Blind trust arises when alternatives are worse, not from ignorance

Evidence

Here the pressure to accept even a low level of trust as the basis of cooperative action is stronger. We may have to trust blindly, not because we do not or do not want to know how untrustworthy others are, but simply because the alternatives are worse. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2762

Categorization

• XREF: This inverts the naive view that trust follows knowledge; it is cost-driven. The reader’s Saramago synthesis profits: the doctor’s wife must trust blindly because the alternative (abandoning the blind) is worse.