This chapter begins by interrogating the ideal of authenticity as a paradigmatic modern response to the crisis of master narratives. It critically examines practices of narrative selfhood, and discusses the ways in which social roles offer scaffolds for the development of a self without fully constituting such a self. Role-playing – the inhabitation of social and narrative roles – is an outstanding example of the exercise of imagination, its double function of finding and making, and its for-the-most-part inherited, moulded, and largely habituated practice. The chapter concludes with a theological discussion of the ways our habitual imagination of selfhood can be broken open without pretence that we might be able to find a fully realized authentic self beneath our narrative and social roles.

This chapter examines major views of caring, compassion, and related emotional virtues, fleshing out divergences and convergences across traditions and disciplines, and exploring different understandings of their significance for education. In this chapter, views on these topics are organised in relation to their orientation toward the ‘empathy-altruism’ thesis. The empathy-altruism thesis generally contends that empathy, sympathy, compassion and the like can lead to emotional experiences of fellow feeling and positive relationality toward others, altruistic motivation, and benevolent deeds. It then follows that education should strive to cultivate these other-oriented feelings. Many philosophers, psychologists, and educators support this perspective. However, it faces challenges, also from across fields, among those who focus on the thesis’s limitations and possibly problematic educational implications. When it comes to caring, compassion, and altruism, this chapter shows that while there appears to be a consensus view on the merits of these feelings and related dispositions and actions in education and society, the blanket promotion of these emotional virtues is not altogether unproblematic. In this case, a more critical perspective on the empathy-altruism thesis is defended, as the over-optimistic view of these feelings and dispositions can fail to recognise the risks and challenges that accompany them.