Abstract
Trust is a theme that has been focused on recently in a variety of fields, especially the social sciences. In trust theories, trust is thought to make political and economic mechanisms function effectively, thus enabling smooth interactions on a daily level. However, against the background of the rise of trust theory, there still remains a sense of crisis pertaining to the loss of trust in a highly complex modern society. This study aims to explore how problematic situations are described with “trust.” Trust theories can be grouped into four categories in keeping with their approach: the psychological approach, the rational approach, the cultural approach, and the functional approach. Many of these theories assume that trust is something good as well as a form of social capital. When they explain problematic situations, they use “trust” as the logic of responsibility attribution similar to law, morality, and science. However, when compared with law, morality, and science, trust does not have to be provided for in advance in order to be applied as the logic of responsibility attribution. Trust theories thus offer a foundation for daily life and trust becomes more important in reflexive modern society. However, there is no guarantee that trust solves problems. “Trust,” when used as the logic of responsibility attribution in explanations by trust theories, can potentially form a blank discourse circulation centered on “trust,” which accompanies the discourse of loss and recovery. Trust theory that aims to reconstruct “true trust” only bears a part of this circulation. Thus, we need to consider what trust is lost, and also what and how trust should be recovered.
