to trust or not to trust

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

overly-paranoid person A: I don’t trust you.

overly-paranoid person B: I don’t trust you either.

overly-paranoid person A: But we have to work with each other.

overly-paranoid person B: Agreed.

overly-paranoid person A: Let’s agree to work by a system. We will be bound by the rules of this system. These rules will ensure that neither of us can double-cross the other.

overly-paranoid person B: But why should I follow these rules? As soon as I do, you’ll take advantage of me by overriding the rules and taking more than your fair share, leaving me with nothing. In fact, it would be to my advantage to betray you once I see you following the rules, because if I didn’t, you surely would betray me. It’s called game-theory.

overly-paranoid person A: Right. Which is why I ought to betray you first, before you get to me. Therefore, we need to establish an effective penal system that will deter either of us from breaking the rules under all circumstances. That way, we can both reap the benefits of a mutually beneficial system of cooperation.

overly-paranoid person B: I’d agree to that if such a penal system was ready at-hand.

overly-trusting person A: I trust you.

overly-trusting person B: I trust you too.

overly-trusting person A: Great! We don’t need a system to ensure our mutual support for each other.

overly-trusting person B: No, we don’t. I value our trust and mutual support for each other so much more than the benefits I may reap by betraying you.

overly-trusting person A: Yes, I feel the same way.

Both people in each dialogue are just as their names suggest. That is, overly-paranoid person A is overly paranoid, and he means it when he says he ought to betray overly-paranoid person B first. Same with overly-paranoid person B. OVerly-trusting person A is, well, overly trusting, which means he won’t betray overly-trusting person B - he values the trust and cooperation he shares with overly-trusting person B too much to risk losing it. He will therefore remain loyal to this honor system under all circumstances. Same with overly-trusting person B.

Will the system work, in either case?

Under ideal circumstances, there doesn’t seem to be any reason it wouldn’t.

Therefore, the conclusion I’m lead to is that the system works the way it does based on the initial beliefs of the people coming into it. If all parties truly believe that everyone else is trustworthy, and they wish to be trustworthy as well in order to maintain such a system, then the system will work. If, however, one person distrusts the others, and therefore concludes that he ought to be the first one to take advantage of the others’ and their mutual trust, the whole system eventually collapses - either everyone being taken advantage of by this one person, or all of them distrusting each other and being forced to work with the system outlined by overly-paranoid people A and B.

This may seem trivially obvious at first, but the insight I’m pulling out of it may not be obvious, or at least has not been emphasized a lot in discussion on topics like this, is that whether paranoid people A and B and trusting people A and B are right or wrong in their views depends to some extent on their holding such views. The general attitude I see people holding is that you can’t trust people, at least not to the extent that trusting people A and B do, that if you’re too trusting of everyone who crosses your path, you’re sure to be taken advantage of. Now, if everyone held that belief, and further that it was to the individual’s advantage to betray the trusting person (as implied by game-theory), then that would create a system in which no one could trust any one else. On the other hand, if everyone had total trust in others and wished to maintain that trust by being trustworthy him/herself, then that would create a system in which everyone could trust everyone else.

Now, my point is not that we ought to dispense with our suspicions and self-defensive strategies when engaging in the social world - I for one think the paranoid types are right to a certain extent (even if that means contributing to an untrustworthy system on my part), and therefore I ought to be on my guard when deciding whether to trust someone else or not - but I do want to make the point that my believing in these paranoid types actually contributes or reinforces the untrustworthy system they (or we) sustain and partake in. Is it practical to expect that I can change such a system by being the first to trust everyone with open arms? Probably not. Others would probably take advantage of my openness and altruism. But should I prolong the system, in whatever small measure I may, by simply agreeing to the paranoid type’s views and letting that be the end of the story?

As things stand right now in the real world, from my point of view, we’ve got ourselves stuck in a catch-22. We’d all like to be able to trust one another unconditionally - and maybe some of us might even be willing to uphold that trust by proving ourselves to be trustworthy as well - what a wonderful utopia that would be - but most of us have enough practical sense to realize that there are enough bastards out there who will take advantage of us the minute we invest such trust in others that it’s unwise to invest such trust - so we don’t. Even if we’re wrong to distrust some people (i.e. what if everyone is like trusting people A and B), we have no way of knowing this for sure, and therefore we have no way of knowing we can trust people so openly. But still, the point remains that our beliefs in the system - whether it’s trustworthy or not - do determine the state of that system - whether it’s trustworthy or not - at least in principle. No one’s ready to be the sacrificial lamb (the first to openly trust), and rightfully so, but it is within our power, collectively, to make the system trustworthy. I can’t really find a good way to argue this beyond principle - that is, a way of making it seem practically within our reach - but even as a principle, it seems better to be aware of it than ignorant.

Anyway, I’m a dreamer. I like thinking that better and more happy worlds are possible. I think I blind myself to the grim unflattering realities about human nature by immersing myself in these wishful thoughts, but I feel that to “come back down to Earth” will guarantee the death of such wishes if anything would - so I mustn’t come down.

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Most of us work on the principle of giving the benefit of the doubt, that we can trust people and that one’s word is it. Most of us know how to distinguish the difference and sense who we can trust or not. It’s called sophistication and instinct, which have taken a long time to evolve in us. We have also set up as system which establishes the rules of the game, the rule of law.

Sometimes we have to go out on a limb and trust people because there is no other way in our interdependent world. Sometimes the system breaks down but we continue to have faith because that is how we are.

3

My basic belief is that although a bulk of our species may indeed be social and even though we all want a easier world of cooperative convenience, we are nonetheless a world of psychological egoists.

Wanting somthing is alot different than from what the world actually is. Want doesn’t always imply reality or success.

In philosophical agonism it states that ideals inevitably fail because of this and that some measure of conflict is necessary in survival.

In nihilism I might ask why any restrictions,rules, regulations need to be put in place, if perfect or absolute mutuality seems to be an impossibility.

Mutuality is what we seek in social transactions but if it isn’t always achieveable conflict is inevitable and if mutuality cannot always exist, why make rules in forcing us to be mutual, if perfectionism is impossible?

4

Yes, that’s the way it is for most people most of the time (myself included). But still, believing it to be this way makes it that way to some extent. If I were to disagree with you saying “No, you can’t trust anyone… ever!” then I, in my own small way, contribute to it being that way. If I say, on the other hand, “No, you can trust everyone… always!” then, again, I contribute to it being that way (even more so if I’m willing to live up to this principle in the face of one betrayal after another).

5

Well, it’s not really about making up rules to enforce a perfect system (that’s not my point anyway), it’s more about how our beliefs that a system actually works the way it does makes it work that way (to some extent). I’m not saying we ought to have an authoritarian voice telling us “OK, everyone trust one another!” I’m saying that if we all believed we could trust one another, then we’d have reason to trust one another (again, in a make believe world where everything’s perfect). You’re right that it will never be perfect, even if we had such a system, but having such a system - that is, believe we could trust one another - brings the system closer to that ideal state that we all long for (or some of us anyway).

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Gib - I read you as saying that it is a zero-sum, all-or-nothing game. And that once the rules are broken, the whole thing falls apart. And that the only options are complete trust, or no trust. But society doesn’t usually operate that way.

The rules exist becasue people are not always completely trustworthy. But that’s okay. We don’t execute or banish people the minute they break a rule. And people can think ahead, some more, and some less. These rules play out over time. Minor infractions don’t rock the whole world. Commensurate penalties regulate behavior. People sometimes can have enough empathy for a mutual understanding of mutually beneficial systems, trading short-term for long-term gain.

People suck - okay. But they don’t usually completely suck for all time.

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I know. I was painting the picture black and white on quasi-purpose. It’s easier to start off explaining a view in extreme cases, and then let the discussion that ensues funnel it down to more realistic middle-of-the-road cases. So you’re right, it isn’t an all-or-nothing game. Some days I trust people more than others, and some people more than others, and sometimes it’s just me, other times its them, and it’s rarely ever the case that their transgressions are so awful that I can never trust them again.

But I think my point still stands: that the way we believe the system to work contributes to the system actually working that way. If you don’t trust anyone and feel that fending for yourself is rule #1, then you’re one person in the system that runs the system that way. If you live by the rule of trusting everyone under all circumstances, then again, the system consists of at least one person who trusts and is trustworthy: you. And if you’re like the rest of us, taking a middle-of-the-road position, then you make the system middle-of-the-road. Add to this that your attitude can be contageous - the more people that trust/distrust the system, and openly express it, the more other people will perceive that the system is filled with those trusting/untrusting people, and therefore feel that they ought to trust/distrust as well.

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A good system accounts for all behavior. It’s neither “extreme” nor “middle of the road”. Social systems needn’t account for our inner feelings at all, but only for behavior. Using our actual feelings about things is more of a “Christian” method. To the extent that we use such a system, it sucks.

There is more to devising a system of social co-operation - and less - than you include. You could, as i suggest, use a strictly behavioral model. Motives don’t count in such a model. The NFL has a system that is close - no one cares why you spike the football - only that you spike it. There are those two face mask penalties - but intention is really a metaphor for severity. No one trusts anyone in the NFL - so trust doesn’t really come into play.

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We don’t really trust one another. That is why we make up rules.

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All people are egotistical and this world is one of violence along with oppression that happens all the time.

It is neverending and contrary to popular belief it is never relaxed.

We just don’t hear alot about it because it gets no media coverage and once a conflictive altercation happens in public the police have a zero disruption policy where they seperate violent matters away from the public acting as a shield at the same time for their idealistic conceptualized notions of the general public’s innocence (whatever that is supposed to mean) where people are thrown into jails or prisons where activities inside those walls are shrouded in secrecy beyond the general public all at once simultaneously.

People are violent, conflictive and controlling all the time in their everyday activities where the illusions of people becoming less violent or manipulative is merely political propaganda for control in selling the illusion of security but with morality in the air such a reality has become a subject of secrecy where such activities under our totalitarian governments of combating conflict have become a silent war that noone wants to talk about and somthing that noone wants to have anything to do with.

( People absurdly like to believe that they are building a existence that exists without conflict.)

( People absurdly believe that they can eliminate conflict or at the very least maim it as if conflict itself is some sort of medical disease.)

Secrecy, segragation and enclosure is how idealists or moralists alike sell their illusion of “progression”.

If we didn’t have secrecy, segragation and enclosure, I can guaranteee there would be no conceptualized “order” in this world and people really would learn the fundamentals of society’s ongoing malice for it’s own selfish benefit.

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Precisely.

And only in a amoral world would people ever have the need to make up rules.

If we lived in a so called “moral” world, why do we have the need of building fences, divisions and rules themselves against other people?

Of course the propaganda machine would tell us that this world is “moral” and that people themselves have a inherent “moral agency” comprised in their nature but only a few ever catch on to this lie in understanding it’s real deceptive sequence.

12

Think about it this way GIB, if man is imperfect, why not be content in a existence of imperfection?

What is the point in striving for a systemization of perfectionism if it is unattainable?

How is that even possible?

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Faust, I’m not trying to divise anything. I realize that there’s way more to building a functional and effective social system than telling people they need to trust one another more. I’m just making the point that how we perceive the system has effects on making the system that way (at least vis-a-vis the trust/distrust thing - I don’t know if it works like that for all perceptions). In any case, this probably comes across as a futile point… I don’t know if we could ever run with it in a practical sense. It was just one of those things I don’t think people think about much but I do, and it does have implications about the nature of our relations to each other.

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I don’t think striving for more trust between people is an unattainable perfection. It is attainable and it doesn’t make things perfect; it just makes social relations more comfortable.

It’s not, it’s an idealization. But ideals have their use in the practical world. We can aproximate them.

15

One of your biggest dilemmas is encompassing your mutual idealism of trust in the post- modern world or economy that thrives on privation,classism, scarcity, division, suffering, legislative segragation and prejudice.

What are you going to do, GIB?

Comfortable for whom, GIB? This world is one of social inequality.

For whom? Our species is not a single conscious mechanical entity.

Our species is comprised of individuals and many often confuse both together.

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Joker, all your comments can be addressed with the following disclaimer: my aspirations for a system of mutual trust are too lofty to be applied to society at large… but I don’t think they are beyond the reach of small groups of people.

The best example I can think of is my own marriage. When my wife and I first started dating, everything seemed perfect. We were so mushy and in a daze over each other that it made others physically ill. Then came the competitive phase - which is normal in most relationships. For quite a while we struggled with each other’s fight for dominance - who was going to wear the pants in the relationship - and this created an air of distrust and game playing that was difficult to break out of. What finally broke us out of that was my willingness to be the sacrificial lamb, to open myself to the possibility of being taken advantage of (vis-a-vis who does more house work, who gets the make the decisions, etc.). It took a while for her to see that I was doing this (and at times, I had to explicitly point it out), but my persistence in trying to establish a system of trust by not reciprocating the defensiveness and game-playing eventually paid off. We now enjoy a system of mutual trust and selfless cooperation together, one that I don’t believe would have ever happened if it weren’t for at least one of us willing to be vulnerable.

Similar scenarios can be given for one-on-one relationship or relationships in small groups (The TV series Survivor comes to mind - sometimes some individuals are willing to trust one or two others for the sake of establishing a fortified alliance).

The problem is you’re taking a risk - that can’t ever be avoided - but it’s by no means a guaranteed failure. It can work.

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Oh, I see. You were hyperbolising. I get it.

Who do you think you are, anyway, an environmentalist?

Satyr?

Nietzsche?

Glad to hear you are not locked into a control game with your wife.

You are one couple in about a million.

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Someone erased my post in this thread. I dont know who it is. Irony.

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Probably just a hopeless romantic. :wink:

20

Are you advocating moral elitism? There is inequality in that too…

If it can’t be applied to all people but instead only to a small minority of people you then have elitism.

Let’s just assume that a small amount of people exist in this moral system of yours…How long do you think it will be before a selected number of the group find convenience in exploiting others within their collective?

Inequality is forever inevitable largely because upon building the systemization construction of morality moralists themselves have overlooked what our nature is for our nature is indeed predatory or even a cannabilistic one.

Are you proposing a form of stoicism?

It isn’t a guaranteed success either. Success and luck is random.

Some people have it while a large majority don’t have it and desire it greatly.

Moralists assume there is some grand scheme or pattern for success overlooking the randomness that is existence.