Bad faith (mauvaise foi) is Jean-Paul Sartre's name for the characteristic way a person flees the anxiety of their own freedom by pretending to be a fixed thing rather than a free consciousness that is always more than any role it occupies. Sartre's best known illustration is the cafe waiter whose exaggerated, overly precise movements try to make him wholly identical to being a waiter, when in fact he remains free to be otherwise at every moment.
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Associated With
Source Being and Nothingness (Wikipedia)
Source Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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Source Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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1. Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySection 4.2, Bad Faith and the Critique of Freudian Psychoanalysis
There is no doubt I am in a sense a cafe waiter, otherwise could I not just as well call myself a diplomat or reporter?
Section on inauthenticity and bad faith
Sartre and Beauvoir refer to inauthenticity in terms of "bad faith" (mauvaise foi), where we either deny or over-identify with one of the two aspects of human existence, either facticity or transcendence.
- In Branch: Ethics
- Associated With: Jean-Paul Sartre
View the Source Being and Nothingness (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Being and Nothingness, Part 1, Chapter 2: Bad faith sectionQuote, Associated With: Being and Nothingness, Part 1, Chapter 2: Bad faith section
As bad faith, Sartre describes one's self-deception about the human reality.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is bad faith in Sartre's philosophy?
Sartre's name for the way a person flees the anxiety of their own freedom by pretending to be a fixed thing rather than a free consciousness.
Bad faith (mauvaise foi) is Jean-Paul Sartre's name for the characteristic way a person flees the anxiety of their own freedom by pretending to be a fixed thing rather than a free consciousness that is always more than any role it occupies. Sartre's best known illustration is the cafe waiter whose exaggerated, overly precise movements try to make him wholly identical to being a waiter, when in fact he remains free to be otherwise at every moment.
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