Abstract
The previous chapter gave us some reasons for caution about speaking of trust as a pervasive aspect of all social life. However, I wish now to turn to what I see as a legitimate use of such expressions. K. E. Løgstrup writes in his work on theological ethics:
Trust, in an elementary sense, belongs to every exchange of words. [...][B]y addressing someone—no matter the weight of what is being said—one takes up a certain tone in which the speaker, as it were, goes outside himself so as now to exist in the relationship of the speech to the other. This is why the demand—tacitly—is to the effect that one be received oneself when one’s tone of voice is received. When someone fails or refuses to hear the tone it therefore means that the speaker himself is being ignored, insofar as what has exposed itself is the speaker himself.
The fact that all speech takes place in the midst of such an elementary trust is shown by the fact that the most trivial of remarks will ring false if one does not believe it will be taken as it is meant.1
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References
Løgstrup 1957, 24. My translation.
Ibid., 17 and passim. Cf. Baker 1987, 8–10.
Weil 1986b, 187. Also see the discussions by Winch (1989, 105–113; 1987, 147) and Cockburn (1990, 5–12).
I owe this point to Elizabeth Wolgast.
See Gaita 1991, 178–179.
For an analogous point, see Cockburn 1994, 141–142.
For an extreme example, see Churchland 1990.
Winch 1989; Gaita 1991; Cockburn 1990.
9Cavell 1979, 370–380.
An example suggested by Lars Hertzberg.
See my argument in 7.6.
An example by Joel Backström. The point is perhaps the same as Weil’s when she asserts that the other’s personality is not what makes it wrong to harm him. —Also see Cockburn 1990, 148–158.
Aber nur wer fühlt, daß der andere Mensch auch ein Ich, eine Monade, ein eigenes Zentrum der Welt ist , mit besonderer Gefühlsweise und Denkart, und besonderer Vergangenheit, der wird von selbst davor gefeit sein, den Mitmenschen bloß als Mittel zum Zweck zu benützen, er wird der Kantischen Ethik gemäß auch im Mitmenschen die Persönlichkeit (als Teil der intelligiblen Welt) spüren, ahnen und darum ehren , und nicht bloß an ihm sich ärgern. —Weininger 1905, 232. My translation; some emphases omitted. Also see 229–238.
Kant, GMS, 428.
Weininger 1905, 229–230.
An example from Rückert 1994.
An example by Joel Backström.
Lévinas 1994.
Lévinas, however, challenges this reading of Descartes by pointing out the role Cartesian epistemology assigns to the meditating soul’s ‘idea of infinity’.
Weininger 1905, 230.
See Wittgenstein, PI, II:iv. This theme has been explored i.a. by Cavell (1979), Winch (1987), Cockburn (1990), Gaita (1991), and Phillips (1995).
Here it is helpful to make a distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics (Strawson 1963, xiii–xv). Descriptive metaphysics is a study of the existing structure of our thinking while revisionary metaphysics is concerned to ‘produce a better structure’ supposed more adequately to correspond to reality (xiii). Thus, e.g., Collingwood (1979) described metaphysics as the (descriptive) study of the absolute presuppositions of our thought; Kant, similarly, saw the principles of pure reason as containing nothing but the schema of possible experience (KrV, A235–260).
See Diamond 1991.
See Winch 1987.
What about insects, trees, or stones which cannot, in the normal sense, be said to have expectations from us? Do they have a claim to our respect? (A question by David Cockburn.) —On the one hand, one might argue for such respect in ways that do not involve a claim about trust. On the other hand, I can imagine that someone (perhaps in the Indian Chipko movement?) might meaningfully say that trees trust us. This would make sense in the context of certain views about the relation between man and the universe. However, this is not something that I could bring myself to say.
See, e.g., Baier: ‘Only if we had reason to believe that the most familiar types of trust relationship were morally sound would breaking trust be any more prima facie wrong than breaking silence’. —Baier 1986, 253.
Also see Baker 1987, 8–10.
See, e.g., Løgstrup 1957, 24–25.
Ibid., 31–32
Ibid., 32. My translation. Cf. Gaita 1991, 182: ‘In the absence of an attitude towards a soul, behaviour proves nothing, just as the flie[‘]s wriggling proves nothing if the question arises whether it feels pain.’ 31 Weil 1986a, 71.
See Winch 1972, 204.
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Lagerspetz, O. (1998). The Ethical Demand. 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_9
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