No witty introduction, no colorful description of the ambiance – straight into the rhetoric, aiming for the throat.  Trust is the subject, and has been the topic of discussion for some time.  I have had the hardest time wrapping my mind around, what appears to be, a null value.  Walk with me…

On a general level, trust seems to have four commonly accepted definitions – based n usage and experience:

1. Predictability – being able to reliably predict what a person will do in a consistent manner.

2.       Value exchange­ – making an exchange by which you receive something that you may or may not expect

3.       Delayed reciprocity -  giving something now in the hopes that it will be repaid at a future date

4.       Exposed vulnerabilities – enabling others to take advantage, but expecting that they will not

This leads me to conclude that trust is both logical and emotional.  So what?

The issue that I have with trust is that it only holds meaning as a concept.  Trust cannot be applied in a day-to-day existence, as it would require someone to continually think about trust; viewing every action in their life as one of trust.  This funnels me back to trust as a concept. 

A person can tell you the exact moment that their trust was betrayed, but can only recall that they gradually grew to trust someone.  Perhaps trust is never betrayed, but gradually diminished.  This brings up a thought concerning trust:

When we trust others, we are confidently relying on them to take care of something which we care about, but which they could harm or steal if they wished.

When we trust them, we make ourselves vulnerable.  But we do so in the confidence that the trusted will not exploit this vulnerability, and generally in the confidence that the trusted will actively take care of what we make vulnerable.

  I can see how that statement would have validity.  However, it serves to bring up a dismal point about trust.

I argue that only fear of detection and punishment prevents people from breaking ‘trust’ and doing ‘evil’ for the sake of self-interest.

This sorry picture of human nature raises the following crucial question:  when and why should we trust others if it is believed that only fear of detection and punishment, prevents them from ‘stealing’ from us?

GRRRR!!!  So I find myself back at square one – trust as a concept.  But what if we had sufficient sympathy for others, or really shared a sufficiently strong sense of morality, we would not seem to need to trust each other at all.

That’s a flawed statement.  Consider – we naturally care for our loved ones.  The sad fact is, as much as we care for our loved ones, we are badly disposed towards their ‘enemies’.  So I scrap this thought and toss around a farfetched thought concerning human irrationality.

We could simply hope that human irrationality will somehow keep our most essential cooperative activities afloat:  such as trust and dissuasion from the above mentioned state of being (about stealing, detection, and punishment).

Another flawed thought.  Consider the apparent paradox:  how can we rationally persuade ourselves to be irrational?  BLAH!!!

My desperation thought:

Our natural love and sympathy, and our sense of morality will point us in the right direction.  These nobler parts of human nature suggest that when we trust others, we are confidently relying on their good disposition towards us – we are relying on their love or sympathy for us or their sense of morality, for instance, rather than on their egoistic interests, habits, or irrationalities.  Thus trust is a special kind of reliance, reliance on others’ good disposition towards us.

Thoughts like this suggest that there is more to trust than even an extended picture of human nature would allow.  The ‘good disposition’ of the trusted, on which we rely when we trust them, cannot consist of their past reliability, their fear of detection and punishment, their love or sympathy, or their sense of morality.  Trusting others might therefore seem to rest, ultimately, on an irreducible feeling about their good disposition, or even on a ‘leap of faith’.

This has gone one long enough.  After many weeks, I have cultivated my conclusion on trust.  It is a follows:

My reliance on others can be ensured simply by their taking responsibility for how their behavior will influence my decisions about how to act in a particular regard.

See – in taking this 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 I 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 by resorting to such things.

In closing:

We must often leave exactly how others may fulfill such responsibilities relatively indeterminate.  In saying that, we therefore allow the trusted some discretion.  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.

Recognizing that human beings may take responsibility for how their behavior influences others’ decisions, offers us a way of explaining how trust can be rational.  It also offers us a way of beginning to understand how trust can be genuinely cultivated and maintained.

If you have journeyed this far – I commend you.  I extend my hand:  will you continue to walk with me?