By Karin A. Nisenbaum
In his famous essay, “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy,” Kant argues that one is not allowed to lie, not even if a murderer comes to one’s door asking the whereabouts of their innocent victim who has taken refuge in one’s home. Many of Kant’s readers worry that his rigorism concerning the duty of truthfulness leaves us powerless in the face of evil. My aim in this paper is to reconstruct and offer a qualified defense of a Fichtean approach to the duty of truthfulness. I argue that, instead of leaving us powerless in the face of evil, the Fichtean approach gets at the root of evil. This is because Fichte’s prohibition against lying in his System of Ethics goes together with a perfectionist commitment to promote the greatest possible development of rational nature both in ourselves and in all other individuals.
Published:
Germany: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 2025
Online available:
www.degruyterbrill.com