What is it to trust someone? What is it for someone to be trustworthy? These are the two main questions that this paper addresses. There are various situations that can be described as ones of trust, but this paper considers the issue of trust between individuals. In it, I suggest that trust is distinct from reliance or cases where someone asks for something on the expectation that it will be done due to the different attitude taken by the trustor. I (...) argue that the trustor takes Holton’s ‘participant stance’ and this distinguishes trust from reliance. I argue that trustworthiness is different from reliability and that an account of trustworthiness cannot be successful whilst ignoring the point that aligning trustworthiness with reliability removes the virtue from being trustworthy. On the question of what it is distinguishes trustworthiness from reliability, I argue that the distinction is in the opportunity for the trustee to act against the wishes of the trustor and the trustee’s consideration of the value of the trust that has been placed in them by the trustor. (shrink)

Philosophers and social scientists have focussed a great deal of attention on our human capacity to trust, but relatively little on the capacity to hope. This is a significant oversight, as hope and trust are importantly interconnected. This paper argues that, even though trust can and does feed our hopes, it is our empowering capacity to hope that significantly underwrites—and makes rational—our capacity to trust.

We discuss the relationship between expertise, expert authority, and trust in the case of vaccine research and policy, with a particular focus on COVID-19 vaccines. We argue that expert authority is not merely an epistemic notion, but entails being trusted by the relevant public and is valuable if it is accompanied by expert trustworthiness. Trustworthiness requires, among other things, being transparent, acknowledging uncertainty and expert disagreement (e.g., around vaccines’ effectiveness and safety), being willing to revise views in response to new (...) evidence, and being clear about the values that underpin expert recommendations. We explore how failure to acknowledge expert disagreement and uncertainty can undermine trust in vaccination and public health experts, using expert recommendations around COVID-19 vaccines as a case study. (shrink)

This article offers a functionalist account of trust. It argues that a particular form of trust—Communicated Interpersonal Trust—is paradigmatic and lays out how trust as a social practice in this form helps to satisfy fundamental practical, deliberative, and relational human needs in mutually reinforcing ways. We then argue that derivative (non-paradigmatic) forms of trust connect to the paradigm by generating a positive dynamic between trustor and trustee that is geared towards the realization of these functions. We call this trust’s proleptic (...) potential. Our functionalist approach does not only provide important insights into the practice of trust and its place in the broader web of social life, but also illuminates existing philosophical debates. First, pointing out how opposing theoretical accounts of trust each capitalise on only one of its functions, our paradigm-based approach reveals why they each contain a kernel of truth but are also deficient: the optimal realization of each function is tied to the existence of the other functions as well. Second, we show how a functionalist re-orientation can illuminate two recent disputes regarding (i) the question whether trust is explanatorily two- or three-place and (ii) whether (and to what extent) we can decide to trust others. (shrink)

BackgroundAs the use of AI becomes more pervasive, and computerised systems are used in clinical decision-making, the role of trust in, and the trustworthiness of, AI tools will need to be addressed. Using the case of computational phenotyping to support the diagnosis of rare disease in dysmorphology, this paper explores under what conditions we could place trust in medical AI tools, which employ machine learning.MethodsSemi-structured qualitative interviews with stakeholders who design and/or work with computational phenotyping systems. The method of constant (...) comparison was used to analyse the interview data.ResultsInterviewees emphasized the importance of establishing trust in the use of CP technology in identifying rare diseases. Trust was formulated in two interrelated ways in these data. First, interviewees talked about the importance of using CP tools within the context of a trust relationship; arguing that patients will need to trust clinicians who use AI tools and that clinicians will need to trust AI developers, if they are to adopt this technology. Second, they described a need to establish trust in the technology itself, or in the knowledge it provides—epistemic trust. Interviewees suggested CP tools used for the diagnosis of rare diseases might be perceived as more trustworthy if the user is able to vouchsafe for the technology’s reliability and accuracy and the person using/developing them is trusted.ConclusionThis study suggests we need to take deliberate and meticulous steps to design reliable or confidence-worthy AI systems for use in healthcare. In addition, we need to devise reliable or confidence-worthy processes that would give rise to reliable systems; these could take the form of RCTs and/or systems of accountability transparency and responsibility that would signify the epistemic trustworthiness of these tools. words 294. (shrink)

Much of what we know we know through testimony, and knowing on the basis of testimony requires some degree of trust in speakers. Trust is therefore very valuable. But in trusting, we expose ourselves to risks of harm and betrayal. It is therefore important to trust well. In this paper, I discuss two recent cases of the betrayal of trust in (broadly) academic contexts: one involving hoax submissions to journals, the other faking an identity on social media. I consider whether (...) these betrayals suggest that we ought to be less trusting in contexts like these. I argue that we should not: the acquisition of knowledge is dependent on trust, and we cannot intentionally reduce the extent to which we trust in these kinds of contexts without risking destroying it utterly. Instead, we must trust in our epistemic networks and the way they work to filter out deception. (shrink)

Using research in social psychology, philosophers such as Gilbert Harman and John Doris argue that human beings do not have – and cannot acquire – character traits such as virtues. Along with defenders of virtue ethics such as Julia Annas and Rachana Kamtekar, they assume that this constitutes a dangerous attack on virtue ethics. I argue that even if virtues and vices did not exist and everyone accepted that truth, (1) we would continue to make attributions of character traits in (...) our ordinary practices and institutions and (2) it would still be useful to strategically harness – rather than suppress or ignore – our virtue (and vice) attributions. (shrink)

In this thesis I argue that epistemic trust in religious authorities is different from epistemic trust in other kinds of authorities because God disturbs the two-party relationship between trustee and truster. I reach this conclusion by first examining the nature of epistemic trust in authorities and how it is justifiable to practice this kind of trust. I then compare these findings to the nature of epistemic trust in religious authorities and see that the general justification for epistemic trust in authorities (...) is not sufficient, instead, God’s relationship with the trusting party, the layperson, needs to be taken into consideration in order to justify epistemic trust in religious authorities. (shrink)

Transparency is now a fundamental principle for data processing under the General Data Protection Regulation. We explore what this requirement entails for artificial intelligence and automated decision-making systems. We address the topic of transparency in artificial intelligence by integrating legal, social, and ethical aspects. We first investigate the ratio legis of the transparency requirement in the General Data Protection Regulation and its ethical underpinnings, showing its focus on the provision of information and explanation. We then discuss the pitfalls with respect (...) to this requirement by focusing on the significance of contextual and performative factors in the implementation of transparency. We show that human–computer interaction and human-robot interaction literature do not provide clear results with respect to the benefits of transparency for users of artificial intelligence technologies due to the impact of a wide range of contextual factors, including performative aspects. We conclude by integrating the information- and explanation-based approach to transparency with the critical contextual approach, proposing that transparency as required by the General Data Protection Regulation in itself may be insufficient to achieve the positive goals associated with transparency. Instead, we propose to understand transparency relationally, where information provision is conceptualized as communication between technology providers and users, and where assessments of trustworthiness based on contextual factors mediate the value of transparency communications. This relational concept of transparency points to future research directions for the study of transparency in artificial intelligence systems and should be taken into account in policymaking. (shrink)

In this article, we develop the concept of Transparency by Design that serves as practical guidance in helping promote the beneficial functions of transparency while mitigating its challenges in automated-decision making environments. With the rise of artificial intelligence and the ability of AI systems to make automated and self-learned decisions, a call for transparency of how such systems reach decisions has echoed within academic and policy circles. The term transparency, however, relates to multiple concepts, fulfills many functions, and holds different (...) promises that struggle to be realized in concrete applications. Indeed, the complexity of transparency for ADM shows tension between transparency as a normative ideal and its translation to practical application. To address this tension, we first conduct a review of transparency, analyzing its challenges and limitations concerning automated decision-making practices. We then look at the lessons learned from the development of Privacy by Design, as a basis for developing the Transparency by Design principles. Finally, we propose a set of nine principles to cover relevant contextual, technical, informational, and stakeholder-sensitive considerations. Transparency by Design is a model that helps organizations design transparent AI systems, by integrating these principles in a step-by-step manner and as an ex-ante value, not as an afterthought. (shrink)

Persuasive design draws on our basic psychological makeup to build products that make our engagement with them habitual. It uses variable rewards, creates Fear of Missing Out, and leverages social approval to incrementally increase and maintain user engagement. Social media and networking platforms, video games, and slot machines are all examples of persuasive technologies. Recent attention has focused on the dangers of PD: It can deceptively prod users into forming habits that help the company’s bottom line but not the user’s (...) wellbeing. But PD is not inherently immoral. We can take advantage of our psychological biases to make beneficial changes in ways that enhance our agency rather than limit it. Knowing that a tool is persuasively designed is a consideration in favor of using it when we are trying to break bad habits, such as smoking. How are we to conceptually distinguish between ethical and unethical uses of PD? In this paper, I argue that unethical uses of PD betray or erode our trust. Annette Baier offers a moral test for trust: If gaining knowledge about what other parties do with our trust in them would lead us to stop trusting, then that trusting relationship is immoral. I apply this test to the case of PD. Using trust as a litmus test for ferreting out unethical PD has several advantages, one of which is that it reveals how the harm of unethical PD extends beyond the individual to her wider social network. I close the paper by investigating these cascading effects. (shrink)

The role that trust plays in blockchain-based systems is understood and portrayed in various manners. The blockchain technology is said to enable and establish trust as well as to redirect it, to substitute for it, and to make it obsolete. Furthermore, there is disagreement on whom or what users have to trust when using the blockchain technology: code, math, algorithms, and machines, or still human actors. This paper hypothesizes that the divergences of the depictions largely rest on implicitly adhering to (...) different accounts of trust. Thus, the goal of this paper is to outline how the current lack of a shared understanding of the term “trust” leads to diverging interpretations of the blockchain technology’s core features. Furthermore, it shows how this lack of common understanding obstructs scholars from referring to one another meaningfully in the discourse on blockchain technology. To do so, this paper outlines the most prominent depictions of the setup of relevant trust relationships within blockchain-based systems and traces their roots to different underlying assumptions on the nature of trust. (shrink)

When it comes to using patient data from the National Health Service for research, we are often told that it is a matter of trust: we need to trust, we need to build trust, we need to restore trust. Various policy papers and reports articulate and develop these ideas and make very important contributions to public dialogue on the trustworthiness of our research institutions. But these documents and policies are apparently constructed with little sustained reflection on the nature of trust (...) and trustworthiness, and therefore are missing important features that matter for how we manage concerns related to trust. We suggest that what we mean by ‘trust’ and ‘trustworthiness’ matters and should affect the policies and guidance that govern data sharing in the NHS. We offer a number of initial, general reflections on the way in which some of these features might affect our approach to principles, policies and strategies that are related to sharing patient data for research. This paper is the outcome of a ‘public ethics’ coproduction activity which involved members of the public and two academic ethicists. Our task was to consider collectively the accounts of trust developed by philosophers as they applied in the context of the NHS and to coproduce an argumentative position relevant to this context. (shrink)

In most testimonial transactions between adults, the hearer’s obligation is to accord the speaker a level of credibility that matches the evidence that what she is saying is true. When the speaker...

One of the first things that comes to mind when we think of the special issue’s theme, “Trust in a Social and Digital World” is the epidemic of ‘fake news’ and a cluster of trust- relevant vices we commonly associate with those who share it, click on it, and believe it. Fake news consumers are, among other things, gullible and naïve. Many are also dogmatic: intellectually and/or emotionally tied to a view point, and as a result, too quick to uncritically (...) trust whatever aligns with it. Gullibility, naivety, and dogmatism are all examples of vices that lead to us trust when we shouldn’t. The effects of these kinds of vices can be dangerous. Our aim here, however, is to explore the other side of the coin: those character vices that lead us to refrain from trusting when we should trust. For ease of reference, call these vices of distrust. Vices of distrust are dangerous in their own right, and in ways that often harm others along with oneself. The three vices of distrust we want explore—with a particular focus on their manifestations online—are: closemindedness, emulousness, and arrogance. Each contributes to vicious distrust in its own distinctive way. (shrink)

Bruno Latour is not the only scholar to reflect on his earlier contributions to science studies with some regret and resolve over climate skepticism and science denialism. Given the ascendency of merchants of doubt, should those who share Latour's concerns join the scientists they study in circling the wagons, or is there a productive role still for science studies to question and critique scientists and scientific institutions? I argue for the latter, looking to postpositivist feminist philosophy as exemplified by Alison (...) Wylie and Lynn Nelson, among others, as a guide. Feminist philosophers of science who ground their analysis in a detailed understanding of scientific practice are not science's champions nor its antagonists, but they do stand in a distinct relationship to science. If not merchants of doubt, are they scientific gadflies or perhaps in scientific loyal opposition? Though these notions can underwrite useful approaches to science studies, neither captures the distinctive interdependency and interestedness of feminist philosophers and science. I suggest that we would be better served by the notion of trustworthy science criticism, building on the analyses of trust and trustworthiness by Annette Baier, among others, attendant to the dynamics of interdependency in trust relationships. (shrink)

I challenge the common view that trust is characteristically risky compared to distrust by drawing attention to the moral and epistemic risks of distrust. Distrust that is based in real fear yet fails to target ill will, lack of integrity, or incompetence, serves to marginalize and exclude individuals who have done nothing that would justify their marginalization or exclusion. I begin with a characterization of the suite of behaviors characteristic of trust and distrust. I then survey the epistemic and moral (...) hazards of distrust, in particular, distrust’s propensity to bias interpretation, to perpetuate itself, to confirm itself, to dishonor, and to insult. Taking seriously these moral and epistemic hazards requires taking affirmative measures to respond to them. I elaborate one such response: “humble trust”. The practice of humble trust issues from skepticism about the warrant of one’s own felt attitudes of trust and distrust, curiosity about who might be unexpectedly responsive to trust and in which contexts, and commitment to abjure and to avoid distrust of the trustworthy. Humble trust enables individuals to trust that they will be trusted. (shrink)

Much of the literature concerning epistemic injustice has focused on the variety of harms done to socially marginalized persons in their capacities as potentialcontributorsto knowledge projects. However, in order to understand the full implications of the social nature of knowing, we must confront the circulation of knowledge and the capacity of epistemic agents to take up knowledge produced by others and make use of it. I argue that members of socially marginalized lay communities can sufferepistemic trust injusticeswhen potentially powerful forms (...) of knowing such as scientific understandings are generated in isolation from them, and when the social conditions required for aresponsibly-placed trustto be formed relative to the relevant epistemic institutions fail to transpire. (shrink)

According to an influential objection, which Martha Nussbaum has powerfully restated, expressing anger in democratic public discourse is counterproductive from the standpoint of justice. To resist this challenge, this article articulates a crucial yet underappreciated sense in which angry discourse is epistemically productive. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, which emphasize the distinctive phenomenology of emotion, I argue that conveying anger to one’s listeners is epistemically valuable in two respects: first, it can direct listeners’ attention to elusive (...) morally relevant features of the situation; second, it enables them to register injustices that their existing evaluative categories are not yet suited to capturing. Thus, when employed skillfully, angry speech promotes a greater understanding of existing injustices. This epistemic role is indispensable in highly divided societies, where the injustices endured by some groups are often invisible to, or misunderstood by, other... (shrink)

What kind of mental state is trust? It seems to have features that can lead one to think that it is a doxastic state but also features that can lead one to think that it is a non-doxastic state. This has even lead some philosophers to think that trust is a unique mental state that has both mind-to-world and world-to-mind direction of fit, or to give up on the idea that there is a univocal analysis of trust to be had. (...) Here, I propose that ‘trust’ is the name we give to mental states that we would think of as beliefs if belief was to be thought of in ‘pragmatist’ terms and belief resists ‘pragmatist’ treatment. Only such an account, I argue, can univocally account for all the diverse features of trust. As such, I also propose that the explanation of trust provides us with a case for understanding the limitations of a comprehensively ‘pragmatist’, or ‘Neo-Wittgensteinian’ conception of the mental. (shrink)

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s Nudge advances a theory of how designers can improve decision-making in various situations where people have to make choices. We claim that the moral acceptability of nudges hinges in part on whether they can provide an account of the competence required to offer nudges, an account that would serve to warrant our general trust in choice architects. What needs to be considered, on a methodological level, is whether they have clarified the competence required for choice (...) architects to prompt subtly our behaviour toward making choices that are in our best interest from our own perspectives. We argue that, among other features, an account of the competence required to offer nudges would have to clarify why it is reasonable to expect that choice architects can understand the constraints imposed by semantic variance. Semantic variance refers to the diverse perceptions of meaning, tied to differences in identity and context, that influence how users interpret nudges. We conclude by suggesting that choice architects can grasp semantic variance if Thaler and Sunstein’s approach to design is compatible with insights about meaning expressed in science and technology studies and the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

In this dissertation I defend five claims about trust: 1) trusting and trustworthiness are conceptually but not causally connected; 2) trust is risky; 3) trust requires good will; 4) trust is a two-part relation; and 5) trust is an interpretative framework. A concern for trust often appears in discussions about testimony and the expectation of truthfulness; Bentley Glass, John Hardwig, and Jonathan Adler each address the role of trust in science while assuming a necessary connection between trusting and trustworthiness. I (...) argue that this conception is untenable because a justification for one fails to suffice as a justification of the other. I show, instead, that it is our assessment that links trustworthiness to trusting. My second claim, that trust involves risk, is contentious. I argue that the common understanding of risk as harm, which is held by Russell Hardin, contains the more technical understanding of risk as uncertainty, which is suggested by Niklas Luhman. Trust is risky precisely because it is inherently uncertain. Annette Baier argues that failing to recognize a distinction between trusting and action associated with that trust leads us to accept accounts of trust that are too broad. I argue that trust is to believe that another is concerned with your well-being, has good will, because she is concerned about you and not that it will necessarily benefit her in some way. Seeing trust as good will allows me to advance my fourth claim, that trust is a two-part relation, because trust is the assessment of another's good will towards me. Trusting another is believing that the other's good judgment will include concern and consideration for my interests because they are my interests. My fifth point follows naturally once trust is understood to be a risky, two-part relation requiring good will: it is an interpretive framework. Our trust in another sets the tone for understanding her behavior such that we take her actions as either supporting or blocking our interests. This account takes the capacity to trust to be the foundation for, rather than merely an outgrowth of, our judgments. (shrink)

I provide an account of the cognitive attitude of trust that explains the role trust plays in the planning of rational agents. Many authors have dismissed choosing to trust as either impossible or irrational; however, this fails to account for the role of trust in practical reasoning. A can have therapeutic, coping, or corrective reasons to trust B to ${\phi}$ , even in the absence of evidence that B will ${\phi}$ . One can choose to engage in therapeutic trust to (...) inspire trustworthiness, coping trust to simplify one’s planning, or corrective trust to avoid doing a testimonial injustice. To accommodate such types of trust, without accepting doxastic voluntarism, requires an account of the cognitive attitude of trust broader than belief alone. I argue that trust involves taking the proposition that someone will do something as a premise in one’s practical reasoning, which can be a matter of believing or accepting the proposition. I defend this account against objections that it (i) provides insufficient rational constraints on trust, (ii) conflates trust and pretense of trust, and (iii) cannot account for the rationality of back-up planning. (shrink)

In Sweden, most patients are recruited into biobank research by non-researcher doctors. Patients' trust in doctors may therefore be important to their willingness to participate. We suggest a model of trust that makes sense of such transitions of trust between domains and distinguishes adequate trust from mistaken trust. The unique position of doctors implies, we argue, a Kantian imperfect duty to compensate for patients' mistaken trust. There are at least three kinds of mistaken trust, each of which requires a different (...) set of countermeasures. First, trust is mistaken when necessary competence is lacking; the competence must be developed or the illusion dispelled. Second, trust is irrational whenever the patient is mistaken about his actual reasons for trusting. Care must therefore be taken to support the patient's reasoning and moral agency. Third, some patients inappropriately trust doctors to recommend only research that will benefit them directly. Such trust should be counteracted by nurturing a culture where patients expect to be asked occasionally to contribute to the common good. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to apply the general idea of contextualism, as a theory of knowledge attribution, to the very specific case of testimony and trust characterized as being the procedure of the attribution of knowledge (and sincerity) to the informant. In the first part, I argue in favor of evidentialism, a viewpoint that takes epistemically responsible trust as a matter of evidence. In the second part, I consider the question of how strong an evidential basis has to (...) be for epistemically responsible trust. I have briefly registered two main tendencies in contemporary debates regarding trust and testimony: (i) the non-unitary character of our trust; (ii) and the requirement for a refinement of evidential standards. In short, I argue in favor of the stance that any ‘undiscriminatory generalization’ (both Redian or anti-reductivist and Humean or reductivist) concerning epistemically responsible trust is a kind of inappropriate theoretical idealization, and that a certain theoretical reconciliation has to be offered. Finally, in the third part, I propose trust-contextualism as the viewpoint that optimally harmonizes both our intuitive and theoretical requirements about epistemically responsible trust. (shrink)

Trust is a kind of risky reliance on another person. Social scientists have offered two basic accounts of trust: predictive expectation accounts and staking (betting) accounts. Predictive expectation accounts identify trust with a judgment that performance is likely. Staking accounts identify trust with a judgment that reliance on the person’s performance is worthwhile. I argue (1) that these two views of trust are different, (2) that the staking account is preferable to the predictive expectation account on grounds of intuitive adequacy (...) and coherence with plausible explanations of action; and (3) that there are counterexamples to both accounts. I then set forward an additional necessary condition on trust, according to which trust implies a moral expectation. The content of the moral expectation is this: W hen A trusts B to do x, A ascribes an obligation to B to do x, and holds B to this obligation. This moral expectation account throws new light on some of the consequences of misplaced trust. I use the example of physicians’ defensive behavior to illustrate this final point. (shrink)

Despite the amount of public investment in nanotechnology ventures in the developed world, research shows that there is little public awareness about nanotechnology, and public knowledge is very limited. This is concerning given that nanotechnology has been heralded as ‘revolutionising’ the way we live. In this paper, we articulate why public engagement in debates about nanotechnology is important, drawing on literature on public engagement and science policy debate and deliberation about public policy development. We also explore the significance of timing (...) in engaging the public, and we make some suggestions concerning how to effectively engage publics. Our conclusions indicate the significance of scientific researchers, policy makers and representative consumer groupings in public reasoning towards a better public policy framework for debate about technological development. (shrink)

How can you give your interlocutor a reason to act? One way is by manipulating his deliberative context through threats, flattery, or other incentives. Another is by addressing him in the way distinctive of reasoning with him. I aim to account for the possibility of this non-manipulative form of address by showing how it is realized through the performance of a specific illocutionary act, that of advising as inviting to trust. I argue that exercise of a capacity for reasonable trust (...) can give us reasons that are not grounded in our motivational susceptibilities. Here I echo Kant on moral motivation. But this rational faculty assesses not principles but persons. Here I echo Hume on the moral virtues. We can thus agree with Kant about the motivational efficacy of practical reasons dispensed through advice but agree with Hume about the form of intelligence needed to put ourselves in touch with them. (shrink)

Plagiarism is the misuse of and failure to acknowledge source materials. This paper questions common responses to the apparent increase in plagiarism by students. Internet plagiarism occurs in a context – using the Internet as an information tool – where the relevant norms are far from obvious and models of virtue are difficult to identify and perhaps impossible to find. Ethical responses to the pervasiveness of Internet-enhanced plagiarism require a reorientation of perspective on both plagiarism and the Internet as a (...) knowledge tool. Technological strategies to “catch the cheats” send a “don’t get caught” message to students and direct the limited resources of academic institutions to a battle that cannot be won. More importantly, it is not the right battleground. Rather than characterising Internet-enabled plagiarism as a problem generated and solvable by emerging technologies, we argue that there is a more urgent need to build the background conditions that enable and sustain ethical relationships and academic virtues: to nurture an intellectual community. (shrink)

abstract Trusting agents characteristically anticipate beneficial outcomes, under conditions of uncertainty, in their engagement with others. However, debates about trust incorporate different interpretations of risk, uncertainty, calculation, affect, morality and motivation in explaining when trust is appropriate and how it operates. This article argues that discussions about trust have produced a concept without coherent boundaries and with little operational value. Two paradigms are identified, which distinguish the characteristics of trust and confidence. It is argued that a reliance on confidence in (...) human affairs makes trust redundant and that this has undesirable moral consequences. Discussion is illustrated by the UK Government's ‘modernisation’ policy in health and social care, which privileges confidence in systems over trust in moral agents. (shrink)

This paper examines developing trust in two related senses: (1) rationally overcoming distrust, and (2) developing a mature capacity for trusting/distrusting. In focussing exclusively on the first problem, traditional philosophical discussions fail to address how an evidence- based paradigm of rationality is easily co-opted by (immature) agents in support of irrational distrust (or trust) - a manifestation of the second problem. Well-regulated trust requires developing a capacity to tolerate the uncertainties that chracterise relationships among fully autonomous self-directed agents. Early relationships (...) lack this uncertainty since care-givers take primary responsibility for determining a child's interests, reducing the scope (if not the intensity) of potential conflict between self and other. Once agents recognize that adulthood demands foregoing the security embedded in such relationships of dependency, they are free to embrace a more appropriate paradigm of rationality for guiding their thought and action in interactions with others. (shrink)

A key debate in the epistemology of testimony concerns when it is reasonable to acquire belief through accepting what a speaker says. This debate has been largely understood as the debate over how much, or little, assessment and monitoring an audience must engage in. When it is understood in this way the debate simply ignores the relationship speaker and audience can have. Interlocutors rarely adopt the detached approach to communication implied by talk of assessment and monitoring. Audiences trust speakers to (...) be truthful and demonstrate certain reactive attitudes if they are not. Trust and the accompanying willingness to these reactive attitudes can then provide speakers with a reason to be trustworthy. So through ignoring interlocutors' engagement with the communicative process, the existing debate misses the possibility that it is an audience's trusting a speaker that makes it reasonable for the audience to accept what the speaker says. (shrink)

Much has been written about the need for trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI), but the underlying meaning of trust and trustworthiness can vary or be used in confusing ways. It is not always clear whether individuals are speaking of a technology’s trustworthiness, a developer’s trustworthiness, or simply of gaining the trust of users by any means. In sociotechnical circles, trustworthiness is often used as a proxy for ‘the good’, illustrating the moral heights to which technologies and developers ought to aspire, at (...) times with a multitude of diverse requirements; or at other times, no specification at all. In philosophical circles, there is doubt that the concept of trust should be applied at all to technologies rather than their human creators. Nevertheless, people continue to intuitively reason about trust in technologies in their everyday language. This qualitative study employed an empirical ethics methodology to address how developers and users define and construct requirements for trust throughout development and use, through a series of interviews. We found that different accounts of trust (rational, affective, credentialist, norms based, relational) served as the basis for individual granting of trust in technologies and operators. Ultimately, the most significant requirement for user trust and assessment of trustworthiness was the accountability of AI developers for the outputs of AI systems, hinging on the identification of accountable moral agents and perceived value alignment between the user and developer’s interests. (shrink)

Background Trust is an essential phenomenon of relationship between patients and healthcare professionals and can be described as an accepted vulnerability to the power of another person over something that one cares about in virtue of goodwill toward the trustor. This characterization of interpersonal trust appears to be adequate for patients suffering from chronic illness. Trust is especially important in the context of chronic cardiovascular diseases as one of the main global health problems. Research Aim The purpose of the qualitative (...) study was to gain a deeper understanding of how people with chronic cardiovascular disease experience and make sense of trust in healthcare professionals. Research Design Eleven semi-structured interviews with participants analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore in detail their lived experience of trust as a relational phenomenon. Participants and Research Context Participants with chronic cardiovascular disease were purposively recruited from inpatients on the cardiology ward of the university hospital located in central Slovakia. Ethical Considerations The study was approved by the faculty ethics committee. Participants gave their written informed consent. Findings Four Interrelated Group Experiential Themes Sense of co-existence; Belief in competence; Will to help; Ontological security with eight subthemes were identified. The findings describe the participants' experience with trust in healthcare professionals as a phenomenon of close co-existence, which is rooted in the participants’ vulnerability and dependence on the goodwill and competence of health professionals to help with the consequence of (re)establishing a sense of ontological security in the situation of chronic illness. Conclusion Findings will contribute to an in-depth understanding of trust as an existential dimension of human co-existence and an ethical requirement of healthcare practice, inspire patient empowerment interventions, support adherence to treatment, and person-centred care. (shrink)

Should we be worried that the concept of trust is increasingly used when we assess non-human agents and artefacts, say robots and AI systems? Whilst some authors have developed explanations of the concept of trust with a view to accounting for trust in AI systems and other non-agents, others have rejected the idea that we should extend trust in this way. The article advances this debate by bringing insights from conceptual engineering to bear on this issue. After setting up a (...) target concept of trust in terms of four functional desiderata (trust-reliance distinction, explanatory strength, tracking affective responses, and accounting for distrust), I analyze how agential vs. non-agential accounts can satisfy these. A final section investigates how ‘non-ideal’ circumstances—that is, circumstances where the manifest and operative concept use diverge amongst concept users—affect our choice about which rendering of trust is to be preferred. I suggest that some prominent arguments against extending the language of trust to non-agents are not decisive and reflect on an important oversight in the current debate, namely a failure to address how narrower, agent-centred accounts curtail our ability to distrust non-agents. (shrink)

Sometimes we disagree because of fundamental differences in what we treat as reasons for belief. Such are ‘deep disagreements'. Amongst the questions we might ask about deep disagreement is the epistemic normative one: how ought one to respond to disagreement, when that disagreement is deep. This paper addresses that question. According to the position developed, how one ought to respond to deep disagreement depends upon two things: (i) Whether one remains, in the context of disagreement, permitted to trust oneself in (...) following one's epistemic norms and in relation to that (ii) whether one has the shared stock of social-epistemic experiences with followers of one's rival's norms such that one could reasonably be expected to see their way of doing things as a genuine epistemic alternative to one's own. Section 1 introduces a model of deep disagreement such that deep disagreements occur when disputants disagree because they follow different epistemic norms. Section 2 surveys the possible theoretical stances to take towards the epistemic-normative question. Section 3 develops an account of what it is to follow an epistemic norm. Section 4 applies this conception of norm-following to the epistemic-normative question. Section 5 discusses two points of clarification. (shrink)

In the current philosophical literature on trustworthiness, two claims are very widely accepted, first that trustworthiness is a kind of reliability and secondly, that trustworthiness is not a virtue. Both claims are made, for instance, in Hawley's recent highly influential account of trustworthiness. I argue that both are mistaken. I develop and defend a new account of trustworthiness as responsibility, contrasting it with reliability and obligation accounts of trustworthiness. I argue that trustworthiness as responsibility is very plausibly a kind of (...) moral virtue. (shrink)

This paper argues that the widespread belief that interactions between blockchains and their users are trust-free is inaccurate and misleading, since this belief not only overlooks the vital role played by trust in the lack of knowledge and control but also conceals the moral and normative relevance of relying on blockchain applications. The paper reaches this argument by providing a close philosophical examination of the concept referred to as trust in blockchain technology, clarifying the trustor group, the structure, and the (...) normatively loaded nature of this trust relation. The paper ends by critically reflecting on two of the most promising values (decentralization and transparency) that can invite users’ trust in blockchain technology, arguing that there is a tension between the pressing values that are intended to be achieved by developers and the predicament situations caused by current blockchain implementations. (shrink)

This paper develops and defends a new account of therapeutic trust, its nature and its constitutive norms. Central to the view advanced is a distinction between two kinds of therapeutic trust – default therapeutic trust and overriding therapeutic trust – each which derives from a distinct kind of trusting competence. The new view is shown to have advantages over extant accounts of therapeutic trust, and its relation to standard (non-therapeutic) trust, as defended by Hieronymi, Frost-Arnold, and Jones.

This paper proposes freedom as the condition of possibility for the construction of trust in human relationships. The methodology used is a review of the scientific literature of the most recent moral and political philosophy. As a result of the dialogue between different positions, it is discovered that freedom, despite being present in the act of trust, is forgotten in the discussion around trust, a forgetfulness that has as its main causes the assumption that trust is natural and the confusion (...) between the propensity to trust and the act of trusting. All this leads to proposing an approach of the act of trusting that starts from the freedom of the trustee and the trustor. (shrink)

Information is clearly vital to public health, but the acquisition and use of public health data elicit serious privacy concerns. One strategy for navigating this dilemma is to build 'trust' in institutions responsible for health information, thereby reducing privacy concerns and increasing willingness to contribute personal data. This strategy, as currently presented in public health literature, has serious shortcomings. But it can be augmented by appealing to the philosophical analysis of the concept of trust. Philosophers distinguish trust and trustworthiness from (...) cognate attitudes, such as confident reliance. Central to this is value congruence: trust is grounded in the perception of shared values. So, the way to build trust in institutions responsible for health data is for those institutions to develop and display values shared by the public. We defend this approach from objections, such as that trust is an interpersonal attitude inappropriate to the way people relate to organisations. The paper then moves on to the practical application of our strategy. Trust and trustworthiness can reduce privacy concerns and increase willingness to share health data, notably, in the context of internal and external threats to data privacy. We end by appealing for the sort of empirical work our proposal requires. (shrink)

Is moral responsibility compatible with determinism? Peter Strawson’s first answer is: I do not know what the thesis of determinism is. His second answer seems to be: Yes, it is, and we can see this by looking to relevant pockets of our ordinary practices and attitudes, especially our responses (resentment, anger, love, forgiveness) to quality of will. His second answer has shaped subsequent discussions of moral responsibility. But what exactly is Strawson’s compatibilism? And is it a plausible view? By attending (...) to Strawson’s account of parenting and the development of moral agents from children to adults, I’ll clarify and defend the following account: For Strawson, the appropriateness conditions for holding responsible change by degrees, over time, based on an agent’s susceptibility to empathy and quality of will, and this shows us that determinism is irrelevant to responsibility. (shrink)

Autonomous vehicles, and the larger socio-technical systems that they are a part of are likely to have a deep and lasting impact on our societies. Trust is a key value that will play a role in the development of autonomous driving systems. This paper suggests that trust of autonomous driving systems will impact the ways that these systems are taken up, the norms and laws that guide them and the design of the systems themselves. Further to this, in order to (...) have autonomous driving systems that are worthy of our trust, we need a superstructure of oversight and a process that designs trust into these systems from the outset. Rather than banning or avoiding all autonomous vehicles should a tragedy occur, despite these systems having some level of risk, we want resilient systems that can survive tragedies, and indeed, improve from them. I will argue that trust plays a role in developing these resilient systems. (shrink)

This article examines questions of trust in cinema through the lens of Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010). With its self-referential allusion to the mechanical “eye” of a camera, a stage-managed fantasy embedded within its plot and image of a dark lighthouse, Shutter Island explores its spectators' and its own cinematic sense of suspicion. The plot revolves around a protagonist who has locked himself out of certain memories and into a fantasy world. The article links pathological and therapeutic aspects of trust (...) with interpersonal and institutional trust issues in ways that blur distinctions between trusting others and trusting oneself, and shows how reliant each is on the other. Construing trust as a type of participant attitude and highlighting techniques used to render it cinematically, the article tracks its emergence and erosion, both in terms of the diegesis and its bearing on film spectatorship. As a post-classical commentary on film-making, Shutter Island is viewed as intricately exemplifying what Robert Sinnerbrink (2016) describes as an action-driven film with “a highly reflective consciousness of cinematic spectatorship” (p. 70), as well as what Thomas Elsaesser (2009) describes as a “mind-game film”. To make sense of its ending, which may strike viewers as baffling and unnerving, and show how the protagonist's seemingly irrational decision is part of its film-philosophical point, traumatic disturbances in subjectivity and “monstrosities” depicted in the film are linked to Jean Epstein's notion of “something monstrous” in cinematic imagery. The protagonist's deliberately chosen fate is interpreted as a reparative gesture, expressing a desire for psychological healing and a way of helping him to marshal and recover a semblance of moral order and integrity under demoralizing circumstances. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by the need to respond to the spread of influential misinformation and manufactured ignorance, which places pressure on the work of experts in various sectors. To meet this need, the paper discusses the conditions required for expert testimony to evolve a reconceptualisation of negative capability as a new form of epistemic humility. In this regard, professional knowledge formation is not considered to be separate from the institutional and social processes and values that uphold its production. Drawing (...) attention to the structural and relational aspects of ignorance, as opposed to the individualistic and internal aspects, we rely on the sociology of knowledge, the social epistemologies and the feminist epistemologies that have played a fundamental role in the development of the investigation of ignorance. First, we analyse the criteria for epistemic humility based on prior theoretical discussions concerning negative knowledge as a form of reflective practice. Then, we seek to determine what kinds of strategies, virtues and skills experts need to have so as to ‘manage ignorance’ in socially complex situations. Finally, we suggest the reformulation of negative expertise as a phronetic skill for navigating through situations of ignorance and uncertainty in an epistemically and socially responsible manner. (shrink)

My claim in this article is that, contra what I take to be the orthodoxy in the wider literature, we do trust inanimate objects – per the example in the title, there are cases where people really do trust a ladder (to hold their weight, for instance), and, perhaps most importantly, that this poses a challenge to that orthodoxy. My argument consists of four parts. In Section 2 I introduce an alleged distinction between trust as mere reliance and trust as (...) a rich, morally loaded notion. In the course of doing so, I briefly sketch some models of trust. This will help us to get a handle on how some of the mainstream models of trust preclude or ignore the trusting of inanimate objects. In Section 3 I introduce cases designed to show that we have reason to think that we do trust inanimate objects. In Section 4 I consider an objection, and in Section 5 I discuss some consequences of this finding, before concluding in Section 6. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the role of affective feedback loops in creating and sustaining trust and distrust. Some emotions, such as fear and contempt, drive out trust; others, such as esteem and empathy, drive out distrust. The mechanism here is causal, but not merely causal: affective looping works through changing how the agent interprets the words, deeds, and motives of the other, thus making trust or distrust appear justified. Looping influences not only dyadic trust, but also climates, and networks (...) of trust and distrust. Not all trust-entrenching looping is virtuous, nor all distrust-entrenching looping vicious, but distrust looping is a powerful way to justify xenophobic public policy. I explore options for remedy. (shrink)