Trust is a cognitive state of belief, not an action or purpose

Evidence

Trust is in the cognitive category with knowledge and belief. To say I trust you in some way is to say nothing more than that I know or believe certain things about you—generally things about your incentives or other reasons to live up to my trust, to be trustworthy to me. My assessment of your trustworthiness in a particular context is simply my trust of you. The declarations “I believe you are trustworthy” and “I trust you” are equivalent. If it is cognitive, it follows that trust is not purposive (Baier 1986, 235). I do not trust you in order to gain from interacting with you. Rather, because I do trust you, I can expect to gain from interacting with you if a relevant opportunity arises. Moreover, if trust is cognitive, it is not behavioral. I may act from my trust, and my action may give evidence of my trust, but my action is not itself the trust, although it may be compelling evidence of my trust. If I trust you, I trust you right now and not only in some moment in which I act on my trust by taking a risk on you. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 98

Third, most accounts of trust are essentially expectations accounts. That is to say, they build on the expectations that a potential truster has. This implies, however, that trust is inherently a matter of knowledge or belief. Many ordinary-language statements about trust seem rather to conceive it as a matter of behavior. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 291

Categorization

• DEFINE: Hardin’s foundational definition: trust is cognitive, not purposive, not behavioral — the core concept anchoring the whole book and the reader’s Luhmann integration.
• XREF: Connects directly to Luhmann’s baseline ‘familiarity’ — both locate trust as an information/cognition state rather than an act, which is the reader’s explicit integration purpose. — connects to: Trust is a three-part cognitive relation grounded in truth, not choice; Trust is a faith-like commitment, not mere cognitive calculation — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 73; Trust requires belief in the other’s motivations, not mere behavioral expectation (+12 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The collapsing of ‘I trust you’ into ‘I believe you are trustworthy’ — and the counterintuitive claim that trust is neither purposive nor behavioral — is conceptually dense enough to sit with.
• QUESTION: Does the blindness epidemic convert trust from belief-based to something else when knowledge of others is stripped away?
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 98; Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 291

Broader Connections

• Trust is a faith-like commitment, not mere cognitive calculation #contradicts (0.85) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 73
• Trust requires belief in the other’s motivations, not mere behavioral expectation #expands (0.85)
• Trust is defined by the reason for expectation, not the expectation itself #expands (0.80)
• Trust is a rational choice even for egoists, not a natural given #contradicts (0.80)
• Trust is merely evidence-based expectation while trustworthiness is motivational #expands (0.80)
• Trusting is only knowledge; acting on trust is what carries risk #expands (0.80)
• Trust as knowledge cannot be morally required #expands (0.80) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 373
• Justified distrust can be a moral act and so trust is not inherently moral #complicates (0.75)
• Trust is not chosen, a gamble, or an investment; only actions are #contradicts (0.75)