The philosophy of trust

Trust is central to our social lives. We know by trusting what others tell us. We act on that basis, and on the basis of trust in their promises and implicit commitments. So trust underpins both epistemic and practical cooperation and is key to philosophical debates on the conditions of its possibility. It is difficult to overstate the significance of these issues. On the practical side, discussions of cooperation address what makes society possible-of how it is that life is not a Hobbesian war of all against all. On the epistemic side, discussions of cooperation address what makes the pooling of knowledge possible-and so the edifice that is science. But trust is not merely central to our lives instrumentally; trusting relations are themselves of great value, and in trusting others, we realise distinctive forms of value. What are these forms of value, and how is trust central to our lives? These questions are explored and developed in this volume, which collects fifteen new essays on the philosophy of trust. They develop and extend existing philosophical discussion of trust and will provide a reference point for future work on trust.

Cover; The Philosophy of Trust; Copyright; Contents; List of Illustrations; List of Contributors; 1: Introduction; 1. Trust and Cooperation; 2. Trust and Knowledge; 3. Trust and Social Philosophy; 4. Chapter Summary; References; 2: The Empowering Theory of Trust; 1. Trust and Reliance; 2. The Case for the Empowering Theory; 2.1 Two theories; 2.2 The situational enhancement of dependability; 2.2.1 THE ENCOURAGEMENT ARGUMENT; 2.2.2 The request-based argument; 2.2.3 The esteem-based argument; 2.2.4 A question; 2.3 Modelling situational enhancement; 2.4 The situational reinforcement of durability

3. Trust-Responsiveness on the Empowering Theory3.1 The evocative ascription of trust-responsiveness; 3.2 Trust-responsiveness is context dependent; 3.3 Trust-responsiveness is a work in progress; 3.4 Ascribing trust-responsiveness is subject to moral norms; References; 3: Trust as a Second-Personal Attitude (of the Heart); 1. Baier, Jones, and Holton on Trust: The Participant Stance; 2. Participant, Reciprocating Attitudes: Deontic and Non-Deontic; 3. Trust as a Non-Deontic Attitude: A Contrast with Promising; 4. Trust as a Second-Personal Attitude of the Heart; References

4: On the Risks …