The early philosophy of Fichte has long been seen as fostering a utilitarian, if not outright exploitative, attitude of sorts towards nature. The call to master the forces of nature for the sake of human progress reverberates throughout the first of his ‘Morality for Scholars’ lectures he gave in public from 1794–95. A Latin quotation from Lord Bacon himself can be found at the head of the ‘First Introduction’ to the Attempt at a New Presentation of the Science of Knowledge. It partly reads: ‘I am laboring to lay the foundation, not of any sect or doctrine, but of human utility and power [utilitatis et amplitudinis humanae]’ (Fichte Reference Fichte1994: 2). Yet few would venture to connect the motif of Fichte’s thought with his ethics. Kosch’s book takes the bold step of placing technological progress at the heart of Fichte’s ethics by presenting the principal ethical treatise of the Jena period—the System of Ethics of 1798—as delivering a ‘substantive normative ethics’ that prescribes the enactment and enhancement of rational agency not only as a mere means to morality, but as one of its constitutive ends. The upshot is a powerful and entirely unexplored approach to the moral challenges and dilemmas facing an age of fast-growing technology.

Kosch argues that Fichte has a substantive view of the end of morality, one which can be summed up by the term ‘material independence’ or ‘independence of nature.’ It is worth stressing that she means by this not only the freedom of human plans and projects from subversions by natural forces, but also the freedom of individual plans and projects from interferences by other human agents of a coercive or a manipulative sort. For this reason, ‘material independence’ cannot be spelled out exclusively in term of technological progress. ‘Independence of nature’, for its part, can be taken either in the narrow sense of freedom from subversions by natural forces, or in the broad sense of freedom from coercive and manipulative interferences as such. Only in the latter case can it be identified with the constitutive end of rational agency. This is worth noting because Kosch tends to place greater emphasis on the non-human side of the equation. Fichte himself does the same, characterizing the end of morality in terms of a ‘complete liberation from nature’ (Fichte Reference Fichte2005: 142). But he does this only when he is considering what the end means for one rational being, in abstraction from other rational beings. What is ultimately at issue is really an ‘absolute liberation [of the pure I] from every limitation’ (158). Kosch captures this by describing the end of morality as ‘agent-neutral’ (2) and encompassing ‘the maximal material independence of rational being in general’ (3). The idea is a highly paradoxical one: the egoistical, anarchical goal of being rid of all restrictions cannot be pursued by finite beings like us except one step at a time; yet in being pursued one step at a time, it translates into a series of actions we ordinarily recognize as lawlike and dutiful. However, Kosch’s interpretation of Fichte is not as implausible as one might think. After all, Fichte considers those who are driven to act by, as it were, a ‘maxim of unrestricted and lawless dominion over everything outside [them]’ (Fichte Reference Fichte2005: 177) to be at a more advanced stage in the ladder of spiritual development than those who act by the ‘maxim of [their] own happiness’ (171), thus suggesting that character traits linked to megalomania are more akin to moral virtue than those linked to self-serving prudence.

The book’s pregnant thesis entails three logically independent claims. Beginning with what I think is the least controversial claim, Fichte’s ethics is a substantive ethics. It presents the moral principle as what Kant calls a ‘material principle,’ that is, a principle that prescribes an end. As Kosch compellingly shows, the distinction between the formal and the material conditions of freedom introduced toward the end of Division Two (§13) is key to understanding the overall structure of Division Three, the part that develops the system of ethics ‘in the proper sense’. Material conditions concern what an agent should do, while formal conditions concern how she do that which she should do. The most important contributions Fichte has to make to ethics in general, and to Kantian ethics in particular, must be sought, Kosch contends, in the account of the material conditions of morally correct actions. One advantage of this approach is that it brings to light the overall argumentative strategy of the text: various empirical conditions are first deduced in Division Two as necessary conditions of rational agency under the pretext of demonstrating the applicability of the moral principle. In Division Three, Part Two, the same materials are then rehashed with the aim of articulating the material content of the moral principle. Another advantage of the approach is that it helps to make sense of the three sections of Division Three, Part Two, that is, the part dealing with the means by which material independence can be secured and augmented, more specifically the preservation and the development of the physical and the intellectual powers and the protection of an individual against other individuals.

Kosch seems to think that it follows as a matter of course from the claim that the moral principle prescribes an end that Fichte’s ethics is ‘a maximizing consequentialism that does not admit agent-centered prerogatives’ (6). Here, I think, her interpretation starts to get controversial. In fact, this aspect of her thesis is the target of heavy criticism by Allen Wood in his book on Fichte’s ethics (see Wood Reference Wood2016: 148–49, 174–76). Acutely aware of the resistance her claim is likely to face, Kosch makes her case by means of a careful exegesis of various passages from the System of Ethics as well as the first of Some Lectures on the Vocation of a Scholar. The crucial passage is §12, where Fichte deduces the morally correct action from where the demand of the pure drive overlaps with that of the natural drive. A rational agent cannot posit herself as free except by positing her freedom (viz., the pure drive) as the ground of some action. But as the pure drive is directed toward absolute independence of nature and every action is grounded in a natural drive, it is puzzling how any action is supposed to be able to satisfy the pure drive. However, if the rational being is to posit herself as free, there must among the actions demanded by the natural drive always be an action that also satisfies the pure drive. How? By satisfying it partly rather than wholly. As Fichte prefers to put it, the final end (i.e., the demand of the pure drive) lies in infinity for the rational being, but there must always be an action by which she can draw herself closer to it, that is, an uninterrupted series of actions leading to her and everyone else’s absolute independence of nature.

On Kosch’s agent-neutral consequentialist reading, an action is morally correct if it actually reinforces our capacities for rational agency, regardless of the inward or outward circumstances of the rational agent who chooses it. One peculiar result of this reading, as Kosch is well aware (6), is that there can be more than one morally right action (i.e., more than one series of actions leading to absolute independence) in a given situation. This does not square with Fichte’s insistence on the complete determinacy of the action or omission and of the path leading to absolute independence (see Fichte Reference Fichte2005: 166). Another result is the radical disconnect between the moral worth of an action and that of its actor. While the moral worth of an action is changeable according to whether it turns out to be empowering or not (and if so, the degree to which it is so), the moral worth of its actor remains constant.

The third claim entailed by Kosch’s thesis is that Fichte intends his substantive ethics to be a normative ethics (as opposed to a value theory). It is designed to furnish a criterion for guiding action. In this connection, Kosch’s approach is opposed to Wood’s too. Although Wood does not himself subscribe to the consequentialist reading, he suggests that it is most promising when taken as an account of ‘philosophical truth about right, wrong, and duty’ rather than of how ‘ordinary moral agents should think about morality’ (Wood Reference Wood2016: 175). This view finds textual support in Fichte’s remarks that feelings of conscience suffice for the purpose of popular moral instruction and that only an ethical science needs to develop an account of the material content of the moral principle (see Fichte Reference Fichte2005: 197–98). But in advancing Fichte’s substantive ethics as a normative ethics that is ‘plausible at least in the minimal sense of being capable of guiding action in ways that are at least approximately in line with moral common sense’ (40), Kosch rejects it.

In order to support such a normative ethics, she develops an interpretation of Fichte’s account of practical deliberation that breaks with the standard reading. While conscience is standardly assigned a pivotal role, Kosch presents practical deliberation as belonging ‘entirely to the theoretical faculty’ (18). For her, an instance of practical deliberation is ‘a case of means-ends or part-whole reasoning subordinate to [the end of material independence]’ (131). In this connection, the key passage is from Division Three, Part One, where Fichte explains how reflecting judgment co-ordinates with the ethical drive to arrive at a conviction of duty. As Kosch understands it, the fact that this part of the text deals with freedom’s formal conditions goes to show that Fichte considers feelings of conscience to provide the agent with feedback not on whether an action is morally right, but on whether she has given due diligence to deciding whether an action is morally right. Practical reason (the ethical drive) supplies the end of absolute liberation from all limitation. But because it is not a cognitive power, it defers to reflecting judgment for the ‘calculative’ or ‘instrumental’ reasoning that is required for arriving at the morally right action (or omission). Practical deliberation is thus ‘entirely theoretical’ in the sense of being ‘technically practical’. This reading seems to me to misconstrue the role of reflecting judgment, which Fichte introduces not in order to find a yet-to-be-determined action (or omission) that is the maximizing means to an end, but in order to find the already-determined action (or omission) in a cognizable form. Besides, feelings such as those of contentment and self-reproach are also alluded to in his discussion of the material content of moral principle (see Fichte Reference Fichte2005: 144, 145).

I find Kosch’s presentation of Fichte’s ethics as a substantive ethics that forwards material independence as the final end to be appealing. However, I have reservations about her conception of it as a consequentialist normative ethics. This notwithstanding, the book is one of the best studies of the System of Ethics of which I am aware. The account of rational agency in the second chapter is unrivalled in its concision. The masterful approach it offers to the text will help its students find their bearing for many years to come. Most importantly, the admirably rich and nuanced account of freedom’s material conditions in the third chapter, and defence of it in the fifth, demonstrates the relevance of Fichte for contemporary moral issues related to the management of scientific knowledge and techniques.