Gopal Sreenivasan’s new book, Emotion and Virtue, is an incredibly rich and impressive achievement. It is required reading for anyone working on issues related to character. In the spirit of book discussions in this journal, I will focus less on raising objections and more on exploring how the discussion could be extended in new directions or connected with related topics. The plan is to focus on four topics: (i) the scope of Sreenivasan’s project, (ii) his response to the situationist challenge, (...) (iii) some implications of his view for practical wisdom, and (iv) his account of virtue conflicts. (shrink)

What do we ordinarily mean when we describe people as authentic or inauthentic? We describe friends, enemies, acquaintances, and colleagues as authentic and inauthentic, as well as politicians, celebrities, and other public figures. What are we saying about someone, when we say that they are authentic or inauthentic? I argue that authenticity is transparency: that you are authentic to the extent that you are transparent and inauthentic to the extent that you are opaque. I contrast my account with three alternative (...) accounts of authenticity: the view that authenticity is fidelity to your true self, the view that authenticity is a species of selfknowledge, and the view that authenticity is a species of non-conformity. I will argue that my proposed account, unlike its rivals, can explain a basic intuition about personal authenticity: that people who are fakes – i.e. phonies or poseurs – are inauthentic people. (shrink)