How Can I Be Trusted?

A Virtue Theory of Trustworthiness

By: Nancy Nyquist Potter

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eText | 19 November 2002 | Edition Number 1

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This work examines the concept of trust in the light of virtue theory, and takes our responsibility to be trustworthy as central. Rather than thinking of trust as risk-taking, Potter views it as equally a matter of responsibility-taking. How Can I Be Trusted? illustrates that relations of trust are never independent from considerations of power, and that the trustee has a moral obligation not to exploit the vulnerability of the trusting person. Asking ourselves what we can do to be trustworthy allows us to move beyond adversarial trust relationships and toward a more democratic, just, and peaceful society.

Industry Reviews

Potter has thought carefully and well about a number of institutional and personal settings in which issues of trust are paramount, and her book contains a cogent critique of how dominant ways of thinking about our obligations to one another, particularly in certain important professional roles like counselor and teacher, have paid inadequate attention to issues of trust and trustworthiness, and are too reliant on internal institutional norms of conduct which immunize practitioners from serious challenges.