Bad Faith / Mauvaise Foi
Updated 2026-08-01
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
A concept from Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism, developed in Being and Nothingness. Sartre holds that existence precedes essence: humans have no fixed nature to fall back on, so every moment requires a choice. Bad faith is the manoeuvre of pretending otherwise, adopting a ready-made identity such as being merely an employee or having a certain temperament as if it were a natural fact. The defining marker is the sentence form 'because I am X, I cannot help but Y.' The escape is never complete, since the pretence itself is a choice, which is why Sartre calls bad faith a flight rather than a mistake.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Phrase alarm: Treat any 'I have to' as a hypothesis to test rather than a fact. - Responsibility map: Separate what your situation constrains from what you are choosing to accept. - Identity check: Ask whether a self-description closes options or merely describes a pattern.
Anchor fast decisions
Sartre argues that consciousness is defined by negation: it can always step back from its situation and refuse. That openness is the source of both freedom and anguish. Bad faith works by smuggling determinism into self-description, so a chosen commitment is experienced as an external force. The relief lasts only until the next decision, because the freedom being denied is still being exercised in the denial.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faithverified
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