Rationalising the unrepentently irrational

The case of interpersonal trust is inherently unfair. It is difficult to build, yet easy to break: brittle, if I may. Moreover, dependency may not be even, for instance, in the case of parent-child relations where the young is solely dependent on his parent.

There is little to say if the responsibility of maintaining trust is not self-evident. Indeed, there is a prima facie case to be made that humans are morally obliged to uphold interpersonal trust as it constitutes a series of implicit promises. Above all, they encompass the promise of loyalty, that is, the promise to not betray. This is a wide ambit, but it is something I presume everyone would agree on. Indeed, to betray someone would be to betray the implicit promise so treasured when interpersonal trust was first established.

Over and above, trust is not upheld simply by abstaining from disloyal behaviors, but it is a contract that needs to be maintained. In Ross (1930)’s The Right and the Good, that such maintenance is a prima facie duty. And I agree. Insofar as interpersonal trust is a cornerstone of interpersonal relations, it is a logical consequence that the relationship would be severed if the trust underscoring it were to be breached, and so, at a glance, people are obliged in some sense to uphold the mutual contract.

There are two clarifications to make on this term:

  1. The choice of the term prima facie is unfortunate. Ross had intended for a suitable term to describe “the characteristic […] of being an act which would be a duty proper if it were not at the same time of another kind which is morally significant”. In more modern terms, this is known as a pro tanto duty.

  2. Prima facie misleadingly suggests that this particular duty is an illusory one for which it is only a duty at first glance, but which cannot be sustained on further inquiry.

The fact that interpersonal trust is a mutual contract requires caution. Firstly, trust is an implicit contract, and these implicit expectations and promises are often understood differently by both parties. Secondly, trust arises independently of either party’s actions: it arises as long as there is a relationship between both parties. This means that both parties willingly bind themselves to such a contract. In establishing such, it follows that trust exists even in a neutral relationship, akin to the relationship between you and a classmate you have just met on the first day of school. In other words, trust is assumed to be available unless it is lost due to its breach.

Be that as it may, trust is not arbitrary. It is perceptively solemn given its role in interpersonal relations. Because trust is unbalanced, I shall speak of trust in either party’s perspective, that is, in terms of the expectation that either party might have for the other. In what follows, I first attempt to rationalise trust as a series of promises. I will then present the philosophical reason for which trust arises as a willing binding of both parties to a contract. Finally, I conclude by proposing a logical threshold for which trust is said to be broken.

1. A promise is a solemn duty

The perception of a promise is special: it is self-contained so that he who makes the promise binds himself willingly – there is a natural obligation that one places on himself to fulfill said promise upon making one. In layman’s terms, the pinky promise is a promise nonetheless.

1a. The duty of expectation

With due regard for relevance in modern society, I draw on Scanlon’s expectational theory of promissory obligation. The normative theory underlying it is straightforwardly contractualist. As Scanlon establishes, the breach of a promise is a moral wrong and not simply a failure to comply with social norms, in the sense that there is an element of deception when the promisor has caused the promisee to “form expectations about [his] future conduct”, but this expectation is unfulfilled by the promisor.

This expectation arises due to the binding nature of a promise, for which the promisor now produces a certain future expectation in the promisee. These expectations encompass for one the expectation of reciprocality, that is, the expectation for the promisor to return a certain favour in kind. For example, say I lend a classmate an eraser because he left his at home. It is not unreasonable to expect that if I lent him my eraser, he would lend me a pen because my pen just ran out of ink. It would then be morally deplorable for me to lend my classmate my eraser (which he has put to good use), but for him not to lend me his pen. For the purpose of this example, assume that I could not have communicated my expectation of reciprocity to him, but that nonetheless this expectation had arisen.

Scanlon considers this as a moral wrong arising from unjustifiable manipulation, and as a victim of such a morally deplorable classmate, I cannot agree more.

In what Scanlon calls the principle of due care, he puts forth Principle D:

Principle D: One must exercise due care not to lead others to form reasonable but false expectations about what one will do when there is reason to believe that they would suffer significant loss as a result of relying on those expectations.

This is a stringent moral restraint. Firstly, the necessity of vigilance arises exactly because the promisee now expects a certain conduct from the promisor befitting the promise. In turn, there needs to be an element of awareness from the promisor of the kind of expectation that is formed in the promisee’s mind.

Secondly, where the expectation that is generated is a reasonable one, it is now incumbent on the promisor to ensure that the expectation does not turn out to be a false one. This means that the promisor must fulfill the promise to the extent such that the promisee does not incur a significant loss as a result of the promisor’s failure to fulfill the expectation.

Finally, it is insufficient that the promisor merely avoid intentional manipulation. This is because the avoidance of intentional manipulation does not preclude the promisee from incurring a significant loss.

As such, Scanlon’s principle of loss prevention aptly follows. In short, if the promisor has generated an expectation in the promisee, and the promisee would probably suffer significant loss if this expectation is not followed, then the promisor must take “reasonable steps” to prevent this loss.

This principle can be said to be a countermeasure to the principle of due care. The quantification of the measures that the promisor must take as one of the “reasonable steps” is a consideration of proportionality and due care. Firstly, there is again a sense of vigilance that arises in the sense that the promisor needs to be aware of the extent of harm (though not its specific nature) that could follow.

Secondly, there is a duty to avert said harm, but this duty need not be fulfilled by fulfilling the original promise, although it could be. In other words, the learned promisor could either: (1) give the promisee ample time to avoid said loss by informing the promisee that the promise would not be fulfilled; (2) decide to fulfill the promise after all; or (3) compensate by performing something just as effective in mitigating the loss or by performing the next best alternative.

It must now be stated that compensatory efforts are more often than not perceived to be unsatisfactorily crude and an afterthought, at best a signal that the promisor did not think much of his promise, and at worse a sign that the promisor is untrustworthy. In any case, it is a symbol that trust is undermined.

2. Trust is a series of promises

In what I think is good judgment, I shall avoid the mess that is the triangle of promise, contracts, and their logical (read: legal) counterparts. That said, it is worthwhile to consider trust as a consequence of promise. In its Aristotelian origins,

We are not speaking of the man who keeps faith in his agreements, i.e. in the things that pertain to justice or injustice (for this would belong to another virtue), but the man who in the matters in which nothing of this sort is at stake is true both in word and in life because his character is such. But such a man would seem to be equitable. For the man who loves truth, and is truthful where nothing is at stake, will still more be truthful where something is at stake; he will avoid falsehood as something base, seeing that he avoided it even for its own sake; and such a man is worthy of praise. He inclines rather to understate the truth; for this seems in better taste because exaggerations are wearisome.

Nichomachean Ethics, Book IV

The Aristotelian interpretation invites us to see the upholding of trust as a moral obligation that arises as a matter of character. It establishes the context for which the upholding of trust is a pro tanto obligation. To wit, in the presence of a second moral duty which is graver than the duty to uphold this trust, there still remains an implied duty to uphold this trust in matters of principle.

I stray away slightly from this. In my mind, it is far from clear that we are morally obliged to uphold trust. On the contrary, it is a matter of good social morals to be trustworthy persons. I propose that we are instead socially obligated to do as such. This is especially so given the perceived value of our reputation, and so the upholding of trust can be said to be a proxy for placing us in repute. It is thus that I differ from the Aristotelian interpretation only to this extent.

To this end, a promise can be seen as an invitation to have trust in the promisor. This trust manifests, perhaps, in the form of the promisor’s fulfillment (and thus execution) of the promise, and also his sensitivity concerning the importance and gravity of the promise.

In summary, I establish that a series of promises causes trust to arise. It stands to observe, in matters of interpersonal trust, that these promises need not be explicitly established. It suffices for the promisor to have caused a reasonable expectation to arise in the promisee, as enshrined in Scanlon’s principle of due care, for trust to be deemed as being established.

3. The “standard” of breaching trust

As I have detailed above, the principles governing the morals of a promise forms a wide ambit, and it is precisely this broad-brush approach that underlines the importance of interpersonal trust seen as a promise. It is thus this sanctity of trust that causes trust to be unbalanced despite it being a mutual engagement – again, the standard for which one may be said to have breached trust is obviously lower than that for which one may be said to have upheld this trust.

Vide the framework I established at length above, I establish that a breach of trust can be said to have occurred when:

  1. There is malintent or wilful ignorance of the value of this trust.
  2. I am disrespected.

This is a “good enough” guide for my purposes. The first condition is the antithesis to the principle of due care, and the second is the characterisation of “significant” loss. The presence of malintent is the most direct of conditions for which trust has been undermined. Secondary to malintent is for the promisor to have ignorantly misjudged the value of this trust in the mind of the promisee. In other words, the promisor took this matter of trust lightly. Before anything else, it must be noted that both of these conditions are necessary. Indeed, it is this joint characterisation that gives rise to the concept of significant loss.

Given that I have established malintent or ignorance as a precondition, I now turn to consider the threshold for which harm caused by the promisor in failing to uphold trust could no longer be tolerated by the promisee. In Scanlon’s theory, loss is incurred when the promisee is disappointed due to certain failures of the promisor. It remains to explore the degree to which loss is tolerated.

The underlying assumption is that the consequence of the promise is valued by the promisee and this will serve as a starting point. I return to the above example of an unreciprocated promise which I reproduce for convenience here:

For example, say I lend a classmate an eraser because he left his at home. It is not unreasonable to expect that if I lent him my eraser, he would lend me a pen because my pen just ran out of ink. It would then be morally deplorable for me to lend my classmate my eraser (which he has put to good use), but for him not to lend me his pen.

There are certain losses that I have incurred here. Firstly, I have incurred disappointment from my classmate’s refusal which manifests as some sense of betrayal. Secondly, I would now have to undergo the hassle of lending a pen from someone else. I contend that this second consequence is a significant loss. On one hand, this action would not have been necessary if my classmate had reasonably fulfilled the expectation of reciprocity. On the other, it undermines the value I had so placed in trusting my classmate to reciprocate. Having proven that my trust has been misplaced, it is not unreasonable for me to conclude that I valued this reciprocal expectation more than my classmate. By extension, my classmate had valued me less than I valued him. Seen in this light, it can be said that I had experienced disrespect, and so my dignity had been indirectly attacked. It is thus this attack on my dignity that gives rise to a significant loss in my perspective.

It may certainly be argued that another person in my shoes would not have valued the relationship as much as I had. However, it is not unreasonable for me to have duly relied on this expectation of reciprocity. And, in relying on this example, I have shown that a misalignment of significance had caused an element of disrespect to arise. In my mind, disrespect is sufficient to count as a significant loss as it attacks my pride.

It remains to answer the question: Is it this misalignment of significance that causes an attack on my dignity, or is it the perceived disrespect that causes an attack on my dignity?

My answer is the latter. This is because I had not entertained the issue of genuine ignorance, that is the promisee not having been aware, or made aware, of the joint value of this trust. This is deliberate because of ordinary circumstances in which the reasonable person would find this lack of awareness to be forgivable. As such, I hesitate to conclude that a misalignment of significance would immediately cause disrespect.

Indeed, I would not have felt disrespected if the circumstances for this disrespect were forgivable, for instance in the case of genuine ignorance.

To wrap up, I want to say that I had quite a lot of fun with this thought exercise. In the lengthy article, I have established that a breach of trust can be said to have occurred when:

  1. There is malintent or wilful ignorance of the value of this trust.
  2. I am disrespected.

I will leave the exercise to you, the reader, to adjudicate just how relevant this framework is for you, or would have been for you in your past experiences.