Bad faith

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About

In a discussion, bad faith refers to the practice of covert dishonesty (e.g. misrepresenting the reasons for one's position or concealing important information, aka intellectual dishonesty). Discussion participants who are found to have done this may be said to be participating "in bad faith", or described as "bad faith participants".

Rhetorical Manipulation

Any argument that uses rhetorical manipulation to make its point may be suspected of being in bad faith, although it is not bad faith to use such manipulation to drive home a point which the arguer believes to be true. It may be necessary to look at the pattern of arguments and note whether they are internally consistent in order to make a reasonably good determination of whether an argument is sincere (good faith) or not.

Some rhetorical manipulations, however, work against good epistemic practice (i.e. they are antiepistemic), and therefore may be viewed as "bad faith" by default.

Political Philosophy

Right wing philosophy holds that all negotiation is, or should be, over the question of strength – whoever is "strongest" should be the winner, regardless of who has their facts straight – and thus right-wing parties will tend to engage in carrot-and-stick negotiation, soldier arguments, etc.

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