1 - Fiduciary Grounds and Reasons

Summary

This paper pursues two questions: what is it in the fiduciary relationship that grounds this transfer of legal power? And, given this grounds, what kind of reason (e.g. practical, moral or otherwise) does the fiduciary then have to act on behalf of the beneficiary? In response to the first, it argues that the principle modes of grounding the transfer of legal power — mutual consent and presumed consent — both involve trust. And in response to the second, it argues that this involvement of trust entails that a fiduciary’s reason for action is ultimately third personal.