Some Accessible Introductions to the Philosophy of Trust

For the basic issues and positions regarding trust, see the very clear account in Karen Jones’s entry on ‘Trust’ in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Routledge, 1998). There is a shorter version of this in The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Routledge, 1999).

For more extended discussion, Annette Baier’s essays, ‘Trust and Antitrust’ and ‘Trust and Its Vulnerabilities’, are very interesting. They are both reprinted in her book Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics (Harvard University Press, 1994).

Martin Hollis’s book Trust Within Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1998) provides an extended discussion of the Machiavellian conclusion, along with an interesting suggestion for how it might be avoided.

Editions Quoted in this Essay

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, with Selected Variants From the Latin Edition of 1668, edited by Edwin Curley (Hackett, 1994).
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge, revised by P.H. Nidditch (second edition, Oxford University Press, 1978).
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, translated by George Bull (revised edition, Penguin, 1999).