Moral character and trustworthiness are only weakly correlated

Evidence

Karamazov’s lieutenant colonel has a very strange morality and sense of honor. He can act illegally and irresponsibly toward the army and the nation in which he is an officer. Yet he expects Trifonov to act in a trustworthy way with respect to him in their criminal dealings. Morality and trust often do not correlate well. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 948

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Directly relevant to Saramago: the thief and the doctor’s wife act trustworthily while the morally self-righteous (the first blind man’s wife’s killer, the ward leaders) prove treacherous — trust tracks interest, not virtue.

Related

• A person can be untrustworthy toward society yet demand trust from partners (similarity 0.88)
• Being morally obligated to trustworthy action does not make one trusted. (similarity 0.82)
• Moral characters of trustworthiness can make people trust even against reason. (similarity 0.82)
• Moralized accounts of trust actually moralize trustworthiness (similarity 0.81)
• Moralizing trust often stems from confusing it with trustworthiness (similarity 0.80)
• Trustworthiness can rest on character or reciprocity rather than narrow interest (similarity 0.80)
• Trust is morally neutral; mutual trust can enable atrocity (similarity 0.80)
• The literature mislabels trust as moral when really trustworthiness is moral (similarity 0.80)
• Trustworthiness requires social embedding that constrains opportunism (similarity 0.79)
• Understanding trustworthiness must precede understanding trust itself (similarity 0.78)
• Trustworthiness is relational, not a general trait of the trusted. (similarity 0.78)
• Three of four trust theories require cognitive assessment of the trusted (similarity 0.78)
• Trustworthiness is interest-relative, not a fixed trait of character. (similarity 0.78)
• Virtue ethics and Kantianism can morally ground trustworthiness, but not trust itself (similarity 0.78)