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Bad Faith

Also Known As Mauvaise Foi

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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.

Facts
Origin Year
1943 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Jean-Paul Sartre, Philosophers
Source Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

In Branch

Ethics, Branches of Philosophy
Source Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Sources
1. Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySection 4.2, Bad Faith and the Critique of Freudian Psychoanalysis
Quote, Section 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?
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1. Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySection on inauthenticity and bad faith
Quote, 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.
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1. Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIn Branch: EthicsView the Source
1. Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyAssociated With: Jean-Paul SartreView the Source
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