The Unbearable Freedom and the Great Escape
A Discussion of Jean-Paul Sartre’s views of Bad Faith

A while ago, I went out on a Saturday night. I did not want to go out, but I was persuaded to do so. Out in the Canterbury town centre, the drunken antics of thirty-somethings dressed as schoolgirls, the bad cover version of Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’ and other equally exhilarating occurrences did little to lift my spirits. I had a few pints and I cracked jokes that clanged and clattered from their clichéd and coarse subject matter. I got back that night, went to bed, and before falling to sleep, I sighed, deeply affected by the falsities of my behaviour. It was as if I had assumed a role for the Saturday night. Jean Paul Sartre would be likely to point out that I had fallen to Bad Faith. In establishing his brand of Existentialism, Sartre coined this term to describe his beliefs that human beings cannot bear the full anxiety of their freedom, and therefore deny the full extent of this freedom by a form of self-deception . But is there not a problem in this mauvaise foi? Does Sartre wish to condemn us to the infinite abyss of this behaviour, unable to avoid bad faith? Some might say my doubts of Sartre’s ideas of Bad Faith are correct. If anything, Existentialism as a whole is often viewed as a wholly depressing brand of philosophy. Struggling through the texts produced by writers like Sartre, it seems appealing to abandon the paradoxical writing style, and elevate oneself into the sage-like status by summing up Existentialism in one sentence, stating the “it doesn’t really matter anyway”. Not only is amounting a philosophy as pertinent as Existentialism to one sentence unfair, but perverting the ideas to sound like apathetic nihilism is also an atrocious misinterpretation. I for one, have found that the Existentialist writers (especially my favourite Albert Camus) actually communicate a message of hope.

What is Existentialism? Novelists like Dostoyevsky certainly offered effective portrayals of humanity facing an existential crisis, but the term itself was coined in France during the years following the Second World War. In a sense, the ideas of the philosophy were born from the havok of the war. The human landscape during the early 20th century saw institutions like the State, Church and Society in turmoil. The state was physically and ideologically ruined by war. Man felt detached from the church, unable to find a spiritual identity through the pre-packaged catering of the Christian church. Society, in turmoil from clashes between different social-classes and parties, offered no hope. Against such a background, an individual faced the danger of life devoid of meaning. Existentialists felt this crisis, and put forth an idea that man must define his own existence. They treated mankind, possibly in one of the first instances, as an adult. Gone were the days of being told what to do and be, and humanity on the verge of adulthood, were given the absolute freedom, and the absolute responsibility, to define their own essence and identity.

In such a construct, the idea in Existentialism could seem depressing. After all, it is hard to face an ultimate freedom without a safety net. It is not easy to take on such responsibility. But in my views, the responsibility that the ultimate freedom gives man, is the crucial elevating plane that renders existentialist ideas to be more than just mundane nihilism. It still does not make the views of Sartre’s particular brand a shiny gift-wrapped Easter egg with a rosy scent, for the Sartre’s problem of bad faith remains. The weight of the freedom man is condemned to does create anxiety, and as I did on that Saturday night, it is possible to avoid the feeling by self-deception.
What is bad faith, in detail? Sartre himself elucidates the predicament through poetic examples. A famous example depicts a woman on a date, where her suitor takes her hand, and she chooses not to react at all, leaving the hand resting “neither consenting or resisting - a thing” . Elsewhere, Sartre invites us to observe a waiter at a café. This waiter performs all his tasks a little too quickly, a little too eagerly, as he is “playing at being a waiter at a café” , pretending “in order to realize” his role.

Both of Sartre’s examples portray acts of bad faith. In the case of the courted lady, she has escaped responsibility of the situation by making her hand a thing. According to Mary Warnock, Sartre calls this Being-in-itself . The waiter’s case is different. The waiter’s pretence does not make him a thing, as the girl did with her hand, but rather “he pretends to be nothing but what the people label him” , thus reflecting a state of Being-for-others. In both cases, the people act against the existential ideal of authenticity. Thus, more specifically, in bad faith, instead of just simply deceiving ourselves, we bound our freedom to manacles. One hand is bound by looking at oneself as an object, the other by playing a part. Such manacles could be escaped without even addressing if we can avoid bad faith, because people like Gregory McCulloch argue that Sartre’s description of mauvaise foi is flawed. McCulloch bases his claims on Sartre’s example of the homosexual struggling to come to grips with his sexual identity. His friend encourages him to face the truth, and according to Sartre, both are in Bad Faith. The homosexual is in bad faith for trying to detach himself from his sexuality, and his friend for attempting encouraging him to confess his sexuality. According to McCulloch, Sartre cannot have both cases be bad faith, as it would either be the homosexual man’s “guilt and self-deception, but no bad faith over freedom” , or the sincere friend’s “bad faith over freedom, but no self deception” , as the friend is not directly deceiving himself.

Does this defeat the whole idea of bad faith? It does not. McCulloch ignored Sartre’s different forms of bad faith mentioned by Warnock. Consider the following. An obese person is ashamed of his weight to an extreme level. He feels deep lashings of guilt over his physical condition. He tries to get away by hiding from his weight. He wears corsets to tuck his stomach, and dresses in dark clothing to seem slimmer. His friend, worried about this, tells the obese man to simply look into the mirror and admit that he is a very fat man, and accept himself as a fat man. The obese man, attempting to ignore the reality of his weight, is in bad faith, as he lets his weight lower to Being-For-Itself, negating his responsibility for his condition. His friend, though trying to help, is asking the obese man to define his whole persona in terms of his obesity, and is in bad faith too, because he advocates Being-For-Others. The obese man cannot detach himself from his weight, as it is a part of him. Nor should his friend reduce him to a mere fat man, for his existence transcends this societal stereotype. Thus, both are in bad faith, but in the different patterns of it, similarly to the lady on the first date, and the waiter in the café. The same situation applies for the homosexual and his friend, thus proving, contrary to McCulloch’s claims, that Sartre’s bad faith actually can have it both ways.

Bad faith remains standing after the trying winds of McCulloch’s criticisms. Although Sartre’s paradoxical style of writing leads his theory to many points of question, bad faith remains a noteworthy observation of human behaviour. One need not look further than acquaintances who are in a habit of going out every night and getting plastered, pissed, inebriated and evidently drunk because it belongs to the role of a university student, to notice that bad faith is, as Sartre observed, a pattern we take on almost as a default, a “spontaneous determination of our being” .

Sartre’s theory of bad faith does stand some ground, but then how are we to escape the manacles of bad faith? Can this behaviour be avoided? The word ‘bad’ in the term itself, as well as Sartre’s poetic examples of people in bad faith, certainly lead us to look at the term in an unfavourable light. Naturally we look to Sartre for advice to avoid bad faith. Throughout the remainder of Being and Nothingness, the advice remains undisclosed. Is it then possible to avoid bad faith? Perhaps bad faith can possibly be avoided. Peter Caws hints at a pattern of behaviour in which bad faith could eventually be diminished. The foundation of Caws’ argument lies in the belief that mauvaise foi is a form of faith, “not just a cynical deception practised by the self on itself, but a genuine belief that it entertains about itself” . Caws continues from this basis, stating that the self would have to, in some way, know this belief to be mistaken. He then proposes, that if self-awareness is practiced, at a sufficient level, one will be sufficiently self-aware, and bad faith will pass “into downright dishonesty” . Hence, Caws suggests that self-awareness will lead us to avoid bad faith.

Does Caws’ escape-attempt work? His argument certainly follows a valid pattern. In fact, his foundation is supported by the thoughts of Sartre himself. Sartre states: “I must know in my capacity as deceiver the truth which is hidden from me in my capacity as the one that is deceived” . Logically it then follows that if we are, at some level, aware of our submission bad faith, focused and concentrated self-awareness should enable us to detect our manacles, and reduce their weight. However, in his attempt to point light to the end of the tunnel of bad faith, Caws seems to take too many liberties in further steps of his argument. While his founding proposition is based on Sartre, his stepladder out of mauvaise foi goes against the rest of Sartre’s philosophy. A founding proposition in Sartre’s theory deals with the character of subjectivity, as he feels that “man cannot pass beyond human subjectivity” . Thus the philosophy of which bad faith is a part of does not believe in objective moral truths. Thus, when Caws begins to suggest that to get out of bad faith, we should practice self-awareness, he suggests a belief that a certain way to live is valuable “in itself, independently of us thinking it so” . His argument works against the principles of existentialism.

To clarify the problem with Caws’ possible escape from bad faith, consider the following. I have considered ethical matters critically, and concluded that no moral values are worthy by themselves, but are valuable because human beings put value to them. I live with this stance quite happily, until I begin to follow the campaigns for some up-coming general elections. I find myself compelled by the manifesto of a particular party. I am so compelled that I decide to join the party. When a friend of mine asks me why I decided to join the party, and I reply “because they are right”. I have negated my previous founding principles. I have denied my own responsibility and defined myself as a member of the political party. I have done so by giving the party’s views value as independent truths, not affected by my own thinking of them as the right answers. It must be remembered that Sartre himself faced criticism by Camus due to his association with the Communist party. This analogy matches the problem in Caws’ escape from bad faith. He takes a problem from a philosophy that declares we ought not to provide instructions to life set in stone. He then attempts to diminish bad faith by giving instructions to life. It seems self-awareness isn’t sufficient to lead us out of bad faith.

Thus, with the escape tunnel Caws pointed to us in ruin, it seems Warnock’s thoughts on bad faith work more effectively along Sartre’s thoughts. Warnock argues that we cannot avoid bad faith all together. She thinks that “we may aspire to be whatever we are completely, but we can never achieve this” . She argues that the best we can do in is recognize the freedom we have, and use it. If we value “certain kinds of behaviour more than others, we may try to behave this way” but recognize that we assigned the value to this behaviour. Thus, through keeping in mind the objectivity of values, this relationship to bad faith is more plausible than Caws’ views.

However, this argument can lead us to a circular track with bad faith. For Sartre’s arguments state that recognizing our freedom brings us anguish, and this anguish leads us to escape to bad faith, as “bad faith flees being by taking refuge in ‘not-believing-what-one-believes” . Thus, with Warnock’s suggestion to avoiding bad faith, we are caught in a loop where we recognize our freedom, and then escape the anguish of it to bad faith, and then again recognize bad faith. However, as her argument never claimed to defeat mauvaise foi, this circular loop does not fully diminish her claims. In fact, it seems as if this might be the best ray of hope we have in avoiding bad faith.

Thus, dwelling the paths of Sartre’s existentialism and bad faith, we discovered that while the paradoxical style in which the ideas are described can lead to criticism, bad faith perseveres trying winds. At the very least, it remains a poignant observation of human behaviour. Attempting to practice self-awareness is not enough to avoid bad faith, as doing so defies previous propositions set by Sartre’s theory. Are we left to conclude that we are unable to completely avoid bad faith, as the escape of recognising our freedom leads us to suffer from the anguish that originally cast us to bad faith? It may seem depressing at first, but this recognition of freedom leaves a shining ray of redemption at the end of our tunnel. Still, throughout my attempts to explain the gifts of existentialism, a general difficulty with the Sartre’s philosophy remains visible behind the lines. If one establishes a philosophy of extreme freedom, it is increasingly difficult to prescribe rules to follow in this philosophy. However, this does not negate our freedom to notice the validity of the existentialist’s views on the human condition the next time we seem to be lured out to the oppressing environment of a reluctant night out on some dim Saturday.

By Juha Virtanen

Bibliography

Works Cited

Caws, Peter. “Bad Faith and Existence of the For-Itself”. Sartre. Rouledge & Kegan Paul.
London. 1984. 74-94

Kemerling, Karl. “Bad Faith”. Philosophy Dictionary.
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/b.htm#badf. 24.04.2005

McCulloch, Gregory. “Bad Faith and Self-Deception”. Using Sartre: An analytical
Introduction to Early Sartrean Themes. Routledge. London. 1997. 52-71

Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Bad Faith”. Being and Nothingness. Methuen. London. 1957. 47-70.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Humanism. Methuen. London. 1973.

Warnock, Mary. “Bad Faith”. The Philosophy of Sartre. Hutchinson University Library.
London. 1971. 50-63


Copyright October 2005