Fichte's moral philosophy

Owen Ware here develops and defends a novel interpretation of Fichte's moral philosophy as an ethics of wholeness. While virtually forgotten for most of the 20th century, Fichte's 'System of Ethics' (1798) is now recognised by scholars as a masterpiece in the history of post-Kantian philosophy, as well as a key text for understanding the work of later German idealist thinkers. This text provides a careful examination of the intellectual context in which Fichte's moral philosophy evolved, and of the specific arguments he offers in response to Kant and his immediate successors. A distinctive feature of this study is a focus on the foundational concepts of Fichte's ethics - freedom, morality, feeling, conscience, community - and their connection to his innovative but largely misunderstood theory of drives.

This book develops and defends a new interpretation of Fichte's moral philosophy as an ethics of wholeness. While virtually forgotten for most of the twentieth century, Fichte's System of Ethics (1798) is now recognized by scholars as a masterpiece in the history of post-Kantian philosophy, and a key text for understanding the work of later German idealist thinkers. This book provides a careful examination of the intellectual context in which Fichte's moral philosophy evolved, and of the specific arguments he offers in response to Kant and his immediate successors.