The Ethics of Authenticity — Taylor

Individualism (freedom that empties meaning), instrumental reason (usefulness crowds out value), soft despotism (drifting into losing freedom).

Freedom to choose our own lives; but with nothing counting as important on its own, choices feel small and life feels pointless.

Judging everything by efficiency and usefulness, even things like friendship or nature that shouldn't be measured that way.

Slowly losing our freedom because we stop caring to use it, retreating into private life and letting a big state take over.

No — he VALUES modern freedom; the malaises are sicknesses to cure, not reasons to abolish the modern world.

Lost meaning (1) pushes us to cold calculation (2) and private retreat, which lets soft despotism grow (3) — one chain.

He names what's gone wrong first, so his defence of authenticity can be offered as the cure.

The freedom to choose your own life and values for yourself, rather than inheriting them.

It's a genuine, valuable moral ideal — being true to your own way of being human — not merely selfishness.

Being true to your own original way of being human, answering a real call rather than copying others.

The ideal answers a call to live your own way well; the selfish 'anything goes' is its shallow distortion, not the ideal itself.

'Whatever I feel like is fine' — making your own wanting the only standard, with nothing mattering outside your wants.

Against cynics who dismiss authenticity AND boosters who cheapen it into 'anything goes' — keep the ideal, live it well.

From 'my life should be my own' (fine) to 'so only my wanting decides what's good' (the shallow mistake).

Ideal: find your own real way, answering a call. Shallow: your wanting is the only measure of worth.

Ignoring your own way and just imitating others misses something that really matters about a human life.

The idea that you form who you are in dialogue with others — you can't define yourself entirely alone.

You get your language, ideas and even your 'true self' through conversation with others, so a sealed-off self was never real.

A background of things that matter — love, justice, nature — whether or not you chose them; your choices mean something against it.

A choice only means something against a backdrop that already counts; pure whim (lining up pencils) answers to nothing, so it feels empty.

Dialogue (the self comes from others) + horizons (choices matter against a backdrop that already counts).

It keeps 'be true to yourself' but shows the self is built with others — so authenticity isn't lonely.

Someone whose 'authentic self' is lining up pencils feels empty because it answers to nothing that matters beyond their whim.

Dialogue: where does the self come from? (others). Horizons: what makes a choice worth making? (a backdrop that matters).

Rescuing the good core of the ideal (live your own way, in dialogue, among things that matter) while arguing against its shallow 'anything goes' version.

It says nothing outside my choice matters, but then my own life can't matter either — it needs a horizon that counts to make choices worth anything.

Three malaises → authenticity as a real ideal → the dialogical self and horizons → rescuing the ideal: one argument.

Boosters cheer 'anything goes'; knockers sneer it's just selfishness. Taylor rejects both and rescues the ideal.

Who decides which version is 'shallow'? He may lean on his own values; horizons from different communities can differ.

Authenticity is a real ideal and the shallow version is self-defeating, so the good core can be pulled free of it.

Open-book, one text: part (a) explain a concept [10] + part (b) evaluate a claim [15]; answer ONE question.

Point to the relevant passage accurately, then put it in your own words; don't just copy the text out.