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For other uses, see Bad faith (disambiguation).

Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is an attitude taken in actions or positions that involves rationalizing to form a belief in which there is deception, duplicity, insincerity, or dishonesty, due to failing to take certain facts into account or using invalid argumentation, which may be intentional, or unintentional self deception. Faith is a strong or unshakable belief in something; bad faith is when this belief is misplaced, when good reasoning from facts should produce disbelief, but there is still a strong or unshakable persistence to continue with the belief as a faith. Bad faith exists when arguments for an act or position do not acknowledge known facts that show such an act or position to be wrong, but are put forth as being logical or otherwise valid, or believed in when it is not, or should not be.

In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas considers bad faith in the context of reasoning about religious faith and belief.[1] Use of the expression later broadened for application in diverse areas involving bad reasoning in belief formation, such as in discussion of feminism,[2] racial supremacism in African American studies,[3] political negotiation, insurance claims processing,[4] intentionality,[5] ethics,[6] existentialism,[7] and the law.[8]

Examples

Some examples of bad faith include:

  • A scientist who holds metaphysical beliefs which are not consistent with the findings of science.[9]
  • A union representative who negotiates with the workers while having no intent of compromising.[10]
  • A person who edits an online encyclopedia to be consistent with their point of view rather than verifiable facts.
  • An attorney who argues from a legal position which he knows to be false.[11]
  • An insurer who uses uses language and reasoning which are deliberately false and misleading in order to deny a claim.[12]

In theology

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about bad faith as it relates to faith and belief in theology.[13][14] The Christian church does not consider everyone with heretical views to have bad faith, such as when people earnestly look for the truth and lead exemplary lives.[15] Bad faith can be a claim of a direction from God or religious authority to take unethical positions or untrue beliefs, “taking the Lord’s name in vain”, and a belief is taken and justified by appeal to being forced to that belief by the authority. [16]

In philosophy, psychology, psychoanalysis, and social sciences

A person may hold beliefs in their mind even though they are directly contradicted by facts. These are beliefs held in bad faith. But there is debate as to whether this self deception is intentional or not.[17]

How is bad faith self deception possible?

"In bad faith, it is from myself that I am hiding the truth" – Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness

The fundamental question about bad faith self deception is how it is possible.[18][19] In order for a liar to successfully lie to the victim of the lie, the liar must know that what is being said is false. In order to be successful at lying, the victim must believe the lie to be true. When a person is in bad faith self deception, the person is both the liar and the victim of the lie. So at the same time the liar, as liar, believes the lie to be false, and as victim believes it to be true. So there is a contradiction in that a person in bad faith self deception believes something to be true and false at the same time.[20] In Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre states the problem this way -

…bad faith… the one to whom the lie is told and the one who lies are one and the same person, which means that I must know my capacity as deciever the truth which is hidden fromm me in my capacity as the one decieved.

’’”I must as deceiver know the truth that is masked for me as the one deceived. Better yet, I must know that truth very precisely, in order to hide it from myself the more carefully—and this not at two different moments of temporality...[21]"

Psychology

Psychologists have proposed answers as to how bad faith self delusion can be possible.[22][23]

Homuncularism

A homunculus is a little person (or map of the person) inside a person, and homuncularism is the theory in psychology that there are subsystems of the mind performing different operations; the homuncularist answer to the question as to how bad faith is possible is that one such subunit deceives the other. [24]

Humanistic psychology

In humanistic psychology, recognition of bad faith in one’s own acts by the actor results in guilt and regret.[25]

Torture

Psychologists have examined the role of bad faith in psychologists overseeing and directing torture, when they know that it is wrong, e.g., in the Guantanamo detention center.[26][27]

Freudian psychoanalisis

Freudian psychoanalysis answers how bad faith self deception is possibile by postulating an unconscious mind that knows something is a lie, whereas the conscious mind does not, accomplished by what Freud calls repression.[28] The true desires of the subconscious express themselves as wish fulfillment in dreams.[29]

Ethics of belief

Further information: Ethics of belief

Bad faith wish fulfillment is central to the ethics of belief, which discusses questions at the intersection of epistemology, philosophy of mind, psychology, Freudian psychoanalysis, and ethics.[30][31][32][33]

Authenticity

Further information: Authenticity (philosophy)

A person who is not lying to themself or to others is authentic.[34]

Ethics

Bad faith in ethics is when an unethical position is taken as ethical and justified by appeal to being forced to that belief, e.g., by God or genetics, even though facts disconfirm that belief and honesty would require it.[35]

Phenomenology and Existentialism

Phenomenology plays a role leading to discussions of bad faith. It has a role in ethics by an analyses of the sructure of will, valuing, happiness, and care for others (in empathy and sympathy). Phenomenolgist Heidegger discussed care, conscience, and guilt, moving to “fallenness” and “authenticity”, which in turn led to the feminism of Simone de Beauvoir and existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre, both based on phenomenology's considerations of authenticity and it role in bad faith.[36][37][38] Sartre analyzed the logical problem of “bad faith” as it relates to authenticity, and where he developed an ontology of value as produced by willing in good faith.[39][40]

Existentialism

Further information: Bad faith (existentialism)

Sartre developed the concepts of bad faith and "authenticity" in the ethics of belief into a full theory of existentialism.[41] In Being and Nothingness, Sarte begins his discussion of bad faith by rasing the question of how bad faith self delusion is possible.[42] Sartre calls “bad faith” a kind of project of self-deception; In order to produce excuses, bad faith first takes a third-person stance toward itself. When it becomes necessary to elude this stance it has made of itself, it then adopts the first-person perspective. In neither case can the deception fully succeed. Without these two facets of existence, if consciousness was the simple “I” in “I think, therefore I am”, it would be impossible to explain how the very project of self-deception could be entertained. The Freudian theory of the unconscious is viewed as based on an incoherent view of consciousness, but the project of psychoanalysis as an uncovering of the “fundamental project” of an individual's life is valid.[43][44]

Theory of justice

Bad faith is important to the concept of original position in John Rawls’ theory of justice, where mutual commitment of the parties requires that the parties cannot choose and agree to principles in bad faith, in that they have to be able, not just to live with and grudgingly accept, but to sincerely endorse the principles of justice; a party cannot take risks with principles he knows he will have difficulty voluntarily complying with, or they would be making an agreement in bad faith which is ruled out by the conditions of the original position.[45]

Feminism

Central to feminism is that women are systematically subordinated, and bad faith exists when women surrender their agency to this subordination, e.g., acceptance of religious beliefs that a man is the dominant party in a marriage by the will of God; Simone de Beauvir labels such women "mutilated" and "immanent".[46][47][48][49]

Love

A life’s project to be in love may result in bad faith; love is an example of bad faith given by both Simone de Beuvoir and Jean Paul Sartre (who were in love with each other).[50][51][52] A woman in love may in bad faith allow herself to be subjugated by her lover, who has created a dependency of the woman on him, allowed by the woman in bad faith.[53]

In pseudosciences

In racist eugenics; African American studies

The pseudoscience of racist eugenics is explained by some to be a result of racism as a kind of bad faith that promotes their own pleasure; some whites believe in bad faith blacks are inferior.[54] Bad faith Racial supremacist's beliefs are studied in African American Studies.[55]. In Nazi Germany, companies knowingly competed for the manufacture of efficient ovens for the concentration camps to make money, with the manufacturers justification to themselves a kind of self deception, but intentionally so, bad faith.[56] A person can intentionally self deceive themselves by being inauthentic or insincere, as the Nazis did in holding their beliefs to justify their eugenics and genocide.[57][58]

In creationism

Faith based creationist beliefs about the age of the earth, against paleontology and evolution and in the face of overwhelming evidence, is bad faith.[59]

Loyalty and patriotism

The philosophy of loyalty examines unchosen loyalties, e.g., one does not choose one's family or country, but when there is excessive wrongdoing, there is a general unwillingness to question these unchosen loyalties, and this exhibits bad faith as a type of lack of integrity; once we have such loyalties, we are resistant to their scrutiny and self-defensively discount challenges to them in bad faith.[60][61] In the philosophy of patriotism (loyalty to one's country) bad faith is hiding from oneself the true source of some of one’s patriotic beliefs, such as when one fights for a racist totalitarian dictatorship against a free and egalitarian democracy.[62][63]

Negotiation theory

Bad faith is a concept in negotiation theory whereby parties pretend to reason to reach settlement, but have no intention to do so, for example, one political party may pretend to negotiate, with no intetion to compromise, for political effect.[64][65]

Inherent bad faith model in international relations and political psychology

Bad faith in political science and political psychology refers to negotiating strategies in which there is no real intention to reach copromise, or a model of information processing.[66] The "inherent bad faith model" of information processing is a theory in political psychology that was first put forth by Ole Holsti to explain the relationship between John Foster Dulles’ beliefs and his model of information processing.[67] It is the most widely studied model of one's opponent.[68] A state is presumed to be implacably hostile, and contra-indicators of this are ignored. They are dismissed as propaganda ploys or signs of weakness. Examples are John Foster Dulles’ position regarding the Soviet Union, or Israel’s initial position on the Palestinian Liberation Organization.[69]

Japanese Zen Buddhism

Persons practicing Japanese Zen Buddhist philosophy claim not to be subject to the “bad faith” in “self-deception”, since they do not explain a motivation for action as a rationalist would; a rationalist must rationalize an irrational desire that is actually rooted in the body and the unconscious as if it were not.[70]

Mathematical philosophy: mathmatical realism and ethics

Mathematical philosopher Crispin Wright wrote that J.L. Mackie's view on mathematical realism relegates all discourse on ethics to only be about “bad faith”.[71][72][73]

In law

Legal Bad Faith

In law, there are inconsistent definitions of bad faith, with one definition much more broad than used in other fields of study discussed in the above sections. Black’s Law Dictionary equates fraud with bad faith.[74] But one goes to jail for fraud, and not necessarily for bad faith.[75] The Duhaime online law dictionary similarly defines bad faith broadly as “intent to deceive”, and “a person who intentionally tries to deceive or mislead another in order to gain some advantage”.[76] A Canadian labor arbitrator wrote, in one case, that bad faith is related to rationality in reasoning, as it is used in other fields, but is ill defined in the law.[77]

“The concept of bad faith is likely not capable of precise calibration and certainly has not been defined in the same way by all adjudicators. At its core, bad faith implies malice or ill will. A decision made in bad faith is grounded, not on a rational connection between the circumstances and the outcome, but on antipathy toward the individual for non-rational reasons… The absence of a rational basis for the decision implies that factors other than those relevant were considered. In that sense, a decision in bad faith is also arbitrary. These comments are not intended to put to rest the debate over the definition of bad faith. Rather, it is to point out that bad faith, which has its core in malice and ill will, at least touches, if not wholly embraces, the related concepts of unreasonableness, discrimination and arbitrariness."

Bad faith as a legal concept involves malicious motive to decieve by spurious pleading or reasoning on the part of a party in a lawsuit, which undermines their case, and may result in punitive or exemplary damages.[78]

Insurance bad faith

Main article: Insurance bad faith

Insurance bad faith is a tort claim that an insured may have against an insurer for its bad acts, e.g. intentionally denying a claim by giving spurious citations of exemptions in the policy to mislead an insured, adjusting the claim in a dishonest manner, failing to quickly process a claim, or other intentional misconduct in claims processing.[79] Insurance bad faith has been broadened beyond use in other fields to include total inaction, a refusal to respond to a claim in any way.[80]

Punitive and exemplary damages

Courts can award punitive or exemplary damages, over and above the claim, against any insurance company which is found to have adjusted a claim in bad faith; the damages may be awarded with the aim of deterring such behavior among insurers in general, and may far exceed the amount of the damage due under the insurance policy.[81] In Canada, one case of this type resulted in a record punitive award of $1 million CAD when an insurance company pressed a claim for arson even after its own experts and adjusters had come to the conclusion that the fire was accidental; the company was advised by legal council that the desperate insured parties would be willing to settle for much less than what they were owed (Whiten v. Pilot Insurance Co., 2002 SCC 18).[82]

See also

Look up bad faith in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

  1. ^ Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas.
  2. ^ "The look as bad faith," Debra B. Bergoffen, Philosophy Today 36, 3 (1992): 221-227.
  3. ^ Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism, L. Grodon, Humanities Press, New Jersey.
  4. ^ "How do I prove bad faith?," Lawyers.com, [1].
  5. ^ Good Faith and Other Essays, Joseph S. Catalano, p. 104.
  6. ^ “… in the ethics of bad faith…”Existentialism & sociology: the contribution of Jean-Paul Sartre, Gila J. Hayim, [2]
  7. ^ Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre.
  8. ^ "How do I prove bad faith?," Lawyers.com, [3].
  9. ^ Should Creationism be Taught in the Public Schools?, Robert T. Pennock, Springer.
  10. ^ "Bad Faith Negotiation," Union Voice, [4].
  11. ^ "How do I prove bad faith?," Lawyers.com, [5].
  12. ^ "How do I prove bad faith?," Lawyers.com, [6].
  13. ^ Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas
  14. ^ Summa Contra Gentiles, St Thomas Aquinas
  15. ^ "… not everyone whose views were eventually labeled ‘heretical’ was in bad faith. Often such people were earnestly looking for the truth and their lives were truly exemplary", An introductory dictionary of theology and religious studies , Orlando O. Espín, James B. Nickoloff, p.551, [7]
  16. ^ “…required by honesty, and to hide this from ourselves is ‘bad faith’. One form of bad faith is to pretend that there is a God who is giving us our tasks…”, Religion and Morality, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philospohy, [8]
  17. ^ "intentional structure of bad-faith", Good Faith and other essays, Joseph S. Catalano, p. 104
  18. ^ "Self Deception and the Nature of Mind", Tropisms and Reason, Perspectives on self-deception, Brian P. McLaughlin editor, [9]
  19. ^ Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre
  20. ^ “Self Deception and Bad Faith”, Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin ed., Alan W. Wood, pp. 207-227
  21. ^ Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Satre
  22. ^ Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre
  23. ^ “Self Deception and Bad Faith”, Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin ed., Alan W. Wood
  24. ^ “There is a natural homuncularist response to this surface paradox of self deception.Distinct subsystems that play the distinct role of deciever and deceived are located within the self deceiver. So no single subject of belief is required to both believe (know) a poposition and not believe (know) it.”, Self Deception and the Nature of Mind, "Tropisms and Reason", Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin editor, p63-64, Mark Johnson author, [10]
  25. ^ "Existential Regret: A Crossroads of Existential Anxiety and Existential Guilt", Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Marijo Lucas, Ph.D
  26. ^ Bad Faith and Distortions, The American Psychological Association: Protecting the Torturers, S. Soldz. September 6, 2006, [[http:www.counterpunch.org.soldz09062006.html]
  27. ^ "A Profession struggles to save its soul: Psychologists", Guantánamo and Torture, S. Soldz, [[http:www.counterpunch.org/soldz08012006.html]
  28. ^ “Self Deception and Bad Faith”, Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin ed., Alan W. Wood, pp. 207-227
  29. ^ “Self Deception and Bad Faith”, Perspectives on Self Deception, Brian P. McLaughlin ed., Alan W. Wood, pp. 207-227
  30. ^ Self Deception and the Ethics of Belief, David Wisdo, Journal of Value Inquiry 91, 339–347, 1991
  31. ^ The Life of Irony and the Ethics of Belief, David Wisdo, SUNY, Albany, 1993
  32. ^ ”psychological strategies such as… “bad faith”… become germane in the ethics of belief”, Ethics of Belief, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  33. ^ Self Deception Unmasked, Alfred R. Mele , Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 2001
  34. ^ Being and Nothingnes, Jean Paul Sartre
  35. ^ “…required by honesty, and to hide this from ourselves is ‘bad faith’. One form of bad faith is to pretend that there is a God who is giving us our tasks. Another is to pretend that there is a ‘human nature’ that is doing the same thing”, Religion and Morality, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philospohy, [11]
  36. ^ Being and Time, Heidegger
  37. ^ The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, H.M. Parshley (Trans), Vintage Press, 1952
  38. ^ Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre
  39. ^ Phenomenolgy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [12]
  40. ^ Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre
  41. ^ “The ‘ethics of belief’ refers to a cluster of questions at the intersection of epistemology, philosophy of mind, psychology, and ethics… central… is ... bad faith wish-fulfillment…”, The Ethics of Belief, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  42. ^ Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre
  43. ^ Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre, 1992
  44. ^ Notes to Existentialism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [13]
  45. ^ “Rawls… parties… cannot choose and agree to principles in ‘bad faith’... have to be able, not just to live with and grudgingly accept, but to sincerely endorse the principles of justice…”, Original Position, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [14]
  46. ^ The Look as Bad Faith, Debra B. Bergoffen, Philosophy Today 36, 3 (1992), 221-227
  47. ^ "It argues, with Simone de Beauvoir, that patriarchal marriage is both a perversion of the meaning of the couple and an institution in transition", Marriage, Autonomy, and the Feminine Protest, Hypatia, Volume 14, Number 4, Fall 1999, pp. 18-35, [15]
  48. ^ "mutilated... immanent...", The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, H.M. Parshley (Trans), Vintage Press, 1952
  49. ^ “… women are systematically subordinated… de Beauvoir labels women “mutilated” and “immanent”… women succumb to ‘bad faith’ and surrender their agency…”, Feminist Perspectives on the Self, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  50. ^ Tete-a-Tete: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, Hazel Rowley
  51. ^ Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre
  52. ^ The Second Sex, Simone de Beuvoir
  53. ^ "Love becomes for her a religion. In order to pursue this apparent ... She may employ 'bad faith' in an attempt to resolve this paradox...", Revolutions of the Heart: gender, power and the delusions of love, Wendy Langford
  54. ^ “… bad faith can be defined as fleeing a displeasing truth for a pleasing falsehood. Thus, constructing black people as inferior to whites is a ‘pleasing falsehood of antiblack racism.”, Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined, Joe L. Kincheloe, p. 186, ISBN 0-312-12-12520-8, [16]
  55. ^ Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism, L.Grodon, Humanities Press, New Jersey
  56. ^ "In Nazi Germany, companies knowingly competed for the manufacture of efficient ovens for the concentration camps. The manufacturers could say to themselves... ", Good Faith and other essays, Joseph S. Catalano, p. 168
  57. ^ Being and Notingness, Jean Paul Sartre
  58. ^ “… the “authentic Nazi” is explicitly disqualified as being oxymoronic”, Jean Paul Sartre, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [17]
  59. ^ “ to teach creationism or whatever ... Is it not bad faith to misrepresent the findings of science in what is purported to be a science class?”,Should Creationism be Taught in the Public Schools?, Robert T. Pennock, Springer,
  60. ^ Simon Keller, , “Patriotism as Bad Faith,” Ethics, 115: 563–92, 2005
  61. ^ Loyalty, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [18]
  62. ^ Simon Keller, , “Patriotism as Bad Faith,” Ethics, 115: 563–92, 2005
  63. ^ "This leads her to hide from herself the true source of some of the beliefs involved. This is bad faith.", Patriotism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [19]
  64. ^ "negotiating in bad faith", example of use of "bad faith" from definitoin in Oxford Online Dictionary, [20]]
  65. ^ "Bad Faith Negotiation", Union Voice, [21]
  66. ^ example of use - "the Republicans accused the Democrats of negotiating in bad faith", Oxford Online Dictionary, [22]]
  67. ^ The “Inherent Bad Fatih Model” Reconsidered: Dulles, Kennedy, and Kissinger, Douglas Stuart and Harvey Starr, Political Psychology, [23]
  68. ^ “…the most widely studied is the inherent bad faith model of one’s opponent...", The handbook of social psychology, Volumes 1-2, edited by Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, Gardner Lindzey
  69. ^ “…the most widely studied is the inherent bad faith model of one’s opponent”, The handbook of social psychology, Volumes 1-2, edited by Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, Gardner Lindzey
  70. ^ "Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  71. ^ Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, J.L. Mackie, (1977)
  72. ^ Truth in Ethics,” in B. Hooker (ed) Truth in Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 1–18, 1996
  73. ^ “Mackie's argument for the error-theory… (Mackie's)] view is that, unless more is said, it simply relegates moral discourse to bad faith”, Realism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  74. ^ Black’s Law Dictionary
  75. ^ Rocking Chair Plaza v Brampton 1988 29 CPC 2d 82, Duhaime online Legal Dictionary, [24]
  76. ^ Duhaime online Legal Dictionary, [25]
  77. ^ 1992, Re Alcan Wire, 26 LAC 4th 93, Ontario, [http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/B/BadFaith.aspx
  78. ^ "How do I prove bad faith?", Lawyers.com, [26]
  79. ^ "The tort of bad faith in first-party insurance transactions after two decades," Roger C. Henderson, [27].
  80. ^ "How do I prove bad faith?", Lawyers.com, [28].
  81. ^ California Fair Claims Settlement Regulations, [29].
  82. ^ http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2002/2002scc18/2002scc18.html
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