ABSTRACT
Can an ethics of principles support a theory of action? The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade is a novel about trust—but also about credulity and credit given to others. Melville’s book raises the ethical question of whether trust is just and morally obligatory and constitutes a valid maxim without exception. Melville is not speaking in universalist terms. The book has a specific setting, it considers the question of why trust has become a source of distrust in the world of money and of the free market society, in “the age of joint-stock companies” and of the “Wall Street spirit.”
