Inheritance Pride, Authenticity and Morality

Abstract

The self we want to be true to in authenticity is not the self-as-result, nor the self-as-result plus the factual properties of our subject, but only the original properties of our self and subject, those that we are born with or have acquired in early childhood without our responsibility. These include the autonomy of the self, its power to say yes or no to an impulse; so autonomy is the condition of authenticity. But the self is not necessarily moral; so nor is authenticity. Casanova and perhaps even Hitler may have been authentic, but therefore not moral.