ABSTRACT
The attitude of interpersonal trust is the aim of the exercise of epistemic authority, vindicating Lewis’s aligning of trust and authority with regard to matters of opinion. In attempting to explain the nature of interpersonal trust, philosophers often distinguish between trust and various forms of non-trusting reliance on people, objects and states of affairs. Philosophers impressed by this line of thought have often sought to characterize trust as a more specific or sophisticated form of reliance. Fortunately, while the above conception of interpersonal trust as an essentially practical phenomenon has a good deal of intuitive appeal, there is reason to think that it is mistaken, and appreciating this is helpful for understanding the connection between relations of trust and relations of authority. A thought like this is likely part of what has motivated philosophers to deny that interpersonal trust is a kind of belief and to contend that trust can be willed in the absence of positive reasons for belief.
