Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness or honesty is mainly a moral value. A trustworthy person is someone in whom we can place our trust and be sure that the trust will not be betrayed. Examples could be

• Do we trust this person to look after our children when we are not present?
• Do we trust this person to carry out a complicated repair to a piece of machinery?

The first example is moral. It depends on what we know about the person, their family and upbringing.

The second example is technical. We would need to know what kind of jobs the person had done before and, perhaps, what kind of training he had.

In order for one to trust another,their worth and integrity must be proven over time. That applies especially to the first (moral) case. Trustworthiness in technical matters may be identified by attributes such as reliability, dependability and qualifications.

Related pages

• Virtue
• Loyalty