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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A five page paper which considers Sartre's concept of bad faith, how it relates to human consciousness and autonomy, and the way in which external societal systems encourage self-deception and the rejection of personal responsibility for choice.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: JL5_JLbadfaith.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
the human tendency for self-deception and the avoidance of freedom. However, as Santoni also points out, this concept has frequently been subjected to misunderstanding and misinterpretation by Sartres audience. As
Brown (2003) notes, Sartre maintains that human beings are not born with an "essential nature" but have to create their essence throughout the course of their lives. In the process,
they tend to reject the freedom to which he asserts they are condemned and this is where bad faith is involved: it is the denial of such freedom by the
individual. Bad faith can therefore be summed up as the individual accepting something as factual whilst knowing that the evidence on which such a conclusion is based is false or
flawed. Bad faith is not, therefore, something which is imposed externally on the individual, but comes from within.
Sartre states that there are three stages involved in the development of bad faith. Firstly, the individual is aware
that he exists in relation to the outside world and that this external reality has an impact on choices which are made and actions which are performed. Since this gives
rise to apprehension and fear, the individual then takes refuge in conscious reflection, which forms the second stage. However, this is a temporary refuge only, since the individual then becomes
aware of "non-being" which is at the centre of "being". Reflection allows one to become conscious that choices must be made, but does not offer any objective guides as to
which choice is preferable or right, since reflection itself is influenced by the external world. One has an infinite range of possibilities as regards potential action, but in order to
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