bad faith

bad faith (1) dishonest and blameworthy instances of self-deception; (2) inauthentic and self-deceptive refusal to admit to ourselves and others our full freedom, thereby avoiding anxiety in making decisions and evading responsibility for actions and attitudes (Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1943); (3) hypocrisy or dishonesty in speech and conduct, as in making a promise without intending to keep it. One self-deceiving strategy identified by Sartre is to embrace other people’s views in order to avoid having to form one’s own; another is to disregard options so that one’s life appears predetermined to move in a fixed direction. Occasionally Sartre used a narrower, fourth sense: self-deceptive beliefs held on the basis of insincere and unreasonable interpretations of evidence, as contrasted with the dishonesty of ‘sincerely’ acknowledging one truth (‘I am disposed to be a thief’) in order to deny a deeper truth (‘I am free to change’). See also FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS , SARTRE, VITAL LI. M.W.M.

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