The chapter examines the “Deduction of the Principle of Morality” in §§1–3 of the System of Ethics with reference to Kant’s definition of autonomy, and shows that Fichte objects to this theory of autonomy on two fronts. First, Fichte argues that Kant fails to present a “genetic” account that reveals the inner structure of the legislating subject. From Fichte’s point of view, this line of reasoning merely explains that we have to take ourselves as lawgiving, but not how we can understand ourselves to be bound by a law we are giving. Second, Kant argues that the imperative can be applied to sensible incentives, but according to Fichte he fails to articulate a mediating a priori form which shapes sensibility itself. The chapter suggests that Fichte’s conception of striving towards the “entire I” is meant to respond to these perceived shortcomings in Kant’s ethics.

This chapter is devoted to Fichte’s derivation of content for the moral law from his theory of the transcendental conditions of I-hood in Part III of the ”System of Ethics”. The chapter suggests that Fichte gives us a quasi-phenomenological account of how the I develops through system of drives in which nature and freedom are constitutively intertwined. In this framework, the chapter argues, embodiment plays a crucial role, because it is through the body that the natural drive address itself an agent, and for Fichte it is through the body that one exercises causality in the world. The chapter examines the details of this theory of embodiment by setting it in the larger context of Fichte’s confrontation with Kant’s formal idea of morality. The quasi-phenomenological set up of the argument is grounded in Fichte’s attempt to bridge the gap between the strict apriorism of the ethical law grounded in reason and the experiential dimension of the “original drive” as it is progressively and infinitely actualized in our life.