By closely connecting “free” and “dutiful” action, Kant appeared to some of his contemporaries to have a serious problem with the imputability of immoral actions. K. L. Reinhold attempted to avoid this problem by introducing a sharp distinction between freedom of choice (Willkür) and practical reason (as expressed through Wille), such that any free action must involve a choice between “selfish” and “unselfish” drives. After Kant rejected Reinhold’s proposed distinction, Fichte defended it by introducing a new distinction between the original, purely “formal” freedom of every spontaneously self-positing I and the “material” freedom that every I strives to achieve.Whereas formal freedom concerns the choice of means to predetermined ends, material freedom determines the ends as well as the means of acting.Fichte provides a detailed account of how a formally free individual might acquire material freedom through a series of “reflections” upon formal freedom, at which point freedom of choice is supposed to coincide with the categorical demands of the moral law—and Willkür with Wille.Fichte’s distinction between kinds and degrees of freedom was introduced in order to resolve the conflict between Kant and Reinhold, but it raises new questions concerning how one might “freely” acquire material freedom.