For 9 years I taught a class entitled “The Monsters We Make” at the University of Idaho. “Monsters" was a yearlong class focused on big questions about ethics and evil, and it ended up being one of the most popular classes at the University of Idaho. I had the privilege of working with some of the best and brightest Honors students at UI to understand thorny social problems through the lens of ethical theory, classic literature, and contemporary horror.

In “Monsters” we began with an overview of basic ethical theory (divine command theory, utilitarianism, egoism, social contract theory, deontology, virtue ethics etc.).  As students began to grasp these different approaches, they naturally started to identify basic universal truths and patterns that seemed to be present in every ethical school of thought, regardless of time, place, or culture.  This exercise demonstrated that, even though cultures and belief systems change over time, there are some universal ethical “constants” that are necessary for human society to function.

A foundational principle in most belief systems and ethical approaches is the concept of trust and truth-telling. In order to function in social groups, people need to be able to trust one another.  People, like animals, are highly suspicious and fearful of the unknown.  When training an animal the first step must be establishing a foundation of trust.  At the very outset of training an animal needs to understand that behaving in a certain way results in either a reward or punishment.  The individual training the animal builds trust through the administration of rewards, so that the animal builds a positive emotional connection with the source of the rewards.  This is often done through the use of external rewards like food or something else that the animal enjoys and as time goes on this conditioning creates an emotional connection that evolves into a relationship of trust where the animal finally realizes that if I behave this way it will result in good things for me that promote my welfare and survival.  Conversely, the animals also learn through this process of conditioning that if it behaves inappropriately then there are negative consequences that do not promote it’s well-being. Animals, like humans, want to live in a situation that is predictable. Predictability is important to building trust.

Biological creatures seek situations where their basic needs can be met with a minimum of stress and danger.  Although we can’t understand how animals think or ask them about their thought processes, we can gain insights from their behavior and in most situations animal behavior seems to indicate that they prefer predictability over unpredictability.  For example, many animal become habituated to humans because they recognize that humans often provide predictable and tasty food sources. Here in the Cache Valley where I live, there is a large population of deer and elk who live in the Bear River range that forms the eastern boundary of the valley.  In the summer the deer and elk spend their time in the mountains and riparian areas where natural food sources are abundant, but with the first snow these creatures begin to move into the valley.  The deep snow makes it difficult for the deer and elk to access their regular food sources, to they begin to come down into the farms and neighborhoods that border on the mountains.  In one place, Hardware Ranch, the community began putting out alfalfa and hay for the elk. Hardware Ranch has become a local winter attraction because of the hundreds of elk that come into the valley to take advantage of the easy feed source provided by the community.  Thousands of visitors come to the ranch in the wintertime to marvel at the herds of elk that, at any other time of the year, would be incredibly skittish and difficult to approach.  

The elk in the Cache Valley are heavily hunted, and are very difficult to locate in the summertime, but these typically elusive creatures have put aside their natural instinct to be wary of humans because they have learned that if they come to the ranch they will be safe and get an easy meal.  The elk have learned that the ranch is a place that is safe from the many predators who rely upon them for food during the winter months.  Mountain lions, coyotes, wolves and bears rely upon elk for their winter sustenance and, as the winter wears on and food becomes more and more difficult to find, many herbivores become weaker and easier prey for these natural predators.  Elk need to constantly be on their guard in the wild in order to avoid these predators, and so they are in a constant state of heightened alertness to any potential danger.  Because predators have learned to be much more wary of humans, they tend to not move into the valley in the wintertime and they generally avoid humans. The elk have learned that by coming down to Hardware Ranch in the wintertime that the predators will typically not follow them and so they are also protected from depredation when they come down to the valley.  The ranch is not just an easy food source during the winter, but also a safe haven from predators.  The elk have learned that when they come down to the ranch they do not need to be as wary of danger as they would typically need to be.

Over many years the elk have developed a relationship of trust with the surrounding community and that has resulted in lower mortality rates and less stress for the elk during the difficult winter months.  The fact that the elk are less stressed during the winter months also means that they have a higher rate of successful births in the spring, which help build the size and strength of the herd.  Now, it’s important to keep in mind that the elk could easily ignore the free food put out for them at Hardware Ranch and they could continue to forage through the snow for their food.  Indeed, the elk here in the Cache Valley are hunted throughout the autumn and have a reputation for being exceptionally wary and difficult to track during hunting season.  They disappear into the steep, rocky,  forested canyons and dells of the Bear River Range during the hunt, but once the snow flies and hunting season closes they seemingly ignore their natural instincts and emerge out into the open of the valley to take advantage of the easy free food.  It is important to recognize that this behavior is a choice by the elk.  They are not forced to come down to the valley fo the ranch, but they choose to do so because they have learned that the easy food helps their health and survival. 

The choice by the elk to ignore their natural wariness and take advantage of the food at the ranch seems to go against all natural survival instincts but they have learned that they can trust the owners of the Hardware Ranch and that trust has resulted in a mutually beneficial relationship for the elk and the humans.  The trust that the elk have learned has benefitted them, and it also benefits the surrounding community by creating a winter tourist attraction that brings in people from all over the intermountain West. The small town of Hyrum, Utah tends to be a sleepy community during the winter months, but the ranch brings in traffic and tourists who help boost the local economy.  The ranch hosts horse-drawn sleigh rides during the winter holidays and takes hundreds of people per day out onto the ranch grounds to see the elk as they graze.  Many hunters, who may have been stalking these elk just a month or two earlier, bring their families to the ranch to marvel at these majestic creatures and to enjoy the spectacle of hundreds of elk gathered in one location.  In spite of the expense and difficulty, the community of Hyrum has continued to support the feeding of the elk because it benefits their community.  The relationship of trust that has been forged by the community and the elk has resulted in mutually beneficial outcomes for both the elk and humans and demonstrates that trust can override even the most basic survival instincts.

Humans are exactly the same as the elk.  Although, from an evolutionary perspective, we are infinitely more advanced than an elk, a dog, or a cat, we still need an environment of safety and trust  in order to function best.  We tend to be wary of the unknown and seek people and situations where we feel safe.  In fact, humans require a safe, predictable, and supportive environment in order to properly grow and develop.  For example, children who grow up in highly stressful and uncertain environments often suffer from a condition known as “failure to thrive”.  Failure to thrive is a condition where the physical development of a child is slowed down, or in some cases even stops.  Children diagnosed with failure to thrive don’t only lag behind peers of their same age in their height and weight, but may also suffer from developmental delays in terms of their cognitive functioning and social skills.  These children often come from environments where they may have experienced food insecurity, poverty, abandonment, and emotional or physical abuse; in other words, the adults and/or society that was supposed to protect and nurture these children has let them down and betrayed their trust. As a result these children’s stress response is constantly turned on, and their energy is channeled into survival instead of growth. 

Thankfully we have learned that failure to thrive isn’t a permanent condition; we can actually restart children’s physical and cognitive development by placing them in a situation where they have more physical and emotional security.  Although these children may always be wary and have difficulty fully trusting others, they can often catch up with their peers and go on to live typical lives.  Perhaps most importantly, failure to thrive demonstrates that humans require trust in order to simply survive.  If a child does not know if he/she will have food, or a place to sleep, or a supportive adult to protect and nurture them they quite literally stop developing.  Children are hard-wired to trust that their parents or other adults in their family/society will care for them and when that trust is betrayed humans the human body responds by switching on the child’s survival system.  Unfortunately, our survival system, is highly resource intensive and when it is switched on for long periods of time it can have some incredibly toxic effects on our bodies.  This is why trust is so fundamental to ensuring human flourishing. Without trust in our environment and the people that we live with, we feel like we are in danger, and when we feel like we’re in danger we cannot be our best selves. If we don’t trust the people around us, our attention and effort is short-circuited so that we are focused merely on our day-to-day survival instead of thriving.  

Therefore, trust is essential to living the “good life”.  In fact, it is literally impossible to reach our full potential as human beings if we don’t have the ability to trust and be trusted.