Acting on the incentive for trustworthiness is to be trustworthy on the encapsulated-interest account of trust. In his functional explanation of the maintenance of trust in a complex society, Luhmann does not make the direct mistake of confusing trust and trustworthiness. Nevertheless, it is much easier to account directly for trustworthiness, which then begets trust. It begets trust because trust is essentially in the category of knowledge, and evidence of trustworthiness ultimately defines trust.

XREF: Connects to the encapsulated-interest account of trust from game-theoretic and social capital literature; the distinction between trust and trustworthiness recurs across the trust literature.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 681