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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 547 we instinctively distrust; or how often we are justified in forgiving a betrayal of trust (MP 139, 141-142). And rigid rules and algorithms will not help wise individuals or a wise society guard against the untrustworthy (MP 160). Nevertheless, giving another the benefit of the doubt as a rule of thumb is justified on the grounds that "[t]here are few fates worse than sustained selfprotective self-paralyzing generalized distrust of one's human environment. The worst pathology of trust is a life-poisoning reaction to any betrayal of trust" (MP 145), given that "the trust-dependent goods are the most precious" (MP 146). Moreover, to protect our ability to trust we can use our powers of judgment, both in case-by-case decisions and in the design and overhaul of social institutions (MP 160, 176), and the rules and recipes we have derived from experience for designing lasting schemes of cooperation (MP 161). "'Ingredients' such as empowerment of the more vulnerable, equal respect, balance of power, provision for amendment, a place for the hearing of grievances, all give us ideas that we could try incorporating into rules for the design of other stable schemes of trust-involving cooperation, so that all trust comes closer to being mutual trust, and so also to mutual vulnerability" (MP 161-2). There are also some forms of trust that strengthen and extend the practice of trusting, for example, those in which trust is reciprocal and both parties are at least roughly equal in power and vulnerability. Contract, solemn vows, the appointment of a godparent, guardian or trustee are ways in which the more powerful can selectively disempower themselves and so avoid the temptation to abuse or manipulate their power (MP 178). Trust in one's own judgments of trustworthiness, what Baier calls "meta-trust," is almost always, she thinks, preferable to the ultimately disabling effects of distrust (MP 185), even though "[t]he more one knows about people (oneself included), the less one has occasion strictly to trust them, or to trust trusting them" (MP 187). Finally, trust in sustained trust, "in full knowledge of its risks as well as its benefits, and trustworthiness to sustain trust may well be the supreme virtues for ones like us, in our condition" (MP 185, 197, 201). In the end, Baier thinks, we simply have to make a commitment to value and practice it, despite the risks and betrayals, in order to further a community grounded in trust, in which such risks and betrayals are minimized. On Baier's view, the concept of trust brings together "men's theories of obligation" with "women's hypothetical theories" of love and care (MP 10), by generalizing central moral features of obligations, virtues, and loving along with such relationships as those between teacher and pupil, confider and confidant, worker and co-worker, and profession and client (MP 15). A moral theory that spelled out the conditions for appropriate trust would, therefore, include a morality of love, as well as supplement a morality of obligation: "to recognize a set of obligations is to trust some group of persons to instill them, © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
