Fichte's Social Division of Labour and Its Relation to His Idealism

Abstract I argue that Fichte’s account of the type of subject presupposed by idealism entails that certain individuals engaged in mechanical tasks within a social division of labour would be alienated from their own activity even while fulfilling their vocation as human beings, despite how this vocation is incompatible with the reduction of human beings to parts of a machine. Avoiding or overcoming this alienation would require a strong form of moral identification with one’s own activity within a social division of labour. Although this solution is compatible with Fichte’s theory of duty, it is shown to be difficult to reconcile with his commitment to the moral equality of human beings, because some individuals will be required to make a greater sacrifice in relation to the human vocation than others. Another assumption is that certain individuals, the scholar among them, make a greater contribution that offsets the advantage of not having to engage in forms of activity whose alienating character requires a stronger form of moral identification than is demanded of them.