Events

23 September 2010

2010 New Zealand Aronui Lecture Series: Perverting Trust

Lecture

Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve
Past President of the British Academy and Cambridge Professor of Philosophy.

‘Without trust we cannot stand’ O’Neill, 2002. Are we placing trust in trustworthy sources?

Many public and academic discussions of trust focus on empirical evidence of attitudes of trust and mistrust, but say very little about trustworthiness. From a practical point of view this is perverse. We don’t need to assess how trusting others are. We do need to judge whether others say what they mean and will do what they say. A more serious and practical approach to trust would address problems about judging trustworthiness first. Trust is basically a response to trustworthiness, and we cannot work out how to place the first intelligently without judging the second. Unfortunately while systems of accountability may support trustworthiness, they do not always support the intelligent placing and refusal of trust.

Philosophy

Organisation:

The Royal Society of New Zealand