Justified and Unjustified Loss of Trust (in institutions)

Stephen Griffin

You may have heard of the “Yale Report” – in April Yale University released a thoroughly researched response to public concern with universities.  Authored by a panel of distinguished scholars, it is titled “Report of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education.”  The Committee felt there was not much trust to report.  It cited public opinion polls to the effect that public confidence in higher education had declined twenty points over the last ten years.  The Committee usefully defined the trust relationship by saying “[t]rust is earned by doing what you say you’re going to do – and, ideally, doing it well.”

The Yale Report is part of an upsurge of concern with trust.  In particular, it seems ever since the beginning of Trump’s second term, we are awash with claims of a loss of trust in institutions.  Besides the Yale Report, examples are easy to find.  An asserted loss of trust in the public health establishment because of the Covid-19 pandemic.  A loss of trust in the federal government, including the Supreme Court.  Leading media organizations like CBS news try to ride with the times by hiring new managers who assert the need to change because of a loss of trust.

These claims are not simply offered as observations about a lamentable state of affairs.  They are being used in a systematic way to build a case for the reform of government and other key institutions in American society.  Like any foray into the sphere of public argument, such assertions can be critiqued for deficiencies of logic and factual validity.  I am in the process of writing a short paper which poses a different question: is it possible to critique such assertions normatively?  Indeed, what would a normative critique look like?

Such questions are worth posing because assertions of a loss of trust in institutions appear to be based on an assumption that they are like interpersonal losses of trust.  Consider that losses of trust in individuals are plausibly seen as based on relevant personal experience and, as such, cannot be questioned easily except perhaps on the limited grounds of mistake or cognitive bias.  But this crucial assumption is problematic.  Social and governmental institutions are complex structures and our relationships with them do not resemble our personal relationships.  To the extent this analogy is misguided, this undermines the basis for changing the ways of an entire institution simply because of an asserted loss of trust.  In other words, I suggest there are conditions under which loss of public trust in institutions, no matter how real, is nonetheless unjustified from a normative point of view.

I suggest the claims of loss of trust have a common structure meant to motivate institutional reform.  It is: “We (as an institution) have lost public trust, therefore we must do X.”  I call this the “trust critique.”  The critique certainly can be questioned on empirical and logical grounds.  Empirically, we might doubt that there is sufficient proof of a loss of public trust or, at least, a significant loss.  Alternatively, we might question this position on the ground that the loss of public trust is not related to the proposed remedy.  What proof is there that the remedy will restore trust?  Perhaps the remedy is simply something that officials wish to do that was previously blocked.  The assertion of a loss of trust, considered an especially severe criticism, helps meet burdens of argument and so unblocks the channels of change.

Let’s assume, however, that there is sufficient empirical grounding for the belief that public trust in a given institution has declined.  Further assume that there is some basis for thinking that there is a link between the proposed reform and the restoration of at least a modicum of public trust.  I suggest the common position is that’s all there is to it.  The case is made and we should go forward to a brighter future.

A brighter future there may be, but the common position is nonetheless ignoring the possibility of normative criticism of the loss of trust.  Such a critique would concede the loss of trust, even a serious loss, but maintain that this does not justify change or reform because the loss of trust is unjustified.

How would such an argument work?  If we proceed with the common assumption that loss of trust in institutions works in the same way as loss of trust in individuals, we may wonder how a normative critique would get off the ground.  Suppose a friend of yours whose judgment you respect loses trust in you because of an action on your part and there is no mistake or bias involved.  Wouldn’t that be devastating?  Seeking to preserve the friendship, wouldn’t you try to win back their trust quickly?  The emotional shock and the consequences that flow from the startling realization that you are not trusted by people you care about is, I suggest, what officials are trading on when they treat loss of public trust as a persuasive, almost automatic rationale for sweeping change.  They are implicitly treating the worst sort of justified losses of interpersonal trust as exemplar cases for the loss of institutional trust.  But judgments about trust and distrust of institutions must and should proceed differently.

My discussion suggests there are two additional issues here not readily apparent in the individual case.  The first is whether a given criticism relates to trust at all.  Although criticisms of institutions are often presented in terms of “trust,” they are actually perfectly comprehensible and sound as stand-alone objections.  As such, they do not necessarily place the trust of the institution in question. 

There is also the issue of whether we are justified in distrusting an entire institution given the epistemic problems of understanding what is going on in the entire institution.  The epistemic problem directly supports the point I am making about the possibility of a normative critique.  It makes it plausible that there is the possibility of replying to the common position identified in section 1 by arguing that although a loss of public trust did occur, it was not justified. 

Why?  We can start with the points just made.  The public sometimes accepts stand-alone criticisms and assumes they have something to do with “trust” without considering whether the criticisms impeach the institution as a whole.  In addition, the public often lacks evidence that these criticisms are systematic, that they relate to key goals or the integrity of the entire institution.  Without denying that distrust of institutions is sometimes justified, the trust critique is unjustified if these points are correct. 

Crucially, I suggest that the trust critique is made so broadly that it is in danger of becoming a runaway, a critique without any reasonable limit.  The Yale case is helpful.  Like many organizations under public scrutiny, Yale has no sophisticated survey research available to pin down the specific reasons for the loss of public trust.  In fact, doing such research for a particular university might pose difficult methodological issues.  The survey research cited in the Yale Report pertains to all universities, not elite private schools like Yale.  Consequently, Yale doesn’t really know why it is distrusted. 

Let’s suppose nonetheless that Yale has a public trust problem, even though how to respond is a highly uncertain matter.  I suggest those who advance a trust critique should be able to state the conditions under which they would again trust Yale.  To support this contention, consider the difference between criticizing Yale on specific grounds and criticizing it because you say you no longer “trust” Yale.  Critiques on specific grounds can be argued with.  If Yale doesn’t have a reasonable response or concedes the argument to its critics, it should change its ways.  But the trust critique is typically different.  It says “become trustworthy again” and nothing about the logic of how the critique is typically made encourages the potential trustor to say how to do this. 

In addition, philosopher Onora O’Neil (in her BBC Reith Lectures) made a valuable point about people still using institutions they purport to distrust.  We might turn this into a kind of “no free-riding” response to the trust critique.  If parents and stakeholders continue to contribute and send their kids to Yale for what no one doubts is a valuable higher education, then why should we pay attention to their distrust?  They are riding along with and benefiting from Yale even as they purport to condemn it.  They say they distrust Yale, but O’Neil’s argument suggests they are really participating in an unhealthy “culture of suspicion” that is unsupported.  Perhaps what they are after is a Yale run in accordance with their wishes, something that is impossible.  Yale cannot serve this many masters. 

Without specifying the conditions under which trust can be maintained or restored, the effect is to take Yale University as a whole off-line until it is determined (how?) that they once again enjoy public trust.  The trust critique implies that in this limbo anything goes.  By contrast, requiring potential trustors to state their conditions for trust promotes a healthy win-win scenario.  Institutions subject to the trust critique would know what they are supposed to do and could at least fairly evaluate how to respond.