Moral judgement, History and Revolution in Kant and Fichte

Author(s)

João Geraldo Martins da Cunha

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2008-04-04

Examining board members

Jose Arthur Giannotti; Hans Christian Klotz; Marcos Lutz Müller; Marcio Suzuki; Ricardo Ribeiro Terra

• Advisor: Jose Arthur Giannotti

Abstract

How can one judge a political event? The French Revolution opened up two perspectives for the German intellectuals of the period to answer such question: one under the token of prudence, grounded on empirical history; the other brandishing the flag of liberty, grounded on morals. From the former,A. W. Rehberg, inspired by E. Burke, charged the revolutionaries of applying a \"pure theory\" to political practice, and, due to the same reason, of confusing the will of all, an empirical concept, with the general will, a pure and theoretical concept. From the latter perspective, Kant and Fichte, mutually opposed, assumed as a common premise that politics ought to be judged under the light of the moral meaning of history. In order to accomplish this, they both started from a close link between will and reason from which the conceptions of liberty and finality ought to be thought in connection in a kind of moral Eschatology. However, when they transposed politics from Historie to Weltgeschichte, that is, from the domaine of empirical events to the one of the necessary meaning of history, a second question had to be answered: should politics be corrected for the sake of morals by means of a reformation or of a revolution? Even though Kant saw French Revolution as a historical sign of the moral progress of humanity, such a fact didn\'t prevent him from issuing a legal condemnation of it in defense of the principle of publicity - a principle which, in his view, every revolution fledged against established sovereignty comes to violate. Fichte, on the other hand, sometimes defends the right of individuals to rise revolutionarily against the despotic state, but also seems to approve of certain forms of despotic guidance, concerning the working out of the economy, in the restriction of the individual will of the citizens. Could these be contradictory postions, suggested only by the vicissitudes of the circumstances? I don\'t believe so. I maintain that the difference that lie between these diverse Fichtean political judgments does not hinder the fact that they maintain a certain fundamental identity. But if it is always for the sake of liberty that politics ought to be judged, from the standpoint of reason it certainly is not the liberty of the individuals that counts, but rather the liberation of the species - for each individual can only assume his or her identity in contrast with and through reciprocal recognition of the others. By intending to build up a \"system of liberty\" and to ground reason on an activity free of self-determination, the Doctrine of Science opened up the road for the transformation of moral liberty into social liberation and for the \"kindom of ends\" to come to Earth - by means of a \"Eschatology of immanence\" that operated a reformation of the revolution. (AU)