Trustworthiness enforced only by contract threats is not genuine trust

Evidence

If I trust you to act on my behalf, I set myself up for the possibility of disappointment, even severe loss. To avoid that possibility, I might try to find institutional backing to get you to do what I trust you to do. This might be easy to do. For example, if I wish to get you to pay in several installments for the work I do for you or for your purchase of my car, in many societies I can propose that we sign a legally enforceable contract. Now you are faced with the likelihood of real costs if you renege on doing what I have relied on you to do. If the only reason you comply with our agreement is the threat of contract enforcement, then ours is finally not a trust relationship. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 251

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Hardin’s core distinction between trust and merely contract-enforced compliance — the baseline definition that anchors the whole system.
• XREF: Directly the analytic pivot: contract enforcement supplies the observable constraints on opportunism that Hardin says genuine trust (unobservable) cannot have. Contrasts with Saramago where no enforcement exists.

Related

• Contract enforcement replaces rather than constitutes trust between parties (similarity 0.92)
• Much apparent contractual dealing is actually regulated by informal trust devices (similarity 0.81)
• Trust constraint-setting trades false alarms against missed betrayals. (similarity 0.80)
• The threat of ending an exchange is what enforces trustworthiness (similarity 0.80)
• Contracting, not trust, brings the future into the present (similarity 0.79)
• Contract law enforces promises only when stakes are high and reliance is costly (similarity 0.79)
• Trustworthiness is grounded in the trusted’s interest in maintaining a relationship (similarity 0.79)
• Unenforceable reliance is a gamble and hope, not trust (similarity 0.79)
• Trust extends beyond what written contracts can enforce (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Overt risk calculation in contracts can undercut the trust it formalizes #corroborates (0.90) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 588
• Trust cannot be demanded but only offered through vulnerability #corroborates (0.85) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 197
• Reducing distrust is different from generating trust #qualifies (0.75) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 754
• Trust only arises where opportunistic behavior is genuinely possible #qualifies (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2507