Why did Sartre believe people sometimes deny their own freedom and responsibility?

Jean-Paul Sartre argued that human beings are "condemned to be free," meaning they possess a radical, inescapable freedom of choice and the responsibility that follows from it. However, he observed that individuals often attempt to flee from this truth because the weight of such radical responsibility is agonizing.123

To escape this burden, people engage in what Sartre termed "bad faith" (mauvaise foi). In this state of dishonesty, an individual vainly attempts to deny their own agency by viewing themselves as an object—or the "In-itself"—rather than a conscious, choosing subject. By conceiving of themselves as a thing that is acted upon by external forces rather than a being that acts, they seek to avoid the anxiety of making choices and the accountability for those decisions.12

Ultimately, Sartre viewed this denial as a fundamental dishonesty, as it represents a futile attempt to escape the nature of human reality, which is defined by the constant necessity of self-determination.12