First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The purpose of this book is to show how the science of biology has been influenced by ethical, religious, social, cultural and philosophical beliefs as to the nature of life and our human place in the natural world. It follows that there are accounts of theories and investigations from those of Aristotle to research in molecular biology today. These have been selected to illustrate the theme and there is no intention to present a comprehensive history of biology. It is (...) suggested that ethical beliefs in particular have a greater influence in biology than in other sciences, such as physics and chemistry, and this is because biology includes the study of ourselves and involves us in consideration of the value and purpose of life. Attitudes to non-human life are also coloured by ethical beliefs and though some philosophers, for example Descartes, thought that only human beings were capable of thought and feeling the general view has always been that animals were sentient. Our treatment of animals and our attitudes toward them have also been conditioned by religious views as to the position of humans in relation to the natural world. (shrink)

In light of a history of an unethical news media system used by the state as an instrument of oppression, media ethics in South Africa is intended to uphold the foundational tenets of journalism and play a pivotal role in addressing issues of diversity, equity, and social justice. Most recently, the 2021 Inquiry into Media Ethics and Credibility report instructed media watchdogs, such as the South African Press Council, to track data concerning ethical breaches based on the potential that (...) such data can contribute to transparency and accountability. This study examines the trends in ethical issues raised in rulings by the South African Press Council (PCSA) over the period 2018–2022. Our analysis found that most of the South African news media publications registered with PCSA have a good track record when it comes to upholding ethical standards. However, a few publications have a disproportionate share of the complaints against them. (shrink)

Aus dem Inhalt: Views from the North: Hans Petter Graver: Law, Justice and the State: Nordic Perspectives u Jacob Dahl Rendtorff: The Danish Welfare State: Philosophical Ideals and Systemic Reality u Sigri!Dur *orgeirsdottir: Feminist Ethics and Feminist Politics u Kuellike Lengi: The Situation of Human Rights in Estonia u Einar Palsson: Pythagoras and Early Icelandic Law u Law, Discourse and Rationality: Mats Flodin: Internal and External Rationality of Legal Systems u Logi Gunnarsson: A Discourse About Discourse u Hjordi!s Hakonardottir: Legal (...) Language: A Tool of Justice u Ghita Holmstrom-Hintikka: On the Use of Expert Witness in Legal Reasoning and Inquiry u Law, State and Nation: Agust H. Ing*orsson: Democracy, Bureaucracy and Marginalization of the State u Aleksander Peczenik: Law-State, Legal Certainty and Legitimacy of Law u Ove K. Pedersen/Sverre Raffnsoe: Reorganizing Society u Juha Raikka: Mill on National Sentiment u Pall Skulason: Concepts of the State and Classes of Value u Problems of Law and Rights: Britt-Mari Blegvad: How to Cope With Uncertainty: Trust and Law u Jon Wetlesen: Animal Rights or Human Duties?. (shrink)

The article approaches the topic of social trust from an evolutionary perspective. It begins by summarising the most influential approaches that have defined specific and social trust and ascertains what causes differences in degrees of trust and how the potential risk of deception might be lowered. It then notes that the basis of morality had already been formed during the era of prehistoric man, who was able to create coalitions against aggressors and to socially control (...) the behaviour of deviants. It points out, however, that having a certain predisposition to behaving cooperatively or an increased sensitivity to recognising and not tolerating behaviour aimed at abusing cooperation is not a sufficient guarantee of the fact that people will always favour cooperation over deception. One of the reasons for this is a tendency to favour short-term gains over long-term ones. The article argues that establishing norms produces a higher level of social trust because it not only “encourages” individuals to behave in certain ways in particular situations but also works as a sanction which “discourages” the individual from socially deviant behaviour. The article then focuses on a debate about the causal relationship between social trust and social capital. It discusses the suggestion that political institutions, government and the judiciary may reduce rather than raise levels of social capital and consequently also the level of social trust. This is partly because of their powerful position and the consequent scope for corruption and partly because of the fact that even when attempting to act honestly, representatives of these institutions cannot sufficiently reflect upon dynamic change at the local level. Finally, the article ends by adopting the position that social trust is built primarily from bottom up and so it is risky to continually doubt the very existence and usefulness of social norms and morality and to be governed simply by legal norms. (shrink)

We study whether greater social trust is associated with a lower incidence of corporate misconduct. Both social norm and network theory suggest that social trust can affect managerial behavior and reduce the likelihood of misconduct behavior. Consistent with this prediction, we find that social trust is negatively associated with corporate misconduct behavior. Moreover, we show that, when media coverage is higher, the negative relation between social trust and corporate misconduct behavior is (...) more pronounced. Further analyses suggest that social trust can help mitigate both disclosure-related and nondisclosure-related misconduct. (shrink)

We examine the implications of social trust for auditor reporting conservatism. Using a sample of listed companies in China, we find that clients located in high-trust regions are less likely to receive a non-clean audit opinion. This negative impact of social trust on auditor reporting conservatism increases when the client’s parent firm operates in a region of higher social trust, suggesting that social trust is contagious from a parent firm to its (...) subsidiaries in a consolidated entity. We provide evidence that the trust contagion is more pronounced for clients with a higher percentage of parent-appointed directors on their boards and clients whose parent firm has fewer subsidiaries. These findings indicate that monitoring and, to a lesser extent, personnel rotation may serve as potential channels of trust contagion. We also find that the impact of trust is more pronounced when the client is located closer to its audit firm, when the client’s parent firm is a state-owned enterprise or holds a higher percentage of the client’s shares, and when the client is associated with greater discretionary accruals. We provide further evidence that it is client rather than auditor trustworthiness that influences auditor reporting conservatism, auditors charge trustworthy clients lower fees, and clients from high-trust regions are less likely to manipulate earnings. Overall, our evidence suggests that social trust alleviates auditor concern about client moral hazard. (shrink)

According to public reason liberalism, the state must abide by a principle of public justification. This principle holds that the laws and institutions of society must be in some sense justifiable to, or acceptable to, all reasonable citizens. But why accept the public justification principle? Recently, Kevin Vallier has developed an interesting and empirically informed argument from social trust to public justification. Sustaining a system of social trust within diverse and large‐scale societies, argues Vallier, requires adherence (...) to the public justification principle. After summarizing Vallier’s argument (Section 1), I argue that Vallier’s defence of public justification does not succeed because there are alternative conceptions of democratic discourse and decision‐making that lack a public justification principle yet that could still sustain social trust (Section 2). I then defend this argument against two objections: that alternatives to public justification would produce less social trust (Section 3) and that such alternatives would not produce social trust in the right way (Section 4). (shrink)

"With increasingly divergent views and commitments, and an all-or-nothing mindset in political life, it can seem hard to sustain the level of trust in other members of our society necessary to ensure our most basic institutions work. This book features interdisciplinary perspectives on social trust. The contributors address four main topics related to social trust. The first topic is empirical and formal work on norms and institutional trust, especially the relationships between trust and (...) human behaviour. The second topic concerns trust in particular institutions, notably the legal system, scientific community, and law enforcement. Third, the contributors address challenges posed by diversity and oppression in maintaining social trust. Finally, they discuss different forms of trust and social trust. Social Trust will be of interest to researchers in philosophy, political science, economics, law, psychology, and sociology"--. (shrink)

The underrepresentation of females on corporate boards is an important ethical issue that raises serious concerns about gender equality in senior management teams. Relying on a large sample of public firms from the Chinese market, we examine how social trust affects female board representation. We find that female board representation has a positive and significant relation with social trust. The effect is more pronounced in regions with a higher male-to-female sex ratio at birth, lower levels of (...) education, lower GDP per capita, and in nonfamily firms. We also find that higher social trust is more likely to increase the number of non-independent female directors rather than independent ones. Further analyses show that increased female board representation is an important channel through which social trust improves corporate ESG ratings. Overall, our study suggests that social trust contributes positively to gender diversity in corporate management. (shrink)

Social trust is the basic resource for our institutions and is notably maintained by leaders who have what I call a vulnerable style and a vigilant capacity to recognize ethical challenges on the horizon. The essay follows five steps: a meditation on social trust, an introduction to the notion of style, and a proposal for a vulnerable style so as to become collectively capacious for recognition. Then it turns to the two institutions under examination at the (...) 2022 annual meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics (SCE): the church and the academy. The essay examines both the church on racial justice through exemplars of vulnerable style and the academy on needed recognition of the precarity of our community colleges. So as to advance an interest in diversifying our styles of communicating within the SCE, the essay provides a meditation, an academic account, an academic proposal, a narrative, and a case. (shrink)

Modern democratic states are increasingly adopting new information and communication technologies to enhance the efficiency and quality of public administration, public policy and services. However, there is substantial variation in the extent to which countries are successful in pursuing such public digitalization. This paper zooms in on the role of social trust as a possible account for the observed empirical pattern in the range and scope of public digitalization across countries. Our argument is that high social (...) class='Hi'>trust makes it easier to digitalize the public sector to the benefit of overall society. We develop a simple game-theoretical model that specifies this positive externality from a high-trust culture and provide empirical evidence that a higher level of social trust is associated with a higher level of public digitalization. Of course, high-trust countries cannot do without the rule of law and some institutionalized mechanisms of control and accountability. However, from our argument, it follows that one future challenge could be that control crowds out trust, so that the balance is no longer optimal. If such overcontrol occurs, public digitalization win–win situations between citizens and government can be undermined, even in high-trust countries. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to present selected relationships between social trust and the development of a territorial unit. Social trust affects the level of cooperation in society and decides about the competitiveness of a territorial unit [12, p. 7]. The main thesis of the article is the author’s conviction that there is a significant correlation between social trust and the activity of citizens, the consequence of which is the development of territorial units. (...) This relationship applies to different categories of units, the article mainly focuses on municipal units. The conclusions presented are a consequence of the analysis of information sources and surveys carried out in three cities: Cracow, Helsinki and Valletta. The socio-economic situation of Poland, Finland and Malta is varied, also due to historical and political conditions. Social trust in these cities depends on different factors. Everywhere, however, significantly affects the direction of urban development, accelerating and stabilising it. Trust is a component of social capital, which translates into the ability to build an innovative and modern economy. In countries where citizens trust each other, a sense of security increases which significantly affects well-being. (shrink)

This paper argues that social trust is the emergent product of a complex system of property relations, backed up by a sub-system of mutual monitoring. This happens in a context similar to Ostrom’s commons, where cooperation is necessary for the management of resources, in the absence of external authorities to enforce sanctions. I show that social trust emerges in this context because of an institutional structure that enables individuals to develop a generalized disposition to internalize the (...) external effects of their actions. This is made possible by the “patrimonial” nature of this structure. (shrink)

Prior studies assert that social trust may positively influence the economic performance of countries and firms (within those countries). This paper proposes a more nuanced mechanism whereby corporate social responsibility (CSR) mediates the relationship between country-level social trust and firm-level financial performance. Anchored in neo-institutional theory, we theorize that social trust instills norms of trustworthiness and willingness to trust others guiding individual and corporate behaviors. In order to comply with such norms and (...) gain legitimacy, firms in high-trust society are more likely to commit to CSR activities that serve the interests of stakeholders. CSR activities, in turn, can positively influence financial performance by enabling firms to access stakeholders' resources and capabilities and to decrease transactions costs in the stakeholder relationships. We tested our theory by analyzing 9818 firm-year observations across 34 countries, during the 2006 to 2015 period. Our analysis shows the expected CSR mediation in the relationship between social trust and firm-level financial performance. Our findings are robust across different models addressing the concerns of endogeneity, alternative measures, and potential moderators. (shrink)

Reading W.K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” in evidentialist terms is standard. However, evidentialist accounts face several longstanding interpretive issues over the Shipowner Story and Clifford’s Motto. This article defends an evidentialist reading. But what distinguishes it from others is that it interprets “The Ethics of Belief” according to Clifford’s “first principle of natural ethics”, a principle he articulates in prior writings, and which comes down to social trust. I reorient Clifford’s evidentialism by returning to his core moral (...) principle and argue that doing so can establish coherence across Clifford’s writings on ethics and can help resolve the relevant interpretive issues. (shrink)

At a time when nationalism is rising and support for democratic values is declining, this paper considers the role that businesses and corporations play in building and undermining social trust. It was published as part of the Future of the Corporation programme led by the British Academy.

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 49-79, January 2022.

In times of the coronavirus, complying with public health policies is essential to save lives. Understanding the factors that influence compliance with social distancing measures is therefore an urgent issue. The present research investigated the role of political and social trust for social distancing using a variety of methods. In Study 1, conducted with a sample from the United Kingdom in the midst of the virus outbreak, neither political nor social trust had main associations (...) with self-reported social distancing tendencies. However, both factors interacted such that social trust was associated with lower social distancing tendencies among participants with low levels of political trust. In Study 2, using an experimental longitudinal design and again conducted with a sample collected from the UK during the first wave of the pandemic, social distancing practices increased over time, independent of an experimental manipulation of political trust. Moreover, while the interaction between political and social trust from the first study could not be conceptually replicated, social trust was positively related to social distancing intentions. Moving from the individual to the country level and assessing actual behavior at both the first and second wave of the pandemic, in Study 3, country-level political trust was related to less social distancing during the first wave. Social trust was related to a higher growth rate of infections. Against the background of these inconsistent findings, we discuss the potential positive and unexpected negative effects of social trust for social distancing. (shrink)

In her many articles on the subject, Trudy Govier has made a substantial contribution to the recent philosophical literature on trust—not only to the discussion kindled by Annette Baier's provocative article "Trust and Anti-Trust", but to the larger, much older, low-intensity discussion among social scientists and philosophers about the relation between trust and effective government, stable social relationships, and psychological health. This book is devoted to the varieties and uses of trust in various (...) largely non-intimate social relationships, ranging from the mundane, casual, or routine interactions of daily life to international affairs. The book is primarily expository, though there are occasional passages of conceptual analysis and some criticism of the work of others. Govier says, in her Preface, that. (shrink)

In her many articles on the subject, Trudy Govier has made a substantial contribution to the recent philosophical literature on trust—not only to the discussion kindled by Annette Baier's provocative article "Trust and Anti-Trust", but to the larger, much older, low-intensity discussion among social scientists and philosophers about the relation between trust and effective government, stable social relationships, and psychological health. This book is devoted to the varieties and uses of trust in various (...) largely non-intimate social relationships, ranging from the mundane, casual, or routine interactions of daily life to international affairs. The book is primarily expository, though there are occasional passages of conceptual analysis and some criticism of the work of others. Govier says, in her Preface, that. (shrink)

The social trust argument asserts that a political community cannot survive without social trust, and that social trust cannot be achieved or maintained without a political community having discretionary control over immigration. Various objections have already been raised against this argument, but because those objections all assume various liberal commitments they leave the heart of the social trust argument untouched. This chapter argues that by looking at the socio-historical circumstances of Latino/as in (...) the United States, an inherent weakness of the social trust argument gets exposed. Giving a political community discretionary control over immigration not only fails to deliver on the promise of social trust, but it actually seems to promote its opposite, social mistrust. This suggests that a far better way of promoting the goal of social trust, and at the same time abating social mistrust, is to actually circumvent a political community’s ability to control immigration by giving priority both to socio-historical circumstances and immigrant rights (at least in a minimalist sense) in determining immigration policy. (shrink)

As per the teachings of Islam, social trust involves placing others as the pillars of the Islamic countries, which needs to be maintained. Therefore, any promise or action that undermines the social trust of the people as a social capital is one of the most important anti-social factors that must be dealt with. In view of that, Islam is struggling against hypocrisy as an antisocial trend, because it damages social trust when a (...) hypocrite preaches one thing and does another; in other words, the deeds do not confirm the words. That is why citizens cannot believe and trust in their promises, because such individuals do not fulfil them at any time. In this context, officials are suggested to respect the principle of transparency in the governance of Islamic societies in order to improve citizens’ social trust. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the role of transparent governance based on the teachings of Nahj al-Balagha in creating social trust among 428 Iranian Muslim citizens in 2022. In sum, the results indicated that transparent governance has a significant positive effect on citizens’ social trust in the officials of Islamic societies, as calculated by structural equation modelling in Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) (path coefficient = 0.58; t -value = 5.54). Contribution: This study provided a new insight into the role of transparent governance in creating and strengthening social trust among the officials and citizens of Islamic societies, which deserves further attention by governments and researchers. (shrink)

Informal institutions are found to shape the behaviors of economic organizations within the business world by creating localized social norms and moral commitments. However, the existing literature pays greater attention to the financial consequences of such institutions, and little is known about their environmental impacts, especially in the context of transition economies. By linking institutional theory with environmental strategy literature, in this study, we develop a theoretical framework and empirically test how social trust, one of the dimensions (...) of informal institutions, influences corporate environmental responsibility. Using a longitudinal data set of Chinese listed firms from 2006 to 2015, we find support that firms located in regions with a higher level of social trust engage in more environmental responsibility activities. We also show that this effect is more pronounced when local environmental protests are fewer and information transparency is worse. Our findings highlight the importance of social trust in environmental governance and provide evidence of how it serves as a substitute for formal environmental institutions in transition economies. (shrink)

This paper uses the evolutionary frame provided by the Victorian jurist Henry Sumner Maine to describe the process by which trust can be seen as the product of a gradual development that starts with small-scale communities and later allows market exchanges to develop themselves. I also argue, using the work of Elinor Ostrom (1990), that trust emerges first within small-scale communities, where first- and second-degree collective action problems need to be resolved. The development of a social disposition (...) to trust is closely linked with an institutional context that encourages individuals to take the externalities of their actions into account. This is made possible by customary mechanisms, as the development of social trust at this stage cannot rely on a mighty “Leviathan”. Therefore, this paper questions the claim that social trust is the product of market exchanges. Market exchanges might favor the further growth of social trust, hands in hands with the right institutional frame. However, this growth is not just the transposition of a previously acquired disposition to trust. The work of Henry Sumner Maine interestingly underlines the importance of the co-development of institutions and trust, from its origin in small communities to its expansion to market exchanges. Both Ostrom’s and Maine’s perspectives underline the fact that trust and trustworthiness are complementary and question a-rational perspectives on trust. This paper also elaborates on the claim, coming from the literature on contract law, that focusing on sanctioning mechanisms can be highly counterproductive. (shrink)

Happiness is the eternal pursuit of mankind and is also the ultimate goal of social governance and national development. Based on data from the Chinese General Social Survey, this study used a structural equation model to analyze the influence of social class identity and public service satisfaction on the happiness of residents. The effect of public service satisfaction and social trust between social class identity and residents’ happiness was tested using the Monte Carlo method. (...) The empirical results show that social class identity, social trust, and public service satisfaction all had a significant positive impact on residents’ happiness. The influence coefficients of social class identity on the happiness of residents and on the satisfaction degree of public service for those born in the1970s group were greater than the 1980s and 1990s groups. The influence coefficients of social class identity on the happiness and public service satisfaction of non-agricultural household residents were greater than those of agricultural household residents. Therefore, to improve the happiness of residents, we should make new breakthroughs in the equality of quality and the quality of public services, promote the integration of urban and rural areas, highlight key areas of rural development, and increase the construction of basic public services for agricultural household residents. (shrink)

This contribution introduces key concepts and themes from Kevin Vallier’s Trust in a Polarized Age that play a role in the discussion by the four commentators Diana Mutz, Pierre-Guillaume Méon, Chandran Kukathas, and Paul Weithman. The discussion explains how Vallier uses the rich empirical literature on social trust to illuminate normative notions of legitimacy and public justification in liberal orders.

The present study explored the moderation effect of education on the relationship between the perception of social equality and social trust and individuals’ subjective well-being in rural China. Data were derived from the nationally representative cross-sectional Chinese General Social Survey. After handling missingness, 5,911 eligible participants from the 2015 wave were included in the model. We used logistic regression to test the hypotheses. We first tested the effect of the perception of social equality and (...) class='Hi'>social trust on SWB. Then we added an interaction term to test the moderation effect of education in this relationship. The results show that education had a significant moderating effect on the association between general social trust and SWB. While had no significant effect on the association between the perception of social equality, special social trust and SWB. The perception of social equality had significant effects in both groups. The relationship between special social trust and SWB in both groups was not significant. For the more educated group, general social trust had a significant and positive effect on SWB. (shrink)

While there is a substantive literature on the link between welfare states and individuals’ trust, little is known about the micro-linkage of the conditionality of welfare as a driver of trust. This study presents a unique randomized social experiment investigating this link. Recipients of the regular Dutch social assistance policy are compared to recipients of two alternative schemes inspired by the basic income and based on a more trusting and unconditional approach, testing the main reciprocity argument (...) in the literature: a trusting government will harvest trust from welfare recipients in return. Particularly trust in local government – the level at which the experiment was implemented – increases among recipients of the alternative treatments. Subsequently, we innovatively theorize and test rigorously which mediating mechanisms might explain this increase. Policy evaluation, social integration, and psychological well-being are studied in this respect. Of these, the only underlying mechanism proven to mediate the treatment effect in local political trust, is citizens’ satisfaction with policy. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo test the relationship between social security satisfaction, social fairness, social trust, and people’s subjective wellbeing in China and the serial mediation effect in this study.MethodsWe utilized the data from Chinese Social Survey in 2017 and 2019, involving 31 provinces across the country. There were 5,398 samples in 2017CSS and 2,580 samples in 2019CSS selected by the research objectives. There were 4,269 women and 3,709 men with the average age of participants being 43.ResultsThe results showed (...) that the actual status of social security satisfaction, social fairness and trust, and SWB were greater than the theoretical status overall. Social security satisfaction [β = 0.454, p < 0.001, 95% CI = ], social fairness [β = 0.065, p < 0.001, 95% CI = ], and social trust [β = 0.108, p < 0.001, 95% CI = ] positively influenced people’s SWB, respectively. Social fairness had a positive effect on social trust. Social fairness and social trust partly mediated the relationship between social security satisfaction and SWB, respectively. Social security satisfaction indirectly influenced SWB through the serial effect of social fairness and social trust. The total effect of SWB explained is 47% in the serial mediation model.ConclusionSatisfactory social security is likely to cause a high level of people’s SWB, social fairness, and social trust. It is beneficial to form a virtuous circle in society. Allowing people to obtain satisfactory social security is conducive to social equity, promoting social trust, and improving people’s SWB. (shrink)

This paper sheds new light on Putnam's hypothesis that watching television, particularly entertainment programs, contributes to an erosion of social trust. Previous studies have been unable to reach convincing evidence regarding this claim. It is argued that this is a consequence of the neglect of indirect, interpersonally mediated TV effects which supplement the influence of direct exposure, and extend even to those who do not watch television. Using data from the 2002 and 2004 waves of the European (...) class='Hi'>Social Survey in combination with aggregate data from telemetric audience research, we conduct a multilevel analysis of TV's impact on social trust. Investigating this macro-micro relationship, we find that patterns of general TV use in 25 European societies exert substantial effects on individual social trust that by far exceed those of individual TV use. In line with Putnam's hypothesis, there is a negative impact of total TV time; however, high market shares of public TV increase social trust. (shrink)

Trusting and its Tribulations -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1 Unfixed Trust -- 2 Witchcraft -- 3 Trusting the Untrustworthy -- 4 The Puzzle of the Animal Witch -- 5 'Sharing Secrets' -- 6 Eddies of Distrust -- 7 Intimate Documents -- 8 Trustworthy Bodies -- 9 Habitus of Trust -- 10 'You Can Tell the Company We Done Quit' -- Index.

Philosophers agree that an important part of our knowledge is acquired via testimony. One of the main objectives of social epistemology is therefore to specify the conditions under which a hearer is justified in accepting a proposition stated by a source. Non-reductionists, who think that testimony could be considered as an a priori source of knowledge, as well as reductionists, who think that another type of justification has to be added to testimony, share a common conception about children development. (...) Non-reductionists believe that infants and children are fundamentally gullible and their gullibility could be seen as an example for justifying testimony, while reductionists believe that this gullibility is merely an exception that should be taken into account. The objective of this paper is to review contemporary literature in developmental psychology providing empirical grounds likely to clarify this philosophical debate. What emerges from current research is a more elaborated vision of children’s attitude toward testimony. Even at a very young age, children do not blindly swallow information coming from testimony; doubtful or contradictory information is automatically screened by their cognitive system. Even if they are unable to give positive reasons for the acceptance of a given testimony, young children are not gullible. Such empirical findings tend to call into question the radical opposition between reductionism and non-reductionism. (shrink)