Philosophical Perspectives on Trustworthiness and Open-mindedness as Professional Virtues for the Practice of Nursing: Implications for he Moral Education of Nurses

but that stance involves a belief that the person in whom one trusts has a good will
towards one; and this emphasis on belief in others’good will appears to overcome the
objections of both Holton and O’Neill.

Willingness to trust

One thing that emerges from the discussion thus far is the notion of a proper amount of
trust, or an appropriate amount of distrust. I have indicated that trust is situated within
individuals. What we aim for when we trust (or distrust) is the right amount of trust (or
distrust). We sometimes get it wrong: we sometimes trust too much and we sometimes
trust too little; we sometimes distrust too much and sometimes distrust too little. Indeed,
we might find these failures of trust easier to identify in other people than we do in
ourselves for the subjective and individual nature of our trust does not lend itself to rigid
definition. So we might say, following Aristotle, that trust (or distrust) is a mean
between trusting (or distrusting) too much and trusting (or distrusting) too little. Figure
4.1 provides this in representational form.

too much trust

(misplaced trust)

too little trust

Figure 4.1: Willingness to Trust (and. distrust) as a mean

Viewed in this way our willingness to trust (or distrust) can be seen as a virtue located
at a mean between an excess and a deficiency. It is important to note that the mean is
not at a central point, rather it lies between an excess and a deficiency and the precise
location is determined by the circumstances in which trust or distrust is called upon. I
have borrowed O’Neill’s (2002) terms of misplaced trust to represent too much trust∕too
little distrust and misplaced mistrust to represent too little trust∕too much distrust. Used
in this way it might appear unnecessary to distinguish between trust and distrust. But

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