Thinking about Trust? the primacy of the affective attitude

Abstract

Some recent philosophical accounts of trust- among which Russell Hardin´s feautures prominently- take trust to be a cognitively based propensity founded on rational beliefs concerning the extend to wich we are convinced that our interests are contemplated by the interests of those we interact with. In this essay, I set out to press the advantages of a competing view, namely one which takes trust to be primarily an affective atitude. I argue that said account makes better sense of the available evidence on developmental, phenomenological and behavioral levels. I further maintain that more intelectual manifestations of trusting can be seen to be dependent and derivate of its affective dimension.