One man's authenticity is another man's betrayal: A reply to Levy

Journal of Applied Philosophy

Volumn 29, Issue 3, 2012, Pages 257-265

  Erler, Alexandre ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84878192066     PISSN: 02643758     EISSN: 14685930     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5930.2012.00562.x     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. Neil Levy, 'Enhancing authenticity', Journal of Applied Philosophy 28,3 (2011): 308-18
2. See e.g. Carl Elliott, Better ThanWell:American Medicine Meets the American Dream (NewYork:W.W. Norton, 2003
3. See Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
4. David DeGrazia, Human Identity and Bioethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005
5. Peter D. Kramer, Listening to Prozac (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1993
6. Carl Elliott, 'The tyranny of happiness: Ethics and cosmetic psychopharmacology' in E. Parens (ed.) Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical and Social Implications, (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 1998), p. 182
7. While I am deliberately using 'pure' cases here for the sake of clarity, I do not wish to suggest that introversion and extroversion must come in such clear-cut forms. Being overall an introvert is compatible with possessing some extroverted features, and vice-versa. I do not see this as a problem for my argument: my remarks will apply to any introvert who takes a medication to change some of his introverted traits, as opposed to trying and express any extroverted features he might already have.
8. See Alexandre Erler, 'Authenticity, self-creation, and self-respect', Journal of Medicine and Philosophy
9. While I do think that my proposed solution helps provide a criterion for deciding which 'inner voice' the agent ought to listen to if he is to act authentically, it admittedly abandons Elliott's idea that this person's new extroverted personality is not really 'his' personality - indeed, I see no plausible way of justifying such a claim, provided that the new personality is stable enough.
10. Guy Kahane, Neil Levy, Pieter Bonte, And two anonymous referees for the Journal of Applied Philosophy for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. I also acknowledge support from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Brocher Foundation for the period during which this response piece was written.