When were these good old days? — Hanover
I could see a taxonomy of trusts identifying negative and positive aspects to trust in each embedded context to which a form of trust applies, but I suppose the simple answer to the conundrum is that we should selectively, critically, and appropriately apply trust/mistrust. Selectively, in that we eschew a naive mistrust of everything and accept that trust is sometimes both good and necessary. Critically, in that when we do apply mistrust, we do so in accordance with reason. Our mistrust should be warranted. — Baden
I could see a taxonomy of trusts identifying negative and positive aspects to trust in each embedded context to which a form of trust applies, but I suppose the simple answer to the conundrum is that we should selectively, critically, and appropriately apply trust/mistrust. Selectively, in that we eschew a naive mistrust of everything and accept that trust is sometimes both good and necessary. Critically, in that when we do apply mistrust, we do so in accordance with reason. Our mistrust should be warranted. And appropriately, in that we apply mistrust of the right degree, of the right scope, and at the right level. — Baden
To relate all this to the philosophical tradition, Hume's scepticism declares that there is no reason to expect the world to continue in the orderly causal way that it has in the past; but we trust that it will. — unenlightened
Why call this "trust" though? — Metaphysician Undercover
Surely, if I say I trust that the sun will come up tomorrow morning, it doesn't mean the same thing as when I say that I trust you to deliver what we agreed upon. — Metaphysician Undercover
Why must we dichotomize things in such a way that we look for the degree of trust or mistrust in every relation we have with the world? — Metaphysician Undercover
would place both trust and mistrust as reasoned approaches, like you do here, but the majority of interactions which we have are habitual of nature, and therefore fall outside the classification of a reasoned approach, and cannot be described as either trusting or mistrusting. — Metaphysician Undercover
but shouldn't we distinguish two fundamentally different forms of "trust" then? — Metaphysician Undercover
That's because trust/mistrust comes in degrees. If you don't fully trust, then logically, there is a degree of mistrust. Who, or what, do you fully trust?I suppose you are saying that the sun has proved more reliable than me in the past. :sad: Or is there another difference? Every day the sun rises, and the postman delivers. I can imagine a theory or two of physics and psychology/biology that would lead me to have more confidence in the sun than the postman. But as to it not meaning the same thing to say I trust them both, I don't see it. — unenlightened
Trust of family presumes love.
Trust of friends presumes loyalty.
Trust of acquaintances presumes integrity.
Trust of workmates presumes competence.
Trust of companies presumes production of value.
Trust of the media presumes accuracy.
Trust of the justice system presumes impartiality.
Trust of the military presumes strength.
Trust of a political system presumes equality of opportunity.
Trust of the physical world presumes a fixed nature. — Baden
Or is there another difference? Every day the sun rises, and the postman delivers. I can imagine a theory or two of physics and psychology/biology that would lead me to have more confidence in the sun than the postman. But as to it not meaning the same thing to say I trust them both, I don't see it. — unenlightened
We should apply reason to know the difference. i.e. that habit is not always borne of conscious reasoning is not a justification for not applying conscious reasoning to it, and when we do, we see habit is largely a matter of trust and largely within our control. — Baden
There's no fundamental dichotomy there. — Baden
In the final case above, the instantiation of habit (fixed behaviour) occurs as a reflection of and in response to the physical world's fixed nature and that's not something that normally needs to be questioned. But habit can and does appear at every level in different ways. Also, further to the above, we can get our wires crossed and either grant trust on an irrational presumption or withhold it on an irrational expectation. And so we move from the descriptive to the normative. Why should we trust X? And the (easier): Why should we not trust X? — Baden
For a lot of people, the answer seems to be "strength" and I think that's the wrong answer, not only because strength is often confused with stubbornness, arrogance, fecklessness, aggressiveness etc. but because we need our political leaders to work for us and "strength" is the domain of warriors not servants. We need something more inclusive. Any ideas? — Baden
I see a big difference. I see inanimate things as fundamentally reliable, and living things as fundamentally unreliable. — Metaphysician Undercover
But if you are saying you trust things more than people, then you yourself are using the same term and making a comparison in the same terms. — unenlightened
But if you are saying you trust things more than people, then you yourself are using the same term and making a comparison in the same terms. — unenlightened
If you pretend that the meaning is the same, it's equivocation, — Metaphysician Undercover
when I say that I do not trust the weather, I'm really saying that my ability to understand what might happen is insufficient to make a judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover
But when I say that I do not trust my neighbour, I'm really saying that my ability to understand is sufficient to make a judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover
Therefore it appears like the only way to properly deal with the untrustworthy person is to actually change the person, conversion. Would you agree? And do you think that this is even possible?. — Metaphysician Undercover
1) My analysis involved a mini-taxonomy of trusts. I recognize the differences in type you both pointed out. There's no equivocation seeing as I was pointing to differences not trying to obscure them. — Baden
I trust the Klansman to be a racist, and in a perverse way prefer him over the person pretending not to be racist, but who is. I trust my parking brake to fail because the cable is broken, so I park my car against the curb.
What I want though really are people who aren't racist and a car that won't roll down a hill. — Hanover
[Also analyzable as: "I don't trust the Klansman not to be a racist"]I trust the Klansman to be a racist — Hanover
I trust people to be good — Hanover
I don't trust the weather today — unenlightened
We expect stuff to fall when we drop it — Baden
Economists call it 'confidence' and measure it. It is real, it is social, it is the glue of society, and the media that betray it are more destructive than war and terrorism.
Do you trust Google? — unenlightened
I trust people to be good
— Hanover
Habitual – General – Agent – Positive — Baden
It seems to me, that because we are trustworthy, we can only deal with Mr thing in a trustworthy manner. If we are not trustworthy from Mr Thing's POV, then we are not trustworthy. I think that means that we cannot even try to change the person against their will. Cannot, that is, without changing ourselves in the other direction, and becoming untrustworthy.
But people can change, at least. — unenlightened
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