Is this the era of distrust? 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from

BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

And I'm Rob.

As well as bringing the world to a halt

the coronavirus epidemic has led

to an increase

in misinformation, lies and

conspiracy theories on the internet.

In an era of fake news, where even

a president of the United States is

accused of spreading

misinformation, could it be that we are

living through a crisis in trust?

What is trust? And

who should we place our trust in? - these

are some of the questions

we'll be discussing

in this programme.

And we'll be hearing from a philosopher

who believes the problem

is not about trust itself

but about trustworthiness - the ability

to be trusted as being honest and reliable.

And as always we'll be learning some

related vocabulary along the way.

Of course telling

lies and lacking trustworthiness is

nothing new - just think of

the Trojan Horse used

to trick the ancient Greeks.

More recently, the American financier

Bernie Madoff become infamous

as 'the biggest swindler

in history'. In 2009 he was sentenced

to 150 years in prison for

his part in the Ponzi

scam, but how much did he defraud from

investors? That's my quiz question.

Was it:

a) 6.5 million dollars?, b) 65 million

dollars? or c) 65 billion dollars?

I'll say b) 65 million dollars.

OK, Rob, we'll come back to that later.

Generally speaking, trust can be

described as a judgement

that someone can be believed

and relied upon. When we

trust each other it makes life easier,

quicker and friendlier.

Society can't function without trust - so

does that mean the more trust the better?

Well, not according to philosopher, Onora

O'Neill. Here he is speaking

to David Edmonds,

presenter of the BBC World Service

programme, The Big Idea:

We have another word, which is gullible,

and if you simply place

trust indiscriminately

without making a judgement about

whether the other person or

institution is trustworthy

then just trusting to luck as we say,

is probably not a virtue.

There's a difference between trusting

someone because you have

good reason to believe them

and being gullible - that's easy to deceive

because you trust and believe

people too quickly.

If you don't judge who is trustworthy

and who is not, you are

trusting to luck - simply

believing or hoping that things

will happen for the best.

But being gullible and trusting

to luck is exactly how Bernie Madoff

was able to trick

so many people into giving him their

money. Their biggest mistake

was to trust him indiscriminately

- in a way that does not show care or

judgement, usually with harmful results.

So, if indiscriminately trusting people is

such a bad idea, how do

we avoid it? How can

we tell who is trustworthy and who is not?

Here's BBC World Service's

The Big Idea presenter,

David Edmonds, asking

Onora O'Neill to give some details:

An individual or organisation is

trustworthy is they can

justifiably be trusted. To be

trustworthy they need three ingredients.

First, honesty - people have

to be able to believe

what they're told. Second, competence.

Beyond honesty and

competence there's a third element

to trustworthiness: reliability.

That's the boring one. That's just being

honest and competent each time

so that it's not enough

to be episodically honest and competent

for some of the things

you claim to be able to

do but not others.

Philosopher Onora O'Neill identifies three

ingredients for trustworthiness: honesty,

competence and reliability.

Competence means the ability to do

something well. You would trust

a car mechanic to fix

your broken car engine, but you wouldn't

go to them for dental work -

they're not competent

to remove your tooth like a dentist is.

And you wouldn't trust your dentist to fix

your broken down car, either!

Onora O'Neill

also mentions reliability - being

trustworthy because you behave

well all the time and keep

all the promises you make.

It's the combination of these three - being

honest, competent and

reliable - that makes

someone truly trustworthy.

And not someone like Bernie Madoff,

who would run off with your

money and entire life savings.

All of which brings me to my quiz

question. Do you remember, Rob?

Yep, I do. You asked how much

Bernie Madoff stole from

the American investors he lied

to. And I said b) 65 million dollars.

But in fact it was c) 65 billion dollars - a

lot of money to give

to such an untrustworthy

man!

So we've been discussing whether there

is a crisis of trust and asking

how to know who

is trustworthy - able to be trusted

as honest, competent and reliable.

Placing your trust in someone trustworthy

is very different from being gullible - easy

to trick because you trust

and believe people too quickly.

And it can also be unhelpful to trust

things to luck - simply hope

or believe that everything

will work out for the best.

Both of these problems come about

when people trust indiscriminately -

in an unsystematic

way that does not show care or

judgement, usually with

harmful results - as Bernie Madoff's

victims found out to their cost.

But luckily there are many trustworthy

people around and we

can spot them using three criteria:

honesty, in other words not lying;

competence; and reliability.

Competence means an ability to do

something well, in the correct

and effective way.

And reliability means being honest and

competent, all the time, not

just being honest sometimes

or reliable in some actions but not others.

That's all for 6 Minute English. Bye for now!

Bye bye!