This article reflects on Nicholas J. Rengger’s 1997 article in International Affairs on ‘The ethics of trust in world politics’. The article has received comparably little attention, which is a shame because as I explore in my contribution it remains two decades on a highly important intervention in the on-going debate over the possibilities for developing and sustaining trust in an anarchic international system. Rengger argued that international cooperation, and the idea of international society it rests on, cannot be sustained in the absence of what he called ‘a presumption of trust’. However, he viewed this presumption in late modernity as an increasingly fragile one, and whilst he offered some ways to shore up the crumbling foundation of trust, his moral skepticism as to the possibilities of realising this run through his thinking. Rengger’s concern was that as the practices that ‘ground’ trust erode, cooperation will come to depend solely on rational egoist, interest-based calculations, and that such a basis is unstable and prone to breakdown. The problem that Rengger identified of how to ground authoritative practices of trust in international society remains an urgent one at a time when great power relations are characterised by increasing distrust. Having engaged with some of his key arguments in the article, I end by briefly identifying three problems that his essay would have benefited from considering further. These are (1) the relationship between trust and trustworthiness; (2) the neglect of security community theory; and (3) the potential of ‘godparenting’ (a concept Rengger borrows and develops from the moral philosopher Annette Baier) in international relations.

中文翻译：

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国际社会中的“信任推定”

本文反映了 Nicholas J. Rengger 1997 年在国际事务中关于“世界政治中的信任伦理”的文章。这篇文章受到的关注相对较少，这是一种耻辱，因为当我在我的贡献中进行探索时，它仍然是一个非常重要的干预措施，涉及正在进行的关于在无政府主义国际体系中发展和维持信任的可能性的辩论。伦格尔认为，如果没有他所谓的“信任推定”，国际合作及其所依赖的国际社会理念就无法持续。然而，他认为这一假设在现代晚期越来越脆弱，虽然他提供了一些方法来支撑摇摇欲坠的信任基础，但他对实现这一点的可能性的道德怀疑贯穿了他的思想。Rengger 担心的是，随着“根植”信任的做法逐渐消失，合作将变得完全依赖于理性的利己主义、基于利益的计算，而这种基础不稳定且容易崩溃。Rengger 确定的如何在国际社会中建立权威性信任实践的问题在大国关系以日益不信任为特征的时代仍然是一个紧迫的问题。在讨论了他在文章中的一些关键论点后，我最后简要指出了他的文章可以从进一步考虑中受益的三个问题。它们是（1）信任与可信赖的关系；（2）忽视安全共同体理论；（3）“教养”（Rengger 从道德哲学家 Annette Baier 那里借用和发展的一个概念）在国际关系中的潜力。