Trust is confident reliance. We may have confidence in events, people, or circumstances, or at least in our beliefs and predictions about them, but if we do not in some way rely on them, our confidence alone does not amount to trust. Reliance is a source of risk, and risk differentiates trusting in something from merely being confident about it. When one is in full control of an outcome or otherwise immune from disappointment, trust is not necessary. It is, of course, possible to rely on other people or on circumstances simply because one lacks other options. Basis for confidence in relying on some person may not be morally sound. Trust may be naive or otherwise ill-founded. In that case it is likely to be disappointed. Trust may also rest on a morally unsound foundation as when, for example, one party feigns trustworthiness or behaves reliably only because the other party dominates. Philosopher Annette Baier offers as a test of the moral soundness of trust relationships that they thrive rather than wither when the basis for confidence is revealed. Baier's discussion of the moral soundness or decency of trust relationships draws attention to the ethical mistake of putting the preservation of dependable behavior ahead of concern for its morality. (The question of moral soundness arises only for trust relationships, so that, for example, trust in a tow rope or in a computer program might be well-founded or ill-founded but not decent or corrupt.)

This definition is in context to Ethics. See more contextual defintions for Trust.