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This article aims at giving an explanation of Fichte’s theory of property in his Foundations of Natural Right by comparing it with Kant’s theory of property in his Metaphysics of morals. The main thesis is that Fichte’s conception of property represents the transit from a jus naturalist comprehension of property, which can be found in theories of natural law as well as in Kant’s philosophy of right, to an understanding of property in terms of distributive justice in the acquisition of goods. The central point in the distinction between Fichte’s and Kant’s conceptions of property consists in that Fichte radicalizes the Kantian project of self-determination of property in the state of nature as well as in the legal state. In doing so, Fichte’s theory of property overcomes the duality, present in the acquisition of property, between the right of first purchase and the exercise of the will on the thing possessed. It will be shown that individualism in Fichte is purely methodological and property only emerges as a means of achieving community. Hence, Fichte overcomes the idea of the owner acting out of free will in favour of an emancipatory conception of property.

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