Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another."of two hearts ... a sustained form of deception which consists in entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings, and acting as if influenced by another; bad faith", Webster's Dictionary, 1913 It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service. It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception.
Some examples of bad faith include: soldiers waving a white flag and then firing when their enemy approaches to take prisoners (cf. perfidy); a company representative who negotiates with union workers while having no intent of compromising;"Bad Faith Negotiation," Union Voice, . a prosecutor who argues a legal position that he knows to be false; and an insurer who uses language and reasoning which are deliberately misleading in order to deny a claim. Generally considered an ethically reprehensible practice, dealing in bad faith may be viewed more positively from a consequentialist perspective, for example, in the problem of dirty hands. It may be viewed as a method of survival or pragmatic management of a hostile environment.
In philosophy, after Jean-Paul Sartre's analysis of the concepts of self-deception and bad faith, the latter concept has been examined in specialized fields as it pertains to self-deception as two semi-independently acting minds within one mind, with one deceiving the other. Bad faith may be viewed in some cases to not involve deception, as in some kinds of hypochondria with actual physical manifestations. There is a question about the truth or falsity of statements made in bad faith self-deception; for example, the veracity of a hypochondriac making a complaint about their psychosomatic condition.
Bad faith has been used as a term of art in diverse areas involving feminism,The Look' as Bad Faith", Philosophy Today 36, 3 (1992), Debra B. Bergoffen, pp. 221–227. racial supremacism,Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism, L. Gordon, Humanities Press, New Jersey. political negotiation,Definition of "bad faith" example of use – "the Republicans accused the Democrats of negotiating in bad faith", Oxford Online Dictionary insurance claims processing, intentionality,Good Faith and Other Essays, Joseph S. Catalano, p. 104. ethics,Existentialism & Sociology: The Contribution of Jean-Paul Sartre, Gila J. Hayim. existentialism, climate change denial, and the law.
Definition In the book Being and Nothingness (1943), the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre defined bad faith (Fr. mauvaise foi) as the action of a person hiding the truth from him- or herself.Being and Nothingness, Sartre, Jean-Paul That "the one to whom the lie is told and the one who lies are one and the same person, which means that I must know the truth, in my capacity as [the] deceiver, though [the truth] is hidden from me in my capacity as the one deceived"; thus, in the praxis of bad faith, "I must know that truth very precisely, in order to hide it from myself the more carefully – and this not at two different moments of temporality."
A person choosing self-deception is the fundamental question about bad faith: "What makes self-deception possible?"Self Deception and the Nature of Mind, Tropisms and Reason, Perspectives on Self-deception, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ed., For a liar to successfully deceive the victim, the liar must know that the lie is a falsehood. In order to be successfully deceived, the victim must believe the lie to be true. When a person acts in bad faith, that person is both the liar and the victim of the lie. The contradiction is that a person in bad-faith self-deception believes something to be true and false at the same time.Self Deception and Bad Faith, Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin ed., Alan W. Wood, pp. 207–227
In philosophy, psychology, and psychoanalysis
Freudian psychoanalysis Freudian psychoanalysis answers how bad faith self-deception is made possible by postulating an unconscious dimension of our being that is amoral, whereas the conscious is in fact regulated by morality, law, and custom, accomplished by what Freud calls repression."Self Deception and Bad Faith", Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin ed., Alan W. Wood, pp. 207–227 The true desires of the unconscious express themselves as wish fulfillment in dreams, or as an ethical position unconsciously taken to satisfy the wishes of the unconscious mind.
Ethics, phenomenology, existentialism
Bad faith wish fulfillment is central to the ethics of belief, which discusses questions at the intersection of epistemology, philosophy of mind, psychology, Freudian psychoanalysis, and ethics.Self Deception and the Ethics of Belief, David Wisdo, Journal of Value Inquiry 91, 339–347, 1991The Life of Irony and the Ethics of Belief, David Wisdo, SUNY, Albany, 1993"psychological strategies such as..."bad faith"...become germane in the ethics of belief", Ethics of Belief, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySelf Deception Unmasked, Alfred R. Mele, Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 2001
A person who is not lying to themself is authentic. "Authenticity" is being faithful to internal rather than external ideas.
Bad faith in ethics may be when an unethical position is taken as ethical, and justified by appeal to being forced to that belief as an excuse, e.g., by God or by that person's natural disposition due to genetics, even though facts disconfirm that belief and honesty would require it."...required by honesty, and to hide this from ourselves is 'bad faith'. One form of bad faith is to pretend that there is a God who is giving us our tasks. Another is to pretend that there is a 'human nature' that is doing the same thing", Religion and Morality, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Phenomenology plays a role leading to discussions of bad faith. It has a role in ethics by an analysis of the structure of will, valuing, happiness, and care for others (in empathy and sympathy). Phenomenologist Heidegger discussed care, conscience, and guilt, moving to "authenticity", which in turn led to the feminism of Simone de Beauvoir and the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, both based on phenomenology's considerations of authenticity and its role in bad faith. Sartre analyzed the logical problem of "bad faith" as it relates to authenticity, and developed an ontology of value as produced by willing in good faith.
Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir developed ideas about bad faith into existentialism, using the concepts of bad faith and "authenticity" in the ethics of belief."The 'ethics of belief' refers to a cluster of questions at the intersection of epistemology, philosophy of mind, psychology, and ethics ... central ... is ... bad faith wish-fulfillment...", The Ethics of Belief, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy In Being and Nothingness, Sartre begins his discussion of bad faith by raising the question of how bad faith self-delusion is possible. Sartre calls "bad faith" a kind of project of self-deception. In order to produce excuses, bad faith first takes a third-person stance toward itself. When it becomes necessary to elude this stance it has made of itself, it then adopts the first-person perspective. In neither case can the deception fully succeed. Without these two facets of existence, if consciousness was unitary and not divisible, as in the indivisible "I" in "I think, therefore I am", it would be impossible to explain how the very project of self-deception could be possible. The Freudian theory of the unconscious is viewed by Sartre as based on an incoherent view of consciousness, but the project of psychoanalysis as an uncovering of the "fundamental project" of an individual's life is considered to be valid.
Jean-Paul Sartre called the belief that there is something intrinsically good in itself, which is inherent in the world as absolute value and is discoverable by people, the "spirit of seriousness", which he argued leads to bad faith. He argued that people fall into the spirit of seriousness because they take their values too seriously, and forget that values are contingent, chosen and assigned subjectively."Spirit of Seriousness", The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy, Nicholas Bunnin and JiYuan Yu, editors, In Sartre's words, "the spirit of seriousness has two characteristics: it considers values as transcendent givens, independent of human subjectivity, and it transfers the quality of 'desirable' from the ontological structure of things to their simple material constitution."Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre
Psychology Psychologists have proposed answers as to how bad faith self-delusion can be possible."Self Deception and Bad Faith", Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin ed., Alan W. Wood
A "tropism" is an action done without conscious thought."action done without cognitive thought", Websters Dictionary Online, While self-deception may be a tropism, not consciously done, it may be guided by "projects" one may set for one's life, such as a desire to get into heaven, or for personal pleasure, wealth, or power. For example, a creationist has a project to get into heaven, and a racist with feelings of personal inadequacy may have a project to be superior or to have power over some others. The project may create self-deception without conscious thought, as a tropism creates action without conscious thought. A project may be selfish, and overwhelm reason from facts, though its consequences are not directly intentional. But the project itself may be intentionally sought, and in a selfish way, whence bad faith arises, as a result of selfish or bad intention in choice of project."Self Deception and the Nature of Mind", Tropisms and Reason, Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin, editor, Irrationality in Philosophy and Psychology: the Moral Implications of Self-Defeating Behavior, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5, 1998, (2): 224–234, Christine A. JamesBetween Freedom and Self-Subjection: The Dilemma of Writing in an African Language, Literator: Journal of Literary Criticism"Anatomy of Self Deception: Judgment, Belief, and the US Decision to Invade Iraq" by Peter ZimmermanPerspectives on Self-Deception edited by Brain P. McLaughlin and Amelie Oksenberg Rorty"Exploring the Possibility of Self-Deception in Belief" by Brian P. McLaughlin
A homunculus is a little person (or map of the person) inside a person, and homuncularism is the theory in psychology that there are subsystems of the mind performing different operations; the homuncularist answer to the question as to how bad faith is possible is that one such subunit deceives the other."There is a natural homuncularist response to this surface paradox of self deception. Distinct subsystems that play the distinct role of deceiver and deceived are located within the self deceiver. So no single subject of belief is required to both believe (know) a proposition and not believe (know) it.", Self Deception and the Nature of Mind, "Tropisms and Reason", Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin editor, pp. 63–64, Mark Johnson author,
In humanistic psychology, recognition of bad faith in one's own acts by the actor results in guilt and regret."Existential Regret: A Crossroads of Existential Anxiety and Existential Guilt", Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Marijo Lucas, Ph.D
Psychologists have examined the role of bad faith in psychologists overseeing and directing torture, when they know that it is wrong, e.g., in the Guantanamo detention center.
Truth values