Fichte's Ethical Holism

In James A. Clarke & Gabriel Gottlieb, Practical Philosophy From Kant to Hegel: Freedom, Right, and Revolution. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 138-156 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

My aim in this chapter is to address what looks like a tension in Fichte’s derivation of ethical content for the moral law in his System of Ethics. In the first place, Fichte seeks to derive the content of our duties from our “natural drive [Naturtrieb],” which he defines in terms of our striving for enjoyment. But later in the book we find a second argument that derives the content of our duties from what Fichte calls the conditions of our “I-hood [Ichheit],” namely, our embodiment, intelligence, and sociality. I argue that a careful rereading of Fichte’s notion of a natural drive is consistent with this second derivation. The key to this reading lies in Fichte’s effort to reframe the natural drive through the category of “reciprocal interaction [Wechselwirkung],” which allows us to view the natural drive as a “formative drive [Bildungstrieb]” that is both active and passive. For Fichte, the formative drive amounts to a striving for self-organization, and this striving, I argue, prefigures what becomes the ethical drive to engage in reciprocal interaction with other members of the rational community.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,486

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-03-16

Downloads
25 (#935,620)

6 months
5 (#752,882)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Owen Ware
University of Toronto, Mississauga

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references