Holton pursues the idea of a “participant stance” (Holton 1994 p. 66) as part of his
critique of Baier’s account. Baier’s claim that it is good will (or a lack of ill will)
towards one that turns mere reliance into trust rests upon the recognition that it is when
we lose trust that we can see the difference between trust and reliance. She illustrates
the point thus: “We may rely on our fellows’ fear of the newly appointed security
guards in shops to deter them from injecting poison into the food on the shelves, once
we have ceased to trust them” (Baier 1986 p. 234). Hotlon again takes Baier to task,
claiming that she misconstrues the nature of reliance. Holton suggests that what we rely
on in this example is the security guards’ ability to prevent unauthorised access to the
food rather than, necessarily, the potential poisoner’s fear of getting caught. But this
seems an unnecessary distraction as both Baier and Holton agree that there is a
distinction to be made between trust and reliance. Despite Holton’s criticism, Baier’s
example serves to illustrate the distinction, for her point is that in ceasing to trust we no
longer take others’ good will (or lack of ill will) toward us to exist. When we trust, it is
the intentions of the other towards us that matters: we seek some (re)assurance of their
good will; when we merely rely, the motivation of those on whom we now rely
becomes irrelevant. So even if, as Holton claims, Baier has misconstrued the nature of
reliance in the security guard example it does not matter. We can accept both Holton’s
and Baier’s interpretation without losing sight of the distinction both want to make. To
trust and to rely require us to make predictions about the likely future behaviour of
others; in the former we make predications based upon our sense of the extent to which
the other has a good will (or an absence of ill will) towards us, in the latter we make a
prediction based on a recognition that we cannot rely on their good will.
Holton’s alternative is the ‘participant stance’ we adopt: a stance that reflects how we
will be towards something or someone. Thus when we rely and are disappointed we
may be angry but when our trust is betrayed we feel some personal slight. For Holton it
is this stance that determines whether we demonstrate trust or reliance. However his use
of the example of our anger when our car breaks down suggests that he has in mind a
distinction between reliance on an object and trust in persons or as Luhmann puts it
“Trust remains vital in interpersonal relations, but participation in functional systems
.. .requires confidence...” (Luhmann 1988 p. 102). There is a certain intuitive logic as
well as a sense of the ordinary everyday meaning of trust and its variants in the idea that
one places trust in persons but merely relies on objects, but it is, I suspect, an analysis
that remains too simplistic. I think Baier would agree that to trust is to adopt a stance,
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