Simple risk calculations do not constitute trust.

Evidence

As noted earlier, Williamson is hostile to the use of the term trust for even more complex relationships in which calculation of risks seems to be at stake. For this simple case, however, his hostility seems clearly right. Similarly, my decision whether to give money to a beggar on the street does not turn on whether I trust this person I have never met, will most likely never meet again, and can judge only from appearances this moment. It turns on whether I think my donation is likely to be beneficial and what my stance on such altruistic actions is. Reading the beggar’s signs as signals about whether his plea is a scam affects my decision but does not elevate it to a matter of whether I trust him. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 396

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes genuine trust from ordinary calculative risk assessment, a boundary condition for Hardin’s encapsulated-interest account.
• XREF: Connects directly to Luhmann’s familiarity/distrust baseline and the blindness novel, where the disappearance of observation turns even strangers into unassessable risks.