Source: BBC
Ten years after her Reith lectures on trust, the philosopher Onora O’Neill revisits the subject, and wonders if the often-asked question, “How can we restore trust?” is missing the point.
During the past year, the headlines have publicised lots of cases of untrustworthy behaviour, some of it lurid, even criminal, some of it merely squalid and routine.
Some bankers and some care home workers, some journalists and some politicians and assorted others have been exposed as untrustworthy. Once again the slightly plaintive question “How can we restore trust?” is on everyone’s lips.
Taken in one way, the answer is pretty obvious. First, be trustworthy. Second, provide others with good evidence that you are trustworthy. As Abraham Lincoln pointed out, “You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
To be sure, in a few cases such as that of the aptly named Mr Madoff, who made off with a lot of other people’s money, that deception lasted a very long time. But duplicity and betrayal are often discovered, sometimes soon after they begin.
Most trustworthy professions?
- Nurses 82%
- Doctors 80%
- Teachers 69%
- Lawyers 35%
- Estate agents 11%
- Bankers 11%
- Journalists 7%
- Politicians 7%
Source: Which? survey of 2,060 people, September 2012
Categories: Europe