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TRUST: ON THE REAL BUT ALMOST ALWAYS UNNOTICED, EVER‐CHANGING FOUNDATION OF ETHICAL LIFE
Author(s) -
BERNSTEIN J. M.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9973.2011.01709.x
Subject(s) - harm , vulnerability (computing) , foundation (evidence) , epistemology , order (exchange) , sociology , express trust , law and economics , social psychology , psychology , law , philosophy , political science , business , computer science , computer security , finance
Following the lead of Annette Baier, this essay argues that trust relations provide the ethical substance of everyday living. When A trusts B, A unreflectively allows B to approach sufficiently close so as to be able to harm A. In order for this to be possible, A practically presupposes that B perceives A as a person and will hence act accordingly. Trust relations are relations of mutual recognition in which we acknowledge our mutual standing and vulnerability with respect to one another. A robust account of trust assumes: first, trust relations are primary and practical, and while monitored by reason, they are not rationally constituted; second, trust can sustain its practical primacy over moral reason because it is developmentally prior to reason; and third, trust relations can be the bearers of our worth and vulnerability because they are the developmental products of first love.