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Banking solves the principal–agent problem with incentive contracts which assume a Homo Economicus representative agent. However, professions can solve the principal–agent problem by assuming a 'Reasonable Person' representative agent, from tort law, who reliably tells the truth about hidden action. We describe a non‐virtuous circle in finance, which is a negative feedback loop between motivation crowding out arising from incentive contracts, and the subsequent need to offer incentive contacts because agents change from the Reasonable Person to Homo Economicus. We prescribe less reliance on incentive contracts in the practice of finance, and on Homo Economicus in the theory of finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the life expectancy of patients with cystic fibrosis has increased, greater attention has been paid towards the diagnosis and management of the longer term consequences of the condition. A recognised but rare complication of the disease is the development of secondary amyloidosis. Whilst deposition of amyloid protein has been reported in a high proportion of patients with cystic fibrosis at post-mortem [1] and Serum Amyloid A protein has been shown to correlate with disease activity and response to antibiotics [2], the manifestation of clinical disease remains extremely uncommon. The prognosis for patients with amyloid secondary to cystic fibrosis in published reports has been historically bleak [3-6], however there may be novel approaches in the era of biological therapies. The theoretical potential for an increase in the incidence of secondary amyloid amongst the population of cystic fibrosis patients who are experiencing much longer lifespans means that it is worthwhile to consider the condition and its possible treatments in more detail. We report a case and a review of the literature.

Cognitivism about trust says that it requires belief that the trusted is trustworthy; non-cognitivism denies this. At stake is how to make sense of the strong but competing intuitions that trust is an attitude that is evaluable both morally and rationally. In proposing that one's respect for another's agency may ground one's trusting beliefs, second-personal accounts provide a way to endorse both intuitions. They focus attention on the way that, in normal situations, it is the person whom I trust. My task is to develop an account of the latter insight without the controversial theoretical commitments of the former. I propose a functional account for why the second and third-personal ‘systems’ operate not just in parallel, but in tandem, in support of a cognitivist account of trust.

This chapter discusses the value of trust through the lens of the work of John Locke. Locke’s treatment of trust is initially puzzling. His political philosophy places a high positive value on trust between government and the governed. His epistemology is extremely dismissive of trust in epistemic authorities. The key to resolving this apparent disunity in Locke’s views, Simpson argues, is to recognize that Locke thinks that the value of trust is instrumental only. Trust between government and the governed is valuable, in Locke’s view, because it promotes a government accountable to its citizens. Epistemic trust, by contrast, has disvalue because it discourages autonomous thought. Securing the conditions for individual autonomy is Locke’s overarching aim, and his evaluation of trust depends on how effectively it promotes that. Although Locke’s view is coherent, given the premise that the only value to trust is instrumental, Simpson rejects this premise, arguing that trust has intrinsic value, whether in politics or epistemology.

Background: An ageing population and health-care advances mean that patients have increasingly complex medical health and social needs, requiring a multidisciplinary team. However, despite working as an interprofessional team, team members still largely train in professional silos. Furthermore health-care professionals report a poor understanding of the skills of colleagues from different professions. This article describes the set up and outcomes of a novel interprofessional bedside teaching programme. Methods: An in-centre interprofessional teacher training course was established to facilitate interprofessional bedside teaching, along with supported ward-based sessions to apply the skills. Results: Three in-centre courses and five workplace sessions have run, with forty-five and twenty-eight interprofessional participants respectively. Statistically significant improvements in confidence facilitating interprofessional teaching were seen, with participants more likely to teach at the bedside and involve the multidisciplinary team. Conclusions: This article shows evidence of a teaching programme which improves the confidence of the multidisciplinary team in facilitating interprofessional bedside teaching.

Trust is central to our social lives in both epistemic and practical ways. Often, it is rational only given evidence for trustworthiness, and with that evidence is made available by communication. New technologies are changing our practices of communication, enabling increasing rich and diverse ways of ‘being there’, but at a distance. This paper asks: how does telepresent communication support evidence-constrained trust? In answering it, I reply to the leading pessimists about the possibility of the digital mediation of trust, Philip Pettit and Hubert Dreyfus. I also rebut Media Richness Theory, which proposes a linear relationship between the volume of mediated information and the quality of communication. Positively, I develop a speech-act theory of digitally mediated communication, drawing on Austen’s identification of the illocutionary act. The choice of a particular technology of communication constitutes part of what is communicated, including a setting of the social ‘frame’, and thus the possibilities for trust to be sustained or eroded. How something is said is part of what it is that is said.

Trust is difficult to define. Instead of doing so, I propose that the best way to understand the concept is through a genealogical account. I show how a root notion of trust arises out of some basic features of what it is for humans to live socially, in which we rely on others to act cooperatively. I explore how this concept acquires resonances of hope and threat, and how we analogically apply this in related but different contexts. The genealogical account explains both why the notion has such value for us and why it is difficult to define.

This article develops a social epistemological analysis of Web-based search engines, addressing the following questions. First, what epistemic functions do search engines perform? Second, what dimensions of assessment are appropriate for the epistemic evaluation of search engines? Third, how well do current search engines perform on these? The article explains why they fulfil the role of a surrogate expert, and proposes three ways of assessing their utility as an epistemic tool—timeliness, authority prioritisation, and objectivity. “Personalisation” is a current trend in Internet-delivered services, and consists in tailoring online content to the interests of the individual user. It is argued here that personalisation threatens the objectivity of search results. Objectivity is a public good; so there is a prima facie case for government regulation of search engines.

Why are people trustworthy? I argue for two theses. First, we cannot explain many socially important forms of trustworthiness solely in terms of the instrumentally rational seeking of one’s interests, in response to external sanctions or rewards. A richer psychology is required. So, second, possession of moral character is a plausible explanation of some socially important instances when people are trustworthy. I defend this conclusion against the influential account of trust as ‘encapsulated interest’, given by Russell Hardin, on which most trustworthiness is explained by the interest of continuing relationship.

Putting robots on the battlefield is clearly appealing for policymakers. Why risk human lives, when robots could take our place, and do the dirty work of killing and dying for us? Against this, I argue that robots will be unable to win the kind of wars that we are increasingly drawn into. Modern warfare tends towards asymmetric conflict. Asymmetric warfare cannot be won without gaining the trust of the civilian population; this is ‘the hearts and minds’, in the hackneyed phrase from counter-insurgency manuals. I claim that the very feature which makes it attractive to send robots to war in our place, the absence of risk, also makes it peculiarly difficult for humans to trust them. Whatever the attractions, sending robots to war in our stead will make success in counter-insurgency elusive. Moreover, there is ethical reason to be relieved at this conclusion. For if war is potentially costly, then this does much to ensure that it will be a choice only of last resort, in accordance with the traditional doctrine of jus ad bellum. In this instance, morality and expediency— fortunately— coincide.

Trust online can be a hazardous affair; many are trustworthy, but some people use the anonymity of the web to behave very badly indeed. So how can we improve the quality of evidence for trustworthiness provided online? I focus on one of the devices we use to secure others' trustworthiness: tracking past conduct through online reputation systems. Yet existing reputation systems face problems. I analyse these, and in the light of this develop some principles for system design, towards overcoming these challenges. In providing better evidence for trustworthiness online, so we can also encourage people actually to be trustworthy more often, which is an ethically welcome outcome.

Because Mormons could never fully realize their separatist dreams of a visible Zion in North America, the history of Mormonism has involved highly complex contacts and negotiations with non-Mormons. In their attempts to convert, resist, or appease outsiders, Mormons have engaged in a distinctive dialectic of secrecy and self-disclosure, of esoteric rites and public relations. The result has been an extended process of controlled modernization.Narratives of this process have focused on the 1890 “Manifesto” of LDS President and Prophet Wilford Woodruff, the momentous declaration that Latter-day Saints must cease to contract plural marriages. The Manifesto put an end to the intense federal persecution of the 1880s, when government agents imprisoned or exiled husbands of plural wives, confiscated Mormon assets, abolished Utah women's right to vote, and secularized Mormon schools. President Woodruff's truce with the federal government brought Mormons a relative peace and an important sign of acceptance: the granting of statehood to Utah in 1896.

Should lethal autonomous weapons systems—‘killer robots’—be used in war? There is a growing campaign in favour of an international prohibition. The procase remains a minority report, and those who have argued for it have done so on an implicitly consequentialist basis. Our task is to defend the permissibility of killer robots, and indeed the morally obligatory nature of their development and use, but on the basis of the non-aggregative structure of right assumed by Just War theory. This is necessary because the most important arguments against killer robots, proposed by Rob Sparrow, make the same assumptions. We show that killer robots can satisfy the demands of respect; in particular, those demands do not require individual responsibility for every person killed in war. Instead, the crucial moral question on which the policy debate turns is whether the technology can satisfy the requirements of a fair re-distribution of risk.