Did Relativism Kill Authenticity? - Thoughts on Charles Taylor’s ‘The Ethics of Authenticity’
The Ethics of Authenticity
Charles Taylor
You cannot go a day in modern society without hearing about authenticity. We get told so often by the media, and people around us, that we should “just be ourselves authentically”. Yet at the same time, it feels like our society is the most inauthentic it’s ever been. Nobody has their own opinions about anything; we seem to just drift along, without questioning other opinions critically. Why is this the case?
In his book The Ethics of Authenticity, Charles Taylor argues that the moral ideal of authenticity itself is not the problem. Instead, the problem is that people who carry this moral ideal, people who are in the “modern culture of authenticity”, often fall into soft relativism, which, for him, kills authenticity.
In this article, I argue against the notion that relativism kills authenticity. Instead, I propose that laziness is at blame for this tragic murder. But before we dive into the fascinating murder mystery, we must first introduce the characters: what do we mean by ‘authenticity’ and ‘relativism’?
Charles Taylor describes the moral ideal of authenticity like this:
“There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's. If I do not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me” (Pg. 29).
Note a few key elements here:
There exists a certain unique “way of being human” for everyone.
We must realize what this way is for us.
When we realize it, we are then morally obligated to live our lives in this way.
For Taylor, authenticity is a fairly new concept that has only emerged as a moral ideal in recent times. He attributes this development mainly to Rousseau’s concept of self-determining freedom. In his own words, “before the late eighteenth century no one thought that the differences between human beings had this kind of moral significance” (Pg. 28). This claim is dubious, but we can agree that the concept of self-determining freedom is central to the articulation of authenticity as a moral ideal.
It’s important to clarify that the ideal of authenticity does not suggest that one has to build their own identity without the influence of any external forces. Our way of being is inevitably influenced by other people - our parents, role models, and friends all shape our choices significantly, but we wouldn’t consider it inauthentic to be influenced by them. Our “way of being human” is not totally self-defined, but is still unique because no other people’s way is shaped by the same factors our way is shaped by.
Now we move on to the term ‘relativism’. Broadly, relativism describes the idea that there is no objectively true or false moral standards, that all moral viewpoints are equal. There are many ways to interpret this term. The type of relativism that I am engaging with in this article, and the one Taylor is engaging with, is known as ‘soft relativism’. While ‘hard relativism’ can be thought of as a meta-ethical position, ‘soft relativism’ focuses more on individuals. ‘Soft relativists’ describes people who make up their moral ideals subjectively as they go through life, because they believe there is no objective, true set of moral ideals.
Just by defining soft relativism, we can begin to see why Taylor argues that soft relativists have caused the contemporary culture of authenticity to turn inauthentic: it seems that if we can just make up moral ideals however we want them as we go through life, we are not really defending our way of being human; we are just drifting by. We can break Taylor’s critique of relativism roughly into three arguments:
Relativism lacks objective “horizons of significance” that make our choices meaningful. Not any choice can be meaningful; we need an objective standard for what is significant in order to distinguish choices that make us authentic from mundane everyday choices.
Relativism pretends that we can define ourselves entirely from within, whereas in reality, developing an authentic self is dialectical: it relies heavily on how we interact with the people around us.
Relativism leads to a type of narcissism, where we don't feel the need to justify or argue for any position. We can use it as a cop-out from any arguments that require us to actually defend our views. It is ‘self-stultifying’.
One quote summarizes these three arguments well:
“It may be important that my life be chosen, as John Stuart Mill asserts in On Liberty, but unless some options are more significant than others, the very idea of self-choice falls into triviality and hence incoherence. Self-choice as an ideal makes sense only because some issues are more significant than others. I couldn't claim to be a self-chooser, and deploy a whole Nietzschean vocabulary of self-making, just because I choose steak and fries over poutine for lunch. Which issues are significant, I do not determine. If I did, no issue would be significant. But then the very ideal of self-choosing as a moral ideal would be impossible.” (Pg. 39).
It certainly seems like a convincing argument that relativism can reduce choices to insignificance. However, I believe Taylor is wrong to claim that authenticity can only exist if some choices are objectively more significant than others. Why can’t I claim to be an authentic person because I genuinely prefer steak and fries over poutine for lunch? Why can’t one be authentic and believe that their choice of preference between Hawaiian pizza and Pepperoni is just as significant as their choice of political belief? Living an authentic life does not entail that I have to make objectively significant choices. Taylor’s critique of soft relativism seems to be based on another separate moral ideal: that people should take on some sort of objective ‘significance’ in their lives.
This ideal of ‘significance’ has become so deeply embedded in the contemporary culture of authenticity that we think of it as a necessary condition for authenticity. But it’s not. Recall our definition of authenticity. The choices I make that constitute ‘my own way of life’ do not have to be ‘objectively significant’ choices: as long as I feel that these choices are key constituents of my idea of a ‘noble life’, then it is fine.
In fact, the act of breaking free from this ideal of ‘significance’ can be seen as an act of authenticity itself. If I disregard all that society thinks is ‘objectively significant’ and define my way of living on the choices society deems insignificant, that in itself is a form of authenticity.
Taylor also says that relativism pretends that we can define ourselves entirely from within. However, this is not true either. Relativism does not deny the dialectical nature of identity. True relativism requires dialogue. The difference is that the outcome of this dialogue isn't the discovery of a universal moral truth, but the refinement of my own subjective stance and an understanding of the other’s moral stance. Relativism doesn’t deny that dialogue is the basis of identity construction, but it just acknowledges that two people can engage in the same dialogue and authentically arrive at entirely different conclusions.
Finally, is it impossible to have arguments or justify positions under relativism? I think no. Even if we believe all viewpoints are equal, we can still have arguments. We can fiercely defend our preference of Hawaiian pizza over Pepperoni, while acknowledging that it is not a universal moral truth that everyone should prefer Hawaiian over Pepperoni. The problem is that, in modern society, we tend to try to avoid these arguments because we want to save energy. We become too desensitized to arguments happening around us every day that we no longer want to be participants; we just want to be spectators. Because being a spectator in arguments is easier, it takes less effort. We are inherently lazy, so we take the easy route out.
Relativism is really just a scapegoat for the murder of authenticity in modern society. The real culprit is intellectual and social laziness. Engaging in self-determining requires friction and critical thinking: listening, defending, arguing, and changing one’s stances. In modern society, we are overwhelmed by information and constant outrage, so instead of continuing to indulge in discourse, we become cynical spectators.
Soft relativism becomes a convenient shield. Saying "well, everyone has their own truth" is an easy way out of any tough conversation, but in reality it’s a misrepresentation of relativism. True relativism, while encouraging tolerance requires discourse and the understanding of the other side. This ‘escape mentality’ allows us to retreat into passive drift without having to do the hard work of articulating why we care about what we care about.
Charles Taylor rightly diagnoses the symptom: a culture drifting into shallow agreement and passive spectatorhood. But he misidentifies the suspect: It’s not relativism that hollows out authenticity; it’s our unwillingness to spend the energy required to hold any values.
Our own laziness has killed authenticity. We choose the comfort of drifting through life and spectating fights over the demanding work of actually defending the preferences and choices that make us authentic.
