Bad faith

Some examples of bad faith include: soldiers waving a white flag and then firing when their enemy approaches to take prisoners (cf.

perfidy); a company representative who negotiates with union workers while having no intent of compromising;[3] a prosecutor who argues a legal position that he knows to be false;[4] and an insurer who uses language and reasoning which are deliberately misleading in order to deny a claim.

Bad faith may be viewed in some cases to not involve deception, as in some kinds of hypochondria with actual physical manifestations.

There is a question about the truth or falsity of statements made in bad faith self-deception; for example, the veracity of a hypochondriac making a complaint about their psychosomatic condition.

[5] Bad faith has been used as a term of art in diverse areas involving feminism,[6] racial supremacism,[7] political negotiation,[8] insurance claims processing, intentionality,[9] ethics,[10] existentialism, climate change denial,[11] and the law.

[14] Freudian psychoanalysis answers how bad faith self-deception is made possible by postulating an unconscious dimension of our being that is amoral, whereas the conscious is in fact regulated by morality, law, and custom, accomplished by what Freud calls repression.

[23] Jean-Paul Sartre called the belief that there is something intrinsically good in itself, which is inherent in the world as absolute value and is discoverable by people, the "spirit of seriousness", which he argued leads to bad faith.

[24] In Sartre's words, "the spirit of seriousness has two characteristics: it considers values as transcendent givens, independent of human subjectivity, and it transfers the quality of 'desirable' from the ontological structure of things to their simple material constitution.

[27] While self-deception may be a tropism, not consciously done, it may be guided by "projects" one may set for one's life, such as a desire to get into heaven, or for personal pleasure, wealth, or power.

[citation needed] There is controversy as to whether propositions made in bad faith are true or false, such as when a hypochondriac has a complaint with no physical symptom.

[42] A person can intentionally self-deceive by being inauthentic or insincere, as the Nazis organization did in holding their beliefs to justify their eugenics and genocide.

[43] Jean-Paul Sartre described one kind of bad faith as claiming a direction from a non-existent deity or using religious authority to take unethical positions or espouse untrue beliefs.

[44] The Catholic Church does not consider everyone with heretical views to have bad faith: for example, people who earnestly seek the truth and lead exemplary lives.

[45] Persons practicing Zen 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.

[50] 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.

"[50] The current standard legal definition of "bad faith" in the law of England and Wales is that of Lindsay J in Gromax Plasticulture Ltd. v. Don and Low Nonwovens Ltd: Plainly it includes dishonesty and, as I would hold, includes also some dealings which fall short of the standards of acceptable commercial behaviour observed by reasonable and experienced men in the particular area being examined.

Parliament has wisely not attempted to explain in detail what is or is not bad faith in this context; how far a dealing must so fall-short in order to amount to bad faith is a matter best left to be adjudged not by some paraphrase by the Courts (which leads to the danger of the Courts then construing not the Act but the paraphrase) but by reference to the words of the Act and upon a regard to all material surrounding circumstances.

[53] 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.

[55] In Canada, one case of this type resulted in a record punitive award of CAD $1 million 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.

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.

[62] Bad faith is a concept in negotiation theory whereby parties pretend to reason to reach settlement, but have no intention to do so.