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 ...