Abstract
It has recently been pointed out that the cloudiness of the concept of authenticity as well as inflated ideologies of the ‘true self’ provide good reasons to criticize theories and ideals of authenticity. Nevertheless, there are also good reasons to defend an ethical ideal of authenticity, not least because of its critical and oppositional force, which is directed against experiences of self-abandonment and self-alienation. I will argue for an elaborated ethical ideal of authenticity: the ambitious ideal of a continuous self-reflective process of ‘self-authentication’. For this purpose, the ideal of being authentic in expressing and unfolding one’s individual personality and characteristics will be combined with the ideal of being ‘an authentic person’ - whereby ‘a person’ is to be understood in a Kantian sense as an autonomous person who is (at least potentially) reasonable and morally responsible.
Highlights
It has recently been pointed out that the cloudiness of the concept of authenticity as well as inflated ideologies of the ‘true self’ provide good reasons to criticize theories and ideals of authenticity
Can we really imagine that authenticity—in particular if it is interpreted explicitly as an ethical ideal—would be attributed to an ‘authentic serial killer’ or to an ‘authentically brutal and rigid dictator’?. It is the aim of this paper to develop an ethical ideal of being an authentic person, which is much more elaborated than its pop-cultural equivalent
It should be clear that Jojo can be described as being authentic in a formal way (2.1), but at the same time, he does not correspond to important aspects of the ethical ideal of being an authentic person
Summary
According to a volitional view of authenticity, Jojo is authentic. Wolf underlines Jojo’s wholehearted identification with his role and with his function as a dictator. With Trilling, the career of the modern ideal of personal authenticity is a reaction to the transformation of a self that was well-integrated into social structures (though probably sometimes bound to those structures in a negative way) into a self that is much more self-directed, but does not feel at home and cannot find its place in the social world or in a higher order of the universe. Jojo surely knows his place in his society. One could imagine valuing him for being formally authentic without valuing what particular kind of person he is authentically—without valuing the contents of his authentic self
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