The American Philosophical Association is pleased to announce that Dr. Matthew Bennett has been awarded the 2020 Journal of Value Inquiry Prize for his paper, “Demoralising Trust.”
The Journal of Value Inquiry Prize is awarded for the best unpublished, article-length work in philosophy by a non-academically affiliated philosopher.
From the selection committee: “Demoralizing Trust” argues against widely held “moralizing” accounts of trust. According to such accounts, a person who trusts someone else does so because they expect the trusted person to possess the moral motivations and moral qualities that would lead to the expected behavior. The alternative proposed here is a commitment account according to which the person trusted is believed to be committed to behaving in the relevant way. The notion of commitment used here is a psychological one, not a moral one—though moral commitment could be involved, too. However, moral motivations are neither necessary nor sufficient for trust. “Demoralizing Trust” is not only a very well written and argued paper but also a highly original one. It makes an important contribution to ongoing discussions about trust and related issues. It is an excellent choice for the Journal of Value Inquiry Prize.
Matthew Bennett is a Senior Research Officer at the University of Essex with the Leverhulme Competition and Competitiveness project, which began in October 2020. Before that he taught ethics, political philosophy, and post-Kantian German philosophy for two years as Lecturer with the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His research covers ethical and political phenomena that outstrip moral concepts, and he has published work on trust, responsibility, and Nietzsche.
