SELF-TRUST
Contents:
Trust is the act of committing to treat an idea* or source of information as valid. Such commitment may be based on certainty, but it may also be based on considerations in uncertainty. It is easy to grasp the validity of trust when in certainty, what about its validity when in uncertainty? In many cases, it can be grasped with certainty (within one’s context) that a commitment to action is necessary, and since conscious action depends on conscious conclusions, such commitment depends on a commitment to treating one or more things as valid.
* An idea is a conceptual-level grasp of information, assumptions and other ideas, i.e. it is the use of concepts to form claims and conclusions about some part or aspect of reality.
Certainty, like knowledge, is contextual, i.e. it is based on some cognitive context. Within that context, and under some conditions (that may be known or unknown), a claim that is certain is a claim that holds true (note that a condition is a fact or factor that causally and/or logically affects the truth of a claim). Now, note that to conclude something as certain needs the integration of observations, causal relationships and logical necessity between facts and other facts and/or ideas; such integration can be complex, and this complexity means that, since focus is finite, some considerations that condition the truth could be omitted due to them being _unintentionally_ out of focus. Hence, since to grasp something as certain within one's context is to say that, based on the cognitive context that one holds in one's focus, something is true given some conditions, not knowing or unintentionally omitting these conditions may result in wrong or incomplete conclusions.
Self-trust is the act of committing to treat one’s own knowledge, abilities and/or character as valid, i.e. as true, effective and/or moral (i.e. consistently effective and non-contradictory in the long-range). Let us expand these aspects of self-trust to see why these are essential to pursuing success in life, and why these are the fundamentals of any form of self-trust.
Firstly, note that man must act with reason, i.e. as per his knowledge, in order to be effective in pursuing his goals, or at least in learning how to improve his effectiveness. Hence, committing to treat one’s own knowledge as true is vital wherever such truth can be established by reason; if man wavers on his rational conclusions, he evidently cannot waver on the basis of reason, and thus, he begins entertain the arbitrary and irrational.
Secondly, note that man must act, i.e. he must achieve goals in concrete terms, and, rationally, his own effort is the only thing he must consistently count on, since it is the only thing he can consistently direct volitionally (this is true even if he is lucky or if he is helped by others). The potential to act is ability, and to act volitionally, man must grasp and pursue his potential to act; thus, he must recognise them as effective on some level, and he must treat them as such.
Thirdly, note that character is the sum of one’s internalised premises, habits, practices and value-judgements. In other words, character is the effect of the following factors over a period of time: (1) What one regards as knowledge (either explicitly or implicitly, i.e. by tacit acceptance). (2) What one regards as valuable, i.e. worth acting to concretise. (3) What one actually does, especially with respect to consistent potentials for success and failure (e.g. health, intellectual clarity, production of the material for physical sustenance (through trade or through direct production), etc.). Hence, character is the system of consistent beliefs, motivations and efforts that drives one’s pursuit of values long-range. Thus, to act effectively long-range, one must recognise one’s character as moral (i.e. effective and non-contradictory in a long-range context), and if one’s character is immoral, one must act to reshape it in the image of one’s moral ideal.
These three aspects cover (1) knowledge, (2) volitional action and (3) the long-range integration of knowledge and volitional action. Knowledge and volitional action are the fundamentals of any human pursuit, and their long-range integration is the fundamental of grasping and consistently pursuing valuable potential, which in turn is the fundamental need of a volitional being (i.e. a being of self-driven consciousness).
Any knowledge or rational commitment is based on the following:
Naturally, the above also apply to self-trust.
Firstly, self-trust demands a commitment to objectivity, i.e. to the most rigorous correspondence one can achieve between reality and the contents of one’s mind; this draws directly from a fundamental aspect of trust, namely the trust in one’s knowledge. A key element of this is self-honestly, i.e. the commitment to open oneself to the whole truth and to never falsify or evade the facts that confront one’s mind. Now, how do we know we are being objective?
All knowledge derives from the evidence of the senses, and this evidence is largely gathered non-volitionally. Hence, the first act of volition with regards to truth is to stay in focus or not, i.e. to accept and integrate this evidence, or to reject and/or evade and thereby disintegrate this evidence from the rest of one’s mental contents.
To stay in focus is the first and most fundamental act of volition, and thus, it is a direct act of volition. This act of direct volition is essentially what a commitment to objectivity involves. Self-honestly is the most basic form of objectivity that demands only that one stays in focus of the facts; thus, self-honesty is always possible, and recognising whether one is honest to oneself is a matter of focusing on the self-evident and integrating from there.
NOTE 1: Objectivity beyond this, however, can be more complex to achieve, since correspondence between reality and one’ mental contents is by no means automatic. Moreover, since reality is complex and holds many unknowns, and since experience clearly shows the potential for errors and incomprehension, objectivity at higher levels is certainly not always self-evident. Here, objectivity requires logic, valid epistemology and science, but these are beyond the scope of this discussion (the essentials are discussed in Epistemology from Philosophy).
NOTE 2: Honesty to others is generally preferable (though, rationally, it not an absolute necessity). However, it is especially important if it helps maintain an objective record of your own self-image, without harming any more fundamental values. In the long run, is more practical to maintain an objective record of your self-image and improve your virtues, rather than falsify your self-image; unless there is a very clear, objective threat to one’s fundamental values (i.e. one’s life, wellbeing, livelihood, etc.) that can only be avoided by lying to others, it pays to be honest about oneself. That being said, self-honesty is absolutely non-negotiable, morally and practically.
Pride is the virtue of acting consistently toward one’s moral values. Thus, pride is a key element of self-trust; this draws directly from a fundamental aspect of trust, namely the trust in one’s character. Since reason is a fundamental value, and since objectivity is fundamental to reason, a commitment to objectivity is indispensable to pride. Thus, pride is not harmed if one:
Indeed, pride is harmed if we refuse to do the above for the sake of a second-handed emotionally-driven self-image (i.e. an image of oneself based on what we feel about ourselves, regardless of the facts, and what we think others think of us). A false self-image is fatal to pride, since it is impossible to convincingly lie to oneself, and thus, it is impossible to feel non-contradictory appreciation and/or admiration for oneself if one tries to believe in a false self-image.
Key to trust is evidence. The greater the evidence, the greater the trust. The same applies to self-trust. Here, the evidence you need to gather is the evidence of your own moral and practical effectiveness, and key to these is consistency, i.e. a committed and reliable orientation toward truth and value.
Note that it is not merely the quantity of evidence that matters but the way the evidence was generated. If you have the approach of merely “gaining moral points”, treating these as a bank which you can draw upon to commit immoral and impractical acts from time to time, you adopt a fundamentally irrational approach, since rationality does not compromise with irrationality (owing to the law of non-contradiction).
By undermining reason in such a fundamental way, you undermine the very basis of self-trust with respect to your character, thereby undermining self-trust itself (since trust in one’s character is a fundamental aspect of self-trust). Thus, consistency is a matter not of accumulation but of absolutism, i.e. an absolute commitment to one’s reason and moral integrity.
What does this mean in practice? For one, it means to never subjugate a consciously chosen intention or commitment to whim. For example, if you honestly make a promise to someone, you must not back out of it simply because you do not feel like it. This is not to say you must never back out of promises, only that you must never do so merely out of discomfort or a lack of desire. Defaulting on an honest promise is rational if and only if fulfilling the promise requires the sacrifice of a more fundamental value (e.g. it is not immoral to cancel an outing if you are too sick to enjoy it, since your own health and happiness are higher priorities than the happiness of others). Note that promises naturally also apply to promises made to oneself; there is no reason why the above reasoning does not apply here.
This ties directly to trust in one’s ability. The value of trusting one’s own judgement is put eloquently as follows by the novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand in her novel Atlas Shrugged:
Do not say that you’re afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience — that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible — that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the seconds destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error. In place of your dream of an omniscient automaton, accept the fact that any knowledge man acquires is acquired by his own will and effort, and that that is is his distinction in the universe, that is his nature, his morality, his glory.
In practice, this means owning your decisions, even if you risk mistakes, and remaining committed to learning from them as you refine your ability to judge. It also means the refusal to give into authority (be it political, intellectual, spiritual, etc.) merely out of fear or a reluctance to think. The only rational basis by which accept someone else’s claims is your own judgement of the validity and reliability of the contents and/or the source. Trusting your ability to judge is central to self-trust, as it empowers you to navigate uncertainty with confidence and independence.