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The #1 Reason We Can’t All Get Along
Have you ever tried to merge onto the 405 Freeway, in Los Angeles, during rush hour traffic?
If you have, you probably learned a valuable lesson that continues to influence you to this day. That not everybody can be trusted to do the right thing.
Many of the problems we face today amount to a crisis of trust. Who we trust and what we trust is becoming smaller every day. People, leaders, institutions are all facing a crisis of trust.
So, what is the solution? I think it starts with an understanding of how trust works. This is where knowledge of epistemic trust is important. Nancy Daukas Associate Professor of Philosophy at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC writes that epistemic trust refers to the willingness to accept information or knowledge from others without subjecting it to excessive scrutiny or doubt. In other words, it is the trust that we place in other people’s testimony, expertise, or authority in a particular domain of knowledge (politics, business, etc.). This trust is essential for the functioning of any information-driven society, as it allows individuals to learn and benefit from the expertise of others, without having to personally verify every piece of information they encounter.
However, epistemic trust can be undermined by a deficiency in epistemic character, which refers to the…
