## 1. The Nature of Trust and Trustworthiness



Trust is an attitude we have towards people whom we hope will be
trustworthy, where trustworthiness is a property not an attitude.
Trust and trustworthiness are therefore distinct although, ideally,
those whom we trust will be trustworthy, and those who are trustworthy
will be trusted. For trust to be plausible in a relationship, the
parties to the relationship must have attitudes toward one another
that permit trust. Moreover, for trust to be well-grounded, both
parties must be trustworthy. (Note that here and throughout, unless
specified otherwise, "trustworthiness" is understood in a
thin sense according to which *X* is trustworthy for me just in
case I can trust *X*.)



Trusting requires that we can, (1) be vulnerable to
others--vulnerable to betrayal in particular; (2) rely on others
to be competent to do what we wish to trust them to do; and (3) rely
on them to be willing to do
 it.[2]
 Notice that the second two conditions refer to a connection between
trust and reliance. For most philosophers, trust is a kind of reliance
although it is not *mere* reliance (Goldberg 2020). Rather,
trust involves reliance "plus some extra factor" (Hawley
2014: 5). Controversy surrounds this extra factor, which generally
concerns why the trustor (i.e., the one trusting) would rely on the
trustee to be willing to do what they are trusted to do.



Trustworthiness is likewise a kind of reliability, although it's
not obvious what kind. Clear conditions for trustworthiness are that
the trustworthy person is competent and willing to do what they are
trusted to do. Yet this person may also have to be willing for certain
reasons or as a result of having a certain kind of motive for acting
(e.g., they care about the trustor).



This section explains these various conditions for trust and
trustworthiness and highlights the controversy that surrounds the
condition about motive and relatedly how trust differs from mere
reliance. Included at the end is some discussion about the nature of
distrust.



Let me begin with the idea that the trustor must accept some level of
vulnerability or risk (Becker 1996; Baier 1986). Minimally, what this
person risks, or is vulnerable to, is the failure by the trustee to do
what the trustor is depending on them to do. The trustor might try to
reduce this risk by monitoring or imposing certain constraints on the
behavior of the trustee; but after a certain threshold perhaps, the
more monitoring and constraining they do, the less they trust this
person. Trust is relevant "before one can monitor the actions of
... others" (Dasgupta 1988: 51) or when out of respect for
others one refuses to monitor them. One must be content with them
having some discretionary power or freedom, and as a result, with
being somewhat vulnerable to them (Baier 1986; Dasgupta 1988).



One might think that if one is relying while trusting--that is,
if trust is a species of reliance--then accepted vulnerability
would not be essential for trust. Do we not rely on things only when
we believe they will actually happen? And if we believe that, then we
don't perceive ourselves as being vulnerable. Many philosophers
writing on trust and reliance say otherwise. They endorse the view of
Richard Holton, who writes, "When I rely on something happening
... I [only] need to plan on it happening; I need to work around
the supposition that it will [happen]" (Holton 1994: 3). I need
not be certain of it happening and I could even have doubts that it
will happen (Goldberg 2020). I could therefore accept that I am
vulnerable. I could do that while trusting if trust is a form of
reliance.



What does trusting make us vulnerable to, in particular? Annette Baier
writes that "trusting can be betrayed, or at least let down, and
not just disappointed" (1986: 235). In her view, disappointment
is the appropriate response when one merely relied on someone to do
something but did not trust them to do it. To elaborate, although
people who monitor and constrain others' behavior may rely on
them, they do not trust them if their reliance can only be
disappointed rather than betrayed. One can rely on inanimate objects,
such as alarm clocks, but when they break, one is not betrayed though
one might be disappointed. This point reveals that reliance without
the possibility of betrayal (or at least "let down") is
not trust; people who rely on one another in a way that makes this
reaction impossible do not trust one another.



But does trust always involve the potential for betrayal?
"Therapeutic trust" may be an exception (Nickel 2007: 318;
and for further exceptions, see, e.g., Hinchman 2017). To illustrate
this type of trust, consider parents who



> 
> 
> trust their teenagers with the house or the family car, believing that
> their [children] may well abuse their trust, but hoping by such trust
> to elicit, in the fullness of time, more responsible and responsive
> trustworthy behaviour. (McGeer 2008: 241, her emphasis; see also
> Horsburgh 1960 and Pettit 1995)
> 
> 
> 



Therapeutic trust is not likely to be betrayed rather than merely be
disappointed. It is unusual in this respect (arguably) and in other
respects that will become evident later on in this entry. The rest of
this section deals with usual rather than unusual forms of trust and
trustworthiness.



Without relying on people to display some competence, we also
can't trust them. We usually trust people to do certain things,
such as look after our children, give us advice, or be honest with us,
which we wouldn't do that if we thought they lacked the relevant
skills, including potentially moral skills of knowing what it means to
be honest or caring (Jones 1996: 7). Rarely do we trust people
completely (i.e., *A* simply trusts *B*). Instead,
"trust is generally a three-part relation: *A* trusts
*B* to do *X*" (Hardin 2002: 9)--or
"*A* trusts *B* with valued item *C*"
(Baier 1986) or *A* trusts *B* in domain *D*
(D'Cruz 2019; Jones
 2019).[3]
 To have trust in a relationship, we do not need to assume that the
other person will be competent in every way. Optimism about the
person's competence in at least one area is essential,
however.



When we trust people, we rely on them not only to be competent to do
what we trust them to do, but also to be willing or motivated to do
it. We could talk about this matter either in terms of what the
trustor expects of the trustee or in terms of what the trustee
possesses: that is, as a condition for trust or for trustworthiness
(and the same is true, of course, of the competence condition). For
simplicity's sake and to focus some of this section on
trustworthiness rather than trust, the following refers to the
motivation of the trustee mostly as a condition for
trustworthiness.



Although both the competence and motivational elements of
trustworthiness are crucial, the exact nature of the latter is
unclear. For some philosophers, it matters only that the trustee is
motivated, where the central problem of trustworthiness in their view
concerns the probability that this motivation will exist or endure
(see, e.g., Hardin 2002: 28; Gambetta 1988b). Jones calls these
"risk-assessment views" about trust (1999: 68). According
to them, we trust people whenever we perceive that the risk of relying
on them to act a certain way is low and so we rely on (i.e.,
"trust") them. They are trustworthy if they are willing,
for whatever reason, to do what they are trusted to do.
Risk-assessment theories make no attempt to distinguish between trust
and mere reliance and have been criticized for this reason (see, e.g.,
Jones 1999).



By contrast, other philosophers say that just being motivated to act
in the relevant way is not sufficient for trustworthiness; according
to them, the nature of the motivation matters, not just its existence
or duration. It matters in particular, they say, for explaining the
trust-reliance distinction, which is something they aim to do. The
central problem of trustworthiness for them is not simply whether but
also how the trustee is motivated to act. Will that person have the
kind of motivation that makes trust appropriate? Katherine Hawley
identifies theories that respond to this question as
"motives-based" theories (2014).



To complicate matters, there are "non-motives-based
theories", which are also not risk-assessment theories (Hawley
2014). They strive to distinguish between trust and mere reliance,
though not by associating a particular kind of motive with
trustworthiness. Since most philosophical debate about the nature of
trust and trustworthiness centers on theories that are either
motives-based or non-motives-based, let me expand on each of these
categories.


### 1.1 Motives-based theories



Philosophers who endorse this type of theory differ in terms of what
kind of motive they associate with trustworthiness. For some, it is
self-interest, while for others, it is goodwill or an explicitly moral
motive, such as moral integrity or
 virtue.[4]



For example, Russell Hardin defines trustworthiness in terms of
self-interest in his "encapsulated interests" account
(2002). He says that trustworthy people are motivated by their own
interest to maintain the relationship they have with the trustor,
which in turn encourages them to encapsulate the interests of that
person in their own interests. In addition, trusting people is
appropriate when we can reasonably expect them to encapsulate our
interests in their own, an expectation which is missing with mere
reliance.



Hardin's theory may be valuable in explaining many different
types of trust relationships, including those between people who can
predict little about one another's motives beyond where their
self-interest lies. Still, his theory is problematic. To see why,
consider how it applies to a sexist employer who has an interest in
maintaining relationships with women employees, who treats them
reasonably well as a result, but whose interest stems from a desire to
keep them around so that he can daydream about having sex with them.
This interest conflicts with an interest the women have in not being
objectified by their employer. At the same time, if they were not
aware of his daydreaming--say they are not--then he can
ignore this particular interest of theirs. He can keep his
relationships with them going while ignoring this interest and
encapsulating enough of their other interests in his own. And this
would make him trustworthy on Hardin's account. But is he
trustworthy? The answer is "no" or at least the women
themselves would say "no" if they knew the main reason for
their employment. The point is that being motivated by a desire to
maintain a relationship (the central motivation of a trustworthy
person on the encapsulated interests view) may not require one to
adopt all of the interests of the trustor that would actually make one
trustworthy to that person. In the end, the encapsulated interests
view seems to describe only reliability, not trustworthiness. The
sexist employer may reliably treat the women well, because of his
interest in daydreaming about them, but he is not trustworthy because
of why he treats them well.



A different type of theory is what Jones calls a
"will-based" account, which finds trustworthiness only
where the trustee is motivated by goodwill (Jones 1999: 68). This view
originates in the work of Annette Baier and is influential, even
outside of moral philosophy (e.g., in bioethics and law, especially
fiduciary law; see, e.g., Pellegrino and Thomasma 1993, O'Neill
2002, and Fox-Decent 2005). According to it, a trustee who is
trustworthy will act out of goodwill toward the trustor, to what or to
whom the trustee is entrusted with, or both. While many readers might
find the goodwill view problematic--surely we can trust people
without presuming their goodwill!--it is immune to a criticism
that applies to Hardin's theory and also to risk-assessment
theories. The criticism is that they fail to require that the
trustworthy person care about (i.e., feel goodwill towards) the
trustor, or care about what the trustor cares about. As we have seen,
such caring appears to be central to a complete account of
trustworthiness.



The particular reason why care may be central is that it allows us to
grasp how trust and reliance differ. The above suggested that they
differ because only trust can be betrayed (or at least let down). But
why is that true? Why can trust be betrayed, while mere reliance can
only be disappointed? The answer Baier gives is that betrayal is the
appropriate response to someone on whom one relied to act out of
goodwill, as opposed to ill will, selfishness, or habit bred out of
indifference (1986: 234-5; see also Baier 1991). Those who say
that trusting could involve relying on people to act instead on
motives like ill will or selfishness will have trouble distinguishing
between trust and mere reliance.



While useful in some respects, Baier's will-based account is not
perfect. Criticisms have been made that suggest goodwill is neither
necessary nor sufficient for trustworthiness. It is not necessary
because we can trust other people without presuming that they have
goodwill (e.g., O'Neill 2002; Jones 2004), as we arguably do
when we put our trust in strangers.



As well as being unnecessary, goodwill may not be sufficient for
trustworthiness, and that is true for at least three reasons. First,
someone trying to manipulate you--a "confidence
trickster" (Baier 1986)--could "rely on your goodwill
without trusting you", say, to give them money (Holton 1994:
65). You are not trustworthy for them, despite your goodwill, because
they are not trusting you but rather are just trying to trick you.
Second, basing trustworthiness on goodwill alone cannot explain
unwelcome trust. We do not always welcome people's trust,
because trust can be burdensome or inappropriate. When that happens,
we object not to these people's optimism about our goodwill (who would
object to that?), but only to the fact that they are counting on us.
Third, we can expect people to be reliably benevolent toward us
without trusting them (Jones 1996: 10). We can think that their
benevolence is not shaped by the sorts of values that for us are
essential to
 trustworthiness.[5]



Criticisms about goodwill not being sufficient for trustworthiness
have prompted revisions to Baier's theory and in some cases to
the development of new will-based theories. For example, in response
to the first criticism--about the confidence trickster--Zac
Cogley argues that trust involves the belief not simply that the
trustee will display goodwill toward us but that this person owes us
goodwill (2012). Since the confidence trickster doesn't believe
that their mark owes them goodwill, they don't trust this
person, and neither is this person trustworthy for them. In response
to the second criticism--the one about unwelcome
trust--Jones claims that optimism about the trustee's
goodwill must be coupled with the expectation that the trustee will be
"favorably moved by the thought that [we are] counting on
her" (1996: 9). Jones does that in her early work on trust where
she endorses a will-based theory. Finally, in response to the third
concern about goodwill not being informed by the sorts of values that
would make people trustworthy for us, some maintain that trust
involves an expectation about some shared values, norms, or interests
(Lahno 2001, 2020; McLeod 2002, 2020; Mullin 2005; Smith 2008). (To be
clear, this last expectation tends not to be combined with goodwill to
yield a new will-based theory.)



One final criticism of will-based accounts concerns how
"goodwill" should be interpreted. In much of the
discussion above, it is narrowly conceived so that it involves
friendly feeling or personal liking. Jones urges us in her early work
on trust to understand goodwill more broadly, so that it could amount
to benevolence, conscientiousness, or the like, *or* friendly
feeling (1996: 7). But then in her later work, she worries that by
defining goodwill so broadly we



> 
> 
> turn it into a meaningless catchall that merely reports the presence
> of some positive motive, and one that may or may not even be directed
> toward the truster. (2012a: 67)
> 
> 
> 



Jones abandons her own will-based theory upon rejecting both a narrow
and a broad construal of goodwill. (The kind of theory she endorses
now is a trust responsive one; see below.) If her concerns about
defining goodwill are valid, then will-based theories are in serious
trouble.



To recapitulate about encapsulated-interest and will-based theories,
they say that a trustworthy person is motivated by self-interest or
goodwill, respectively. Encapsulated-interest theories struggle to
explain how trustworthiness differs from mere reliability, while
will-based theories are faced with the criticism that goodwill is
neither necessary nor sufficient for trustworthiness. Some
philosophers who say that goodwill is insufficient develop alternative
will-based theories. An example is Cogley's theory according to
which trust involves a normative expectation of goodwill (2012).



The field of motives-based theories is not exhausted by
encapsulated-interest and will-based theories, however. Other
motives-based theories include those that describe the motive of
trustworthy people in terms of a moral commitment, moral obligation,
or virtue. To expand, consider that one could make sense of the
trustworthiness of a stranger by presuming that the stranger is
motivated not by self-interest or goodwill, but by a commitment to
stand by their moral values. In that case, I could trust a stranger to
be decent by presuming just that she is committed to common decency.
Ultimately, what I am presuming about the stranger is moral integrity,
which some say is the relevant motive for trust relations (those that
are prototypical; see McLeod 2002). Others identify this motive
similarly as moral obligation, and say it is ascribed to the trustee
by the very act of trusting them (Nickel 2007; for a similar account,
see Cohen and Dienhart 2013). Although compelling in some respects,
the worry about these theories is that they moralize trust
inappropriately by demanding that the trustworthy person have a moral
motive (see below and also Mullin 2005; Jones 2017).



Yet one might insist that it is appropriate to moralize trust or at
least moralize trustworthiness, which we often think of as a virtuous
character trait. Nancy Nyquist Potter refers to the trait as
"full trustworthiness", and distinguishes it from
"specific trustworthiness", which is trustworthiness that
is specific to certain relationships (and equivalent to the thin sense
of trustworthiness I have used throughout; 2002: 25). To be fully
trustworthy, one must have a disposition to be trustworthy toward
everyone, according to Potter. Let us call this the
"virtue" account.



It may sound odd to insist that trustworthiness is a virtue or, in
other words, a moral disposition to be trustworthy (Potter 2002: 25;
Hardin 2002: 32). What disposition exactly is it meant to be? A
disposition normally to honor people's trust? That would be
strange, since trust can be unwanted if the trust is immoral (e.g.,
being trusted to hide a murder) or if it misinterprets the nature of
one's relationship with the trustee (e.g., being trusted to be
friends with a mere acquaintance). Perhaps trustworthiness is instead
a disposition to respond to trust in appropriate ways, given
"who one is in relation" to the trustor and given other
virtues that one possesses or ought to possess (e.g., justice,
compassion) (Potter 2002: 25). This is essentially Potter's
view. Modeling trustworthiness on an Aristotelian conception of
virtue, she defines a trustworthy person as "one who can be
counted on, as a matter of the sort of person he or she is, to take
care of those things that others entrust to one and (following the
Doctrine of the Mean) whose ways of caring are neither excessive nor
deficient" (her emphasis;
 16).[6]
 A similar account of trustworthiness as a virtue--an epistemic
one, specifically--can be found in the literature on testimony
(see Frost-Arnold 2014; Daukas 2006, 2011).



Criticism of the virtue account comes from Karen Jones (2012a). As she
explains, if being trustworthy were a virtue, then being untrustworthy
would be a vice, but that can't be right because we can never be
required to exhibit a vice, yet we can be required to be untrustworthy
(84). An example occurs when we are counted on by two different people
to do two incompatible things and being trustworthy to the one demands
that we are untrustworthy to the other (83). To defend her virtue
theory, Potter would have to insist that in such situations, we are
required either to disappoint someone's trust rather than be
untrustworthy, or to be untrustworthy in a specific not a full
 sense.[7]



Rather than cling to a virtue theory, however, why not just accept the
thin conception of trustworthiness (i.e., "specific
trustworthiness"), according to which *X* is trustworthy
for me just in case I can trust *X*? Two things can be said.
First, the thick conception--of trustworthiness as a
virtue--is not meant to displace the thin one. We can and do
refer to some people as being trustworthy in the specific or thin
sense and to others as being trustworthy in the full or thick sense.
Second, one could argue that the thick conception explains better than
the thin one why fully trustworthy people are as dependable as they
are. It is ingrained in their character. They therefore must have an
ongoing commitment to being accountable to others, and better still, a
commitment that comes from a source that is compatible with
trustworthiness (i.e., virtue as opposed to mere self-interest).



An account of trustworthiness that includes the idea that
trustworthiness is a virtue will seem ideal only if we think that the
genesis of the trustworthy person's commitment matters. If we
believe, like risk-assessment theorists, that it matters only whether,
not how, the trustor will be motivated to act, then we could assume
that ill will can do the job as well as a moral disposition. Such
controversy explains how and why motives-based and risk-assessment
theories diverge from one another.


### 1.2 Non-motives-based theories



A final category are theories that base trustworthiness neither on the
kind of motivation a trustworthy person has nor on the mere
willingness of this person to do what they are relied on to do. These
are non-motives-based and also non-risk-assessment theories. The
conditions that give rise to trustworthiness according to them reside
ultimately in the stance the trustor takes toward the trustee or in
what the trustor believes they ought to be able to expect from this
person (i.e., in normative expectations of them). These theories share
with motives-based theories the goal of describing how trust differs
from mere reliance.



An example is Richard Holton's theory of trust (1994). Holton
argues that trust is unique because of the stance the trustor takes
toward the trustee: the "participant stance", which
involves treating the trustee as a person--someone who is
responsible for their actions--rather than simply as an object
(see also Strawson 1962 [1974]). In the case of trust specifically,
the stance entails a readiness to feel betrayal (Holton 1994: 4).
Holton's claim is that this stance and this readiness are absent
when we merely rely on someone or something.



Although Holton's theory has garnered positive attention (e.g.,
by Hieronymi 2008; McGeer 2008), some do find it dissatisfying. For
example, some argue that it does not obviously explain what would
justify a reaction of betrayal, rather than mere disappointment, when
someone fails to do what they are trusted to do (Jones 2004; Nickel
2007). They could fail to do it just by accident, in which case
feelings of betrayal would be inappropriate (Jones 2004). Others
assert, by contrast, that taking the participant stance toward
someone



> 
> 
> does not always mean trusting that person: some interactions [of this
> sort] lie outside the realm of trust and distrust. (Hawley 2014:
> 7)
> 
> 
> 



To use an example from Hawley, my partner could come to rely on me to
make him dinner every night in a way that involves him taking the
participant stance toward me. But he needn't trust me to make
him dinner and so needn't feel betrayed if I do not. He might
know that I am loath for him to trust me in this regard: "to
make this [matter of making dinner] a matter of trust" between
us (Hawley 2014: 7).



Some philosophers have expanded on Holton's theory in a way that
might deflect some criticism of it. Margaret Urban Walker emphasizes
that in taking a participant stance, we hold people responsible (2006:
79). We expect them to act not simply as we assume they *will*,
but as they *should*. We have, in other words, normative rather
than merely predictive expectations of them. Call this a
"normative-expectation" theory, which again is an
elaboration on the participant-stance theory. Endorsed by Walker and
others (e.g., Jones 2004 and 2012a; Frost-Arnold 2014), this view
explains the trust-reliance distinction in terms of the distinction
between normative and predictive expectations. It also describes the
potential for betrayal in terms of the failure to live up a normative
expectation.



Walker's theory is non-motives-based because it doesn't
specify that trustworthy people must have a certain kind of motive for
acting. She says that trustworthiness is compatible with having many
different kinds of motives, including, among others, goodwill,
"pride in one's role", "fear of penalties for
poor performance", and "an impersonal sense of
obligation" (2006: 77). What accounts for whether someone is
trustworthy in her view is whether they act as they should, not
whether they are motivated in a certain way. (By contrast,
Cogley's normative-expectation theory says that the trustworthy
person both will and ought to act with goodwill. His theory is
motives-based.)



Prominent in the literature is a kind of normative-expectation theory
called a "trust- (or dependence-) responsive" theory (see,
e.g., Faulkner and Simpson 2017: 8; Faulkner 2011, 2017; Jones 2012a,
2017, 2019; McGeer and Petit 2017). According to this view, being
trustworthy involves being appropriately responsive to the reason you
have to do *X*--what you are being relied on (or
"counted on"; Jones 2012a) to do--when it's
clear that someone is in fact relying on you. The reason you have to
do *X* exists simply because someone is counting on you; other
things being equal, you should do it for this reason. Being
appropriately responsive to it, moreover, just means that you find it
compelling (Jones 2012a: 70-71). The person trusting you expects
you to have this reaction; in other words, they have a normative
expectation that the "manifest fact of [their] reliance will
weigh on you as a reason for choosing voluntarily to *X*"
(McGeer and Pettit 2017: 16). This expectation is missing in cases of
mere reliance. When I merely rely on you, I do not expect my reliance
to weigh on you as I do when I trust you.



Although trust-responsive theories might seem motives-based, they are
not. One might think that to be trustworthy, they require that you to
be motivated by the fact that you are being counted on. Instead, they
demand only that you be appropriately responsive to the reason you
have to do what you are being depended on to do. As Jones explains,
you could be responsive in this way and act ultimately out of
goodwill, conscientiousness, love, duty, or the like (2012a: 66). The
reaction I expect of you, as the trustor, is compatible with you
acting on different kinds of motives, although to be clear, not just
any motive will do (not like in Walker's theory); some motives are
ruled out, including indifference and ill will (Jones 2012a: 68).
Being indifferent or hateful towards me means that you are unlikely to
view me counting on you as a reason to act. Hence, if I knew you were
indifferent or hateful, I would not expect you to be trust
responsive.



Trust-responsive theories are less restrictive than motives-based
theories when it comes to defining what motives people need to be
trustworthy. At the same time, they are more restrictive when it comes
to stating whether, in order to be trustworthy or trusted, one must be
aware that one is being counted on. One couldn't be trust
responsive otherwise. In trusting you, I therefore must "make
clear to you my assumption that you will prove reliable in doing
*X*" (McGeer and Pettit 2017: 16). I do not have to do
that by contrast if, in trusting you, I am relying on you instead to
act with a motive like goodwill. Baier herself allows that trust can
exist where the trustee is unaware of it (1986: 235; see also Hawley
2014; Lahno 2020). For her, trust is ubiquitous (Jones 2017: 102) in
part for this reason; we trust people in a myriad of different ways
every single day, often without them knowing it. If she's right
about this fact, then trust-responsive theories are incomplete.



These theories are also vulnerable to objections raised against
normative-expectation theories, because they are again a type of
normative-expectation theory. One such concern comes from Hawley. In
writing about both trust and distrust, she states that



> 
> 
> we need a story about when trust, distrust or neither is objectively
> appropriate--what is the worldly situation to which (dis)trust]
> is an appropriate response? When is it appropriate to have
> (dis)trust-related normative expectations of someone? (2014: 11)
> 
> 
> 



Normative-expectation theories tend not to provide an answer. And
trust-responsive theories suggest only that trust-related normative
expectations are appropriate when certain motives are absent (e.g.,
ill will), which may not to be enough.



Hawley responds to the above concern within her "commitment
account" of trust (2014, 2019). This theory states that in
trusting others, we believe that they have a commitment to doing what
we are trusting them to do (2014: 10), a fact which explains why we
expect them to act this way, and also why we fail to do so in cases
like that of my partner relying on me to make dinner; he knows I have
no commitment to making his dinner (or anyone else's)
repeatedly. For Hawley, the relevant commitments



> 
> 
> can be implicit or explicit, weighty or trivial, conferred by roles
> and external circumstances, default or acquired, welcome or unwelcome.
> (2014: 11)
> 
> 
> 



They also needn't actually motivate the trustworthy person. Her
theory is non-motives-based because it states that to



> 
> 
> be trustworthy, in some specific respect, it is enough to behave in
> accordance with one's commitment, regardless of motive. (2014:
> 16)
> 
> 
> 



Similarly, to trust me to do something, it is enough to believe that
I



> 
> 
> have a commitment to do it, and that I will do it, without believing
> that I will do it *because* of my commitment. (2014: 16; her
> emphasis)
> 
> 
> 



Notice that unlike trust-responsive theories, the commitment account
does not require that the trustee be aware of the trust in order to be
trustworthy. This person simply needs to have a commitment and to act
accordingly. They don't even need to be committed to the
trustor, but rather could be committed to anyone and one could trust
them to follow through on that commitment (Hawley 2014: 11). So,
relying on a promise your daughter's friend makes *to
her* to take her home from the party would count as an instance of
trust (Hawley 2014: 11). In this way, the commitment account is less
restrictive than trust-responsive theories are. In being
non-motives-based, Hawley's theory is also less restrictive than
any motives-based theory. Trust could truly be ubiquitous if
she's correct about the nature of it.



Like the other theories considered here, however, the commitment
account is open to criticisms. One might ask whether Hawley gives a
satisfactory answer to the question that motivates her theory: when
can we reasonably have the normative expectations of someone that go
along with trusting them? Hawley's answer is, when this person
has the appropriate commitment, where "commitment" is
understood very broadly. Yet where the relevant commitment is implicit
or unwelcome, it's unclear that we can predict much about the
trustee's behavior. In cases like these, the commitment theory
may have little to say about whether it is reasonable to trust.



A further criticism comes from Andrew Kirton (2020) who claims that we
sometimes trust people to act contrary to what they are committed to
doing. His central example involves a navy veteran, an enlisted man,
whose ship sunk at sea and who trusted those who rescued them (navy
men) to ignore a commitment they had to save the officers first,
because the officers were relatively safe on lifeboats compared to the
enlisted men who were struggling in the water. Instead the rescuers
adhered to their military duty, and the enlisted man felt betrayed by
them for nearly letting him drown. Assuming it is compelling, this
example shows that trust and commitment can come apart and that
Hawley's theory is
 incomplete.[8]



The struggle to find a complete theory of trust has led some
philosophers to be pluralists about trust--that is, to say,
"we must recognise plural forms of trust" (Simpson 2012:
551) or accept that trust is not just one form of reliance, but many
forms of it (see also Jacoby 2011; Scheman 2020; McLeod 2020). Readers
may be led to this conclusion from the rundown I've given of the
many different theories of trust in philosophy and the objections that
have been raised to them. Rather than go in the direction of
pluralism, however, most philosophers continue to debate what unifies
all trust such that it is different from mere reliance. They tend to
believe that a unified and suitably developed motives-based theory or
non-motives-based theory can explain this difference, although there
is little consensus about what this theory should be like.



In spite of there being little settled agreement in philosophy about
trust, there are thankfully things we can say for certain about it
that are relevant to deciding when it is warranted. The trustor must
be able to accept that by trusting, they are vulnerable usually to
betrayal. Also, the trustee must be competent and willing to do what
the trustor expects of them and may have to be willing because of
certain attitudes they have. Last, in paradigmatic cases of trust, the
trustor must be able to rely on the trustee to exhibit this competence
and willingness.


### 1.3 Distrust



As suggested above, distrust has been somewhat of an afterthought for
philosophers (Hawley
 2014),[9]
 although their attention to it has grown recently. As with trust and
trustworthiness, philosophers would agree that distrust has certain
features, although the few who have developed theories of distrust
disagree ultimately about the nature of it.



The following are features of distrust that are relatively
uncontroversial (see D'Cruz 2020):


1. Distrust is not just the absence of trust since it is possible to
neither distrust nor trust someone (Hawley 2014: 3; Jones 1996: 16;
Krishnamurthy 2015). There is gap between the two--"the
possibility of being suspended between" them (Ullmann-Margalit
2004 [2017: 184]). (For disagreement, see Faulkner 2017.)
2. Although trust and distrust are not exhaustive, they are
exclusive; one cannot at the same time trust and distrust someone
about the same matter (Ullmann-Margalit 2004 [2017: 201]).
3. Distrust is "not mere nonreliance" (Hawley 2014: 3). I
could choose not to rely on a colleague's assistance because I
know she is terribly busy, not because I distrust her.
4. Relatedly, distrust has a normative dimension. If I distrusted a
colleague for no good reason and they found out about it, then they
would probably be hurt or angry. But the same reaction would not
accompany them knowing that I decided not to rely on them (Hawley
2014). Being distrusted is a bad thing (Domenicucci and Holton 2017:
150; D'Cruz 2019: 935), while not being relied on needn't
be bad at all.
5. Distrust is normally a kind of nonreliance, just as trust is a
kind (or many kinds) of reliance. Distrust involves
"action-tendencies" of avoidance or withdrawal
(D'Cruz 2019: 935-937), which make it incompatible with
reliance--or at least complete reliance. We can be forced to rely
on people we distrust, yet even then, we try to keep them at as safe a
distance as possible.



Given the relationship between trust and distrust and the similarities
between them (e.g., one is "richer than [mere] reliance"
and the other is "richer than mere nonreliance"; Hawley
2014: 3), one would think that any theory of trust should be able to
explain distrust and vice versa. Hawley makes this point and
criticizes theories of trust for not being able to make sense of
distrust (2014: 6-9). For example, will-based accounts imply
that distrust must be nonreliance plus an expectation of ill will, yet
the latter is not required for distrust. I could distrust someone
because he is careless, not because he harbors ill will toward me
(Hawley 2014: 6).



Hawley defends her commitment account of trust, in part, because she
believes it is immune to the above criticism. It says that distrust is
nonreliance plus the belief that the person distrusted is committed to
doing what we will not rely on them to do. In spite of them being
committed in this way (or so we believe), we do not rely on them
(2014: 10). This account does not require that we impute any
particular motive or feeling to the one distrusted, like ill will. At
the same time, it tells us why distrust is not mere nonreliance and
also why it is normative; the suspicion of the one distrusted is that
they will fail to meet a commitment they have, which is bad.



Some have argued that Hawley's theory of distrust is subject to
counterexamples, however (D'Cruz 2020; Tallant 2017). For
example, Jason D'Cruz describes a financier who "buys
insurance on credit defaults, positioning himself to profit when
borrowers default" (2020: 45). The financier believes that the
borrowers have a commitment not to default, and he does not rely on
them to meet this commitment. The conclusion that Hawley's
theory would have us reach is that he distrusts the borrowers, which
doesn't seem right.



A different kind of theory of distrust can be found in the work of
Meena Krishnamurthy (2015), who is interested specifically in the
value that distrust has for political democracies, and for political
minorities in particular (2015). She offers what she calls a
"narrow normative" account of distrust that she derives
from the political writings of Martin Luther King Jr. The account is
narrow because it serves a specific purpose: of explaining how
distrust can motivate people to resist tyranny. It is normative
because it concerns what they ought to do (again, resist; 392). The
theory states that distrust is the confident belief that others will
not act justly. It needn't involve an expectation of ill will;
King's own distrust of white moderates was not grounded in such
an expectation (Krishnamurthy 2015: 394). To be distrusting, one
simply has to believe that others will not act justly, whether out of
fear, ignorance, or what have you.



D'Cruz complains that Krishnamurthy's theory is too narrow
because it requires a belief that the one distrusted will fail to
*do* something (i.e., act justly) (2020); but one can be
distrustful of someone--say a salesperson who comes to your door
(Jones 1996)--without predicting that they will do anything wrong
or threatening. D'Cruz does not explain, however, why
Krishnamurthy needs to account for cases like these in her theory,
which again is meant to serve a specific purpose. Is it important that
distrust can take a form other than "*X* distrusts
*Y* to [do] Ph" for it to motivate political
resistance (D'Cruz 2020: 45)? D'Cruz's objection is
sound only if the answer is "yes".



Nevertheless, D'Cruz's work is helpful in showing what a
descriptive account of distrust should look like--that is, an
account that unlike Krishnamurthy's, tracks how we use the
concept in many different circumstances. He himself endorses a
normative-expectation theory, according to which distrust involves



> 
> 
> a tendency to withdraw from reliance or vulnerability in contexts of
> normative expectation, based on a construal of a person or persons as
> malevolent, incompetent, or lacking integrity. (2019: 936)
> 
> 
> 



D'Cruz has yet to develop this theory fully, but once he does
so, it will almost certainly be a welcome addition to the scant
literature in philosophy on distrust.



In summary, among the relatively few philosophers who have written on
distrust, there is settled agreement about some of its features but
not about the nature of distrust in general. The agreed-upon features
tell us something about when distrust is warranted (i.e., plausible).
For distrust in someone to be plausible, one cannot also trust that
person, and normally one will not be reliant on them either. Something
else must be true as well, however. For example, one must believe that
this person is committed to acting in a certain way but will not
follow through on this commitment. The "something else" is
crucial because distrust is not the negation of trust and neither is
it mere nonreliance.



Philosophers have said comparatively little about what distrust is,
but a lot about how distrust tends to be influenced by negative social
stereotypes that portray whole groups of people as untrustworthy
(e.g., Potter 2020; Scheman 2020; D'Cruz 2019; M. Fricker 2007).
Trusting attitudes are similar--who we trust can depend
significantly on social stereotypes, positive ones--yet there is
less discussion about this fact in the literature on trust. This issue
concerns the rationality (more precisely, the *ir*rationality)
of trust and distrust, which makes it relevant to the next section,
which is on the epistemology of trust.


## 2. The Epistemology of Trust



Writings on this topic obviously bear on the issue of when trust is
warranted (i.e., justified). The central epistemological question
about trust is, "Ought I to trust or not?" That is, given
the way things seem to me, is it reasonable for me to trust? People
tend to ask this sort of question only in situations where they
can't take trustworthiness for granted--that is, where they
are conscious of the fact that trusting could get them into trouble.
Examples are situations similar to those in which they have been
betrayed in the past or unlike any they have ever been in before. The
question, "Ought I to trust?" is therefore particularly
pertinent to a somewhat odd mix of people that includes victims of
abuse or the like, as well as immigrants and travelers.



The question "Ought I to distrust?" has received
comparatively little attention in philosophy despite it arguably being
as important as the question of when to trust. People can get into
serious trouble by distrusting when they ought not to, rather than
just by trusting when they ought not to. The harms of misplaced
distrust are both moral and epistemic and include dishonoring people,
being out of harmony with them, and being deprived of knowledge via
testimony (D'Cruz 2019; M. Fricker 2007). Presumably because
they believe that the harms of misplaced trust are greater
(D'Cruz 2019), philosophers--and consequently I, in this
entry--focus more on the rationality of trusting, as opposed to
distrusting.



Philosophical work that is relevant to the issue of how to trust well
appears either under the general heading of the epistemology or
rationality of trust (e.g., Baker 1987; Webb 1992; Wanderer and
Townsend 2013) or under the specific heading of testimony--that
is, of putting one's trust in the testimony of others. This
section focuses on the epistemology of trust generally rather than on
trust in testimony specifically. There is a large literature on
testimony (see the entry in this encyclopedia) and on the related
topic of epistemic injustice, both of which I discuss only insofar as
they overlap with the epistemology of trust.



Philosophers sometimes ask whether it could ever be rational to trust
other people. This question arises for two reasons. First, it appears
that trust and rational reflection (e.g., on whether one should be
trusting) are in tension with one another. Since trust inherently
involves risk, any attempt to eliminate that risk through rational
reflection could eliminate one's trust by turning one's
stance into mere reliance. Second, trust tends to give us blinkered
vision: it makes us resistant to evidence that may contradict our
optimism about the trustee (Baker 1987; Jones 1996 and 2019). For
example, if I trust my brother not to harm anyone, I will resist the
truth of any evidence to the contrary. Here, trust and rationality
seem to come apart.



Even if some of our trust could be rational, one might insist that not
all of it could be rational for various reasons. First, if Baier is
right that trust is ubiquitous (1986: 234), then we could not possibly
subject all of it to rational reflection. We certainly could not
reflect on every bit of knowledge we've acquired through the
testimony of others, such as that the earth is round or Antarctica
exists (Webb 1993; E. Fricker 1995; Coady 1992). Second, bioethicists
point out that some trust is unavoidable and occurs in the absence of
rational reflection (e.g., trust in emergency room nurses and
physicians; see Zaner 1991). Lastly, some trust--namely the
therapeutic variety--purposefully leaps beyond any evidence of
trustworthiness in an effort to engender trustworthiness in the
trustee. Is this sort of trust rational? Perhaps not, given that there
isn't sufficient evidence for it.



Many philosophers respond to the skepticism about the rationality of
trust by saying that rationality, when applied to trust, needs to be
understood differently than it is in each of the skeptical points
above. There, "rationality" means something like this: it
is rational to believe in something only if one has verified that it
will happen or done as much as possible to verify it. For example, it
is rational for me to believe that my brother has not harmed anyone
only if the evidence points in that direction and I have discovered
that to be the case. As we've seen, problems exist with applying
this view of rationality to trust, yet it is not the only option; this
view is both "truth-directed" and
"internalist", while the rationality of trust could
instead be "end-directed" or "externalist". Or
it could be internalist without requiring that we have done the
evidence gathering just discussed. Let me expand on these
possibilities, starting with those that concern truth- or end-directed
rationality.


### 2.1 Truth- vs. end-directed rationality



In discussing the rationality of trust, some authors distinguish
between these two types of rationality (also referred to as epistemic
vs. strategic rationality; see, e.g., Baker 1987). One could say that
we are rational in trusting emergency room physicians, for example,
not necessarily because we have good reason to believe that they are
trustworthy (our rationality is not truth-directed), but because by
trusting them, we can remain calm in a situation over which we have
little control (our rationality is therefore end-directed). Similarly,
it may be rational for me to trust my brother not because I have good
evidence of his trustworthiness but rather because trusting him is
essential to our having a loving
 relationship.[10]



Trust can be rational, then, depending on whether one conceives of
rationality as truth-directed or end-directed. Notice that it matters
also how one conceives of trust, and more specifically, whether one
conceives of it as a belief in someone's trustworthiness (see
 section 4).
 If trust is a belief, then whether the rationality of trust can be
end-directed will depend on whether the rationality of a belief can be
end-directed. To put the point more generally, how trust is rationally
justified will depend on how beliefs are rationally justified (Jones
1996).



Some of the literature on trust and rationality concerns whether the
rationality of trust can indeed be end-directed and also what could
make therapeutic trust and the like rational. Pamela Hieronymi argues
that the ends for which we trust cannot provide reasons for us to
trust in the first place (2008). Considerations about how useful or
valuable trust is do not bear on the truth of a trusting belief (i.e.,
a belief in someone's trustworthiness). But Hieronymi claims
that trust, in a pure sense at least, always involves a trusting
belief. How then does she account for trust that is motivated by how
therapeutic (i.e., useful) the trust will be? She believes that trust
of this sort is not pure or full-fledged trust. As she explains,
people can legitimately complain about not being trusted fully when
they are trusted in this way, which occurs when other people lack
confidence in them but trust them nonetheless (2008: 230; see also
Lahno 2001: 184-185).



By contrast, Victoria McGeer believes that trust is more substantial
or pure when the available evidence does not support it (2008). She
describes how trust of this sort--what she calls
"substantial trust"--could be rational and does so
without appealing to how important it might be or to the ends it might
serve, but instead to whether the trustee will be
 trustworthy.[11]
 According to McGeer, what makes "substantial trust"
rational is that it involves hope that the trustees will do what they
are trusted to do, which "can have a galvanizing effect on how
[they] see themselves, as trustors avowedly do, in the fullness of
their potential" (2008: 252; see also McGeer and Pettit 2017).
Rather than complain (as Hieronymi would assume that trustees might)
about trustors being merely hopeful about their trustworthiness, they
could respond well to the trustors' attitude toward them.
Moreover, if it is likely that they will respond well--in other
words, that they will be trust-responsive--then the trust in them
must be epistemically rational. That is particularly true if being
trustworthy involves being trust-responsive, as it does for McGeer
(McGeer and Pettit 2017).



McGeer's work suggests that all trust--even therapeutic
trust--can be rational in a truth-directed way. As we've
seen, there is some dispute about whether trust can be rational in
just an end-directed way. What matters here is whether trust is the
sort of attitude whose rationality could be end-directed.


### 2.2 Internalism vs. externalism



Philosophers who agree that trust can be rational (in a truth- or
end-directed way or both) tend to disagree about the extent to which
reasons that make it rational must be accessible to the trustor. Some
say that these reasons must be available to this person in order for
their trust to be rational; in that case, the person is or could be
internally justified in trusting as they do. Others say that the
reasons need not be internal but can instead be external to the
trustor and lie in what caused the trust, or, more specifically, in
the epistemic reliability of what caused it. The trustor also
needn't have access to or be aware of the reliability of these
reasons. The latter's epistemology of trust is externalist,
while the former's is internalist.



Some epistemologists write as though trust is only rational if the
trustor themselves has rationally estimated the likelihood that the
trustee is trustworthy. For example, Russell Hardin implies that if my
trust in you is rational, then



> 
> 
> I make a rough estimate of the truth of [the] claim ... that you
> will be trustworthy under certain conditions ... and then I
> correct my estimate, or "update," as I obtain new evidence
> on you. (2002: 112)
> 
> 
> 



On this view, I must have reasons for my estimate or for my updates
(Hardin 2002: 130), which could come from inductive generalizations I
make about my past experience, from my knowledge that social
constraints exist that will encourage your trustworthiness or what
have you. Such an internalist epistemology of trust is valuable
because it coheres with the commonsense idea that one ought to have
good reasons for trusting people (i.e., reasons grounded in evidence
that they will be trustworthy) particularly when something important
is at stake (E. Fricker 1995). One ought, in other words, to be
epistemically responsible in one's trusting (see Frost-Arnold
2020).



Such an epistemology is also open to criticisms, however. For example,
it suggests that rational trust will always be partial rather than
complete, given that the rational trustor is open to evidence that
contradicts their trust on this theory, while someone who trusts
completely in someone else lacks such openness. The theory also
implies that the reasons for trusting well (i.e., in a justified way)
are accessible to the trustor, at some point or another, which may
simply be false. Some reasons for trust may be too
"cunning" for this to be the case. Relevant here is the
reason for trusting discussed by Philip Pettit (1995): that trust
signals to people that they are being held in esteem, which is
something they will want to maintain; they will honor the trust
because they are naturally "esteem-seeking". (Note that
consciously having this as a reason for trusting--of using
people's need for esteem to get what you want from them--is
incompatible with actually trusting (Wanderer and Townsend 2013: 9),
if trust is motives-based and the required motive is something other
than self-interest.)



Others say that reasons for trust are usually too numerous and varied
to be open to the conscious consideration of the trustor (e.g., Baier
1986). There can be very subtle reasons to trust or distrust
someone--for example, reasons that have to do with body language,
with systematic yet veiled forms of oppression, or with a complicated
history of trusting others about which one can't easily
generalize. Factors like these can influence trustors without them
knowing it, sometimes making their trust irrational (e.g., because it
is informed by oppressive biases), and other times making it
rational.



The concern about there being complex reasons for trusting explain why
some philosophers defend externalist epistemologies of trust. Some do
so explicitly (e.g., McLeod 2002). They argue for reliabilist theories
that make trust rationally justified if and only if it is formed and
sustained by reliable processes (i.e., "processes that tend to
produce accurate representations of the world", such as drawing
on expertise one has rather than simply guessing; Goldman 1992: 113;
Goldman and Beddor 2015 [2016]). Others gesture towards externalism
(Webb 1993; Baier 1986), as Baier does with what she calls "a
moral test for trust". The test is that



> 
> 
> knowledge of what the other party is relying on for the continuance of
> the trust relationship would ... itself destabilize the relation.
> (1986: 255)
> 
> 
> 



The other party might be relying on a threat advantage or the
concealment of their untrustworthiness, in which case the trust would
probably fail the test. Because Baier's test focuses on the
causal basis for trust, or for what maintains the trust relation, it
is externalist. Also, because the trustor often cannot gather the
information needed for the test without ceasing to trust the other
person (Baier 1986: 260), the test cannot be internalist.



Although an externalist theory of trust deals well with some of the
worries one might have with an internalist theory, it has problems of
its own. One of the most serious issues is the absence of any
requirement that trustors themselves have good (motivating) reasons
for trusting, especially when their trust makes them seriously
vulnerable. Again, it appears that common sense dictates the opposite:
that sometimes as trustors, we ought to be able to back up our
decisions about when to trust. The same is true about our distrust
presumably: that sometimes we ought to be able to defend it. Assuming
externalists mean for their epistemology to apply to distrust and not
just to trust, their theory violates this bit of common sense as well.
Externalism about distrust also seems incompatible with a strategy
that some philosophers recommend for dealing with biased distrust. The
strategy is to develop what they call "corrective trust"
(e.g., Scheman 2020) or "humble trust" (D'Cruz
2019), which demands a humble skepticism toward distrust that aligns
with oppressive stereotypes and efforts at correcting the influence of
these stereotypes (see also M. Fricker 2007). The concern about an
externalist epistemology is that it does not encourage this sort of
mental work, since it does not require that we reflect on our reasons
for distrusting or trusting.



There are alternatives to the kinds of internalist and externalist
theories just discussed, especially within the literature on
 testimony.[12]
 For example, Paul Faulkner develops an "assurance theory"
of testimony that interprets speaker trustworthiness in terms of
trust-responsiveness. Recall that on a trust-responsiveness theory of
trust, being trusted gives people the reason to be trustworthy that
someone is counting on them. They are trustworthy if they are
appropriately responsive to this reason, which, in the case of
offering testimony, involves giving one's assurance that one is
telling the truth (Adler 2006 [2017]). Faulkner uses the
trust-responsiveness account of trust, along with a view of trust as
an affective attitude (see
 section 4),
 to show "how trust can ground reasonable testimonial
uptake" (Faulkner and Simpson 2017: 6; Faulkner 2011 and
2020).



> 
> 
> He proposes that *A* affectively trust *S* if and only
> if *A* depends on *S* Ph-ing, and expects his
> dependence on *S* to motivate *S* to Ph--for
> *A*'s dependence on *S* to be the reason for which
> *S* Phs .... As a result, affective trust is a
> bootstrapping attitude: I can choose to trust someone affectively and
> my doing so creates the reasons which justify the attitude. (Faulkner
> and Simpson 2017: 6)
> 
> 
> 



Most likely, *A* (the trustor) is aware of the reasons that
justify his trust or could be aware of them, making this theory an
internalist one. The reasons are also normative and non-evidentiary
(Faulkner 2020); they concern what *S* ought to do because of
*A*'s dependence, not what *S* will do based on
evidence that *A* might gather about *S*. This view
doesn't require that *A* have evidentiary reasons, and so
it is importantly different than the internalist epistemology
discussed above. But it is then also subject to the criticisms made of
externalist theories that they don't require the kind of
scrutiny of our trusting attitudes that we tend to expect and probably
ought to expect in societies where some people are stereotyped as more
trusting than others.



Presumably to avoid having to defend any particular epistemology of
trust, some philosophers provide just a list of common justifiers for
it (i.e., "facts or states of affairs that determine the
justification status of [trust]"; Goldman 1999: 274), which
someone could take into account in deciding when to trust (Govier
1998; Jones 1996). Included on these lists are such factors as the
social role of the trustee, the domain in which the trust occurs, an
"agent-specific" factor that concerns how good a trustor
the agent tends to be (Jones 1996: 21), and the social or political
climate in which the trust occurs. Philosophers have tended to
emphasize this last factor as a justification condition for trust, and
so let me elaborate on it briefly.


### 2.3 Social and political climate



Although trust is paradigmatically a relation that holds between two
individuals, forces larger than those individuals inevitably shape
their trust and distrust in one another. Social or political climate
contributes to how (un)trustworthy people tend to be and therefore to
whether trust and distrust are justified. For example, a climate of
virtue is one in which trustworthiness tends to be pervasive, assuming
that virtues other than trustworthiness tend to enhance it (Baier
 2004).[13]
 A climate of oppression is one in which untrustworthiness is
prevalent, especially between people who are privileged and those who
are less privileged (Baier 1986: 259; Potter 2002: 24; D'Cruz
2019). "Social trust", as some call it, is low in these
circumstances (Govier 1997; Welch 2013).



Social or political climate has a significant influence on the default
stance that we ought to take toward people's trustworthiness
(see, e.g., Walker 2006). We need such a stance because we can't
always stop to reflect carefully on when to trust (i.e., assuming that
some rational reflection is required for trusting well). Some
philosophers say that the correct stance is trust and do so without
referring to the social or political climate; Tony Coady takes this
sort of position, for example, on our stance toward others'
testimony (Coady 1992). Others disagree that the correct stance could
be so universal and claim instead that it is relative to climate, as
well as to other factors such as domain (Jones 1999).



Our trust or distrust may be prima facie justified if we have the
correct default stance, although most philosophers assume that it
could only be fully justified (in a truth- or end-directed way) by
reasons that are internal to us (evidentiary or non-evidentiary
reasons) or by the causal processes that created the attitude in the
first place. Whichever epistemology of trust we choose, it ought to be
sensitive to the tension that exists between trusting somebody and
rationally reflecting on the grounds for that trust. It would be odd,
to say the least, if what made an attitude justified destroyed that
very attitude. At the same time, our epistemology of trust ought to
cohere as much as possible with common sense, which dictates that we
should inspect rather than have pure faith in whatever makes us
seriously vulnerable to other people, which trust can most definitely
do.


## 3. The Value of Trust



Someone who asks, "When is trust warranted?" might be
interested in knowing what the point of trust is. In other words, what
value does it have? Although the value it has for particular people
will depend on their circumstances, the value it could have for anyone
will depend on why trust is valuable, generally speaking. Trust can
have enormous instrumental value and may also have some intrinsic
value. In discussing its instrumental value, this section refers to
the "goods of trust", which can benefit the trustor, the
trustee, or society in general. They are therefore social and/or
individual goods. What is more and as emphasized throughout, these
goods tend to accompany justified trust, rather than any old
 trust.[14]
 Like the other sections of this entry, this one focuses predominantly
though not exclusively on trust; it also mentions recent work on the
value of distrust.



Consider first the possibility that trust has intrinsic value. If
trust produced no goods independent of it, would there be any point in
trusting? One might say "yes", on the grounds that trust
is (or can be; O'Neil 2012: 311) a sign of respect for others.
(Similarly, distrust is a sign of disrespect; D'Cruz 2019.) If
true, this fact about trust would make it intrinsically worthwhile, at
least so long as the trust is justified. Presumably, if it was
unjustified, then the respect would be misplaced and the intrinsic
value would be lost. But these points are speculative, since
philosophers have said comparatively little about trust being
worthwhile in itself as opposed to worthwhile because of what it
produces, or because of what accompanies it. The discussion going
forward centers on the latter, more specifically on the goods of
trust.



Turning first to the instrumental value of trust to the
*trustor*, some argue that trusting vastly increases our
opportunities for cooperating with others and for benefiting from that
cooperation, although of course we would only benefit if people we
trusted cooperated as well (Gambetta 1988b; Hardin 2002; Dimock 2020).
Trust enhances cooperation, while perhaps not being necessary for it
(Cook et al. 2005; Skyrms 2008). Because trust removes the incentive
to check up on other people, it makes cooperation with trust less
complicated than cooperation without it (Luhmann 1973/1975
[1979]).



Trust can make cooperation possible, rather than simply easier, if
trust is essential to promising. Daniel Friedrich and Nicholas
Southwood defend what they call the "Trust View" of
promissory obligation (2011), according to which "making a
promise involves inviting another individual to trust one to do
something" (2011: 277). If this view is correct, then
cooperation through promising is impossible without trust. Cooperation
of this sort will also not be fruitful unless the trust is
justified.



Trusting provides us with goods beyond those that come with
cooperation, although again, for these goods to materialize, the trust
must be justified. Sometimes, trust involves little or no cooperation,
so that the trustor is completely dependent on the trustee while the
reverse is not true. Examples are the trust of young children in their
parents and the trust of severely ill or disabled people in their care
providers. Trust is particularly important for these people because
they tend to be powerless to exercise their rights or to enforce any
kind of contract. The trust they place in their care providers also
contributes to them being vulnerable, and so it is essential that they
can trust these people (i.e., that their trust is justified). The
goods at stake for them are all the goods involved in having a good or
decent life.



Among the specific goods that philosophers associate with trusting are
meaningful relationships or attachments (rather than simply
cooperative relationships that further individual self-interests;
Harding 2011, Kirton forthcoming) as well as knowledge and
 autonomy.[15]
 To expand, trust allows for the kinds of secure attachments that some
developmental psychologists ("attachment" theorists)
believe are crucial to our well-being and to our ability to be
trusting of others (Bowlby 1969-1980; Ainsworth 1969; see Kirton
2020; Wonderly 2016). Particularly important here are parent-child
relationships (McLeod et al. 2019).



Trust is also crucial for knowledge, given that scientific knowledge
(Hardwig 1991), moral knowledge (Jones 1999), and almost all knowledge
in fact (Webb 1993) depends for its acquisition on trust in the
testimony of others. The basic argument for the need to trust what
others say is that no one person has the time, intellect, and
experience necessary to independently learn facts about the world that
many of us do know. Examples include the scientific fact that the
earth is round, the moral fact that the oppression of people from
social groups different from our own can be severe (Jones 1999), and
the mundane fact that we were born on such-in-such a day (Webb 1993:
261). Of course, trusting the people who testify to these facts could
only generate knowledge if the trust was justified. If we were told
our date of birth by people who were determined oddly to deceive us
about when we were born, then we would not know when we were born.



Autonomy is another good that flows from trust insofar as people
acquire or exercise autonomy only in social environments where they
can trust people (or institutions, etc.) to support their autonomy.
Feminists in particular tend to conceive of autonomy this
way--that is, as a relational property (Mackenzie and Stoljar
2000). Many feminists emphasize that oppressive social environments
can inhibit autonomy, and some say explicitly that conditions
necessary for autonomy (e.g., adequate options, knowledge relevant to
one's decisions) exist only with the help of people or
institutions that are trustworthy (e.g., Oshana 2014; McLeod and Ryman
2020). Justified trust in others to ensure that these conditions exist
is essential for our autonomy, if autonomy is indeed
 relational.[16]



Goods of trust that are instrumental to the well-being of the
*trustee* also do not materialize unless the trust is
justified. Trust can improve the self-respect and moral maturity of
this person. Particularly if it involves reliance on a person's
moral character, trust can engender self-respect in the trustee (i.e.,
through them internalizing the respect signaled by that trust). Being
trusted can allow us to be more respectful not only toward ourselves
but also toward others, thus enhancing our moral maturity. The
explicit goal of therapeutic trust is precisely to bring about this
end. The above
 (section 2)
 suggests that therapeutic trust can be justified in a truth-directed
way over time, provided that the trust has its intended effect of
making the trustee more trustworthy (McGeer 2008; Baker 1987: 12).
Clearly, for therapeutic trust to benefit the trustee, it would have
to be justified in this way, meaning that the therapy would normally
have to work.



Finally, there are social goods of trust that are linked with the
individual goods of cooperation and moral maturity. The former goods
include the practice of morality, the very existence of society
perhaps, as well as strong social networks. Morality itself is a
cooperative activity, which can only get off the ground if people can
trust one another to try, at least, to be moral. For this reason,
among others, Baier claims that trust is "the very basis of
morality" (2004: 180). It could also be the very basis of
society, insofar as trust in our fellow citizens to honor social
contracts makes those contracts possible.



A weaker claim is that trust makes society better or more livable.
Some argue that trust is a form of "social capital",
meaning roughly that it enables "people to work together for
common purposes in groups and organizations" (Fukuyama 1995: 10;
quoted in Hardin 2002: 83). As a result, "high-trust"
societies have stronger economies and stronger social networks in
general than "low-trust" societies (Fukuyama 1995;
Inglehart 1999). Of course, this fact about high-trust societies could
only be true if, on the whole, the trust within them was
justified--that is, if trustees tended not to
"defect" and destroy chances for cooperating in the
future.



The literature on distrust suggests that there are goods associated
with it too. For example, there is the social good discussed by
Krishnamurthy of "securing democracy by protecting political
minorities from tyranny" (2015: 392). Distrust as she
understands it (a confident belief that others will not act justly)
plays this positive role when it is justified, which is roughly when
the threat of tyranny or unjust action is real. Distrust in general is
valuable when it is justified--for the distrustors at least, who
protect themselves from harm. By contrast, the people distrusted tend
to experience negative effects on their reputation or self-respect
(D'Cruz 2019).



Both trust and distrust are therefore valuable particularly when they
are justified. The value of justified trust must be very high if
without it, we can't have morality or society and can't be
morally mature, autonomous, knowledgeable, or invested with
opportunities for collaborating with others. Justified distrust is
also essential, for members of minority groups especially. Conversely,
trust or distrust that is unjustified can be seriously problematic.
Unjustified trust, for example, can leave us open to abuse, terror,
and deception.


## 4. Trust and the Will



Trust may not be warranted (i.e., plausible) because the agent has
lost the ability to trust or simply cannot bring themselves to trust.
People can lose trust in almost everyone or everything as a result of
trauma (Herman 1991). The trauma of rape, for example, can profoundly
reduce one's sense that the world is a safe place with caring
people in it (Brison 2002). By contrast, people can lose trust just in
particular people or institutions. They can also have no experience
trusting in certain people or institutions, making them reluctant to
do so. They or others might want them to become more trusting. But the
question is, how can that happen? How can trust be restored or
generated?



The process of building trust is often slow and difficult (Uslaner
1999; Baier 1986; Lahno 2020), and that is true, in part, because of
the kind of mental attitude trust is. Many argue that it is not the
sort of attitude we can simply will ourselves to have. At the same, it
is possible to cultivate
 trust.[17]
 This section focuses on these issues, including what kind of mental
attitude trust is (e.g., a belief or an emotion). Also discussed
briefly is what kind of mental attitude distrust is. Like trust,
distrust is an attitude that people may wish to cultivate,
particularly when they are too trusting.



Consider first why one would think that trust can't be willed.
Baier questions whether people are able "to trust simply because
of encouragement to trust" (1986: 244; my emphasis). She
writes,



> 
> 
> "Trust me!" is for most of us an invitation which we
> cannot accept at will--either we do already trust the one who
> says it, in which case it serves at best as reassurance, or it is
> properly responded to with, "Why should and how can I, until I
> have cause to?". (my emphasis; 1986: 244)
> 
> 
> 



Baier is not a voluntarist about trust, just as most people are not
voluntarists about belief. In other words, she thinks that we
can't simply decide to trust for purely motivational rather than
epistemic reasons (i.e., merely because we want to, rather than
because we have reason to think that the other person is or could be
trustworthy; Mills 1998). That many people feel compelled to say,
"I wish I could trust you", suggests that Baier's
view is correct; wishing or wanting is not enough. But Holton
interprets Baier's view differently. According to him,
Baier's point is that we can never decide to trust, not that we
can never decide to trust for motivational purposes (1994). This
interpretation ignores, however, the attention that Baier gives to
situations in which all we have is encouragement (trusting
"simply because of encouragement"). The
"cause" she refers to ("Why should and how can I,
until I have cause to [trust]?"; 1986: 244) is an epistemic
cause. Once we have one of those, we can presumably decide whether to
trust on the basis of
 it.[18]
 But we cannot decide to trust simply because we want to, according to
Baier.



If trust resembles belief in being non-voluntary, then perhaps trust
itself is a belief. Is that right? Many philosophers claim that it is
(e.g., Hieronymi 2008; McMyler 2011; Keren 2014), while others
disagree (e.g., Jones 1996; Faulkner 2007; D'Cruz 2019). The
former contend that trust is a belief that the trustee is trustworthy,
at least in the thin sense that the trustee will do what he is trusted
to do (Keren 2020). Various reasons exist in favour of such theories,
doxastic reasons (see Keren 2020) including that these theories
suggest it is impossible to trust a person while holding the belief
that this person is not trustworthy, even in the thin sense. Most of
us accept this impossibility and would want any theory of trust to
explain it. A doxastic account does so by saying that we can't
believe a contradiction (not knowingly anyway; Keren 2020: 113).



Those who say that trust is not a belief claim that it is possible to
trust without believing the trustee is
 trustworthy.[19]
 Holton gives the nice example of trusting a friend to be sincere
without believing that the friend will be sincere (1994: 75).
Arguably, if one already believed that to be the case, then one would
have no need to trust the friend. It is also possible to believe that
someone is trustworthy without trusting that person, which suggests
that trust couldn't just be a belief in someone's
trustworthiness (McLeod 2002: 85). I might think that a particular
person is trustworthy without trusting them because I have no cause to
do so. I might even distrust them despite believing that they are
trustworthy (Jones 1996, 2013). As Jones explains, distrust can be
recalcitrant in parting "company with belief"
(D'Cruz 2019: 940; citing Jones 2013), a fact which makes
trouble for doxastic accounts not just of trust but of distrust too
(e.g., Krishnamurthy 2015). The latter must explain how distrust could
be a belief that someone is untrustworthy that could exist alongside
the belief that the person is trustworthy.



Among the alternatives to doxasticism are theories stating that trust
is an emotion, a kind of stance (i.e., the participant stance; Holton
1994), or a disposition (Kappel 2014; cited in Keren 2020). The most
commonly held alternative is the first: that trust is an emotion.
Reasons in favour of this view include the fact that trust resembles
an emotion in having characteristics that are unique to emotions, at
least according to an influential account of them (de Sousa 1987;
Calhoun 1984; Rorty 1980; Lahno 2001, 2020). For example, emotions
narrow our perception to "fields of evidence" that lend
support to the emotions themselves (Jones 1996: 11). When we are in
the grip of an emotion, we therefore tend to see facts that affirm its
existence and ignore those that negate it. To illustrate, if I am
really angry at my mother, then I tend to focus on things that justify
my anger while ignoring or refusing to see things that make it
unjustified. I can only see those other things once my anger subsides.
Similarly with trust: if I genuinely trust my mother, my attention
falls on those aspects of her that justify my trust and is averted
from evidence that suggests she is untrustworthy (Baker 1987). The
same sort of thing happens with distrust, according to Jones (Jones
2019). She refers to this phenomenon as "affective
looping", which, in her words, occurs when "a prior
emotional state provides grounds for its own continuance" (2019:
956). She also insists that only affective-attitude accounts of trust
and distrust can adequately explain it (2019).



There may be a kind of doxastic theory, however, that can account for
the affective looping of trust, if not of distrust. Arnon Keren, whose
work focuses specifically on trust, defends what he calls an
"impurely doxastic" theory. He describes trust as
believing in someone's trustworthiness *and* responding
to reasons ("preemptive" ones) against taking precautions
that this person will not be trustworthy (Keren 2020, 2014). Reasons
for trust are themselves reasons of this sort, according to Keren;
they oppose actions like those of carefully monitoring the behavior of
the trustee or weighing the available evidence that this person is
trustworthy. The trustor's response to these preemptive reasons
would explain why this person is resistant (or at least not attune) to
counter evidence to their trust (Keren 2014, 2020).



Deciding in favour of an affective-attitude theory or a purely or
impurely doxastic one is important for understanding features of trust
like affective looping. Yet it may have little bearing on whether or
how trust can be cultivated. For, regardless of whether trust is a
belief or an emotion, presumably we can cultivate it by purposefully
placing ourselves in a position that allows us to focus on evidence of
people's trustworthiness. The goal here could be
self-improvement: that is, becoming more trusting, in a good way so
that we can reap the benefits of justified trust. Alternatively, we
might be striving for the improvement of others: making them more
trustworthy by trusting them therapeutically. Alternatively still, we
could be engaging in "corrective trust". (See the above
discussions of therapeutic and corrective trust.)



This section has centered on how to develop trust and how to account
for facts about it such as the blinkered vision of the trustor.
Similar facts about distrust were also mentioned: those that concern
what kind of mental attitude it is. Theorizing about whether trust and
distrust are beliefs, emotions or something else allows us to
appreciate why they have certain features and also how to build these
attitudes. The process for building them, which may be similar
regardless of whether they are beliefs or emotions, will be relevant
to people who don't trust enough or who trust too much.


## 5. Conclusion



This entry as a whole has examined an important practical question
about trust: "When is trust warranted?" Also woven into
the discussion has been some consideration of when distrust is
warranted. Centerstage has been given to trust, however, because
philosophers have debated it much more than distrust.



Different answers to the question of when trust is warranted give rise
to different philosophical puzzles. For example, in response, one
could appeal to the nature of trust and trustworthiness and consider
whether the conditions are ripe for them (e.g., for the proposed
trustor to rely on the trustee's competence). But one would
first have to settle the difficult issue of what trust and
trustworthiness are, and more specifically, how they differ from mere
reliance and reliability, assuming there are these differences.



Alternatively, in deciding whether trust is warranted, one could
consider whether trust would be rationally justified or valuable. One
would consider these things simultaneously when rational justification
is understood in an end-directed way, making it dependent on
trust's instrumental value. With respect to rational
justification alone, puzzles arise when trying to sort out whether
reasons for trust must be internal to trustors or could be external to
them. In other words, is trust's epistemology internalist or
externalist? Because good arguments exist on both sides, it's
not clear how trust is rationally justified. Neither is it entirely
clear what sort of value trust can have, given the nature of it. For
example, trust may or may not have intrinsic moral value depending on
whether it signals respect for others.



Lastly, one might focus on the fact that trust cannot be warranted
when it is impossible, which is the case when the agent does not
already exhibit trust and cannot simply will themselves to have it.
While trust is arguably not the sort of attitude that one can just
will oneself to have, trust can be cultivated. The exact manner or
extent to which it can be cultivated, however, may depend again on
what sort of mental attitude it is.



Since one can respond to the question, "When is trust
warranted?" by referring to each of the above dimensions of
trust, a complete philosophical answer to this question is complex.
The same is true about the question of when to distrust, because the
same dimensions (the epistemology of distrust, its value, etc.) are
relevant to it. Complete answers to these broad questions about trust
and distrust would be philosophically exciting and also socially
important. They would be exciting both because of their complexity and
because they would draw on a number of different philosophical areas,
including epistemology, philosophy of mind, and value theory. The
answers would be important because trust and distrust that are
warranted contribute to the foundation of a good society, where people
thrive through healthy cooperation with others, become morally mature
human beings, and are not subject to social ills like tyranny or
oppression.