Trust questions only arise when opportunistic behaviour is possible

Evidence

By opportunistic behaviour I have in mind not only such blatant forms as stealing and lying, but also more subtle techniques such as withholding information in an effort to confuse. As Dasgupta (this volume) has noted, the possibility of such behaviour is a necessary condition for the question of trust to arise. If all people are invariably honest, doing their best to fulfil their commitments, then there is no problem of trust as I have defined it. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2508

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines opportunism expansively to include information-withholding, and states its necessity for trust.
• XREF: Key for the blindness reading: Saramago’s epidemic removes exactly the monitoring that keeps opportunism detectable, so trust’s precondition explodes.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2508