Sartre’s notion of ‘bad faith’ and its philosophical importance has to do with us coming to terms with and realising our freedom. It is his main proof that consciousness as a being-for- itself is contradictory. For Sartre, we as human beings, as consciousness, as a being-for-itself, are unquestionably and unequivocally free (Sartre, 1993). Yet, we lie to ourselves that we are not, in hopes of convincing ourselves otherwise. It is this self-deception that Sartre aims to do away with, and to truly understand where this notion stems from, we must look at the concepts of his being-in-itself and being-for-itself, the origin of nothingness and finally, ‘bad faith’.
‘Bad faith’ is essentially a lie, but it is a special kind of lie wherein one is both the deceiver and the deceived. One simultaneously knows and doesn’t know the truth, giving birth to a contradiction. That is the main point of Sartre’s notion of ‘bad faith’, to demonstrate this paradox really exists, is not a trick, and is a result of us as consciousness, as being-for-itself being contradictory by essence (Spade, 1995).
What is being-for-itself? For this essay, I will contrast being-for-itself with its counterpart, being-in-itself, but focus more on being-for-itself, for it is the crux of Sartre’s argument for Bad Faith. Firstly, being-in-itself is in itself. What this means is that for being-in-itself, there is inherently no cause, because then it would not be in itself but rather in its cause (Spade, 1995). This means that being-in-itself was not conceived of or caused by a higher being, such as a god, for Sartre. Conversely, for being-for-itself— for Sartre that is consciousness, us— being-for-itself is not in itself. It has a cause, it was caused by and depends on something, the being-in-itself. Sartre puts it as the for-itself surging up out of the in-itself (Sartre, 2007). Consciousness arises from matter, and this is something we can see from Husserl’s theory of intentionality— every act of consciousness is always consciousness of something (Husserl, 1960). Consciousness by its very essence, which we derive from eidetic abstraction, must be intentional. It must require something other than itself. The object of an act of consciousness is transcendent to that act in the first sense, hence that object must be being-in-itself.
Next, both being-in-itself and being-for-itself is. That is, not only do they have no cause, they also have no explanation. There is no good reason that they should be rather than not be— there is no sufficient reason for their existence. There is no explanation that once given, the existence of being-in-itself or being-for-itself would necessarily follow (Spade, 1995). For example, here’s a counterpoint: In physics we have Newton’s third law of motion, which states that a force exerted on a body A by body B must provide a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to body A by body B. This secondary force has a reason (the initial force) and explanation (Newton’s law) for its existence. Now suppose the universe in its entirety- there is no reason why the universe should exist rather than not, as far as we can tell. However, being-for-itself does differ with its counterpoint in an important way. Being-for- itself is caused by being-in-itself, it depends on it. Hence, it is not completely without reason— there is a kind of “limited necessity” forced onto consciousness (Spade, 1995). This “limited necessity” is what Sartre calls facticity, which will be integral to our discussion on ‘bad faith’.
Finally, being-in-itself is what it is. It is what it is, and it is not what it is not. Put simply, a ball is just a ball, it is not a not-table, nor a not-chair—and all being-in-itself can be described in this same way without resorting to negatives. As Sartre says, “It is full positivity.” (Sartre 1995, p.29). On the other hand, being-for-itself is what it is not, and is not what it is. This is also a crucial characteristic that we need to bear in mind for our analysis on ‘bad faith’. It seems contradictory, but we will see in the later chapters of Being and Nothingness that that is the entire point- consciousness is contradictory, and we need to adopt the phenomenological method to properly describe and deal with it. In short, for Sartre, consciousness as the for-itself has negation and “nothingness” running all throughout it— “consciousness is its own nothingness” (Spade, 1995).
What exactly is negation and “nothingness”? To answer that, we look at The Origin of Negation chapter in Being & Nothingness, where we first begin by taking a page from Heidegger and avoid conceptualising either only the being-in-itself first or the being-for-itself first. The problem here is that if we consider only either being-for-itself, as consciousness like Descartes or being-in-itself by themselves, we end up with a hopelessly one-sided account of the world (Spade, 1995). Sartre tells us, we have to consider both of them at once, to truly capture the relationship the two have with each other. It is then that we can embark on what Sartre calls his “guiding thread”, that is, one way in which consciousness is related to the material world—by questioning it. What is required to enable this interrogative attitude, what makes this relationship permissible? Sartre identifies 3 kinds of non-being or nothingness that is required of every question (Sartre, 1995), which are:
• The non-being, the nothingness of knowledge to the questioner
• The possibility of non-being of being in transcendent being
• The presupposition of a definite answer, which demarcates objective reality, which is a form of non-being.
Now, we know that being-in-itself is “full positivity”— it cannot account for these non- beings. Neither can nothingness nihilate itself, produce itself. Hence, this nothingness must stem from the being-for-itself, which must be its own nothingness. Consciousness must have nothingness running through it, otherwise non-being cannot exist in the world—which is why it is not what it is and is what it is not (Spade, 1995). This is the crux of Sartre’s argument for thinking ‘bad faith’ is philosophically important. To better understand this enigmatic line that it is what it is not and is not what it is, and subsequently ‘bad faith’, Sartre gives unto us two examples, the first of which is of vertigo.
Suppose I am at the edge of a cliff or a very tall building, and I peer down. I will immediately begin to feel slightly dizzy. Let us suppose that conditions are safe and stable, that is, there are no strong winds that might topple me over, nor an earthquake and just for a moment, that everything is still in the world. Then what is causing me to feel this dizziness, this vertigo? For Sartre, it is not the fear of me falling, but the possibility that I might jump. When I peer down, I begin to conceive of a future wherein I tumble headfirst down into certain doom. In this scenario, I am not that person I see in the future, for I am safe and sound on top while that person is not. However, I also am that person in the future, for I recognise him, I associate with him. If I did not, then I would not be so bothered by it. If I looked at someone else on top of a cliff peering down, I would not feel the same vertigo as I feel in the moment. Hence, that man I see in the future is me, yet I am also not— I am what I am not, and I am not what I am.
Another example can be seen in the case of the gambler. Let us suppose that I am a compulsive gambler, and this bad habit of mine has led me down the path of considerable ruin. My wife wants to leave me, my children might die of hunger and the bank wants to seize all my property. Given such a dire situation, I settle to stop gambling immediately with sincere resolve. However, the very next day I once again see a pokie machine and I am tempted. I begin to reflect as such:
“That man yesterday is me, I recognise myself in him and I associate with him. However, as of right now, that man is not me. The man yesterday had good and persuasive resolutions— but they do not apply to me, unless I make those same resolutions anew right now. The resolutions he made yesterday do not affect me at all right now.”
Once again, I am that man, yet am not. Consciousness is what it is not. Sartre says that consciousness in this instance is separated from itself—but what exactly is separating me from myself? What prevents me from taking up his resolutions? What prevents me in the present from being who I was yesterday? Nothing. The answer is nothing—I am free to do so if I wanted to, there is nothing preventing me from doing so. This nothingness produces freedom, and this freedom leads to anguish—a kind of profound panic at the realisation that these matters are really our choice. The same goes for our previous case of vertigo— what is it that prevents me from being that man I see in the “future”, the one who tumbles to his doom? Nothing. Nothing separates me from that fate, and that is why we feel fear, that is why we experience vertigo. This fear of our own freedom is what Sartre calls “anguish”. We disregard this freedom of ours, we act contrary to our freedom. We find excuses, push the blame and avoid our responsibilities— what Sartre calls “fleeing our anguish.” We are trying to fool ourselves, deceive ourselves of the fact that we are aware of our own freedom and responsibility. We pretend that we are no free, in hopes of convincing ourselves. This is what Sartre calls ‘bad faith’, and as aforementioned, his main proof that consciousness is contradictory and paradoxical. We take a look at Sartre’s famous example of a waiter in a café:
Sartre is sitting at a café for a while observing a waiter, and finds something odd about him. He notes that, “His movement is quick and forward, a little too precise, a little too rapid. He comes toward the patrons with a step a little too quick. He bends forward a little too eagerly; his voice, his eyes express an interest a little too solicitous for the order of the customer... He is playing, he is amusing himself. But what is he playing? We need not watch long before we can explain it; he is playing at being a waiter in a café.” (Sartre 1995, p.59). The man really is a waiter, as a matter of facticity, but that is not all he is. He is beyond that, he transcends his being a waiter, he is a waiter with choices. Every day he chooses to wake up, chooses to go to work, chooses to serve. Him being a waiter does not take away these choices from him, rather they simply provide the stage upon which he can further exercise his free choices. There are two sides to him— his facticity and his transcendence, which is something that holds true for all of us. Sartre’s issue is, he is fleeing his anguish— the waiter is downplaying his transcendence and focusing on his facticity, to be only what he is and nothing more. The man is trying to become an being-in-itself.
That is Sartre’s issue with ‘bad faith’, us fleeing our anguish. The idea behind ‘facticity’ as a being-for-itself is that, yes we are free to make choices, but we are not free to not choose. None of us asked to exist, our opinions had no weight— yet here we are regardless, and our transcendence requires that we must choose. Even the rather grim notion of suicide, in an attempt to flee our anguish, to evade our responsibilities once and for all, is still a choice. As Sartre puts it, “Man is condemned to be free.”.
Sartre adopts the phenomenological attitude for all these observations, thus it is difficult to argue with him, for he was never arguing a point in the first place. The entire time, he was just trying to get us to see, see that living in ‘bad faith’ means accepting that we were made a certain way, and refusing to pursue alternative options. As human beings, as consciousness, as being-for-itself we are so much more, our options are limitless and we should reconcile with this notion at the earliest. Yes freedom is scary, and the realisation that we are responsible for our life is something we might not want to accept, but perhaps Kierkegaard can also help us with this. He says, “I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations— one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it—you will regret both.” As Sartre showed us earlier in his examples of vertigo, it is but nothingness that separates us from our existence and our projection of ourself. We can be so much more, if only we dare to accept our transcendence.
Heidegger, Martin (1962): Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, Oxford: Blackwell.
Husserl, Edmund (1960): Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns, The Hague: Nijhoff.
Sartre, Jean-Paul (1993): Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel Barnes, London: Routledge Classics.
Sartre, Jean-Paul (2007): Existentialism and Humanism, trans. Carol Macomber, New Haven/London: Yale