The Hidden Moral Teleology in Fichte’s System of Ethics

Abstract

Fichte’s System of Ethics (SE) investigates the moral law’s function as a cosmic principle with the hope of delivering a deduction of its applicability in the world of sense. In the work, Fichte harnesses the concept of the original, determinate end of a natural thing as a means of mediating the Kantian “supersensible idea of the morally good” by sensible intuitions. In doing so, he is inspired above all by Kant’s moral teleology. This concerns, not the metaphysics of morals as practical philosophy but moral teleology (as a prelude to moral theology). By a deduction of the moral law’s applicability, the final ends of our world, our body and other rational beings are shown to be grounded in a transcendental law (or, what is the same, the original drive)..