New Paper by Dr. Samuel Mortimer Explores How Communities Cultivate Authenticity—and Why It Matters for Leadership

Entitled “Second-Personal Politics and Political Authenticity,” the paper asks how people become capable of participating authentically in political life. It argues that authenticity is not simply a personal quality that individuals develop in isolation, but is instead made possible by relationships through which other people and the wider community actively help individuals understand, shape, and express who they are.

The importance of this support extends beyond the individuals themselves, because authenticity also matters to what people can reasonably ask of one another. When citizens call on governments to make changes, or leaders ask others to work toward a shared goal, their authenticity gives those they address an additional reason to respond—not simply in response to pressure, but out of respect for the people making the appeal.

Authenticity is frequently invoked in contemporary politics. Politicians seek to appear genuine, political movements promise to give people a voice, and citizens are encouraged to remain true to their convictions. Yet philosophical accounts have generally treated authenticity as an individualistic ideal: a matter of looking inward, discovering one’s “true self,” and resisting external influence.

Drawing on Plato’s Alcibiades I, Dr. Mortimer recovers an older and explicitly political conception of authenticity. On this account, being authentic means taking an active role in shaping oneself and expressing that self through one’s actions. Crucially, however, people do not acquire this capacity alone. Through “second-personal” relationships—in which people address, recognize, challenge, and support one another as participants in a shared political life—a community can help its members become capable of authentic agency.

Becoming authentic, in turn, matters for participating in political life. Dr. Mortimer distinguishes between two ways of engaging with others: we can simply inform or influence them, or we can appeal to them directly, asking them to act and holding them accountable for their response. When citizens call on a government to change an unjust policy, for example, they need not be providing new information or threatening electoral consequences. They may instead be asking decision-makers to recognize their claim and to act, because the decision-makers owe it to those making the claim. The paper calls this “second-personal” political engagement: one person or group addressing another directly, making demands, seeking support, or calling for change.

Political engagement in this sense is not confined to governments and elections. It also takes place within companies and other organizations. A business leader who asks employees to come together around a shared purpose is doing more than just issuing instructions, while employees who call on management to improve working conditions may be doing more than just reporting dissatisfaction. In each case, people appeal to one another as individuals who can reconsider their commitments, take responsibility, and act—not simply as people whose behavior can be managed through incentives or pressure.

Dr. Mortimer argues that authenticity is essential to this kind of engagement. To ask others to act on our appeals, we must genuinely stand behind the commitments those appeals express: we must take an active role in deciding what we stand for and reflect that in what we do. Authenticity does not make every demand justified. But where a demand is otherwise legitimate, it enables that demand to give others a reason to act that goes beyond the information we provide or the power we wield.

For leaders in business and government, the significance is therefore not simply that appearing authentic can help win support—it is that genuinely being authentic matters to what they can reasonably ask of others. A manager may have the authority to issue instructions, but calling on colleagues to embrace a common purpose requires more than a job title: it also requires a willingness to examine and live by one’s own commitments, and to accept accountability in return.

The argument complements KIP’s exploration of the “Self-as-WE” and extends Dr. Mortimer’s earlier work on the social foundations of authenticity into political philosophy. It recasts authenticity as a shared political responsibility: by helping one another become authentic, we cultivate the capacity to call for change, hold one another accountable, and exercise leadership in our communities and organizations.

Read the full open-access paper in Political Philosophy.