Book contents
- Fichte’s System of Ethics
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Fichte’s System of Ethics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and Translations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Fichte’s Ethics as Kantian Ethics
- Chapter 2 Fichte on Normativity in the Late Jena Period (1796–1799)
- Chapter 3 Fichte on Autonomy
- Chapter 4 Feeling, Drive, and the Lower Capacity of Desire
- Chapter 5 Fichte and the Path from “Formal” to “Material” Freedom
- Chapter 6 Fichte on the Content of Conscience
- Chapter 7 Fichte’s Theory of Moral Evil
- Chapter 8 Embodiment and Freedom
- Chapter 9 Ethics as Theory of Society
- Chapter 10 My Duties and the Morality of Others
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Chapter 9 - Ethics as Theory of Society
Morality and Ethical Life in Fichte’s System of Ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 May 2021
- Fichte’s System of Ethics
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Fichte’s System of Ethics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and Translations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Fichte’s Ethics as Kantian Ethics
- Chapter 2 Fichte on Normativity in the Late Jena Period (1796–1799)
- Chapter 3 Fichte on Autonomy
- Chapter 4 Feeling, Drive, and the Lower Capacity of Desire
- Chapter 5 Fichte and the Path from “Formal” to “Material” Freedom
- Chapter 6 Fichte on the Content of Conscience
- Chapter 7 Fichte’s Theory of Moral Evil
- Chapter 8 Embodiment and Freedom
- Chapter 9 Ethics as Theory of Society
- Chapter 10 My Duties and the Morality of Others
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Summary
This chapter presents an interpretation of Fichte’s theory of society as an original theory of ethical life or ‘Sittlichkeit’ as distinguished from mere morality, or ‘Moralität’, in the very same direction which will be developed in a clearer way by Hegel. Moving from introductory remarks devoted to Hegel’s presentation of the distinction and to the terms “morality” and “ethical life”, it will be shown, first, in which passages of the “System of Ethics” Fichte seems to have in mind a strict sense of “morality” as a limited standpoint distinguished from the ethical one; second, the reorientation of Fichte’s argument in the “System of Ethics” which makes possible a new, ethical, and social point of view; third, Fichte’s peculiar reinterpretation of the Kantian notion of legality as a principle of the organization of social life; fourth, the proper dynamic of ethical life through its institutions: State, church and learned public; fifth, the consequences of the new, ethical point of view for the doctrine of duties in comparison with the tradition and with Hegel’s later view.
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- Fichte's System of EthicsA Critical Guide, pp. 178 - 200Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021