Trust without demonstrable trustworthiness offers no complexity reduction

Evidence

The sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1980, 8) says trust constitutes a more effective form of complexity reduction. This is a very elliptical claim. Clearly, where there is trust that is justified there are increased possibilities for beneficial experience and action. Trust by itself, however, constitutes nothing. Presumably Luhmann is saying that we cannot handle enormous complexity without having others act de facto on our behalf. If we cannot count on their acting in our interests, however, we may be reluctant to empower them or to follow their advice. Hence whatever can secure their trustworthiness enough for us to trust them will help us manage complexity. That is to say, again, the focal problem is trustworthiness, not trust. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 174

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s stated integration project: Saramago’s blindness collapses the observable constraints that would let the wife verify trustworthiness — Hardin’s focal problem is trustworthiness, not trust.
• DEFINE: Hardin sharpens Luhmann’s ‘complexity reduction’ concept: the reduction only works if others truly act de facto on our behalf, which requires trustworthiness