Abstract

Trust is relevant to discussions across a range of areas in philosophy, including social epistemology, ethics, political theory, and action theory. It’s also the sort of thing that tends to matter a lot in our personal lives. We want romantic partners, friends, employers, and others to trust us. I argue that trust requires belief on the part of the trustor in the competence of the trustee to perform the relevant action, as well as the trustor's approval of what she believes is the will of the trustee to perform that action, where that action is something about which the trustor cares.