The Modern Ethos of Authenticity

Rene Descartes has been kind of a symbol for a whole group of thinkers who was sort of broke with a teleological understanding of nature. They develop the ethic of authenticity where you have this mysterious force within you. It comes to expression and that's not teleological in the sense of being determined from the outset to one goal. But that is sort of seeking a way of expressing itself. And so you live. To be moral is really to live authentically that is not to repress this. Longing or whatever, however you want to describe it.