If you view people as machiavelian actors using models to pursue goals then you will eventually find social interactions to be bewildering and terrifying, because there actually is no way to discern honesty or kindness or good intention if you start from the view that each person is ultimately pursuing some kind of goal in an ends-justify-means way.
But neither does it really make sense to say “hey let’s give everyone the benefit of the doubt because then such-and-such”.
I think in the end you have to find a way to trust something that is not the particular beliefs or goals of a person.
If you view people as machiavelian actors using models to pursue goals then you will eventually find social interactions to be bewildering and terrifying, because there actually is no way to discern honesty or kindness or good intention if you start from the view that each person is ultimately pursuing some kind of goal in an ends-justify-means way.
But neither does it really make sense to say “hey let’s give everyone the benefit of the doubt because then such-and-such”.
I think in the end you have to find a way to trust something that is not the particular beliefs or goals of a person.