Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T12:16:38.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Trust, Trustworthiness, and the Moral Consequence of Consistency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2015

JASON D'CRUZ
JASON D'CRUZ*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY AT ALBANY [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Situationists such as John Doris, Gilbert Harman, and Maria Merritt suppose that appeal to reliable behavioral dispositions can be dispensed with without radical revision to morality as we know it. This paper challenges this supposition, arguing that abandoning hope in reliable dispositions rules out genuine trust and forces us to suspend core reactive attitudes of gratitude and resentment, esteem and indignation. By examining situationism through the lens of trust we learn something about situationism (in particular, the radically revisionary moral implications of its adoption) as well as something about trust (in particular, that the conditions necessary for genuine trust include a belief in a capacity for robust dispositions).

Keywords

ethicsmoral psychologynormative ethicsphilosophy of mindagencyresponsibility
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , Fall 2015 , pp. 467 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annas, J. (2005) ‘Comments on John Doris's Lack of Character’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 71, 636–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arpaly, N. (2005) ‘Comments on Lack of Character by John Doris’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73, 643–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohon, R., and D'Cruz, J.. (Forthcoming) ‘Promises and Consistency’. In Fileva, I. (ed.), Perspectives on Character (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Darley, J., and Batson, D.. (1973) ‘From Jerusalem to Jericho: A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 100–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doris, J. (1998) ‘Persons, Situations, and Virtue Ethics’. Noûs, 32, 504–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doris, J. (2002) Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doris, J. (2005) ‘Replies: Evidence and Sensibility’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 72, 656–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doris, J. (2009) ‘Skepticism about Persons’. Philosophical Issues, 19, 57–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fukuyama, F. (1995) Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Haney, C., Banks, W., and Zimbardo, P.. (1973) ‘Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison’. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69–97.Google Scholar
Harman, G. (1999) ‘Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 99, 315–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, G. (2000) ‘The Nonexistence of Character Traits’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 100, 223–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawley, K. (2012) ‘Trust, Distrust, and Commitment’. Noûs. doi:10.1111/nous.12000.Google Scholar
Holton, R. (1994) ‘Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 72, 63–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horsburgh, H. (1960) ‘The Ethics of Trust’. Philosophical Quarterly, 10, 343–54.Google Scholar
Hurka, T. (2001) Virtue, Vice and Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, R. (1999) ‘Trust, Well-being and Democracy’. In Warren, Mark (ed.), Democracy and Trust (New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Isen, A., and Levin, P.. (1972) ‘The Effect of Feeling Good on Helping: Cookies and Kindness’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21, 384–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, K. (2012) ‘Trustworthiness’. Ethics, 123, 61–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamtekar, R. (2004) ‘Situationism and Virtue Ethics on the Content of Our Character’. Ethics, 114, 458–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathews, K., and Canon, L.. (1975) ‘Environmental Noise Level as a Determinant of Helping Behavior’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 571–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGeer, V. (2008) ‘Trust, Hope, and Empowerment’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 86, 237–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLeod, C. (2014) ‘Trust’. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/trust/.Google Scholar
Merritt, M. (2000) ‘Virtue Ethics and Situationist Personality Psychology’. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 3, 365–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merritt, M. (2009) ‘Aristotelean Virtue and the Interpersonal Aspect of Character’. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 6, 23–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merritt, M., Doris, J., and Harman, G.. (2010) ‘Character’. In The Moral Psychology Handbook (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Milgram, S. (1974) Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harpercollins.Google Scholar
Miller, C. (2003) ‘Social Psychology and Virtue Ethics’. Journal of Ethics, 7, 365–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, C. (2013) Moral Character: An Empirical Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nahmias, E. (2007) ‘Autonomous Agency and Social Psychology’. In Marraffa, De Caro, and Ferretti (eds.), Cartographies of the Mind: Philosophy and Psychology in Intersection (Berlin: Springer), 169–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelkin, D. (2005) ‘Freedom, Responsibility, and the Challenge of Situationism’. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 29, 181–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelkin, D. (2008) ‘Responsibility and Rational Abilities: Defending an Asymmetrical View’. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 89, 497–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettit, P. (1995) ‘The Cunning of Trust’. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 24, 212–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, N. (2002) How Can I Be Trusted: A Virtue Theory of Trustworthiness. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Sabini, J., Siepmann, M., and Stein, J.. (2001) ‘The Really Fundamental Attribution Error in Social Psychological Research’. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkissian, H. (2010) ‘Minor Tweak, Major Payoffs: The Problems and Promises of Situationism in Moral Philosophy’. Philosopher's Imprint, 10, 1–14.Google Scholar
Snow, N. (2010) Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sreenivasan, G. (2002) ‘Errors about Errors’. Mind, 111, 27–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strawson, P. (1974) Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Swanton, C. (2003) Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, J. (1996) ‘Moral Objectivity’. In Harman, G. and Thomson, J. (eds.), Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity (Oxford: Blackwell), 144–47.Google Scholar
Vargas, M. (2013) ‘Situationism and Free Will’. In Clark, Kiverstein, and Vierkant (eds.), Decomposing the Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 325–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, M. (2006) Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolfolk, R., Doris, J., and Darley, J.. (2006) ‘Identification, Situational Constraint, and Social Cognition: Studies in the Attribution of Moral Responsibility’. Cognition, 100, 283–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed