Foundations of Natural Right (Grundlage des Naturrechts), Fichte at one point in the same work announces that "there is no natural right [Naturrecht] at all in the sense often given to that term, i.e. there can be no rightful [rechtliches] relation between human beings except within a commonwealth and under positive laws" (FNR 132 [GA I/3:432]). This claim signals that natural right "in the sense often given to that term" is in some way misleading or even mistaken, because relations of a certain type between human beings are only possible given the existence of two artificial, and thus non-natural, entities: the type of legal and political community designated by the term "commonwealth" and the laws that govern such a community. In this respect, Fichte provides a negative answer to a question that he himself poses in the Foundations of Natural Right : the question as to "whether a genuine doctrine of natural right is possible, by which we mean a science of the relation of right [Rechtsverhältnis] between persons outside the state and without positive law" (FNR 92 [GA I/3:395])." /> How "natural" is Fichte's theory of natural right? - James David | sdvig press