I can voluntarily obligate myself by promising but cannot obligate another to be trustworthy

Evidence

The moral burden, if there is one, is typically on promise keeping and being trustworthy, not on either promising or trusting. That is because the immediate, short-run incentives in relationships of promising and trusting are on the side of failing to fulfill the promise or the trust. The potential promise keeper, however, is first the promiser. I make a promise to you, and I am expected to keep it. On standard understandings of obligation, I impose my own obligation on myself when I promise. The trust relationship is very different. The one who faces the burden of trustworthiness is not the one who trusts. I trust you, and you are the one who is expected to fulfill the trust. But I cannot impose an obligation on you to fulfill that trust. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 324

Categorization

• XREF: Asymmetric burden maps to the blindness novel’s asymmetry — the wife carries all obligation while others carry none; connects to Luhmann’s asymmetry between truster and trustee.