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Show Chapter XIII. Baier's Hume 546 administration distributes equal benefits to every department because it would involve unwanted work to find out which ones deserved them and which ones did not (MP 136-138). Seventh, trust may dwindle into constant vigilance, checking and testing of the trusted's capacity to carry out her responsibilities; or, eighth, may balloon out of proportion for fear of insulting the trusted by requiring any checking or testing whatsoever (MP 139). Pathologies of trust and distrust, Baier concludes, "occur where there is the will to monopolize and hang on to power, to keep the underdogs under, to prevent inferiors from advancing" (MP 147). One way of violating trust is by taking on the care of more than one was entrusted with (MP 101), as does, for example, the secretary who makes it his business not only to retype one's manuscript, but to edit it for felicitous phrasing. So trusting someone also involves trusting them to recognize the limits of the discretion entrusted to them; and the more discretion they have, the harder it is to determine when those limits have been exceeded (MP 103). Trust can also be violated, not only through ill will, but also through incompetence or negligence, as for example, happens when you entrust a friend with a confidence who then forgets its confidentiality and relates it as an entertaining anecdote at a party. Concealing ill will under the cover of discretionary use of trust, or of incompetence, is yet a further violation (MP 104-5, 135). What is the difference between morally justified trust and foolish trust? When is my trust in someone warranted, and when is it properly undermined? Trust is rational, for Baier, if there is no reason to suspect in the trusted overriding motives that conflict with the demands of trustworthiness as the trustor sees them (MP 121). So, for example, if a husband has reason to suspect that his wife is raising their daughters to dislike men, he has reason to withdraw trust in his wife's decisions; or if her motives for not doing so are no longer outweighed by the anticipated costs to her of his withdrawing his economic support. The husband must judge whether and how ambivalent his wife's motives are in order to establish whether it is rational to continue to trust her (MP 122). Rational trust is compatible with some degree of suspicion or vigilance. But when the trustor must rely solely on threats or pressure he can exert to maintain the relationship, or when the trusted must rely on concealing breaches of trust, then the relationship is morally rotten, and can be expected to deteriorate when these facts are made explicit (MP 123). So a trust relationship is morally decent, Baier suggests, when no such threats or concealments are necessary (MP 123, 124, 128). If the relationship can survive the mutual awareness by both trustor and trusted of each other's reasons for being able to rely on the other to continue the relationship, then the relationship is morally sound (MP 128). But in the end, there can be no rules about when or where or whom to trust; to what extent we should rely on or question our instincts about those © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
