Migrations of Trust: Reasonable Trust and Epistemic Transgressions

Abstract

Despite an immense amount of literature on the topic of trust, there is still no account that offers a plausible epistemological framework for the phenomenon of reasonable trust. The main claim of this article is that reasonable trust and distrust are phenomena based upon practical knowledge, while non-reasonable trust and distrust result from dislocation of trust into different epistemic regimes. This dislocation can be observed in some of the influential theories such as cognitive and emotional accounts of trust and in the accounts understanding trust as a form of faith. Added to that, theoretical approaches introducing a strong idea of basic trust preclude observing the difference between reasonable and non-reasonable trust. In this article, I argue that reasonable trust is founded upon practical knowledge which includes knowledge of integrity of the trusted person and knowledge about a similarity of worldviews of the trust giver and the trust receiver. Furthermore, I elaborate on the ways reasonable trust and distrust are being transformed and disfigured in other epistemic regimes. Drawing mainly upon Aristotelian understanding of practical knowledge, I want to show how non-reasonable trust and distrust are manifested in the phenomena of blind trust, unconditional trust and absolute doubt and explain why non-reasonable trust and distrust can hardly be distinguished from loyalty, subordination, infatuation or calculation.