Trust

Trust is so vital for human interaction that it has gathered deeply moral connotations even in the most seemingly minor of situations. It is clear reading the Heritage piece that trust has been an issue for sociologist for a long time. In ethnomethodological thought trust seems to act as the string that holds social interaction together rather than larger structural forces. In his article, Watson discusses the history of trust in sociology and philosophy and points to Garfinkel’s analysis as the best especially within ethnomethodology (2009, p.489).

Trust in action means that the individuals involved in the interaction ‘understand that they are engaged in the same practice, must be competent to perform the practice, must actually perform competently and assume this also of the others’ (Watson, 2009, p.475). We trust the other actor to perform her part well so the interaction succeeds. I would note that levels of trust would be determined on my knowledge of the role that the other person was enacting. People in uniform can be seen as trustworthy because their role is clear. Also, with people and relationships we have spent considerable amounts of time with. This is where, I think, the moral element comes in. Garfinkel in 1963 states ‘the term “trust” is used there to refer to a person’s compliance with the expectancies of the attitude of daily life as a morality’ (Heritage, 1984, p.82). If our trust is violated in that the other actor does not perform her part properly, this undermines our confidence in our ability to correctly determine the practice we are in and interpret correctly the actions of other individuals. Trust becomes a moral situation because of the vulnerability the individual shows in everyday interaction.

Heritage, J 1984, ‘The morality of cognition’, in Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp.75-102

Watson, R 2009, ‘Constitutive Practices and Garfinkel’s Notion of Trust: Revisited’, Journal of Classical Sociology, vol.9, no.4, pp.475-499