 The specific task of Fichte’s theory of right is to consider the specific ways in which the freedom of each individual must be restricted in order that several individuals can live together with the maximum amount of mutual freedom, and it derives its a priori concepts of the laws of social interaction entirely from the sheer concept of an individual I, as conditions for the possibility of the latter. Fichte’s concept of right therefore obtains its binding force not from the ethical law, but rather from the general laws of thinking and from enlightened self-interest, and the force of such considerations is hypothetical rather than categorical. The theory of right examines how the freedom of each individual must be externally limited if a free society of free and equal individuals is to be possible.