| dc.description.abstract | Trust comes in many forms. Trust is, at the very least, both an act and a set of attitudes. In this dissertation, I motivate the distinction between acts and attitudes of trust and offer partial accounts of each. Acts of trust are forms of active reliance. But acts of trust (or trust reliance) require more than mere active reliance. I argue that the central feature of trust reliance is a non-monitoring, commitment condition. This condition can explain what makes some acts more trusting than others, and it can explain why trusting others often makes us vulnerable. Next, I motivate the idea that attitudes of trust come in two forms: propositional trust (trust that) and interpersonal trust (trust in). Propositional trust is a matter of predictive expectation about what others will do, particularly when we rely on them. Interpersonal trust, though, is more a matter of trusting persons than a predication about their performance. After motivating the propositional/interpersonal distinction, I defend a version of weak cognitivism with respect to interpersonal trust, according to which this attitude entails beliefs that others are trustworthy (i.e., trust beliefs). These beliefs are not only about the reliability of others, but about their motives for working on one’s behalf. To interpersonally trust is to, in part, believe that others are disposed to working on one’s behalf because one needs them to. Finally, I defend cognitivism against objections. In the end, weak cognitivism comes out looking like a plausible view of the attitude of interpersonal trust. | en_US |
