Cooperation requires knowing others’ motives and being believed trustworthy

Evidence

Thus (the outcome converges on a sub-optimal equilibrium, even if both players might have been conditionally predisposed to cooperate (cf. Williams, this volume). The problem, therefore, is essentially one of communication: even if people have perfectly adequate motives for cooperation they still need to know about each other’s motives and to trust each other, or at least the effectiveness of their motives. It is neccessary not only to trust others before acting cooperatively, but also to believe that one is trusted by others.) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2696

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that cooperation needs observable mutual knowledge of motives — exactly the observability that blindness destroys in Saramago.
• XREF: Core to Hardin’s claim that trust needs observable constraints; the need to know and be known as trustworthy maps the doctor’s wife’s unique visible position.