fiduciary relationships ten involve giving one’s word in a variety of ways. But much that is unspoken is a basis for trust. While KANT (1724–1804) wrote cheerfully of the duties of friendship, among contemporary philosophers there is resistance to thinking of friendship in terms of duties or obligations. This resistance is reinforced by a popular tendency to equate obligations with duties and to regard both as enforceable in principle by penalties, and by an inclination, since Kant, to regard the sense of obligation as burdensome. One’s sense of the obligations of friendship is, however, one’s sense of friendship as a special trust, often requiring discretion and imagination. A trust need not be burdensome; it can be an HONOR. Friendship’s obligations are not enforceable within the relationship; such attempts jeopardize trust. Not living up to obligations of friendship raises the question to what extent one is a friend. The ultimate sanction here is loss of the friendship. Infidelity’s penalty in this case is, ultimately, that no relationship remains to claim one’s fidelity. For marriage partners and business partners, the relationship is ambiguous between something defined by vows, promises, or contracts, and something larger to which they refer. There is room for both fidelity to one’s word and fidelity to persons, and there is the possibility of being faithful in one way but not in the other—hence, Cole Porter’s “Always True to You (In My Fashion)” from the musical Kiss Me Kate. Adultery—voluntary sexual conduct between persons at least one of whom is married but not to the other—is commonly regarded a paradigm of infidelity. Yet, the two concepts do not mean the same thing. “Adultery” is, literally, “impurity.” Infidelity is faithlessness or breaking faith. Extramarital sexual relations break faith against the background of a vow of monogamy. The deeper, more interesting ethical questions are whether such vows are reasonable and whether the conduct in question is unfaithful or untrue to the other person (or to the relationship, understood as something the nature of which is not completely given by promises, vows, or contracts). Such issues are the subject of contemporary inquiries into “open marriages” and living-together contracts, as well as gay and lesbian research into healthy lover relationships.

HONOR; INSTITUTIONS; LESBIAN ETHICS; LOVE; LOYALTY; MOTIVES; PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS; PROMISES; RECIPROCITY; SEXUALITY AND SEXUAL ETHICS; TRUST; VIRTUE ETHICS; VIRTUES; VOLUNTARY ACTS.

Bibliography Card, Claudia. “Gratitude and Obligation.” American Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1988): 115–27. Develops a contrast between the trustee and debtor models of obligation, relating the former to friendship. DeCecco, John, ed. Gay Relationships. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1988. Papers from the Journal of Homosexuality. Hoagland, Sarah. Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value. Palo Alto, Calif.: Institute of Lesbian Studies, 1988. Kant, Immanuel. The Doctrine of Virtue: Part II of the Metaphysic of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. New York: Harper and Row, 1964 [1797]. ———. “Friendship.” In Lectures on Ethics, translated by Louis Infield, 200–9. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. Leites, Edmund. The Puritan Conscience and Modern Sexuality. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Corrects popular misconceptions. “Non? Monogamy?” Lesbian Ethics 2 (1985): 79–105. A readers’ forum. Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. Ross, W. D. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930. Sidgwick, Henry. The Methods of Ethics. 7th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962 [1874]. Taylor, Richard. Having Love Affairs. Buffalo: Prometheus, 1982.

Claudia Card

fiduciary relationships Broadly speaking, we may term fiduciary any relationship in which one party trusts, relies, or depends on another’s judgment or counsel. But we use the term, which originates in Roman law, especially to mark relationships where one acts on another’s behalf, as though the other’s INTERESTS were one’s own. While a fiduciary’s (trusted party’s) duties may be merely ministerial, requiring no particular knowledge or wisdom beyond the ordinary and admitting of little or no discretion, the most significant legal and ethical discussions concern fiduciary associations where the exercise of expertise and discretion are substantial. The law of trusts, as it governs fi-

See also: CONTRACTS; DECEIT; DUTY AND OBLIGATION; FAIRNESS; FAMILY; FRIENDSHIP; GAY ETHICS;

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fiduciary relationships duciary relationships, thus distinguishes between ministerial and discretionary trusts. In considering the origin and nature of fiduciary relationships, this article focuses primarily on those of a discretionary character. “Fiduciary,” then, can describe formal arrangements expressly agreed to or at least consciously undertaken (say, as part of one’s profession), as well as a variety of less formal associations. Examples of formal relationships include those between doctor and patient, attorney and client, guardian and ward, trustee and trust beneficiary. Requirements for establishing these and the nature and extent of the fiduciary’s duties may be defined by legal statute, case law, or professional codes of conduct. While we perhaps most familiarly use the term in legal contexts, “fiduciary” also describes ethical relationships and duties. In particular, professional codes of conduct typically term fiduciary obligations ethical; we do the same for those obligations one acquires through informal and perhaps involuntary relationships of TRUST. Importantly, we often employ “fiduciary” not only to describe a relationship’s status, but to advocate legal or moral recognition of trust, reliance, or dependence and of RESPONSIBILITY heretofore ignored.

properly to influence the reliant party are unacceptable. Although fiduciary obligations may be created by contract, fiduciary relationships differ from the contractual first in that they may exist without payment of consideration by the beneficiary. Second, unlike parties to a contract, those in a fiduciary relationship may not readily tailor duties to suit themselves. Emphasis always is primarily on the relationship of trust, reliance, and dependence and the fiduciary’s superior power, with an eye to providing justice for each beneficiary. Standards for creating formal relationships typically do admit of straightforward application— trusts created by a will must meet general requirements for the validity of wills (for example must be in writing and signed before witnesses). Even here, however, broad language of “trust,” “reliance,” “due care,” or “best interests” can make it difficult to determine precisely what the accompanying fiduciary responsibilities are and whether they have been fulfilled. This especially is true as our appreciation of the position or interests of a class of beneficiaries evolves over time. We can find cases in point in the business and medical realms, where we might have expected questions concerning the existence and nature of fiduciary relationships to be well settled. The traditional view that corporate officers and directors owe fiduciary duties to stockholders, for example, has faced repeated challenges since the 1930s. Critics urge that stockholders as a class possess sufficient wealth and knowledge to warrant substantially weakening the fiduciary protections they are accorded. These critics often claim further that other parties— e.g., bondholders or employees—must rely far more than stockholders on the good judgment of corporate managers and that managers therefore have more substantial fiduciary duties to these parties than to stockholders. Likewise, understanding of the fiduciary duties physicians owe their patients has evolved significantly in contemporary times with the growing emphasis on patients’ autonomy and their legitimate interest and participation in their own care. A physician who once fulfilled recognized duties of care by withholding complicated or disturbing information from patients now, by that same silence, might fail in such duties. This last example points up not only the difficulty inherent in applying fluid standards to fiduciaries ex post, but the equally difficult

A Fluid Standard British legal tradition (inherited by the United States, among others) made fiduciary relationships and related duties the province of equity courts. These courts undertook to do justice or insure FAIRNESS in particular situations, as opposed to strictly applying common law rules oblivious to the exigencies and mitigating circumstances of the case at hand. We still can recognize some of equity’s more fluid standards of justice, designed to allow for considerations rigid rules cannot, even in the laws and professional NORMS that govern more formal relationships. Thus in identifying relationships, formal and less so, as fiduciary and in delineating responsibilities, we tend to emphasize not only trust, reliance, or dependence by one party, but the fiduciary’s consequent POWER over that party and the accompanying potential for abuse or negligent injury. The fiduciary must act in good faith, with due care, and with the end of serving the best interests of beneficiaries. In particular, self-serving judgments and attempts im-

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fiduciary relationships task that a fiduciary may face ex ante in any good faith attempt to discern and serve another’s interests.

tecting the interests of those who, by nature, injustice, or ill fortune, are voiceless. Second, and relatedly, a fiduciary sometimes owes duties most directly not to the beneficiary, but to another party. In Christian theology, for example, God imposes stewardship on humankind for the benefit of present and future generations, of animals, and of the natural environment. Although beneficiaries are not always voiceless as are future generations, animals, and the environment, this arrangement can increase accountability where beneficiaries are weakest, since the fiduciary now must answer to another with significant power. In some cases, we deem the fiduciary to owe the beneficiary’s care not to another individual or to God, but to society or the state. The claim that society is one party to the association illustrates the second aim noted above, urging the community at large to oversee the fiduciary’s conduct and enforce obligations (whether through legal sanction or social condemnation). Courts sometimes understand the doctrine of parens patriae, through which the state seeks, inter alia, to protect minor children from parental abuse or neglect, in this way. Here, parents are fiduciaries charged by the state with the care of their children and subject to its intervention if they fail to fulfill their duties. (Other interpretations understand the state itself to exercise fiduciary duties when parental CARE is inadequate, not to enforce those that parents owe to it.) John LOCKE (1632–1704) illustrates the third aim of arguments proclaiming a relationship’s fiduciary character. Legitimate government, on Locke’s view, must better protect citizens’ natural rights than would be possible in a state of nature that lacks settled laws, an indifferent judge, or an authorized enforcer. Citizens give over these rights (some wholly, others only partially) to government in trust to use for this purpose and may reclaim them (and disband the government in power) on grounds of serious abuse or neglect. Although Locke thus announces to citizens their claims and powers as beneficiaries in a fiduciary association, so casting the relationship between government and citizen seems to acknowledge a subordination of the governed (who put their faith in the state’s wisdom and rely on its integrity) that the political theories of later Enlightenment figures like ROUSSEAU (1712–1778) and KANT (1724– 1804) do not. Although no proponent of DEMOCRACY, much

Use in Moral, Social, or Political Argument Appropriately, then, a call to understand the character of certain informal relationships as fiduciary, or formally to classify an association as such for legal or professional purposes, often places in relief the trust, reliance, or dependence on one side, and on the other the requirements of WISDOM and INTEGRITY and the potential for abuse of power. Such a call sometimes aims to awaken a sense of responsibility in those who come to recognize the trust reposed in them; sometimes it aims to urge the larger populace to hold such persons responsible; sometimes it aims to alert beneficiaries to the obligations owed to them; and in many cases it combines these aims. We can recognize the first and third (calls to acknowledge and accept one’s responsibilities as a fiduciary and to insist on one’s due as beneficiary) in GANDHI’s (1869–1948) advice to India’s rich. As part of his vision for a peaceful and gradual transition from private to state-owned PROPERTY, Gandhi appealed to CONSCIENCE, urging the rich to see themselves as trustees of any property in excess of that reasonably required to meet personal NEEDS. The education and organization of the trust’s beneficiaries, India’s poor, would insure that their strength too contributed to the reform effort as they pressed the moral argument for their due. Asserting a duty to protect the environment or its resources for the benefit of FUTURE GENERATIONS or characterizing humankind’s relationship with animals or the natural environment as one of stewardship likewise can alert us (now all human beings) to our fiduciary responsibilities. Noteworthy in these last examples are two further points relevant both to defining and employing the concept of a fiduciary relationship. First, the fiduciary’s responsibilities do not presuppose a claimholder actually able to assert moral or legal RIGHTS. Beneficiaries in legal and professional contexts typically possess rights against fiduciaries; also (as Gandhi envisioned) they may press home the moral mandate that binds the fiduciary. But the concept of such a relationship typically places the primary responsibility for conformity with fiduciary obligations on the person in whom trust is reposed. This yields powerful possibilities for pro-

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fiduciary relationships less of REVOLUTION, Kant (like Rousseau—who sometimes seems to advocate both) understands legitimate government to exercise the general will in which all citizens participate and which all with enlightenment would realize. If we wish to determine what laws and policies a just government would adopt, we must take up the perspective of such citizens. We must focus in particular on their extensive freedom to pursue individual ends, on the EQUALITY among them that warrants only like legal burdens and ENTITLEMENTS, and (most significant here) on their independence—their capacity to make their own judgments about personal values and shared standards of justice. While the claim that they are beneficiaries in a fiduciary relationship may empower parties by alerting them to what is due, this characterization also connotes and may foster lessthan-full participation in decisions regarding one’s most central interests. Details may moot this concern with respect to Locke’s political theory. Nevertheless, the contrast between his model of the state’s relationship to citizens and those of Rousseau and Kant highlights the hazards latent in characterizing a relationship as fiduciary.

and advance the interests of those designated as beneficiaries. See also:

AGENCY AND DISABILITY; AUTONOMY OF

MORAL AGENTS; BUSINESS ETHICS; CHILDREN AND ETHICAL THEORY; COMMON GOOD; CONSCIENCE; CONSENT; CONTRACTS; DISCOUNTING THE FUTURE; DUTY AND OBLIGATION; ECONOMIC SYSTEMS; ENTITLEMENTS; ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS; FAIRNESS; FUTURE GENERATIONS; GOVERNMENT, ETHICS IN; INTEGRITY; INTERESTS; LEGAL ETHICS; LIBRARY AND INFORMATION PROFESSIONS; MEDICAL ETHICS; NEEDS; NEGLIGENCE; POWER; PROFESSIONAL ETHICS; PROMISES; PROPERTY; PUBLIC POLICY; RESPONSIBILITY; STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS; TRUST; WISDOM.

Bibliography Clark, R. C. “Agency Costs versus Fiduciary Duties.” In Principles and Agents: The Structure of Business, edited by J. W. Pratt and R. J. Zeckhauser, 55–79. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1985. Examines, toward a positive theory, the legal literature on corporate managers as fiduciaries. Dodd, E. M. “For Whom Are Corporate Managers Trustees?” Harvard Law Review 45 (1932): 1145–63. Classic article—argues against corporate managers’ strict fiduciary duty to stockholders. Gandhi, Mohandas K. My Theory of Trusteeship. Edited by Anand T. Hingorani. New Delhi: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1970. Collects Gandhi’s work on trusteeship and related topics. Keeton, George. The Law of Trusts. London: Professional Books Limited, 1974. A classic legal treatise on trusts. Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. 2nd, Critical Ed., edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967 [1689]. For discussion of governments’ trust relationship with citizens, see especially Second Treatise of Government chapters IX, XI, XIX.

Summary We can and do apply the concept of a fiduciary relationship to a wide variety of associations, some expressly or at least consciously established, others arising de facto, apart from any agreement or conscious undertaking. We may term fiduciary obligations legal, professional, or moral, but all invoke the relatively fluid standards of justice or fairness associated with the concept of equity. In recognizing a relationship as fiduciary, we acknowledge trust, reliance, or dependence in beneficiaries, who may be persons, animals, or other entities and who possess varying capacities for policing fiduciary conduct. We acknowledge a correlative power in the fiduciary either to benefit or harm the beneficiary. By formally establishing or informally recognizing a fiduciary relationship, we can encourage integrity and commitment in fiduciaries, oversight by society at large, and a kind of self-regard and empowerment in (some) beneficiaries. Imposing a fiduciary duty allows us to account for reliance, dependence, disadvantage, or voicelessness and to lend significant moral or legal leverage to protect

O’Neill, Onora and William Ruddick, eds. Having Children: Philosophical and Legal Reflections on Parenthood. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Various articles consider fiduciary obligations of parents or state to children. See especially those by William Ruddick and Robert H. Mnookin. Partridge, Ernest, ed. Responsibilities to Future Generations. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1981. A collection investigating stewardship obligations to future generations. Pelligrino, Edmund D., Robert M. Veatch and John P. Langran, eds. Ethics, Trust and the Professions. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1991. Collection of articles on the nature of the professions and the

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final good role in them of trust and fiduciary obligations—especially rich in articles concerning the medical professions.

sake with no more general end for the sake of which they are desired; for then we would have no rational way of determining conflicts between them. No ancient writers see this as a problem about rationality, however; they take it to be a deep empirical fact about us that once we start ranking ends in a hierarchy, we do not in fact stop until we see all our particular ends as means to or ways of specifying a single end, which, in a definition shared by all schools, is alone pursued for its own sake while everything else is pursued for the sake of it. Instinctively we have a hypotelis or ‘pre-end,’ a given tendency to be aware of ourselves as whole beings and to go for some overall aim. (See Arius Didymus, Eclogae II, 47, 12, and 18.) As we mature and become rationally self-aware, this becomes our telos or end, subject to deliberation and reflection. It is thus taken to be a deep empirical fact about human beings that they see all their ends as organized in the light of a single end for the sake of which all the other ends are pursued. Once I start to think about my life as a whole, there is no nearer stopping place. Only one ancient school downgrades the importance of this fact. The CYRENAICS see the agent’s final end as the maximization of intense experiences of pleasure, without regard to his life as a whole; but this theory did not find widespread acceptance.

Sarah Williams Holtman

final good The central concept in all ancient ethical theories. Here the entry point for ethical reflection is the agent’s coming to ask whether she is satisfied with the direction of her life as a whole, with the worth and coherence of her commitments. Reflection discloses that the agent pursues not just particular goods but an overall final good; philosophy enables her to understand better what this good is (e.g., PLEASURE or virtue) and how best to achieve it in her life by coherent and effective deliberation. The answers to all other ethical questions therefore depend on the answer to the question what the agent’s final good is.

The Organization of Goods In ancient ethics, it is assumed that all action of the kind ethics is concerned with is end directed, and that the end appears in some way good to the agent. This is never questioned, since the notion of good involved is extremely broad (the Stoics define it as what benefits the agent in some way). ‘Final end’ is therefore treated as interchangeable with ‘final good.’ The ends or goods the agent pursues are often said to be objects of DESIRE, where ‘desire’ has a suitably broad sense to match the broad sense of ‘good’ and covers moral motivation as well as particular self-interest. The ends we have, and thus the goods we seek, are not all on a level. We do some things for the sake of others; the things we want and the activities we engage in form hierarchies. ARISTOTLE (384–322 B.C.E.) in Nicomachean Ethics I sets out most clearly the way in which this point leads us to postulate a final good. If we merely pursued one thing for the sake of another ad infinitum, ‘desire would be empty and vain’; there must be some ends desired for their own sake to make possible desire for the other ends. This does not seem to establish that we have a single end to which all our other ends stand as means or specifications. Modern writers often supply a missing premise about rationality: It could not be rational to have several ends desired for their own

Content Such a single final good is one for which the agent is likely to have no informative specification. All agree that it is eudaimonia or HAPPINESS, but this settles little, since there is disagreement as to what, substantively, happiness is. Philosophers provide candidates for the content: pleasure (EPICURUS, 341–270 B.C.E.), virtue (the Stoics), virtuous activity with sufficient external goods (Aristotle and the Peripatetics), tranquility (Pyrrhonist skeptics).

Formal Conditions Any candidate for the final good must satisfy the formal conditions that emerge from intuitive reflection. All agree that the final good must be ‘complete,’ teleion. This actually involves two conditions, which we could call finality (the final good puts a stop to desire by being desired for its own sake) and comprehensiveness (it does so by including or being the aim of all other goods, which are desired for its

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