The ‘Faith’ of Bad Faith

Abstract

Sartre's account of bad faith has been widely discussed, not least in the pages of Philosophy. 1 If good faith is to be taken as the antithesis of bad faith, by the inclusion of the evaluative term 'good', it would appear to be the more desirable of the two states, and thus radically different from bad faith. Sartre, however, appears to rule out this interpretation of good and bad faith, when in his footnote2 to the section 'The of Bad Faith' he states that 'it is indifferent whether one is in good or bad faith' since neither would seem to provide the ground for what Sartre sees as the truly desirable and achievable state-that of authenticity. Catalano in his book, A Commentary on _Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, admits that he finds the footnote to this section 'confusing both in the French and the English translation',3 for Sartre's further point in the footnote, that we can 'radically escape bad faith' appears to contradict Sartre's earlier statement that it is indifferent which state we are in. The inconsistencies raised by the footnote can be resolved, however, if we realize that for Sartre 'good' and 'bad' are both secondary terms, whilst it is the common denominator of Faith upon which he places his emphasis. As it is in this section that Sartre gives his only example of good faith, it is easy to see how most commentators take it to be exploring the contrast between good faith and bad faith, and fail to see that it is the nature of faith that Sartre is concerned with. This is confirmed by the title of the section, 'The of Bad Faith', and the statement that 'The true problem of bad faith stems evidently from the fact that bad faith is faith'.4 As his example of good faith, Sartre uses: 'I believe that my friend Pierre feels friendship for me'.5 I believe it but I do not know it. So even though eventually in good faith, 'I conduct myself finally as if I were