Sincerity After Authenticity: Ethical Life Under Conditions of Fictional Reality

The ethical ideal of authenticity has long been understood as fidelity to an inner identity that precedes and grounds its expression. This paper argues that authenticity no longer works as a reliable ethical guide in a world shaped by performance, media saturation, and blurred lines between reality and simulation. Drawing on Judith Butler’s critique of the metaphysics of substance, Jean Baudrillard’s account of hyperreality, and Saul Kripke’s distinction between metaphysical and epistemic possibility, I argue that even if a “true self” exists at some metaphysical level, it cannot serve as a practical or accessible foundation for ethical life. Authenticity thus persists as a metaphysical fiction—conceptually intelligible but normatively inoperative. In its place, this paper develops sincerity as an alternative ethical framework. Through the Spectrum of Sincerity—defined by coherence, aspirational orientation, and non-instrumentality—it establishes sincerity as the ethical virtue appropriate to fictional reality.