...to get validation from someone you respect.
dbp
There is the existential form, as described by Sartre but I think most people practice bad faith on a much shallower level.
The most common kind I've come across in debates is that one's interlocutor argues on grounds that they do not themselves consider valid. I had a long and fruitless debate some months ago about the Constitutional merits of Roe compared to the obvious violations of the 2nd Amendment by various states. At the end of it, his "arguments" left in tatters, he sputtered, "Well fuck the Constitution, we should just throw it out"! He never cared about the Constitution at all, it was just something he thought I cared about. That's what I think of when I think of arguing in bad faith.
A similar thing happens fairly frequently, except they (who are not religious) assume that I am. The Bible means nothing to them and when they lose, which they always do, since they usually have only vestigial knowledge in that area, they "It's all superstition anyway" you.
Ann Althouse said... @dbp
Those are excellent examples of bad faith. The deception is that you get caught up in a debate with this person who is pretending to share common ground with you, but they don't really share that common ground, and if your efforts pay off and you're winning, they are never going to agree. They'll just walk away. If they were honest, they wouldn't have wasted your time.
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