Abstract

Our research considers The Ethics of Authenticity to be a synthesis of Charles Taylor's political theory, from which he carries out a critical evaluation of modern Western culture and analyses its main ailments in order to then highlight its principle of vitality: authenticity. Throughout Western history, authenticity was considered to be an individual search for the self, based on a detached rationality that didn't consider horizons of meaning or relationships with significant others. Through Taylor's theory, this perspective has changed: authenticity is now described as a dialogical moral ideal, based on recognition. The continuous construction of our identity depends on relationships of recognition, as a proper way of safeguarding an ethically authentic existence.