PhD Candidate, Philosophy & Social Thought, UChicago

In this paper I argue against different versions of the view that authenticity consists in living and acting in a way that is responsive to something in oneself. Instead, I make the case that it is a kind of “inner freedom,” which consists in bringing an additional topic and manner of practical thought into the domain of self-consciousness and responsibility. I argue for this by suggesting a supplement to recent genealogies of authenticity (Trilling, Williams, Taylor) as arising as an ideal in response to an obligation to sincere self-expression, which presents it as instead arising in response to the felt need to understand oneself as making a non-arbitrary choice between ways of living. My proposed understanding of authenticity is responsive to this need, because it explains how someone might take responsibility for their conception of what the task they face in living is: what life requires of them, and what makes it worth living.