I suppose. On the other hand, is that because other people can read your mind or because you have emotional responses that you cannot suppress and are correlated to what you are thinking? This is actually critical to what counterfactuals you want to construct.
Consider for example the terrorist who would try to bring down an airplane that he is on given the opportunity. Unfortunately, he’s an open book and airport security would figure out that he’s up to something and prevent him from flying. This is actually inconvenient since it also means he can’t use air travel. He would like to be able to precommit to not trying to take down particular flights so that he would be allowed on. On the other hand, whether or not this would work depends on what exactly airport security is picking up on. Are they actually able to discern his intent to cause harm, or are they merely picking up on his nervousness at being questioned by airport security. If it’s the latter, would an internal precommitment to not bring down a particular flight actually solve his problem?
Put another way, is the TSA detecting the fact that the terrorist would down the plane if given the opportunity, or simply that he would like to do so (in the sense of getting extra utils from doing so).
I suppose. On the other hand, is that because other people can read your mind or because you have emotional responses that you cannot suppress and are correlated to what you are thinking? This is actually critical to what counterfactuals you want to construct.
Consider for example the terrorist who would try to bring down an airplane that he is on given the opportunity. Unfortunately, he’s an open book and airport security would figure out that he’s up to something and prevent him from flying. This is actually inconvenient since it also means he can’t use air travel. He would like to be able to precommit to not trying to take down particular flights so that he would be allowed on. On the other hand, whether or not this would work depends on what exactly airport security is picking up on. Are they actually able to discern his intent to cause harm, or are they merely picking up on his nervousness at being questioned by airport security. If it’s the latter, would an internal precommitment to not bring down a particular flight actually solve his problem?
Put another way, is the TSA detecting the fact that the terrorist would down the plane if given the opportunity, or simply that he would like to do so (in the sense of getting extra utils from doing so).