Abstract
This paper defends the view that trust is a moral attitude, by putting forward the Obligation-Ascription Thesis: If E trusts F to do X, this implies that E ascribes an obligation to F to do X. I explicate the idea of obligation-ascription in terms of requirement and the appropriateness of blame. Then, drawing a distinction between attitude and ground, I argue that this account of the attitude of trust is compatible with the possibility of amoral trust, that is, trust held among amoral persons on the basis of amoral grounds. It is also compatible with trust adopted on purely predictive grounds. Then, defending the thesis against a challenge of motivational inefficacy, I argue that obligation-ascription can motivate people to act even in the absence of definite, mutually-known agreements. I end by explaining, briefly, the advantages of this sort of moral account of trust over a view based on reactive attitudes such as resentment.
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Notes
Hertzberg adopts the view that “if I claim that A trusts B to do X, I commit myself to thinking that (in the absence of exonerating circumstances) B is open to blame if he fails to do it” (1988, p. 319). Hertzberg’s view prompts Hardin’s (1991) objections discussed in Section 4 below. But Hertzberg’s view is much stronger than mine, in a way that seems indefensible: According to him,even in order to think that somebody else trusts F to do X, I must myself hold that F has an obligation to do X. (1988, pp. 319–320). Surely this is false. I can think that somebody else has the attitude of trust without morally endorsing the idea that there really is an obligation to meet that trust, just as I can think that somebody else has a belief that p without believing p myself.
Thus, unlike Hart’s discussion of the ascription of responsibility (1951), I am not thinking of ascription as primarily a linguistic act or formulation.
Tannenbaum (2007) proposes that there is an additional category of moral failures, which are not blameworthy, not excused, and which do not fulfil the obligation, either. This additional category suggests that blame is just one of a range of possible responses to unmet obligations. If correct, this implies that the account I have offered is oversimplified in an important but, it is hoped, emendable respect.
See note 1. This leaves it open whether one might continue to press an objection against the encapsulated interest view, by arguing that there are genuine cases of therapeutic trust to which no such calculations of benefit and risk are even relevant. There seems to be a kind of trust, shading over into belief in or faith, which is not based on such calculations. See Baker (1987) for a discussion of trust that is resistant to evidence, and Lahno (2001) for a discussion of the relation of faith and trust.
The idea of the participant attitude or stance is taken from Strawson (1962).
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Nickel, P.J. Trust and Obligation-Ascription. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 10, 309–319 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-007-9069-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-007-9069-3