Tom Barnes a1077142

Existentialism Essay 2
Tom Barnes - a1077142
Sartre and Bad Faith.
Bad faith as Sartre describes it, is the peculiar ability that humans possess of
being able to lie to themselves, a phenomenon more commonly referred to now
as self-deception. The strongest sense in which this phenomenon occurs takes
the form of a subject believing that something is the case contrary to the bulk of
evidence available to that subject. According to Sartre the form of the deception
looks much the same as if one individual were to lie to another. Sartres biggest
question is how this might be possible when the person doing the deceiving is
the same person that is the deceived. Sartre believes that this is problematic in
nature for two reasons. Firstly it is simply the case that one should not be able to
believe in something that one already believes not to be true, and secondly, that
one must be intentionally working against what one knows to be true. The key
to Sartres position is that he thinks All knowing is consciousness of knowing.
(Sartre pp.53) Sartre believed this had to be the case because in the general form
of lying one must have the intention to deceive and it does not seem clear that
one could hold an intention without being conscious of that intention. It seems
to me however that much of the function of the human mind takes the form of
deception and that the kind of deception the human mind performs does not
demand the kind of intention, Sartre seems to think it does. If we can show that
knowing does not entail that one must also be conscious of knowing, we may
be able to explain self-deception without generating these frustrating paradoxes.
In the general form of a lie there must be a deceiver and also some one who is
deceived if the lie is to succeed. Sartre believed that self-deception must be of
the same form in that there is a separation between what a deceiver must be
aware of and what the deceived comes to believe as a result of listening to the
deceiver. Sartre believed that this same structure must somehow be able to exist
inside an individual in order for self-deception to be possible. Sartre refers to
this requirement of bad faith as a duality. There must be some kind of
separation of mind; a way to hide things one knows from ones self. In Being and

Tom Barnes a1077142

Nothingness Sartre speaks of The Other as the part of consciousness that we

are aware of having. It is our perceptive experience of being a thinking thing.
This is the part of the mind we feel as if we have direct access to and in the case
of bad faith is the one being lied to. For the sake of simplicity I will refer to this
part of the mind as the Ego. This leaves the subconscious mind to do the work
of the deceiving which can be referred to in similar Freudian terms as the Id. It
seems Sartres frustration with the nature of bad faith stems from how these two
parts of them mind might be connected. There must be an original intention
and a project of bad faith; this project implies a comprehension of bad faith as
such and a pre-reflective apprehension (of) consciousness as affecting itself with
bad faith. It follows first that the one to whom the lie is told and the one who
lies are one and the same person, which means I must know in my capacity as
deceiver the truth which is hidden from me in my capacity as the one being
deceived. But what is Sartre really trying to say here? That the conscious mind
must be aware of all things unconscious? This would seem to be a contradiction
in terms and is perhaps one that has sprung from Sartres belief that all knowing
is consciousness of knowing. If we can show that there are many instances of
things that are known that one is not aware of we might be able to step around
this problem and treat the Id and the Ego in the same way that one might treat
one person lying to another person.
Whilst you read the first five words of this sentence I am willing to bet that you
are not aware of what you had for breakfast this morning. (Unless you happen
to currently be eating breakfast). Im sure by now you have remembered it and
have become aware of what you had for breakfast, but before you recalled it,
would it be correct to say that you did not know what you had for breakfast?
This is perhaps a weak example of knowledge without awareness and does not
seem to entail any kind of deception but none the less it starts to highlight the
point that most of the time there is very little content in our active awareness.
We are at any time conscious of only a small fraction of the things that we
know. They are brought into consciousness when needed and become part of
what we are currently aware of but spend almost all of their time being

Tom Barnes a1077142

knowledge that one is unaware of. What we really need to do in order to show
that knowing things and being conscious of things are not the same is an
example where some kind of deception or extreme cognitive dissonance is
present. There is a particular brain disorder that highlights a nature of the
working of the mind that I imagine must have seemed perhaps even more
peculiar to Sartre than bad faith. The condition is commonly known as blindsight and refers to a malfunctioning brain process in which a patients eyes may
work perfectly, and they are able to gather facts about the world visually, but
will insist absolutely that they are truly blind because they are simply not aware
of being able to see. David Eagleman explores this phenomenon in his book
Incognito. He gives a verbal account of a patient of his who suffers this
condition in only one eye whilst the other eye was unaffected.
When I asked her to close her eyes, she said O.K. and closed one eye, as in a
permanent wink.
Are your eyes closed I asked
Yes she said.
Both eyes?
Yes.
I held up three fingers How many fingers am I holding up Mrs G?
Three she said.
And your eyes are closed?
Yes
In a non-challenging way I said, Then how did you know how many fingers I
was holding up?
An interesting silence followed. If brain activity were audible, this is when we
would have heard different regions of her brain battling it out. (Eagleman 2011
pp.136)
What this passage demonstrates is that knowledge can be almost perfectly
mechanical in nature and not does not necessarily require consciousness or
awareness. Eaglemans patient Mrs G was absolutely convinced that she was

Tom Barnes a1077142

not able to see and indeed it would seem to be the case that her ego could not
see, but visual information must have been getting to her subconscious mind so
that she was able to answer questions about things she could only know if she
could see. It is important to note that Eagleman points out that it is only when
Mrs G is questioned as to how she has pulled off such a clever trick that she
becomes confused and the deception of the situation becomes obvious or
challenging for the patient. It seems all that might be required for deception is
for one mental cog to be out of place. In this instance it seems to be the case
that deception is not a complicated beast that requires a secondary
consciousness with intention. Deception comes about by virtue of the fact that a
mental event that would normally be happening a cross reference between the
things one knows about what they are seeing and the fact that they can not see
in the first place is broken. This suggests that there are requirements needed in
order to avoid self-deception and in this case they are broken allowing the
deception.
In order to avoid mechanising the mind so easily, Sartre may hold that the
deception appears to arrive from a desire and this is problematic for the
mechanical explanation of deception.
The Liar intends to deceive and he does not seek to hide this intention
from himself nor disguise the translucency of consciousness; on the
contrary he has recourse to it when there is a question of deciding
secondary behaviour. It explicitly exercises regulatory control over all
attitudes. As for his flaunted intention of telling the truth (Id never want
to deceive you! This is true! I swear it!) all of this of course is the object
of an inner negation, but also it is not recognised by the liar as his
intention. It is played, imitated, it is the intention of the character, which
he plays in the eyes of his questioner, but this character, precisely
because he does not exist, is a transcendent. Thus the lie does not put
into the play the inner structure of present consciousness; all the
negations, which constitute it bear in the objects which by this fact are
removed from consciousness. (Sartre pp.48)
But might there be another explanation as to why instances of self-deception
might have come about by way of evolution? In many instances of self-

Tom Barnes a1077142

deception the result seems to be geared towards an overall positive result for the
subject. This may take the form off unreasonable optimism. Believing that one is
better at a task than one actually is may provide a motivation for a subject to
continue to improve on that task. Take the example of a budding young
basketball star playing in an armature league that desperately wants to be
picked for a major league. Lets say it is the case that his statistic reports show
that he was not quite of a standard that was likely to make the cut and have a
shot at progressing to the majors. The objective reality of this fact might be
interpreted as a reason to give up. Theres no hope in making it, so why bother
trying? But if the player has an inflated sense of his own abilities he might use
this deception as motivation to stay in the game. The larger the deception, the
more motivating power the deception has, that is to say the deception might
motivate a player to improve so much as to change the results of his stat reports
so that he is considered for the major league. This is the survival of the fittest
argument to a tea. It seems reasonable that the laws of evolution should be
taken heavily into consideration when trying to make investigations as to how
the mind works because the mind is simply and undeniably a product of
evolution.
This evolutionary theory of self-deception can seem peculiar, as societys trends
have evolved much faster than our biological mind can keep up with. This is
why it seems peculiar that some one might try to convince themselves they are
not sick when in fact there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that they are. It
is only recently that the best course of action upon discovering oneself is injured
or sick is to rest and call a doctor immediately! The same might be said of the
common occurrence of anxiety connected with instances of financial problems.
Anxiety triggers many physical instances associated with protecting oneself.
Adrenalin levels spike, heart rate increases, neither of which are particularly
useful things to have going on when trying to remain calm and collected whilst
planning your road to financial recovery. They are good things to have happen
to you if you are trying to run away from tigers that might consider you dinner.

Tom Barnes a1077142

This is an instance where a subject might know they are not under immediate
physical threat but might very well behave as if they are!
Sartres mistake is perhaps to insist that the human mind is a machine based on
logic. In Sartres mind, beliefs must only make sense if there is an overwhelming
amount of evidence to support in the first place. This is what I think he must
mean by All knowing is consciousness of knowing. The Id might not
necessarily be the duplicate complete consciousness setting out to deceive with
intent. But a much lower level of consciousness that in a much more
mechanistic sense knocks out just the right cog. One is all that is necessary as
we can see from the example of Mrs Gs blind-sight. Once cog is gone and
deception is set in play mechanistically our subject may behave as if he really
believes this is the case. The lie is absolutely real. Its just that its set in motion at
such a low level of consciousness that once its been set going everything
downstream figures itself out for free with no reference to the id. The ego has
been told what the situation is and is just behaving accordingly until some very
hard evidence that points out his severe cognitive dissonance becomes apparent
to him. If we deny Sartre that there is no real plausible way that All knowing is
consciousness of knowing, it is easy to find simpler explanations for the purely
mechanical explanation of bad faith and avoid the need for complex
paradoxical explanations. However unattractive the mechanical picture of the
human mind might not be for aesthetic reasons it seems possible to paint a
complete picture of self-deception that avoids the need to engage with the
frustration of the paradoxes in Sartres account of bad-faith.
REFRENCES
D.Z. Phillips 1981 Bad Faith and Sartres Waiter Philosophy, Vol.56, No.215
pp.23-31 Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal Institute of philosophy.
J.P Sartre.1956 Being and Nothingness, English translation, Hazel E. Barnes.
D.M. Eagleman 2011, Incognito. Pantheon Books New York.

Tom Barnes a1077142

J. Webber 2012, Bad Faith and the Unconscious The International

Encyclopaedia of Ethics, ed. Hugh LaFolette, John Deigh, and Sarah Stroud.
(Wiley Blackwell)