The chapter examines the “Deduction of the Principle of Morality” in §§1–3 of the System of Ethics with reference to Kant’s definition of autonomy, and shows that Fichte objects to this theory of autonomy on two fronts. First, Fichte argues that Kant fails to present a “genetic” account that reveals the inner structure of the legislating subject. From Fichte’s point of view, this line of reasoning merely explains that we have to take ourselves as lawgiving, but not how we can understand ourselves to be bound by a law we are giving. Second, Kant argues that the imperative can be applied to sensible incentives, but according to Fichte he fails to articulate a mediating a priori form which shapes sensibility itself. The chapter suggests that Fichte’s conception of striving towards the “entire I” is meant to respond to these perceived shortcomings in Kant’s ethics.

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 re-reading 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.