Why is this a problem? I see an obvious status quo in every one of your examples, and if you have to go to such lengths of complication to arrive (or not) at anything doubtful, what does that prove? Look at any border closely enough and it will look blurry. That need not stop us from drawing them.
Does a definition with “status quo” look something like this?
“The blackmailer sets up a situation in which the blackmailed has two options {A, B}. Both blackmailed and blackmailer prefer option B to option A. The status quo is a situation C, which the blackmailed prefers to B, whereas the blackmailer prefers B to C.”
Buying up a MacGuffin that someone else wants, and offering to sell it for an exorbitant price (B) doesn’t really fit here. Presumably the status quo (C) is where the MacGuffin lover doesn’t have the object of desire in the first place, so they still prefer B to C, and it’s not blackmail. However, stealing the MacGuffin and then offering to sell it back (or destroy it otherwise) does fit the description. This means that “ransom” is a subset of “blackmail”, which I think makes sense.
Yes, I’m having great trouble defining blackmail without a status quo...
Why is this a problem? I see an obvious status quo in every one of your examples, and if you have to go to such lengths of complication to arrive (or not) at anything doubtful, what does that prove? Look at any border closely enough and it will look blurry. That need not stop us from drawing them.
It’s not necessarily a problem, it’s an interesting result!
Does a definition with “status quo” look something like this?
“The blackmailer sets up a situation in which the blackmailed has two options {A, B}. Both blackmailed and blackmailer prefer option B to option A. The status quo is a situation C, which the blackmailed prefers to B, whereas the blackmailer prefers B to C.”
Buying up a MacGuffin that someone else wants, and offering to sell it for an exorbitant price (B) doesn’t really fit here. Presumably the status quo (C) is where the MacGuffin lover doesn’t have the object of desire in the first place, so they still prefer B to C, and it’s not blackmail. However, stealing the MacGuffin and then offering to sell it back (or destroy it otherwise) does fit the description. This means that “ransom” is a subset of “blackmail”, which I think makes sense.