如果我们不能信任彼此，我们的生活将会大不相同。我们相信陌生人不会伤害我们，我们相信我们的朋友会照顾我们最珍贵的财产，我们甚至(有时)相信政客会兑现他们的竞选承诺。但信任的代价也可能很高:它会让我们在谎言、欺骗和勒索面前不堪一击。那么，我们如此信任他人是否合理呢?我们应该如何对待那些信任我们的人?约翰和肯相信斯坦福大学的哲学家乔拉·丹南伯格，在旧金山的沼泽剧院录制了一个节目。
约翰觉得信任这个概念是站不住脚的。他认为它实际上是愚蠢、无助或两者兼而有之的同义词。肯认为信任比约翰认为的要重要得多。家庭、社会……每一个复杂的人类制度都建立在信任的基础上!信任的能力使我们有别于其他动物。约翰讲到了信任的逻辑，委托人信任受托人做一项行为;他提出了“信任但要核实”的想法，在所有情况下，委托人都应该找到一个保证，确保受托人会按照他们委托的方式行事。Ken承认这种验证的概念。约翰说，这是“不要相信，要核实”的讽刺方式。信任某人就是依赖他们，但没有任何保证。 But if you do that, you must be weak and have no choice, or else you must be stupid. John explains that we are forced to count on others all the time, and this is a weakness. The newborn has no choice to trust its mother to provide food. Ken argues that trust is not an expectation without guarantees. It has a certain guarantee, just like when someone makes a promise. The trustorrelieson the trustee to be true to their words. So trust is a certain way of counting on an outcome. So is trust a pattern of reliance, wonders John? They consider this question.
John and Ken welcome guest Jorah Dannenberg, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and author of “Promising Ourselves, Promising Others.” John takes his best guess as to why Jorah decided to study trust; Jorah explains that he grew up in a big city where trust was not obviously present – the kind of town where people don’t leave their doors open. On the other hand, his grandfather lived in a small community where citizens had to live on the strength of a word and a handshake. That got Jorah thinking: why does promising and trusting matter so much? John asks Jorah: what kind of guarantee do people like his grandfather have? Isn’t trust irrational to expect someone to do something without any kind of guarantee? Jorah explains that with trust, there is no guarantee of a single kind, but a person’s reputation and trustworthiness, especially in a small community, can really matter and provide a guarantee of sorts. It is not irrational to trust others – in fact, weneedto be able to put our trust on others. But that doesn’t make it rational, says Ken. Jorah agrees, adding that we want to be rational in trusting. Still, the idea that we could get by without any trust at all is impossible. He imagines such impossibility in terms of a life in which we couldn’t trust anyone.
Ken says that trusting a person is the same as relying on them. But that theory seems flawed. Jorah explains that you can rely on a person without trusting them. You can rely on their predictable habits, on their predictable behavior. But trust is something that can be betrayed. We rely on things, on people, on corporations, such that they are predictable to some extent, but if they malfunction, we do not say we have been betrayed. Trust, in a way, entails relying on a person’s will and character. John asks: what did that trust amount to for Jorah’s grandfather and his community? Isn’t trust just a special form of prediction, that maybe x person do what he says because otherwise the cost would be unbearable? It seems not a matter of intrinsic trustworthiness but rather of fear. Jorah says that this would be reliance, and he distinguishes reliance from trust. Jorah, John, and Ken welcome questions from the audience, and they continue the discussion.
