Belief in virtue gives no reason to trust that belief
Evidence
I can even be brought in principle to see the virtue in virtue. But I see no reason to believe that the reason to believe in it will, just as that reason, hold. As Elizabeth said to Parliament in 1586, we all, if less dramatically than she, ‘in trust have found treason’. I see no reason to trust trust just as trust. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1534
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- APHORISMS: ‘I see no reason to trust trust just…’ pairs a genuinely counterintuitive recognition of the circularity of trusting trust with a timeless caution about reliance on motives.
- XREF: The ‘in trust have found treason’ line echoes Hardin’s claim that trust requires observable constraints — the failure of trust-trusting is exactly what the doctor’s wife’s oversight compensates for.
Related
- Reasons for trusting virtue are themselves fragile enough that trust in trust is unjustified. (similarity 0.92)
- Virtue-based motives alone cannot sustain trust without explicit impersonal beliefs supporting them. (similarity 0.84)
- One cannot be obligated to trust in the absence of supporting evidence. (similarity 0.79)
- Understanding trustworthiness must precede understanding trust itself (similarity 0.78)
- Trust grounded in false knowledge cannot be an intrinsic good (similarity 0.78)