Phenomenological considerations on love,
hope and trust

Esteban Marín Ávila^[2]

Abstract

In this paper I set forward some remarks and reflections on the crucial role that certain emotions play in the constitution of the social world. I shall heavily draw from Anthony Steinbock’s descriptions of emotions such as love and sympathy, hope and trust. I believe this thinker’s work has significant insights for the future of phenomenological philosophy in relation to social and political problems. However, it seems to me that some of his methodological assumptions are questionable. Therefore, I go back to Husserl to some extent in order to discuss some of these insights, and to try to critically re-elaborate them.

   

Keywords: love; hope; trust; phenomenology; Husserl; Steinbock.

Resumen

En este trabajo, someto a discusión algunas observaciones y reflexiones sobre el papel crucial que ciertas emociones juegan en la constitución del mundo social. Para ello, me basaré en buena medida en las descripciones de Anthony Steinbock sobre emociones como el amor o la simpatía, la esperanza y la confianza. Considero que hay conceptualizaciones importantes en la obra de este pensador que tienen implicaciones interesantes para el futuro de la filosofía fenomenológica en relación con problemas sociales y políticos. Sin embargo, también me parece que algunas de sus asunciones metodológicas son problemáticas, por lo cual discuto sus conceptualizaciones y procuro volver a elaborarlas críticamente, en cierta medida, regresando a Husserl.

   

Palabras clave: amor; esperanza; confianza; fenomenología; Husserl; Steinbock.

   

In this paper, I advance some reflections on the crucial role of certain emotional lived- experiences in the constitution of the social world. To do this, I will draw—to an important extent—on Anthony Steinbock’s descriptions regarding emotions such as love and sympathy, hope and trust. I believe that some of his insights have important implications for the future of phenomenological philosophy, especially in relation to social and political problems. Nevertheless, I argue that some of his methodological claims are problematic and preclude precisely the full-fledged articulation of these implications. For this reason, I am trying to re-elaborate his descriptions in a critical manner, going back to some extent to Husserl. These reflections—heavily parasitic on both Husserl and Steinbock’s insights—are the first steps of an ongoing research which might throw a different light on some of the conclusions presented here, which are therefore preliminary in a strong sense.

My central point is that a clarification of the contribution of emotions to the constitution of doxic and practical states of affairs is crucial not only to understand social phenomena, but also to understand the open and closed possibilities of constituting social phenomena, social change, and specially, of rationally intervening in the societies in which we live.

§ 1.

One of the things that makes Husserlian phenomenology particularly attractive is that it not only demands that philosophical reflection be based on experience, but it also demands an account of the meaning of the world, of ourselves, and of our place within it. If we consider the phenomenological-philosophical problems not only from a doxic point of view, but also from Husserl’s analyses on axiological and practical reason, which are broader than merely ontological descriptions, not only can we ask “who we are,” “what is the world,” and “how do we relate to it,” but also “who should we become,” “how should the world be,” and “how should we relate to it.”

The former observations are linked to three claims made by Husserl. First, that consciousness is always intentional in the sense that it is consciousness of something (Hua I: 70–72 [31–33]).^[3] This claim stems from Brentano’s descriptive psychology. Husserl goes beyond it when he discovers, secondly, that all intentional living experiences are structured synthetically. To have intentional consciousness of something is then to be conscious of it in a synthetical manner. Therefore, the phenomenologist writes that a cha­r­acteristic of all life-consciousness is to have a synthetical structure analogous to the syntactic structure of languages, but also to a still more original structure (Hua III/1: 272–275 [283–285]). The third claim is that intentional syntheses are sense-bestowing operations (Sinn gebende Leistungen). Already in Ideas I, Husserl acknowledges the necessity of broadening the concept of sense (Sinn) to use it to describe a characteristic of life consciousness (Hua III/1: 285 [294]).

It is important to keep in mind that Husserl considers three interwoven domains of consciousness and three corresponding dimensions of the world: the doxic, axiological and practical. I will not go into further detail here; I just want to highlight the fact that Husserl thinks that acts of willing are founded in acts of valuing, and that value reception can only be given on the basis of perception—or at least of “presentifications” (Vergegenwärtigungen)—of the valuable object (Melle 1990; Hua III/1: 220–222 [231–233]; Hua XXVIII: 70–74).

Value properties are originally given in value apprehensions (Wertnehmungen), which are intentional acts that can be broadly characterized as likings (Gefallen) and dislikings (Missgefallen) and that apprehend feelings in synthetic unities (Hua IV: 9 [11]; Hua XXXVII: 223). Similarly to what happens in the doxic domain, it is possible to have intentional consciousness of the value property of something while not having it given in itself. I can speak of the value of something, or evoke it in memory or in imagination, without being fully in its presence in the manner of feelings.

Acting is the paradigmatic living experience of willing inasmuch all the other kinds of living experiences of this domain can be analyzed as its modalizations. Thus, a resolve is an empty, unfulfilled act of the will that can be understood as the practical positing of a future action. Something similar can be said of a decision, which is described by Husserl as a kind of resolve that has the form of a practical answer to a practical problem (Hua XXVIII: 119). Moreover, according to him, practical living experiences are closely related to valuing acts, because to value something is to be ready or motivated to act in relation to it. Conversely, willing actions are only rational―i.e., only true voluntary acts―insofar as their goal is to realize something valuable or to avoid something of negative value. This means that they cannot be considered by abstracting the axiological properties of the intended state of affairs (Hua XXVIII: 105).

§ 2.

I have evoked in a simplified manner Husserl’s position on emotions or feelings as necessarily interwoven with beliefs and entailing practical dispositions. Let me now put forward some further observations regarding how emotional experiences or attitudes can set in motion the possibility of posing new rational beliefs and undertaking new rational actions that would be otherwise not feasible. I will draw on some cases that strike me as particularly interesting because they entail acts of valuing, which motivate beliefs and practical dispositions that could not be explained without them. I will argue that these emotional experiences or attitudes are not mere aggregates of beliefs or mere conditions for actions, but essential components of complex meaning-formations whose parts cannot be understood separately.

First of all, let me allude here to the relevance of feelings and of value apprehension for the understanding of the world. Husserl himself explicitly acknowledges the important role of affectivity in epistemic questions in the Vienna Lecture, where he writes: “Presentiment is the felt signpost <gefühlmassiger Wegweiser> for all discoveries” (Hua VI: 321 [276]). It is not a coincidence that several thinkers have associated emotions such as wonder (Aristotle), angst, existential boredom (Heidegger), or hope (Bloch) with philosophical inquiry. I do believe that these and other emotions play a crucial role in the elaboration of philosophical questions and in not conforming with the trivial and otherwise obvious answers to those questions.

The effect of emotions or feelings in beliefs also seems to play an important epistemic role in social life. Husserl’s theory of empathy describes how each person experiences other persons and cultures as similar to herself and her culture, and conversely, how she can come to be aware of herself and of her culture as similar to other persons and cultures.^[4] How is it then possible to be aware of those typical aspects of the other’s world that are precisely not similar, but different, or even incompatible with one’s own typical world? (Steinbock 1995; Held 2005). I think that an answer to this problem can be elaborated on the basis of Husserl’s and Reinach’s analyses of communication and other social acts (Hua XIV: texts 9 and 10; Hua XV: text 29; Reinach 1989; Marín 2015). However, I am also convinced that it cannot be fully addressed without considering how emotions or feelings contribute to the understanding of what is not already familiar.

Anthony Steinbock has recently reflected on this topic based on ideas that can already be found in Max Scheler’s ethics (2014). His analyses are centered on love understood as an emotional movement toward something considered as a bearer of value—i.e., as an act that discovers value and expands the axiological realm. He observes that to love something is to assume emotively that it has or can have a higher value than the one that is apparent. Thus, according to him, a loving attitude makes it possible for other persons to appear emotively beyond what is known beforehand, with a kind of radical individuality or uniqueness that can only be attributed to persons (Steinbock 2014: 223–231).^[5]

I think that the insights into love mentioned above touch a key aspect of the problem of the constitution of other persons and cultures. However, Steinbock’s descriptions can be further elaborated with the aid of the Husserlian analyses on the way affective living experiences are articulated with doxic ones and contribute to complex meaning formations. What the American thinker has in mind can be conceptualized in Husserlian terms as an emotional attitude in which one lives constantly in the empty intention that there are more and more values that can be discovered or developed in the loved object or person. Because value properties are necessarily intermingled with objects and states of affairs constituted through doxic living experiences, to emptily intend a value property also entails to intend, however vaguely and indeterminately, something doxic on which it is founded. In this sense, to love someone means to live in the continuous empty intention of her still undiscovered (or developed) value properties, and this implies a readiness to discover (or help her develop) those aspects of her being that are necessarily intermingled with such values.

Thus, a loving or sympathetic attitude makes it possible to know someone or something as peculiar, irreducible to anything already familiar, insofar as it involves the axiological assumption that she or it is the bearer of positive values yet to be discovered or developed. This assumption is purely affective—i.e., purely emotional. However, if love or sympathy are affective acts that aim to discover or develop positive values, their design is also to discover the doxic attributes of the person or thing that are necessarily intermingled with such values. In other words, these doxic attributes are primordially anticipated in axiological passive expectations (protentions). To love someone without knowing her is to emotionally assume that something still undetermined in her manner of being is valuable. Because value positings necessarily predispose us to act, this value assumption entails a practical disposition to develop or preserve the person’s respective valuable aspects, and such development or preservation of what is valued entails in turn the practical attempt to understand it. Thus, if the value positings born out of a loving attitude are to be more than empty meanings, then this something must be perceived or understood: what is valued is her style, her concrete personality, her way of acting in such and such situations, etc. In short: one cannot love something without the will to understand it, but a loving or sympathetic attitude toward something can precede and motivate the efforts to understand it.

It is interesting to note that if the psychoanalytical characterization of the erotic drive is correct (Freud 2002; Fink 1997), and if it can be established that this drive is behind the loving or sympathetic attitude described here, then it could be said that a loving or sympathetic attitude is not essentially dependent on any particular object to which it relates. From this point of view, we do not love persons and objects as a consequence of finding value properties in them, but the other way around: we find value properties in persons or objects as a consequence of loving them. This point is important, to say it again, because the discovery of values cannot take place without the discovery or clarification of doxic determinations.

I now wish to highlight two emotions that are more strongly related with practical reason: hope and trust.

Hope is an emotion that plays a crucial role in the constitution of the social world. At this point of my research, it seems to me that its utmost relevance has to do with the fact that it can open a future beyond what can be otherwise expected, motivate persons to engage in courses of action that would otherwise be irrational, and thus prepare the emergence of new states of affairs.

Hope is characterized by Steinbock as an emotion that is essentially related with the religious dimension. Even though I do not agree with this claim, I do think that his descriptions of this emotion have far-reaching implications. According to him, hope is directed toward a future possibility to which one is committed, but such that one does not control its bringing about because its actualization depends on other persons—or ultimately on God (Steinbock 2014: 167).

Interestingly, Steinbock also notes that hope is independent of expectations. One can hope that something will happen even when expecting that it is much more likely that it will not. This leads him to argue that the future orientation of hope is a kind of belief, but not a modalization of an expectation; i.e., it cannot be described as a belief that something will happen based on other beliefs, especially past experiences (Steinbock 2014: 164). Suppose I forget my wallet on a bench at a crowded park. When I realize my mistake, I might expect, and with good reasons, that I will not find it where I left it. However, at the same time, I might hope that I will get it back. The experience of hoping is indeed necessarily intermingled with a belief in a possible and more or less determinate future state of affairs, but one that is intended in a different way from that of an expectation. Furthermore, in this case the recovery of the wallet is not something merely wished, since it is intended in the act of hope as something that will indeed happen.

I will not address here the question of whether hope is necessarily interpersonal or not. I do think that the observations made by Steinbock acutely acknowledge essential traits of a possible and very basic experience that could be identified as hope—at least when it is directed to other persons—, but these observations could be further clarified in the context of a more developed phenomenological account of volition. Thus, it can be added that something hoped cannot be thought of as a direct object of one’s volition in Husserl’s sense—i.e., as something that will come to occur precisely because it is intended through a willing living experience. I cannot just retrieve my wallet by fulfilling a simple practical intention because I do not have control over the unknown persons that can easily take it with them. It is up to them to leave it, to hold it for me, to give it back to me, or to take it with them. What characterizes something hoped—and what distinguishes it from something willed in a straightforward manner—is that it is necessarily grounded in the tacit or explicit acknowledgment that it is beyond one’s control and—at least in the case of interpersonal trust—that it depends on the willing actions of other persons.

Thus, it seems that if interpersonal hope opens a possible future beyond expectations, it is because it comes with the acknowledgment that the others have the will and the capabilities to intervene in the world—i.e., that they perform volitive acts whose outcomes cannot be predicted on the sole basis of our own past experiences. Steinbock is close to making a similar point when he writes that “[…] hope is an act that expresses an experience of some power greater than my own as a power upon which I am dependent for occasioning the hoped-for event; it evokes a relation of dependence” (2014: 168).^[6]

Based on these observations, it is possible to begin to conceptualize interpersonal hope as an emotion that corresponds to the anticipation that something positively valued will come to pass as a consequence of actions carried out by other persons. This is compatible with Steinbock’s claim that the future opened by this emotion is not a mere modalization of an expectation.

However, this characterization of hope is provisional insofar as it is convenient to take into consideration another one of its aspects that is useful to explain the problem of its orientation toward the future: as Steinbock noticed, there is indeed a volitive component in hope that distinguishes it from a mere wish or the so-called “positive thinking”. This can be grasped by recourse to the example of the forgotten wallet, for it does not make sense to hope to get the wallet back while not doing anything about it, such as going back to the park. Indeed, in the most extreme and clear case, it does not make sense to hope without at least to await with endurance what is anticipated in hope. Thus, the name that Steinbock gives to the future structure of hope, namely, “awaiting enduringly” (2014: 175–177), gets to the core of this paradoxical matter of intending—as a practical object—that which cannot be realized by this intentional experience of willing alone. The passive aspect of this attitude is expressed with the term “awaiting,” but it is qualified as nevertheless active by the accompanying adverb “enduringly.”

In sum, I think that the anticipation of interpersonal hope can be further characterized as an empty volitive act—a kind of resolve or decision—, but a very peculiar one, because its very sense implies that its fulfillment is dependent on the actions of one or several others. In other words, hope implies an expectation of a state of affairs that is posited as existing in the future, but precisely as a consequence of being intended by others in volitive living experiences—i.e., in acts of the will. This emotion is thus a component of the complex experience of living in a world that is intersubjectively constituted through voluntary acts. However, it is important to stress that the person who experiences hope is motivated to act precisely by this emotion. Therefore, it is not a matter of only expecting that a certain future will come to pass thanks to the actions of other persons. Steinbock is right in pointing out that the future orientation of hope cannot be properly described as an expectation.

However, I want to suggest here that what makes hope irreducible to expectation is that it is an experience that involves two different kinds of anticipations: along with a doxic anticipation that can be described as an uncertain or doubtful expectation—in the mode of belief—regarding the actions of others upon which the hoped state of affairs is dependent, it also entails another kind of anticipation, a practical one: precisely the resolve or the decision to bring about this future, or at least to endure while it comes.

Steinbock’s observation that it is possible to hope for something without expecting it to happen is compatible with this Husserlian theory of the structure of the three dimensions of experience insofar as the expectation involved in this emotional attitude is mingled with doubt: what is more, it is often the case that the hoped state of affairs is something expected as highly improbable. In the case of interpersonal hope, this expectation is intermingled with the belief that the actions of other persons will favor such a desirable future.

Let me now attempt to give another less preliminary definition of hope based on Steinbock’s descriptions, but at the same time paying attention to its practical, axiological, and doxic structures as well as to the corresponding layers of meaning of the hoped state of affairs. The observations made above suggest that hope can be defined as the readiness to bring about something desired, or at the very least to endure while it happens. In other words, the hoped state of affairs is valued as something worth trying to realize or to preserve, even if only in the form of enduring while it arrives. This implies that the hoped state of affairs is an object of will that is valued not only as a mere possibility, as something desired, but precisely as a goal. This is the specific axiological layer of meaning of the hoped-for states of affairs that corresponds to the emotional structure of experience—to the intentional act of positively valuing the resolution to await enduringly what is hoped-for, even when this might involve risks such as delaying other actions and the like. This evaluation is made, nonetheless, in light of the dubious and uncertain expectations regarding the actions of others on which the realization of the desired future depends.

I am convinced that a far more thorough intentional analysis of hope can be a crucial first step in addressing issues concerning the rationality or significance of this emotional attitude, such as the following: what kind of beliefs, valuings, assessments and practical deliberations are involved when we hope for something? Can we distinguish between rational or irrational forms of hope? How? What kind of rationality or experiential sense is involved in the conflation of beliefs, valuing acts, and deliberations that pertain to this emotional attitude?

The question of how one may act meaningfully in the face of uncertainty lies at the heart of the difficulty in comprehending the type of rationality that hope entails. This question is related to the bigger question of what does it actually mean to act given that we must necessarily exist in an uncertain world and that we are compelled to act without complete understanding of our present, past, and future situations.

In order to conclude this tentative series of reflections on hope, I want to suggest that a phenomenological comprehension of this emotional attitude can explain the rationality involved in many of the actions whose meaning would otherwise elude us conceptually. Because it allows the possibility of undertaking rational actions that would otherwise be absurd and, thus, of taking risks that would otherwise be unjustified, hope is crucial for the constitution of new states of affairs. For instance, since it is irrational to pursue a goal that is not achievable, it might be irrational to devote my efforts to acting in open conflict against an institutional order that I consider to be unfair but that I am unable to fight in this way. The situation is different, though, if I speak with other people and notice that they—at least to some extent—share my perspective on the current situation and the changes that would be desirable. Once I realize this, I become hopeful that openly resisting can be an effective way to bring about institutional changes since it may be backed in unforeseen ways by the actions of other people. Thus, in the context of a justified hope, it is rational to take a greater risk and publicly challenge the institutional order.

Similar statements can be made about any effort that seeks to bring about anything new in a given society, such as taking the risk of starting a new business, trying to assemble a new political party, or forming a new social group of any kind. These risky endeavors are reasonable from the point of view of their feasibility when they are undertaken with a justified hope—i.e., with the hope that stems from a rational assumption that they will be supported by the actions of others. The same holds true for any attempt to produce works for posterity, including theoretical and artistic ones. It would be irrational to undertake all of these actions with an emotional mindset that excludes hope. Without these emotions, such actions are unfeasible, because they aim at goals that are unachievable by a single person. Before concluding, let me devote a few words to the attitude of trusting. Trust renders it possible to participate in collective actions that constitute social relationships and social states of affairs. Additionally, I want to make the case that this emotion is a prerequisite for engaging in what appears to be the most fundamental social acts: communicating and promising. As previously, I shall draw critically on Steinbock’s descriptions of this moral emotion and attempt to address further questions on this topic.

According to Steinbock, trusting someone must be distinguished from expecting that she will behave in a certain predictable way. This can be seen by the fact that one can trust someone to do something despite having good reasons to expect that she will not. Trusting someone who lacks complete self-control—such as children, drug addicts, etc.—, or entrusting someone with our belongings who has stolen from us in the past are two examples of this. Steinbock also notes that trusting someone necessarily implies to expose one’s vulnerability before her, allowing her to betray this trust (2014: 197–222). Hence, such an emotional act implies the positing of the trusted person’s free will.

Another aspect of trust that I believe was rightly acknowledged by Steinbock is that it prepares the terrain for social interactions (2014: 208). I think this point can be clarified by paying attention to the fact that it is a necessary component of the kind of interactions that Husserl and Reinach called “social acts,” which were conceptualized in another tradition as “speech acts” (Austin 1962). On the one hand, trust seems intermingled with communication, in the sense that it cannot fully take place without the attempt to communicate it and thereby be exposed to betrayal; and, communication cannot be successful without trust because sincerity is a necessary condition for understanding. On the other hand, trust-building experiences foreshadow the demands and commitments that have more overtly promising results. It is convenient to offer some remarks regarding this second point.

To trust someone implies to create an interpersonal bond that gives rise to a sense of obligation, or the need to fulfill a demand. In this sense, Steinbock claims that trust has an imposing character (2014: 215). He uses the example of a person who trusts a stranger to look after his bag while using the restroom in an airport to illustrate his point. Here, the trusting person can expect that the stranger will not steal his bag or abandon it, but this anticipation is based on the fact that he has exposed himself to her and, by doing so, imposed upon her a kind of demand. In other words, when we are trusted we feel compelled to act appropriately: trust motivates a corresponding behavior. Steinbock thus claims that we do not trust someone based on the expectation that she will behave in a certain predictable manner; but rather that such expectations are consequences of trust itself and of its imposition on the trusted person (Steinbock 2014: 214). I find Steinbock’s remark compelling, even though it remains to be seen to what extent the expectations involved in trust also presuppose other kinds of assumptions, such as the belief that—for whatever reasons or lack of reasons—the trusted person has a good will towards us, and that she will advance our welfare in the matters trusted to her (Baier 1992: 111–112).

I want to stress that these features of trust, imposing an obligation and having to respond to a demand, pertain also to promises. Furthermore, it seems that the expression of willingness to fulfill a demand imposed by being trusted is already a promise, at least when this obligation before the trusting person is assumed willingly—i.e., in an act of volition. In order for it to be considered a promise, this expression must be communicated to the trusting party, who thereby gains the right to demand its fulfillment (Reinach 1989: 169–175). Hence, the promise certainly generates a new state of affairs that transcends the emotional attitudes that correspond to trusting and being trusted, even though it seems to come from the latter.

Let us keep in mind that promises have been considered by Adolf Reinach—a student of Husserl who developed with him a theory about the types of interactions Austin would later conceptualize as “speech acts”—as the most basic forms of social acts that transcend mere communication, so that all other social acts of higher order imply promises. For instance, an effective request has to be accepted through a promise, and effective orders and prescriptions are in need of pledges of obedience to the person who issues them (Reinach 1989: 171–172).

However, as with the case of love and hope, an important topic related to trust that remains to be elaborated beyond Steinbock’s account is the problem of its rationality. I think that he is right when he observes that trust is a non-modalized emotional attitude (Steinbock 2014: 208–209). Consequently, in contrast with distrust, trust is a default emotional attitude, so it is not necessary to have ulterior motives to assume it. Accordingly, we could say that, precisely because we inhabit the world in an affective mode of being, prone to trust and to be trusted, we are also naturally motivated to make and accept promises.

Let me add that the emotional act of trusting seems to imply an axiological apprehension. The mere doxic assumption that we can count on others is not sufficient to motivate us to act accordingly. Emotions and feelings motivate actions because they constitute value properties. Wherever we are motivated to act in a certain way, this motivation revolves around an explicit or implicit value positing. Therefore, it could be argued that trust is inextricably linked to the intentional act of positively valuing the possibility of constituting an interpersonal environment in which social relationships can crystalize if this trust is reciprocated with promises and other social acts—i.e., of positively valuing our voluntary dependence on other people.

The claim that trust is a non-modalized emotional attitude seems thus to be inseparable from the fact that its object or noematic correlate, i.e., the environment in which it is possible to establish social relationships, is not something derivatively valued, but something valued in itself. If trust is indeed a basic emotional attitude, it would appear that it is always rational to trust someone when I do not have any motive or reason to refrain from it. However, this topic is more challenging, since trust motivates its addressee to behave precisely as she is expected to behave. Thus, it could be reasonable to trust someone even when I have reasons to expect that she could behave in a way that is incompatible with this trust. In these cases, the act of trusting someone aims at motivating her to act in a way that responds to this trust by not betraying it—i.e., in a way that differs from what she would otherwise have done.

Moreover, it remains to be seen what counts as a reason not to trust, since there are abundant cases where trust is used to manipulate, dominate, exploit, deceive, abuse and take advantage of those who are most ready to engage in it without much thought. It is therefore not without reason that, regardless of the enthusiasm we might hold about the benefits of trust, in our everyday lives we feel strongly compelled to teach children—and other groups that in different contexts we perceive as vulnerable in this aspect—not to trust strangers or not to trust without discernment.

Another question that might be addressed in terms of value assumptions is the reason why we are motivated to respond to trust as something that places a demand upon us. Another approach to this problem is as follows: why does the possibility of making promises—which arises when we are trusted, namely, when we perceive the vulnerability of others—seems to be valuable for us apart from other ulterior motives? A basic phenomenological analysis of the experience of being trusted is necessary before we can even begin to respond to this topic. This description, or at least the attempt to do it, is needed to explore the path sketched by Steinbock on the imposing character of trust, a path that picks up interesting insights made by Emmanuel Levinas that initially challenge Husserl’s phenomenological approach to value and ought.

I have only referred to a possible motivational relationship between trust and promising. However, the more basic relationship between this emotion and sincerity and tolerance—which seem to be necessary to address and be addressed with purposes that do not go beyond mere communication understood in its broader sense (Zirión 2005)—remains to be considered. If one considers that, according to Husserl and Reinach, the possibility of performing communicative acts underlies the possibility to perform higher order forms of social acts such as promises, orders, petitions and the like (Marín 2015b), then this question is particularly relevant to all kinds of topics of social ontology.

I should note here that it seems possible to make and keep promises in the absence of trust. However, social interactions and collective voluntary actions carried out with distrust can only be rational if they are based on the expectation that it is in the best interest of the concerned parties to uphold their promises and the obligations that follow from them. Consequently, the interactions carried out with distrust are significantly more rigid than those carried out with trust, because they can only be carried out in situations when betrayal can be ruled out. A vast number of examples of the alliances between all kinds of competing leaders and organizations can be found in movies and literature—from capos and gangsters to entrepreneurs and political characters. The point is not that these kinds of collaborations are impossible or, in some cases, even necessary, but rather that they are not the only, most fundamental, or more enriching and desirable ways in which we can relate with our fellow social beings in order to give and find meaning in our world.

§ 3.

I would like to conclude by stressing the relevance of a phenomenological approach to social phenomena with all their doxic, emotional-axiological and practical complexities. In this paper I have suggested that there are emotional attitudes and living experiences that play a crucial role in social rationality. It seems clear that some emotions are necessarily intermingled with beliefs and with practical attitudes. However, it is crucial not to interpret this relationship as if these emotions gave nothing new to the related complex phenomena. A loving or sympathetic attitude toward other people or cultures is a condition for knowing and contributing to their development in what they have as peculiar to them. Hope is necessary for the constitution of an indeterminate future that transcends what can be otherwise expected, and thus, to rationally intervene in the social world in a riskier manner by assuming that our actions will be backed by the actions of others. Trust also constitutes a future that would be otherwise unexpected and unfeasible, a goal that can be achieved by engaging in collective actions and collaboration in a strict sense.

As I stated at the outset, the insights of this contribution are still preliminary and represent the initial steps and a necessary partial beginning of a subject on which I believe transcendental phenomenology has much to say. My main two sources have been Husserl’s insightful analyses on how affectivity conveys meaning to the world and its relationship with beliefs and actions, as well as Steinbock’s original developments on what he calls “moral emotions.” The latter are particularly interesting to me because they are explicitly based on his own understanding of the project of transcendental phenomenology. As I have admitted, what I have presented here is parasitic to the ideas of both, but in a way that I hope might encourage others to continue to reflect about them by challenging their everyday apparent obviousness and encouraging the prospect of learning more about them. If this line of inquiry is correct, then the inclusion of emotivity in theoretical debates about social phenomena is crucial for comprehending our current social situations as well as for the possibilities of practically intervening in our world in meaningful ways.

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