Towards trustworthy blockchains: normative reflections on blockchain-enabled virtual institutions

Ethics and Information Technology 23 (3):385-397 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel way to understand trust in blockchain technology by analogy with trust placed in institutions. In support of the analysis, a detailed investigation of institutional trust is provided, which is then used as the basis for understanding the nature and ethical limits of blockchain trust. Two interrelated arguments are presented. First, given blockchains’ capacity for being institution-like entities by inviting expectations similar to those invited by traditional institutions, blockchain trust is argued to be best conceptualized as a specialized form of trust in institutions. Keeping only the core functionality and certain normative ideas of institutions, this technology broadens our understanding of trust by removing the need for third parties while retaining the value of trust for the trustor. Second, the paper argues that blockchains’ decentralized nature and the implications and effects of this decentralization on trust issues are double-edged. With the erasure of central points, the systems simultaneously crowd out the pivotal role played by traditional institutions and a cadre of representatives in meeting their assigned obligations and securing the functional systems’ trustworthy performances. As such, blockchain is positioned as a technology containing both disruptive features that can be embedded with meaningful normative values and inherent ethical limits that pose a direct challenge to the actual trustworthiness of blockchain implementations. Such limits are proposed to be ameliorated by facilitating a shift of responsibility to the groups of people directly associated with the engendering of trust in the blockchain context.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Freiheit, die in Ketten liegt.Stefan Münker - 2019 - Zeitschrift für Medien- Und Kulturforschung 10 (2):117-126.
Blockchain technology into the logistics supply chain implementation effectiveness.Igor Britchenko, Tetiana Cherniavska & Bogdan Cherniavskyi - 2018 - In Igor Britchenko & Ye Polishchuk (eds.), Development of small and medium enterprises: the EU and East-partnership countries experience: monograph. Wydawnictwo Państwowej Wyższej Szkoły Zawodowej im. prof. Stanisława Tarnowskiego w Tarnobrzegu. pp. 307 - 318.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-01-29

Downloads
26 (#524,588)

6 months
8 (#158,054)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

Blockchain Ethics.Peter G. Kirchschlaeger - 2023 - Philosophies 9 (1):2.
The Bitcoin protocol as a system of power.Efpraxia D. Zamani - 2022 - Ethics and Information Technology 24 (1):1-14.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Trust and antitrust.Annette Baier - 1986 - Ethics 96 (2):231-260.
Convention: A Philosophical Study.David Lewis - 1969 - Synthese 26 (1):153-157.
Trust.Carolyn McLeod - 2020 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

View all 38 references / Add more references