Trust is a policy for coping with uncertainty about others’ freedom.

Evidence

Trust is both a human passion and a modality of human action: a more or less consciously chosen policy for handling the freedom of other human agents or agencies.! As a passion, a sentiment, it can be evanescent or durable. But as a modality of action it is essentially concerned with coping with uncertainty over time (Luhmann 1979: 30; Luhmann, this volume). — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1049

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the two-sided definition of trust (passion vs. chosen action policy) that the reader’s Luhmann/Hardin synthesis depends on.
• XREF: Directly names Luhmann’s work; this is the theoretical anchor the reader wants to connect to Saramago’s blindness epidemic. — connects to: Freedom requires civic trust, not solitary defensive walls — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 1192