Trust involves a complex anticipation of benefits and hazards. It depends, as Luhmann rightly remarks, “not on inherent danger but on risk.” However, risks have no dependent existence, but are created through human commitments, actions, and decisions. That a course of action involves risk tells us nothing about its morality. Its presence does not determine the Tightness or wrongness of an action. When, for example, Nancy in Dickens's Oliver Twist confides in Rose Maylie, she trusts the word of those who can save Oliver that her part in the affair will never be made public. She has to make this commitment if she is to save Oliver and protect Sikes, but in doing so the risk is greater than she thinks because she is in fact overheard. Trust is no longer an effective means of achieving a moral purpose, but a sign of vul-nerability, which places Nancy in great danger.