We become untrustworthy when we break our promises, miss our deadlines, or offer up unreliable information. If we aim to be a trustworthy person, we need to act in line with our existing commitments and we must also take care not to bite off more than we can chew when new opportunities come along. But often it is not clear what we will be able to manage, what obstacles may prevent us from keeping our promises, or what changes may make our information unreliable. In the face of such uncertainties, trustworthiness typically directs us towards caution and hesitancy, and away from generosity, spontaneity, or shouldering burdens for others. In How To Be Trustworthy, Katherine Hawley explores what trustworthiness means in our lives and the dilemmas which arise if we value trustworthiness in an uncertain world. She argues there is no way of guaranteeing a clean conscience. We can become untrustworthy by taking on too many commitments, no matter how well-meaning we are, yet we can become bad friends, colleagues, parents, or citizens if we take on too few commitments. Hawley shows that we can all benefit by being more sensitive to obstacles to trustworthiness, and recognising that those who live in challenging personal circumstances face greater obstacles than other members of society--whether visibly or invisibly disadvantaged through material poverty, poor health, social exclusion, or power imbalances.

About the Author
Katherine Hawley is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, where she formerly served as Head of School of Philosophical, Anthropological, and Film Studies, and as editor of The Philosophical Quarterly. Her research spans metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and she has written articles on identity, indeterminacy, social groups, and mereology. She is the author of How Things Persist (Oxford 2001) and Trust: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2012), and also the co-editor of Philosophy of Science Today (Oxford 2012).

Reviews
Hawley's work is enjoyable to read, rich as it is with vivid examples and careful explication of technical philosophical terms from the various subdisciplines from which she draws ideas. The book reads as an introduction to several facets of the scholarly literature on trust even while waging a novel argument about what trust and trustworthiness consist in. Having used thebook in an upper division undergraduate course in 2020, I can recommend it for teaching, and there is no doubt that the conception of trust on offer here is one that must be cited in the trust literature going forward. * Brennan McDavid, Journal of Moral Philosophy *
The appeal of Hawley's work is her expert ability to highlight complex issues related to trust and trustworthiness that lie at the intersection of ethics and epistemology. Moreover, these philosophical issues are familiar to us as ones we encounter and navigate in our routine social interactions. The breadth and clarity of the issues covered will interest readers looking to critically reflect on trust concepts and how they might operate in the social world. * J. Y. Lee, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice *
How to be Trustworthy is a highly readable and thought-provoking study of trust and trustworthiness that is philosophically and conceptually sophisticated. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the philosophy of trust and social epistemology more generally, one that encompasses a much broader range of social and cognitive phenomena that are relevant to this topic than is usually recognised. * Harry Lewendon-Evans, Metapsychology *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198843900
Author Katherine Hawley
Format Hardback
Page Count 176
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Dimensions(mm) 224mm * 144mm * 15mm