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sub-relations in it see Figure 7.4):
X trusts Y
by believing that
Y
will do what is promised because of his honesty or because of
his respect/fear toward
A
;
X trusts A
and its ability to control, to punish etc. and relies on
A
for this;
Y trusts
A (both when
Y
is the client and when he is the contractor) the same beliefs being
the bases of his respect/fear toward
A
(that is: trusting a threatening agent!).
In other words,
X
relies on a form of
paradoxical
trust of
Y
in
A
:
X
believes that
Y
believes
that
A
is able to control, to punish, etc. Notice that
Y
's beliefs about
A
are precisely
Y
's trust
in the authority when he is the client. When
Y
is the contractor the same beliefs are the bases
of his respect/fear toward
A
.
We can also say that, in addition to the
X
's trust in
Y
based on the internal (
Y
's competence
and willingness) and contextual-environmental reasons believed by
X
), there is a part of
X
's
trust in
Y
based on the fact that the other two relationships are true (and believed by the agents)
and are the relationships of
X
and
Y
with the authority
A
.
In sum, in contracts and organizations it is true that
personal trust
in
Y
may not be enough,
but what we put in place is a higher level of trust which is our trust in the authority but
also our trust in
Y
as for acknowledging, worrying about and respecting the authority. With-
out this trust in
Y
the contract would be useless. This is even more obvious if we think
of possible alternative partners in contracts: how to choose among different contractors
with the same conditions? Precisely on the basis of our degree of trust in each of them
(both, trust about their competence, but also trust about their reliability, their respecting the
contract).
As we have already said, these more complex kinds of trust are just richer specifications
of the reasons for
'Y
's doing what we expect: reasons for
Y
's predictability which is based
on his willingness; and reasons for his willingness (he will do
, either because of his selfish
interest, or because of his friendliness, or because of his honesty, or because of his fear of
punishment, or because of his institutional and normative respect: several different bases of
trust).
More formally (simplifying with respect to the external conditions and concentrating on the
core trust, as shown in Figures 2.11, 2.12, and 2.13 in Chapter 2):
X
's mental state in
Trust(X, Y,
α
τ
)
is essentially constituted by:
Bel
X
Can
Y
(
α,
p
)
∧
Bel
X
WillDo
Y
(
α,
p
)
(7.1)
τ
)
is essentially constituted by:
X
's mental state in
Trust(X, A,
α
,
p
)
α
,
p
)
Bel
X
Can
A
(
∧
Bel
X
WillDo
A
(
(7.2)
τ
)
is essentially constituted by:
Y
's mental state in
Trust(Y, A,
α
,
p
)
α
,
p
)
Bel
Y
Can
A
(
∧
Bel
Y
WillDo
A
(
(7.3)
τ
the task that
A
must perform for
X
towards
Y
, i.e. check, supervision, guarantee, punishment, etc.
Where
τ
is the task that
Y
must perform for
X;
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