The Lex Permissiva and the Source of Natural Right in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals and Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right

Abstract

This article argues that Fichte is correct in claiming, as he does in the Foundations of Natural Right, that a derivation of the law of right from the moral law is impossible because the former relies on lex permissiva. I focus on Kant's deduction of the concept of merely intelligible possession in the Metaphysics of Morals precisely because Kant attempts what Fichte says is not possible. By illustrating the problems involved in the concept of the lex permissiva, one is then in a position to see why Fichte believes the derivations must remain separate and why Fichte stresses that the law of right must be argued for without reference to morality or the moral law.