The sincerity demanded by critics is itself a form of bad faith.

Evidence

But the champion of sincerity is not ignorant of the transcendence of human reality, and he knows how at need to appeal to it for his own advantage. He makes use of it even and brings it up in the present argument. Does he not wish, first in the name of sincerity, then of freedom, that the homosexual reflect on himself and acknowledge himself as an homosexual? Does he not let the other understand that such a confession will win indulgence for him? What does this mean if not that the man who will acknowledge himself as an homosexual will no longer be the same as the homosexual whom he acknowledges being and that he will escape.into the region of freedom and of good will? The critic asks the man then to be what he is in order no longer to be what he is. It is the profound meaning of the saying, “A sin confessed is half pardoned.” The critic demands of the guilty one that he constitute himself as a thing, precisely in order no longer to treat him as a thing. And this contradiction is constitutive of the demand of sincerity. Who can not see how offensive to the Other and how reassuring for me is a statement such as, “He’s just a paederast,” which removes a disturbing freedom from a trait and which aims at henceforth constituting all the acts of the Other as consequences following strictly from his essence. That is actually what the critic is demanding of his victim—that he constitute himself as a thing, that he should entrust his freedom to his friend as a fief, in order that the friend should return it to him subsequently—like a suzerain to his vassal. The champion of sincerity is in bad faith to the degree that in order to reassure himself, he pretends to judge, to the extent that he demands that freedom as freedom constitute itself as a thing. … We have here only one episode in that battle to the death of consciousnesses which Hegel calls “the relation of the master and the slave.” A person appeals to another and demands that in the name of his nature as consciousness he should radically destroy himself as consciousness, but while making this appeal he leads the other to hope for a rebirth beyond this destruction. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 309

Categorization

• XREF: Directly sets up Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity and her treatment of the Other’s freedom; also connects to Hegel’s master-slave dialectic and to the earlier ‘gay’ example from the start of the bad-faith discussion. — connects to: Sincerity reveals itself as a form of bad faith — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 306; The demand for sincere self-recognition may itself be a form of bad faith. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 307; Sincerity shares the same structure as bad faith and can collapse into it — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 311
• DEEPTHINKING: The inversion — demanding confession so one can grant pardon, constituting the Other as thing to avoid treating them as a thing — is a dense knot of self-undermining that repays long reflection, not a merely factual point.

Broader Connections

• Sincerity reveals itself as a form of bad faith #corroborates (0.95) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 306
• The demand for sincere self-recognition may itself be a form of bad faith. #responds-to (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 307
• Sincerity shares the same structure as bad faith and can collapse into it #expands (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 311