fully developed moral persons. Our striving for self-​sufficiency is very much an achievement, one we attain only after having successfully passed through earlier, nonmoral stages of agency. Fichte’s analysis of these stages rests on an important insight,

Evil  139 and I believe the value of this insight goes well beyond the bounds of Fichte scholarship. I say this because Fichte’s insight challenges an assumption behind contemporary Kantian theories of normativity: the assumption that as rational beings we enjoy full reflective authority, the capacity to ‘step back’ from our motives and determine the reasons we have for acting on them (see Korsgaard 1996; Rosati 2003). In my understanding Fichte is committed to a different thesis, the view that our reflective authority is always limited and that however much we step back from ourselves, we cannot suspend our motives to the point where they appear normatively arbitrary. As he says, all acts of reflection are ‘limited’ (begrenzt) (SL 4:178). This claim deserves our attention, I believe, not only because it offers a promising alternative to contemporary theories of normativity but also because it gives us resources for solving a skeptical threat those theories end up generating. The skeptical threat I  am referring to is one that comes up in recent attempts to justify the normativity of moral requirements by locating them in more basic, ‘constitutive’ features of agency.43 On one level these accounts share the goal of preempting the skeptic’s traditional question, ‘Why be moral?,’ by showing moral requirements to be necessary for agency as such. The following sort of analogies make this idea intuitive. In the same way that the question of why one should build a house that prevents rain from coming in loses force if we explain why doing so is what makes it a house at all, the question of why one should follow moral requirements loses force if we explain why doing so is what makes one an agent at all (see Korsgaard 2009). There are certain standards and aims that are necessary for house constitution (and preventing rain from coming in is one of them). So too there are certain standards and aims necessary for self-​constitution (and satisfying moral requirements is one of them). Upon seeing this, the skeptic’s question is supposed to dissolve. Nevertheless, as critics have been ready to reply, all this strategy does is push back the question of normativity. For we can still ask: What makes standards and aims necessary for agency relevant to the point where they deserve the overriding and nonoptional status they purport to have? The original worry about what makes moral claims overriding and nonoptional has not gone away. It has only reemerged, now under the guise of the question ‘Why be an agent?’ How does this question relate to the assumption behind contemporary Kantian theories of normativity? To answer this, consider again the picture of rational agency these theories uphold. The picture consists of a being with the capacity to step back from its motives (broadly construed) and decide from a

140  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy detached perspective whether it has any reason to endorse them. Reflection, on this picture, gives us authority: whether we accept or reject motives is ‘up to us,’ for motives no longer dominate us, as we may suppose they do for animals and infants. The assumption behind these recent accounts, however, is that we are capable of full reflective authority. On this model the distance we are able to gain from our motives is so great that they eventually appear normatively arbitrary. And that is where the skeptical threat gets a hook in. For if we are now told that certain capacities are necessary for agency—​that without them, we would not count as agents at all—​we have every right to ask why we should care about those capacities. Why should the fact that some features of our agency are necessary make a normative difference? Why should acting according to these features be overriding and nonoptional—​or better, what would warrant us in regarding them that way? The point I want to make is that raising the question ‘Why be an agent?’ becomes possible the moment we buy into the assumption of full reflective authority. The two emerge from the same conceptual space.44 While more could be said about these theories of normativity, let us consider how Fichte might respond to the skeptical problem before us. A first reply, I imagine, would be something like this. He might say that the very question ‘Why be an agent?’ gets a hook into our discussion only when we assume we enjoy full reflective authority as rational beings. Once we reject this view in favor of Fichte’s thesis, what I have called limited reflective authority, we close off conceptual room for the skeptic’s question to emerge.45 The reason for this is clear: if we do not enjoy full reflective authority, then whatever aspects of ourselves we bring into reflection will not appear normatively optional. On this picture we have no room to ask why we should care about being agents, since there is no point at which the practical relevance of our motives (whatever they may be) fades away. On the contrary, the picture we get from Fichte is one in which our motives retain their salience from the standpoint of deliberation. The limited power we have to suspend the force of our inner drives and maxims of choice means they will always appear compelling for us, at least to some degree. To take one example, I can step back and reflect on my natural drive, but for Fichte my power to reflect only grants me the ability to conceptualize my total happiness under a conceptually mediated end or Zweckbegriff, and that in turn opens up new deliberative powers for me. (I can, as he says, postpone the satisfaction of my desires, figure out new ways of satisfying them, etc.) But at

Evil  141 this stage of agency I have room to ask only how to fulfill my natural drive—​ not whether I should do so. If the skeptic’s question has force so long as we assume the standpoint of a fully reflective being, a being for whom all features of her agency appear normatively arbitrary, then the reply I have just sketched would work. All we need to do is reject the particular model of rational agency shared by contemporary Kantian theories of normativity. While I have only touched the contours of an alternative picture, the broader significance of Fichte’s account should now be clear. We can never step so far back from ourselves that our inner drives and maxims of choice lose their normative significance. As we have seen, limited reflective authority is a basic premise of Fichte’s four-​ stage genetic account. When I step back from my natural drive for happiness (at Stage 2), I have just enough space to consider how to fulfill my desires to their fullest extent, and in doing so I bring myself under a new maxim, happiness. When I step back from happiness (at Stage 3), I have just enough space to consider another drive operating within me, the drive for independence. When I bring myself to act under this drive—​still half-​consciously—​I replace happiness with unrestricted dominion, the pursuit of unlimited control over all things. Finally, when I bring my drive for independence into the space of reflection (at Stage 4), I represent it as my duty, the duty of letting nothing other than reason determine my will. When I bring myself to act under this law—​now consciously—​I replace unrestricted dominion with conscience as the highest maxim of my being. At each of these stages I am engaged (rather than detached) in my acts of reflection. At no point does the problem of normative arbitrariness arise.46

6.10. Closing Remarks In this chapter I have argued, contrary to the prevailing view in the literature, that Fichte’s proof of evil in §16 of the System of Ethics does not rest on a natural force of inertia. The concept of inertia is figurative, speaking to a universal tendency we have as finite rational beings to prefer passivity over activity, resisting as we do the work of acting for ourselves. Understood in this way, Fichte’s self-​described Kantianism in §16 is not mistaken, despite appearances, for Kant himself openly theorizes about a tendency all of us have to self-​imposed ‘immaturity.’ Fichte nonetheless retains his originality

142  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy in the System of Ethics, I have argued, since he works out an argument for evil based on this tendency, something Kant never attempted to do. From everything I have said, one may still want to know why an agent at the final stage of Fichte’s account should regard conscience as normatively superior to unrestricted dominion. Rather than ask ‘Why be an agent?,’ one may ask ‘Why be conscientious?,’ where the latter involves giving priority in matters of deliberation to the concept of duty. In forming a reply, there are two things we should bear in mind. First, an individual at Stage 3 already aims at something other than the pursuit of pleasure. The fundamental goal around which she organizes her choices concerns a blind and despotic pursuit of independence, and that carries more practical weight than the fulfillment of her sensible desires. Furthermore, we should bear in mind that an individual at this stage regards her drive to self-​sufficiency as something contingent or nonessential to her true nature, for at this level she still identifies her true nature with the natural drive. As we have seen, Fichte thinks an individual reaches the final stage of agency only when she realizes, by reflecting on her pure drive for independence, that it expresses the essence of her rational nature (and so is not peculiar to her finite I). What I would like to say—​although Fichte is silent on the issue—​is that an individual who reaches Stage 4 has no room to question the normative superiority of conscience over unrestricted dominion. There is no room for her to ask ‘Why be conscientious?’ because conscience is the felt harmony between her willing and her fundamental drive, of which the striving for enjoyment and the striving for independence are but limited expressions. I suppose Fichte is silent on this issue because he is optimistic about our motivational capacities. He believes that once we recognize an essential feature of our agency—​our ethical drive for wholeness, for example—​we will be internally motivated to act according to what the drive demands. That is why the problem Fichte struggles with in §16 of the System of Ethics does not concern normative arbitrariness. To the extent that we recognize the demands of duty, he thinks, we will appreciate their practical import over the demands of our natural drive. The problem Fichte struggles with has to do with our will to passivity, that is, our unwillingness to act for ourselves. So the final reply we can imagine Fichte giving to the skeptic who asks ‘Why be an agent?’ or ‘Why be conscientious?’ is that these questions may be expressions of resistance: ‘I don’t want to be an agent; I don’t want to be conscientious.’ They may be expressions of laziness. And if that is the case, then what the skeptic

Evil  143 needs is not argumentation but something more like inspiration. Such an individual, Fichte says, ‘would have to see himself in his contemptible shape,’ and he ‘would have to see exemplars who elevate him and provide him with an image of how he ought to be, who infuse him with respect, along with a desire to become worthy of respect himself ’ (SL 4:204).47 A hard task, to be sure, but one we are always free to pursue.

7 Community My I-​hood, along with my self-​sufficiency in general, is conditioned by the freedom of the other. —​Fichte, The System of Ethics (SL 4:221)

7.1.  Introduction In the foregoing chapters we have seen one of two dramatis personae take shape in the System of Ethics: the figure of the moral subjectivist who bids us to listen to the voice of conscience within and who even declares that this voice is an unerring source of certainty in our convictions of duty. What I have tried to show over the course of this discussion is that Fichte’s theory of conscience plays a systematic role in his book. It marks the culmination of his deduction of the moral law’s reality and applicability, the central goal of Part II, which is easy to ignore if we examine this theory in isolation from the rest of the System of Ethics. On the reading I offered, the power of conscience gives sensible expression of the harmony between our actual willing and our original drive, and this gives proof that the moral law has an essential connection to all the elements making up our capacity of desire. As a higher feeling, the power of conscience gives voice to what Fichte calls our ethical drive, which strives to unite our pure drive for independence and our natural drive for enjoyment. When our actual willing upon the natural drive aligns with our original striving for wholeness, we are on the path to self-​sufficiency, and that alignment manifests itself as a feeling of respect for ourselves. Even if this argument succeeds, however, Fichte’s theory of conscience is incomplete. The deduction of applicability in Part II of the System of Ethics does not yield a criterion for determining what actions count as our duties. In the course of ordinary life it suffices that I pay heed to the feelings of my conscience, yet Fichte observes that this does not suffice to ground a doctrine of duties proper: ‘This, however, is not enough for the purposes of science. We must be able to determine a priori what conscience will approve of in Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Owen Ware, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190086596.001.0001

Community  145 general’ (SL 4:208). Soon afterward Fichte makes the same point, writing that his theory of conscience ‘guaranteed the practical applicability of the moral law,’ and that was ‘enough for acting in life, but not for science’ (aber nicht für die Wissenschaft) (SL 4:209; emphasis added). The question we must now raise, he says, ‘is whether there is an even higher principle, if not within consciousness, then at least within philosophy; a unitary ground of these feelings themselves’ (SL 4:209–​210). The following passage brings this problem into view, and I would like to quote it in full: Our inquiry picks up at the very point we dropped it at the end of Part II, concerning the applicability of the ethical principle [über die Anwendbarkeit des sittlichen Principes]. At that point we were quite unable to see how we could determine a priori what our duty is; we possessed no criterion at all for determining this, beyond the approval or disapproval of our conscience following the deed. Doing our duty would therefore have had to have been a matter of trial and error, and the only way we could have acquired any moral principles would have been through long experience, involving many false steps. (SL 4:209)

One difficulty, however, is that Fichte ends up offering two derivations of moral content in the System of Ethics, without leaving the reader so much as a clue to explain their connection. Whereas the first proceeds to derive the content of our duties from our natural drive, the second proceeds to derive the content of our duties from what Fichte calls the three conditions of our selfhood, namely, our embodiment, intelligence, and sociality. My aim in the present chapter is to show that a careful rereading of Fichte’s notion of a ‘natural drive’ (Naturtrieb) is consistent with his second derivation of moral content as he presents it in §§17–​18 of the System of Ethics. This will build upon our discovery in Chapter 4—​that there is a form of primitive reciprocity in the natural drive itself—​but now we shall expand upon this discovery to the claim that our ethical vocation to unite with others in community amounts to a preservation of what is, for Fichte, already present in our nature.

7.2.  The Natural Drive As was discussed in Chapter  4, Fichte characterizes our original state in terms of an undivided Urtrieb. When this original drive is represented as

146  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy non-​self-​conscious activity, it appears as a lower capacity of desire, which manifests itself as a natural drive for enjoyment. When this same drive is represented as self-​conscious activity, it appears as a higher capacity of desire, which manifests itself as a pure drive for independence. Yet Fichte’s point, as we have seen, is that there is no basic difference between the two. The ‘dividing line,’ he says, is ‘reflection’: it is only by becoming aware of my natural drive that I can step back from it and posit myself as free (SL 4:131). This allows me to fashion a concept of my freedom as a conceptually mediated end or Zweckbegriff, separate from the natural drive and its Zweckbegriff of enjoyment. But again, this separation of a lower and higher capacity exists only in the emerging conditions of time that mark the development of my agency. When we abstract from these emerging conditions and take up a properly transcendental viewpoint, Fichte argues, we have only one single activity manifested in different forms. My nature is originally whole, and only reflection separates me from this original wholeness. But how does this address the question of moral content? Fichte’s answer is that the pure drive alone cannot yield determinate courses of action. The pure drive, he explains, appears in consciousness only as a restraint of the natural drive and its striving for enjoyment. Considered in isolation, the end of the pure drive is without material content—​and hence lacks applicability—​for it cannot specify what actions I ought to perform in striving for independence. However, Fichte observes that this stands in tension with the character of morality, its character of requiring that I do something here and now. Morality obliges me to action, but the pure drive alone obliges me only to the omission of action, to what I ought not to do. Were we to develop a theory of ethics on the basis of the pure drive alone, we would be led to what Fichte calls a theory of ‘continuous self-​denial,’ which he hints at in passing is the flaw of Kant’s approach to a ‘metaphysics of morals’ (SL 4:147). But this raises a new question: If we cannot specify determinate courses of action on the basis of the higher capacity of desire, where can we derive the content of our duties? Fichte’s reply, and what I am calling his first derivation, is that we can derive this content from the natural drive itself. What I ought to do from a moral standpoint is, in a sense, what I am already doing in exercising my lower capacity of desire. To be clear, Fichte is not saying that morality directs me to the end of the natural drive, enjoyment, since the natural drive only relates this end to myself as the subject of the drive. Nor is he saying that morality requires that I give up the end of my pure drive, independence, since the concept of

Community  147 independence as such is precisely what morality requires of us. The solution, Fichte explains, is to remember that these drives are but expressions of one and the same activity, the fundamental Urtrieb, and that actualizing the demands of morality is a project of reuniting the two. Remember what he says: These two drives, however, constitute only one and the same I. The I must therefore be united within the sphere of consciousness. We will see that in this unity the higher drive must surrender the purity of its activity (that is, its non-​determination through an object), while the lower drive must surrender enjoyment as its end. (SL 4:131)

For this reason I have suggested that Fichte wants us to think of our ethical vocation as a project of self-​unification. Fulfilling the demands of morality requires that I reintegrate my natural drive for enjoyment and my pure drive for independence in the right way. But this mandate for self-​unification is valid only as a prescription, as something I ought to do, because it accurately describes my original wholeness, my being prior to the self-​division brought about by reflection. Fichte makes this clear in stating that our ethical vocation is to bring our actual willing into harmony with our original drive: My foundational drive [Grundtrieb] as a pure and as an empirical being, the drive through which these two, very different components of myself become one [zu Einem werden], is the drive toward agreement between the original I, which is determined in the mere idea, and the actual I. (SL 4:143–​144)

To complete our review, we have seen that Fichte identifies the ethical drive precisely as the drive toward this agreement. Like the pure drive, the ethical drive strives for independence, and in this regard it has the end of independence. Unlike the pure drive, the ethical drive does not strive for complete nondetermination through an object, and so it does not seek complete independence from the natural drive. After all, the natural drive is what supplies the ethical drive with its content. But unlike the natural drive, the ethical drive does not restrict itself to actions that relate objects of nature merely to myself as the subject of the drive. And that is why Fichte defines it as a mixed drive: ‘from the natural drive,’ he explains, the ethical drive ‘obtains its material. Yet it obtains its form merely from the pure drive’ (SL 4:152).

148  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy We could say that the ethical drive cancels out the end of the natural drive but preserves its material, and it cancels out the material of the pure drive but preserves its end. According to his first derivation, the natural drive supplies morality with its content, thereby allowing us to specify actions I ought to perform in striving for self-​sufficiency. But to what extent does this derivation work? One potential problem is that deriving moral content from the natural drive alone does not appear inclusive enough for specifying a complete division of duties, which is Fichte’s larger aim in Part III of the System of Ethics. This worry is only compounded by the fact that Fichte ends up drawing a close connection between the natural drive and the ‘body’ (Leib) as a system through which I exercise my causality in the world. The body, he explains, can be understood as a microcosm of the system of nature I represent outside of me: each part of the body strives to preserve the body as a whole, and the whole strives to preserve each part in a relationship of reciprocal interaction (SL 4:127–​128). Since moral laws, for Fichte, are valid only as prescriptions to perfect what I am already doing, it appears that this line of argument can yield only a material norm to preserve and perfect my body as a self-​organizing system. But that falls short of a complete division of duties, which Fichte later presents in terms of the obligations I have to the mind and to others as well. So by drawing such a close tie between moral content and the body, Fichte’s first derivation in the System of Ethics appears too limited.

7.3.  Embodiment, Intelligence, and Sociality Let us now turn to what I have called Fichte’s second derivation of moral content, which appears in §§17–​18 of Part III. What is evident when we read these later sections is that Fichte’s strategy is no longer the narrow one presented earlier, the strategy of deriving a material norm from the body as a self-​organizing system. Instead, Fichte’s new starting point is the broader notion of our individual ‘selfhood’ (SL 4:211).1 As we soon discover, the condition of my embodiment is but one of three transcendental conditions of selfhood, that is, one of three conditions necessary for my agency as a rational yet finite being. In my view, the initial advantage of this approach is that by starting with the notion of individual selfhood as such, Fichte has the means of presenting a comprehensive division of duties. As he explains, the goal is to provide ‘a complete presentation of the conditions of I-​hood and

Community  149 show how these conditions are related to the drive for self-​sufficiency as well as how this drive is determined by these conditions’ (SL 4:212). If we can accomplish this, Fichte adds, ‘we will have provided an exhaustive account of the content of the moral law’ (SL 4:212). Fichte does not take decisive steps toward this exhaustive account until he has derived duties to the body, and what he says is instructive: To facilitate our survey, one should note that the condition of I-​hood that was just indicted is a condition for the I’s causality [Kausalität], a causality that is demanded by the moral law. It will become evident that there is also a second condition, one concerning the substantiality [Substantialität] of the subject of morality, as well as a third condition, one concerning a certain, necessary reciprocal interaction [Wechselwirkung] of the latter. (SL 4:216)

What makes this second derivation promising, as we can see, is that it approaches the notion of individual selfhood under the category of relation:  first, as a finite rational being who is embodied (under the category of causality); second, as a finite rational being who is intelligent (under the category of substantiality); and third, as a finite rational being who stand in community with others (under the category of reciprocal interaction). Let us examine these conditions more closely. To start with, Fichte’s analysis of the first condition of selfhood is the most straightforward, since it follows the pattern of the first strategy discussed earlier. He begins by claiming that my actual willing requires my natural drive, reminding the reader of the close connection between the natural drive and the body: ‘The natural drive addresses itself to me only through my body, and this drive is realized in the world outside me only through the causality of my body’ (SL 4:215). Fichte’s point now is that a relationship with my body is a transcendental condition of my selfhood, a condition necessary for me to exercise my causality in the world. When we then step back and relate this condition to the drive for self-​sufficiency, he argues, we get the following result: that I have a duty to preserve and perfect my body as a means of fulfilling my ethical vocation. That is to say, I can approximate the goal of my ethical vocation only by acting, and acting requires my body. I ought to preserve and perfect my body, then, but not for the sake of seeking my own enjoyment. Rather, I ought to preserve and perfect my body as a means for realizing my ethical vocation (SL 4:215). ‘The sole end of all my care for my body,’ Fichte writes, ‘must be to transform this body into a suitable instrument of morality

150  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy [Werkzeuge der Moralität] and to preserve it as such’ (SL 4:216). Cultivation of the body therefore gives us a substantive obligation. It is easy to follow Fichte’s next point, that I also have a duty to cultivate my mind, since this rests on the claim that my capacity to form concepts is a transcendental condition of selfhood too. Yet it is far less obvious how he derives a duty to others, given that the supporting line of argument moves us into unfamiliar territory. At this juncture of the text, rather than appeal to the empirical fact that I depend on others for my existence and continued survival, Fichte advances the much stronger claim that my individuality—​ my capacity for free agency as such—​has an intersubjective ‘root’ (Wurzel). While a detailed examination of this claim goes beyond the scope of my study, three points are relevant for the present chapter. The first is that I lack resources to determine myself on the basis of reasons, so that I cannot become a self-​governing agent all on my own. The second is that I can become a self-​governing agent only by being called, invited, or summoned to realize my spontaneity. The third and final point is that recognizing this summons requires that I posit the existence of a being outside of me, a being who wishes to invite me freely into a space of mutual reason-​giving. It is therefore a ‘condition of self-​consciousness, of I-​hood,’ Fichte argues, ‘to assume that there is an actual rational being outside of oneself ’ (SL 4:221). Fichte then asserts, in a captivating turn of argument, ‘My I-​hood, along with my self-​sufficiency in general, is conditioned by the freedom of the other’ (SL 4:221).2 But how, we must ask, does this third transcendental condition of selfhood give content to the moral law? The answer we receive in the context under discussion is this: ‘My drive to self-​sufficiency absolutely cannot aim at annihilating the condition of its own possibility, that is, the freedom of the other’ (SL 4:221). Here Fichte’s point rests on a principle of consistency, that I have a duty to respect others because doing so is consistent with the reciprocal interaction at the root of my individuality (SL 4:221). Yet the force of his argument runs deeper than this, I believe, since he also claims that in contrast to my body and my mind, the social whole of which I am a part instantiates the ‘final end’ (Endzweck) of my ethical vocation, and to that extent it specifies the domain over which the moral law applies (SL 4:255). In this light I have a duty to preserve and perfect the freedom of others, not because doing so is a means for attaining some other end but because doing so embodies the very essence of my higher vocation in the sensible world. As Fichte writes, ‘The object of the moral law, i.e., that in which it wants its end to be presented, is by no means anything

Community  151 individual’ (SL 4:254). And that is why ‘I posit this reason as such as something outside me’ (SL 4:254). What the transcendental condition of sociality reveals, therefore, is the proper object of my own striving, the ‘entire community of rational beings outside me’ (SL 4:254).3

7.4. The Bildungstrieb The results of this second derivation are on track to secure a complete division of duties, which Fichte will elaborate upon for the remainder of the System of Ethics. But rather than conclude that his first strategy failed, I wish to return once again to his notion of a natural drive to support a more sympathetic reading. Upon a careful reexamination of the text, I wish to show that the elements of Fichte’s discussion of embodiment, intelligence, and sociality put forth in §§17–​18 are implicit in our original drive, and that what our ethical vocation requires of us, to unite with the community of rational beings, is a requirement to unfold our original drive for wholeness. The key to this reexamination lies in Fichte’s claim that the natural drive for enjoyment is not, as one might expect, a drive merely to satisfy objects of desire. As I showed in Chapter 4, Fichte does not regard desire-​satisfaction understood in terms of consuming objects to capture the end of enjoyment itself. His view is that the character of this end is akin to the character of nature represented as an organic whole, whereby all parts strive to unite with the whole and the whole in turn strives to unite with all parts (SL 4:114–​115). According to this organic model of nature, Fichte argues that enjoyment consists of striving to unite with an object, to relate to it, and not to absorb it straightaway. The natural drive, he writes, is a drive for mutual Bildung, ‘to form and to be formed’ (zu bilden und sich bilden zu lassen), and this amounts to what Fichte calls a ‘formative drive’ (Bildungstrieb) (SL 4:121). As this last turn of phrase makes clear, Fichte conceives of the Bildungstrieb as displaying what I have termed primitive reciprocity. It is a drive not just to relate to an object, but to relate to it both actively and passively: to shape and to be shaped. It is a form of striving that, according to Fichte’s organic model of nature, is thoroughly reciprocal. In striving to relate an object to my natural drive in a relation of mutual Bildung, I am not striving to subordinate the object to my efficacy, nor am I trying to subordinate my efficacy to the object, as would be the case if we viewed this connection under to the category of causality. Rather, Fichte is reframing this connection under the category

152  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy of ‘reciprocal interaction’ (Wechselwirkung), whereby the drive and its object are coordinated and brought into community with each other. Indeed, the underlying model of organicism that Fichte draws upon in the System of Ethics to explain the structure of desire, even in its lower capacity, is precisely the model of a holistic community between parts of nature and their whole, the dynamic of which allows us to think of nature as a community of self-​ organizing and mutually interactive systems. For Fichte, the natural drive qua Bildungstrieb is simply a way of understanding this form of primitive reciprocity within us, namely, as a striving for self-​organization that brings us into community with objects that help sustain our self-​organization. Given this richer conception of the natural drive, we can begin to see the extent to which Fichte’s later discussion of embodiment, intelligence, and sociality in §§17–​18 unpack elements already contained in his drive theory from Part II: • The causality of the body. In the first case, what the condition of embodiment highlights is the causality by which I strive to shape and be shaped in a relationship. As a self-​organizing system, I seek to coordinate all the parts of my body and maintain their equilibrium, and to do that I seek to bring myself into community with objects of nature that contribute to this equilibrium. My body then serves as the locus by which I exercise my willing, both as a means of organizing myself, so to speak, and of interacting with the environment around me in ways that support my ongoing self-​organization. When Fichte speaks of enjoyment as the Zweckbegriff of the natural drive, he does not mean that I strive to consume an object, to subordinate it to my willing, or any other mode of action that would link desiring with the negation of an object. Instead, ‘enjoyment’ refers to the Zweckbegriff of mutual formation, whose attainment produces a feeling of harmony (pleasure) and whose frustration produces a feeling of disharmony (displeasure). Already at this fundamental level of agency, then, Fichte wants us to think of the natural drive in terms of a reciprocal dynamic, both at the intra-​embodied level (how the parts of my body relate to my body as a whole) and at an inter-​embodied level (how my body as a part relates to the environment as a whole). • The substantiality of the intellect. In the second case, what the condition of intelligence highlights is the substantiality by which I actively prefigure enjoyment as the end of my striving for self-​organization. As a

Community  153 self-​organizing body with the capacity for reflection, I determine myself to action on the basis of conceptually mediated ends, all of which require free acts of self-​positing to be possible. In the same way that embodiment is a transcendental condition of my causality as a finite I, intelligence is a transcendental condition of my substantiality as a finite I, even in its lower expression of desire. ‘An I must have a capacity for reflection in order to pre-​figure something given through an inner act of freedom,’ Fichte writes, including those objects of nature (food, drink, an extensive view) that support my drive for self-​ organization (SL 4:217). While my body is the locus through which I exercise the causality of my natural drive in the world, I remain the subject of my natural drive as a free intelligence. In this way the category of causality makes salient the objective side of the I as a self-​ organizing body capable of articulating a variety of actions in space, whereas the category of substantiality makes salient the subjective side of the I as a self-​positing intellect capable of prefiguring such actions through concepts. But again, Fichte’s point is that these are one and the same ‘I’ simply viewed from different standpoints. • The sociality of the individual. In the third and final case, what the condition of sociality highlights is the reciprocal interaction by which I actively determine my sphere of embodied articulation vis-​à-​vis those spheres marked out by other finite rational beings. As a self-​organizing system with the capacity for reflection, I determine myself to action on the basis of conceptually mediated ends. Yet this very capacity for prefiguration is itself conditioned by a finite rational being outside of me. As we have seen, it is conditioned by another being who, in limiting her own sphere of articulation, left space open for me to determine mine, freely and without coercion. On the basis of this invitation or ‘summons’ (Aufforderung) to exercise my capacity for reflection and to prefigure an end of action, the self-​limitation of another rational being turns out to be the most foundational condition of my selfhood. Viewed through the category of causality, the I is a self-​organizing body capable of articulating a variety of actions in space; viewed through the category of substantiality, the I  is an intelligence capable of prefiguring such actions through concepts. However, it is only by introducing the category of reciprocal interaction that the ‘root’ of my individuality as such comes to light, namely, in the original connection of my self to another.

154  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy To expand upon this last point, it is only thanks to another rational being, and her invitation for me to exercise my free efficacy, that I  can fashion concepts of ends and determine myself on the basis of them. My ‘first state,’ Fichte explains, ‘is not determined through my freedom, but is determined through my connection with another rational being’ (SL 4:222–​223). My original sociality therefore reveals another dimension of the natural drive that was only implicit in Fichte’s initial discussion. The capacity of reflection that allows me to enter into a reciprocal relationship with my body and the natural world—​the capacity, that is, that allows me to pursue the end of enjoyment—​points outside my finite I and exposes, at the core of my being, a connection to another finite I. That is not to say I am mechanically ‘compelled’ to be free, which Fichte notes is a contradiction. Rather, the point is that another’s summons clears room for me to engage my capacity of reflection. The Aufforderung itself performs this room-​clearing activity, not by presenting me with an impression of causality but by presenting me with an impression of rationality. Elsewhere Fichte writes that the schema of this impression lies in the shape of the human body, particularly in the human face, whose expression intimates another’s intelligence, rationality, and freedom, a point we shall return to later (GNR 3:84). I have taken time to unpack this line of argument in order to show that the primacy of other-​regarding duties in Fichte’s system mirrors what he takes to be an accurate depiction of how my capacity for reflection is first activated. An obligation to serve the community above my interests is valid as a prescription for what I ought to do because it speaks to the intersubjective basis of my existence, of who I am. Among the three transcendental conditions of selfhood, then, sociality takes pride of place because I could not be an embodied intelligence without that invitation, communicated to me by another, to exercise my free efficacy. For this reason Fichte subordinates duties to the body and duties to the mind, as material commands of self-​cultivation, to the social whole of which I am a part. I ought to cultivate myself and nurture the causality and substantiality of my original nature, but only in the service of the community; hence all duties to self acquire their normative orientation from my reciprocal connection with others. In this respect, the only immediate moral reasons I have are other-​regarding, since I cannot take the cultivation of my body or my mind as the ‘final end’ (Endzweck) of my willing—​not because that would violate a norm external to me but because that would contradict who I am. Thus, the only Endzweck reflective of my

Community  155 selfhood is that of entering into free, reciprocal interaction with others in society, of which my own perfection is a means, but never an ultimate end. When we look back to the foregoing sections of this chapter, we can begin to see a striking set of parallels between the way Fichte conceives of nature and community as self-​organizing systems and the way he relates each of these systems to the drives of the individual I. First, an organic model of nature brings to light its holistic structure, whereby each part strives to preserve itself and to preserve the whole to which it belongs. This allows Fichte to specify the character of our natural drive as displaying a form of primitive reciprocity, which reframes the end of enjoyment in terms of seeking harmony between objects of the sensible world and our striving for self-​organization. In the second case, an organic model of rational beings brings to light its holistic structure as well, whereby each individual member strives to preserve itself and to preserve the social whole to which it belongs. This allows Fichte to specify the character of our ethical drive as displaying a form of reflective reciprocity, which reframes the end of morality in terms of seeking harmony between objects of the sensible world (now including others) and our original nature. In other words, both the natural drive and the ethical drive amount to drives for reciprocal interaction; in this respect both display the character of a Bildungstrieb as Fichte understands this term. The difference is that the natural drive limits this formative-​relation to objects that serve my own body as a self-​organizing system, whereas the ethical drive proper extends this formative-​relation to all the conditions of my selfhood, including my connection to the entire community of which I am a part.

7.5.  The Social Vocation of Human Beings Much of the blueprint of Fichte’s second derivation of moral content from Part III of the System of Ethics was anticipated in a set of public lectures he delivered in 1794, which I would like to bring into the present discussion. It is clear when we read these lectures that Fichte wants to be mindful of a distinction between the question of our ‘final end’ (Endzweck) and the question of our higher ‘vocation’ (Bestimmung). The former is none other than the fantasy of subordinating the not-​I to the I, which Fichte links to the fantasy of ‘becoming God.’ The latter, by contrast, is a matter of working toward ‘perfection’ (Vollkommenheit), which Fichte defines in terms of achieving

156  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy ‘complete agreement with oneself ’ (völlige Uebereinstimmung mit sich selbst) (VBG 6:300). As a way of motivating this distinction, Fichte calls attention to the fact that the concept of perfection just introduced reveals the vocation of human beings only considered in isolation. This means the concept is incomplete, since it does not consider the ‘general connection between rational beings,’ which Fichte observes raises a difficult topic. Once we introduce the concept of rational beings in society we must ask, ‘How do we come to assume that there are rational beings outside of us, and how do we recognize them?’ (VBG 6:303). The fact that I possess representations of other rational beings is not in dispute, for even the skeptic will grant me this. The question before us is one of entitlement: By what right do I possess such representations? As a first step, Fichte reminds the reader that one’s ‘highest drive’ is the ‘drive toward identity’ (der Trieb nach Identität), where identity is again understood in terms of perfection or ‘complete agreement with oneself ’ (VBG 6:303). What he now adds is that this highest drive is not fulfilled by avoiding a contradiction between the concepts one possesses and the objects to which they are meant to correspond. Rather, one’s drive toward identity is the drive for a real correspondence between the two. Because of this, Fichte argues, all concepts found within one’s I ‘should have an expression [Ausdruck] in the not-​I, a counter-​image [Gegenbild]’ (VBG 6:303). This means that if we can find the counterimage of the concept of a rational being in the sensible world, then we can justify our possession of it. Where, then, does this concept find expression outside of us? Fichte begins by calling our attention to ‘activity according to ends’ (Thätigkeit nach Zwecken), which he says is a sensible expression of rationality. However, he immediately points out that the concept of ‘purposiveness’ (Zweckmässigkeit) is ambiguous. Its distinguishing character is ‘harmony of multiplicity in a unity’ (Uebereinstimmung des Mannigfaltigen zur Einheit) (VBG 6:304). But that is also the character of organisms as living, self-​organizing systems, none of whom enjoy our capacity to reflect and act according to concepts. So where does this leave us? On the one hand, living organisms are self-​organizing systems, and that means their striving for self-​organization brings them into reciprocal interaction with the natural environment, exactly as human beings behave in relation to their formative drive. Human beings, considered objectively, are nothing more than nature, whose entire system can be understood, Fichte claims, only through the formative laws of organization. On the other hand, human beings are also more than nature. Viewed subjectively, they are also intelligent, reflective, and capable of directing their willing according

Community  157 to concepts. In this respect there is no outward difference between human beings and natural organisms:  both display purposive activity, reciprocal interaction with the natural environment, and a striving for harmonious self-​organization. One real contrast is that human beings have the capacity to reflect upon the end of self-​organization and fashion a concept of it, the concept of enjoyment. The result is a form of self-​determination that is materially equivalent to the purposive activity of living organisms, but now this activity is freely structured around a goal. Whereas nonreflective living organisms have no choice in what they do, human beings enjoy a range of options for relating objects to their drive for self-​organization. And that gives us a clue for finding the right counterimage of freedom in the sensible world. ‘The freely achieved harmony of multiplicity in unity,’ Fichte writes, ‘would thus be a certain and nondeceptive distinguishing feature of rationality in appearances’ (VBG 6:305). Fichte notes that this distinguishing feature does not amount to consciousness of another being’s freedom, since freedom is not an object of consciousness at all, either in myself or in others. Freedom as such is the ‘ultimate explanatory ground of all consciousness,’ he adds, ‘and thus freedom itself cannot belong to the realm of consciousness’ (VBG 6:305). What I can become conscious of is a certain lack of determination, a lack of determination from any cause external to myself, which Fichte explains is how I fashion a concept of my own self-​determination. On the basis of my consciousness of nondetermination, I have no explanatory ground of my willing other than myself. Were I  to find myself interacting with another being who also gave sensible expression to this consciousness of nondetermination, then I would not have a basis to connect this appearance to another cause (according to a natural law). Consequently, I would be forced to lend the concept of my own self-​determination to this appearance, to regard (without ever cognizing) the source of this appearance in the other being’s freedom. In other words, I am able to distinguish a naturally governed expression of purposive activity from a freely governed expression on the basis of the latter’s indeterminacy. Without a rule to connect one articulation of this activity to another, the only way I can comprehend the appearance and determine it is by turning within, appealing to the concept of my own freedom, and lending that concept to the other. I find it noteworthy that Fichte describes this process in terms of ‘reciprocal interaction according to concepts’ (Wechselwirkung nach Begriffen), the result of which he says lays the foundation for ‘purposive community’

158  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy (zweckmässige Gemeinschaft) and ‘society’ (Gesellschaft) (VBG 6:306). The counterimage of the concept of a rational being like myself is found in the appearance of the other’s purposive yet indeterminate activity, the other’s free movement, whose sensible expression admits of no explanation on the basis of natural laws, organic or otherwise. The only way I can comprehend such purposive yet indeterminate activity is by lending the concept of my own self-​determination to it; that is why, as Fichte explains elsewhere, I am compelled to recognize other rational beings as equals to myself, even though I am at liberty to act against this recognition (GNR 3:80). The positive character of society, therefore, is what Fichte calls ‘reciprocal interaction through freedom’ (Wechselwirkung durch Freiheit), which is the true end of our ethical vocation (VBG 6:306). Only now can we see that the concept of perfection is not personal, but social. The perfection of our drive for identity is a form of Bildung, but Bildung now understood as the shaping of free, mutual interaction between myself and others in community. Our ethical vocation is complete self-​harmony, to be sure, but self-​harmony made possible through ‘reciprocal interaction, mutual influence, mutual give and take, mutual passivity and activity’ (VBG 6:308).

7.6.  Instruments of Morality One implication of the social character of our ethical vocation, which Fichte develops further in the System of Ethics, is the manner in which I ought to relate to the community of others—​namely, as an ‘instrument’ (Werkzeug): I am for myself—​i.e., before my own consciousness—​only an instrument, a mere tool of the moral law, and by no means the end of the same.—​Driven by the moral law, I forget myself as I engage in action; I am but an instrument in its hand. (SL 4:255)

The idea that we are instruments of the moral law has been cited by critics like Schopenhauer (1840/​1988: §11) as yet another instance of how Fichte’s exposition of ethics ‘crosses over into the comical,’ and it has elicited puzzlement even among his more sympathetic readers today.4 The frequency with which this proposition appears in the System of Ethics suggests Fichte thought seriously about the matter (SL 4:215; cf. 231, 236, 255, 259, 270, 280, 311). But the difficulty is plainly visible. To be nothing more than instruments of the

Community  159 moral law suggests that we are not recognizing our dignity as ends, contrary to Kant’s Formula of Humanity (FH): ‘So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means’ (G 4:429). To make matters more complicated, Fichte himself appears unaware of this tension: ‘Kant has asserted that every human being is an end in itself [Jeder Mensch ist selbst Zweck], and this assertion has received universal assent,’ to which he adds, ‘This Kantian proposition is compatible with mine’ (SL 4:255). Fichte goes on to say that the key to reconciling his position with FH lies in taking up the right point of view. From my perspective, he explains, I am torn away from myself in the moment of moral deliberation, and the focus of my deliberation is guided by the concerns of other people. In my eyes I am nothing more than an instrument for the community outside of me, and the members of this community appear to me as ends. ‘Within me and before my own consciousness,’ Fichte explains, ‘these others are not means but the final end’ (SL 4:255). At the same time, the way in which I experience the moral law must be the same for every other member of the community. ‘For every rational being outside me, to whom the moral law certainly addresses itself in the same way that it addresses itself to me, namely, as the tool of the moral law, I am a member of the community of rational beings’ (SL 4:255–​ 256). This means that from the perspective of another person, the situation is reversed: I appear as an end, and he (in his own eyes) is nothing more than an instrument for the moral law. As Fichte puts it, ‘I am, from his viewpoint, an end for him, just as he is, from my viewpoint, an end for me. For everyone, all others outside of oneself are ends, only no one is an end for himself [nur ist es keiner sich selbst]’ (SL 4:255–​256). If this last claim is true, how is Fichte’s position supposed to be compatible with Kant’s? Far from alleviating the tension at hand, he seems to have left us with a contradiction, with FH affirming the thesis, that ‘Everyone is an end for himself,’ and Fichte affirming the antithesis, that ‘Nobody is an end for himself.’ In the next paragraph Fichte acknowledges the presence of a contradiction and proposes the following solution. We can concede the basic point of FH and agree that everyone is an end, but only if we qualify this to hold that everyone is a ‘means’ (Mittel) for realizing the self-​sufficiency of reason as such (SL 4:256). It is by virtue of approximating this aim, and by gradually overcoming our individuality, that everyone becomes ‘a pure presentation of the moral law in the world of sense and thus becomes a pure I, in the proper sense of the term’ (SL 4:256). As I understand his response, Fichte is telling us

160  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy here that the standpoint of our highest moral goal removes the impression of a conflict between the affirmation and denial of FH. The thesis is true, since striving for the self-​sufficiency of reason as such transforms us into an end in itself (a ‘pure’ presentation of the moral law), but the antithesis is also true, since a total transformation is unattainable, a goal to which we can only ever aspire as the limited beings we are. There is, I believe, an important piece of evidence in the System of Ethics for understanding this solution better. When Fichte introduces FH for the first time, he adds a small yet important remark:  that FH is compatible with his position ‘when the latter has been further elaborated’ (SL 4:255). What exactly does he mean by this? When we look back to the ground covered so far, I think the answer is as follows. The standpoint of our highest moral goal brings to light our common duty to care for the rational community: ‘Everyone is, for himself and before his own self-​consciousness, charged with the task of achieving the total end of reason; the entire community of rational beings is dependent on the care and efficacious action of each person’ (SL 4:256). In this way the claim that no one is an end for himself is compatible with FH, but only when we extend the latter to encompass the Kantian ideal of our union under moral laws, that is, laws founded upon mutual interaction, mutual recognition, and mutual respect in a possible ‘kingdom of ends’ (Reich der Zwecke) (G 4:433). As Kant describes this ideal in the Groundwork, such a kingdom conveys the thought of every rational being as a co-​legislator of the moral law, ‘a whole of all ends in systematic connection (a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and of the ends of his own that each may set himself)’ (G 4:433). This is far from the end of the story, however. When we pause to reread the stretch of text under consideration (from SL 4:255 to 256), signs of a shift in meaning begin to appear, at first hardly detectable, between the thesis of FH that Kant originally formulates and the version Fichte eventually accepts. It is important to bear in mind that Kant makes room for FH by first asking us to suppose that ‘there were something the being [Dasein] of which in itself has absolute worth’ (G 4:428). In this being, he goes on to say, we would find the ‘ground of a possible categorical imperative, that is, of a practical law’ (G 4:428). Shortly afterward Kant identifies this concept with human beings in particular and rational beings in general, that is, beings he says count as ‘persons’ in a technical sense ‘because their nature [Natur] already marks them out as an end in itself [Zwecke an sich selbst]’ (G 4:428). In saying this, however, Kant is resting upon an assumption he nowhere defends in the

Community  161 Groundwork: that a multiplicity of beings originally exists as self-​standing ends, that is, myself, other finite rational beings, and God. And this explains why he phrases FH as a disjunctive proposition: that I ought to use humanity, whether in my own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means (G 4:429). Put simply, this is the assumption behind Kant’s moral pluralism, the assumption that more than one ‘end in itself ’ exists. The position Fichte takes up in the System of Ethics appears to challenge this assumption. When he discusses how agents engaged in moral action must view each other, he is careful to say that they must view each other as ‘ends’ (Zwecke), not as ‘ends in themselves’ (Zwecke an sich selbst). To quote him again: ‘For everyone, all others outside of oneself are ends. . . . Only no one is an end for himself ’ (SL 4:256). One exception to this claim appears when Fichte writes that ‘everyone expressly ought to be an end for himself [für sich selbst Zweck]’ (SL 4:256). Yet this is ambiguous, since Fichte accepts the statement only on the condition that it says ‘everyone is a means for realizing reason’ (SL 4:256). What is more, when he later argues that the goal of realizing reason outside of us, in the form of caring for the rational community, is how we become a ‘pure’ presentation of the moral law, the point is not that we actually become ‘ends in ourselves,’ but that progressing toward this goal gives us a higher vocation. For Fichte, there is only one ‘viewpoint’ in which ‘all individuals without exception are a final end,’ but, he claims, it is not accessible to us. It is the ‘viewpoint from which the consciousness of all rational beings is united into one, as an object. Properly speaking, this is the viewpoint of God’ (SL 4:256). It could be objected that I have overlooked an important qualification in what Fichte says, that no one is an end ‘for himself ’ (sich selbst). Once we emphasize the reflexive, it seems we can accept FH as a proposition about how things are (objectively speaking) and Fichte’s denial of FH as a proposition about how things appear (subjectively speaking). Granted, on this alternative reading the gap between Kant and Fichte would be less wide than I am hinting at. But I find this alternative difficult to accept, since to make it work we would have to show that Fichte is committed only to a perspectival claim, that we are not ends in ourselves relative to our own points of view. However, there is evidence to suggest that he is committed to an additional claim, that everyone outside me should be viewed as a tool for the moral law. ‘If I have a dutiful disposition,’ he writes, ‘then I consider the other person to be a tool not, as it were, of mere legality, but of morality’ (SL 4:283). Other

162  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy statements to this effect run throughout Part III: ‘I am required to regard the other person as a tool of the moral law’ (SL 4:290); ‘within the domain of the moral law, I should view my fellow human beings only as tools of reason’ (SL 4:311); ‘we are obliged to regard everyone with a human face as a tool of the moral law’ (SL 4:312). This is quite a departure from Kant’s position, on my reading.5 Once we have an eye for it, evidence of Fichte’s rejection of moral pluralism appears throughout the System of Ethics. In one place, for instance, he writes, ‘If all of the authors who have treated ethics merely formally had proceeded consistently, then they would have had to arrive at nothing but a continuous self-​denial, at utter annihilation and disappearance—​like those mystics who say that we should lose ourselves in God (a proposition that is indeed based upon something true and sublime, as will become evident later) (SL 4:147). One can hardly doubt that Fichte is referring to his novel appropriation of FH, and he comes close to foreshadowing this appropriation when he speaks of the ‘error of the mystics’ (Der Irrthum der Mystiker) (SL 4:151). The error, he explains, is that they represent the infinite, which cannot be attained in any time, as something that can be attained in time. The complete annihilation of the individual and the fusion of the latter into the absolutely pure form of reason or into God is indeed the ultimate goal of finite reason; but this is not possible in any time. (SL 4:151)

Statements like these are by no means rare in Fichte’s corpus. In an earlier text, to take one example, he writes that ‘reason is the only thing-​in-​itself, and individuality merely accidental; reason the end, and individuality the means; the latter merely a special way of giving expression to reason, and one which must increasingly lose itself into the universal form of the same’ (ZwE 1:505).6 While readers may feel inclined to dismiss such comments as odd or unusual, I  believe they reveal an important feature of Fichte’s moral philosophy. When Fichte refers to the complete ‘fusion’ of the individual I into the pure form of reason (represented by the mystics as ‘God’), we hear a strong claim: that such fusion ‘is indeed the ultimate goal of finite reason’ (SL 4:151). Every finite I strives to become one with the absolute I, to transcend limitations of every kind, including the limitations of individuality itself. That is the ‘true and sublime’ proposition Fichte sees in the mystics, their recognition

Community  163 that every finite self yearns for the infinite. Their ‘error,’ in his view, was to think that such self-​overcoming is possible in time (SL 4:151). What then informs the basis of Fichte’s moral philosophy is the insight that while every finite self yearns for the infinite, the goal of such yearning is impossible to realize, and that orients the activity of the finite I toward the gradual approximation of ‘becoming one’ with the pure I, which in the System of Ethics is equivalent to the absolute self-​sufficiency of reason as such. We all yearn to become God, to become infinite—​in a word, to overcome our individuality. But since this is not possible, our ethical vocation requires that we cultivate our selfhood, not for its own sake but for the sake of the social whole to which we belong. We can in turn approximate the moral law’s demand for self-​sufficiency by preserving and perfecting our bodies, by preserving and perfecting our minds, and, above all, by preserving and perfecting the freedom of others.

7.7. Looking Ahead Given the common portrait of Fichte as a subjectivist who grounds morality in the voice of conscience within, it is quite unexpected to learn that he derives the content of our duties from a social theory of intersubjective relations in Part III of the System of Ethics. Here the second of the two dramatis personae finally comes to light: the figure of the objectivist who grounds morality in a process of ongoing, rational discourse with others, and who even declares that the final end of moral striving is to produce ‘communally shared’ convictions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these two aspects of Fichte’s moral philosophy divided the reception of his System of Ethics in the nineteenth century, and this tension can still be felt in the contemporary literature. As we have seen, one line was advocated by Hegel, who put emphasis on Fichte’s theory of conscience and pointed to the risks of giving morality an arbitrary basis in the subjective feelings of each person. Another line was advocated by Schopenhauer, who put emphasis on the later parts of the System of Ethics that reveal Fichte’s commitment to the idea that our duties derive from the social whole of which we are parts. For Schopenhauer (1840/​ 1988: §11), the problem with Fichte’s ethics is not that it is too subjective but just the reverse, that is it too objective, that it reduces us, as he colorfully puts it, to ‘bees’ working collectively to create a ‘hive.’7

164  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy Going forward, I have two overarching goals left for this book. The first is to support my reading of Fichte’s normative ethical theory as a form of perfectionism distinct from both deontology and consequentialism. Understanding the character of Fichte’s perfectionism is necessary to give us a complete picture of his drive theory and its teleological view of our nature. One of the more contested issues to have emerged in the recent literature concerns the question of whether the final shape of Fichte’s moral philosophy consists of bringing our will into conformity with duty (the deontological reading), or of calculating how to maximize the externalization of freedom (the consequentialist reading). In the following chapter I shall argue that the deontological reading has part of the truth, but not the whole truth, since bringing our will into conformity with the voice of conscience is, for Fichte, the ultimate deontic test of our moral convictions from the standpoint of ordinary life. Yet that does not reveal the criterion by which we can specify a doctrine of duties from the standpoint of transcendental reflection. The consequentialist reading seems to be heading in the right direction by considering which material conditions need to be maximized in order to realize the idea of self-​sufficiency in the sensible world. However, this line of interpretation comes at the serious cost of departing from the principles of the Wissenschaftslehre: it views nature in a transcendental realist sense, as a brute given to be subordinated to the rule of reason, thereby distorting Fichte’s view of nature as an organic whole. My defense of the perfectionist reading seeks to preserve this organic view of nature in a way that also highlights the conditions making up each individual’s selfhood, whose perfection gives material content to our duties. I  believe that this alternative reading is consistent with the deontological elements one finds shaping Fichte’s theory of conscience, and the key to this reading rests on a distinction we have encountered more than once in this book: the distinction between the standpoint of philosophy and the standpoint of life. For Fichte, our original drive is a drive for determinate action, and the manifestation of this drive in conscience gives each person an unerring criterion for staying on course with the convictions making up her ethical vocation. At this level we need not concern ourselves with the question of what principle underlies the feelings of conscience, since we are bound by the moral law only to act here and now, without delay and without self-​deception. Yet for the sake of scientific completeness, a doctrine of ethics must also articulate such a principle, and Fichte admits that its discovery will require us to take up the standpoint of transcendental reflection. Showing

Community  165 why this standpoint is neither deontological nor consequentialist will help fill out the reading of Fichte I wish to defend here. My second task is to address what looks like a final puzzle threatening the integrity of Fichte’s moral philosophy. That there is such a puzzle is no great mystery: it arises from the two roles we have seen Fichte adopt in the System of Ethics, from the moral subjectivist of Parts I and II to the moral objectivist of Part III. Even on the charitable interpretation I have tried to support in the foregoing chapters, it remains unclear in the end whether these two faces or figures or aspects of Fichte’s ethical thought are reconcilable. The puzzle reaches a high point when we reconsider the question of how conflicting consciences between two or more persons can be adjudicated within the premises of Fichte’s system. Given that conscience provides an unerring criterion for staying on course with one’s convictions of duty, it would violate the moral law for one to allow another person’s convictions to change or alter one’s moral choices. But individuals also have a primary obligation to the social whole of which they are parts, and individuals caught in moral disagreement have a duty to seek consensus in dialogue as much as possible. How, then, can one maintain these two commitments without contradiction? That is, how is it possible to stay true to one’s conscience while also fulfilling a duty to seek agreement with others? These are difficult questions I shall try to resolve in the next chapter.

8 Perfection All the individuals who belong to the human race are different. There is only one thing in which they are in complete agreement: their ultimate goal—​perfection. —​Fichte, Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar’s Vocation (VBG 6:309–​310)

8.1.  Introduction By what standard, according to Fichte, can we determine the moral content of an action? Looking back to the previous chapters of this book, his answer seems to be, first, that the action must harmonize with our own conscience, and second, that it must harmonize with our shared moral end, the self-​sufficiency of reason as such. The problem now facing us is that the ‘end’ in question admits of different interpretations, either as a specific goal permitting maximizing calculations, or as an unspecifiable goal permitting only duty-​based decisions. While I  think both readings contain an element of truth, my goal in this final chapter is to defend a third alternative, according to which Fichte’s moral philosophy culminates, in Part III of the System of Ethics, in a form of social perfectionism. I say this now in order to distance my position from a recent consequentialist reading.1 I agree with Wood (2016), who has argued that the consequentialist reading faces serious problems. But I want to propose that we can avoid these problems while still understanding Fichte as someone for whom our duties are teleologically structured. I also want to propose that this account is able to accommodate the deontological elements we find in his theory, without going so far as to say, as Wood puts it, that Fichte is ‘radically committed to deontology’ (2016: 149).2 In saying this, I  want to remain true to the spirit of the interpretation defended by Wood (2016). First, an attractive feature of Wood’s account is that Fichte does not fit neatly into any label we might use to identify a philosopher’s position. His transcendental idealism, for example, is neither Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Owen Ware, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190086596.001.0001

Perfection  167 straightforwardly metaphysical nor antimetaphysical. His metaethics, to take another example, is neither straightforwardly realist nor antirealist. By then characterizing Fichte’s ethics as a combination of deontological and teleological elements, my intention is to build upon, rather than reject, this general approach. Second, Wood is sensitive to the teleological character of Fichte’s ethics, and he even acknowledges the importance of ‘perfection’ (Vollendung, Vollkommenheit, or Vervollkommnung) as a concept within the System of Ethics. To this extent the alternative account I wish to put forward will draw upon material Wood discusses openly. My main criticism is that Wood goes too far in resisting a consequentialist reading of Fichte, so much so that he commits himself to the view that our shared moral end is beyond any specification at all. As we shall see, Fichte does permit us to articulate the end of our moral striving—​enough, in my view, to support a teleological view of our duties. I believe the best label we have for this view is social perfectionism, but I should say from the outset that I have no particular attachment to this term, and like Wood, I believe it is a virtue of Fichte’s thought to resist normal categorization.

8.2.  The Consequentialist Reading Disagreement over the identity of Fichte’s normative ethical theory is largely due to the fact that Fichte himself is unclear what he means by our final end. Quite often he speaks of this end in terms of our striving for ‘independence’ (Unabhängigkeit) and ‘self-​sufficiency’ (Selbständigkeit), but these descriptions tend to be unhelpfully vague. Our striving, he says, aims at ‘absolute indeterminability through anything outside itself ’ (SL 4:29), or the independence and self-​sufficiency of our ‘entire being’ (SL 4:209). More mysteriously, Fichte describes our final end in terms of ‘merging’ with the infinite, and as we saw in Chapter 7 he even relates this goal to the unio mystica tradition. ‘The error of the mystics,’ he tells us, ‘is that they represent the infinite, which cannot be attained in any time, as something that can be attained in time. The complete annihilation of the individual and the fusion of the latter into the absolutely pure form of reason or into God is indeed the ultimate goal of finite reason; but this is not possible in any time’ (SL 4:151). On the few occasions when Fichte gives us more concrete details about this ultimate goal, his descriptions are almost always counterintuitive, as when he writes that the ‘world must become for me what my body is’ in pursuing my ethical

168  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy vocation (SL 4:229). Given remarks like this, it is understandable that Fichte’s theory has elicited a charge of ‘philosophical mystification’ (Schopenhauer (1841/​2007: §11), even among his more sympathetic readers.3 It is also understandable that some commentators have turned to Fichte’s popular works to find clues of what he might have in mind by our final end. One noteworthy passage appears in the 1800 Vocation of Humankind, which offers what appears to be a Stoic account of how striving for self-​sufficiency involves our gradual dominance over the natural environment, specifically through the advancement of science and technology. There Fichte depicts the condition of humankind in terms of a struggle against ‘recalcitrant nature,’ in which ‘floods, storms, and volcanoes desolate whole countries,’ in which human works are tossed into ‘wild chaos,’ and in which diseases ‘sweep people into an untimely grave’ (BdM 1:82). Dialing his rhetoric even higher, Fichte goes on to say that such ‘outbreaks of raw violence before which human strength dwindles to nothing . . . are nothing other than the last convulsive strokes in the formation of our planet, which is now reaching completion’ (BdM 1:82). It shall come to pass, he continues, that nature enters into a stable condition ‘which allows one to calculate and reckon safely on its regular pace, and which keeps its force steady in a definite relation with the power destined to control it—​the power of humankind’ (BdM 1:82). The achievement of this power shall be possible by careful investigation into nature’s laws, so that we may in time ‘survey the whole power of this nature, and learn to calculate its possible developments’ (BdM 1:82). Not surprisingly, the attitude expressed in these remarks has failed to inspire many of Fichte’s readers.4 Coleridge (1817: 260–​261) thought it reduced his philosophy to a ‘boastful and hyperstoic hostility to Nature as lifeless, godless, and altogether unholy,’ and Hegel (1801/​1977: 83) took it as further evidence that Fichte, like Kant before him, had ‘mishandled’ the sphere of nature by opposing it to the sphere of rationality.5 In recent work, however, Michelle Kosch has argued that the Vocation essay provides us with useful material for filling in the content of our final end. As she points out, once we get passed Fichte’s dramatic talk of ‘floods, storms, and volcanoes,’ the claim that our final end consists of control is neither vague nor mystical. It may be summarized as follows: Control: our progress toward the final end of self-​sufficiency is progress toward a state of affairs in which we have acquired control over nature.6

Perfection  169 As Kosch explains, the basic thought is that progress toward our final end is really ‘progress toward a situation in which nature’s “lawless violence” has been mastered, rendered predictable and non-​threatening by scientific insight into natural laws, and in which technology buttresses human powers’ (2015: 357). On this reading we can say that if the moral law demands our ‘complete liberation’ from all external limitations, then our ethical vocation must involve acquiring dominion over those aspects of nature which threaten our capacity for rational planning and deliberation.7 Now if this is right, and we can specify our final end in terms of Control, then we are but a step away from the consequentialist reading Kosch finds attractive. All we need to do is connect the concept of our final end, understood as a form of mastery over the sensible world, with the standard for determining the content of our duties. The result is that we can calculate an action’s goodness, objectively speaking, relative to how well its consequences maximize our attainment of this control. To this extent the form of Fichte’s ethics would be no different from the hedonistic utilitarianism of Bentham or the nonhedonistic utilitarianism of Mill: in each case we have a teleological moral principle, one that prescribes the production of an end (maximal pleasure, maximal utility, or maximal control), from which we can then evaluate an action’s goodness on the basis of its tendency to promote this end. What makes Fichte’s theory different from classical utilitarianism is simply that it identifies our final end not with the value of welfare (private or public) but with the value of rational agency as such. As Kosch puts it, the end of our independence and self-​sufficiency is the ‘end of broadening the scope of possible rational plans of action, by increasing our ability to ensure that our plans are carried out if we undertake them, and by opening up novel possibilities for planning through innovation and creativity in ways of living, producing, and interacting’ (2015: 358).

8.3.  Leaving Consequentialism Behind As I  mentioned, Wood is critical of the consequentialist reading.8 But what reasons does he have for rejecting it? To begin with, Wood devotes portions of his book to explaining what he sees as major shortcomings in Kosch’s account, and from this material I would like to focus on two of his main objections. In overview they are (1) that pursuing dominion over nature is not a candidate for Fichte’s ‘final end’ and (2) that the goal of absolute

170  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy self-​sufficiency is too unspecifiable to factor into any kind of teleological ethics, including consequentialism. Looking ahead, I believe the first objection is correct, but in my view the second gets Wood into trouble. Like Wood, I believe Control is ill-​suited to play the role of a final end for various textual reasons. First, the portrayal of nature as a ‘violent’ or ‘recalcitrant’ force is nowhere to be found in the System of Ethics.9 On the contrary, Fichte argues explicitly in this work that to understand the natural drive within us we must first understand the system of nature in general as a ‘real organic whole’—​that is, as a system in which each individual part of nature stands in a relation of reciprocal determination with the whole of nature (SL 4:119).10 This leads him to the striking claim that what we call the ‘drive to self-​preservation’ is really a drive to unify all the various parts of nature within us, to preserve ourselves as real organic wholes. And this same drive for wholeness, Fichte goes on to say, is what animates the larger network of nature outside us, the ‘whole of wholes’ of which we are parts. ‘Here there is everywhere harmony, reciprocal interaction, and not, as it were, mere mechanism’ (SL 4:124; cf. GNR 3:78). All of this lends support to Wood’s insight that we ‘misunderstand Fichte’s ethics if we take it to be about the superiority or dominance of the rational over the natural, or the pure over the empirical’ (2016: 157). Fichte’s ethics is ‘fundamentally about harmony, unity, or wholeness’ (2016: 157),11 and the same is true, I would add, with respect to his view of nature and the natural drive, as we saw in Chapter 4. Second, even if we wish to use Kosch’s strategy of finding clues in the Vocation essay, it is not evident why the passage on humanity’s struggle with nature should take priority. Fichte is clear that the real problems we must face lie elsewhere: ‘It is not nature, it is freedom itself which causes most of the disorders and the most terrible ones among humanity. Humankind’s most cruel enemy is humankind’ (BdM 1:84–​83; emphasis added). In the pages to follow he gives accounts of the disorders humanity brings upon itself, and one of the examples even draws a link between technology and war: ‘Equipped with the greatest inventions of the human mind navies ply the oceans. Men press through storm and wave in search of other men on the lonely, inhospitable expanse. They find them and defy the rage of the elements so as to be able to destroy them with their own hands’ (BdM 1:83). Granted, Fichte does not go so far as to assert (as members of the Frankfurt school would later write) that ‘what human beings seek to learn from nature is how to use it to dominate wholly both it and human beings’ (Adorno and Horkheimer 1944/​ 2002: 2)12—​but the idea is not far from the surface. Fichte is sensitive to the

Perfection  171 complex phenomenon of humanity’s will to dominate, which he describes in connection to evil as a ‘blind drive to make our lawless will reign everywhere,’ as we discussed in Chapter 5 (SL 4:194). Wood is aware of this connection as well: to value mastery over the natural environment for its own sake, he observes, ‘would amount to the supremely evil maxim of “seeking unrestricted and lawless dominion over everything outside us” ’ (2016: 153; cf. 156). And he thinks Kosch’s formula of our final end carries this undesirable implication. Yet in fairness to Kosch, Fichte does say things in the System of Ethics that give prima facie support to her reading. In one place he writes, for example, that the ‘final end of all the actions of any morally good human being, and especially of all the external effects of his actions, can be summarized in the following formula: he wills that reason and reason alone rule [herrsche] in the sensible world’ (SL 4:275). But when we read the surrounding text carefully, it is clear that Fichte is speaking of rule not in the sense of domination but in the sense of authority, and the proper object of this authority, he explains, is the entire community of rational beings. ‘Reason, however, can have dominion only in and through rational beings. Hence moral acting, even if it is perhaps aimed directly at non-​ rational nature, always refers, at least indirectly, to rational beings and has only them as its [ultimate] aim’ (SL 4:275).13 What this last remark suggests is that acquiring (a degree of) mastery over the natural environment is at best a means to our final end, but not the end itself.14 Having said that, it is worth noting that Wood himself has fixed on only one side of Kosch’s position, since it is often unclear what she means by the ‘final end of reason’ and the role that ‘control’ over nature plays in this end. A basic and recurring theme in Kosch’s work is that control over the natural environment (made possible through advancements in technology) is a constitutive aim of rational agency. She writes, for example: The more complex the projects she [an agent] takes on, the more detailed the instrumental reasoning she has to engage in, and the more she needs to know about physical nature and its laws. These cognitive requirements of agency, and the dialectical interaction between knowledge and the agent’s control of her environment, will play a pivotal role both in Fichte’s political philosophy and in his ethics. (2015: 352)

The view expressed in this passage is not a passing remark, but a central line of interpretation Kosch develops in more than one place. For instance, she

172  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy writes, ‘Fichte’s idea that technological progress aimed at increased independence of nature is a necessary end of rational agency has been met with either incomprehension or disdain’ (2015: 370). Yet she finds this idea both textually well-​supported and philosophically attractive. On a textual level, she goes so far as to say that this is a ‘prominent theme in the System of Ethics, where Fichte addresses the question of what the collective attitude toward non-​rational nature as a whole, and toward the expansion of the sphere of possible actions, should be.’15 Continuing in this vein, Kosch adds: There he argues for the moral importance of collective support for basic scientific research, careful to insist that not only applied sciences, but every inquiry that contributes to the understanding of anything that could affect human capabilities at any point in the future, is justified in this way. And he explicitly underlines the relation between technological progress, knowledge, and what it is possible to will. (2015: 370)

I have quoted these passages to show why a scholar like Wood would overlook the places where Kosch indicates that our final end is not control over the natural environment but something like independence from external limitations of any kind.16 Consequently, although Kosch routinely emphasizes the theme of subordinating nature to reason, I believe that for the sake of charity we should focus on what she says elsewhere about independence: Independence: our progress toward the final end of self-​sufficiency is progress toward a state of affairs in which reason as such is free from external limitations of any kind.

On the basis of this alternative formula we could say that our ultimate goal is not one of maximizing control over nature but one of maximizing freedom from obstacles generally, human and nonhuman alike. I believe this would preserve Kosch’s insight that making the natural environment a less inhospitable place for us to ‘broaden the scope’ of rational planning and deliberation is a valuable end, but it would avoid the mistake Wood points out of treating this activity as an end in itself. This would also throw light on a puzzling remark Fichte makes later in the Vocation essay, which neither Kosch nor Wood cite, that ‘unconditional control of the mechanism of nature’ should not be produced for its own sake, but should be produced ‘by all as one great free moral community’ (BdM 1:113).

Perfection  173

8.4.  The Unspecifiability Argument Untangling these exegetical issues is not so simple, however. For even if we grant the more charitable reading of Kosch I have just proposed, the new formula we have before us remains vulnerable to a second objection. In Wood’s view any attempt to specify the content of our final end, whether as Control or as Independence, is doomed to failure. And this leads him to reject Kosch’s interpretation outright, since the crux of her interpretation, as we have seen, is that an action’s goodness is measurable by its tendency to promote a given end. As Wood explains, if we want to defend a consequentialist reading, then we need a specific notion of our final end, one determinate enough for us to say, when evaluating a proposed course of action, that its consequences either maximize or fail to maximize the goal in view. But then we must ask, ‘Do we have a determinate enough conception of absolute self-​sufficiency to enable us to use “the end” in this consequentialist, calculative way?’ (Wood 2016: 176). In opposition to Kosch, Wood answers that ‘the System of Ethics does not tell us clearly enough what he means by “absolute independence and self-​sufficiency” to make this possible’ (2016: 176). So if we search Fichte’s work ‘for any claim of the form that a specific action is right or wrong because its consequences maximize self-​sufficiency or independence, then,’ Wood warns us, ‘we will search in vain’ (2016: 177). Wood’s alternative reading therefore rests on the following claim, what we may call: Unspecifiability: The final end of self-​sufficiency is necessarily unspecifiable.

Wood acknowledges that readers might be tempted to find a less abstract formula of absolute self-​sufficiency. But in light of Unspecifiability, he thinks that to convert Fichte’s idea of our final end into ‘something definite, which can be understood in calculative-​consequentialist terms, is therefore necessarily to misinterpret him’ (2016:  177). Absolute self-​ sufficiency ‘is supposed to be transcendentally absurd,’ he maintains (2016: 177). ‘No “helpful” consequentialist version of this end is even conceivable’ (2016: 177).17 What these statements bring to light, I think, is that Wood is committed to a strong version of Unspecifiability, based on what we may call:

174  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy The Strong Unspecifiability Argument 1. The final end of self-​sufficiency is necessarily unspecifiable. 2. Therefore, no articulation of this end is possible. Yet it is worth pointing out that an idea can be unspecifiable while still admitting of limited or partial articulations. We are then at liberty to propose a weaker version of Wood’s claim, based on what we may call: The Weak Unspecifiability Argument 1. The final end of self-​sufficiency is necessarily unspecifiable. 2. Therefore, no full articulation of this end is possible. Of course, if the Strong Unspecifiability Argument were true, then there would be no room left for any teleological reading of Fichte’s ethics, let alone the consequentialist one offered by Kosch. Indeed, that is the conclusion Wood wants to defend, that ‘when it comes to material or teleological theories of ethics, Fichte wholly agrees with Kant in rejecting all such theories’ (2016: 150). What worries me, however, is that Wood appears to invoke the Weak Unspecifiability Argument later in his book when he suggests that we do have means of articulating our final end. According to Fichte, he writes, a society of rational beings relating to one another through free interaction is not merely a means to the ends of those who participate in it, but is its own end [ist selbst Zweck] [VBG 6:307]. It is good in itself or for its own sake, not because we care about it, or even because we ought to care about it. This is as close as we are likely to come to having a conception of the independence or self-​ sufficiency of reason—​the final human end. (Wood 2016: 223; emphasis added)

Remarks like this sit uneasily with the Strong Unspecifiability Argument, and it is easy to see why. Once we concede that our final end admits of articulation, even partial or limited articulation, the interpretive doorway Wood wanted to close off—​the doorway to a teleological reading of Fichte’s moral principle—​opens anew. But as long as that doorway remains open, we have no reason to accept his thesis that Fichte is ‘radically committed to deontology’ (Wood 2016: 149). For the remainder of this chapter I want to explore this possibility by sketching a new teleological reading, one that captures the deontological elements within Fichte’s moral philosophy but that does not turn his account into a form of calculative consequentialism.

Perfection  175

8.5.  The Deontological Reading By way of preliminary, consider the following propositions: 1. We are ignorant of consequences. For Fichte, judging the consequences of my actions would require an infinite faculty of understanding, a God-​ like perspective I of course lack as a finite rational being. He writes, ‘Neither I nor any finite, and therefore in some way sensuous, being can at all comprehend how a mere pure will can have consequences and what these consequences might be like, since it is the essence of their finitude not to be able to comprehend that’ (BdM 1:104).18 At any given moment all I can know with certainty is what my duty demands of me, without knowing ‘how much good will follow from doing this and how this might happen’ (SL 4:303). 2. We are responsible only for what we will. For Fichte, the consequences of my actions lie beyond my control, and so I am responsible only for what I  will. ‘I am responsible only for the will, which down here can, of course, aim only at the earthly purpose, but not for the consequences’ (BdM 1:95–​96). My responsibility goes no further than the intention, motive, or disposition lying behind my deed. At any given moment, ‘I ought to will in conformity with the law without regard to any intelligible and apparent purpose, without investigating whether anything other than the willing itself may result from my willing’ (BdM 1:100). 3. There is only an inner condition of moral worth. Given that my finitude prevents me from judging the consequences of my actions, and that I am responsible only for what I will, it follows that there is only an inner condition of moral worth: that I will from a feeling of contentious conviction. For Fichte, the very idea that an action could be ‘good’ simply because it meets an outer condition is contradictory. ‘The aim is not merely that nothing should occur except what is good and in accordance with reason, i.e., that legality alone should rule, but rather that this should occur freely, in consequence of the moral law’ (SL 4:275). I am never permitted to violate my duty, then, ‘even were I to believe that in doing this I would insure the salvation of the world’ (SL 4:271; cf. GGW 5:182).

176  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy It is also worth noting when Fichte proceeds to analyze our duties in greater detail in the System of Ethics, he sets up false counterexamples based on ‘consequentialist’-​style reasoning. In one case, we are to imagine that fulfilling our duty requires that we end our life, but then someone asks: Should you not save yourself if doing so would bring about or maximize good consequences? (SL 4:270). In another case, we are to imagine that fulfilling our duty requires that we preserve our life, but then someone asks: Should you not kill yourself if doing so would likewise bring about or maximize good consequences? (SL 4:270–​271). Behind each question, Fichte points out, we find the ‘same pretense that is normally employed to defend evil in general, namely, for the sake of the good that is supposed to arise from it’ (SL 4:270). The same is true of the justification Fichte anticipates someone offering for robbery, which is worth quoting in full: [Someone could object]: ‘If what was taken from the person in question is not spoiled in any manner but is only used, then this does not interfere with the furthering of reason’s end, which ought to be the ultimate goal of all our acting. Moreover, if, let us say, the new property owner were to employ it in a better manner than it would have been employed by the first person [from whom it was taken], then this advances reason’s end. What if the person who took the property knew that the original owner would make some harmful use of it, whereas he himself intended to use it in a very praiseworthy way, for the greater glory of God and the greater service to his neighbors: would he not then, according to your own principles, be acting quite rightly?’ (SL 4:293–​294)

Without hesitation Fichte answers in the negative:  ‘I am commanded to promote the cause of the good only conditionally, that is, to the extent that it lies within my sphere and stands in my legitimate power, and I am absolutely forbidden to infringe upon the freedom of others’ (SL 4:293–​294). This expresses what I take to be the core of Fichte’s version of deontology. Due to our finitude, our inability to predict the consequences of our actions, and our inability to control what lies beyond the will, it follows that ‘everyone simply must do whatever his situation, his heart, and his insight order him to do—​ this, and nothing else’ (SL 4:270).19 One would surely be hard-​pressed to find stricter deontological statements than the ones I have just quoted, and together they pose a formidable obstacle to the consequentialist reading discussed earlier.20 But what I  find

Perfection  177 noteworthy about these statements is that none of them rests, directly or indirectly, on the central claim of the Strong Unspecifiability Argument, the claim that no description of our final end is possible. All Fichte is saying is that at any given moment we must listen to our conscience carefully, sensitive to the particularities of our situation and sensitive to the limitations of what we can know and what we can control. And yet the problems he exposes in the false counterexamples, all of which rest upon consequentialist-​style reasoning, have nothing to do with the alleged mistake of specifying our final end. Instead, the problems have to do with overstepping the proper bounds of our finitude (by ascribing to us a God-​like faculty of understanding) or with misunderstanding the nature of moral worth (by thinking good ends justify evil means). To this extent, I think there is no disputing the claim that Fichte is a deontologist of sorts at the level of ordinary moral deliberation, since he unquestionably believes that an action’s intrinsic worth lies in its motives rather than its effects. But then the crucial question becomes whether Fichte is also a deontologist at the level of philosophical moral reflection, and this is what I find less plausible, for reasons I shall now explain.

8.6.  Leaving Deontology Behind Recall that when Fichte pauses to reflect upon the results of his theory of conscience in the System of Ethics, he writes, ‘At that point we were quite unable to see how we could determine a priori what our duty is; we possessed no criterion at all for determining this, beyond the approval or disapproval of our conscience following the deed’ (SL 4:209). In this way the theory of conscience served a very important function in the book: it ‘guaranteed the practical applicability of the moral law’ (SL 4:209). But Fichte reminds the reader that an equally important task still lies ahead. The criterion of conscience, he says, was sufficient ‘for the purposes of acting in the course of life, but not for the purposes of science [Wissenschaft]’ (SL 4:210). The question we must consider next, then, ‘is whether there is an even higher principle—​if not within consciousness, then at least within philosophy—​a unitary ground of these feelings themselves’ (SL 4:210). We must in turn shift frameworks, from the standpoint of ordinary deliberation (which goes no further than feelings) to the standpoint of philosophical reflection (which considers the ground of those feelings) (SL 4:14). Only by proceeding in this way, Fichte

178  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy explains, can we hope to show that the moral law is a principle with content and real application. This brings us to the root of my disagreement with Wood’s reading. When Fichte introduces the task of securing a deduction of applicability in Part II of the System of Ethics, he offers a few illuminating remarks. First, he tells us that the task of supplying this warrant will amount to specifying the object of the moral law, by which he means the domain over which it has applicability. Second, he says that this object is strictly speaking only a practical idea (in the Kantian sense of the term), because it refers to something that ‘ought’ to be realized in the world—​and this, he adds, ‘immediately raises the question, What is this idea? Or, since ideas certainly cannot be grasped, how and in what way is this idea to be described?’ (SL 4:65). When Fichte goes on to outline this reply, his choice of terms is unreservedly teleological. He says that we are to cognize things according to their ‘purpose’ or ‘end’ (Zweck) and that our cognition of the ‘total purposiveness’ (ganze Zweckmäßigkeit) of things gives the moral law its normative content (SL 4:171, 210).21 At a philosophical level, then, we can investigate the principle underlying the feelings of conscience, and aided by teleological insight we can specify both the idea of ‘what we ought to do’ as well as the ‘substrate in which we ought to approximate the realization of this idea’ (SL 4:69–​70). Wood highlights the importance of these claims, too, but he does not draw the conclusion I  wish to put forward here.22 The conclusion is that while Fichte’s ethics is deontological at the level of ordinary deliberation, it is teleological at the level of philosophical reflection. And it is teleological, I wish to argue, not as a form of consequentialism (according to which actions are measurable by their tendency to maximize a positive outcome), but rather as a form of perfectionism (according to which objects are measurable by their tendency to harmonize with a final end).23 Support for this alternative interpretation comes from the fact that at the beginning of Part II, in the preliminary to §4, Fichte states that his subsequent argument must establish that the moral law refers to these objects and that it commands us ‘to preserve them and to bring them to perfection’ (SL 4:75; cf. 150). By the time Fichte gives us the details of this argument, in §§17–​18, the language of perfection (Vollendung, Vollkommenheit, or Vervollkommnung) is again prominent. When we cognize ourselves as embodied, intelligent, and social beings, he claims, we shall see that we are nothing more than ‘instruments’ (Werkzeuge) for the moral law. At this level, Fichte says, the moral law has binding force

Perfection  179 precisely as a law for us to cultivate and perfect the conditions of our individual selfhood—​in short, to become unified (cf. SL 4:257, 280).24 As we can now see, Fichte’s brand of perfectionism is unique in comparison to the theories of Aristotle, Spinoza, or Wolff for the simple reason that it is wholly social.25 This point of orientation also highlights an important issue, for it turns out that by ‘reason as such’ Fichte actually means the entire community of rational beings.26 And so when he says that the perfection of our individual powers contributes to the self-​sufficiency of reason, he means to say that it contributes to the self-​sufficiency of the entire community of which we are mere members. ‘This ought to be the goal of all our thinking and acting,’ he writes, ‘and even of our individual cultivation: our final end is not ourselves but everyone’ (SL 4:253). This collective point of view also puts into focus the relationship Fichte conceives between human beings and nonrational nature. ‘The proper object of the end of reason,’ he tells us later in the System of Ethics, is always the community of rational beings. One either acts immediately upon this community of rational beings, or else one acts upon nature for the sake of this community.—​There is no efficacious acting upon nature simply for the sake of nature; the ultimate end of acting efficaciously upon nature is always human beings. (SL 4:343)

We are thus to perfect ourselves, and (at most) to modify the natural environment, for the sake of the greater social whole. This, for Fichte, constitutes each individual person’s ethical vocation. I should say once again that I have no particular attachment to the term ‘perfectionism,’ though I do find it useful for capturing a substantive difference between Fichte’s normative ethical theory and Kant’s.27 If the interpretation I have sketched is right, then Kant and Fichte share a deontological view of practical reasoning from the standpoint of ordinary deliberation: neither think we should judge our actions in light of their anticipated effects. Yet Kant’s commitment to deontology runs deeper than this, I believe, since he also seeks to derive normative content from the moral law itself. This is most explicit in his second presentation of the categorical imperative, the Formula of Humanity, which states that we are to treat humanity, whether in ourselves or in others, as an end and never as a mere means (G 4:429). Here FH is meant to give us concrete guidance in specifying the content of our duties, if only from the standpoint of ethical theorizing. But this is precisely what

180  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy Fichte rejects, since he believes that the moral law is nothing more than a formal and empty principle: it presents us with a demand to strive for self-​ sufficiency, without specifying the actions we ought to perform in fulfilling this demand. For Fichte, as I  have just noted, the solution lies in understanding the conditions of our individual selfhood—​embodiment, intelligence, and sociality—​whose preservation and perfection, he claims, supply the moral law with content. In my view, this marks Fichte’s decisive break with Kantian deontology at the level of philosophical reflection.

8.7.  The Perfectionist Reading Where does this leave us? Wood emphasizes quite rightly that the social dimension of Fichte’s theory informs his ideal of moral ‘agreement’ arrived at by free communication. According to this ideal, all human beings are ‘partners in the communicative enterprise of rational mutual agreement on collective ends and universal principles’ (2016: 207; cf. 211). Moreover, Wood concedes at one point that such communication is the best report we have of ‘the independence and self-​sufficiency of reason—​the final human end’ (2016: 223). I therefore find it puzzling that elsewhere Wood goes to such lengths in defending the Strong Unspecifiability Argument, claiming that our final end is by necessity ‘indefinite’ or even ‘absurd,’ a concept describable only as ‘that ideal (or even that transcendentally impossible) “whatever-​ it-​might-​be” toward which the (infinite) series of actions tends, whenever we think of each action as drawing nearer, approaching, or approximating it’ (2016: 180). I do not see the textual support for this claim, since Fichte often presents the concept of our final end in terms of his social ideal. ‘The necessary goal of all virtuous people,’ he writes, ‘is unanimous agreement concerning the same practical conviction and concerning the uniformity of acting that ensues therefrom’ (SL 4:236)—​from which it follows, he says later on, ‘that the overall end of the moral community as a whole is to produce unanimity concerning matters of morality. This is the ultimate end of all reciprocal interaction between moral beings’ (SL 4:348; emphasis added).28 Along these lines, I also find it puzzling that Wood acknowledges the centrality of the concept of ‘perfection’ in Fichte’s ethics without drawing what to my mind is the most straightforward conclusion, namely, that Fichte is a moral perfectionist. In his book, for example, Wood devotes a subsection to this theme titled ‘Perfection: Harmony, Identity, Equality,’ which starts by

Perfection  181 quoting Fichte’s remark that there is only one thing in which everyone stands in ‘complete agreement’: ‘their ultimate goal—​perfection’ (VBG 6:310). He then goes on to contextualize this term with reference to Kant, for whom metaphysical perfection is ‘the completeness of the many insofar as it constitutes a one’ (KU 2:228), and for whom teleological perfection is ‘the relation of the manifold in a thing to an end’ (KU 5:346). Curiously Wood does not hesitate to link perfection in these senses to the social ideal of our final end, writing: This concept of perfection identifies the human vocation in society (the end or purpose of society, what human beings are supposed to be in their relation to one another) with a relationship between them that accepts their differences, but co-​ordinates different individuals into a harmonious unity. (2016: 220)

But again, Wood does not draw the implication I  think we should draw here: that Fichte believes we can give a limited yet fruitful articulation of our final end, and that he believes the social ideal of moral agreement is our best candidate. Let me briefly suggest where this implication leads us. In my view what Wood says about the concept of perfection points us in the direction of the Weak Unspecifiability Argument, according to which the best candidate for articulating our final end is a principle of agreement: Agreement: ‘Everyone ought to produce outside of himself absolute agreement or harmony with himself . . . for the purpose of producing communally shared practical convictions’ (SL 4:234; see also 236).29

We find Fichte giving voice to a version of this idea in Some Lectures on a Scholar’s Vocation, writing, ‘If all human beings could become perfect, and reach their highest and final goal, then they would all be fully equal to one another; they would be only one; a single subject’ (VBG 6:310). Now to become perfect in this sense—​to become a single subject—​no doubt presents every one of us with an infinite task, since it entails that we ought to strive for total harmony between all members of the moral community. Of course, this overarching goal need not concern us in the course of ordinary deliberation, where all we must do, Fichte tells us, is abide by the immediate feelings of our conscience, ‘without doubting or quibbling over the consequences’ (GGW 5:182). But a concept of our final end in these terms is still necessary,

182  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy he thinks, if we want to make ethics an applicable science, and that, I believe, is the teleological structure of his moral philosophy.30

8.8. A Final Tension One might now object that the shape of Fichte’s moral philosophy in later sections, which culminates in an ethics of reciprocal communication, lies in tension with the earlier sections, which culminates in an ethics of conscientious conviction. The appearance of this tension is responsible, I believe, for the long-​standing division in the reception of the System of Ethics between (a) readings that emphasize conscience (and the inner/​personal dimension found in Parts I and II) and (b) readings that emphasize community (and the outer/​interpersonal dimension found in Part III). As I touched upon earlier, Hegel and Schopenhauer stand out as the two great nineteenth-​century representatives of this interpretive clash, with Hegel (1807/​2018: §655) likening Fichte’s ethics to a self-​divinized ‘moral genius,’ and Schopenhauer (1840/​ 1988: §11) likening it to the ‘collective drive of bees . . . to build cells and a hive.’ This clash within the reception of Fichte’s moral philosophy raises a critical question of interpretation: Is it consistent for Fichte to define the ‘criterion’ for the correctness of our judgments concerning duty in terms of conscience, only to argue later in the System of Ethics that our final end consists of aiming at ‘practically shared convictions’ in open dialogue? Relatedly, one might wonder, is it consistent for Fichte to define conscience as infallible, only to concede that it is possible for consciences to conflict? The problem is as follows. If moral reflection requires that I attend to my conscience for determining my convictions, then by what principle should I decide to make myself open to the perspective of others and to engage in reciprocal communication? If we say that this principle comes from my conscience, then we fall back on a personal criterion for determining the correctness of my convictions, and open dialogue would be unnecessary. On the other hand, if we make the correctness of my convictions dependent on such dialogue, then we shift over to an interpersonal criterion for determining my convictions, which would in turn make consulting my conscience redundant. In short, the objection is that Fichte’s moral philosophy oscillates between an overly private and an overly public principle of moral reflection, without providing us the resources for reconciling the two.31

Perfection  183 We encountered a version of this problem in Chapter 5 when I addressed a potential worry readers might have with Fichte’s infallibility thesis.32 The worry was that if I am convinced in the correctness of my duty to φ, and you are convinced in the correctness of your duty not to φ, then we have what seems to be a genuine conflict. As I pointed out, Fichte is sensitive to the problem of conflicting consciences in the System of Ethics, but let us now examine the entire passage in which his response appears (at SL 4:233). In a case where a violation of the moral law has occurred, he asks, ‘who is able to be the judge who passes universally valid judgments on this question?’ Call this: Conflicting Consciences. ‘If the other person claims to have acted according to his best conviction [besten Ueberzeugung], and I act differently in the same situation, then I act in a way that is immoral according to his conviction, and he acts immorally according to my conviction. Whose conviction should then be the guide for the other?’ (SL 4:233).

Fichte proceeds to give the following replies: Reply 1. ‘The answer is that neither conviction can play this role, so long as they remain in conflict with each other; for each person ought to act purely and simply in accordance with his conviction, and this constitutes the formal condition of all morality.—​Could we not therefore simply part ways, so that everyone would allow all the others to follow their own paths?’ (SL 4:233).

In other words, Fichte is saying that personal conviction must take priority in matters of moral disagreement, given that following our conscience is the formal condition for the morality of our actions. If we stray from our own conscience, we act without conviction, and that for Fichte is reprehensible from the standpoint of morality. When faced with moral disagreement, then, should each party in dispute not simply ‘agree to disagree’ and follow his or her own path? Reply 2. ‘Absolutely not, at least not so long as we do not wish to relinquish all our interest in universal morality and in the rule of reason [unser Interesse für allgemeine Sittlichkeit, für Herrschaft der Vernunft]—​something that

184  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy would be utterly reprehensible. Therefore, we must seek to make our own judgment harmonize with that of the other’ (SL 4:233).

In contrast to Reply 1, Fichte now seems to be saying that the solution to the problem of conflicting consciences lies in communication, whereby we each seek to test our convictions against each other’s in order to arrive at a harmonized viewpoint. But does this mean that the ultimate criterion for testing our convictions is dialogical, a matter of entering into discourse with others? In the context under consideration, Fichte appears to retreat from this implication: Reply 3. ‘Yet just as surely as neither party lacks conscience each will presuppose that his opinion [Meinung] is correct (for otherwise he would have acted contrary to his conscience when he acted upon this opinion); and hence each of them will aim at, and will have to aim at, convincing the other while not allowing himself to be convinced by the other’ (SL 4:233).

But this brings us back to the initial objection. In the case of Conflicting Consciences, Reply 1 tells us that ‘each person ought to act purely and simply in accordance with his conviction’ when faced with moral disagreement, laying emphasis on a personal principle. Yet to counter the implication that parties in dispute should simply ‘follow their own paths,’ Fichte shifts weight in Reply 2 to an interpersonal principle: parties in dispute, he claims, should seek a convergence of convictions through a process of rational dialogue, discourse, and communication. However, rather than end on this note, Fichte qualifies his statement in Reply 3 by insisting that we must never renounce our conscience in this back-​and-​forth process: our goal is not to be swayed by the other’s opinion, but rather to convince the other of the truth of our own opinion. In my view, the key to dissolving this tension lies in Fichte’s social theory of intersubjective relations, which we had the occasion to examine in Chapter 7. This allows us to see in hindsight that Fichte’s theory of conscience, as he presents it in Part II of the System of Ethics, is necessarily incomplete, since at that stage he had yet to articulate the ‘ground’ of those affective states making up our higher capacity to feel (self-​respect and self-​contempt). As we learned in Chapter 5, Fichte defines these states as feelings of ‘harmony’ and ‘disharmony’: when we act in ways that accord with our duty, we feel harmony with our ethical drive; when we act in ways that do not accord with our duty, we

Perfection  185 feel disharmony with our ethical drive. From the standpoint of common consciousness, these states manifest as felt qualities of esteem or reproach for oneself—​and those felt qualities supply us, in the course of ordinary moral reflection, with a criterion for committing ourselves to our judgments of duty. Thus, if I have judged I ought to φ, my conviction in the correctness of this judgment stems not from some further act of cognition but from an immediate feeling of harmony with myself. For Fichte, only the transcendental philosopher bears the burden of seeking the source of this harmony in a higher law, which is why Fichte takes the reader beyond the standpoint of common consciousness in Part III of the System of Ethics. Fichte’s subsequent derivation of the content of duties proceeds from an analysis of our embodiment, our cognition, and our sociality—​the three transcendental conditions he argues are necessary for our individuality or finite I-​hood. As we learned in Chapter 7, Fichte’s strategy is to identify material duties by relating each of these three conditions to the object of the moral law: the self-​sufficiency of reason as such. So when we ask ‘How should we relate to our embodiment in striving for self-​sufficiency?’ Fichte’s answer is that we should preserve and perfect our body. And we should do so, not by pursuing sensuous pursuits for their own sake, but rather by cultivating our body in such a way that renders it a better instrument of morality. Similarly, when we ask ‘How should we relate to our cognition in striving for self-​ sufficiency?’ Fichte’s answer is that we should preserve and perfect our mind. And we should do so, not by pursuing intellectual pursuits for their own sake, but rather by cultivating our mind in such a way that renders it a better instrument of morality as well. Nevertheless, Fichte is clear that each of these two material duties is subordinate to the third transcendental condition of our I-​hood: our sociality. This is because, unlike embodiment and cognition, our individuality as such is conditioned by an original reciprocal interaction with another rational being outside of us. We therefore have a material duty to preserve and perfect the freedom of others, Fichte concludes, because this freedom lies at the very root of who we are. I have reviewed these steps in order to show that when we cast a glance back to Fichte’s theory of conscience from Part II, we have the opportunity of filling in the content of those judgments of duty to which our conscience applies. The material duties Fichte derives in Part III specify the ground of our judgments of duty in terms of how we can fulfil our ethical vocation by preserving and perfecting our embodiment, our cognition, and our sociality. Each of these conditions of our finite I-​hood then underlies our judgment

186  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy of which action, among the manifold of actions available to us in any given moment, we ought to choose. Our conscience, acting as a higher capacity of feeling, grants us conviction in the correctness of this choice, and with this conviction we have a basis to act, not blindly but conscientiously. However, to the extent that a material duty to others has primacy in Fichte’s system, for reasons just stated, we can claim no priority in fulfilling obligations to ourselves alone. Indeed, Fichte even rejects the existence of ‘self-​regarding’ duties in §§19–​20 of Part III and treats duties of embodiment and cognition as ‘mediate’ and duties to others as ‘immediate.’ Without dwelling upon the details of his argument, all I wish to stress for present purposes is that Fichte never intended his deontic ‘test’ of conscience to trump the process of free, rational, and reciprocal interaction among all members of the moral community; on the contrary, such interaction is the social core of his entire system of ethics. My proposal, then, is that because a material duty to preserve and perfect the freedom of others takes primacy, our ethical vocation enjoins us to cultivate harmony between our convictions and the convictions of others—​not in such a way that we renounce the voice of conscience within, but in such a way that we expand that voice,33 from our own finite I to the pure I embodied in the rational community outside of us. I take it this is why when Fichte writes that when parties are caught in moral disagreement each side should aim at ‘convincing the other while not allowing himself to be convinced by the other,’ he adds, ‘Ultimately, of course, they must arrive at one and the same result, since reason is simply one [da die Vernunft nur Eine ist)’ (SL 4:233). Without straying from the voice of conscience within, and so without letting others sway us from our convictions, Fichte’s point is that we should nonetheless strive to harmonize our convictions with the social whole to which we belong. Thus he writes that everyone ‘ought to produce outside of himself absolute agreement or harmony with himself . . . for he himself is free and independent only on the condition of such harmony’ (SL 4:234).34 Parties caught in moral disagreement must not abandon their feelings of conscience in striving for mutually shared convictions, but they must also not let those feelings trump the obligation to uphold the freedom of all. This collective harmony is possible, for Fichte, because we are all members of one ‘undivided realm of reason’ (SL 4:232).

Conclusion I began this book by calling attention to the landscape of conflicting assessments that have circled Fichte’s System of Ethics since its publication in 1798. As I  write these words over two centuries after Fichte, there remains disagreement over how to understand the basic claims of his moral philosophy, from its deduction of the moral law in Part I  to its theory of conscience in Part II and its derivation of duties in Part III, among other issues. My own approach in the preceding chapters has been to take Fichte’s system of ethics as a guiding point of focus, and I have tried to understand why—​and to what extent—​this system unfolds according to the principles of the Wissenschaftslehre. In this way I have tried my best to take the foundational portion of Fichte’s ethics seriously and to understand what unites his methodology across the doctrine of science and the doctrine of ethics. Yet in keeping with the spirit of Fichte’s own work, I would like to close by offering my interpretations in this book, not as absolute truths but as proposals to be improved upon through dialogue and discourse as we embark further along the path of post-​Kantian ethics. Looking back to the ground covered, I would like to think that Fichte’s System of Ethics is of value beyond providing us with a magnifying glass for Kant’s moral philosophy. But whether it amounts to an improvement of Kant’s system is a question I shall leave open for discussion. Rather than advance any new interpretive point in these final pages, I would like to offer a few further reflections on Fichte’s concept of wholeness, which I  believe serves to clarify what is distinctive about his moral philosophy. What is evident when we consider the stages of Fichte’s early intellectual development is that his commitment to the ‘whole person’ thesis runs deep and is arguably the centerpiece of his first major publication, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation. We may recall that this idea serves to justify Fichte’s reconstruction of the highest good as the ideal of bringing unity to the entire ‘rational and empirical’ self. Though it is true that Fichte still accepts Kant’s faculty psychology in the Attempt, in the modified form of a dualistic drive theory, one can already see him leaning in a monistic direction. Indeed, this is how Fichte conceives of the highest good, as the end of Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Owen Ware, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190086596.001.0001

188  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy unifying our two faculties of desire, the lower and the higher, in a complete synthesis. But it would take Fichte a few more years of reflection, and distance from Kant’s work, to see that this nondual goal is intelligible only on the basis of a nondual ground, in what he calls the Urtrieb in the System of Ethics. The normative shape that our ethical vocation acquires as an imperative to harmonize our natural drive for enjoyment and our pure drive for independence is valid, on this picture, because it accurately describes who we are in our original state. For this reason I have found it useful to distinguish, as Fichte does, between our ordinary moral experience and the philosopher’s insight into the source of this experience. From the former viewpoint we are bound to the deontic principle of following our own convictions concerning duty, and those convictions are themselves affective in character. What we judge we ought to do, among the manifold of options before us, elicits an associated feeling of self-​approval, and any violation of that course of action elicits an associated feeling of self-​reproach, just as Kant describes the experience of ‘respect’ (Achtung) in the second Critique. Here we ought to listen carefully to those affective states that give us access to the alignment of our present willing and our original drive. Our conscience, for Fichte, is the medium through which we access this alignment, and that is why he describes the power of conscience as an unerring criterion: it gives us the certainty we need to stay our course with our moral judgments, without which we would remain in a state of endless wavering, swaying to and fro without resolution. In this respect, even though the power of conscience does not supply the material content of our duties (in terms of perfecting our body, our mind, and our relations with others), it does give immediate expression to the fittingness of our presenting willing and the Urtrieb, and in that regard it plays a first-​order role in practical deliberation, as I argued in Chapter 5. Nor should this last claim come as a surprise, given that Fichte’s theory of conscience is the key to his deduction of the moral law’s reality and applicability in Part II of the System of Ethics. As we have seen, Fichte’s deduction in Part I isolates willing from its object in order to show that the moral law is necessary for determining our consciousness of freedom. But the question remains whether the moral law is also necessary when we consider willing in connection to its object. Fichte’s answer takes the form of a complex theory of action, from an analysis of the lower capacity of desire and its natural drive (in §§4–​9) to an analysis of the higher capacity of desire and its pure drive (in §§10–​11) to an analysis of conscience and its ethical drive (§§12–​13). Each

Conclusion  189 section builds upon the former, starting with the most elemental conditions of agency (longing, feeling, drive) and ending with their transformation in the space of reflection. But again, the main point Fichte wants to make, on the reading I have proposed, is that there is only one drive at the ground of this activity, which becomes split through subsequent acts of reflection. What becomes the monistic drive theory of the System of Ethics then amounts to the thesis that our divided self is derivative of a primordial wholeness. And that is why our conscience functions as the principle of an applicable ethics: only the feelings of conscience give voice to the harmony between what we do and who we are. No other power of mind can play this role. Having said that, my reason for calling Fichte a perfectionist later in this book is that his derivation of duties in Part III makes explicit reference to the conditions of our selfhood that, when related to the end of self-​sufficiency, supply the moral law with material content. As we know, adhering to the feelings of conscience suffices to live morally, and that is the deontic principle bearing upon all moral action in Fichte’s system. We ought never to obscure our consciousness of duty and stray from our convictions of duty; however, none of this reveals the law underlying those felt convictions. Offering such insight is what leads Fichte to revisit the concept of our natural drive with a focus on its causality, substantiality, and sociality. The result, I have argued, is a new teleological principle that permits us to say ‘We ought to preserve and perfect the body, we ought to preserve and perfect the mind, and we ought to preserve and perfect the freedom of others.’ But the third condition takes priority, as we have seen, for without an original connection to another rational being—​the one who summons us—​we would have no occasion to exercise our capacity for self-​reflection, and so we would have no occasion to take up the standpoint of moral autonomy itself. The derivation of duties we find in Part III is therefore tied to Fichte’s theory of intersubjectivity, which is why he argues that realizing our ethical vocation is possible only in the context of the rational community to which we belong. Our highest vocation is not individual but social. One of the major discoveries I have offered in this book is that the social character of our ethical vocation, to shape and be shaped in rational discourse with others, actualizes what Fichte takes to be a primitive form of reciprocity in the natural drive itself. To understand this connection better, I had us turn to a largely overlooked section of the System of Ethics: Fichte’s derivation of the natural drive from the ‘entire system of nature’ in §§8–​9. These sections show that, while Fichte is an idealist in positing the activity

190  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy of I-​hood as fundamental to all experience, he nevertheless embraces an organicist model when considering how we represent nature ‘outside’ of us, on the grounds that a mechanistic model leaves us blind to the self-​determining character of a ‘drive’ (Trieb). As we learned, Fichte proceeds to argue that the natural drive we represent as internal to us must be in accord with the same explanatory law of the system of nature we represent as external to us, according to what he calls the ‘formative law’ (Bildungesetz), where all the parts of a system exist for the sake of the whole, and the whole, in turn, exists for the sake of all the parts. By reflecting upon this holistic structure, Fichte concludes that the natural drive within us exhibits a kind of reciprocity: to relate to objects both actively and passively in a relation of community rather than subordination. And that is why he redefines the natural drive as a ‘formative drive’ (Bildungstrieb), a striving to form and to be formed. I have referred to this as a discovery because, while previous scholars have been sensitive to the social character of Fichte’s ethics, I am not aware of any study that links this social character to the inner dynamics of the natural drive and its reciprocal structure as a Bildungstrieb. I also see this idea as the key to understanding how Fichte’s long-​term commitment to the ideal of wholeness comes to fruition in the System of Ethics, not just as a monistic drive theory but as a drive theory founded upon the claim that reciprocity guides all activity, even in its lower expression as the natural desire for enjoyment. As we have seen, the freely posited ‘end’ of enjoyment that makes the natural drive an expression of freedom is an end to relate objects to the natural drive, but not to consume or control them. While Fichte is committed to relating all phenomena back to the principle of I-​hood, then, he is by no means committed to asserting the total dominion of the I, contrary to the most influential interpretation of Fichte on offer. On the reading I have presented in this book, all talk of the dominion of the I, or of the desire to control nature, is a mere stage in the dialectic of agency, whereby the pure drive for independence has yet to acquire normative direction in ‘giving up’ its purity. Few scholars appreciate just how deeply rooted this idea is in Fichte’s conception of nature and the natural drive, which I take to be central to his commitment to the whole person and its endless cultivation. Returning to the question of Fichte’s originality, I do not think it would be controversial to say that much of his work is Kantian in spirit. We began our investigation in the summer of 1790, when Fichte studied Kant’s major philosophical writings, starting with the first Critique (which left him unimpressed) and ending with the second Critique (which changed his entire

Conclusion  191 manner of thinking). I  suggested that the second Critique brought about such a revolution for Fichte because it pointed to a path beyond rational determinism and blind faith, the conflict of which left the young Fichte in a state of despair. The doctrine of the fact of reason, Kant’s claim that our consciousness of the moral law gives us a basis to affirm the reality of human freedom, was his antidote. And what made a lasting impact on Fichte’s thinking, I argued, was the idea that transcendental philosophy serves to vindicate the ‘facts of consciousness’ available to the ordinary person, including the fact that our willing appears to be free. By the time we arrive at Fichte’s mature system, we find him engaged in an elaborate project of vindication, as he recognized that the vocation of the philosopher is one of defending, rather than deflating, the commitments of common consciousness. So as much as Fichte is an ambitious systematizer—​certainly more ambitious than Kant—​ he still gives the standpoint of life primacy over the standpoint of philosophy. I find this distinction important for understanding Fichte’s view of what a doctrine of ethics can accomplish, were one successful in grounding it as a system. It can be tempting to hope that a theory of ethics will equip one with theoretical arguments that will produce conviction in the authority of the moral law or in the belief that we are free. One might even hold a theory of ethics accountable to the standard of producing such arguments, as if the theory’s success depended on generating positions that withstand skepticism about morality or freedom. Yet I take Fichte’s privileging of the standpoint of life to be consistent with Kant’s more modest conception of ethics as an inquiry into the sources of ordinary experience. After all, Fichte’s deduction of the moral law in Part I of the System of Ethics does not aspire to generate an argument, drawn entirely from nonmoral premises, that would yield conviction in the moral law’s authority, such that a skeptic would be rationally required to accept it on pain of contradiction. On the contrary, Fichte’s deduction aspires to be internally self-​validating, insofar as it seeks to trace the common person’s feeling of being bound by duties, a ‘fact,’ to what the philosopher formulates as the law of self-​sufficiency, the ‘ground’ of this fact. I suppose Fichte would not recognize the shape of skepticism that many contemporary theories of ethics seek to refute, namely, skepticism that demands a nonmoral route to the necessity of moral requirements. This perhaps explains why Fichte says it is ‘impossible to force morality upon anyone’ through theoretical reasoning (SL 4:316). As he writes, ‘theoretical conviction itself cannot be forced upon anyone,’ not even if the force in question is logical. Conviction is a ‘deed of reason’ (Handlung der

192  Fichte’s Moral Philosophy Vernunft), the product of resolve and commitment (SL 4:316). If the skeptic is requesting an argument that would produce conviction in morality, then the proper reply is that she is mistaken about the nature of argumentation itself. No chain of inferences can yield conviction of this kind, because conviction is ‘an affect of the heart and in no way a conclusion of the understanding’ (SL 4:317). In saying this Fichte’s target is not so much the skeptic as it is the ‘school philosopher’ who thinks he is capable of ‘converting human beings by means of syllogisms’ (SL 4:316). And I find an important lesson contained in this humorous remark. It suggests that Fichte is advocating a rather modest account of what a theory of ethics can achieve. A theory of ethics is not meant to improve human beings—​to refute skeptics or to convert the wicked—​but is rather a speculative inquiry from beginning to end. The goal of a Sittenlehre is that of acquiring knowledge of our moral nature, not the power to change it. It is, as Fichte himself writes, the goal of science—​‘and science, wherever it is possible, is an end in itself ’ (SL 4:15).

Notes Preface 1. While much of the material is new, many of the interpretations and arguments put forward in this book were first worked out in articles. Chapter 2 draws from Ware (2019b). Chapter  3 draws from Ware (2019a), Ware (2019c), and Ware (2019d). Chapter  5 draws from Ware (2017b). Chapter 6 draws from Ware (2015). And Chapter 8 draws from Ware (2018a). 2. In Breazeale (1988: 213). 3. The dish is symbolic of the common hunting grounds, originally between the First Nations people of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence valley region; the spoon is symbolic of the freedom of these people to hunt alongside each other peacefully on terms of mutual respect. See Lytwyn (1997) for further discussion of the history of this treaty.

Chapter 1 1. We find a similar sentiment expressed in Chamber’s Encyclopedia:  ‘It is difficult to speak calmly of Fichte. His life stirs one like a trumpet. He combines the penetration of a philosopher with the fire of a prophet and the thunder of an orator; and over all his life lies the beauty of a stainless purity’ (Chambers 1874: 314). Of course, the view that Fichte’s philosophy perfected Kant’s system was not new to Feuerbach. Writing in 1798, an anonymous reviewer of Johann Gottlieb Bohle’s Entwurf der Transcendental-​ Philosophie voiced this very claim:  ‘Kant is the first teacher of Transcendental Philosophy and Reinhold the admirable disseminator of the critical doctrine; but the first true transcendental philosopher is undeniably Fichte. For Fichte has realized what the Critique proposed, carrying out systematically the transcendental idealism which Kant projected. How natural therefore is the public’s desire that the originator of the Critique declare openly his opinion of the work of his worthy pupil!’ (in Ameriks 2000: 1). As Ameriks has explored in depth, Kant himself was not impressed. For an excellent overview of the early reception of Fichte’s System of Ethics, see Rivera de Rosales (2005: 15–​19). 2. I offer a detailed study of Kant’s moral philosophy in Ware (forthcoming). 3. Fichte makes this point vivid in a later work, writing: ‘I was a machine and could have remained a machine; through my power and my own drives have I made myself a self-​ sufficient being [selbständigen Wesen gemacht]’ (BEIW 8:352). 4. Another aspect of the second Critique is worth noting to shed light on Fichte’s intellectual development. It concerns Kant’s claim that pure practical reason requires no

194 Notes ‘critique’ because, unlike pure speculative reason, it has no tendency to overstep its bounds. The principle of this faculty is immediately legislative because reason supplies its own grounds of choice, those based on representations of lawfulness or unlawfulness. For Kant, empirically conditioned reason supplies grounds of choice based on representations external to reason, those of agreeableness or disagreeableness, which are rooted in an agent’s constitution and thus unfit to serve as genuine principles of action. Yet Kant believes we harbor a tendency to arrogate the claims of empirically conditioned reason, what he calls ‘self-​conceit’ (Eigendünkel), a tendency to view our own pursuit of happiness as a source of law. What then becomes central to Kant’s synthetic path is an account of how consciousness of the moral law unmasks the pretensions of self-​conceit. We experience a painful feeling of self-​reproach (or ‘humiliation’) when we compare our self-​conceit to the moral law. But we also experience a pleasurable feeling of self-​approval (‘elevation’) when we recognize our capacity for rational self-​legislation. The feeling of respect by which the moral law finds expression in our faculty of sensibility thereby serves to disclose our identity as ‘persons’ (Personen)—​ beings who are, as Kant puts it, summoned to a ‘vocation’ (Bestimmung) higher than the pursuit of happiness. 5. Noteworthy exceptions to this trend include Crowe (2008), Breazeale (2012), and Wood (2016). I see myself as building upon their work in this book. 6. This was a long-​standing convention of translating das Ich, which may have contributed to the vitality of the figure of Fichte the subjectivist who wished to put forth one’s own finite, limited, or empirical I at the center of all reality. 7. ‘Here on this market-​cross aloud I cry: /​I, I, I! I itself I! /​The form and the substance, the what and the why, /​The when and the where, the low and the high, /​The inside and outside, the earth and the sky, /​I, you and he, and he, you and I, /​All souls and bodies are I itself I!’ (Coleridge 1817: 148n). 8. Pippin’s (2000) excellent article is a noteworthy exception. 9. See, for instance, Kosch (2018).

Chapter 2 1. The letter appeared in an eclectic volume titled Streitereien im Gebiete der Philosophie (Quarrels in the Field of Philosophy), which also included some of Maimon’s (1793) essays. As Daniel Breazeale (2003: 52n32) has pointed out in a stimulating essay devoted to Maimon’s influence on Fichte, there is firm evidence to show that Fichte had read Quarrels, since he cites one of its essays in the Wissenschaftslehre from 1794: ‘That the Leibnizian system considered in its perfection is none other than Spinozism was shown in a highly important treatise, “On the Progress of Philosophy,” by Salomon Maimon’ (GWL 1:101). Thanks to the recent work of Frederick Beiser (1987, 2003), Peter Thielke (2001), Paul Franks (2005), Daniel Breazeale (2003, 2018b), and Karin Nisenbaum (2018), the depth of Maimon’s influence on Fichte is becoming better known to Anglophone scholars. It was ‘Maimon’s talent,’ Fichte wrote to Reinhold in the spring of 1795, that ‘knows no bounds,’ adding that Maimon had ‘completely

Notes  195 overturned the entire Kantian philosophy as it has been understood by everyone until now, including you’ (in Breazeale 1993: 94n). One of my aims in this chapter is to push this scholarship in a new direction by exploring potential lines of influence Maimon had on Fichte’s mature theory of freedom. 2. See Kien-​How Goh (2015) and Wayne Martin (2018) for two excellent accounts of Fichte’s reaction to the free will debate presented in the work of Reinhold and Creuzer. Neither Goh nor Martin discuss Maimon’s contribution, however, which will play a key role in the present discussion. To anticipate, what we gain from exploring Fichte’s debt to Maimon is a more fine-​grained understanding of his account of the ‘transition’ from indeterminacy to determinacy of choice, and hence a more fine-​grained understanding of Fichte’s distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘material’ freedom. 3. They are Quarrels in the Field of Philosophy (Streifereien im Gebiete der Philosophie, 1793)  and ‘Attempt at a New Presentation of the Principle of Morality and a New Deduction of Its Reality’ (‘Versuch einer neuen Darstellung des Moralprincips und Dedukzion seiner Realität,’ 1794). 4. I am edging toward a larger issue concerning Kant’s project of moral justification, but this is a topic I must put aside for lack of space. Suffice it to say that scholars have been struck by the appearance of a shift (or even a ‘reversal’) in Kant’s account of the ‘fact of reason’ (Factum der Vernunft) from the second Critique, given that it seems to renounce what he had sought in Groundwork III: a deduction of the moral law. A fuller treatment of the reception of freedom after Kant would have to take this shift into consideration, given the importance of the second Critique for writers like Reinhold, Maimon, and Fichte. For the purposes of this chapter, however, I shall focus instead on the Groundwork as Kant’s first definitive statement of the Causal Model of freedom in his practical works. For further discussion, see Ware (2017a) and Ware (forthcoming). 5. Allison (1986) coined this phrase in his classic essay. We will return to Kant’s Reciprocity Thesis in Chapter 3. 6. It is important to ask how much Kant was actually wedded to the idea of the moral law as the causal law of a free will, and whether this is a view he rejected or modified in subsequent works. What is clear, from the texts we have available, is that Kant’s early readers took his comments about the ‘causality of reason’ seriously. For illuminating accounts of how Kant’s theory of freedom developed in the 1790s under the pressure of the emerging free will debate, see Allison (1990) and Guyer (2000, 2010). 7. This was the celebrated Letters on Kantian Philosophy (Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie) (Reinhold 1792). 8. The student Reinhold targets is Carl Christian Erhard Schmid. It was Schmid’s Attempt at a Moral Philosophy (Versuch einer Moralphilosophie), first published in 1790, that introduced the controversial idea of ‘intelligible fatalism’ and that triggered Reinhold’s reaction in the second volume of his Letters. 9. The claim that the will is a ‘causality of reason’ comes from G 4:458, and the claim that the will is the ‘capacity to act in accordance with the representation of laws’ comes from G 4:412. This is evidence that Reinhold’s Eighth Letter engages critically with Kant’s Groundwork, and not just with the second Critique, as scholars sometimes assume.

196 Notes 10. See Ameriks (2012: 191) for further helpful discussion. 11. Brief 548, from https://​korpora.zim.uni-​duisburg-​essen.de/​kant/​aa11/​390.html. In the German context, the term ‘indeterminism’ seems to have been coined by Johann A. Ulrich in his 1788 Eleutheriology, or On Freedom and Necessity (Eleutheriologie, oder über Freyheit und Nothwendigkeit), after which time it appears in nearly every major work on free will during the 1790s and later (see, e.g., Schmid 1790 and Creuzer 1793). Ulrich himself used the term interchangeably with the concept of ‘chance’ (Zufall) (see, e.g., 1788: 11, 16, 22, 32). 12. For an excellent account of the exchange between Reinhold and Maimon, see Breazeale (2003). See also Breazeale (2018a). 13. Reinhold’s reply was heated, but it did little to shed new light on his theory of freedom: ‘I let the will depend on chance!! Have you read the seventh and eighth letters! . . . I let the will depend on itself—​it is not chance, but a first cause, an absolute cause in relation to its effect. Can you not think of an absolute cause? I can. . . . Every cause thought merely through reason is absolute, and every absolute cause is free, because the ground of its effect is contained only in itself. . . . These are for me matters of fact [Thatsachen]. Are they not also for Herr Maimon?’ (in Maimon 1793: 235–​236). Not backing down, Maimon quickly replied, ‘Can I not think of such a capacity? Oh yes! It is precisely how I think of nothing [Nichts],’ adding, ‘[N]‌othing has no ground. Nothing has no results. It is not actual, not possible, etc.’ (1793: 240). No further reply ever came from Reinhold, although he ended up changing his position. ‘Only the moral self-​consciousness,’ he later wrote to Fichte in the December of 1795, ‘unconditionally ascribes to the transcendental subject the predicate “absolute.” For the moral law applies only to the unconditionally free action of the subject, that is, the action which is independent of anything empirical’ (in Bernecker 2010: 232). 14. The passage in question is titled ‘Problem II’ in §6 of the Analytic, where Kant writes, ‘Supposing that a will is free: to find the law that alone is competent to determine it necessarily’ (KpV 5:29). 15. Maimon’s skepticism about common moral consciousness will resurface in Chapter 3 when we turn to consider Fichte’s deduction of the moral law. 16. This was Fichte’s rather bold choice of words in a letter to Baggesen in the spring of 1795): ‘My system is the first system of freedom: as any nation tears a human being loose from external shackles, so my system tears him loose from the fetters of things in themselves, from external influence, and positions him in its first principle as a self-​sufficient being’ (in Breazeale 1993: 385). 17. It is not clear, on the basis of the Aphorisms themselves, whether Fichte’s necessitarianism was purely Spinozistic or a hybrid view. As Karolina Hübner has suggested to me, a standard reading of Spinoza would commit him only to (a) and the first part of (c). Due to limits of space, however, I must forgo exploring these parallels further. 18. Fichte made a similar confession in a letter to Achelis (November 1790): ‘I now believe wholeheartedly in human freedom and realize full well that duty, virtue and morality are all possible only if freedom is presupposed. I realized this truth very well before—​perhaps I said as much to you—​but I felt that the entire sequence of my inferences forced me to reject morality’ (in Breazeale 1993: 360).

Notes  197 19. For further discussion of how Fichte’s theory of freedom compares to Kant’s, see Wood (2016). 20. This is one sense of metaphor expressed in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, where an image represents something in its dynamic quality. Here Aristotle (1984: 1411b) speaks of metaphor having the effect of ‘making your hearers see things,’ adding, ‘By “making them see things” I mean using expressions that represent things as in a state of activity.’ See Ricoeur (1978: 38) for a helpful discussion of this passage. 21. A glance at the secondary literature reveals a surprising lack of consensus over the exact import of this distinction. Goh, for instance, writes, ‘Formal freedom refers to the freedom of practical intelligence, while material freedom refers to the freedom of the self-​consciousness of practical intelligence. A merely formally free human being acts exactly as he would act if he were an unintelligent natural being, whereas a materially free human being has the power to act otherwise. . . . Material freedom is none other than the freedom of choice which is real and efficacious in the sensible world’ (2015: 445). On this interpretation, material freedom requires one’s capacity for indifferent choice, although Goh’s phrasing suggests that it might also require the manifestation of this power (in terms of ‘real and efficacious’ action). In contrast, Wood writes that a ‘free will must be formally free in order to be self-​positing—​that is, a conscious transition from indeterminacy to determinacy. Material freedom is the actual determination of oneself in conformity to the norm of self-​sufficiency. Only a materially free action is absolutely free, but formal freedom is a necessary condition for materially free action’ (2016: 70). On this interpretation, then, material freedom requires more than mere norm-​governed agency; it requires agency governed by the moral law or the law of self-​sufficiency. 22. In a penetrating study of Fichte’s Jena project, Neuhouser observes that ‘characterizing Fichte’s position is made difficult enough by the existence of a number of distinct senses of self-​determination in his texts, but it is complicated even further by the fact that he usually seems to be unaware of these crucial differences’ (1990: 121). 23. Nor is this an isolated case, since one of the guiding methodological principles of Fichte’s philosophy is that ‘all mere possibility is based upon abstraction from some familiar actuality. All consciousness therefore begins with something actual—​a fundamental proposition of any real philosophy—​and this applies to consciousness of freedom as well’ (SL 4:219). 24. Despite the frequency with which the term appears in Fichte’s corpus, ‘positing’ (setzen) is notoriously resistant to explication. In the current literature, Franks (2016) has argued—​convincingly, in my view—​that the long-​standing ‘creativist’ reading of setzen (i.e., ‘positing’ as ‘creating’) rests on a basic misunderstanding of the texts. On his alternative, setzen involves not creation but commitment, and that is why, for Fichte, positing is inherently reflexive or directed to the subject engaged in the act of commitment itself (Franks 2016: 388). In the context of this chapter, ‘positing oneself as free’ must involve the commitment to put forth one’s rational agency as a norm, an idea Fichte gestures at when he speaks of ‘throwing’ or ‘projecting’ oneself an end. We see this theme already in the 1794 Wissenschaftslehre when Fichte says we must

198 Notes ‘project out’ (hinaus gesetzt) the concept of the pure I as an infinite ideal (GWL 1:156). On this issue I have profited from Martin’s (2016) paper, which introduces the idea of ‘gambit normativity’ to highlight the element of projection (and even risk-​taking) involved in the notion of ‘positing oneself as free’ (2016: 168–​172). There are also affinities worth exploring here between Fichtean self-​positing and what Agnes Callard (2018) has recently termed ‘aspirational deliberation.’ 25. See Goh (2015) and Martin (2018). It is worth noting that §§10–​13 of the System of Ethics mirror the structure of §§1–​3, to the extent that Fichte begins with an indeterminate concept of self-​activity and then proceeds to uncover, through a genetic analysis, the conditions of its determinacy. Thus both §3 and §13 culminate with the thesis that the ultimate determining ground of a free will is the moral law. The difference is that §3 articulates this law from the standpoint of philosophical consciousness (as the ‘principle of self-​sufficiency’), and §13 articulates this law form the standpoint of common consciousness (as the ‘principle of conscience’). Commentators who assign interpretive weight either to the seemingly amoral conception of spontaneity in §§1 and 10, or to the explicitly moral conception of spontaneity in §§3 and 13, miss the dialectical character of Fichte’s argument. 26. As Fichte describes this stage in an earlier text, ‘I have torn myself free’ (Ich habe mich losgerissen) (EIW 8:348). Note that the language of ‘tearing loose’ and the ‘leap’ are central to Schiller’s account of the ‘play drive’ (Spieltrieb) in Letter 27 of On the Aesthetic Education of Humankind, published in 1795. 27. The sense of determinacy Goh (2015) emphasizes in his discussion of Fichte speaks to the necessitation of a drive that, once activated, pursues its course just like any other natural object or event. However, this reading runs the risk of overlooking the sense of determinacy that Fichte attaches to morally lawful action itself, which is ‘elevated’ above the natural series. 28. See also ZwE 1:461.

Chapter 3 1. For clear statements to this effect, see Irie (2006), Rivera de Rosales (2008), Brandt (2009), Jawschke and Arndt (2012), and Guyer (2015). For an important exception to this trend, to which I am indebted, see Wood (2016: Ch. 4). 2. See Thilo (1861: 345). As we will see, Thilo believed that Fichte held an inconsistent position, first seeking to derive the moral law from the absolute freedom of the I, and then reverting to a Kantian position and deriving freedom from consciousness of the moral law. 3. As Kant puts this thesis elsewhere, ‘Were this law not given to us from within, no amount of subtle reasoning on our part would produce it or win our power of choice over to it. Yet this law is the only law that makes us conscious of the independence of our power of choice from determination by all other incentives (of our freedom) and thereby also of the accountability of all our actions’ (R 6:26n). For similar remarks, see Refl 7316, 7321; KU 5:275; and MS 6:252.

Notes  199 4. It has become something of a truism in the recent literature (at least since the work of Paton [1947], Beck [1960], and Henrich [1960]) to treat Kant’s statements in the second Critique as a confession that his argument in Groundwork III was a failure. While this topic goes outside the scope of the present study, I should say that this common reading is far less compelling when we turn to the details of Kant’s argument in Groundwork III, especially to his final remark that the necessity of the moral law is ‘incomprehensible’ (unbegreiflich) (G 4:464). When we place emphasis on this claim, it is possible to read the entire argument of Groundwork III in a way that is continuous with his position in the second Critique, since to say that the necessity of the moral law is ‘incomprehensible’ is equivalent to treating it as a Factum that admits of no further proof. For recent attempts to find continuity in Kant’s project of moral justification, see Tenenbaum (2012), Puls (2016), and Ware (forthcoming). 5. In the second edition of his Letters on Kantian Philosophy from 1792, Reinhold links the disclosure of freedom directly to self-​consciousness: ‘But reason has a very real ground for thinking of freedom as an absolute cause, namely self-​consciousness, through which the action of this capacity [dieses Vermögens] announces itself as a fact [Thatsache], and common and healthy understanding is entitled to infer its actuality from its possibility’ (1792: 283). However, by the mid-​1790s Reinhold came to embrace Fichte’s commitment to moral primacy. ‘Only the moral self-​consciousness,’ he wrote to Fichte in 1795, ‘unconditionally ascribes to the transcendental subject the predicate “absolute.” For the moral law applies only to the unconditionally free action of the subject, that is, the action which is independent of anything empirical’ (letter to Fichte, December 1795; in Bernecker 2010: 232). For helpful accounts of this shift in Reinhold’s project, see Henrich (1991), Di Giovanni (2005), and Bernecker (2010). 6. We find a similar claim in Fichte’s 1793 review of Creuzer’s free-​will book: ‘Self-​activity gives this faculty its determinate form, which is determinable in only one way and which appears as the moral law’ (CR 8:413). 7. The review Fichte wrote during the autumn of 1793 on Friedrich Heinrich Gebhard’s book On Ethical Goodness as Disinterested Benevolence appears to be an anomaly within this development. At a crucial point in his discussion, Fichte raises the question of how reason can be practical, remarking that this must be proven and not assumed. ‘Such a proof,’ he then states, ‘must proceed roughly like this’: ‘The human being is given to consciousness as a unity (as an I). This fact [Thatsache] can be explained only under the presupposition of something absolutely unconditioned in him; hence we must assume an absolutely unconditioned in human beings. Such an absolutely unconditioned, however, is practical reason’ (GR 8:425). Beiser (2002: 291) cites this passage as evidence of his ‘break’ with Kant. On Beiser’s view, what Fichte came to see clearly by 1793 was that skepticism renders any appeal to ‘facts of consciousness’ empty, since facts cannot rule out the possibility that our will is dictated by mechanisms beyond our control. Accordingly, Beiser thinks that in this review Fichte is seeking a ‘strict proof ’ that treats freedom ‘as the necessary condition of the unity of apperception, and thus as the first principle of the possibility of experience’ (2002: 292). See also Neuhouser (1990: 24–​26) for an admirably clear treatment of Fichte’s Gebhard review. 8. Thanks to a reviewer for pressing me to draw this distinction more sharply.

200 Notes 9. In §1 Fichte also states, quite clearly, that affirming the feeling of moral compulsion in an attitude of Glaube is ‘sufficient for engendering both a dutiful disposition and dutiful conduct’ (SL 4:14) 10. This is why, as Wood (2016) has observed, the philosopher in Fichte’s system is always below or subordinate to the common person, even though transcendental reflection requires the philosopher to go beyond or above the mere facts that present themselves to ordinary life. 11. For an attempt to unpack these intricacies in Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason, see Ware (2014b). 12. I  am drawing this unilinear/​multilateral distinction from Breazeale’s (2013:  Ch. 10) excellent discussion of how Fichte’s methodology underwent a change from the 1794 incarnation of the Wissenschaftslehre to the ‘new method’ lectures he delivered in the late 1790s. 13. This is Fichte’s way of warning the reader that without understanding the deduction of the moral law and its connection to the Wissenschaftslehre, we risk misunderstanding his ethical system as a whole. For this reason I believe Wood (2016) and Gottlieb (2018) are right to view Kosch (2018) as a cautionary tale for what happens when one attempts to read Fichte’s ethics in isolation from his doctrine of science. 14. These passages come from the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, originally student transcripts of Fichte’s private lectures during the late 1790s. See Breazeale (1992) for an English translation. 15. In what follows I am indebted to Paul Franks’s (2005) discussion (in particular 251n2 and 253). 16. ‘How something objective can ever become something subjective, how a being for itself can ever be something represented—​in this familiar end I take the task of all philosophy—​how, I say, this remarkable transformation can take place is something no one will ever explain, unless one finds a point in which the objective and subjective as such are not separated, but are completely one [ganz Eins]. Our system establishes such a point and proceeds from there. I-​hood, intelligence, reason [Die Ichheit, die Intelligenz, die Vernunft]—​or whatever one wants to call it—​is this point’ (SL 4:1). 17. ‘The first way what is subjective and what is objective are unified, or viewed as harmonizing, is when I cognize [ich erkenne]. In this case, what is subjective follows from what is objective; the former is supposed to agree with the latter. Theoretical philosophy investigates how we arrive at the assertion of such a harmony.—​[The second way what is subjective and what is objective are unified is] when I act efficaciously [ich wirke]. In this case, the two are viewed as harmonizing in such a way that what is objective is supposed to follow from what is subjective; a being is supposed to result from my concept (the concept of an end). Practical philosophy has to investigate the origin of the assumption of such a harmony’ (SL 4:2). Thanks to a reviewer for pressing me to draw this distinction more sharply. 18. This helps to explain Fichte’s otherwise confusing remark that a ‘doctrine of ethics’ (Sittenlehre) amounts to ‘a theory of consciousness of our moral nature in general and of our specific duties in particular’ (SL 4:15).

Notes  201 19. Elsewhere Fichte writes, ‘It is unphilosophical to believe that the I is anything other than its own deed and product simultaneously. As soon as we hear of the I as active, we do not hesitate to imagine a substratum that is supposed to contain this activity as a bare capacity. This is not the I, but rather a product of our own imagination, which we construct in response to the demand to think the I. The I is not something that has capacities, it is not a capacity at all, but rather is active; it is what it does, and when it does nothing, it is nothing’ (GNR 3:22). 20. See Breazeale (2013: Ch. 10). 21. To be clear, the derivation proper concerns the feeling of compulsion. This is what requires a genetic proof. As we will see, Fichte will also derive (in a thinner sense of the word) a formula of the moral law in terms of acting ‘according to the concept of self-​sufficiency, absolutely and without exception’ (SL 4:59). This is not a genetic derivation, however, since the moral law turns out to be merely an objective manner of thinking our own freedom. 22. In lecture transcripts of Wissenshaftslehre nova methodo dating from 1796 to 1799, we find Fichte distinguishing three kinds of synthetic method: (1) ‘in which one proceeds from a contradiction and seeks to resolve it’; (2) ‘to begin by posing for oneself a principal task, and then seek to accomplish this task by introducing intermediate principles’; (3) ‘to clarify gradually what remained previously obscure and indeterminate’ (WLnm GA IV/​2:107–​108). Although the first procedure is the official methodology of Part I, Fichte will invoke the second at a critical juncture in §3, as we will see. 23. §1 reads, ‘To think of oneself merely as oneself, i.e., as separated from everything that is not our self ’ (SL 4:18). 24. §2 reads, ‘To become conscious in a determinate manner of the consciousness of one’s original being’ (SL 4:30). Here Fichte argues that what makes an intellect free to determine itself is that it has no pre-​fixed or pregiven nature. It exists, as he puts it, ‘prior to its nature’ (SL 4:34; emphasis added). 25. §3 reads, ‘To observe how the I becomes conscious of its own tendency to absolute self-​activity as such’ (SL 4:39). As we will see, this third section reveals a sense in which Fichte’s method is dialectical, since he goes on to argue that the only way we can fulfill the task of §3 is to unite the two previously separated aspects of the I, the objective and the subjective, in a relation of ‘reciprocal interaction’ (Wechselwirkung). What Fichte eventually claims is that we can become conscious of our self-​activity as a real tendency only by thinking of this activity under the law of absolute self-​ sufficiency, or what amounts to the same thing, under the moral law (SL 4:51). 26. Fichte explicitly denies that it can manifest as a ‘feeling’ (Gefühl). For further discussion, see Schmidt (2015: 49). 27. As Fichte explains, while we can never think of what is subjective and objective in the I together, we can think of the two ‘next to each other [nebeneinander] and after each other [Nacheinander]; and through this thinking one after each other [Nacheinanderdenken], we make each of them reciprocally dependent [wechselseitig . . . abhängig] on the other’ (SL 4:42). 28. Although Fichte does not speak of an ‘antinomy’ between a thesis and an antithesis, Wood (2016: 119) has made a compelling case for reading SL 4:45 along these lines.

202 Notes 29. As Kant puts it later on, ‘The moral law, which itself has no need of justifying grounds, proves not only the possibility but also the reality [of freedom] in beings who cognize this law as binding upon them’ (KpV 5:47). I discuss Kant’s project of moral justification at greater length elsewhere. See Ware (2017) and Ware (forthcoming). 30. With the exception of Wood (2016: Ch. 4), Fichte’s reference to the Factum of reason at SL 4:53–​54 is largely ignored by scholars. It goes unmentioned, for example, in Schmidt’s (2015: 79–​80) otherwise thorough commentary on Part I. Although this topic goes beyond the scope of the present chapter, it is important to note in passing that the word Factum carries two distinct but related senses: ‘something done’ and ‘something immediately present to consciousness.’ Kant’s Factum der Vernunft arguably combines the two. For further discussion, see Ware (2014b: 2–​9). 31. In the ‘Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre,’ Fichte also insists that there is only one way to warrant Glaube in the reality of freedom, namely, ‘through the presentation of the moral law within us’ (durch Aufweisung des SittenGestzes in uns) (ZwE 4:466). ‘Intuition of self-​activity and freedom are grounded in consciousness of this law, which is without doubt not derived from anything else, but is an immediate consciousness’ (ZwE 4:466). Therefore, it is ‘only through this medium of the moral law that I catch a glimpse of myself, and when I see myself in this way, I necessarily see myself as self-​active’ (ZwE 4:466). Just how early this particular commitment goes back in Fichte’s intellectual development remains a topic of scholarly dispute. For a clear overview, see Beiser (2002). 32. I agree with Wood (2016) that if we interpret Kant’s Factum as a deed of reason, of whose normative authority we are immediately conscious, ‘then Kant and Fichte are not far apart’ (2016: 123). (See the footnote at GWL 1:260 for evidence that this is how Fichte read Kant’s Factum too.) However, Wood goes on to explain Fichte’s rejection of Kant’s Reciprocity Thesis by focusing on the formula of autonomy. ‘Kant thinks freedom and the law are distinct (but co-​implying) thoughts because he is referring to a specific law. . . . The formula of autonomy co-​implies freedom, at least freedom in the positive sense of the term (G 4:446–​447; KpV 5:28–​31), but it is not the same thought as freedom. Fichte’s principle of morality, however, has no specific content. It really is the same as Kant’s “fact [or deed] of reason.” The moral principle says only that wherever moral authority applies to an act, that act must be done’ (Wood 2016: 123). While it is true that Fichte has yet to spell out the applicability or application of the moral law (two tasks he postpones for later in the book), he nevertheless derives a formula for the moral law in Part I, which he summarizes in a subsection titled ‘Description of the Principle of Morality According to This Deduction.’ In my view, Fichte denies the real conceptual separateness of freedom and morality on the grounds of his commitment to an absolutely unified first principle, which he thinks Kant lacks. 33. Fichte devotes the final paragraph of Part I  (i.e., SL 4:60–​61) to prevent certain ‘misunderstandings and objections’ that may linger in the mind of the reader, and here he argues explicitly that the moral law (in its abstract formulation as a principle of self-​sufficiency) is not a ‘fact’ (Thatsache) of common consciousness (SL 4:61). What is a Thatsache, he claims, is a feeling that certain actions are either obligatory or forbidden, without those actions bearing any connection to our self-​interest (SL

Notes  203 4:61). A surprising number of Fichte scholars conflate ‘compulsion’ (or ‘conscience’) and the ‘moral law’ in their treatments of Part I. 34. Nor does this conflict with Fichte’s earlier point about having factual cognition of our ethical nature, for there he is referring to the feeling of compulsion. At the level of common consciousness, attaching ‘unconditional faith’ (unbedingten Glauben) to this feeling—​and regarding it as an expression of our ‘highest vocation’ (höchste Bestimmung)—​ is sufficient for having a ‘dutiful disposition’ (pflichtmässigen Gesinnung) (SL 4:14). We will return to this topic in Chapter 5. 35. In a similar vein, Neuhouser writes, ‘Fichte’s rejection of Kant’s appeal to the notion of a “fact of reason” is most plausibly understood as based upon the belief that, in taking this position, Kant fails to carry out a thoroughgoing, consistent application of his own Critical principles to the field of moral philosophy’ (1990: 27). Others who defend this interpretation include Yuko Irie and Rivera De Rosales: ‘Kant’s moral philosophy places the moral law as a “fact of reason” first and examines what the moral law must be, if it exists. In contrast, Fichte puts the existence of self-​consciousness ahead of a system of ethics and demonstrates that an acceptance of a principle of morality is a prerequisite for such self-​consciousness’ (Irie 2006: 13); ‘[In contrast to Kant] Fichte precisely wants to deduce this moral law. . . . Therefore, he does not start from the moral law as a “fact of reason,” but rather seeks to explain it through its transcendental conditions of possibility’ (De Rosales 2008: 238). Those who find continuity between Kant’s doctrine of the fact of reason and Fichte’s position include Ameriks (2000: Ch. 4), Breazeale (2013: Ch. 5), and Wood (2016: Ch. 2). 36. As Guyer explains, ‘The key to understanding the nature of self-​consciousness in general thus becomes the understanding of human action, and the key to understanding this is understanding freedom. The key to understanding freedom, in turn, is to understand that activity must have its own law distinct from the laws that govern that which is represented merely as object, and the key to Fichte’s transcendental derivation of the moral law is then the insight that the moral law is the only candidate for such a law of the distinctive activity of the self ’ (2015: 139). What Guyer then calls the ‘crucial claim’ of Fichte’s deduction is that ‘understanding oneself as self-​determining requires the concepts of practical philosophy and ultimately the recognition of oneself as governed by the moral law’ (141). Note that Guyer draws much of his interpretation from the introduction to the System of Ethics, whereas I am focusing on the deduction proper (in §§1–​3 of Part I). 37. As a reviewer has helped me to see, the difference between Maimon and Fichte is not just a matter of where they locate the basis of their deduction, with Maimon privileging a theoretical ground and Fichte privileging a practical ground. The difference is that Maimon’s deduction of the moral law goes beyond the standpoint of common reason altogether: it seeks a purely theoretical ‘fact.’ Fichte’s deduction, by contrast, seeks to give a philosophical investigation (and ultimately, a justification) of our common standpoint. While Fichte arrives at conclusions accessible only to the transcendental philosopher—​concerning, above all, the concept of the moral law—​ his entire approach remains ‘inside,’ as it were, the framework of common reason.

204 Notes 38. Of course, Kant has his own reasons for regarding a deduction of the moral law as unnecessary, since he thinks that in order to see how our consciousness of the moral law is possible, all we need to do is attend to the necessity with which reason prescribes its claims to us (KpV 5:29–​30). Yet both Kant and Fichte agree that the buck stops with the moral law. We find an equally clear statement to this effect in Fichte’s essay ‘On the Basis of Our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World,’ published in 1798: ‘Therefore, conviction in our ethical vocation already flows from a moral voice and is belief or faith [Glaube]; and in this respect one speaks quite correctly in saying that belief or faith is the element of all certainty [das Element aller Gewissheit ist Glaube].—​And so it must be, since morality, insofar as it is morality, can be constituted absolutely only through itself and in no way through some logically coercive thought’ (GGW 5:182). A page later he continues, ‘That I should and what I should is the first and most immediate. This permits no further explanation, justification, or authorization; it is known for itself, and it is true for itself. It is grounded and determined by no other truth; instead, all other truth is rather grounded in it.—​Whoever says, “I must first know whether I can [do something] before I judge whether I should,” either abrogates the primacy of the moral law [den Primat des Sittengesetzes], and thereby the moral law itself, when he judges this way practically, or he completely misrecognizes the original course of reason when he judges this way speculatively’ (GGW 5:183–​184). Thanks to a reviewer for directing my attention to this essay. 39. Later in the System of Ethics Fichte offers a related point about how theoretical conviction and morality come apart:  ‘It is equally impossible to force morality upon anyone through theoretical conviction. First of all, theoretical conviction itself cannot be forced upon anyone—​a true proposition that explains many phenomena in the human being and that academic philosophers rarely take to heart, because to do so would disturb them in their illusion that they are capable of improving and converting human beings by means of syllogisms. No one is convinced who does not delve into himself and feel inwardly the consent of his own self to the truth that has been presented, a consent that is an affect of the heart and by no means a conclusion of the understanding’ (SL 4:316). 40. Sebastian Gardner (2016) defends a similar claim in an illuminating essay devoted to comparing Fichte and Schelling. As he explains, Fichte ‘identifies the supremacy of practical reason with the categoricality of moral demands—​an alignment which in Schelling’s eyes disqualifies it, by subordinating the unconditioned to the inherent conditionedness of morality’ (2016: 334). 41. At the level of transcendental reflection—​to which Fichte guides the reader in §3 of the System of Ethics—​the moral law is the ‘the conceptual consciousness that the I has of its freedom,’ as a reviewer puts it. On my view, this is another instance in which Fichte is radicalizing Kant’s Disclosure Thesis, since he views freedom and morality as two aspects of the I as such, rather than as two co-​entailing concepts (pace Kant’s Reciprocity Thesis). See Wood (2016:  Ch. 4)  and Ware (forthcoming) for further discussion.

Notes  205 42. For Fichte, the ordinary person need only follow the dictates of ‘conscience’ (das Gewissen), which he characterizes in terms of our higher faculty of feeling. We will return to this topic in Chapter 5. 43. Cited in Henrich (1994: 69). 44. This feature of Fichte’s deduction is explored in further detail by Crowe (forthcoming).

Chapter 4 1. The distinction between a real and a mere formula philosophy first appears in the 1794 Wissenschaftslehre. Fichte writes, ‘In a doctrine of science facts will certainly be established, upon which a system of real thinking distinguishes itself from all empty formula philosophy; but that it is a fact is something not to be postulated, but rather to be arrived at by way of proof, as we have done in the present case’ (GWL 1:220). 2. Most studies of Fichte’s moral philosophy pass over §§4–​9 with little commentary. But it is my conviction that they contain the key to understanding the System of Ethics, as I hope to show in this chapter. 3. All this bears support for my claim, introduced in Chapter 1, that Fichte’s organization of tasks in the System of Ethics fits the model of what Kant calls an architectonic method. In the same way that Kant begins by analyzing the faculty of pure practical reason in isolation from the material elements of sensibility, Fichte begins by analyzing willing in isolation from its objects. The aim of this analytic path is to yield support for what I have called the disclosure thesis, the claim that the moral law is the only ‘form of thought’ for determining our consciousness of freedom. The goal of the synthetic path is then to show that the moral law is legislative for practical reason as a whole, considered in both its pure and empirical dimensions. For both Kant and Fichte, this leads to a theory of how the moral law positively interacts with our capacity of feeling, and that is the main point I wish to stress. A theory of action must attend to the material conditions of desire (and its lower expression as a natural drive) in order to secure the connection of the moral law to the dynamics of willing an object. 4. Cf. ‘But a self-​productive striving that is fixed, determined, something definite, is what one calls drive’ (GWL 1:287). 5. Longing, Fichte writes, is ‘the feeling of a need with which one is not oneself acquainted. We feel that something—​we know not what—​is missing’ (SL 4:125). 6. On this picture, what is represented as brute in desire requires a connection to free reflection to become an instance of agency proper: ‘Freedom is therefore already manifest in desiring, for an act of free reflection intervenes between longing and desiring’ (SL 4:127). 7. Fichte’s strong antinaturalist stance is most clear when he adds the following caveat to the claim that ‘my nature must be explained originally; it must be derived from the entire system of nature and grounded in the latter’ (SL 4:109). He writes: ‘What we are talking about here is an explanation and a derivation that is undertaken by the I itself when it occupies the viewpoint of ordinary consciousness; we are by no means talking about an explanation provided by the transcendental philosopher. The latter

206 Notes explains everything that occurs in consciousness on the basis of acting on the part of reason as such’ (SL 4:109–​110). 8. For exceptions to this neglect, see Fischer (1869), Burman (1891), and Schick (2015). 9. As Fischer (1869) explains this idea, ‘Nature as a whole must be thought as such, in which every part is determined through itself and in this determinacy at the same time a “result is the determinacy of all parts through themselves”: as a whole, whose parts determine themselves and at the same time determine each other reciprocally . . . an organic nature. . . . In an organic whole, every part determines itself and at the same time needs the integration of all other parts. The need is a drive’ (1869: 702). 10. Fichte also calls it a ‘drive for self-​preservation’ (Trieb der Selbsterhaltung) (SL 4:122). For an illuminating discussion of this concept in Fichte’s ethics, see Loewe (1862). 11. Later in the System of Ethics Fichte specifies this vocation further in terms of striving for ‘universal moral cultivation’ (allgemeine moralische Bildung) on the basis of reciprocal communication with all rational human beings (SL 4:235). 12. This is why Fichte’s theory of conscience is not purely formal or second-​order, pace Kosch (2014, 2018). I will return to this issue of interpretation in Chapter 5.

Chapter 5 1. The labels ‘material function view’ and ‘formal function view’ correspond to what Kosch (2014) calls the ‘criterial’ and ‘non-​criterial’ interpretations of Fichte. Strictly speaking, however, the difference between these views is not whether conscience plays a criterial role, but whether it plays a criterial role in (1) determining the content of our judgments or (2) in determining the correctness of our convictions. I want to capture this distinction by speaking of ‘material’ and ‘formal’ views instead, although these labels are only tentative, as I will explain. 2. Breazeale, for example, writes, ‘Whereas for Kant, conscience is an internal tribunal that ascertains whether we have really determined our actions according to respect for the moral law, for Fichte it is precisely “an inner feeling within our conscience” that determines what is and is not our duty’ (2012: 200; emphasis added). See also Hegel (1807/​2018), Copleston (1963), and Beck (2008). While Kosch (2014) groups all these thinkers under the heading of what I am calling the material function view, it is not clear whether they subscribe to the same interpretation of Fichte’s theory of conscience. Later in his article, for example, we find Breazeale arguing that ‘communication with others’ is an essential (and by no means optional) element of moral deliberation (2012: 202–​203). Fichte’s ‘point,’ he writes, ‘is not simply that we have an obligation to respect their freely made decisions, but rather that, before arriving at our own decisions and as an integral part of our process of moral reflection, we have an obligation to take into account their moral judgments, thereby opening ourselves to the accumulated moral wisdom of our community. Though this is an important feature of Fichte’s ethics, it is occluded by interpretations that stress the alleged subjectivism of the same’ (2012: 202–​203). I cite this passage as evidence that Breazeale

Notes  207 does not subscribe to the claim that practical deliberation consists entirely in consulting our conscience. 3. Quite a few scholars have recognized that conscience is not responsible for determining the content of our duties. In his 1882 Geschichte der Ethik, for example, Jodl writes, ‘Yet the question is not yet fully answered: What is duty? The previous discussion explained this as follows: never stray from the decision of conscience and its immediate certainty. But this is only a formula, whose determinate content must be established and this is provided through the power of judgment, through an act of thinking delivered by a conclusion from premises. What are these premises? Fichte holds this investigation to be indispensable only for the purposes of a philosophical ethics. . . . The content of the moral law is therefore none other than that every thing be treated according to its final end. . . . From this fundamental thought Fichte’s concrete doctrine of duties develops. Its division is based on the conditions of I-​hood, viewed in terms of causality, substantiality, and reciprocal interaction’ (1882: 71–​72). Friedmann also draws this distinction: ‘What the moral law demands for a particular human being in a particular situation is found by judgment and sanctioned by conscience,’ adding that this ‘separation between the power of judgment and conscience is a Kantian thought’ (1904: 32). For similar statements in the reception of Fichte’s theory, see Stäudlin (1824), Wohlrabe (1880), Raich (1905), Rohs (1991a, 1991b), Pong (2002), Frischmann (2008), Moyar (2013), Kosch (2014), Wood (2016), and Breazeale (2018a). Pong (2002: Ch. 5) deserves credit for offering what is by far the most detailed treatment of this topic in the literature. 4. I am borrowing this preliminary formulation from Kosch (2014). As I have yet to find any scholar who subscribes to all four claims, we should treat this interpretive position as a tentative, and ultimately incomplete, sketch. (Thanks to Allen Wood for pointing this out to me.) While Kosch’s account is helpful, she equates (1) the ‘material’ function of conscience (what she calls its ‘criterial’ role) and (2) its ‘first-​order,’ action-​guiding function. That is why, in rejecting the material function view, Kosch also rejects the idea that the feelings of conscience play an action-​guiding role. On the alternative reading I defend, Fichte does assign the feelings of conscience an action-​ guiding role, but only at the level of common consciousness. It is the task of the transcendental philosopher to discover a principle behind these feelings that reveal the content of our moral duties. The key point, then, is that conscience still plays a first-​ order role: the feelings of conscience, while not delivering the content of our moral duties, are nevertheless guiding affective states for the ordinary person to act upon. In this respect, qualified versions of both (3) and (4) accurately portray Fichte’s position, an insight we miss if we follow Kosch’s reading. Thanks to Kien-​How Goh, Dean Moyar, and Allen Wood for helpful conversations on this topic. 5. For an illuminating analysis of this argument, see Breazeale (2012). Breazeale frames it in terms of the charge, voiced recently by Neuhouser (1990), that Fichte’s ethics is ‘too subjective and arbitrary’ (2012: 186; see also Pippin 2000). Note that even Hegel, whom Kosch (2014) identifies as the first proponent of the material function view, has a more subtle line of interpretation. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel’s criticism is that the self of conscience must draw the content of duty from sensibility (what

208 Notes Fichte calls the ‘natural’ drive), which it must then convey in a universally recognizable medium, namely, through a declaration of its conviction concerning duty (what Fichte calls ‘reciprocal communication’ with others) (see especially §643 and §652). For Hegel, this is what sets up a dialectic between conscience, as a form of acting consciousness, and others, as a form of judging consciousness, whose eventual conflict and resolution takes us beyond the realm of conscience to the realm of spirit in what he terms mutual ‘forgiveness’ (Verzeihung) (1807/​2018: §§669–​671). 6. ‘Therefore, conscience, in the majesty of its sublimity rising above determinate law and every content of duty, puts any content it likes into its knowing and willing. Conscience is the moral genius who knows the inner voice of his immediate knowing to be the divine voice, and as he is in this knowing, he just as immediately knows existence, he is the divine creative power who has the vitality of life within its concept. He equally conducts a worship service within himself, for his action is the intuiting of his own divinity’ (Hegel 1807/​2018: §655). Hegel repeats this narrative in the Philosophy of Right (starting from §136 up to the end of ‘The Good and the Conscience’) (1820/​ 1991). While Fichte is the general target here, Hegel does qualify his remark about the self-​divinization of conscience, writing, ‘It cannot in fact be said of Fichte that he made the arbitrary will of the subject into a principle in the practical sphere, but this [principle of the] particular, in the sense of Friedrich von Schlegel’s “particular selfhood,” was itself later elevated to divine status’ (1820/​1991: §140). This suggests that Fichte is a transitional thinker in Hegel’s dialectic from duty to what he calls ‘irony.’ In a later text Hegel makes this explicit: ‘In Fichte’s case the limitation [to subjectivity] is continually re-​appearing, but because the ego feels constrained to break through this barrier, it reacts against it. . . . This first form, Irony, has Friedrich von Schlegel as its leading exponent. The subject here knows itself to be within itself the Absolute’ (1837/​ 1995: 507). For two excellent studies of Hegel’s response to Fichte, see Wood (1990) and Moyar (2011). See also Unger (1979) for a sophisticated analysis of Fichte’s theory of conscience in light of Hegel’s critique. 7. See also Fichte’s objection to the idea of having a ‘material duty of belief ’ (SL 4:165). 8. Note that §15 is titled ‘Systematic Presentation of the Formal Conditions for the Morality of Our Actions.’ Fichte only begins to theorize about the material content of our duties in §§17 and 18, that is, after his account of conscience. 9. As Kosch (2014) observes. 10. Clarifying what Fichte means by the ‘self-​sufficiency of reason as such’ is not an easy task. On one reading, defended by Kosch (2015), the normative structure of this ‘final end’ is actually consequentialist. For a criticism of this view, see Wood (2016: 175–​ 176), who in turn defends a nonconsequentialist reading. I shall defend a third alternative in Chapter 8. 11. As Wood explains, ‘The theoretical questions “Should I do this, or that?” “Should I have done this, or that?” may be to some extent forever open. Conscience deals with the fact that, despite this theoretical uncertainty and fallibility, I must act, here and now, and I must act in a spirit of moral seriousness or resolute dutifulness. Therefore, there must be a criterion that enables me to do this with the certainty that my action conforms to the demands of morality’ (2016: 162). Later we shall see that Fichte’s

Notes  209 conception of the open-​ended nature of moral inquiry lies behind his idea that moral disagreement is always possible, and that rational communication with others is therefore necessary. See Breazeale (2012) for a thoughtful discussion of why Fichte must give primacy to an ethics of conviction, despite his commitment to an ethics of communication. I  shall propose a way to reconcile these two commitments in Chapter 8. 12. See Kosch (2014) for a nice treatment of this distinction. As I noted earlier, this is not a new interpretive point. For scholars who explicitly uphold this distinction in their interpretations of Fichte’s moral philosophy, see Stäudlin (1824), Jodl (1882), Raich (1905), Friedmann (1904), Wohlrabe (1880), Rohs (1991a, 1991b), Pong (2002), and, in the more recent literature, Zöller (2005), Frischmann (2008), and Moyar (2013). In personal communication Frischmann has clarified her reading of Fichte’s theory of conscience, according to which judgment determines the content of actions, in specifying what we ought to do, and conscience plays a merely formal role, bearing only upon the inner agreement of our convictions. ‘Conscience is thus only a formal test,’ she explains, citing SL 4:164–​168; ‘it provides no content’ (pers. comm.). 13. The affinity between Fichte’s theory of conscience and Kant’s was recognized by many scholars in the nineteenth century. In his masterful Geschichte der Lehre von dem Gewissen, for example, Carl Friedrich Stäudlin writes, ‘Fichte therefore explains conscience as the activity of a capacity to feel [Thätigkeit des Gefühlsvermögens] in opposition to the power of judgment [Urtheilskraft], and recognizes in that respect the property of a “mere feeling for the immediate consciousness of our determined duty,” wherein the pure original I announces itself. If we take away the clause “mere (formal) feeling,” then we retain the definition of consciousness of our determinate duty. The consciousness of something determinate, Fichte proceeds further, can never be immediate, but is first to be found through an act of thinking; therefore, even the material for the consciousness of our duty (with respect to the content [Inhalt] of a determinate action) is not immediate. . . . Formal consciousness of duty is immediate, and what is formal in this consciousness is a mere feeling’ (1824: 146–​147). Fichte ‘thus agrees with Kant,’ he concludes: ‘Conscience itself does not give the material of duty; this is supplied by the power of judgment alone, and conscience is no power of judgment’ (1824: 36). For studies of Kant’s theory of conscience, see Hill (2002), Timmermann (2006), Wood (2007a), and Ware (2009). Later in this chapter I will show where Fichte’s theory of conscience differs from Kant’s. 14. In other words, when we judge that we ought to φ, the correctness of our conviction in this judgment manifests itself in the form of a feeling of harmony. Conversely, any lingering doubt in this correctness manifests itself in the form of a feeling of disharmony. Thanks to the power of conscience, then, we have an internal criterion for tracking which convictions are certain and which are not, and this allows us to commit to the course of action we have judged as our duty. As Pong (2002: 151) correctly observes, this distinguishes Fichte’s theory of conscience from Kant’s. Bacin (2017) makes a strong historically informed case for thinking that Fichte overstates the affinities between his theory of conscience and Kant’s, although limits of space prevent me from discussing Bacin’s article further.

210 Notes 15. As we shall see, Fichte acknowledges this problem at SL 4:169. Surprisingly, unlike the threat of arbitrariness—​which Hegel and his followers made notorious—​this problem has gone largely unnoticed by contemporary scholars. Crowe (2013) and Pong (2002: Ch. 5) are two exceptions. 16. While this doctrine has been the object of close study in the German literature—​ notably by Lohmann (2004)—​it receives only passing treatment in Wood (2016). 17. To quote Fichte again: ‘Are my drive as a natural being and my tendency as a pure spirit two different drives?’ he asks. ‘No, from the transcendental point of view the two are one and the same original drive [Urtrieb], which constitutes my being, simply viewed from two different sides’ (SL 4:130). Fichte repeats this point a few pages later: ‘From the transcendental point of view, we by no means have anything twofold, containing two elements independent of each other [i.e., a natural drive and a pure drive], but rather something that is absolutely simple’ (SL 4:133). For similar remarks, see SL 4:41 and 4:144. 18. For more on this distinction, see Binkelmann (2007) and Wood (2016). 19. Recall Fichte’s examples: ‘My desiring has as its object things of nature, with the goal either of unifying these things with me immediately (as in the case of food and drink) or of placing them in a certain relationship with me (as in the case of clear air, an extensive view, good weather, and the like)’ (SL 4:127). 20. Wood offers a good summary of this point: ‘Just as doubt is felt, so it is also resolved through feeling—​a feeling of self-​harmony with respect to the proposed action. . . . In the case of dutiful action, it is this certainty that permits us to act seriously and resolutely. It is practical decisiveness, and the feelings associated with it, that is the business of conscience and conviction. Fichte observes that it is not through argumentation that I know whether I am in doubt or certain, but only through an immediate feeling’ (2016: 163). For similar remarks, see Kosch (2014: 10) and Merle (2015: 117). 21. Fichte is sensitive to the fact that speaking of ‘feeling’ in this context may seem odd. ‘In order to prevent the word feeling from occasioning dangerous misunderstandings,’ he says, ‘I also wish to stress the following: a theoretical proposition is not felt and cannot be felt; what is felt is the certainty and secure conviction that unites itself with the act of thinking this theoretical proposition’ (SL 4:174). Fichte also claims that ‘[t]‌hinking should rigorously pursue its own course, independently of conscience,’ adding, ‘The allegedly “objective” instructions of feeling are unregulated products of the power of imagination, which cannot stand up to an examination by theoretical reason’ (SL 4:174–​175). This latter remark is further proof that Fichte does not assign a material function to the operations of conscience. 22. There are weaker and stronger versions of the thesis that we cannot doubt our feelings. A weaker version is that we cannot doubt our feelings because they belong to the class of nonrepresentational states. (In Humean terms, they are ‘original existences.’) Fichte is making a stronger claim, however, since I believe he would agree with Kant that feelings have an intentional structure, even though they fall short of objective cognition. In Kant’s terms, feelings are representations of agreeableness-​to-​oneself or disagreeableness-​to-​oneself (and they are ‘pathological’ or ‘practical’ depending on

Notes  211 whether the representation concerns an object of desire or an object of pure practical reason) (see KpV 5:9n). In this light Fichte is saying that we cannot doubt our moral feelings, not because they infallibly represent an object outside of us but because they infallibly self-​represent our own moral strivings. For further discussion of Kant’s notion of feeling, see Ware (2014a). 23. For instance, see Kosch (2014, 2018). 24. As we discussed in Section 4.5. 25. Fichte’s further investigation in Part II, which I will return to in Chapter 7, yields three principles for actualizing our self-​sufficiency in the material world, with respect to (a) our bodies, (b) our minds, and (c) our relations with others. 26. For a different reading, see Kosch (2014). 27. With the exception of Merle (2015), this point of contrast between Kant and Fichte has gone overlooked by commentators. 28. As Fichte writes elsewhere, ‘Everyone bears his own conscience within himself, and each person’s conscience is entirely his own. Yet the manner in which the law of reason commands everyone can certainly be established in abstracto. Such an inquiry is conducted from a higher standpoint, where individuality vanishes from view and one attends only to what is universal or general’ (in Breazeale 1992: 469). For a superb account of this distinction in Fichte’s philosophy at large, see Breazeale (2014b: Ch. 13). See also Oesterreich and Traub (2006). 29. See Martin (2013) for further discussion of conscience in the Vocation of Humankind. 30. As defended by Kosch (2014, 2018). 31. For a different reading, see Kosch (2014, 2018). 32. Another worry I  suspect readers might have is that Fichte appears committed to denying the reality of moral complexity, as when he writes that there is ‘only one’ action among the manifold we face that is truly dutiful (SL 4:207; cf. 265). Such remarks suggest that Fichte is a moral ‘absolutist’—​a view, many have argued recently, that fails to appreciate the reality of moral uncertainty. See Lockhart (2001) and Sepielli (2013) for further discussion. In reply, I only want to point out that Fichte’s claim regarding the specificity of duty belongs to his theory of practical deliberation in general, not to his theory of conscience in particular. So while this topic deserves further analysis, it goes beyond the bounds of our discussion here. 33. Fichte himself is sensitive to the fact that people may appeal to the ‘feelings’ of their conscience only to justify what is ultimately nothing more than moral fanaticism (see SL 4:168). It is important to keep in mind, however, that this phenomenon only casts doubt on our ability to distinguish genuine from spurious appeals to conscience, and to that extent it is an epistemological problem. It would therefore be a mistake to draw a general conclusion from this, namely, that every appeal to conscience is spurious. 34. One might worry that if such feelings reveal the harmony of our present state and our ‘original I,’ the faculty of conscience would give us moral knowledge after all. Yet here we must bear in mind that the feelings of conscience reveal only our general motivational orientation (whether or not we are striving to fulfill our ethical drive). We still require an exercise of judgment to determine what we should do in any given case.

212 Notes 35. For example, he states clearly that if someone’s conscience ‘subsequently confirms what follows from those premises [concerning his judgment of duty], then it thereby also confirms indirectly the practical validity of the premises in question, though this does not confirm their theoretical validity; for the moral element [Zusatz] in these premises, which reveals itself only in the result and which is approved by conscience, can be right, even while the theoretical element is entirely false’ (SL 4:176). Conscience and judgment come apart, in other words, and Fichte’s infallibility thesis applies only to the former. 36. Fichte argues that the goal of open dialogue and communication is to produce what he calls ‘shared practical convictions.’ This, he says, is what ‘serves to unite human beings; everyone wants only to convince the other of his opinion, and yet, in the course of this conflict of minds, he is perhaps himself convinced of the other’s opinion. Everyone must be ready to engage in this reciprocal interaction’ (SL 4:235). Fichte continues that someone ‘who flees from such interaction, perhaps in order to avoid any disturbance of his own belief, thereby betrays a lack of conviction on his own part, which simply ought not to be the case. From this it follows that such a person has an even greater duty to seek such engagement in order to acquire conviction for himself ’ (SL 4:235–​236). We shall return to this topic in Chapter 8. 37. This example comes from Hills (2009: 110). It is worth noting that the majority of examples in the secondary literature have this structure. Claire knows that the guilty should be punished and that it would be wrong to harm the innocent. Her quandary concerns how to identify the right cases to apply this principle. (The primary examples offered by Jones [1999] and Enoch [2014] have this setup as well.) This is revealing, I think, since it shows that moral uncertainty haunts us more when it comes to applying moral principles than when it comes to identifying those principles themselves. 38. See Jones (1999) and Sliwa (2012). 39. See Enoch (2014). 40. See Nickel (2001), Hopkins (2007), and Hills (2009). Fichte also anticipates Mogensen’s (2017) claim that an ideal of ‘authenticity’ informs our skepticism about moral deference. 41. As Hills explains, in treating moral testimony as advice, ‘you are not simply putting your trust in it or deferring to it; you are using your own judgment about the matter at issue’ (2009: 123). 42. Fichte would agree, I think, with Wolff ’s observation that a ‘person who issues the “command” functions merely as the occasion for my becoming aware of my duty, and his role might in other instances be filled by an admonishing friend, or even by my own conscience’ (1970: 6). 43. This point anticipates Howell’s view that ‘some moral deference is necessary if one is to become a moral agent’ (2014: 411). 44. Fichte returns to this pathology in §16. ‘Cowardice,’ he writes, ‘is that laziness that prevents us from asserting our freedom and self-​sufficiency in our interaction with others. . . . This is the only explanation for slavery among human beings, both physical and moral, the only explanation for submissiveness and parroting. I am terrified by

Notes  213 the physical exertion required for resistance, and therefore I subjugate my body; I am terrified by the difficulty of thinking for myself that is inflicted upon me by someone who seems to me to be making bold and complicated claims, and therefore I prefer to believe in his authority in order thereby to rid myself of his demands all the more quickly’ (SL 4:202). The concept of self-​imposed ‘slavery’ (what we would call ‘bad faith’ or mauvaise foi, following Sartre) is also thematized by Kant and Rousseau. It shall be the central topic of Chapter 6.

Chapter 6 1. As Goethe wrote, ‘Even Kant required a long lifetime to purify his philosophical mantle of many impurities and prejudices. And now he has wantonly tainted it with the shameful stain of radical evil [radicalen Bösen], in order that Christians too might be attracted to kiss its hem’ (Goethe to Herder, June 7, 1793; in Fackenheim [1954: 340]). Schiller voiced a similar sentiment: ‘It is true that I find one of his first principles in this essay on religion scandalous (as you probably do as well), namely his assertion that the human heart has a propensity to evil. This he calls radical evil, a notion which must not be confused under any circumstances with the provocations of sensibility [Reizungen der Sinnlichkeit]’ (Schiller to Körner, February 28, 1793; in Morgan [2000: 163]). 2. See Michalson (1990) and Bernstein (2002). The objection is not new, though, and Fichte may have encountered it through Johann August Eberhard. In his 1794 essay ‘On Kantian Radical Evil in Human Nature,’ Eberhard wrote, ‘Now how does Herr Kant prove that such a radical evil exists, or that the human being is evil by nature? He does not carry out this proof, as would be expected, from principles of pure reason; rather, it rests merely on experience [bloß auf die Erfahrung]’ (in Louden [2011: 116]). 3. The Kant scholarship divides between formalist readings (see Allison 1990, 2012; Morgan 2005; Palmquist 2008; Muchnik 2010)  and anthropological readings (see Anderson-​Gold 1991; Wood 1999, 2010; Frierson 2003; Sussman 2005; Louden 2011; Pasternack 2014). The difficulty is that Kant is unclear what a ‘proof ’ of our propensity to evil would look like, whether it would be transcendental (and so a priori) or anthropological (and so a posteriori). In support of the latter view, Wood (2014b) has argued that when Kant speaks of a ‘formal proof ’ in the Religion, he is referring to a proof that would result from ‘future’ (weiterhin) research into human nature (R 6:25–​26). It would then be partly empirical and partly rational (Wood 2014b: 56). Interestingly, when Fichte asks what justification we have to assert the existence of a ‘truly positive radical evil,’ he writes, ‘Is it merely a matter of experience? This is what Kant seems to assume [that is, at R 6:32]. . . . Mere experience, however, would not entitle us to make such a universal presupposition. There must therefore be some rational ground for this claim’ (SL 4:199). What this last remark makes clear, in my view, is that Fichte is not seeking the kind of rational-​empirical proof Kant said future anthropological research could yield. 4. See Piché 1999, Kosch (2006, 2011), Dews (2008), Breazeale (2014), and Merle (2015). Rivera de Rosales (2007) argues for a somewhat different view, claiming that

214 Notes Fichte struggles between two conceptions of evil in the System of Ethics. For another view, closest to my own, see Wood (2019). Wood, however, only hints at the prospect of reading ‘inertia’ figuratively. 5. Schelling admires Kant for having the insight to locate evil in an ‘act of freedom,’ whereas Fichte ‘fell prey once again to the philanthropism prevalent in his moral theory and wanted to find this evil that precedes all empirical action in the lethargy of human nature’ (1809/​2006: 56). 6. See section 1.6. 7. ‘It is to be expected that he will reflect upon himself,’ Fichte writes. ‘When he does this he raises himself above himself and steps onto a higher level.—​This reflection does not ensue according to any law, but occurs through absolute freedom’ (SL 4:178). 8. For recent attempts to bring a genetic perspective to Kant’s ethics, with which I am sympathetic, see Sussman (2005) and Herman (2007). 9. Let me add two important qualifications. First, the sense of ‘cannot’ in this formulation is metaphysical, in that it reflects an aspect of our finitude, not a feature of our psychological makeup. Second, I am keeping the category of ‘defining features’ open here, because these features shift in prominence as we ascend to higher levels of agency. 10. For a more elaborate discussion of Fichte’s four stages, see Goh (2015). 11. Fichte adds that ‘one may of course also seek one’s own happiness in the happiness of others, but in this case the ultimate goal of acting still remains the satisfaction of these drives and the pleasure that arises therefrom, and hence one’s own happiness’ (SL 4:180). 12. Fichte nonetheless has some interesting things to say about how an agent might get stuck at Stage 2 or Stage 3 (such as the corrupting influence of bad philosophy)—​but these details are not relevant for the discussion at hand. 13. For a broader discussion of self-​sufficiency in relation to Fichte’s social and political philosophy, see James (2011). 14. To be clear, the agent we are considering does not deliberately seek unrestricted and lawless dominion. As Fichte puts it, he does not intend ‘to bring everything outside of him under the absolute sway of his will—​he does not intend anything at all, but is only driven blindly’ (SL 4:186). At this stage, the agent’s ‘aim’—​while not consciously worked out—​is to remove everything that obstructs his causality (SL 4:186). 15. While Fichte does not mention this text by name in §16, he is clearly indebted to Schiller’s (1795/​1993) Aesthetic Letters for this idea. In Letter 24, for instance, Schiller claims that we first become aware of reason through its ‘demand for the absolute’ (Forderung des Absoluten): once the individual begins to ‘use his intellect, and to connect the phenomena around him in the relation of cause and effect, reason, in accordance with its very definition, presses for an absolute connection [absolute Verknüpfung] and an unconditioned cause [unbedingten Grund]’ (1795/​1993: 160). Yet Schiller’s point is that the individual will at this early stage misrepresent this demand, for while he has acquired distance from his desires, his entire occupation up till now has been merely physical (1795/​1993:  160):  ‘In the very midst of his animality,’ he writes, ‘the drive toward the absolute catches him unawares—​and since in this state of apathy all his endeavor is directed merely toward the material and the

Notes  215 temporal, and limited exclusively to himself as individual, he will merely be induced by that demand to give his own individuality an unlimited extension rather than to abstract from it altogether: will be led to strive, not after form, but after an unfailing supply of matter; not after changelessness, but after perpetually enduring change. . . . That very drive, applied to his thinking and activity, was meant to lead him to truth and morality, brought now to bear upon his passivity and feeling, produces nothing but unlimited longing and absolute instinctual need’ (1795/​1993: 159). Unlike Fichte, however, Schiller firmly believes that what we call ‘evil’ (the agent’s unrestricted pursuit of happiness) is nothing more than a cognitive mistake. Due to our limited perspective as developing agents, we seek the unconditioned in our own desires ‘through a misunderstanding [Mißdeutung],’ and our perception of the moral law as external to us is the ‘most unfortunate of all errors [Irrthümer]’ (1795/​1993: 160). As we shall see, Fichte draws an explicit distinction between the pure drive leading to unrestricted dominion and moral evil as such. For further discussion of Schiller, see Ware (2018b). 16. See Kosch (2014, 2018). 17. This is not something we can do individually, however. Later in the System of Ethics, Fichte argues that reflection upon our self-​sufficiency requires the presence of another person, someone who ‘summons’ (Aufforderung) us to free activity (SL 4:220–​222). I have discussed this issue elsewhere in Ware (2010). Relatedly, striving for self-​sufficiency is not a private affair, since Fichte believes—​in the tradition of Rousseau and Kant—​that morality develops ‘by means of purely rational education in the context of social intercourse’ (SL 4:349). We shall return to this topic in Chapter 8. 18. Fichte makes this point earlier: ‘The whole concept of our necessary subjugation to a law arises solely through the absolutely free reflection of the I upon itself in its own true essence, its self-​sufficiency’ (SL 4:56–​57). Relatedly, he writes that ‘the law as such becomes a law for the latter when the intellect reflects on it and freely subjects itself thereto, and thus self-​actively makes this law into the unbreakable maxim of all its willing’ (SL 4:56). 19. Fichte also rejects the intelligibility of willing evil for the sake of evil in The Vocation of Humankind (see BdM 2:228 in particular). 20. See, for example, Kosch (2011), who argues that there are degrees of moral accountability for Fichte, since she thinks failure to step back and reflect is a form of involuntariness (lack of formal freedom). It follows, in her view, that what results is not evil because we are not responsible for it. But there are two potential problems with this reading. Aside from the fact that Fichte claims that we are responsible for not reflecting (see SL 4:174 and 181), the reading Kosch defends would leave Fichte exposed to the kind of objection Sidgwick (1907) mounted against Kant, namely, that Kant’s theory commits us to the absurd view that we are responsible only for morally right actions, not morally wrong ones. This reading also has difficulties explaining why Fichte would insist that in order ‘to avoid all misunderstandings, we still have to point out that what drives our nature and determines our physical power need not be only the moral law itself. After all, we are also able to carry out immoral decisions’ (SL 4:74).

216 Notes 21. Kant’s commitment to motivational internalism finds textual support in the Religion. After explaining that a ‘human being (even the worst) does not repudiate the moral law, whatever his maxims, in rebellious attitude (by revoking obedience to it),’ he writes, ‘The law rather imposes itself on him irresistibly, because of his moral predisposition; and if no other incentive were at work against it, he would also incorporate it into his supreme maxim as sufficient determination of his power of choice, i.e. he would be morally good’ (R 6:36). For further discussion, see Tenenbaum (2007). 22. For Fichte, the first type of obscurity occurs when we select an action contrary to our duty because we have not examined every course of action before us with due diligence and care—​an examination, he says, that would have directed our awareness to the right action had we carried it further. The second type of obscurity occurs when we put off acting on our duty here and now, thinking that we can act upon it later (SL 4:195–​196). In the latter case, then, we have a clear consciousness of our correct duty (unlike the first case), but we render obscure its exigency. 23. Here it is noteworthy that Fichte speaks of an agent forming a ‘mixed maxim’ (eine gemischte Maxime): ‘One is content with having to do one’s duty here and there, and one might even sacrifice to duty those enjoyments that do not otherwise entice one—​ such as greediness, in the case of a spendthrift, and pleasures that might deprive one of honor, in the case of an ambitious person—​, but one reserves for oneself one’s favorite enjoyments. In this manner one makes a contract between conscience and desire and believes that one has come to terms with both’ (SL 4:196). 24. Important differences remain, which I will discuss later. 25. For another example, consider the following remark by Kosch:  ‘Only if we fail to ponder hard enough to see our duty do we fail to will it. According to Fichte, laziness is “the radical evil in human nature” (though clearly what he has described is not radical evil in the Kantian sense familiar to readers of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason; moral evil in that sense does not exist, for Fichte)’ (2006: 272–​273). In a similar spirit, Merle writes, ‘Exactly like Plato, Fichte also explains immorality through ignorance [Immoralität durch die Unwissenheit]’ (2015: 199). 26. Piché (1999) argues that Schelling’s view finds support in Fichte’s choice of terms in §16. In this section, he claims, Fichte uses the expression radical ‘Böse’ only twice (both in reference to Kant), preferring radical ‘Übel’ instead (1999: 216). But I do not think this terminological point carries much weight. First, ‘Böse’ appears six times in §16, not two, one of which is in the very title, ‘Über die Ursache des Bösen im endlischen vernünftigen Wesen.’ Second, Fichte uses the term ‘Böse’ many times later in the System of Ethics, each without reference to Kant, and in one he connects ‘Böse’ to rationalization (e.g., making ‘an exception to the rigor of the law’) (SL 4:270; see also 4:288 on the ‘Böse’ of lying). To support his case further, Piché (1999: 217) suggests Fichte’s choice of terms reflects Kant’s distinction between ‘Böse’ and ‘Übel’ from the second Critique. There Kant says ‘Übel’ refers to sensibility (the ‘ill’ of our state), and ‘Böse’ refers to agency (the ‘badness’ of our actions) (KpV 5:60). But clearly, Fichte does not consider the radical ‘Übel’ of human nature an ‘ill,’ which suggests (pace Piché) that he is not straightforwardly adopting Kant’s distinction in §16.

Notes  217 27. Pedro (2006) is a noteworthy exception to this trend, and there is much in her essay with which I agree, especially her critique of Piché (1999). 28. Given the contrast he sets up between ‘experience’ (Erfahrung) and a ‘rational ground’ (Vernunftgrund), Fichte is evidently wanting a ‘formal proof ’ of our propensity to evil that does not amount to anthropological study. If the latter is what Kant ultimately meant by a ‘formal proof ’—​as Wood (2014b) argues—​then Fichte is perhaps guilty of misunderstanding Kant’s position in the Religion. I do not think this detracts from Fichte’s analysis in §16 of the System of Ethics, however, because he is clearly attempting to go beyond Kant in securing the ‘universal presupposition’ of evil. As we shall see, Fichte’s strategy is to say, first, that all of us must work through four stages of agency, and second, that all of us inevitably resist maintaining our clear consciousness of duty at Stage 4. This is the sense in which Fichte’s proof is properly formal. 29. Kant argues along these lines in the Religion. To say ‘A human being is by nature evil’ does not mean we can infer evil from the ‘concept of his species ([i.e.,] from the concept of a human being in general, for then the quality would be necessary)’ (R 6:32). Nevertheless, Kant adds, ‘we may presuppose evil as subjectively necessary in every human being’ (R 6:32). This captures Fichte’s view, but to avoid confusion, I will speak of ‘inevitability’ instead of ‘subjective necessity.’ 30. See Neuhouser (1990) and Zöller (1998) for detailed examinations of Fichte’s theory of will and its development in the 1790s. 31. Goh’s (2015: 449) distinction between ‘freedom of reflection’ and ‘freedom of choice’ may be helpful here. On the one hand, we can say that the stage of agency someone occupies will limit his freedom of choice, in that he will be constrained by whatever ‘way of thinking’ (Denkweise) is characteristic of that stage. On the other hand, we can say that someone (considered as a rational being) still has the freedom to reflect upon himself and ascend to a higher Denkweise. In this way, freedom of reflection pertains to how we move ‘vertically’ between the four stages of agency, whereas freedom of choice pertains to how we move ‘horizontally’ within any given stage. Within this framework, we can understand the agent’s responsibility for evil in terms of his refusal to reflect (an act of freedom, even if not an act of choice, strictly speaking). 32. It is also difficult on the standard interpretation to explain why Fichte would second Kant’s claim that ‘radical evil is inborn in the human being and yet has its ground in freedom’ (SL 4:182), or why he would later conclude that ‘the evil in human beings has its ground in freedom’ (SL 4:183). Remarks to this effect appear throughout the System of Ethics, as when Fichte asks, ‘For what could compel our own will? Or what, except for our own will, could set into motion that force [Kraft] of ours through which we sin?’ (SL 4:266). 33. Wood (2019) sees Fichte’s concept of laziness as a precursor to many core themes in nineteenth-​and twentieth-​century existentialism, especially to Kierkegaard’s notion of ‘despair.’ While I am unable to explore these connections further, it is worth mentioning that Fichte frames the very decision of adopting a philosophical system in broadly existentialist terms: ‘Whether one embraces or rejects [idealism] is something that depends upon one’s inmost way of thinking and upon one’s faith in oneself. A person who has faith in himself cannot accept any variety of dogmatism or fatalism’

218 Notes (in Breazeale 1992: 95; cf. SL 4:25–​26 where Fichte says the ‘entire decision’ of his philosophy lies in affirming the reality of freedom.) See Martin (1997) for further discussion. Also, for an excellent study of Fichte’s influence on Sartre specifically, see Gardner (2005). 34. Textual support for a literal reading appears to come in §9, where Fichte speaks of ‘the propensity that drags me down [herabsieht] into the series of natural causality’ (SL 4:142), calling to mind Plato’s description of the ‘bad horse’ whose heaviness ‘drags its charioteer toward the earth and weighs him down’ (Phaedrus 247b). But I see no reason to interpret Fichte literally in this passage, for the weight of our natural drive, much like the weight of Plato’s bad horse, may still be a metaphor of our willed resistance to duty. 35. For Fichte, a version of this desire underlies the position of the ‘dogmatist’ who, by refusing to affirm his own self-​sufficiency, affirms the self-​sufficiency of things. As Fichte writes, ‘They glimpse their own image only insofar as it is reflected through things, as in a mirror [Ihr Bild wird ihnen nur durch die Dinge, wie durch einen Spiegel zugeworfen]. If they were deprived of these things, then they would lose themselves at the same time. Thus, for the sake of their own selves, they cannot renounce their belief in the self-​sufficiency of things; for they themselves continue to exist only in conjunction with these things’ (ErE 1:433). One strength of my account over the standard interpretation is that it harmonizes with Fichte’s more general critique of dogmatism in philosophy. The latter, we might say, presents us with a theoretical analogue of our will to passivity. 36. According to the standard interpretation, the claim that inertia inheres in all of nature or matter is a crucial link in the proof: it is because we are natural/​material beings that no one is exempt from this force. One might worry, however, that if Fichte only means to highlight the fact that we have a tendency similar to the torpor of natural things, as I am suggesting, then he no longer has any extra-​empirical basis for proving that all finite rational beings are evil, and that would fall short of the universality condition. In response to this worry, let me add that no one is exempt from inertia because no one comes into the world as a fully developed rational agent. That means no one is exempt from the work necessary for reaching Stage 4. My interpretation meets the universality condition, then, because our propensity to resist this work (‘inertia’ in the figurative sense) belongs to all finite rational beings. Thanks to Kien-​How Goh for pressing me on this point. 37. One may still be puzzled by Fichte’s description of inertia in the appendix as a force of ‘nature’ that holds us in ‘check,’ or his description of our moral task as one of ‘[stepping] onto the other side of the scale’ to overpower the ‘weight of [our] nature’ (SL 4:201). At a glance, these remarks appear to support the standard interpretation I have called into question. Nevertheless, it is important to see that while Fichte speaks of ‘weights’ and ‘scales’ (the language of causal mechanism), he writes, ‘From the point of view just indicated we ourselves are nothing more than nature’ (SL 4:200), and ‘If one views this matter in purely natural terms, then it is absolutely impossible that a human being should be able to help himself ’ (SL 4:201). This reveals that the naturalistic descriptions we find in the appendix are the result of a specific explanatory

Notes  219 perspective Fichte takes up, the perspective of causal mechanism. Since that is not the only perspective he brings to human action and agency, it would be wrong to maintain that ‘inertia,’ in its core meaning, is nothing more than a force of nature. All of this suggests that proponents of the standard interpretation cannot rest their case solely on passages where Fichte’s language is mechanistic, as with his discussion of ‘weights’ and ‘scales’ at SL 4:201. They must further show that a mechanistic perspective alone explains how inertia is a positive ground of evil. I do not see how that strategy could work, however. What I think proponents of the standard reading overlook is that, for Fichte, transcendental philosophy ‘explains everything that occurs in consciousness on the basis of acting on the part of reason as such’ (SL 4:110), including what we call ‘nature’ or the ‘not-​I.’ 38. This is why, for Fichte, an agent who pursues unrestricted dominion at Stage 3 is not evil: she has no awareness of the moral law. So there is nothing for her to twist and warp. 39. In their English translation of the System of Ethics, Breazeale and Zöller (2005: 191n25) point us to the Fourth Proposition of Kant’s essay on universal history. There he writes that a human being ‘expects resistance everywhere because he knows of himself that he is inclined on his side toward resistance against others. Now it is this resistance that awakens all the powers of the human being, brings him to overcome his propensity to indolence [Faulheit], and, driven by ambition, tyranny, and greed, to obtain for himself a rank among his fellows’ (IaG 8:21). In my view, we gain a much richer understanding of Fichte’s account of evil by tracing this reference (from SL 4:202) to Kant’s essay on enlightenment. 40. Similarly, Fichte claims that laziness first produces cowardice. ‘Cowardice is that laziness that prevents us from asserting our freedom and self-​sufficiency in our interaction with others’ (SL 4:202). By way of illustration, he writes, ‘I am terrified by the physical exertion required for resistance, and therefore I subjugate my body; I am terrified by the difficulty of thinking for myself that is inflicted upon me by someone who seems to me to be making bold and complicated claims, and therefore I prefer to believe in his authority in order thereby to rid myself of his demands all the more quickly’ (SL 4:202). Here we can once more detect the influence of Kant’s essay on enlightenment. ‘It is so easy to be immature,’ Kant writes. ‘If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all’ (WA 8:35). In this context Fichte also draws a distinction between two general classes of people in human society: the ‘weak’ who prefer an existence of slavery and submission, and the ‘strong’ who want to dominate and impose their lawless will everywhere (SL 4:202). Interestingly, Fichte goes on to write that in ‘this state of subjugation, which he certainly does not enjoy, the coward consoles himself particularly by means of cunning and deceit,’ anticipating Nietzsche’s (1887) analysis of ressentiment in Essay I of the Genealogy of Morals. 41. Compare this to Kant’s definition from the third Critique: ‘Liberation from superstition is called enlightenment, since . . . the blindness to which superstition leads, which indeed it even demands as an obligation, is what makes most evident the need to be led by others, hence the condition of a passive reason [passiven Vernunft]’ (KU

220 Notes 5:294). A similar claim appears in the Religion where Kant speaks of a ‘lazy and timid cast of mind [kleinmüthige Denkungsart] (in morality and religion), which has not the least trust in itself and waits for external help’ (R 6:57). 42. While a full comparison lies beyond the scope of this book, there are two further differences between Kant and Fichte worth flagging. First, Fichte is more ambitious than Kant in his approach to the universality condition. In the Religion, Kant restricts the scope of his discussion to ‘human nature’ (menschlichen Natur), not—​as he characteristically does in other texts—​to ‘rational beings in general’ (vernünftigen Wesens überhaupt). Fichte, on the other hand, is clear in directing his proof to the broader category, arguing that the traits of evil he has deduced are not ‘valid only for the human species’ but apply to all ‘finite rational beings’ and follow from ‘the concept of finitude as such’ (SL 4:204). Second, Fichte departs from Kant in rejecting his restriction of human motives to morality and self-​love. As we have seen, Fichte adds a third—​the blind pursuit of independence and lawless dominion over the not-​I—​which is neither egoistic nor virtuous. 43. Enoch (2006) has offered the most forceful version of this challenge, aimed primarily at Velleman (2000), Rosati (2003), and Korsgaard (2009). I shall be highlighting one aspect of Enoch’s criticism: his claim that attempts to ground the normativity of moral requirements in aims constitutive of agency fail to explain how those aims can be normatively nonarbitrary. For other criticisms of the constitutivist strategy, see Setiya (2003), Tiffany (2011), and Tubert (2011). 44. Enoch’s (2006) critique of Rosati (2003) illustrates this problem nicely. In Rosati’s case we are to imagine an agent so reflective that every aspect of her self appears normatively arbitrary. Enoch then asks why this agent should be moved by the discovery that certain aspects of her self are necessary to be an agent at all. From the standpoint of full reflective authority, why should the necessary-​for-​agency status of such capacities matter? ‘She is, remember, stepping back from her desires, attempting a kind of detached scrutiny, evaluation, and choice. . . . But why should it matter, as far as the question of normative arbitrariness is concerned, that some parts of her psychology have this necessary-​for-​agency status?’ (Enoch 2006: 178; modified). As I will argue next, my claim is that Fichte’s thesis of limited reflective authority closes off this particular skeptical question. But I am not claiming it closes off every possible objection Enoch could raise. 45. It does not close off the question ‘Why be conscientious?,’ a point I will return to shortly. 46. Something like a thesis of full reflective authority is present in Korsgaard’s (1996) account of the ‘normative problem.’ She writes, ‘Our capacity to turn our attention on to our own mental activities is also a capacity to distance ourselves from them, and to call them into question. . . . I desire and I find myself with a powerful impulse to act. But I back up and bring that impulse into view and then I have a certain distance. Now the impulse doesn’t dominate me and now I have a problem. Shall I act? Is this desire really a reason to act?’ (1996: 93). As we have seen, Fichte believes we can step back from our drive to self-​preservation, but not so much that we can ask ‘Shall I act on it?’ For Fichte, we have only enough space to consider the maximal satisfaction of our

Notes  221 desires, in terms of both their intension and extension. Thus, because Fichte thinks acts of reflection provide us with only limited distance, he believes we must work through successive stages of agency. 47. Later in the System of Ethics Fichte identifies ‘despair over oneself ’ as a source of ‘immorality’ (SL 4:319), and that is why he claims moral educators have a duty to show people ‘to respect themselves more highly than they may have respected themselves until now’ (SL 4:352).

Chapter 7 1. The German is also Ichheit, but I have translated it as ‘selfhood’ to distinguish it from the principle of I-​hood. 2. As Fichte writes, ‘It follows that my drive to self-​sufficiency absolutely cannot aim at annihilating the condition of its own possibility, that is, the freedom of the other. . . . I am not allowed to be self-​sufficient at the expense of the other’s freedom’ (SL 4:221). This yields a material duty to others, of which Fichte distinguishes three kinds: (1) a negative duty: ‘Never disturb the freedom of the other; never use the other as a mere means to your own end’; (2) a positive duty: ‘Cultivate the freedom of the other as much as you can. Help, support, and encourage the freedom of the other to the extent that it is within your power’; and (3) what Fichte calls a limitative duty: ‘Support for the other that cannot be related, with sincere conviction, to the other’s freedom is impermissible and contrary to the law’ (SL 4:221). 3. Here I  think Hansjürgen Verweyen (1975) is right:  ‘Embodiment and intelligence condition the drive for self-​sufficiency, not next to the interpersonal constitution of freedom—​which would give in this connection three self-​standing parts in the division of a material ethics—​but within this most fundamental structure of the I. The System of Ethics as a whole thereby shows itself as an ethics of society [Gesellschaftsethik]’ (1975: 146). 4. See, for example, Neuhouser (1990). 5. I  believe Wood (2016:  Ch. 7)  underplays this departure, although he correctly emphasizes the fact that Fichte describes our status not as mere tools but as ‘active tools.’ As Fichte puts it, ‘I am an instrument of the law, as an active principle, not as a thing serving the law’ (Ich bin Werkzeug des Gesetzes, als thätiges Princip, nicht Mittel desselben als Sache)’ (SL 4:270). 6. Citing this passage, Robert Pippin (2001) writes, ‘If there is a “monism” emerging in the post-​Kantian philosophical world, the kind proposed by Fichte (and that decisively influenced Hegel, as this passage especially reveals) is what might be called a normative monism, a claim for the “absolute” or unconditioned status of the space of reasons’ (2001: 164). While I agree that ZwE 1:505 gives evidence of Fichte’s commitment to monism, and while I believe it is correct to describe this monism as ‘normative,’ Pippin’s appeal to ‘the space of reasons’ requires fleshing out. My worry is that this Sellarsian notion is too thin to capture that kind of reason-​giving that Fichte ascribes to the idea of striving for wholeness.

222 Notes 7. See Talbot (1906) and Breazeale (2012) for excellent discussions of this dilemma in Fichte’s moral philosophy, to which I am indebted. Also see Pong (2002) for an illuminating account of the tension between Fichte’s commitment to a personal and interpersonal criterion for adjudicating cases of moral disagreement.

Chapter 8 1. As defended by Kosch (2014, 2015, 2018) 2. Based on this remark, it can be tempting to read Wood (2016) as a proponent of a ‘deontological reading’ of Fichte’s ethics, as I did in a previous article (see Ware 2018a). But this is not an accurate way to depict Wood’s position, since Wood himself is sensitive to the teleological dimension of Fichte’s System of Ethics, as I hope to show in this chapter. This does not make the difference between my reading and Wood’s merely terminological, since I wish to foreground a connection between Fichte’s concept of our ‘final end’ (which fixes the goal of our striving for self-​sufficiency) and the ideal of social perfection. The final shape of my reading is thus complementary with Wood’s, I believe, although it places greater weight on the holistic character of Fichte’s ethics. In contrast to the consequentialist reading, however, the kind of social perfectionism I ascribe to Fichte does not permit agent-​neutral calculations of duty, not even at a ‘scientific’ or ‘philosophical’ level. More important, what sets my reading apart from others on offer today is that it traces the holistic character of Fichte’s ethics back to his doctrine of science from the 1794 Wissenschaftslehre—​a connection overlooked on Kosch’s reading and only hinted at on Wood’s. 3. See, for example, Neuhouser (1990: 141–​142). 4. It is not clear who in the reception of Fichte’s moral philosophy (prior to Kosch) found inspiration in the spirit of these remarks. Kosch cites a passage from the System of Ethics where Fichte mentions a belief common at the time that people cannot fly, to which he responds, ‘But why should a human being not be able to do this? . . . By means of a balloon, however, one can indeed lift oneself into the air and can move around there with some degree of freedom and purposiveness’ (SL 4:94–​95). On her view, Fichte ‘explicitly underlines the relation between technological progress, knowledge, and what it is possible to will,’ adding that SL 4:94–​95 ‘appealed especially to Feuerbach’ (Kosch 2018: 78). This is a puzzling statement, however, for two reasons. First, the context of Fichte’s cited remark has only to do with the ‘ought-​implies-​can’ principle, as he makes clear in the sentence immediately preceding the one Kosch cites: ‘Properly speaking, if we are at all able to will something then we are also able to do it; for the most part, however, we are not able to do it all at once but only in a certain order’ (SL 4:94). Second, while Feuerbach was no doubt influenced by Fichte, he makes no mention of SL 4:94–​95 in the passage to which Kosch (2018: 78n37) directs the reader (p. 101 of the third 1848 edition of his study on Bayle, originally published in 1838). As we shall see, Fichte’s perceived antagonism to nature has been the source of a long-​standing objection to his form of idealism, since the time of Schelling and the early German Romantics.

Notes  223 5. At least since the early Schelling and up to the present day, readers have found Fichte’s attitude toward nature troubling. In a brilliant but sadly neglected study, Max Hildebert Boehm (1914: 19) shows the extent to which the ‘popular view’ of Fichte as the ‘greatest despiser of nature’ rests on a mistaken view of his philosophical system. I agree, although examining Fichte’s philosophy of nature falls outside the scope of this book. 6. Of course, the idea that our proper attitude toward nature should be one of domination and control is an old one. But the specific claim that progress in science and technology are the best means for this end, while often associated with the work of Francis Bacon, appears to be of Roman origin. As Cicero (45 bce/​1896: 153) has Balbus, his Stoic apologist, say, ‘All dominion, too, over the resources of the earth belongs to man. We enjoy the mountains and the plains, the rivers and the lakes are ours, we sow the crops and trees, we give fertility to the land by conveying water to it, we confine the streams, we straighten or divert their course—​in short, by means of our hands we endeavour to create in nature a kind of second nature.’ 7. In Kosch’s view ‘progress toward material independence or self-​sufficiency is depicted (in part) as progress away from a situation in which the species must struggle for survival “against recalcitrant nature” ’ (2015a: 357). Citing this passage, Wood (2016: 148) expresses puzzlement over the ‘in part’ qualification: ‘She does not explain what else she thinks absolute self-​sufficiency would involve. . . . But in her further interpretation of Fichte’s ethics, Kosch seems to treat maximal control as simply identical with the end of absolute self-​sufficiency.’ I think there is room to reconstruct Kosch’s view in terms of independence rather than control—​but even this reconstruction will face difficulties, as we shall see. 8. See Wood (2007a) for his general critique of consequentialism as a moral theory. 9. We should also bear in mind what Fichte says in the preface to the Vocation essay, ‘that the “I” who speaks in the book is by no means the author’ (BdM 1:1). Much like the first-​person voice of Descartes’s Meditations, the first-​person voice of the Vocation essay represents a progressive narrative of philosophical discovery, one which the reader can enter into and follow along. This lends evidence to the idea that the dominating and controlling view toward nature we find in Fichte’s essay is not his own view but the viewpoint of a specific (and by no means final) dialectical stage of insight. 10. Elsewhere Fichte describes the body in similar terms: ‘The body is a product of nature and consists of parts, which constitute this determinate whole only in their union with one another; therefore, nature contains within itself the law that its parts must necessarily unite to form wholes, which, in turn, constitute one single whole. Nature is both organized and organizing’ (in Breazeale 1992: 465). 11. This claim is also central to Breazeale’s (2014b: Ch. 12), who writes that ‘only if one finds oneself to be a divided self can one have an interest in self-​harmony. Accordingly, the actual interest of reason always lies in the ongoing and endless process of self-​ liberation and self-​unification—​never in being free or in being a harmoniously unified self, but always in striving to be free and in striving to become a unified self ’ (Breazeale 2013: 349–​350).

224 Notes 12. Elsewhere Horkheimer is even more explicit in this connection, writing that ‘domination of nature involves domination of man’ (1947/​2013: 66), and that ‘nature is today more than ever conceived as the mere tool of man. It is the object of total exploitation that has no aim set by reason, and therefore no limit’ (1947/​2013: 76). Unfortunately, Horkheimer attributes this concept of nature directly to Fichte, claiming that in his early doctrine the ‘sole raison d’être of the world lies in affording a field of activity for the imperious transcendental self,’ making the ‘relationship between ego and nature . . . one of tyranny’ (1947/​2013: 76). On the basis of isolated remarks Fichte makes in his popular writings, such as the Vocation of Humankind, one might think of his philosophy as celebrating a certain will to domination (see, e.g., Stone [2014], who cites BdM 1:82). However, as we learn in the 1794 Wissenschaftslehre, the impossibility of subordinating the not-​I to the I is precisely what mandates the mutual coordination of the two. And the same is true, I would add, in the context of Fichte’s moral philosophy: the impossibility of subordinating the natural drive to the pure drive is what mandates their reciprocal interaction, the result of which is the ethical drive proper. We miss these crucial points, I fear, only if we read Fichte’s ethics independently of his philosophical system as a whole. 13. Fichte thus rewrites his initial formula as follows: ‘The morally good person therefore wills that reason and morality should have dominion within the community of rational beings’ (SL 4:275). 14. The same point holds for what Fichte says near the end of the System of Ethics: ‘If humanity is to make any considerable advance, then it must waste as little time and power as possible on mechanical work; nature must become mild, matter must become pliant, everything must become such that, with only a little effort, it will grant human beings what they need and the struggle against nature will no longer be such a pressing matter’ (SL 4:362). When Fichte explains what this practice actually involves, he consistently speaks of ‘directing’ nature (as in the case of farmers, miners, and fishermen) and ‘modifying’ nature (as in the case of craftsmen, artisans, and factory workers)—​but talk of ‘controlling,’ ‘dominating,’ or ‘mastering’ nature is absent (SL 4:345). 15. As noted, Kosch directs the reader to the following passage for textual evidence: ‘But why should a human being not be able to do this? One is only unable to do this immediately—​in the way that, if one is healthy, one is immediately able to walk. By means of a balloon, however, one can indeed lift oneself into the air and can move around there with some degree of freedom and purposiveness’ (SL 4:94–​95). But again, Fichte mentions this example only in the context of §7, where he argues that willing an end commits us to a series of intermediary steps we are capable of performing (on the basis of the ‘ought-​implies-​can’ principle). Pace Kosch, nothing in the surrounding text deals with technological control over the natural environment. 16. To make matters more difficult for the reader, Kosch at one point tries to preempt a concern people have raised against her reading, ‘the idea that such control [over the natural environment] can be itself a necessary end—​as opposed to a contingent, possibly dispensable means to the achievement of whatever other ends an agent may have’ (2015: 371). However, rather than abandon the idea of Control and focus on

Notes  225 the broader notion of independence, Kosch doubles down and seeks to reconstruct Fichte’s conception of material independence in the following terms:

1. An agent with an interest in the exercise of her capacity rationally to set ends ought (ceteris paribus) to have an interest in the obtaining of any conditions necessary for the exercise of that capacity. 2. (Relevant) knowledge is a condition necessary for the exercise of the capacity rationally to set ends. 3. Control of (some part of) the environment is a necessary condition of (relevant) knowledge. 4. Therefore, an agent with an interest in the exercise of her capacity to set ends ought (ceteris paribus) to have an interest in control of (some part of) her environment. (2015: 371)

The status of this argument remains unclear, however. Kosch describes control over nature as ‘an end partially constitutive of rational agency and a genuine and independent source of moral demands,’ on the one hand (2015: 371). But then she retreats to a weaker claim, saying that ‘[a]‌lthough it is not, all on its own, an end in itself, material independence is nevertheless an obligatory end, its pursuit a categorical imperative’ (2015: 371). Sadly, however, Kosch gives the reader no further clue to make sense of the distinction between (i) an ‘end in itself ’ and (ii) an ‘obligatory end’ that is ‘partially constitutive of rational agency and a genuine and independent source of moral demands.’ 17. A version of this claim is anticipated by Breazeale (2014b: Ch. 12) in a beautiful essay devoted to exploring Fichte’s commitment to the duality of our pure and empirical drives and our (infinite) task of bringing the two into harmony. ‘It is part of the concept of man that his ultimate goal must remain unobtainable and that his path thereto must remain endless. Thus it is not man’s vocation to reach his goal. But he can and he ought to draw ever nearer to it, and his true vocation, qua human being—​that is, as a rational but finite, a sensible but free, being—​lies in endless approximation toward this goal. Now if, as we surely can, we call this total harmony with himself “perfection [Vollkommenheit],” in the highest sense of the word, then perfection is man’s highest and unobtainable end. His vocation [Bestimmung], however, is to perfect himself without end’ (Breazeale 2013: 350). While I think Breazeale is correct to identify our final end in terms of the endless striving for perfection, I wish to place emphasis on the social dimension of this goal, which is otherwise obscured by the notion of self-​perfection. 18. Elsewhere Fichte goes so far as to say that true atheism ‘consists in quibbling over the consequences of one’s actions, in refusing to listen to the voice of one’s conscience until one believes one has first foreseen the good consequences of the same. One thereby elevates one’s judgment above God’s, and makes oneself into God’ (GGW 5:182). 19. In this regard there is perhaps a kernel of truth in what Hegel says about ‘conscience’ in the Phenomenology of Spirit, namely, that it is ‘precisely the essence of conscience to cut itself off from this calculating and balancing of duties and to come to a decision solely on its own without relying on any reasons of that sort’ (1807/​2018: §645).

226 Notes Fichte’s version of deontology also anticipates the ethical views of later post-​Kantian continental thinkers. Wood (2016) cites Kierkegaard, Lévinas, and Sartre (and we should add Derrida to his list as well). 20. It is also important to observe that for Fichte we can approximate the self-​sufficiency of the rational community only by acting in relation to specific others: my duty is always a duty to a particular you in any given situation of choice. Indeed, Fichte is opposed to making generalized calculations at the interpersonal level, say, about what would promote the greatest amount of self-​sufficiency for the greatest number of persons. Later in the System of Ethics, for example, we are presented with a thought experiment in which ‘the bodies and lives of several of my fellow human beings are in danger,’ and here Fichte poses the difficult question: ‘How shall I choose whom to save?’ (SL 4:304). In normal circumstances, he says, I should choose to save those in most need of help (‘children, sick people and old people’). But if I have a personal relationship to one of them, then I should give that individual precedence on the grounds that ‘a particular duty always takes precedence over a universal one’ (SL 4:304). However, Fichte argues that if no such personal tie is present, then ‘I should rescue the first person I can rescue, the first person I see’ (SL 4:304). So even when my responsibility is not born from a personal relationship (as it is, he thinks, with one’s spouse or child), I ought never to deliberate from a point of view across persons. My obligations remain person-​to-​person in all cases. 21. ‘The content of this law, in its practical function, could also be expressed as follows: act in accordance with your cognition of the original determinations (the final ends) of the things outside you’ (SL 4:69); ‘The moral law therefore aims to treat every thing in accordance with its final end. This furnishes us with an easy way to present scientifically the content or material of the moral law’ (SL 4:171–​172). 22. Instead, Wood proposes a nonmaximizing theory according to which we think of our actions ‘recursively, as the continuation of a series of finite actions, each with its own determinate end within the limited range of what it can accomplish, but then each also leading to a next member in the series,’ where the ‘final end’ is only ‘the (impossible) terminus of this recursive series’ (2016:  180). As much as I  find this promising as a theory of ordinary deliberation, however, I do not see how thinking of our actions recursively extends to Fichte’s philosophical deduction of the moral law’s applicability. 23. I am speaking of ‘objects’ in a technical sense here, as the original conditions of selfhood: our bodies, our minds, and our relations with others. Wood also points out that when Fichte employs ‘means-​ends reasoning in thinking about our duties,’ the ‘means’ in question ‘are never actions or rules and policies of action, as Kosch’s interpretation would require. These means are always things or persons’ (2016: 177). But in Wood’s view, this still gives Fichte’s ethics only a teleological ‘flavor’ (225). 24. As Fichte writes, ‘If the moral law wills something that is conditioned, namely, the realization through me of the dominion of reason outside of me, then it also wills the condition, namely, that I be a fit and capable means for this end [dass ich ein taugliches und geschicktes Mittel zu diesem Zwecke sey]’ (SL 4:257).

Notes  227 25. Brink (2003) has argued that Mill is a perfectionist in this sense. But we should emphasize that Mill’s focus on happiness (as the state of our passivity) could not be further from Fichte’s focus on self-​sufficiency (as the state of our activity). This contrast was acknowledged long ago by George Morris, who wrote that ‘J. S. Mill’s greatest personal misfortune was that he was born the son of James Mill, and not of Johann Gottlieb Fichte’ (1880: 336). See also Hurka (1993) for a discussion of perfectionism in connection with Aristotle’s ethics. 26. For an attempt to read Fichte’s theory of freedom in terms of a ‘perfectionist ethics,’ which is broadly consequentialist in form, see Moggach, who writes that Fichte ‘announces the thematics of German idealism’ in his ‘ethical injunction to bring the sense world under the command of reason, to transform objectivity in light of the idea of rational freedom, is the hallmark of German Idealism. Such a transformative relation to objectivity should not be construed narrowly (witness some recent readings) as the subjugation of external and internal nature; it is rather the expression of rational freedom, the manifestation of pure and not (primarily) empirical practical reason’ (2018: 150). In a note added to this passage, Moggach directs the reader to Wood (2016: 175–​176), who he says ‘effectively contests calculative-​instrumental readings of this type’ (2018:  150n57). While Moggach makes a strong historical case for reading Fichte’s political philosophy along these broader lines, I am not yet convinced that his account of Fichte’s ‘injunction’ captures the form of moral perfectionism present in Part III of the System of Ethics—​though settling this point of interpretation goes outside the scope of this book. 27. In personal correspondence Wood has explained his choice of terms as follows: ‘The reasons I would not label Fichte’s ethics “perfectionist” have to do with the limitations normally associated with that term when it is used as a pernicious stereotype. A perfectionist ethics is normally assumed to aim at the perfection of the individual agent. It is assumed that this agent has a ‘nature’ to be perfected, that we can have a determinate concept of this nature, and that everything the agent is or does can be determined by this nature and this concept’ (pers. comm). I agree that this label is unhelpful if we limit it to pre-​Kantian views of a human ‘nature’ or ‘essence.’ But I do not see why we must restrict its usage to such views. Nor do I see a better label than ‘perfectionism’ for distinguishing Fichte’s ethics from Kant’s, especially in light of his effort to bring normative content to the moral law from the conditions of our selfhood. 28. There are certainly teleological and perfectionist themes already visible in Kant’s ethics, as Guyer (2014) has documented. But the extent to which Kant’s ethics is a form of moral perfectionism is controversial. Interestingly, in an earlier work Wood (1999: 414n14) draws a useful distinction between (a) the basic principle of an ethical theory and (b) the mode of reasoning an ethical theory advocates in deciding what to do. On these grounds Wood argues that Kant is a deontologist with respect to (a) but a teleologist with respect to (b). I am unsure whether this distinction maps directly onto Fichte’s ethics, since Fichte also speaks of (c) the domain over which a basic principle has applicability. Within these variables, I am inclined to say that Fichte is a deontologist with respect to (a) and (b), but a teleologist with respect to (c).

228 Notes 29. Fichte goes on to argue that the agreement in question must be real, not merely ideal, and that the conditions of real agreement mandate the creation of a rational state, a rational church, and what he calls a ‘learned republic’ (SL 4:234–​249). 30. With this outline of my alternative proposal in hand, one might nonetheless wonder:  Does the perfectionist reading (‘according to which objects are measurable by their tendency to harmonize with a final end’) not collapse into the consequentialist reading (‘according to which actions are measurable by their tendency to maximize a positive outcome’)? To be sure, what the perfectionist and consequentialist readings share in common is the idea that we can specify our final end to a certain extent (contrary to Wood’s reading). However, the perfectionist reading I favor denies the following points: (i) that this final end of moral striving consists (in part) in material independence, (ii) that exercising control over the environment is a constitutive aim of rational agency, (iii) that the goodness of an action is a maximizing property (in the sense of furthering the end of material independence), (iv) that we deliberate about the consequences of our actions, and (v) that all practical reasoning is ‘technically-​practical’ in the sense of reasoning toward the means of attaining material independence (tenets central to Kosch’s reading). The denial of these five tenets should not come as a surprise, given that the emergence of post-​Kantian perfectionism (expressed by thinkers like Emerson and, later on, by Cavell) was consciously developed as an alternative to forms of nineteenth-​century British consequentialism. 31. A version of this objection is voiced by Pong (2002), although Pong frames the worry in terms of whether our power of reflective judgment is ‘monological’ or ‘intersubjective’ (2002: 151). 32. See Section 4.7. 33. Compare this suggestion to what Fichte says later in Part III: ‘My proposition obtains a less individual form when I communicate it to others and when they respond to it and present their own counter-​arguments, which, if the proposition is, in itself, correct, spring from their individual ways of thinking. I correct the latter, and in doing so I develop my own representation in a way that is more generally comprehensible, even in my own eyes. The wider this reciprocal interaction extends, the more truth (objectively considered) gains thereby, and the more I gain as well’ (SL 4:247). I take this as further evidence to support my claim, defended previously by Verweyen (1975: 146), that the ‘System of Ethics as a whole thereby shows itself as an ethics of society [Gesellschaftsethik],’ which is also the backbone of Wood’s (2016) reading. 34. In this same context Fichte also writes, ‘This end [of convincing others] is not the exclusive end of one or another individual, but is a communal end. Everyone is supposed to have this end; and precisely this—​namely, to enable everyone else to posit this same end for themselves—​is the end of each person, just as surely as he wills universal moral cultivation [allgemeine moralische Bildung]’ (SL 4:234).

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Index acting (action) (agency): body and, 149–​50, 152 evil and, 119–​43 intersubjectivity and, 179, 180 moral law (duty) and, 6, 27–​28, 44, 59, 70–​71, 101, 171 normativity and, 113–​17, 139–​40 stages of, 122–​24 (see also bodies and embodiment; causality) Adorno, Theodor, 171 agility (Agilität), 37 Ameriks, Karl, 74, 193n1, 196n10, 203n35 analytic method. See method Anerkennung. See recognition animals, 120, 121, 139–​40 antinomy: the law for freedom and, 63–​64 the third (Kant), 25–​27, 35–​36 Aphorisms on Religion and Deism (Fichte), 3–​8, 34, 37 architectonic method. See method Aristotle, 179 atheism, 225n18 Attempt at A Critique of Al Revelation (Fichte), 2, 6–​7, 52, 187–​88 Attempt at a New Theory of Human Representation (Reinhold), 49–​50 Aufforderung. See summons autonomy. See self-​legislation   Bacin, Stefano, 209n14 Beck, Gunnar, 199n4, 206–​7n2 Beiser, Frederick, 17–​18, 74, 194–​95n1,  199n7 Bestimmung. See vocation Bildung. See self-​formation Bildungstrieb. See drives bodies and embodiment: acting and, 129, 148, 149–​50, 152–​54 duties concerning, 148–​51, 154–​55, 185, 189

higher/​lower faculties of desire and,  106–​8 summons and, 154 (see also tool of the moral law) Breazeale, Daniel, 74–​76, 120, 129, 171, 194–​95n1, 196n12, 200n14, 201n20, 206–​7n2, 207–​8n5, 208–​9n11, 211n28, 222n7, 223n11   categorical imperative (Kant), 31–​32, 102, 160–​61,  179–​80 category of relation (Kant), 57, 149 causality: freedom and, 25–​29, 31–​32, 34–​36, 124 of reason (Reinhold), 30–​32 (see also acting; bodies and embodiment; freedom; willing) certainty, 97–​98, 99, 144, 175, 188. See also conscience; conviction Chambers, Robert, 193n5 chance (contingency), 23–​24, 32–​33, 41–​45, 106–​7, 115,  123–​24 children,  116–​17 Christian religion, 4–​5, 16 church,  84–​85 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 223n6 coercion, 31, 153 cognition (Erkenntnis): duties of, 185–​86 factual/​ common, 52–​55,  59–​60 feeling and, 104–​8, 184–​85 genetic/​ scientific, 52–​55, 59–​60, 64–​65, 68, 75–​76, 111 (see also common consciousness; drives; ends) principles of, 35–​37, 75 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 17–​18, 168, 194n7 common consciousness (common standpoint/​standpoint of life): cognition and, 75, 191 duties and 75

240 Index common consciousness (common standpoint/​standpoint of life) (cont.) moral normativity and, 69, 76–​77,  184–​85 philosophical consciousness versus, 52–​54, 69, 75, 110–​13, 190–​91 communication: conscience and, 184 conviction and, 17–​20, 114–​15, 184 ethics of, 1 moral agreement and, 180, 182, 184 (see also conviction) community of rational beings: individual/​ethical vocation and, 19, 151, 160 moral judgement and, 117–​18, 171, 179 moral law and, 150–​51, 159 (see also intersubjectivity) conscience (Gewissen): common/​philosophical standpoint and, 110–​13,  144–​45 conviction and 182–​86 duties and, 100–​5, 114–​15, 116, 188 ethical drive and, 94–​97, 144 evil and, 124, 129, 135, 136, 141 feeling (Gefühl) and, 83, 89, 107–​10, 144–​45, 185–​86,  188–​89 Fichte’s concept of, 99 grounding morality in, 1 moral error/​deference and, 113–​17, 188 moral law and, 18–​21, 177–​78 (see also communication; conviction) consciousness: agency and 122–​24 conviction and, 111–​12 duties and 18–​20, 51–​52, 102–​5, 109, 111,  125–​38 evil and, 125–​38 feeling and, 87 freedom and, 7–​8, 10, 39, 82–​83, 157,  188–​89 moral law and, 46, 82, 189, 190–​91 nature and 91, 158 (see also common consciousness; self-​consciousness; willing) consequentialist interpretations, 164,  167–​77

constraint: feeling and, 104, 109–​10 moral law and, 51 contempt, 95–​96, 106–​7, 112–​13, 114, 124, 184–​85. See also feeling; self-​ contempt conviction (Ueberzeugung): agency and, 182–​86 communication versus,  17–​20 conscience and, 97–​98, 103–​5, 185–​86 duties and, 113–​17, 136 feeling and, 107–​10 freedom and, 53, 65, 69, 71, 73, 74–​75 (see also communication; conscience; duties) Copleston, Frederick, 206–​7n2 Creuzer, Leonard, 50, 195n2 Crowe, Benjamin 194n5, 205n44, 210n15   deception, 18–​19, 44–​45, 51, 53, 134–​35. See also evil; self-​deception deduction 11–​12, 33, 53–​55, 58–​59, 60–​63, 64–​67,  68 deliberation, 85, 92, 103–​5, 107–​13, 125, 140–​41, 159, 169, 172, 177–80 deontological interpretations, 164, 175–​77,  178–​80 desires, 5, 59–​60, 140–​42. See also ends; higher capacity of desire; lower capacity of desire Dews, Peter, 129 Doctrine of Science (Wissenschaftslehre) background 11, 21–​22, 74–​76 System of Ethics (Sittenlehre) and, 55–​57, 59–​60, 76–​77, 79–​80,  187 drive (Trieb): agency and, 122–​24 concept of, 87–​91, 105–​6, 164 ethical (Sittliche Trieb), 13–​17, 94–​97, 103–​4, 106–​9, 113–​15, 122–​24, 145–​48,  184–​85 for happiness, 141 for independence, 141, 142 for self-​organization, 152–​53, 156–​57 for self-​preservation, 122–​24, 130 for self-​sufficiency, 122–​28, 136–​38, 142, 148–​51, 170

Index  241 for the cognition of truth (Maimon), 51–​52, 53, 72, 76 for wholeness, 142–​43, 151 formative (Bildungstrieb), 91–​94, 151–​55, 156–​57,  187 foundational (Grundtrieb), 147 fundamental (Urtrieb), 85–​87, 109–​10,  142 higher/​lower, 150 “I” (Ich) and, 60–​66 mechanism and, 89–​91 natural, 17, 38–​39, 86–​87, 88–​97, 106, 121–​24, 140–​41, 144–​48, 149–​50, 151–​55, 170, 187 original (Urtrieb), 13–​17, 18, 95–​96, 105–​6, 109, 122–​24, 145–​48, 151–​55, 164–​65,  187 pure, 13–​18, 94–​97, 113–​15, 120, 121–​24, 142, 144–​48, 187 selfish/​unselfish (Reinhold), 13, 31–​33, 41–​45,  123 toward identity (der Trieb nach Identität),  156–​58 willing and, 99–​110, 147, 188 (see also feeling; harmony; subject-​object unity) duties: concept of, 3, 36, 41 conscientious conviction and, 107–​13,  182–​86 freedom and, 3–​4, 53 material,  185–​86 self-​sufficiency and, 75 to respect, 150–​51 (see also bodies and embodiment; cognition; common consciousness; conscience; consciousness; conviction; common consciousness; community)   education,  116–​17 end (Zweck): cognition of, 178 desires and, 6–​7, 88 intersubjectivity and, 152–​54 moral compulsion and, 59–​60, 64–​65 others as, 158–​63 enjoyment (Genuß), 16–​17, 79, 89–​97, 105–​6, 122–​24,  145–​55

Enoch, David, 220n43, 220n44 Entwerfen. See project Erkenntnis. See cognition ethical vocation (sittliche Bestimmung), 11–​20, 95–​97, 105–​17, 145–​65, 169, 186, 187–​88 See also evil; wholeness Ethics (Spinoza), 3–​4, 35–​36 evil: concept of, 123, 125–​26, 129–​31 dominion and, 170–​71 ethical vocation and, 18–​19 proof of, 131–​38 reflection and, 138–​41 See also acting; conscience; consciousness; experience; Kant; lying; inertia existentialist tradition, 18–​19, 217–​18n33 experience: evil and, 131–​33 freedom and 48–​53 of moral obligations, 69, 75, 116, 159   fact: fact/​act (Thathandlung), 54, 56 deed (Factum), 6, 46, 47–​49, 50, 51–​52, 54, 65–​66, 71, 73, 195n4, 199n4 Factum. See deed faith (Glaube), 44–​45, 52–​53, 59–​60, 72–​73,  81–​82 feeling (Gefühl): conflict of, 4–​6 doctrine of, 105–​7 drive and, 87–​89 duties and 101, 191 of harmony, 87–​89, 95–​97, 99–​110, 114, 152,  184–​85 of moral compulsion, 59–​60, 64–​69 moral law and, 10, 49–​50, 53 of respect, 106–​8, 144 See also cognition; conscience; consciousness; constraint; conviction; self-​contempt; self-​ respect Feuerbach, Johann Gottlieb, 2–​3, 222n4 Fischer, Kuno, 206n9 Foundations of Natural Right (Fichte),  79–​80

242 Index Franks, Paul, 74 freedom: causal model of, 25–​34 formal/​ material,  36–​41 genetic model of, 34–​36, 121–​22 illusion and 65–​66, 73–​76 Kant and, 3–​8, 32, 36–​41, 66–​69 nature and, 25–​29, 66–​69, 103 skepticism and, 72–​73 transcendental,  25–​27 willing and, 7, 81–​82 (see also agency; bodies and embodiment; causality; conviction; consciousness; duties; drives; evil; faith; Maimon; Reinhold; self-​ activity) Friedmann, Jónás, 207n3 Frischmann, Bärbel 105, 207n3, 209n12   Gardner, Sebastian, 204n40 Gefühl. See feeling Gelehrte Erkenntnis. See cognition Genuß. See enjoyment Gewissen. See conscience Glaube. See faith God, 14–​15, 101, 128, 155–​56, 161–​63, 176 Godhead 35 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 213n1 Goh, Kienhow, 195n2, 197n21, 198n25, 198n27 Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant), 27–​28, 146 Guyer, Paul, 70–​71, 227n28   happiness, 6–​7, 9–​17, 122, 130. See also drives harmony 93, 109, 155–​58, 170, 180–​82, 184–​86,  188–​89 See also ethical vocation; feeling; wholeness; willing Hegel, G.W.F. 102, 168, 182, 207–​8n5,  208n6 higher capacity of desire, 83, 85, 145–​46, 188–​89. See also drives Hills, Allison, 212n37, 212n41 Horkheimer, Max, 21, 224n12   I-​hood (Ichheit): not-​I, 17–​18, 21, 57–​58, 123, 155–​56

principle of, 7–​8, 11–​12, 58–​65, 86–​87, 149–​51, 185, 190 subject-​object unity, 58, 62–​63, 67, 96 (see also drives; nature) idealism, 20–​21, 72, 74–​76, 166–​67 identity: as persons, 10, 13–​14, 86 thesis 64–​66 (see also drives) imagination, 6–​7, 104, 201n19 individuality, 55–​56, 150–​53, 159–​60, 162–​63, 185, 211n28, 214–​15n15 inertia, 119–​20, 129–​36,  141–​42 intersubjectivity, 150–​55, 184–​85, 189. See also acting; community of rational beings; bodies and embodiment, summons Irie, Yukio, 61   Jacobi, F.H. 24–​25 Jones, Karen, 212n37   Kant, Immanuel: autonomy, 16, 28 evil and, 119–​22, 125–​31, 138–​41 factum of reason, 47–​49, 51–​55, 72–​73 Fichte versus, 1–​3, 55–​60, 66–​69, 104, 111–​12, 179–​80,  187 moral law and, 47–​49 real/​formula philosophy, 79–​81 reciprocity thesis, 27–​29 (see also antinomy; categorical imperative; category of relation; freedom) Korsgaard, Christine, 138–​39 Kosch, Michelle, 166–​74, 206n2, 215n20   Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 25 limitation, 13–​14, 85–​87, 162–​63, 169–​72. See also ethical vocation longing, 87–​97. See also desire; drive; feeling; lower capacity of desire lower capacity of desire, 83, 85, 89–​90, 96–​97. See also drives lying, 134–​35, 175. See also evil   Maimon, Salomon, 23–​25, 32–​34, 36–​45, 51–​63, 64–​66, 72–​73. See also drives Martin, Wayne, 197–​98n24, 198n25 Merle, Jean-​Christophe, 211n27

Index  243 method: analytic method 8–​9, 205n3 architectonic method 8–​12, 205n3 synthetic method, 11–​12, 14, 63–​65, 78–​79,  84–​85 Mill, John Stuart, 169 Moggach, Douglas, 227n26 moral compulsion, 68 moral law: applicability of 10, 20, 89–​94, 111,  177–​80 content of, 16, 81–​82, 93–​96, 148–​51 deduction of, 55–​73, 187 feeling and, 10–​11, 18 formulation of, 16 freedom and, 28–​29 objectivity and, 51–​52 (see also acting; community of rational beings; conscience; consciousness; constraint; drive, deduction; Maimon; Reinhold; tool of the moral law; willing) moral phenomenology, 59–​60, 68, 111 moral principle, 28, 145, 168, 202n32 Morris, George, 227n25 motivation, 127–​28,  142–​43   nature: dominion over, 169–​72, 190 ethical/​ moral, 59–​60, 64–​65, 76–​77,  111 formative law of nature, 91, 156–​57, 190 human, 26–​27, 59, 168 laws of, 27–​29, 168–​69 mechanism and, 25–​27, 48, 170, 172 organicist view of, 89–​94, 151–​55 (see also consciousness; drives; ethical vocation; freedom; harmony; inertia; self-​unity; teleology; wholeness) Neuhouser, Frederick, 41, 203n35 normativity, 59–​60, 69, 138–​41 not-​ I.  See I   objectivity, 63, 72. See also moral law organic whole, 170, 206n9 organicism. See nature organism, 91, 156–​57. See also bodies and embodiment; nature

Pedro, Teresa, 217n27 perception, 35, 109–​10 perfection, 15–​16, 155–​58, 164, 166 persons, 86, 160–​61. See also bodies and embodiment; ethical vocation; identity; tool of the moral law philosophical consciousness. See common consciousness Piché, Claude, 216n26 Pippin, Robert, 221n6 Pong, Wen-​berng, 207n3, 209n14, 222n7, 228n31   Reinhold, Karl Leonhard, 13, 23–​25, 30–​45, 49–​50, 75, 123, 137–​38 Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Kant), 119–​21, 125–​26, 128, 138 representation (Vorstellung), 7, 9, 55–​56, 70–​71,  155–​56 right,  80–​81 Rivera de Rosales, Jacinto, 203n35, 213–​14n4 Rosati, Connie, 220n43, 220n44 Rousseau, Jean-​Jacques, 215n17 Russell, Bertrand, 20–​21   satisfaction, 31, 104. See also desire; drives; feeling; longing Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 57, 120, 129, 223n5 Schiller, Friedrich, 57 Schlegel, Friedrich von, 208n6 Schmidt, Andreas, 202n30 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1–​3, 163, 182 Sehnen. See longing Selbständigkeit. See self-​sufficiency self-​activity, 7, 40, 44, 52–​54, 61–​66, 94. See also consciousness; drive self-​ awareness,  13–​14 self-​consciousness, 55–​56, 70–​71, 109, 121. See also feeling self-​ contempt, 95–​96,  184–​85 self-​deception, 18–​19, 97, 128. See also evil self-​determination (Selbstbestimmung), 61–​62, 73, 90, 156–​58 self-​formation (Bildung), 79, 91–​94, 151–​55,  157–​58

244 Index self-​legislation (autonomy), 9, 90–​91, 124, 135–​36. See also Kant; self-​ determination; moral principle self-​ love, 125–​28. See also evil self-​positing, 56, 152–​53 self-​respect, 95–​96, 114, 184–​85. See also feeling self-​sufficiency (Selbändigkeit) embodiment and, 185 final end of, 123, 173–​82 moral law and, 66–​73 of reason 103, 159–​60 principle of, 81–​87, 95–​97 (see also drives; evil; freedom; moral law) self-​ unity, 17–​18. See also ethical vocation; nature; wholeness sittliche Bestimmung. See ethical vocation Sittlichkeit (ethical life), 80, 95–​96, 183–​84 skepticism, 53, 142–​43, 191. See also freedom slavery, 212–​13n44, 219n40 social character. See ethical vocation sociality, 145, 148–​55, 185–​86, 189 society, 154–​58, 174, 181. See also community of rational beings Spinoza, Baruch, 3–​4, 24–​25, 179 spiritual drive. See drive; self-​sufficiency Stäudlin, Karl Friedrich, 105, 209n12 Stoicism, 14–​16, 168 Striving. See drives; ethical vocation; freedom; self-​sufficiency; wholeness subordination, 90–​91, 151–​56,  189–​90 summons (Aufforderung), 150, 154, 189, 215n17, See also intersubjectivity synthetic method. See method   technology,  168–​71 teleology, 19, 90–​91, 93, 160–​64, 166–​82, 189. See also nature Thathandlung. See fact/​ act theoretical reason, 44–​45, 54–​55 tool of the moral law, 158–​63. See also bodies and embodiment

transcendental conditions, 70–​71, 148–​55,  185 transcendental deduction. See deduction transcendental philosophy and standpoint, 15, 54, 58–​60, 82–​83, 86, 145–​46,  164   Ueberzeugung. See conviction Ulrich, Johann, 196n11 Unabhängigkeit (independence). See self-​sufficiency (Selbständigkeit) unity. See harmony; I; wholeness Urtrieb. See drives   Vermögen (capacity), 61–​62 Verweyen, Hansjürgen, 221n3, 228n33 vocation (Bestimmung), 155–​58, 161, 181, 189. See also ethical vocation Vocation of Humankind (Fichte), 112, 168 Vorstellung. See representation   What is Enlightenment? (Kant), 136–​37 wholeness, 8–​22, 85–​87, 95–​98, 106–​10, 145–​47, 170, 187. See also drives; ethical vocation willing (Wollen): concept of 70–​71, 83–​86, 93–​94, 175 consciousness and, 61, 64–​65 evil and, 126–​28, 134–​35, 142–​43 harmony and, 18, 147 moral law and, 11–​14, 30–​34 (see also drives; freedom; harmony) Wissenschaftslehre. See Doctrine of Science Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (Fichte), 57, 200n14, 201n22 Wood, Allen, 94, 123, 171, 200n10, 202n32, 207n3, 210n20, 217–​18n33,  221n5   Zöller , Günter 217n30, 219n39