Without distinguishing signals, honest and dishonest agents are observationally identical

Evidence

The first, and to my mind most serious, weakness of this model is that there is nothing which enables the honest salesman to distinguish himself from the dishonest one. Everything the former can do the latter can do as well. The dishonest type is the cancerous cell which ‘acts’ like the healthy one. It is here that the role of commitments can assume importance. If the stake is high enough the honest salesman will search for ways of persuading customers that he really is honest; he will be willing to spend resources to distinguish himself from his possible counterpart. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1006

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the blindness premise: when everyone is blind, no one can distinguish the doctor’s wife from the rest — sincerity becomes unobservable, so ‘commitment’ cannot be signaled. Central to the Luhmann/Hardin synthesis.
• DEFINE: Defines ‘commitment’ functionally: an observable resource expenditure that separates honest from dishonest types, i.e. exactly what observability underwriting trust requires.