Abstract
Suppose one day I discover that my wife has been having a lover. She has betrayed my trust. Now one might ask a philosophical question: what did my trust in her consist in? What is it that I had—and now have lost?
Isn’t [the] flame mysterious because it is impalpable? All right—but why does that make it mysterious? Why should something impalpable be more mysterious than something palpable? Unless it’s because we want to catch hold of it. —Wittgenstein.2
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References
Most of the material included in this and the next chapter was published in the volume edited by Alanen, Heinämaa & Wallgren (1997; Lagerspetz 1997). Some of the new material is occasioned by Annette Baier’s ‘Response to Olli Lagerspetz’ in the same volume (Baier 1997a). In the original paper, I may have attributed to Baier more definite psychological views than she in fact subscribes to. As for Baier’s other objections, owners of the volume are invited to compare my argument with her rendering of it.
Wittgenstein, Z. § 126. Emphasis in the original.
According to Govier (1992, note 4), the problem of whether trust is ‘an attitude, emotion, disposition, belief, or some combination of these’ has not been explored in depth. Her own view is that ‘[t]rust is an attitude based on beliefs and expectations about what others are likely to do’ (op. cit., 17). Trust is: for John Dunn (1988, 74), a ‘psychic state’; for Hobbes, a ‘passion’ (1840, 44) or a ‘belief’ (1651/1985, ch. 7); For Patrick Bateson (1988, 15), a ‘mental state’; for Diego Gambetta (1988, 230), a ‘state’; for Baier, a ‘belief-cum-feeling-cum-intention’ (1994, 132), and (at least sometimes?) a ‘mental phenomenon’ (Baier 1986, 235). It has a belief component that is usually implicit (Baier 1994, 132).
Govier 1993a, 156.
Wittgenstein, PI,: § 577. Emphasis in the original.
Ibid., I: § 581.
Wittgenstein describes genuine duration in Z, §§ 45, 78, 81. Also see §§ 46–47, 50, 76–78, 82–83, 85.
Ibid., § 82.
Ibid., § 45. —’One may disturb someone in thinking—but in intending? —Certainly in planning. Also in keeping to an intention, that is thinking or acting’ (§ 50).
David Cockburn drew my attention to this. Baier also rightly points this out in her reply to me (Baier 1997a).
Ibid., I: § 583. Second emphasis added. Also see I: § 581. —Also see, e.g., Malcolm 1989.
Cf. Elster 1989. Elster speaks of hope as an emotion, parasitic on a pleasurable ‘core emotion’: ‘Hope is a pleasurable experience because it is hope of a pleasurable experience’ (p. 62). His overall characterisation of the human psyche is rather similar to Hobbes’s in the Leviathan (1651/1985).
Baier 1997a. Strictly speaking, Baier says she takes ‘the most important states of a human mind to concern knowledge and ignorance, [etc.—my emphasis]’. This is vague. But if she is taken to be voicing an objection against Wittgenstein’s use of the term ‘states of mind’—as she wants to—she must be read as subscribing to the more definite thesis that knowledge and ignorance, etc., are states of mind.
Cf. Baier, op. cit.. In ‘Trust and Antitrust’, Baier (1986) refers to trust as a ‘mental phenomenon’ (p. 235) and stresses the importance of the trusting parties’ ‘state of mind’ (257–258). However, Baier is not committed to the view that mental states involve genuine duration (Baier 1997a).
Baier 1994, 132. The idea that trust involves a feeling is pervasive. See, e.g., Giddens 1991, 36; Sellerberg 1982: 40, 45, 46; Govier 1993a, 156.
Wittgenstein, PI, I: §§ 596, 600–605. Peter Winch drew my attention to the passage.
Wittgenstein, C&E, 413. Also see Wittgenstein, PI, I: § 575; II: xi, p. 225: ‘Ask, not: “What goes on in us when we are certain that ... ? ”-but: How is ‘the certainty that this is the case’ manifested in human action?’
Cf. Baier 1997a.
Gaita 1991, 314. Also see Chapter 8 below.
As suggested by Lilli Alanen.
Baier 1986, 256.
In Chapter 5, I will argue that relations of such a manipulative kind cannot be properly called trustful. For now, I will only discuss the implications for genuine trusting relations.
Baier 1986, 235.
Cf. Wittgenstein, RPP, II: § 265: ‘How strange, that something has happened while I was speaking and yet I cannot say what! —The best thing would be to say it was an illusion, and nothing really happened; and now I investigate the usefulness of the utterance’. —Also see § 266.
Erikson 1977, 226. Emphasis in the original.
See Wittgenstein, PI, I: § 575.
A point made by John Daniel, Lampeter, à propos of another example.
Also see Wittgenstein, RPP, II: §§ 248–258.
See Wittgenstein, PI, I: § 149. —Fingarette’s argument on self-deception (1977) is reminiscent of mine.
To use Wittgenstein’s words from a different but related occasion; Wittgenstein, PI, I: § 36. First emphasis added.
Dennett 1991.
Revonsuo 1995, 30. Also see, loc. cit.: ‘This assumption is implicitly taken for granted in all cognitive neuroscience and functional brain imagining’. 33Govier 1993a, 157 and passim; 1993b, 104; 1992, 17.
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Lagerspetz, O. (1998). Trust and the Mental Life. In: Trust: The Tacit Demand. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8986-4_2
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