The Dilemma of Trust in the Risk Society. Commentary on Gil Eyal, Larry Au and Cristian Capotescu’s “Trust is a Verb!”

Abstract

Referring to Niklas Luhmann’s theory, this brief commentary on the text by Eyal et al. (2024) argues that trust — compared to distrust — increases the possibilities available to the decision-maker. Those who trust can keep more possibilities open and nevertheless decide, because they do not need to know all the details. This “controlled indifference” would be especially valuable in our society, where the multiplication of risks requires us to constantly make decisions under conditions of uncertainty — that is, incomplete information. When the awareness of risks increases, however, trust tends to decrease regardless of the competence of decision-makers or the transparency of decisions, because the increase in information highlights the complexity of the factors involved, and the decision to trust appears itself increasingly risky.