Trust and Distrust

This chapter introduces the philosophical study of trust, and explains the distinction between trust and reliance. It argues for an analogous distinction between distrust and non-reliance. Keeping distrust in focus highlights problems with existing accounts of trust, most especially those accounts according to which trust involves imputing a certain kind of motive to the trusted person. A new view of both trust and distrust is introduced, according to which both of these attitudes involve attribution of a commitment to the (dis)trusted person. The relevant notion of commitment is explicated, though it is not explicitly defined, and some initial advantages of the commitment account are explored. The account permits a sensible understanding of what makes trust appropriate or inappropriate, likewise for distrust; sometimes neither attitude is appropriate. The account also helps explain what betrayal is, and conversely what trustworthiness might be. The chapter ends by discussing the scope of this project, and previewing some later discussions.