Blockchain and the Philosophy of Trust. Reassessing Transparency and Autonomy and Moral Responsibility in Decentralized Systems

Abstract

Blockchain technology is often referred to as a trust machine. This description is philosophically challenged and needs to be rethought. This is a qualitative systematic literature review based on PRISMA model. This review will explore how transparency and autonomy and moral responsibility are reconfigured within decentralized systems. A structured search was performed in five academic databases and three additional sources. 120 records were located and 47 duplicates were eliminated. Seventy three records were screened and 52 full texts were assessed. The final qualitative synthesis included eight studies. Five themes were identified using inductive thematic coding. This is what the findings show: Blockchain does not remove trust. Blockchain transforms the interpersonal trust into trust in a technical process. Transparency can be checked, but it is not necessarily understood by the general user. Individual level of autonomy is expanded, systemic level of autonomy is constrained. There is a lack of moral responsibility and an accountability gap. The study concludes that there is a need for human governance to make decentralized systems morally legitimate.