The Transcendental Deduction of the Categorial Imperative in Fichte’s System of Ethics

Abstract

In Fichte's System of Ethics find a double deduction of categorial imperative. first one, in §1-3, is for philosopher, based on essence of I. second one appears in §9-13 and 16, where Fichte shows how I-self rises genetically to moral conscience. In this essay I will concentrate on explicating first of these deductions. Kant In first three paragraphs of System of Ethics (1798), Fichte proceeds to lay out bases of his ethics by philosophically deducing tile law or principle of morality. With this deduction, he promises us the most perfect insight into morality of our being, because it makes comprehensible so-called categorical imperative. latter no longer appears to be sort of hidden property (qualitas occulta). . . . Thanks to this derivation, that dark region of sundry, irrational enthusiasm [Schwarmerei], which has opened itself in connection with categorical imperative (e.g., notion that moral law is inspired by deity), is securely annihilated.1 With this deduction it appears that moral law comes from transcendental I. Was this something that remained unclear in Kantian text? It is well known that Kant placed freedom first in cosmological area, in third of antinomies of Critique of Pure Reason (1781), understanding it as a real force or an unconditional cause of phenomena, as the power of beginning a state spontaneously.2 But as such transcendental freedom stems from experience, and therefore it cannot be asserted objectively. practical concept of freedom is nevertheless based on me transcendental idea of it, and denial of transcendental freedom involves elimination of all practical freedom. But this transcendental freedom cannot be refuted either, since theoretical knowledge does not reach totality or unconditional, and is even less capable of explaining experience of duty and of imputability of acts. possibility of such freedom remains open therefore, and that is enough for Kant in this first critical approach to topic, since in The Canon of Pure Reason3 he affirms that practical freedom consists only of independence in regard to sensuous present impulses, and this be proved through experience,4 because we have power to overcome impressions on our faculty of sensuous desire, by calling up representations of what, in a more indirect manner, is useful or injurious.5 This closeness between profitable and moral thing, which still existed in Canon of Critique of Pure Reason, is dismantled in first two chapters of Fundamental Principles of Metaphysic of Morals (1785) and distinguished as two different imperatives: hypothetical and categorical. Only latter is moral law, and free action, according to this new formulation of moral law, has to be not only as duty requires, but also carried out because duty requires it. Consequently, moral freedom entails pure motivations that stop being accessible to experience, provided only that this tells us that have not found some secret impulse of self-love, but not that it does not exist.6 In this case, how can demonstrate reality of practical freedom in every rational being and base validity of moral law on it? This is not possible theoretically (KrV), nor by appealing to experience nor by resorting to an intellectual intuition, so question remains in truth unanswered in third chapter of Fundamental Principles of Metaphysic of Morals. Then, in Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Kant inverts terms: It is moral law, as a fact of practical reason well-established in itself, which assures us reality of moral freedom7 (already identified with transcendental freedom of third antinomy),8 since only for a free being is consciousness of his duty possible and only actions of such a free being can be imputed to him. …