Taking Responsibility

This way emphasises that human life is primarily social. This means that each human being must consider how others behave, and how they will respond to his own behaviour, in deciding how to act himself. Even Gyges and Borgia had to do this, in order to achieve their dastardly ends. Thus the possibility of relying on each other to behave and respond in predictable, manageable ways is particularly valuable for human beings. Now, such reliance can be ensured by the detection and punishment which Glaucon and Hobbes emphasise, the love and sympathy which Hume emphasises, or the sense of morality which Locke, Kant and Marx emphasise. But the heart of trust, as another way of ensuring such reliance, lies elsewhere. For my reliance on others can be ensured simply by their taking responsibility for how their behaviour will influence my decisions about how to act in a particular regard. For example, they can take responsibility for my health, my security, or my bike, and so take responsibility for ensuring that I can rely on them in making my decisions about my health, security, or bike. This taking of responsibility, rather than love, sympathy, or a sense of morality, is the ‘good disposition’, or ‘trustworthiness’, on which I rely in trusting another. Indeed, if I believe that the other appears ‘trustworthy’ only because it coincides with his own interests, or even his love, sympathy, or sense of morality, I cannot believe that he really is trustworthy and so cannot trust him. I can then rely on him only in the common sense, by relying on detection and punishment, or his love, sympathy, or sense of morality. I cannot genuinely claim to trust him if I believe that I can rely on him only by resorting to such things.

Such taking of responsibility is part of being a friend, a lover, or a spouse, and a particularly important part of being a professional, an official, or a politician. If I trust the doctor to prescribe me appropriate treatment, I rely on her because I believe that she has taken responsibility for her role in my decisions about my health. Indeed, I may even allow her to effectively make these decisions for me. Similarly, I may rely on a policeman or policewoman, a judge, or a politician because I believe that they have taken responsibility for using the coercive powers of the state in certain legitimate ways and for certain legitimate purposes. I may thus rely on them when I make decisions about my safety or my property, for example. And even in more personal relationships, when I can rely more on another’s love for me, I still cannot trust them as a friend, lover, or spouse unless I also believe that they have taken responsibility for the particular, intimate role which they play in my life.

We must often leave exactly how others may fulfil such responsibilities relatively indeterminate, just because we often lack expertise in the area concerned, and are unable to predict contingencies. In trusting, we therefore allow the trusted some discretion. But this does not give them carte blanche to do as they wish. Their taking responsibility implies that they cannot intentionally lead us to rely on them in ways they cannot or will not satisfy, since this would conflict with our basic reason for trusting them. They must therefore be at least competent and honest. Nor can they simply ‘take responsibility’ for something which we could not want them to take responsibility for. (Imagine a thief who claimed that he was just ‘taking responsibility’ for my bike!) And, although one cannot genuinely trust others if one resorts only to reliance on detection, punishment, love, sympathy, or a sense of morality, one can certainly make some use of such resorts without necessarily failing to trust. Making judgements about such matters again requires discretion, however, if we are to avoid replacing genuine trust with common reliance.

Conclusions

If we stick to a picture of human beings as moved only by self-interest, love, sympathy, or their sense of morality, then the rationality of trust will remain obscure. Many of our most valuable cooperative activities will seem to be irrational, and will seem to persist only through blind habit or hope. Our friendships and our visits to the doctor will continue to be haunted by the Machiavellian conclusion: that if we are not confident that others are moved by self-interest, love, sympathy, or morality not to harm or steal from us, we should attack them before they attack us. If we act on this conclusion, mutual distrust and attack will spiral and we will soon find ourselves in a decidedly ‘miserable condition’. But if, out of habit or hope, we do not act on this conclusion, we will be blindly putting our faith in irrationality to keep our cooperation afloat, and we will struggle to cultivate and maintain trust, because we will not fully understand it. We are thus likely to do it more harm than good.

Recognising that human beings may take responsibility for how their behaviour influences others’ decisions, however, offers us a way of explaining how trust can be rational. It thus also offers us a way of beginning to understand how trust can be genuinely cultivated and maintained. This does not mean that trust will necessarily be any less elusive in practice, particularly among those who mistake common reliance for genuine trust or believe in the common picture of human nature. But given the potentially disastrous consequences of such misunderstandings, the importance of making trust a little less elusive in philosophy should not be underestimated.

Some Accessible Introductions to the Philosophy of Trust

For the basic issues and positions regarding trust, see the very clear account in Karen Jones’s entry on ‘Trust’ in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Routledge, 1998). There is a shorter version of this in The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Routledge, 1999).

For more extended discussion, Annette Baier’s essays, ‘Trust and Antitrust’ and ‘Trust and Its Vulnerabilities’, are very interesting. They are both reprinted in her book Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics (Harvard University Press, 1994).

Martin Hollis’s book Trust Within Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1998) provides an extended discussion of the Machiavellian conclusion, along with an interesting suggestion for how it might be avoided.

Editions Quoted in this Essay

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, with Selected Variants From the Latin Edition of 1668, edited by Edwin Curley (Hackett, 1994).
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge, revised by P.H. Nidditch (second edition, Oxford University Press, 1978).
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, translated by George Bull (revised edition, Penguin, 1999).

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