Abstract

The paper examines the relationship between ethics and the principle of authenti_city, focusing on two fundamental questions: What is it, what distorts today the ideal of authenticity and how to differentiate between morally responsible forms of self-determination and other ways of modern searching for authenticity? The author follows Taylor’s conception of authenticity. On one hand Taylor is not wil_ling simply to reject the diagnosis of the conservative critics of modernity. He shares their idea, that it was the modernity, which made the dynamic of ongoing social individualization and purpose-made rationalization possible. The consequence, however, is, among other things, a challenge to our moral certainties. On the other hand Taylor does not to be an adherent of antimodernism. Acoording to him the background of contemporary occurrences is also the ideal of authenticity, which could be attributed a moral role and which seems to break down the value relativism from inside