Katherine Hawley, "How to Be Trustworthy" (Oxford UP, 2019)

Summary

It is obvious that in our day-to-day lives, a lot hangs on trust, and thus on whether those around us are trustworthy. Yet there are several philosophical issues surrounding trust and trustworthiness. For example, is trusting someone different from relying on them? Correspondingly, is being trustworthy different from being reliable? Assuming that there is a difference, in what does the difference consist? What renders one worthy of trust? Is our trustworthiness something under our control? In How to Be Trustworthy (Oxford University Press, 2019), Katherine Hawley explores many of the central questions one might ask about trust and trustworthiness, proposing an account according to which being trustworthy is a matter of avoiding unfulfilled commitment.

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Robert Talisse

Robert Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.

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