Trust

When a cat sleeps on your lap. Perhaps his face is hidden by a paw. Just the whiskers and ear on one side visible. He starts to twitch. The whiskers flutter and flash. The mouth moves with the rapid intake of breath. A little sound, a half mew. The sleep is deep. You can touch the pads of a paw and he stays in his dreams. The dreams of what? He has never seen a mouse or, apart from through the windows, a bird. Does he dream of chasing a toy or of some fight with his feline companion? Or is there some unknown world of potential fears and threats immanent in that small brain, that delicate nervous system, that elegant and yet curiously infant-like body?

Sometimes a cat will climb to a place and make a pretense of being stuck. I know he is not stuck for he has often extricated himself. But he will mew piteously. Stare at me. Cock his head on one side. I climb onto a stool and reach for him and he falls into my arms, onto my shoulder, where he collapses into rubbery-babiness. No muscular effort. Pure trust. As I clamber down, unbalanced by his weight, unable to use my arms as in them is him, that which trusts me and must therefore be protected.

Trust predicts, expects. It places a demand that it be honoured.

***

During the interview I did the other day with Richard Wilkinson, he mentioned getting nervous at times, feeling anxious about what others thought of him. I said that I feel the same. I had been in a state of extreme agitation at the start of our conversation as I was sure I was wasting his time, that my questions would be stupid, that he'd look disparagingly at me. But when he said what he said and I said what I said I felt the tendrils of trust across the ether.

I went on to say, and this I read in Martha Nussbaum's books Upheavals of Thought and The Monarchy of Fear, that while we are so afraid to expose our own vulnerability, we build this carapace around ourselves to such an extent that we cannot even register the vulnerability of others. The possibility of empathy is crushed. We cannot form honest relationships.

This is a complex and multilayered issue. Let me try to parse it out.

One aspect comes through in something that Scott Barry Kaufman mentioned when talking about his book Transcend. I think he was referring to Abraham Maslow. He said that during times of deprivation, people are inclined to look at what they can get out of a situation. If a person is hungry, everything looks like food. This suggests that when a person feels threatened, afraid, socially anxious, she will be less inclined to care about the needs of others and more inclined to try to appease her own sense of threat by raising herself up at the expense of others. So, Richard or I could, in this state of nerves, have tried to put down our conversation partner. We could have shown aggression, superiority or dominance. Instead, he showed how opening up can lead the mood, the conversation, to a new and more intimate, more collaborative, much freer level.

Instead of getting the attack in first, as above, another way of seeing this is that where we feel vulnerable, we may be inclined to read threat, danger, anger and aggression everywhere we look. We might feel pathologically victimised.

Perhaps another factor is that where we despise our own vulnerability, and seek to repress it (perhaps even fully repress it), we can also be inclined to despise the same tendency in others. Instead of recognising that, in fact, we are all needy and dependent, insecure and vulnerable at times and entirely naturally (we all, let's not forget, know in our viscera, what it feels like to be a baby, crying for an embrace that is not there), we condemn such feelings as weak, pathetic, abhorrent. We construct an ideal of a person, which we falsely assume ourselves to be, and which we expect others to live up to, or, as no one is like that, we can then look down on everyone else and demand respect from them. This is one of the hypotheses that Richard and co-writer Kate Pickett consider in The Inner Level.

Another is where such feelings of anxiety, about which we might feel the same disparaging condemnation, but in this case we do recognise it and yet believe that it is ours alone, that we are uniquely incapable while others are hard, cold and powerful. This can spiral into depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thinking. This too they explore in the book.

But I'd add that, given the same sense of nervous anxiety we might, instead of feeling either normal (as in, that we have normal human feelings), that we are rather uniquely, exceptionally sensitive and special. Again, we might construct an ideal of the other as 'having to be strong'. We might demand that of them so that they can sustain us, while refusing to admit that they might require our support and our compassion too. In our weakness, we can become narcissistically demanding rather than narcissistically deluded.

The dependent person at least is in a position to trust others, whereas none of the others are. But this trust is, like the cat's, the infant's, one-sided and, given that we are considering adult human beings, lacking any empathy for the other. The need in this case, as in the case of victimhood, is the need of the solipsist, the need of one who is unwilling or unable to be trusted in return.

***

Trust seems to have a sideways-on role in many of the books I have been reading on ethics. It is interesting and I hope I can explain. So, Kant's Categorical Imperative that thou must not lie, which is also a binding principle in contractarian ethics, is founded on the idea that societies, indeed, any relationships, cannot work if the parties cannot trust each other to tell the truth. Betrayal has a particularly negative place in ethical discussions. Even Nietzsche, in his anti-moralism stance, sees the harm done by deceit. In Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 183, he wrote: 'Not that you lied to me but that I no longer believe you has shaken me.' Virtue ethicists and utilitarians might well see that on occasions a lie was morally permitted, if not required, but this would be for the purpose of preventing harm.

Essentially, the proscription against betrayal is founded on the requirement to maintain trust. But trust, unlike happiness or well-being or even eudaimonia, has not, so far as I can recall, been stated as an unqualified good, despite the fact that all the philosophers and thinkers seem to place so much value in it.

What is particularly interesting to me about this is that perhaps this is some kind of unspoken nod to the extreme skepticism in many Western societies: about truth and knowledge, scientists and politicians, the prospects for a future that's fairer, safer, happier. There's almost a sense that the postmodern stance has led to trust appearing as a naive and out-grown concept. All we seem capable of believing in is ourselves. Not entirely crazy, of course - I mean it is kind of hard to have faith in anything these days. And I have expressed my own issues with doubt, my own bent toward uncertainty.

But I have also maintained that one has to have a certain conception of hope.

And I have, it seems, an in built disposition toward trust. As Professor Tom Bailey makes clear in this useful exploration of trust, to be trusting, to trust, makes you vulnerable. Perhaps because I have always been aware of my vulnerability, it has never been something I have been afraid of exposing. Not that this explains why I am happy to make myself more vulnerable... maybe we can understand this better by taking a closer look at the philosophical analysis of trust. I'll be referring to Bailey's piece, linked above, and an article by Paul Faulkner which you can find here. As I thought, there is not a great deal of explicit analysis of trust.

***

We start with Plato's Republic and the story of the Ring of Gyges. This ring grants Gyges invisibility and he goes on to perform various wicked acts, because he'll never be found out and so is not put off by the fear of detection and punishment. He is free to pursue his self-interest. In the dialogue, Glaucon says that every person would do that, while Plato seems to suggest that, no, we can be motivated instead to pursue the good.

The claim that we are all motivated by self-interest and only deterred from nasty behaviour by the threat of punishment would lead the rational person to increase their levels of self-protection (bigger locks) or launch pre-emptive strikes (get their dog to chase anyone away from the front door). This is the way that Hobbes envisages the human condition before a social contract, where basically, we call a truce. Yet, how do you trust the other parties to stick to the truce? Answer, the Leviathan. Or, indeed, the God (or Santa Claus) who watches everything that you do.

In this world, trust is absent because no one is trusting anyone: they are reliant on the role of the police, or whoever, to prevent infractions.

We come down to a situation where it looks as if no one ever trusts anyone. And certainly never rationally trusts anyone.

Enlightenment thinkers, who had rather more faith in good will (like Kant) or sympathy (Hume and Adam Smith), thought that education, civilisation, social institutions and a universal morality could bolster the nature good in humans and make them trustworthy. The slight issue here is that what all these processes do is not so much make people trusting but make them trustworthy through rules and codes - which suggests that when one trusts, one trusts not as an act of generosity so much as because one recognises that it is within one's self-interest to trust. Social life is simpler and safer if we can trust each other: it's cheaper and easier not to have to barricade one's property. Trust relies then on the social structure rather than the individual.

Both sides of this argument - the policing and the vested interested in trusting - seem to be evident in the way that hunter-gatherers manage their societies. Perhaps the former rather than the latter, as members of the group are vigilant, looking out for cheating, though undue suspicion would surely also be deemed antagonistic to the group.

Bailey suggests that trust arises not from a conviction that others care about us, or because of gathered evidence about their prior actions, or indeed their fear of detection and punishment, but because one has the social assumption that others have taken responsibility for how their behaviour influences the decision-making of those they interact with. We assume a tacit level of social understanding of how actions are seen and how they affect others. We assume that others have an interest in maintaining social relationships, professional relationships, institutional relationships and see that untrustworthy behaviour will result in a break-down of relations, and for that reason they are deterred from acts of betrayal. It's a relational interest - an expansion of self-interest into a communal, relational realm.

This seems moderately satisfying and certainly rational.

As for Faulkner, he covers much of the same ground, in less detail (using research in behavioural economics and real-life examples rather than philosophical texts), but goes a little further in following an idea from Bernard Williams (incidentally, I've just read his Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, of which I think I understood 19%). So, Williams' suggestion is that we don't, in working societies, just see trust (which is a belief in the sincerity of the other) as instrumentally valuable but as intrinsically valuable.

Now I am really hooked. Because I think that's how I do see trust, but I don't think that is how it's perceived in our societies now - maybe in Scandinavia, but not so much here.

First I should make clear the distinction. Trust would be instrumentally valuable if I trusted my Max Fac surgeon's sincerity in order that he were then able to make me a new dental plate. I get something out of trusting him, my trust is 'costed out' by the value of the new plate, which I would not have if I refused to trust his expertise and promise that he would make me one. It's rather complicated here, because I think Williams is making the claim for the intrinsic value of sincerity and trustworthiness more potently than he is for the trust side. But let's consider that if sincerity is to have even instrumental value, it's only because it leads to trust. If sincerity has intrinsic value (we think it is a 'good' thing - and that I do believe holds in this society) then the purpose of it is negated if we fail to trust in it. In fact, in a sense, sincerity loses instrumental and intrinsic value if we do not trust.

In my view, and Bailey says this, if we are to bolster trust (and thus the value and, one would assume, incidence of, sincerity - which is a 'good') then we have to act in ways that cultivate and maintain trust. This is two pronged: the capacity to forgive where the other proves to be unreliable and, on the other side, the capacity to respond when encouraged to be more reliable. Trust, it seems, requires a level of generosity and a level of humility; the ability to take another's perspective and the willingness to critique one's own behaviour. Consider the ways in which a personal awareness of vulnerability counters these very attributes in the discussion above and we have a recipe for distrust.

***

Many might argue that others - whether institutions, politicians or individuals - first have the responsibility to prove themselves trustworthy. I can see the case for that. But such a claim assumes that they can adequately prove it - and also that a perhaps unrealistic level of perfection is required to maintain it. The amount of evidence, protections, requirements and checks that could be demanded to ensure trustworthiness could become not just ponderous and inefficient but utterly unworkable.

I'm inclined to go with Kierkegaard and take a leap of faith.

It is my assumption that I can trust people and institutions. It is my assumption that if they let me down, most of the time, if that is made plain to them, they will seek to redress the problem. It is my assumption - oh no, I sound like Rousseau or Rutger Bregman - that on the whole, people are pretty decent. I do not think that I have that often been proven wrong, except where I failed to consider salient information and trusted in the wrong way. By which I mean that whereas I could trust X not to cheat me financially, I could not assume that X would precisely know all of my needs and values and thus be able to advise me on whether or not I needed to buy Y. That was not their responsibility. To trust someone in a way that expects something of them beyond their capacity and responsibility is not a sign of the foolishness of trusting, but of the foolishness of one's attributions.

I find it intriguing that many people will say that they would never cheat someone else, never be needlessly unkind, never betray and so on and yet assume that this is far from true of the majority of the people they meet. This seems to me very odd. Firstly in that this attitude seems to exhibit very limited generosity, but it's also somewhat irrational: if the assumption is that others are untrustworthy, then would not the inferral from that be that others are thus going to be untrusting? If they are untrusting, and thus, in any interaction will insist upon evidence, penalties for infraction or some reward for not betraying trust, then what is the point in being trustworthy? Trustworthiness ceases to have a beneficial role in a society where people do not trust. Lack of trust devalues trustworthiness. If trustworthiness is not seem as a good, then why would anyone aspire to it? If one treats others as malevolent, doesn't this, by extension, increase the likelihood of malevolence?

Perhaps we create the world we imagine.

For my part, I am very aware of my own moral failings and yet I hope that on the whole I seek to be trustworthy - and I expect a similar fallible level of well-meaning trustworthiness from those I meant.

This, I think, increases the intimacy, connectedness and richness of personal relations while limiting resentment and cynicism at an institutional level. I also believe that the fact of being trusted is both liberating and pleasing to others and encourages their commitment to taking responsibility for how their actions influence me (and others). Indeed, I think that trusting plays a causal role in encouraging trustworthiness. When I trust another, I recognise that this imparts on me a certain fragility, and through the recognition of that inherent fragility, I am inclined to appreciate the importance of my responsibility for the way in which my actions influence the beliefs and decisions of others. Recognising that I can sometimes fail to live up, fully, to expectations, encourages an attitude of forgiveness and the willingness to be guided toward improvement. It matters, in part, because I can see, through trusting others, how it matters to those who do or will place trust in me.

Further, it is only if we can find it in us to trust imperfect others that we can manifest the virtues that Martha Nussbaum sees as necessary to heal our societies: love, faith and hope. I also think this is part of the process required in Susan Neiman's concept of growing-up, founded on Kant's 'practical hope' - though neither of them label trust. They choose 'faith' and 'hope'. Both of these are valid, but can remain ungrounded. Trust is where the rubber hits the road.

There seems, thus, to be an instrumental value in this ability to trust - but that I see it as an intrinsic as well as instrumental good.

Perhaps we can create a world we can imagine.