Michael Suurendonk

Title of Dissertation:
Metaphysics of Trust

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Andreas Suchanek
University: HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management
Scholarship: KSG Scholarship
Cohort: 1. Cohort, 2014-2017

• Short Abstract

  The scope of Social Science is limited to the world of observable phenomena. Therefore, most studies on trust had reduced the concept to a tolerable risk situation, so that trust was devalued and replaced by the concept of trustworthiness. This led to the belief that one should only “trust” if enough information about the psychology and institutional environment of others are known. This work revealed that the resultant perspective is both unjustified and very worrying, as it: 1) condemns trust in strangers as irrational; 2) excludes any appeal to forgiveness and the possibility of moral and personal growth; 3) promotes the use of stereotypes, discrimination and negative generalizations; and 4) conflates those results that are obtained because of trust, with those that are achieved despite distrust. It had consequently been shown that the widely accepted axiom of risk was a mere negative potentiality of its more general and underlying axiom of freedom. To positively determine freedom as autonomy, thus not subjugated to natural causation, it was equated with the infinity of life and the endless questioning of reason. Therefore, the inherent striving of life to be alive and of reason to aim for truth were determined as universal moral principles. Reasonable beings thus ought to be truthful and aim for universal health. This work thereby laid the foundation for a paradigm change, in which positive expectations can both be attained by trust – the hopeful expectation of unconditional respect – and confidence, the minimization of fear through the prospect of acceptable risk.

• PhD Related Publications

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