Authenticity, reason and morality

Thesis

This thesis is about authenticity. The argument of this thesis is that a conception of authenticity is widespread in contemporary analytic philosophy, but that it is distorted. This conception of authenticity is a product of two commitments in ostensibly quite different areas of philosophy. Rationalism is the view that our rational powers are fundamentally characteristic of us as humans. Moralism is the view that morality has a special value which makes its demands overriding. The aim of this thesis is to unpick this conception – arguing against rationalism and moralism in the process – and leave a better conception of authenticity in its place. I argue that rationalism relies upon moralism, and that both rationalism and moralism should be rejected. The Introduction motivates these claims and identifies three key issues – about the nature of the authentic self, self-knowledge, and the relationship between authenticity and morality – which are carried through the rest of the thesis. Chapter One traces the historical development of the ideal of authenticity and these three issues. The next three chapters are each broadly concerned with one of these issues; Chapters Two and Three discuss rationalism and Chapter Four concerns moralism. Chapter Two focuses on the question about the authentic self via a discussion of the relationship between authenticity and contemporary accounts of autonomy. Chapter Three focuses on self-knowledge via a discussion of a recent rationalist approach to self-knowledge, exemplified by the work of Richard Moran. Chapter Four focuses the relationship between authenticity and morality via Bernard Williams’s analysis of the ‘morality system’ and a prolonged examination of an example – the fate of Anna Karenina – which I take to illuminate the account of authenticity developed in the thesis. The account I develop emphasises self-discovery, the limits to our self-knowledge, our reliance on others, and our vulnerability to luck.

Authors: Bradley, M

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-pzvaanxxv
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: rationality; authenticity; moralism; autonomy; self-knowledge; morality; ethics; the self
• Subjects: Philosophy; Ethics; Moral Psychology; Normativity (Ethics)