Løgstrup on Natural Trust and Love (with Discussion of Murdoch and Kierkegaard)

Abstract

Abstract The role of trust and love in the ethical life is a central theme in the writings of Knud Ejler Løgstrup. Chapter 7 discusses Løgstrup on love and trust along with related ideas of Kierkegaard and Iris Murdoch. Løgstrup’s central claim is that loving and trusting openness is the default human condition. Through trust we naturally put ourselves “in one another’s hands.” An important theme in both Løgstrup and Murdoch is the contrast between the perspectives we occupy when we construct narratives involving ourselves and others to buoy our self-esteem and to defend ourselves against our natural emotional vulnerability. These are what Murdoch calls “self-consoling fantasy” and Løgstrup terms “self-enclos[ing]” “pictures.” Trust involves “a purely personal expectation,” though when it “is not fulfilled by the other, moral accusations flare up.” But this moralizing of trust is no part of trust’s natural openness, but self-enclosing self-defense. “One has laid oneself bare” and has been personally wounded as a consequence.