“Self-Deception in Sartre’s Philosophy” in Conversation with Hedayat Alavitabar

“Self-Deception” in Sartre’s Philosophy

Interview with “Kargadan” Magazine (2017) with Additions

Interviewer: Alireza Najafi

Kargadan: Why do human beings want not to be what they are, and why do they always pretend to be something else and conceal their true selves? Jean-Paul Sartre, the renowned French philosopher, in his book Being and Nothingness, uses the term mauvaise foi in response to this question, and his discussion of this is one of the turning points of his philosophy. Some have translated this term as “hypocrisy,” and Nigel Warburton, in his book The Classics of Philosophy, writes of it: “Sartre’s examination of hypocrisy and pretense has rightly been admired as one of the enduring pieces of twentieth-century philosophy. Here his abilities as a philosopher, psychologist, and novelist are combined with complete success and bear fruit in this phenomenological investigation, such that the numerous dry and abstract philosophical examinations of this issue cannot hold a candle to it.” To discuss this term, we have turned to Dr. Hedayat Alavitabar to explain this subject for us in clear language, free of specialized concepts.

First, tell us a little about the term hypocrisy or self-deception in Sartre’s philosophy, and explain why Sartre addresses this issue and where this subject fits within his intellectual project?

The term mauvaise foi is one of the fundamental terms of Sartre’s philosophy. In English, it has been translated literally as “bad faith” and conceptually as “self-deception” and “insincerity.” Apparently, in Persian, the first equivalent considered for it was “sū’e niyyat” (ill will), which does not seem correct because ill will occurs consciously, whereas self-deception is not conscious. In the recently published Persian translation of Being and Nothingness, the equivalent “sū’e niyyat” has also been used. Some other equivalents for this term in Persian include: khod-faribi (self-deception), riyā (hypocrisy), tazvir (duplicity), bi-sedāqati (insincerity), bad-segāli (malevolence), do-ruyi (double-dealing), dorough-bāvari (false belief), and imān-e bad (bad faith). If we want to translate it conceptually, the best equivalent in Persian is “khod-faribi” (self-deception).

Regarding the origin of the discussion, I must say that Sartre is a philosopher of freedom, and perhaps no other philosopher in the history of philosophy has emphasized human freedom as much as he has. For this reason, when he discusses human freedom, he also enumerates its obstacles. He explains why humans deny their freedom and why they should not do so. Self-deception is one of the ways of denying freedom, because freedom entails responsibility, and responsibility is anxiety-inducing. When a human being is free and chooses for themselves, they will be responsible for their choices, and bearing the burden of responsibility causes anxiety. So we are faced with a chain here that begins with freedom and, passing through responsibility, reaches anxiety. Since anxiety is an unpleasant state, Sartre believes that individuals, through self-deception, cut off the root of anxiety, which is freedom. Humans deny their freedom to shirk responsibility and consequently escape anxiety.

The second origin of the discussion is that, according to Sartre, human life has no meaning, reason, or necessity. A human being living in this world finds their existence unnecessary and succumbs to absurdity, and the feeling of absurdity is nauseating. Through self-deception, humans seek to fabricate a reason and meaning for their lives so they can continue living.

Therefore, Sartre believes that we engage in self-deception on two occasions: one, when we want to rid ourselves of the feeling of anxiety that stems from responsibility, and the other, when we want to escape the feeling of nausea that is the result of the non-necessity and absurdity of our life and existence.

Now let us turn to the definition of self-deception. How does Sartre define self-deception?

Self-deception, as its name suggests, is a lie. This lie is not told to a person by someone else; rather, the person tells this lie to themselves. Therefore, in self-deception, the one who lies and the one who is lied to are the same. For this reason, the equivalent "hypocrisy" is not accurate for Sartre's term, because in hypocrisy, a person lies to another person or other people, not to themselves. People deceive themselves on various occasions. For example, when someone commits an ugly act and attributes it to things like environmental determinism or heredity and the like, they are engaged in self-deception. Instead of taking responsibility for their action, they justify it. Likewise, someone who is a member of a party and performs an action solely because the party asked them to, placing the responsibility on the party, is engaged in self-deception. Sartre considers the ultimate reference for action to be the human being themselves and sets aside all other authorities. No one can decide for a person or dictate their duty. In self-deception, by depriving themselves of freedom, a person loses their fluidity and acquires a fixed essence. This fixed essence, in Sartre's philosophy, stands in opposition to freedom. Fixed essence is a characteristic of things, not persons. For example, a stone has a fixed essence and is what it is. By deceiving themselves and giving themselves a fixed essence, a person denies their freedom and becomes a thing.

That is, the individual transforms from being-for-itself into being-in-itself. Is that correct?

Yes. In Sartre's philosophy, being is divided into two types: being-for-itself (pour-soi) and being-in-itself (en-soi). Being-for-itself is the human being, and anything other than the human being is being-in-itself. To put it more simply, in self-deception, the "person" becomes a "thing."

What is the result of this self-deception?

Existentialists divide existence into authentic and inauthentic. They consider the ultimate goal of the human being to be the attainment of authentic existence. According to Sartre, a person who is engaged in self-deception cannot have an authentic existence. A requirement for authentic existence is that a person does not lie to themselves. The authentic person is straightforward and honest with themselves. Incidentally, the term opposite to self-deception in Sartre's philosophy is "sincerity."

If you agree, let's move on to the examples Sartre gives of self-deception.

Sartre mentions several examples of self-deception, two of which I will explain. The first example is about a man and a woman who are on a date for the first time. They are sitting in a café, and the man begins to compliment the woman. The woman is aware of the man's physical and sexual intentions, but she deceives herself and convinces herself that the man is truly captivated by her virtues, and she enjoys the man's compliments. She does not want to accept that what the man is interested in is her body, and that his praise of her personality is a prelude to possessing this body. After a while, the man takes the woman's hand. Here, the woman faces a dilemma: she must either leave her hand there or pull it back. If she chooses the first path, she has, in fact, accepted the man's sexual intentions, but if she chooses the second path, the relationship will be disrupted, and she will be deprived of the pleasure of the man's admiration. She wants neither of these. Therefore, she tries to postpone the moment of decision as long as possible, and she does this by leaving her hand motionless in the man's hand and paying no attention at all to the fact that her hand is in his, as if this hand is no longer her hand. In this state, her hand is an object in the warm hands of the man. Sartre believes that this woman is in a state of self-deception because she lies to herself about the man's intentions. She denies her body and, by doing so, rejects her freedom of action and her responsibility for her actions. This woman transforms her hand into a being-in-itself, which lacks consciousness and, consequently, lacks the power of decision-making.

Sartre spoke in this example as if the woman does not enjoy the physical relationship. Is this the case?

Sartre does not mean that the woman does not enjoy the physical relationship; rather, he wants to say that what takes priority for the woman is the satisfaction of a spiritual need. Women enjoy a physical relationship when they have been spiritually satisfied. If women are not first emotionally attached, they will not consent to a physical relationship, and if they are forced to consent, like the work prostitutes do, they usually do not enjoy it. But men do not need a spiritual and emotional connection to establish a physical relationship and enjoy it. Hence, professional seducers in their relationships with women do not first seek a physical relationship; instead, they praise the woman's perfections, or do things for her, or support her, or buy things for her, or listen to her words, and in any case, they pretend to love her. The very feeling of being loved gives the woman a kind of psychological-spiritual satisfaction and makes her ready for a physical relationship. In Persian, we have the term 'makh zadan' which means exactly this. They say if you want to have a sexual relationship with a woman, you must first 'hit her makh,' meaning to conquer her body, you must first conquer her soul. If you do not do this, the woman feels she has become a prostitute. For this reason, in marital relationships, women need their husbands to show, both in speech and in action, that they love them and do not want them only for their bodies. If men do not do this and want to have a sexual relationship, they usually face the objection, 'You only want me for bed!' Therefore, even if a man wants the woman only for bed, he usually plays a role in some way so that the woman believes that what the man is interested in is primarily the woman's perfections. This is exactly what the man does in Sartre's example.

Please give the second example.

The second example is about the café waiter. He exaggerates in his behavior and shows himself to be overly eager. In reality, he is playing a kind of game and playing the role of the café waiter. He wants to be a waiter, and the better he plays his role, the better a waiter he will be. Society demands that the waiter limit himself to his role and not go beyond it, because a waiter who considers himself above being a waiter is intolerable to the customer. Therefore, he tries to fit into his mold and imprison himself within it, as if he cannot be anything but a waiter. Here too, we are faced with an individual who wants to turn himself into an object, that is, an in-itself that has no consciousness, freedom, or responsibility. He thinks that because he is a waiter, he must behave in a specific way and has no right to choose. The waiter knows that in the eyes of others, he is only a waiter, and others demand that he be only a waiter. Therefore, he tries to conform himself to the opinion of others and be what they think he is. In this way, the waiter hides his freedom and deceives himself.

The subject of role-playing is one of the themes emphasized in Sartre's works. By immersing themselves in their roles, human beings in fact deceive themselves and imagine that they are nothing but their role. The role that every human being plays in life is a mask they put on their face to hide their true identity, to deny their freedom and responsibility. These masks prevent human beings from connecting with one another as persons. As a result, the relationship between human beings is not a relationship between persons; it is a relationship between roles. Student, professor, wife, husband, father, mother, and in short, everyone plays their role and wears their own specific mask. These role-playings are examples of self-deception in two ways: on the one hand, they deprive human beings of the freedom to change and evolve, and on the other hand, they give a false reason and necessity to human life, which lacks any reason or necessity. For example, the café waiter pretends that no one can serve customers as well as he can, and for this reason, his existence is necessary, whereas in reality, it is not necessary. In Sartre's view, there is no one among human beings who does not consider themselves necessary for someone or something.

Please explain a little about the discussion of the spirit of seriousness and its connection to self-deception.

The spirit of seriousness is a form of self-deception and consists in a person considering themselves subordinate to the world, feeling that the world dominates them and that they must obey laws that lie outside of them. In this state, values are imposed on the person from without. This debate has always existed as to whether the origin of values is outside the human being or within them. Sartre opposes any external values and believes that values must well up from within the human being themselves. The serious person considers values to be independent of human subjectivity. They regard themselves as an object, not a subject, and behave as if, like a stone, they are devoid of all freedom and responsibility. An ethics founded on pre-determined values is an ethics based on self-deception and stands in opposition to an authentic ethics in which the human being creates value through their action.

If the individual is to create their own values, do we not fall into moral relativism?

If we have external and a priori criteria for morality, we will have an absolute morality, like the Ten Commandments, which a Jewish person cannot question but must simply obey. But if our criteria are internal and a posteriori, given the diversity of human beings, our morality will be relative. Sartre believes in a relative morality, according to which a single action may be good for you and bad for me. The human being is not subject to values but is the creator of values. The criterion for the rightness of an action is sincerity. If I avoid self-deception and perform an action sincerely, that action is right for me.

What are the other domains of self-deception?

Sartre believes that one of the places where human beings fall into self-deception is the domain of religion. To escape choice and responsibility, human beings take refuge in religion and, by accepting religious commands, free themselves from the anxiety of choice. In religions, there exists a being called God who possesses all perfections in an absolute manner. The faithful person considers themselves a servant and slave of God, and the duty of a servant is pure obedience to the master. Thus, religious faith strips the human being of independence and human identity and reduces them to a contemptible and worthless creature. A person who believes in God becomes a thing by denying their freedom. They are an object for the absolute subject, that is, God. The human being and God cannot fit within the same clime. God must be set aside so that the human being can stand on their own two feet. Nietzschean strains are evident in this part of Sartre's philosophy, just as they were evident in the discussion of ethics. On the other hand, faith in God means faith in a being who created the world and had a purpose in creating it. Therefore, if the human being strives to realize this purpose, their life acquires meaning and necessity. In Sartre's view, such a person is in a state of self-deception because they conceal the meaninglessness, groundlessness, and contingency of life. Religious self-deception in Sartre has numerous other aspects as well, the explanation of which requires a broader scope.

What are the examples of self-deception in Sartre's literary works?

Among his numerous works, I will refer to three: In the play The Flies, which Sartre wrote based on a Greek myth, Agamemnon's wife conspires with her paramour, and they kill Agamemnon. The people of the city of Argos consider themselves guilty for not having prevented the conspiracy to kill Agamemnon and are afflicted with feelings of remorse and regret. Dressed in black, they engage in repentance and seeking forgiveness before the gods. Sartre considers the people's action a form of self-deception because it prevents them from bearing the burden of responsibility for their sin. Another self-deceived character in this play is Electra. She, the daughter of Agamemnon, along with her brother, Orestes, avenges their father, but she then regrets it and feels guilty. Electra, like the people of Argos, feels remorse and, instead of accepting the consequence of her action, tries to shirk responsibility through repentance and appealing to God.

In his novel The Roads to Freedom, Sartre portrays a homosexual man named Daniel who finds peace in the gaze of others because they see him as he is. In the company of those who know his secret, he acquires a fixed personality, and although he finds himself repulsive, he wants to be solely this image. He wants to be a homosexual in the realm of being-in-itself, just as an oak is an oak. In other words, he wants to be an object with a fixed essence. In a letter to his friend, Mathieu, Daniel notes the importance of the other's existence in a person's attainment of identity. But this brings problems: on the one hand, society does not allow a person to show themselves to others as they are. For example, Daniel cannot tell his wife that he is homosexual. On the other hand, no one is close enough to a person to know all their vices, nor is anyone always with them to see all their faults. Hence, Daniel needs a permanent gaze that always sees him. Thus, he turns to the absolute Other, that is, God. Daniel is in a state of self-deception because, instead of relying on himself, he gives himself identity through the gaze of another, whether human or divine. Mathieu, a philosophy teacher and an intellectual atheist, throws Daniel's letter out the train window and says: "Old claptrap."

The play The Devil and the Good Lord is another work in which self-deception is described. Goetz, the story's hero, after a lifetime of wickedness, decides to become a man of God and carry out His commands. As a devout man, his gaze is turned toward the heavens to find answers to his questions and to know how he should act in life. He sees himself merely as an agent charged with carrying out a divine duty. The acts Goetz performs to please God bring about disastrous results, but he refuses to abandon them because he believes he is carrying out divine commands and bears no responsibility for their consequences. He is in a state of self-deception and does not want to take responsibility for his actions. He has turned himself into an object in God's hands and has stripped himself of all freedom of action. Finally, Goetz realizes his mistake and denies God. In the first period of his life, he was a follower of the Devil; in the second, he became subject to God; but in the third, he turns to humanity and says: "There is no more heaven, there is no more hell, there is nothing but earth."

What is the relationship between this self-deception and alienation?

Alienation is one of the consequences of self-deception. A person who denies their freedom and independence and makes themselves subject and subordinate to another individual, whether human or divine, loses their human identity and becomes alienated from themselves. Such a person does not determine their own life path and does not hold their destiny in their own hands; rather, everything is imposed on them from the outside, and they are merely passive and receptive. In the play The Flies, Zeus, the god of gods, says of humans: "Their eyes are so fixed on me that they forget to look at themselves." Religious faith diverts human attention from the natural world and directs it toward an illusory supernatural world. For this reason, the devout person does not live in the real world and lacks a proper understanding of it. They ignore their own abilities and, by distancing themselves from their real self, become alienated from it. Therefore, Sartre, like Marx, considers religion to be the "opium of the people."