Sartre's Bad Faith Explained: Being and Nothingness

Jean-Paul Sartre rejected Freud's concept of the unconscious. In 'Being and Nothingness,' he argued that the unconscious is not a real force but rather a self-deception or 'bad faith' (mauvaise foi). He believed humans are always fully conscious of their choices and desires, and that what appears unconscious is actually a conscious choice to deceive oneself.

Sartre criticized Freud's unconscious theory as a form of 'bad faith' (mauvaise foi). For Sartre, humans are entirely free and therefore entirely responsible for their decisions. Attributing decisions to unconscious desires is a refusal of this freedom and an avoidance of responsibility. While descriptive claims about unconscious influence may be scientifically plausible (as Libet's experiments suggest), Sartre's point is practical: if all decisions are determined by unconscious processes, why choose at all? This would lead to fatalism determined by the unconscious. Sartre's view is thus an imperative to assume responsibility for our choices.

This section addresses the objection that Sartre's concept of bad faith offers an authentically phenomenological alternative to Freud's unconscious hypothesis. In 'Being and Nothingness,' Sartre addresses Freud's unconscious hypothesis and opposes it with the concept of bad faith (mensonge à soi). Using this concept, Sartre can explain certain patient resistances to psychoanalytic interpretation without recourse to the unconscious hypothesis. For example, when a patient seeks to evade revelations from the analyst while feigning continued treatment, this is bad faith because the subject is conscious of what they are fleeing and chooses to evade it. The speaker also references Sartre's analysis of the homosexual who plays on the ambiguity of the verb 'to be' to illustrate how bad faith operates. This demonstrates that certain phenomena traditionally explained by the unconscious can be understood through the phenomenological concept of bad faith.

Sartre criticized Freud's theory of the unconscious and repression. He argued that Freud's concept of repression creates a false dichotomy between conscious and unconscious, when in reality consciousness is always self-aware. For Sartre, what Freud called repression is actually a form of bad faith where people deny their own freedom.

Jean-Paul Sartre argues that for repression to occur, one must first be conscious of the desire being repressed, which creates a logical contradiction. He contends that what Freud explains as repression is actually 'bad faith'—self-deception where people pretend not to know what they clearly know. For Sartre, humans are free and responsible for their passions, and those who claim unconscious motivations are engaging in bad faith to avoid responsibility.

Simone de Beauvoir's 'The Ethics of Ambiguity' presents a feminist existentialist philosophy arguing that humans are 'condemned to be free'—we face an inherent tension between our facticity (current existence) and transcendence (potential), creating existential angst. Rather than escaping this ambiguity through bad faith (like the subman who becomes apathetic, the serious man who claims to have all answers, or the nihilist who concludes nothing matters), de Beauvoir prescribes embracing this ambiguity honestly and focusing on others' freedom. True freedom requires recognizing that we cannot be free without the freedom of others; our actions toward others define our meaning and ethical responsibility. This interpersonal ethics challenges us to accept life's tensions while actively working to maximize freedom for all.

Simone de Beauvoir's 'The Ethics of Ambiguity' (Le Sang des autres) explores existentialist ethics through characters Jean and Hélène in 1930s-1950s Paris. Jean, a bourgeois son who renounces his privileged background to become a worker, grapples with questions of responsibility: whether one has the right to dispose of others' lives for noble causes, and whether promoting peace at all costs constitutes humanist existentialist decision-making. Hélène represents radical existentialist choice, systematically rejecting any outcomes not her own choice. The novel examines communism, class struggle, and social representation through Jean's struggles, errors, and failures. Despite its particular narrative style, the book offers profound philosophical reflection accessible to engaged readers.

Simone de Beauvoir argues in her work 'The Ethics of Ambiguity' that existentialism is fundamentally a philosophy of ambiguity, not despair or absurdity, because the human condition inherently involves irreducible contradictions—humans are simultaneously rational animals who escape their natural condition while remaining part of the world, consciousness that discloses reality while also being objects for others, and sovereign subjects capable of free choice who are simultaneously things crushed by external forces. Rather than attempting to resolve or mask this ambiguity through reductive philosophies like materialism, idealism, or Hegelian reconciliation, de Beauvoir proposes that we should embrace and assume this fundamental ambiguity, drawing strength and reason for action from understanding our genuine conditions of existence. This ethical approach recognizes that eliminating ambiguity would eliminate the very possibility of genuine ethical engagement, as ethics requires us to make choices among competing possibilities and take stances in the face of uncertainty.

Simone de Beauvoir, a key existentialist, consistently criticized oppression in her philosophy, unlike Sartre who developed his account later. She rejected rigid moral codes, instead developing an ethics of relation and action where ethics is ambiguous and we can never be totally sure if actions are right or wrong. We are embedded in a world of interconnected freedom, and our freedom is fundamentally connected to others' freedom because others' freedom broadens our possible futures and meaning. De Beauvoir described oppression as systematic negation of people's freedom to promote others' advantage, with violence sometimes justified to rescue individual freedom. In 'The Second Sex,' she described gender not as biological but as a social construction—a situation of becoming. Women are seen as secondary or other, whereas men are the neutral mode of being, creating unique oppression because gender division precedes human history.

There is a striking example of bad faith or self-deception on the part of the leading existentialists themselves. They are looking for authenticity and trying to overcome self-deception, yet they themselves fall victim to self-deception. What they do in the end is inauthentic. Kierkegaard does not make peace with the church—he attacked it, collapsed in the street, and died without receiving last sacraments rather than compromise. Sartre does not join the Communist Party, feeling he cannot identify with any major institution. Heidegger briefly joined the Nazi party in 1933 but took stands alone afterward. What goes on is 'exegetical thinking': the thinker reads his own ideas subjectively into texts and gets them back with authority. Theophobia is defined as the dread of making faithful decisions that will mold one's character and future. The existentialists lack the courage to attack one's own convictions. The great legacy of 20th century existentialism will be in the non-philosophical works of Jean-Paul Sartre—he is one of the great writers of our time, and some of his plays, short stories, and novels will last. More significantly, Sartre spoke to the consciences of intellectuals worldwide, appealing especially to writers, artists, students, and professors to speak out against injustices and war crimes, particularly during the Algerian war and Vietnam War, influencing American reactions to the Vietnam War.

Heidegger calls the majority of human beings 'das Man' (the mass man or 'they'), representing the opposite of individuality. Das Man is herd-like, non-reflective, and not thinking independently. It represents the inauthentic mode of existence where people get sidetracked by various cul-de-sacs of life. Heidegger calls upon us to follow Kierkegaard's example of becoming individuals who confront being authentically on their own, cultivating inner life and facing uncomfortable truths about existence.

Heidegger identifies two main ways of being in the world: inauthentic and authentic. Inauthenticity is essentially conformity—ceding the burden of decision-making to social convention. 'Das-Man' (the they) is the third person neutral meaning 'what one does'—'everyone and no one.' The 'das-Man-Selbst' (the they-self) is the inauthentic self that goes along with what everyone else is doing. To live in this mode is to be 'verfallen' (fallen)—to have fallen into the world. It is a deficient mode where Dasein flees from itself, loses itself in conformity. This alienation is comforting and easier than authenticity.

In Heidegger's 'Ser y Tiempo', Dasein (the human mode of existence) is fundamentally characterized by inauthenticity or 'impropiedad', where it exists as an impersonal 'one' (das Man) that constantly avoids individuality through leveling and homogenization with others. This 'one' represents the everyday mode of being where we are absorbed in public activities, coexist with others, and avoid standing out, which Heidegger analyzes ontologically rather than morally. The 'one' is not a specific person but an impersonal pronoun that describes how we understand ourselves daily, and this mode of inauthenticity is not a type of person we should avoid but rather a fundamental structure of human existence that we oscillate between with moments of authenticity.

Kierkegaard classified despair into three types reflecting different failures of self-realization: (1) Despair of Ignorance—failing to recognize one's own freedom and following the crowd; (2) Despair of Weakness—knowing one's true self but lacking courage to live authentically; (3) Despair of Pride—knowing one's self but refusing to accept limitations and becoming one's own god. Each type represents a failure to achieve authentic selfhood. Kierkegaard's critique of institutional religion emphasized that true faith requires personal commitment and suffering for truth, not comfortable participation in established institutions.

A second form of bad faith occurs when individuals limit themselves by adopting fixed social roles and identities. Using the example of a waiter who walks, talks, and smiles in ways characteristic of his profession, Sartre shows how people convince themselves they are only their job title, thereby avoiding the anxiety of unlimited possibilities. The waiter believes he has no choice but to be a waiter, even though he could at any moment decide to become something else.

In bad faith, individuals reduce their identity to fixed social roles. For example, a waiter who identifies solely with his profession becomes a 'servile and mechanical' person, believing his personality is determined by his job rather than his own choices.

The girl is in bad faith—she is pretending that she is a thing and not a conscious free being and that she is not responsible for what is going on, but of course she is responsible. Or take the case of the waiter in the cafe—his movements are a little too precise, too rapid, he bends forward a little too eagerly, a little too solicitous for the customer's order. He has escaped from his freedom as a conscious being into acting apart, playing a social role as if his essence is to be this perfect mechanism, the perfect waiter. But he is in bad faith—his essence is not to be a perfect waiter, he has no essence, he has consciously chosen to be a waiter but he has escaped from his freedom as a person into becoming a mechanism in which he will gain social approval and avoid having to feel anything.

Bad faith is the term Sartre uses to describe self-deception where individuals deny their own freedom and responsibility. People in bad faith adopt social norms, roles, and expectations without critical examination, simply accepting them passively. By doing so, they avoid the anxiety and burden of authentic existence. For example, someone might claim they are 'just a bank clerk' as if this role defines them entirely, rather than recognizing that they are free to choose how to live within that role.

Another form of bad faith is complete identification with a social role—becoming entirely the waiter, entirely the parent, entirely the professional, leaving no room for consciousness that transcends each role. The role is not the person; the person always transcends any role they occupy. To pretend otherwise is to lie to oneself about what one is. Bad faith is not merely hypocrisy or dishonesty in the ordinary sense; it is a particular form of dishonesty regarding the nature of freedom—a refusal to recognize freedom as the most fundamental trait of human existence.