On behalf of a bi-level account of trust

Abstract

A bi-level account of trust is developed and defended, one with relevance in ethics as well as epistemology. The proposed account of trust-on which trusting is modelled within a virtue-theoretic framework as a performance-type with an aim-distinguishes between two distinct levels of trust, apt and convictive, that take us beyond previous assessments of its nature, value, and relationship to risk assessment. While Sosa (A virtue epistemology: apt belief and reflective knowledge, volume I, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009; Judgment and agency, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015; Epistemology, University Press, Princeton, 2017), in particular, has shown how a performance normativity model may be fruitfully applied to belief, my objective is to apply this kind of model in a novel and principled way to trust. I conclude by outlining some of the key advantages of the performance-theoretic bi-level account of trust defended over more traditional univocal proposals.

Trust and trustworthiness

“…To a first approximation, a performance is fully apt iff it is not merely apt, but also guided to aptness by an apt (second-order) risk assessment that it would (likely enough) be apt. For discussion of this difference (as applicable to trust) see Carter (2020). For ease of presentation, I have articulated the relevant achievement matching (on the side of trustor and trustee) in terms of aptness on each side; however, see §5 (Objections and Replies) for some additional discussion.…”

“…A more theoretically involved articulation of full aptness, found in Sosa (2015, Ch. 3; see also Carter 2020) would require distinguishing between mere apt trust and fully apt trust with reference to trusting metacompetences -competences to trust in ways that would not easily lead to inapt trust. Fully apt trust can then be stated (within a performance-theoretic framework), in terms of metacompetence as follows: trust is fully apt just in case it is guided to aptness by a meta-apt risk assessment that not too easily would the trust have been inapt.…”

“…See, e.g., Verkuyl (1989). 10 For a defence of this way of thinking about competent trust, see Carter (2020). 11 The locution 'as entrusted' is meant to encompass views on which the trustee counts as taking care of things as entrusted only if doing so in a particular way, including, e.g., out of goodwill (Baier 1986;Jones 1996) or in conjunction with a belief that one is so committed (e.g., Hawley 2014).…”

Trust as performance

“…1), Nickel and Vaesen (2012, pp. 861–62), Carter (2020, p. 2301, 2318–19), Carter and Simion (2020, sec. 1a), Becker (1996, pp.…”

“…5151For related discussion on normal boundaries within which good trusting is valued, see Carter (2020, sec. 6).…”