 The precise relationship of Fichte’s theory of right to the social contract tradition is complex, but the general outline is as follows: Fichte presents an a priori argument for the fundamentally social character of human beings, an argument grounded upon an analysis of the very structure of self-consciousness and the requirements for self-positing. Only after this “deduction” of the concept of right and of the applicability of the same does he explicitly introduce the notion of what he calls the Staatsbürgervertrag or “citizens’ contract,” a notion that he goes on to analyze into a series of distinguishable moments, including the “civil contract” proper (or “property contract”), the “protection contract,” and the “contract of unification,” all of which must be supplemented by the contracts of “subjection” and “expiation.” Fichte thus propounds what one might call a “contract theory of the state,” but not of human community.