The last character that Sartre portrays to show self-deception is Estelle Rigault. To commence, Estelle submits herself into self-deception for the reason that she complies to bad faith. This is shown when Estelle enters the room in hell with the other characters, and is asked why she is in hell. Sartre himself writes, “‘What have you done? I mean, why have they sent you here?’ ‘That’s just it. I haven’t a notion, not the foggiest. In fact, I’m wondering if there hasn’t been some ghastly mistake...Isn’t it better to think we’ve got here by mistake?’” (9). Estelle is perfectly acting in bad faith, for she is lying to herself that she has no knowledge of why she is in hell. She refuses to acknowledge that she is in hell for her actions she made on earth. This is self-deception for she denies any responsibility for the consequences of her action that led her to hell. According to Sartre, every person has consciousness, free will, and one is responsible for one’s own actions. Unfortunately, Estelle keeps failing at overcoming bad faith by being asked yet again, for what act she did to be in hell, later in the play. Sartre writes, “‘Your turn. What have you done?’ ‘As I told you, I haven’t a notion. I rack my brain, but it’s no use.’ ‘Right. Then we’ll give you a hand. That fellow with the smashed face, who was he?’ ‘Who--who do you mean?’ ‘You know quite well’” (15). Estelle keeps deceiving herself that she has no idea what she has done to be put in hell. However, this exposes that she is indeed lying to herself, and others, by hesitating to answer them. Estelle is deeply in self-deception, for the fact that even when it is obvious she has bad faith, she continues to do so anyway. Estelle really knows what she has done to be in hell, but will not take the responsibility for her actions. Not only does she refuse any responsibility for her fate, but also continues to deny free will. For instance, Sartre agrees when he writes, “‘I lost my parents when I was a kid, and I had my young brother to bring up. We were terribly poor and when an old friend of my people asked me to marry him I said yes. He was very well off...My brother was a very delicate child and needed all sorts of attention, so really that was the right
In the early 19th century in Alabama and many other states our country had a very serious racial divide. Most of the white community was deeply racist which lead to an experiment in Alabama known as “Bad Blood” to the local black people. The government was calling it the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.
Fate is an all powerful and unavoidable development of events that leads you to what you deserve based on how you life your life. In the novel “Ethan Frome” by Edith Wharton the three main characters; Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena, all suffered a torturous fate due to many wrong doings, primarily, all the secrets they kept for their own individual benefit. Ethan’s lie was being in love with Mattie, Mattie’s lie was being in love with Ethan, and Zeena’s lie was being deathly ill, however, these lies resulted in sneaking around, hiding, and betrayal throughout the novel. In addition, the perspective the book was written in allows the reader to pass unfair judgement on the characters based on a bias point of view.
Psychological egoism is the interpretation that humans are always inspired by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so. Psychological egoism, which was widely recognized by psychologists and philosophers states that all human actions are motivated by selfish needs to benefit themselves. According to psychological egoists true altruism does not exist because the consequence of such an act leads to an increase in personal happiness. However, Joel Feinberg does not agree with that theory and in his essay he disagreed with the thesis that altruism
Throughout time, man has used many forms of deception to get what they want. Moliere’s play Tartuffe is a classical story about deception and how a “mask” is used to hide someone’s true intentions. Moliere applies the idea of a mask and a theme of deception to exploit the power struggles within a traditional household. The character Tartuffe employs deception so he can achieve social and economical standings while Elmire, Mariane, and Dorine use deception to defy the authority of Orgon over the entire household and to help bring back family harmony.
In the book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, by Seth Holmes he mentioned the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and his philosophy “Bad Faith”. Holmes explains “The phrase “bad faith” was introduced by Jean-Paul Sartre to describe the ways in which individuals knowingly deceive themselves to avoid acknowledging realities disturbing to them(Holmes86). The phrase explains us, when something bad is happening in our lives, we lie to ourselves to escape the truth that we don’t have to face them. This happens to everyone when we commit a really bad mistake and we don’t want to accept it. Another way this may happen is when you’re in a bad situation and you try to replace it with something else to get your mind off of it. Basically it’s a distraction, so we don’t think about what’s actually going on.
Marguerite Blakeney can be quite ruthless at times. When someone is displeasing towards her or something doesn’t go her way she becomes uncivil. After the Countess rejected Marguerite by saying “Suzanne, I forbid you to speak to that woman” (Orczy 11), the reader can tell by her small actions after that she was bothered. As well as “For the moment Marguerite’s sweet face had become as white as the soft fichu which swathed her throat, and a very keen observer might have noted that the hand which held the tall, beribboned stick was clenched, and trembled somewhat” (Orczy 11). Her response was insulting the Countess by saying “Sir Andrew, did you ever see such an unpleasant person? I hope when I grow old I sha’n’t look like that” (Orczy 11). This was also followed by Lady Blakeney mimicking the Countess, so the reader would think Marguerite is ruthless because of her childish and impolite actions due to a minor rejection. Obviously people going against her in any way is a great issue to her, and imagine what she might have done if Suzanne (who was more relaxed in this situation) had not convened with her. Imagine what other impolite or harsh comments or actions she might have added. Nevertheless, this kind of behavior should help the reader see how incredibly ruthless she is at times, however, Other people may believe that she’s quite kind and she just hides her feelings. Readers would think Marguerite is kind due to her act of kindness towards a homeless man by buying him a meal before entering The Fisherman's Rest (Orczy 9). While they have a reasonable position, it’s wrong because that single act of kindness was in reality the only act of kindness she showed for the rest of the
Today, children are taught to forgive others and give second chances. But this was not always the case. Historically, once someone had committed a crime they were thought of as dishonorable people and it was made known to others that they had committed a sin. This is seen in many literary works including The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, and Les Miserables. Les Miserables, originally written by Victor Hugo, exemplifies this prejudice. Throughout the story, the characters can not escape the prejudice related to one mistake, or perceived mistake. In the movie version directed by Bille August, Jean Valjean and Fantine are unable to receive forgiveness and move on with their lives.
Deception has a knack for composing persuasive theories and convincing fraudulence. Both Tartuffe and Pangloss seemed to have mastered this art of deceitfulness; however, the culprits went about their coaxing with extremely different techniques. The exposition and resolution are key sections to review in order to analyze the differences in the perpetrators. The beginning of Moliere’s Tartuffe and Voltaire’s Candide set up foundations for establishing both character’s supposed motivation for ambiguous philosophies. Tartuffe and Pangloss are polar opposites when it comes to expressing their knowledge and motivation, as well as articulating their reaction to the possible exposition of a false belief system.
The descriptive claim made by Psychological Egoists is that humans, by nature, are motivated only by self-interest. Any act, no matter how altruistic it may seem on the outside is actually only a disguise for a selfish desire such as recognition, avoiding guilt, reward or sense of personal ‘goodness’ or morality. For example, Mother Teresa is just using the poor for her own long-term spiritual gain. Being a universal claim, it could falter with a single counterexample. And being that I believe this claim to be bunk I will tell you why!
Although Faustus may not think it, he guilty of each of those sins, namely jealousy and avarice. This shows an interesting contrast between his self perceptions and reality. He takes full advantage of the power the devil brings him. Faustus has fleeting regrets about his vow to the devil, yet never serious. In his thoughts of repenting, it seems to be only for his own good rather than reaffirming his belief in God. In the end once Faustus becomes conscious that his life of power will be over and he will remain a servant to the devil for eternity, he realizes his huge mistake. When his death is inevitable he curses his choice: “Accursed Faustus, wretch, what hast thou done? I do repent, and yet I do despair. Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast. What shall I do to shun the snares of death?”
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “To deceive is when a person causes someone to believe something that is not true, typically in order to gain some personal advantage or give a mistaken impression”. Throughout the novel, Kazuo Ishiguro demonstrated a dystopian world, from the point of view of Kathy H, where the clones are deceptively raised for the purpose of donations to save the regular citizens. Through tone and symbolism, Ishiguro is trying to highlight how deception can be used to simply manipulate an individual or be used for their own good, based on others opinions. To begin, using tone, deception can be viewed as the foundation of many negative incidents for the clones when used as a form of manipulation. Firstly, during
Psychological egoism is the view that everyone always acts selfishly. It describes human nature as being wholly self-centered and self-motivated. Psychological egoism is different from ethical egoism in their “direction of fit” to the world. Psychological ego-ism is a factual theory. It aims to fit the world. In the world is not how psychological ego-ism says it is because someone acts unselfishly, then something is wrong with psycho-logical egoism. In my opinion this argument is completely wrong and unsound.
Without a distinct framework, ethical egoism fails as a moral theory to assist moral decision making because it endorses the animalistic nature of humanity, fails to provide a viable solution to a conflict of interest, and is proved to be an evolutionary unstable moral strategy.
The theory of psychological egoism is indeed plausible. The meaning of plausible in the context of this paper refers to the validity or the conceivability of the theory in question, to explain the nature and motivation of human behavior (Hinman, 2007). Human actions are motivated by the satisfaction obtained after completing a task that they are involved in. For example, Mother Teresa was satisfied by her benevolent actions and activities that she spent her life doing. As Hinman (2007) points out, she was likely to reduce in activity if she experienced any dissatisfaction in her endeavors.
Hypocrisy’ as a common theme throughout literature has often been advocated by the author’s use of concealing the true characteristics or meaning of the character. ‘Tartuffe’ by Moliere is an amazing neo-classical drama, where it portrays the contradictory relationship between appearance and reality in terms of hypocrisy. In one hand, Tartuffe, the religious hypocrite, who always wears a false mask of untrue righteousness to deceive others around him, on the other hand in reality he turns out to be the falsifier. Despite Tartuffe is treacherous in his undertakings and manages to deceive some people, however he cannot help but reveals his true nature/characteristics whenever he is confronted by sincere individuals. In another sense, he fails to realize that there are at least some people who has the right knowledge and will be able to identify his true instinct. I believe by using Tartuffe as a model of ‘religious hypocrite’, Moliere superbly demonstrates the logic that although the inherent tendency of a hypocrite is to manipulate others with his deceitful virtue, yet he will only be able to misguide individuals, who are insincere and unwise.