Capacity for trust requires formative developmental experiences.

Evidence

On an ethological account, I can trust at all only because I have had relevant experiences at formative moments, without which I could not even imagine myself into the frame of mind of another to guess that other’s intentions toward me. Without those developmental experiences, I would, for example, suffer such a severe narcissistic personality disorder that I would be oblivious to the interests and concerns of others and would see all others as merely objects to be used for my purposes. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 612

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to Saramago: when the doctor’s wife remains sighted amid total blindness, her prior developmental capacity for imagine-into-the-other becomes the sole guaranter of social order — the mechanism behind Hardin’s trust requiring observability.
• DEEPTHINKING: Claims that without formative trust experiences, one literally cannot take another’s perspective — reducing others to objects. This is a strong claim connecting social cognition to moral/social order.