Authenticity and Virtue Ethics

Authenticity is in right now. Everyone and everything wants to be authentic (including inherently inauthentic things like corporate brands and celebrities). No one wants to be fake, artificial, or inauthentic—even AI claims it is authentic!

I think this is a natural and expected reaction to a world in which so many things are unnatural, untrustworthy, and insincere. Humans have a deep evolved need to trust others and to be trusted, since we have traditionally only survived through group cooperation. A world in which we are consistently confused about who to trust or even what makes up reality is a world of profound discomfort, danger, and existential paralysis.

And just as value authenticity in others, we face pressures to be authentic, which today means something like “being true to yourself,” “following your dreams,” and not letting anyone else tell you what to do. The problem is, this form of supposed authenticity is just narcissism by another name—an obsession with “being yourself” at the expense of other people. I think it’s no coincidence that this form of self-expression is valorized at a time of rampant loneliness and social alienation; it is both a cause and symptom of an atomized society and frayed social bonds.

So what insights does philosophy have to offer about the difficult balance between personal authenticity and social collaboration? This is a question philosophers have addressed at least since the time of Socrates, who followed his inner daimon and was accordingly put to death by small-minded norm-enforcers. (Some things never change!) Today I would like to consider how two types of virtue ethics, Stoicism and Confucianism, might help us make sense of authenticity in these strangely inauthentic times.

Pop Culture Authenticity

First, let’s examine how authenticity is viewed in the culture at large. You might have heard that authentic was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year in 2023. The dictionary defines it primarily as “not false or imitation” and “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.” So authenticity is closely tied to a person’s innermost qualities, including difficult-to-define aspects like spirit and character. This is further confirmed by colloquial usage referencing personality and psychological traits, such as this definition from Psychology Today:

Individuals considered authentic are those who strive to align their actions with their core values and beliefs with the hope of discovering, and then acting in sync with, their true selves.

That might sound admirable, or even in alignment with the effort toward virtue. But consider what some contemporary psychologists mean by being true to yourself. For example, another pop psychology outlet, Verywell Mind, suggests that “being authentic is about identifying all of the aspects of yourself that matter to you and making sure that you’re acting in ways that align with each of them.” The best way to achieve this is to practice mindfulness, “developing the self-awareness to know who your truest self is.”

While I certainly appreciate the instruction to develop self-awareness, what’s missing here is any sense that you might need to develop an understanding of human nature or the broader world outside yourself in order to discover “the aspects of yourself that matter to you.” All the forms of authenticity I have encountered in the wellness world suggest that authenticity is found only by looking inward and focusing even more on yourself. The implication is: it’s you against the world, and no one else could possibly understand you, or have experienced anything else similar to this, or guide you toward living a good life. You are one of a kind.

The other damaging implication following from this is that all of your emotions and intuitions are “valid.” Everything you feel is authentic and is an expression of your true self, whether that is anger at the injustice of the world or frustration that your partner is watching TV too loudly. Therefore trying to change any of your emotions or character traits would mean being “inauthentic.” You are perfect just the way you are right now.

Clearly these are very problematic assumptions, antithetical to a good life and to virtue ethics (or indeed most comprehensive ethical systems). While this superficial effort toward authenticity may be a legitimate reaction against the seeming inauthenticity of the world, this self-indulgent strand draws the wrong lessons and takes the wrong approach to correcting the pressures of a materialistic society.

So now let’s look at how Stoicism and Confucianism can offer a deeper, more well-founded sense of authenticity in our troublingly inauthentic society.

Confucianism

You may know that I have a long-standing interest in Confucianism (see here and here, for example). It is a fascinating philosophy with many parallels to Stoicism and with an unbroken tradition of practice and thought stretching over 2,500 years. I also appreciate having an Eastern counterpoint to the Western tradition, which often helps me get outside my own cultural assumptions and approach problems from a fresh perspective. Quite often I find that an interesting problem has been thoroughly discussed by Confucians in a way that helps me apply virtue better in my own life.

In the case of authenticity, I keep thinking about the differences between Wang Yangming, a Confucian thinker of the 17^th century, and Mengzi (also known in the West as Mencius), who helped codify and secure Confucian theory in the century immediately following Confucius.

Wang Yangming, writing over 1,500 years after the time of Confucius, saw himself as merely developing traditional Confucian theory. But by his time Confucianism had been infused with the competing philosophies of Buddhism and Taoism, giving it a distinctly Buddhist flair. While Mengzi had seen the mind as a fertile seedbed for virtues which needed to be cultivated through study and practice, Wang Yangming saw the mind as already containing everything it needed for virtue. In his view, problems arose when the psyche became clouded over by dirt and debris (unethical thoughts). The mind could be purified through reflection, purged of the impurities that were causing problematic thoughts and behavior. But it was not a matter of cultivation, rather one of cleansing what was already there. As renowned scholar Philip Ivanhoe puts it,

Wang sees the problem of moral failure and the solution to the problem very differently from either Socrates or Augustine. For Socrates, the person who fails to act morally simply needs to know more. For Augustine, she needs to engage in an act of will. But for Wang, such a person needs to become sincere, i.e., be true to her innate moral mind. One accomplishes this by eliminating the obscuring influences of one's selfish thoughts.

Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self Cultivation, p. 64

To describe this process, Wang Yangming used metaphors such as the mind as mirror (by wiping grime away from the mirror, one automatically sees clearly) or cleaning a stuffy nose (by clearing away the mucus, one automatically smells properly):

Wang believed that all human beings are endowed with a complete and perfect moral mind but, like some ancient lost city overgrown and choked with weeds, the moral mind has been buried and lies hidden beneath a mass of selfish desires. In most people, the original mind is rarely and only partially visible. In order to see the more disposition in its full glory, we must clear away the obstructions which over it over by getting rid of selfish desires.

Ivanhoe, Ethics in the Confucian Tradition, p. 96

You can see here some parallels to the current obsession with authenticity: the idea that the mind already contains everything it needs, but we must work to clear away everything that doesn’t truly represent who we are. However, Wang Yangming inherited a tradition of intense ethical self-cultivation, and he didn’t see this task as completely isolated from the world. It was founded on practical knowledge of the world. In addition, he saw part of our task as clearing away desires oriented toward the self in favor of desires oriented toward prosocial virtues. Through the cultivation process, the individual discovered how closely they were linked to other people, not how uniquely special they are.

Stoicism

Let’s move on to modern Stoicism now, thinking about how Mengzi and Wang Yangming can help us apply Stoic principles to the contemporary struggle for authenticity. The question we’ll focus on is: how do we practice authenticity and become who we truly are?

The pop psychology answer seems to be that we become authentic by identifying our current desires and emotions, then going after them in daily life (regardless of how they impact other people).

Mengzi’s answer would be that we become authentic by identifying our human potential for virtue, then cultivating this potential in ourselves through study and practice.

Wang Yangming’s answer would be that we become authentic by identifying selfish desires that lead us away from virtue and paying constant attention to eradicate these desires.

Stoicism is interesting because it contains elements of both Mengzi’s development model and Wang Yangming’s discovery model of self cultivation (I’m using Ivanhoe’s terms here). Here’s how Seneca puts it:

Our minds contain the seeds of everything honorable, and these are activated by admonitions, just as a spark fanned by a slight breeze blossoms into flame. Virtue is roused by a touch, a nudge. Besides, there are some things that are indeed present in the mind, but not accessible; these begin to be usable when they are put into words. Seneca, Letters on Ethics, 94.29

It is easy to rouse a listener and make him desire what is right, for nature has given everyone the foundations and seeds of the virtues. We are all born for such things; and when someone provides a stimulus, the good awakens in our minds as if from sleep. Seneca, Letters on Ethics, 108.8

Personally I am partial to the Mengzi seed model of virtue because I find it closer to my own experience. I think we all have the starting points of a good character, but in some people these are activated more than in others. Like Mengzi and many of the ancient Stoics, I think the optimal way to cultivate virtue within ourselves and others is by growing what is already good within us. We identify those parts of ourselves (and others) that align most closely with the best of human nature, and we water those seeds.

The problem is that this process can easily go awry, which is why most people do not achieve perfect virtue. The ancient Stoics attributed humanity’s widespread lack of virtue to two main factors: the incorrect teachings of society (both from family and from popular culture), as well as the inherent difficulty of understanding our own nature. Without these two impediments, it seems, pretty much everyone would grow into a virtuous person. But with these two obstacles facing us, very few us reach our potential. So it’s necessary to clean out these misleading accretions, which have settled in our minds and block our ability to be happy.

Which brings us to Wang Yangming’s discovery model: rooting out the false beliefs and selfish desires. In Stoicism this parallel is particularly evident in the teachings of Epictetus. Epictetus’ focus was on helping his students analyze their minds, digging out false beliefs and selfish desires. He constantly urged his students to surveille their impressions—their mental picture of the world—to ensure they harbor no false or deceitful thoughts:

What is going badly for you, poor wretch? Your property? Not that, but rather, “you're rich in gold, and rich in bronze.” Your body? Not that. So what is wrong with you? This, that you've neglected and ruined that part of you, whatever it may be, by which we desire things, or seek to avoid them, or exercise our motives to act or not act. In what way has this faculty been neglected? It remains ignorant of the true nature of the good for which it was born, and of the nature of what is bad, and of what property concerns it, and of what is foreign to it.

Discourses, 3.22, 21-22

You must begin, then, by purifying your own ruling center, and adopting this as your plan in life: “From this time forth, the material that I work upon is my own mind, just as that of a carpenter is wood, and that of a cobbler is leather; for my work lies in making right use of my impressions.”

Discourses, 3.22, 19-20

Epictetus doesn’t necessarily share Wang’s belief that we already possess everything we need for virtue, that virtue is simply a matter of eradicating selfish desires. But he does insist on directing our desires away from externals (things are not up to us) and toward our character (the only thing that is up to us). His emphasis on manipulating impressions through careful attention and the retraining of desires is at times quite close to Wang Yangming—or rather I should say Wang Yangming is at times quite close to Epictetus, since of course Epictetus lived 1,500 years before him. Both thinkers demand continual attention to our thoughts in order to weed out everything false and vicious:

When you relax your attention for a short while, don't imagine that you'll be able to recover it whenever you please, but bear this in mind, that because of the error you've committed today, your affairs will necessarily proceed for worse in every respect. For to begin with, and most seriously of all, a habit of inattention will grow up in you, and then a habit of deferring any effort to pay attention. So you should be ware that you'll be constantly putting off to an even later time a happy and appropriate way of life, a life that is in accord with nature and will remain so.

Epictetus, Discourses, 4.12, 1-3

This effort must be carried out continuously. Like eradicating robbers and thieves, one must resolve to wipe them out completely. In idle moments, one must search out and discover each and every selfish thought for sex, wealth, fame, and the rest. One must resolve to pluck out and cast away the root of the sickness, so that it can never arise again. Only then may one begin to feel at ease. One must, at all times, be like a cat catching mice—with eyes intently watching and ears intently listening. As soon as a single [selfish] thought begins to stir, one must conquer it and cast it out. Act as if you were cutting a nail in two or slicing through iron. Do not indulge or accommodate it in any way. Do not harbor it, and do not allow it to escape.

Wang Yangming, cited in Ivanhoe, Ethics in the Confucian Tradition, p. 102

What both of these thinkers share, which the pop psychology view of authenticity lacks, is the awareness that inner authenticity must be carefully sought out and cultivated through years of training. It’s not a matter of looking inside ourselves as individuals and magnifying what is already there. Rather, it’s a question of discovering the human potential represented within us, of which we are merely individual avatars, and striving to augment that potential while resisting the pernicious influences that inevitably arise.

Concluding Thoughts

So this is the primary difference between ancient virtue ethics and contemporary pop psychology: pop psychology suggests that authenticity is simply a matter of discovering our existing inner inclinations and following them as closely as possible, whereas Stoic and Confucian virtue ethics suggest that authenticity is a matter of seeking out the best of human nature within us, and working very hard to grow those seeds into fruitful plants. In virtue ethics you can’t just be “you” without carefully studying who you are as a human, as a part of the cosmos, and as individual with gifts given by nature.

I think it’s a shame that the pop culture version of authenticity results in an unmooring of the individual from any wider ethical system, which of course leads to unhappiness for the individual and for society. It’s true that we often do need to resist demands to conform to what other people are doing, and in this sense pop culture authenticity can be a valuable antidote to mindless consumerism, the hedonic treadmill, etc. But it’s missing the crucial ingredients of careful inquiry and rootedness in ethics. And without this connection, no one can flourish in the long term—no matter how much they follow their dreams.

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Photo credit: Omar Prestwich on Unsplash