Equal standing between parties is required for trust overtures to be sincere

Evidence

The first is that the creative acts of personal trust envisaged in the objection are only going to be possible within a context, and more generally within a society, where each of the parties involved enjoys more or less equal levels of non-domination and enjoys the status that goes with this. For if they do not each enjoy such freedom and standing, if one of them is in a dominating position relative to the other, then the acts in question are not going to be effective in the same way. If the dominating person goes through the motions of putting themselves at the mercy of the dominated, that is going to look like a condescending charade. And if the dominated person goes through such motions, that is going to look like a fawning or toadying posture. It is only if the parties can look one another in the eye, confident in the shared enjoyment of freedom as non-domination, that an overture of personal trust can have the communicative and creative potential described. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 1198