In general, functional explanation fits especially well with rationalchoice understandings because the feedback can work through the creation of incentives for acting according to the pattern of behavior that is to be explained (see further Hardin 1980). The relevant functional pattern of behavior commonly just is a response to incentives. No one need know the general implications of everyone’s acting from those incentives.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 688