Abstract

What drives the chronic distrust of some men towards women on the topic of gendered sexual violence and harassment? What motivates the persistent distrust of some White people towards Black, Indigenous, and other people of color on the topic of police brutality? I argue that what drives/motivates these cases of ‘top-down’ distrust – at least in part – is an experience of a particular sort of vulnerability: ‘constitutive vulnerability.’ On my account, top-down distrust is often a morally pernicious response to constitutive vulnerability by those who are dominantly situated in a given power relation. This top-down distrust in turn serves to secure – or attempts to secure – the dominant subject’s sense of self against destabilizing identity-threats from ‘below.’ Such a formulation of distrust contributes to existing literature by highlighting not only a possible psychological function or benefit to distrust in the context of power asymmetries, but also offers a new perspective as to why some types of distrust may be especially resistant to counter-evidence.