humanizing the world 105relation, so precious to the ancient Romans, provides a characteristic
example. It was in such a circumstance that the most comprehensive
statement of the ethic of roles— classical Confucianism— emerged.
Another circumstance is that of a nineteenth- century Eu ro pe an so-
ciety with its liberal ideology. Now the authoritative ideological for-
mula proscribes what relations between patrons and clients require: the
mixture of power, exchange, and allegiance. One of the consequences is
to draw a distinction between the domestic sphere, in which the mix-
ture of sentiment, power, and exchange continues to be tolerated or
even cherished, and the workaday world, in which such a mixture has
become anathema. In this world, exchange supposedly rules, and power
is validated by consent, by the requirements of cooperation, and by the
rights of property.
In such a setting, speculative thought may seek to base and to ex-
pound ethics in a discourse of universalistic rules and principles. How-
ever, this academic moral philosophy will bear little resemblance to the
forms of moral thinking and argument deployed in much of social life.
A discourse of role- based claims and responsibilities will continue to
prevail in practice, although recast on the basis of the new assump-
tions. What chiefl y replaces the amalgam of exchange, power, and al-
legiance is an ethic of professionalism: respect for the public duties
pertaining to the specialized roles that the individual performs.
Th e role- based responsibilities may be owed to strangers, with whom
the individual had no preexisting relation. As a result, it becomes im-
possible to accept the distinction, characteristic of societies at ease with
the mixture of exchange, power, and allegiance, between a realm of
high- trust relationships among insiders and of no- trust relationships
among strangers. A modicum of trust, albeit of low trust, among strang-
ers, must be universalized as the indispensable backdrop to an ethic of
professional responsibility.
Instead of supposing that we owe everything to those to whom we
have a connection that precedes or transcends the will and nothing to
those with whom we have no such connection, we come by steps to
think that we owe something to everyone, but that what exactly we owe
is modulated by the roles we perform in society with respect to them. On
the foundation of minimalist and universal trust among strangers, we
superimpose the more stringent demands that attend the per for mance of