Abstract
In this paper I examine the structure of hope and trust from a phenomenological perspective in order to analyze the kinds of beliefs, valuings, and practical dispositions involved in them. I claim that there are some basic aspects of the social world that would be inconceivable without the feeling components of these attitudes. However, since these attitudes are only rational in as far as they involve rational beliefs, valuings, and practical assumptions, a complex theory of reason that deals with these three domains is necessary to understand what is at stake in them. Accordingly, I attempt to sketch central aspects of the Husserlian pluralistic conception of reason and highlight the way in which, when they are rational, the valuings involved both in hope and trust open new possibilities to act in rational or meaningful ways. This leads me to stress the role of the feelings involved in these attitudes, for I claim that such valuings or axiological assessments are based on them. I argue that hope allows us to act rationally in the face of uncertainty and what lies beyond our control. In the final part I elaborate on the idea that trust is founded on hope. I examine what happens when hope is expressed and how being found trustworthy by others implies being capable of establishing all kinds of social relationships, including relationships in which the trusted one is dominated. This opens the possibility of raising ethical questions concerning trusting and responding to the trust of others.
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Notes
I am grateful to Nicolas de Warren, Hanne Jacobs, Teresa Bruno, Ignacio Quepons, and an anonymous reviewer for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.
This view can be found more clearly exposed in Formal and Transcendental Logic. See Husserl (1974).
It is worth mentioning that in several passages where he writes about sinnliche Gefühle (sensous feelings), Husserl suggests that value receptions apprehend a mixture of sensations and feelings. See Husserl (1984, pp. 401–11), Husserl (2004, pp. 326–27), and the manuscript A VI 12 II/22a. This is compatible with the view that axiological qualities are always founded on and thus mixed with doxical ones.
For a phenomenological account of valuing that stresses the way in which we usually grasp positive values through the negative experience of lacking, see Villoro (1997).
By “wishful thinking” I understand the mere expectation that something desired will happen. As I mentioned earlier, I am following Husserl’s distinction between desire—which is an axiological intention—and volition, a distinction that is not always considered nor accepted in phenomenological literature. According to it, for instance, many types of lived experiences that Sokolowski identifies with wishes (by drawing on the Aristotelian concept of boulesis) would be volitions and not mere desires or wishes (Sokolowski 2008, pp. 238–52).
On this rejected view, see Nussbaum (2018).
For a phenomenological account of some of the relationships that obtain between certain kinds of feelings and kinds of values, see Scheler (2014, pp. 135–49, 407–26).
On the possibility of experiencing feelings in imagination or in nonoriginal presentation see Goldie (2012, pp. 82–83) and Husserl (2004, pp. 66–67). How can one imagine feelings and thus values that have never been given in original presentation because the corresponding situation of the value has never taken place? The question of the sources of these “creative” experientially imagined feelings and of the possibility of an intransitive hope (Bloch 2016, 84–86) points to genetic analyses that focus on the instincts or drives that make possible feelings and values.
My account of hope is more indebted to Bloch (2016) than what might appear from what I explicitly discuss of him. The reason for this is that Bloch focuses on the instinctive roots of this affect. Let me note, however, that I find compelling his characterization of hope as an affect that has as its object something that is not at hand, that implies a practical dimension, and that opens the possibility of an authentic, truly new future. A phenomenological account of the instinctive roots of hope and of valuings in general—that is, of how the possibility of grasping values presupposes being driven or projected by instincts—would have to resort to genetic analyses and take static analyses like the ones presented here as preliminary guidelines.
From the above preliminary definition is already clear that the kind of possible attitude that I am identifying with trust has an interpersonal dimension. This is not to say that we cannot trust ourselves, trust our relationships with other persons, and ultimately trust the world. However, these can only be objects of trust insofar as our attitudes toward them are inseparable from our trust in other persons, which means that their betrayal can destroy these other trusting relationships. See de Warren (2020, pp. 15–42).
It is worth remembering that research on gender inequality and sexual violence consistently shows that relationships of trust can be asymmetrical and foster exploitation, abuse, and even extreme forms of violence toward those who are trusted. See for example Segato (2010) and Fraser (2014). In connection with the point that trust has an impositive character, which I will discuss soon, Steinbock has shown from a phenomenological perspective that one can trust someone with the purpose of making them feel obliged and thus manipulate them into doing something (Steinbock 2014, pp. 212–17). Because of this, I am not convinced by Ozar’s claim that an essential trait of trust is that it involves valuing the trusted person in a moral and nonstrategic way (Ozar 2018).
This possibility is defended by Pereda (2009, pp. 72–74).
For this way of understanding the promise as a social act, see Reinach (1989, pp. 169–75).
On this rejected view, see Baier (1986, p. 245).
This is not to deny that domination is often if not always based on violence, but it does have the implication that violence can only deliver servitude instead of mere destruction and death insofar as it is capable of forcing the trustworthiness that is needed to be obedient.
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Marín-Ávila, E. Hope and Trust as Conditions for Rational Actions in Society: A Phenomenological Approach. Husserl Stud 37, 229–247 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-021-09288-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-021-09288-9