Inner motives of honorable persons cannot causally guarantee trustworthiness under conflicting claims.

Evidence

Yet as Williams says in the course of his discussion of what he calls ‘non-egoistic macro-motives’, the motives which such persons socially embody, this is not a causally adequate state of affairs. I trust my friends, but just as there can be treachery in a kiss, so too there can be betrayal in an honourable mien. It has repeatedly proved too much to ask of persons of quality that they always remain so in those societies, which are all the societies there are, in which people will be presented with conflicting claims. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1532

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the aristocracy argument’s own undoing: even the aristocracy’s macro-motives are causally inadequate, mapping to how Saramago’s leaders and caretakers fail once sight collapses and monitoring is lost.