An interpersonal form of faith

Abstract

An athlete has faith in her unathletic partner to run a marathon, a teacher has faith in her currently poor‐performing students to improve in the future, and your friend has faith in you to succeed in the difficult project that you have been pursuing, even, and especially, when your chance of failing is non‐trivial. This paper develops and defends a relational view of interpersonal faith by considering four interesting phenomena: first, in virtue of placing faith in someone, we stand in solidarity with that person; second, interpersonal faith is called for during moments of difficulty, but it can seem inappropriate during moments of ease; third, one's faith in others can feel unwelcomed, and can be rejected; and fourth, when interpersonal faith is frustrated, disappointment, rather than resentment, is warranted. I propose that when the faithor (e.g., your friend) places faith in the faithee (e.g., you) to φ, the faithor does something close to inviting the faithee to (re)commit to φ‐ing. This invitation‐like move, once properly taken up by the faithee, puts both sides of the faith in a new kind of normative relationship that is in the same broad family as a promissory relationship, albeit with a different normative profile.