The literature on the philosophy of trust really only kicks off in earnest in 1986 with Annette Baier’s paper ‘Trust and Antitrust’. It’s a great paper. In the course of that paper, Baier rightly notes that a feature of trust is that it can be betrayed and not just disappointed.
There is, for sure, a really tight connection between trust and betrayal. Rowland Stout has a nice paper on the nature of that connection, though there are some parts I don’t agree with.
One of things I’ve been exploring, however, is a theory of what betrayal is. And, well, I’ve not found much.
So I’ve been pondering a bit about what I would like to say. I have been exploring the idea that betrayal has two components and I model my account of betrayal on Karen Jones’ (1996) account of trust. As she has it:
trust is an attitude of optimism that the goodwill and competence of another will extend to cover the domain of our interaction with her, together with the expectation that the one trusted will be directly and favorably moved by the thought that we are counting on her. (Jones, 1996: 4)
As she goes on to note, her theory has two aspects (1996: 5); one cognitive, the other affective or emotional. I think that betrayal will need to be cashed out in a similar kind of way.
There are, for sure, various attitudes (or emotions) that are bound up in betrayal. One can feel betrayed. There are also various beliefs. One can judge that one has been betrayed and yet not feel any particular way about it, at all. So whatever I end up saying about an act of betrayal, it needs to make sense of both of those things.
I’ll say more about the details in a future post.
But what’s been interesting to me are whether there are cases where one person, x betrays another, y, but where y does not trust x.
For instance, imagine that Sally has gone away for the weekend, entrusting care of her apartment to Bob. Bob throws a party just as soon as Sally leaves, trashing the place. Sally finds out about this early on Saturday. Sally immediately loses all trust in Bob. She then uses her network of friends to keep tabs on what’s going on.
It transpires that Bob is going to hold another party on Saturday night. Sally, of course, finds out about his plans.
So, in this situation, prior to the second party, Sally does not trust Bob any more.
Still, I think it might be tempting to say that by hosting a second party, Bob further betrays Sally. He betrays her because he has agreed to look after her flat and is now not going to do so. He is going to host a raucous party. But, at the time of this second betrayal, Bob is no longer trusted by Sally. She gave up on him after the first party.
If I’m right, that’s a case of betrayal without trust. And if that is right, then I think there might be some fun consequences for theories of trust.
I’d be really interested to hear what people think about the case. Let me know in the comments.
References:
Jones, K. (1996). Trust as an Affective Attitude. Ethics, 107(1), 4–25. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2382241