Well, if the FAI knows that you thought about this but then rejected it, deliberately trying to make that pre-commitment pointless, that’s not a reason not to punish you. It’s like burning a blackmail letter; if you read the blackmail letter and the blackmailer knows this, he will still punish you.
In that chicken game it’s similar: If I knew that the opponent would punish me for not chickening out and then deliberately changed myself so that I wouldn’t know this, the opponent will still punish me—because I deliberately chose not to chicken out when I altered myself.
Also, creating FAI is in my best interest, so I’d want to chicken out even if I knew the opponent would chicken out as well. The only case in which blackmailing is useless is if I always chicken out (=work towards FAI), or if it doesn’t influence my actions because I’m already so altruistic that I will push for FAI regardless of my personal gains/losses, but we are humans, after all, so it probably will.
Well, if the FAI knows that you thought about this but then rejected it, deliberately trying to make that pre-commitment pointless, that’s not a reason not to punish you. It’s like burning a blackmail letter; if you read the blackmail letter and the blackmailer knows this, he will still punish you.
In that chicken game it’s similar: If I knew that the opponent would punish me for not chickening out and then deliberately changed myself so that I wouldn’t know this, the opponent will still punish me—because I deliberately chose not to chicken out when I altered myself.
Also, creating FAI is in my best interest, so I’d want to chicken out even if I knew the opponent would chicken out as well. The only case in which blackmailing is useless is if I always chicken out (=work towards FAI), or if it doesn’t influence my actions because I’m already so altruistic that I will push for FAI regardless of my personal gains/losses, but we are humans, after all, so it probably will.