As (post-) modern institutions multiply and become more abstract and fractured in their ethical prescriptions, individuals must learn navigate ethical ambiguity on their own. One way that this appears to be accomplished is through the pursuit of ‘authenticity’ within and across specific contexts. Based on a sample of 600 letters published between 2002 and 2014, this article explores the New York Times’ Ethicist column as a site where individuals grapple with personal responsibility to engage in ethical behavior, often doing so in the name of authenticity. Instead of relying on external institutions, to dictate ethical choices, such ethical trade-offs become the bones of one’s identity. This can result in tension between within-context authenticity that is derived from specific roles and relationships and across-context authenticity that transcends people and places. This tension is a defining feature of ethical action in the (post-) modern era.
BeckU. (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
9.
BeckU.GiddensA.LashS. (1994) Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
10.
BoyleD. (2004) Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and the Lust for Real Life. London: Harper Perennial.
11.
CooleyC.H. (1902) Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner’s.
12.
De BottonA. (2004) Status Anxiety. Toronto: Viking Canada.
13.
DurkheimÉ. (1984 [1893]) The Division of Labor in Society, trans. HallsW.D., with an introduction by CoserL.New York: The Free Press.
14.
FaircloughN. (1999) ‘Linguistic and Intertextual Analysis within Discourse Analysis’, pp. 183–212 in JaworskiA.CouplandN. (eds) The Discourse Reader. London: Routledge.
15.
GergenK. (2000) The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Everyday Life, 2nd edn.New York: Basic Books.
16.
GiddensA. (1991) Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
17.
GoffmanE. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.
HallS. (1992) ‘Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies’, pp. 277–294 in GrossbergL.NelsonC.TreichlerP. (eds) Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge.
20.
HarawayD. (1994) ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’, pp. 424–57 in HermannA.C.StewartA.J. (eds) Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
21.
HardtM.NegriA. (2000) Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
22.
JaworskiA.CouplandN. (1999) ‘Introduction: Perspectives on Discourse Analysis’, pp.1–44 in JaworskiA.CouplandN. (eds) The Discourse Reader. London: Routledge.
23.
IllouzE. (2007) Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
24.
LaschC. (1979) The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: Norton.
25.
LewinP.WilliamsJ.P. (2009) ‘The Ideology and Practice of Authenticity in Punk Subculture’, pp. 65–83 in VanniniP.WilliamsJ.P. (eds) Authenticity in Self, Culture and Society. Aldershot: Ashgate.
26.
LyotardJ. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
27.
MacKinnonN.J.HeiseD.R. (2010) Self, Identity, and Social Institutions.New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
28.
MarkusH.NuriusP. (1986) ‘Possible Selves’, American Psychologist41(9): 954–69.
29.
MarxK. (1978 [1844]) Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. In The Marx-Engels Reader Second Edition, edited by TuckerR.C.New York: W.W. Norton.
30.
PeräkyläA. (2015) ‘From Narcissism to Face Work: Two Views on the Self in Social Interaction’, American Journal of Sociology121(2): 445–74.
RousseauJ.J. (1994) Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
33.
SimmelG. (1971 [1908]) ‘The Stranger’, pp. 143–50 in LevineD. (ed.) Georg Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
34.
SprouleW. (2006) ‘Content Analysis’, in WalterM. (ed.) Social Research Methods: An Australian Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
35.
TaylorC. (1991) The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
36.
TrillingL. (1971) Sincerity and Authenticity. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
37.
VanniniP.FranzeseA. (2008) ‘The Authenticity of Self: Conceptualization, Personal Experience, and Practice’, Sociology Compass2(5): 1621–37
38.
VanniniP.WilliamsJ.P. (2009) Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society. Aldershot: Ashgate.
39.
WaskulD. (2009) ‘The Importance of Insincerity and Inauthenticity for Self and Society: Honesty Is Not the Best Policy’, in VanniniP.WilliamsJ.P. (eds) Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society. Aldershot: Ashgate.
40.
WeberM. (1946) ‘Religious Rejections of the World and their Directions’, in GerthH.H.MillsC.W. (eds) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
41.
WeberM. (2011 [1949]) ‘The Meaning of “Ethical Neutrality” in Sociology and Economics’, in The Methodology of the Social Sciences, trans. and ed. ShilsE.A.FinchH.A. with a new introduction by AntonioR.J.SicaA.New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
42.
WeberM. (1958) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Scribner.
43.
WimmerR.DominickJ. (2006) Mass Media Research. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
