Counterfactual Empathy and Essence As Ensoulment: Dissonance and Resonance With Fichtean Self-Positing

Abstract

The paper discusses empathy as a necessary constituent feature of moral reasoning. Building on Brannmark (2015), I construct a definition of empathy employing two restrictions and two assertions: the Self Affecting Restriction (SAR), the Person Affecting Restriction (PAR), the Self Affecting Assertion (SAA), and the Person Affecting Assertion (PAA). I provide an adumbration of a counterfactual approach to grounding empathy and argue that a consistent practice of counterfactual empathy requires a concept of human essence, which may be seen as some sort of ensoulment. The approach delineates a logic of the moral subject which asserts the primacy of empathy as a sine qua non of moral reasoning and behavior. I attempt to reinterpret these results in light of Fichtean self-positing. I argue that a standard reading of the Fichtean X of the Wissenshaftslehre is not adequate to Fichte’s purposes, and propose an alternative reading. Finally, I examine similarities and differences between the Fichtean X, under this new reading and the concept of ensoulment under counterfactual empathy.