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Are Expectations and Trust Always Based on Regularities?
There can be expectation about conformity to rules, but also expectations about 'exceptions'
or violations (they are not an oxymoron).
I'm worrying about being aggressed and robbed; actually I know (they said) that this has
never happened here, but since I feel weak, alone, and without defense I really worry and
expect some aggression.
Moreover, there can be new, unexplored circumstances and problems and usually - that's
true -we are more careful, diffident; but we can also be fully convinced and trustful in our
creative solutions and on some intuitive or reasoned prediction.
Previsions, expectations, and trust are not (for us) always and necessarily based on rules,
norms, regularities (except to postulate that any 'inference', or association and learning, is by
definition based on an explicit rule we trust. 11
In conclusion, (regularity-based) beliefs/predictions are:
Neither necessary (predictions are not necessarily regularity/rule based; moreover even
when there is a regularity or rule I can expect and trust an exceptional behavior, event, like
winning my first election or the lotto).
Nor sufficient : the goal component (some wish, concern, practical reliance) is implied for us
in any 'expectation' and a fortiori in any form of 'trust' which contains positive expectation. 12
2.2.3 The Crucial Notion of 'Goal'
For our non-reductive theory of trust (not simply epistemic but motivational and pragmatic) it
is crucial to make clear the central notion of the 'motivational' dimension: 'Goal'. 13
Trust attitude is not just a (grounded) belief, a prediction; it is not just a subjective probability
of an event, because this belief structure is motivated, is charged of value, is anchored to a
goal of X .
In trust X is interested, concerned; the event is a 'favorable' one; X 's 'welfare' is involved.
An 'expectation' is not a 'prediction' or 'forecast'; when X trusts somebody this implies a
positive evaluation of him. Also affects and emotions can be involved, as the real basis of
a trust disposition or complementary to the judgment and decision (for example, X will not
just be surprised but she will be disappointed or even feel betrayed); but, in fact, no affective
reactions or emotions are possible without involved goals .
11 See also Section 9.6 on Norms.
12 Thus the relationship between our model and A. Jones' model is not a relation of abstraction or inclusion (where
Jones' core would be more abstract, pure, and contained in our definition: vice-versa the extension of our trust would
be included in Jones' trust extension); but, it is a relation of partial overlapping: the common constituent being the
prediction belief, the diverging constituents being the 'regularity belief' (not necessary for us) and the wish/goal
component (non necessary for Jones). As for another Jones' critic to our model (that is: that we explain what it
means to “trust”, but not “why” we trust something/somebody), we reject this critic by modeling Y's trustworthiness
(ascribed 'virtues' and 'powers), the perceived success and risk, the personal or social reasons Y's should have for
behaving as expected, etc., as the very basis of the decision to trust.
13 An interesting and remarkable reference to this component is given by Good (Good, 2000).
 
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