In conditions of modernity, trust exists in the context of (a) the general awareness that human activity—including within this phrase the impact of technology upon the material world—is socially created, rather than given in the nature of things or by divine influence; (b) the vastly increased transformative scope of human action, brought about by the dynamic character of modern social institutions. The concept of risk replaces that of fortuna, but this is not because agents in pre-modern times could not distinguish between risk and danger. Rather it represents an alteration in the perception of determination and contingency, such that human moral imperatives, natural causes, and chance reign in place of religious cosmologies.

DEFINE: Clarifies the modern concept of trust by contrasting it with pre-modern fortuna, situating it within risk perception and human agency.

Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Moderni…, loc. 89