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In Hardin there is also a strong but quite arbitrary restriction (although typical of the game-
theoretic framework
18
)on
Y
's
motives
for caring about
X
's interests and doing something for
X
,to
Y
's desire to maintain that relationship: 'I trust you because I think it is your interest to
attend to my interests in the relevant matter. This is not merely to say that you and I have the
same
interests. Rather, it is to say that you have an interest in attending to
my
interest because,
typically, you want our relationship to continue
' (Hardin, 2005, Ch.1).
Here we agree with Hardin on the claim that trust is a three-part relation:
X trusts Y to do
α
(this relates also to the analysis of Baier (Baier, 1986), and Luhmann (Luhmann, 1979)). In
our own terminology, this would translate as:
X trusts Y as for something
, e.g. doing
α
(we
α
call
the
delegated task
(Castelfranchi and Falcone, 1998)). Many authors do not realize the
importance of the third element (indeed, even the context deserves to be modeled explicitly:
X trusts Y in context C to do
) and this creates several problems; for example, they cannot
develop a theory of disomogeneous trust evaluation (
X
trusts
Y
for one task but not for another
one), or a theory of how we transfer trust in
Y
for one performance to trust in
Y
for another
performance - an issue of paramount importance in marketing (see Chapter 8). Thus we agree
with Hardin that there is no two-part trust or one-part trust; they are just elliptical instances of
a more complex relation.
However, we disagree about the rigid use that Hardin makes of this triadic view. He seems
to reject any theory of trust generalization, transfer, and abstraction, and focus instead only
on a specific personal relation (i.e. trust in a
specific
person, not for example in a 'category'),
and only for a specific action
α
(not for other similar actions, or for a class of actions). This
is probably due to his quest for an understanding of
Y
's specific incentives and interests in
attending
X
's interest. So, although Hardin admits the importance and the advantages of a
'general atmosphere of trustworthiness', in his model this would necessarily and only be a
rich network of specific trust relationships among particular individuals: lots of people, each
trusting other 'particular' people (Hardin, 2005 (p. 179)). But this, of course, is not what it is
usually meant by 'generalized trust'.
In contrast, our approach will be shown adequate to account for trust transmission, gen-
eralization, and vagueness (for any value of
Y
; for any value of
X
; for any value of
α
;see
Chapter 6 for details). We deny that the theory of generalized or diffuse trust (the so called
'social capital') is another and different model from the theory of interpersonal trust. In our
perspective, the former must be built upon and derived from the latter. On the one side, trust
capital is a macro, emerging phenomenon; but it must be understood also in terms of its micro
foundations. On the other side, conceptually speaking, the notion of trust is just one and the
same notion, at different levels of abstraction and generalization.
Another significant disagreement that we have with Hardin is that he decided to consider as
'trust' only the epistemic/doxastic mental attitude of the trustor, i.e. his beliefs. Hardin's topic
begins with this statement: 'To say that I trust you (
α
...
) simply means that I
think
you will be
trustworthy toward me'; 'To say that I trust you (
...
) is to say nothing more than that I
know
or believe certain things about you
' (Hardin, 2005).
Moreover, he claims that the declarations
I believe you are trustworthy
and
I trust you
are
equivalent. This is clearly false. The first sentence is the paraphrase of only one of at least two
18
Hardin cites Thomas Schelling (1960, 1980, 134-5): “Trust is often achieved simply by the continuity of the
relation between parties and the recognition by each that what he might gain by cheating in a given instance is
outweighed by the value of the tradition of trust that makes possible a long sequence of future agreement”.
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