Sartre's Ethics of Bad Faith

The rejection by existentialist writers of absolute moral values makes the construction of a system of existentialist ethics a unique challenge. It does not, however, make such a construction impossible. One of the few writers who engaged at length with the ethical consequences of an existential worldview is Jean-Paul Sartre. I will argue that Sartre?s early writings provide us with a foundation for an existential ethics based on two fundamental themes in his ontology: bad faith and freedom, but that his approach suffers from a number of limitations. The examples of the young man and the woman who seek to evade their own freedom provide a paradigm for understanding these issues central to Sartrean ethics, and for exploring some of its shortcomings.

The first criterion Sartre establishes as the foundation of an ethical existence is that of authenticity. To be authentic we must avoid self deception or ?bad faith?, which involves hiding our freedom from ourselves and, hence, avoiding responsibility for our actions. Sartre illustrates this concept with the example of the woman in the restaurant. The woman repeatedly refuses to acknowledge the advances of her companion and eventually detaches herself from her body to avoid having to make a decision. She is no doubt in bad faith, and it is implicit in the passage that Sartre would advise her to recognize her own freedom and take responsibility for herself by making a decision. Several questions about Sartre?s argument need to be raised.

Firstly, if the woman?s intention is to make a decision later, why should her postponing the decision necessarily mean that she is in bad faith? She may have full consciousness of her freedom and realise that she alone has responsibility for the decisions she makes, but nevertheless decide to postpone the decision until, say, their second date. It is difficult to tell what Sartre?s position would be if the woman expressed her indecisiveness to her partner, but we must remember that he is concerned here not with the content of the woman?s decisions but with their form, and so presumably he would find that behaviour acceptable if she made it in full awareness of her freedom and responsibility.

Secondly, is it acceptable for Sartre to claim that indifference, indecision and apathy necessarily involve deceiving ourselves about our freedom? On his definition, they would almost always constitute bad faith, but an argument can be made that they are indispensable components of our decision-making process. Similarly, it seems inconsistent for Sartre on one hand to assert the importance of freedom and on the other hand to declare that this whole range of approaches to decision-making is unacceptable. The woman in the restaurant may be absolutely indifferent to her partner?s advances; she may be undecided about whether to order an entr?e; she may be apathetic about the fate of Iraqi asylum seekers, and to insist that she take a position on these issues immediately would be to deny her freedom to be indifferent, undecided, and apathetic.

Sartre further declares that all of the techniques we may use to assist us in solving an ethical problem?asking for advice, looking for signs, consulting our feelings?are examples of bad faith. He would replace these activities (and indeed all rational approaches to ethics) with the realisation that we must make decisions alone and unaided?in short, in a state of abandonment, where ?man is forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend on either within or outside himself?.[1] One of the most important steps in this argument is that we cannot rely on feeling as a guide to action since ?feeling is formed by the deeds that one does?.[2] This move itself is questionable. Firstly, it seems intuitively true that we can consistently predict our feelings on a wide range of issues, based on past experience and an understanding of the circumstances surrounding the issue. Secondly, and more importantly, this argument seems to contradict Sartre?s assertion in Being and Nothingness that emotions, like actions, are the product of conscious decisions. If this is the case then it would seem more appropriate for him to claim that the young man?s feelings for his mother are a product of his decisions rather than of the situation. On the Being and Nothingness theory, he could convince himself to feel precisely the same way towards his mother whether he is in her arms or far away in England! Both of these two inconsistent approaches?that our feelings are the product only of conscious decisions or only of the deeds that we do?are counter-intuitive and should not be accepted without justification.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that an ethics based on ?bad faith? would suffer from the same problems that Sartre identifies for feelings. How are we able to determine whether an action will lead to ?bad faith? unless it is ?defined and ratified?? If the young man travels to England, he may be in bad faith if he deliberately engages himself in the role of being a soldier, or if, on the front lines, he treats his body as a ?passive object? by refusing to make a decision about whether to advance or retreat. Similarly, his staying at home may equally as likely lead to him being in bad faith. It is impossible for us to predict every eventuality, and so in the way that present feelings cannot be a guide to the future, bad faith cannot provide us with a positive type of ethics. We may use it to criticize those who are currently in bad faith, but we cannot use it to decide what someone ought to do when faced with a choice in any practical situation where both (or neither) of the alternatives may involve bad faith.

Sartre?s second criterion for an ethical existence is based on his treatment of freedom, which gives rise to a concept of universal responsibility. It is a matter of some dispute whether Sartre accepts a universal principle in his ethics. Those who argue that his treatment of freedom necessarily leads to accepting an almost Kantian ?moral imperative?,[3] point to a passage in Existentialism and Humanism where he suggests that by making a decision:

?I am? committing not only myself, but humanity as a whole? I am thus responsible for myself and for all men, and I am creating a certain image of man as I would have him to be. In fashioning myself I fashion man?[4]

Two main arguments are advanced by those who do not think that this is an acceptable reading of Sartre?s ethics: first, that Sartre?s position later changed, evidenced by his repudiation of Existentialism and Humanism;[5] and second, that if the text is considered along with all of Sartre?s other works, it is clear that he did not really intend this to be an universal principle.[6] It is even less clear whether Sartre would advise his student to make a decision on this basis?in other words, to choose that which he would have the rest of humanity choose. If he did, this approach would unquestionably be inconsistent with Sartre?s renunciation of absolute moral values.

Perhaps the most alarming feature of the two examples is how little advice Sartre can really offer the young man or the woman. He can denounce bad faith and champion freedom and universal responsibility, but he cannot offer any help in a practical sense. Additionally, there are clearly a range of objections to both Sartre?s definition of bad faith and its potential application, and it is unclear whether he would have even adopted an ethics based on universal responsibility. Consequently, although Sartre?s ethics is one of the most important in the tradition, it is clear that has inherited many of the tensions and limitations of existential ethics.

[b]Bibliography[/b]
T. C. Anderson, Sartre?s Two Ethics: From Authenticity to Integral Humanity, Chicago, Open Court Publishing, 1993.
L. A. Bell, Sartre?s Ethics of Authenticity, Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press, 1989.
G. Foulk, ?Plantinga?s Criticisms of Sartre?s Ethics?, Ethics, Vol. 82, No. 4.
S. H. Lee, ?The Central Role of Universalization in Sartrean Ethics?, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 46, No. 1.
F. Olafson, Principles and Persons: An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism, Baltimore, John Hopkins Press, 1967.
J. P. Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism, tr. P. Mariet, London, Methuen, 1948.
---, Being and Nothingness, tr. H. E. Barnes, London, Methuen, 1957.

[!1] J. P. Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism, tr. Philip Mariet, London, Methuen, 1948, p. 34.
[!2] Ibid., p. 37.
[!3] F. Olafson, Principles and Persons: An Ethical Interpretation of Existentialism, Baltimore, John Hopkins Press, 1967, p. 175.
[!4] Op. cit., p. 42.
[!5] This is in broad terms one of the arguments of Thomas C. Anderson in Sartre?s Two Ethics: From Authenticity to Integral Humanity, Chicago, Open Court Publishing, 1993.
[!6] See, for example, Linda A. Bell, Sartre?s Ethics of Authenticity, Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press, 1989.