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ABSTRACT
Catholics condemn Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) as a fanatic; he fails to cushion ‘Never lie' with a distinction between venial and mortal sin. But Kant has secular substitutes: lie/mislead, candor/honesty, commission/omission, deception/illusion, discursive/pictorial. Kant weaves these distinctions into a safety net for polite society, business, politics, and religion. Kant's break-away disciple, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) removes this safety net. Any intentional propagation of error suffices for lying. Ditto for refraining to correct a remedial error. Why? Because we all have a duty to perfect each other. This moral development requires rational informed choice. Being misinformed subverts freedom. The medium of misinformation is irrelevant: utterances, silences, pictures, music, dance, private thoughts, telepathy. To Fichte's relief, Kant overcame the temptation to save an innocent man from murder by lying. But Fichte still thought Kant manifested a corrupt mind by merely considering lying!
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Notes
1 Fichte rejects the doctrine of double effect. Consequently, his full definition counts as lies foreseeable propagations of error. Unforeseeable errors are not lies. ‘I am responsible only for the will, which down here can, of course, aim only at the early purpose, but not for consequences’ (Fichte Citation1800, 95–98). ‘I ought to will in conformity with the law without regard to any intelligible and apparent purpose, without investigating whether anything other than the willing itself may result from my willing.’ (Fichte Citation1800, 100).
2 Mission accomplished! Fichte later wrote: ‘With the discovery of this philosophy an entirely new epoch in the history of the human species has begun – or, if one prefers, an entirely new and different human species has arisen, one for which all previous forms of human nature and activity on earth are no more than preparatory, if they retain any value at all. This is the philosophy to which our age summons us all and which we can all take a hand in developing just as soon as we have a desire to do so.’ (Fichte Citation1988, 208).
3 In The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant claimed that he always signed his work. But he had published ten anonymous essays. Kant signed his name to the Critique of Pure Reason. But he also took care to dedicate the first edition to the controller of censors, Frederick the Great, and the second edition to an official censor.
4 Ghost-writing, in contrast, would be lying. Instead of silence, there is an insincere assertion of authorship with an intent to deceive. Allen Wood's introduction to Fichte's Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation has a speculation: ‘The “atheism controversy” that embroiled Fichte became a sensation, occasioning Jacobi's famous attack on Fichte and even Kant's open letter (perhaps ghost-written by Schütz) denouncing Fichte.’ p. xii. If Kant really disapproved of all lying, he would abstain from ghost-writing. According to Wood, Kant exaggerates his opposition to lying to discourage others from lying.
5 Kant describes a merry host at a country house who has a boy hidden the bush imitating the song of the nightingale. The guests are enchanted. ‘But as soon as we are aware that it is a cheat, no one will remain long listening to the song which before was counted so charming.’ (1951, 145) Kant does not characterize the cheat as a lie. Fichte would.
6 In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant says ‘to communicate one’s thoughts to someone through words that yet (intentionally) contain the contrary of what the speaker thinks on the subject is an end that is directly opposed to the natural purposiveness of the speaker’s capacity to communicate his thoughts, and is thus a renunciation by the speaker of his personality’ (MM 6: 429).
7 Kant’s open-minded fascination with Emanuel Swedenborg’s clairvoyance is manifest in his letter to Frauhlein Knobloch (10:46-10-10:48). After Swedenborg failed to respond to Kant’s letters, Kant wrote his mocking Dreams of a Spirit Seeker. Moses Mendelssohn complained that the uneven tone made it difficult to tell whether the author rejected all paranormal phenomena.
8 Michelle Kosch (Citation2018) portrays Fichte as a consequentialist. Right actions are vindicated by their production of freedom.
9 Fichte urges his German audience to ‘give the lie to those who thus think thus and speak of you’ ([Citation1808] Citation2008, 185). This rhetoric is inconsistent with Fichte’s absolute disapproval of lying and his interest in promoting the morality of all. It also assumes an external conception of lying in which all lies are false.