 It may seem obvious that Stirner subscribes to a resolutely anti-perfectionist position here. However, this obvious reading has been challenged. Stirner certainly rejects what might be called “essentialist perfectionism”; that is, ethical theories which value certain characteristics of the individual precisely because they realise some aspect of human nature. However, he nonetheless continues to embrace a character ideal, a picture of a self-ruling individual whose perfection is valuable apart from any happiness or pleasure that it might bring. The Stirnerian egoist must not only avoid submission to external powers, but must also cultivate a kind of emotional detachment towards their own thoughts and feelings, ensuring that the latter do not subjugate the egoist, or make the egoist an instrument of their own realisation. The interpretative suggestion here is that an “anti-essentialist perfectionism” survives in this ideal of character, in Stirner’s celebration of the “un-man” and the egoist. (Leopold 2019.)