Waiving sanction rights risks being blamed for one’s own trust

Evidence

The possibilities of sanction possess not only this manifest aspect, whereby they structure motivations and diminish uncertainties, but also a latent function, essential for the foundation of trust, for by the same token they structure the attribution of guilt, and thus the risk of social disgrace and condemnation. How socially approved possibilities of sanction are distributed has a bearing also on the side third parties would take if a breach of trust should occur, or whether – and to what extent – they would hold whoever commits a breach of trust responsible, or whether they would charge the truster with naivety or foolishness. If the truster unthinkingly waives his right to apply sanctions, he may lose thereby the possibility of slanting the attribution of guilt in his own favour, and find himself the object of reproach. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 182

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the Stevens/Head Butler case: his total deference to Darlington means he cannot slant attribution of guilt away from himself after the Nazi appeasement — he ends up bearing the reproach.
• QUESTION: Does ‘waiving sanction rights’ map onto Stevens’s servile posture, where he never even conceives of himself as a party with sanction rights?