Virtue ethics and Kantianism can morally ground trustworthiness, but not trust itself

Evidence

That many accounts of trust are really accounts of trustworthiness therefore suggests that the moralizing of trust might be more reasonably seen as a moralizing of trustworthiness. Certain standard moral theories, such as that of Kant or various virtue theories, could readily elevate trustworthiness to moral status. Surely there will be fewer theories, if any, that moralize trust itself, although writers whose focus is ostensibly on the phenomenon or idea of trust often do spuriously moralize it. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 283

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes trust (a descriptive relation) from trustworthiness (a virtue-candidate), explaining why moral theories embrace one but not the other.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Hardin/Luhmann synthesis: trustworthiness as the moral-virtue face of the trust relationship that sight-based monitoring makes possible.