Trust matters precisely because relations have prisoner’s-dilemma structure

Evidence

Baier (1986, 251) thinks the prisoner’s dilemma is overemphasized in discussions of moral philosophy and that this is especially a mistake for discussion of trust. However, she has an unduly formal view of the prisoner’s dilemma as inherently fitted to contracts and fixed payoffs. It is because many relations have the prisoner’s dilemma structure that trust is at issue in them. Moreover, the prisoner’s dilemma need not represent anything vaguely approaching equality of the parties. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 908

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reading purpose: the PD structure plus Luhmann’s monitoring collapse under blindness explains why Saramago’s society degrades — trust becomes impossible without observability of cooperation payoffs. Also links to Milgrom’s repeated-game framing. — connects to: Trust is a result rather than a precondition of cooperation — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2781; Trust requires both freedom to defect and constraints that make cooperation attractive; Cooperation can operate independently of trust (+5 more)
• SEED: An essay angle: Saramago’s blindness as a forced transition from a repeated to a one-shot game — the disappearance of mutual monitoring collapses the discount factor on cooperation, exactly the Milgrom/familiarity logic.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 908

Broader Connections

• Trust is a result rather than a precondition of cooperation #expands (0.85) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2781
• Trust requires both freedom to defect and constraints that make cooperation attractive #expands (0.80)
• Building stable relations generates the incentives that produce trust #expands (0.80)
• Cooperation can operate independently of trust #contradicts (0.75)
• Reciprocal trust creates mutual incentives for trustworthiness #expands (0.75) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 166