Stephanie asked:

I am in a Philosophy class right now, and we have to write a paper on a topic our teacher has
provided us. My question is "What is the existentialist meaning of authenticity? and what moral value,
if any, does it have?" The first thing I did was look up what existentialism is. Basically it is a
movement that concentrates on personal choice and freedom. I have done much research on it, but I
would like another person's point of view.

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There isn't a general 'existentialist' meaning of 'authenticity' and if you have found it written
somewhere that there is, your suspicion should be aroused. There are different views of philosophers
about the meaning of 'authenticity'. This word became jargon among philosophers who are
associated (usually by others) with existentialism. Heidegger has his view of authenticity and Sartre
has his. These are two of the most well known. Heidegger's view is based on the ontological
difference between Being (Sein) in its verbal sonority and beings (Seiendes) or things that are.
Essential for human Being (Dasein), according to Heidegger, is Being-toward-death (Sein sum Tode).
In terms of this absolute each of us derive what is our 'ownmost' (eigenst). While quite
technical-sounding in his early work, Heidegger's idea of all this became increasingly fluid, fluent and
poetic. The usual criticism of Heidegger is to ask where ethics fits into all this. Heidegger's thinking
seems to render ethics superfluous. The rejoinder is that Heidegger is not thinking about ethics, nor is
he thinking about system, he is thinking about Being, and if you are thinking about that, this is how it
goes.

Sartre's view highlights what Heidegger would regard as an inauthentically human. Sartre starts with
the fact of human freedom, as you say, the freedom of the ego essentially, and he say, "Man makes
himself. He isn't ready made to begin with. By choosing his ethics, he makes himself, and the force of
circumstances is such that he cannot abstain from choosing one..." (Existentialism is a Humanism).
So for Sartre, ethics is there to begin with. His philosophy, and idea of authenticity is always already
ethical. However, it is also political and the problem with Sartre, in his life as in his work is that the
ethical gets submerged in the political and the political becomes the horizon of the ethical. His ethics
ends (like Mathieu) foundering upon his politics.

Matthew Del Nevo
www.sictenon.com