Staatsinitiative – Bürgerschaftsengagement – Kirchenerneuerung
lmmanuel Hermann Fichtes Ethik als sozialphilosophische Grundlegung einer Gesellschaftsreform
Wolfram Schmitz
Immanuel Hermann Fichte’s ‘System of Ethics’ was written against the background of an internal political torpor in Germany following the Revolution of 1848 and, almost simultaneously, the economic take-off of the industrial age in the same country. Making direct reference to this era of political, economic and social upheaval, Fichte’s conception offers guidelines for a sweeping reform of state and society. Not least as an answer to the ‘social question’, he proposes a professional and educational reorientation, the promotion of civil-societal enterprises and the revitalization of Christian values to prepare the ground for the emergence of a culture in which individual and collective potential could be fulfilled.
