We have discovered that moral character alone appears insufficient as a basis for trust in politics. Historically those political philosophers who have addressed this problem have seen a solution in the liberal idea of the state as a structure of rights and duties protecting citizens against potential harm at the hands of rulers who make hard decisions on their behalf. In other words, the focus shifts from the moral character of the officeholder to the nature of the office: We need to address then the question of how such a shift affects our understanding of trust and its moral basis.

The problem of trust arises explicitly in politics in connection with the need for action. Political conduct takes place in a context of rules that are incomplete and against a background of traditions that are open to reassessment. In this respect, it is a creative activity, calling on imagination and judgment for exploration and renewal. Machiavelli identifies its richest expression with the achievement of glory; mere wealth and power are disdained in the determination to assert republican virtues in the face of circumstance and history. Here character and community bear instructively upon each other. Machiavelli's political hero subjects trust to the requirements of political realism; it is given or withheld as the occasion demands.