ABSTRACT
Existentialists offer authenticity as a central virtue. But the existential notion of authenticity is purely formal, in contrast to the substantive Romantic ideal. This raises a number of worries, including the questions of why we ought to be authentic and whether authenticity is sufficiently constraining on behaviour. Whether there exist compelling answers to these questions that stay within the broad outlines of existential philosophy remains an open question. However, the existentialist focus on autonomy, self-expression, and artistic self-creation represents an important contribution to the project of understanding the life of someone whose existence matters to them.
