Between Thinking and Acting Fichte’s Deduction of the Concept of Right

Abstract

Fichte's ambitious project in the Foundations of Natural Right is to provide an a priori deduction of the concept of right independently from morality. So far, interpretations of Fichte's deduction of the concept of right have persistently fallen into one of two rough categories: either they (re)interpret the normative necessity of right in terms of moral or quasi-moral normativity or they interpret right's normative necessity in terms of hypothetical imperatives. However, each of these interpretations faces significant exegetical difficulties. By contrast, I argue that we can  I am grateful to the participants of the University of Chicago's German Philosophy Workshop for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. Special thanks are owed to Matthias Haase, whose insightful feedback has helped me immensely thinking through this topic.