The Implications of “Bad Faith and Falsehood”

    Jean-Paul Sartre claims that “bad faith” is rooted in the natural desire in all human beings to disconnect or distance their existence from their actions and less-than ideal social predicaments. This notion of “bad faith” is typically classified as a particular form of lying to oneself which is performed unconsciously. The unconscious performance is precisely wherein the ontological nature of bad faith lies; insofar as the contradiction of the self causes an instability of essence, which is compromising to realizing one’s most truthful identity. Sartre uses the example of a waiter who is performing a type of false existence as he moves throughout a café, executing the various swift and robotic movements which are distinctive to a particular type of French food service. Sartre argues that the essentializing aspect of this individual’s line of work is synonymous with bad faith in the sense that the waiter is not really a waiter, and his entirely calculated outward presentation is a manifestation of the separation of his essence from his existence as a nothingness. In Sartre’s view, existence precedes essence, and in order for the waiter to not be in bad faith, he must be aware of his actions as a falsehood in order to reclaim his “being” in what he is not. This conception of bad faith is central to the notion of existence preceding essence, just as much as the ensuing action of lying to oneself as a way of defining one’s truth is.

    Sartre’s moral conflict with the inauthentic performance of the waiter and his peers in economic servitude is established on the grounds of transcendence (or lack thereof). Sartre asserts that one is always wholly responsible for the “making” of oneself, since one’s existence is but a nothingness to which essence must be determined by one’s consciousness. In the instance of the waiter, Sartre makes the case which claims that while the waiter is free to be a waiter or whatever he so chooses to “be”, he cannot really “be” a waiter in the sense that his sole purpose of existence is to perform his waiting duties in the café. Sartre says that this exercise in performance is a type of “playing”: “The child plays with his body in order to to explore it, to take inventory of it; the waiter in the café plays with his condition in order to realize it”.[1] While “exploring” one’s existence is not explicitly an exercise in bad faith, Sartre argues that the issue of bad faith in the case of the waiter lies in his negation. By “playing” at being a waiter with the goal of actually owning that essentializing identity one’s being a waiter becomes problematic for Sartre. He does not claim that one cannot be a waiter in the representational sense, but that the identity of the waiter and the identity of the person playing as waiter are separated “by nothing” (EBW 337). Only in knowing and claiming awareness of his identity outside of his waiter-playing disposition and responsibilities can he transcend that falsehood and become fully realized in the essence of his freedom. In being what he is not, the waiter explores the possibilities of being-in-itself.

    Sartre’s waiter presents the ontological problem of one’s primary existence as a nothingness which separates itself from an overly essentializing essence of identity which has been dictated by outside social forces. The person behind the waiter is, in existence, a nothingness; and it is through this nothingness that he can bring nothingness into being, as he assigns identity and meaning to his essence. One’s freedom relies on the nothingness of existence, as it allows for a completely blank slate to which the being can attach an essence. This freedom which allows one to act in bad faith subsequently dictates the nihilation and essentialization of oneself and one’s surroundings. In the waiter’s ideal ontological situation, he is aware of his self-essentialization and his freedom, thereby being aware of his truth and subsequently concealing it for the sake of public expectation. Sartre’s criticism of society is its general intolerance for the limitlessness of freedom and what unpredictability which possessing it imposes. A waiter who does not “limit” himself to his position is infuriating to the public, and it implies that there is something wrong or broken in his existence. A waiter who occasionally drops a plate of food or forgets to punch in his client’s order is likely to cause frustration, but he is not “broken” in the ontological sense which requires that there be something in existence (which is nothingness) to be broken in the first place. Since he is not really a waiter, and he is aware of his partial identity essence as a waiter as one which is secondary and separated from his existence as a nothingness, he is transcendent and therefore not acting in bad faith.

    “Transcendence-facticity” role in bad faith is put into example by Sartre in the instance of two young people who are on a date, each lying to themselves or asserting themselves in the moment and understanding that moment as they would most prefer to understand it. Sartre asserts that their preferred coherence will be the one which avoids making a choice, a choice which would, in turn, define their respective essences. Sartre says that “I am on a plane where no reproach can touch me since what I really am is my transcendence” (EBW 334). The reproach in his earlier example is presented in the young woman’s passive non-consent to holding the hand of her ardent suitor (EBW 332). Her essentialization of identity lies in her admirers lustful commentary on her physical figure, where she is brought to a crossroads where she can transcend the fact that this man is mainly interested in her sexually by deflecting his comments and rooting them in the same class of neutral objectivity of the moment. This implantation of essentializing the moment as one of mutual respect for her “freedom” further delays the moment of decision where “the divorce of her body from her soul is accomplished […]” (EBW 333). Sartre says that this way of lying to the self is in bad faith, and to conceal one of one’s own feelings and desires lacks the awareness of freedom as a responsibility. The young woman is decidedly in bad faith because she essentializes her date “to existing in the mode of the in-itself” (EBW 333). Our existence as nothingness faces a difficult contradiction in this state of essentializing identity which we assign to ourselves. Sartre claims its purpose is to devoid one from responsibility not only of making a choice (i.e. holding the hand back consciously), but of one’s constructed essence. The ontological tension of inventing oneself while also avoiding criticism and accepting fault ultimately leads one to live in bad faith, causing long-term unhappiness in the young couple and falsehood to reign.

    Lying in the usual sense requires a certain knowledge of one’s actions that are seperate from the type of lying which is tantamount to the practicing of bad faith. The main aspect of lying in the typical sense would be the knowledge and conscious withholding or exaggerating of the truth. In both of Sartre’s examples, the actors are participating in a play of sorts; a play which required the erasure and rejection of their existence as a nothingness through the use of transcendency. Their motivations to lie are similar, but they are not necessarily aware of them, which is necessary to “lie” in the typical sense of the word. They can be aware of their respective insecurities in order to operate in bad faith, but they cannot be aware of their awareness of-themselves. Both the waiter and the young woman desire comfort with their respective social placements, however dismissive that contemporary France may have been of them. The negation of nothingness as a divider between existence and essence calls for our actors to improvise themselves, by lying and arresting themselves, thereby living in bad faith in order to create that comfort. Sartre states that to deal with the human reality in good faith, we must “deal with [it] as a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is” (EBW 335).

    Sartre’s ideology on bad faith is elaborate yet simplistic enough to make a profound impact on the way one views their position in and of themselves. However, his examples of the waiter and the young woman are specifically those of limited opportunity and social mobility. To say that without excuse any given individual who is situationally compromised is always fully in control of their essence negates too many factors of individuality that could influence or impact one’s ability to live in good faith. Perhaps the difficult social disposition of Sartre’s examples in bad faith are meant to highlight the fact that freedom belongs to everyone and anyone. Conversely, the main points of moral contention that can be held in Sartre’s philosophy on freedom as it applies to society as a whole rely on the fact that Sartre looks from the outside in. He is largely dismissive and or neglects entirely the fact that one is not exactly born a blank slate, but is rather thrown into a mess of both societal and self-imposed identities which must be picked from in order to survive.