“Demanding Authenticity of Ourselves”: Heidegger on Authenticity as an Extra-Moral Ideal

Abstract

Heidegger clearly considers authenticity to be some sort of ideal, however the relationship between authenticity as an ideal and other ideals is less than clear. There are three general approaches to dealing with the conflict between authenticity and moral or ethical ideals, which I identify as the existentialist, transcendentalist, and historicist approaches. These views struggle to reconcile three features of Heidegger’s account of authenticity as an extra moral ideal. First is the claim that authenticity is independent of, and not subservient to, moral ideals. Second is the claim that we become essentially human only when we are authentic. And third is the claim that existential guilt (which we take up resolutely in authenticity) grounds the possibility of being morally good or morally evil. I shall argue that none of these views correctly captures the immediate relevance authenticity bears to moral praiseworthiness or blameworthiness. In this paper, I want to show how we can do justice to all three theses. I’ll start by offering a more detailed analysis of the fundamental distinctions that tacitly structure Heidegger’s account of authenticity as an ideal (section “Authenticity as an Ideal”). The structural account of authenticity that emerges will allow us to say more clearly how authenticity relates to other human ideals (section “Authenticity and Morality: Conflicts and Hierarchies”).