Can We Trust Trust

Abstract

whether we necessarily need more cooperation, keeping, for the moment, the distinction between cooperation and trust blurred and their relationship implicit. According to the trite observation - Adam Smith wrote - if there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least abstain from robbing and murdering one another (Smith [1759] 1976: 86; see also Saint Augustine in Dunn, this volume). This trite observation serves a double purpose: it reminds us that basic forms of cooperation are inevitable if a society is to be at all viable, but it also points out, perhaps unwittingly, that there are instances of cooperation - notably those among robbers and murderers - that we may want to dispose of rather than improve. We may want less cooperation (and trust) rather than more, especially among those who are threatening us, and whose cooperation is a hindrance to ours. A priori, we cannot always say whether greater trust and cooperation are in fa