I think the point of the word ‘threat’ is that it is about a consequence which is illegitimate in some form, according to the wider culture. Like, if I say I’ll hit you if you don’t give me money, it is a threat, because I am not allowed to just randomly hit you. But if I say ‘If you break into my house, I’ll call the police’ that is not a threat, if that is normally what we do when a burglary happens. So I would say that splitting the money evenly is in some way the fairest way to deal with this, and where we would want the culture to end up. So if I say that I’ll reject an unfavorable split, it is not a threat, but if I say I’ll reject anything under $9 it is a threat, because I am trying to get more than my fair share. This also works nicely with ‘we shouldn’t give in to threats’. People shouldn’t give in to random threats of violence, but if the wider culture wants them to cooperate, giving in is prosocial. Not stealing because you’d get arrested is a good thing for society, in most cases. Of course this does then require some sort of judgement on what the difference between a legitimate and illegitimate consequence is, and that is a really hard question. I don’t know how to answer it, but I’d gesture towards something like ‘those consequences that make society a better place to live in’.
I think the point of the word ‘threat’ is that it is about a consequence which is illegitimate in some form, according to the wider culture. Like, if I say I’ll hit you if you don’t give me money, it is a threat, because I am not allowed to just randomly hit you. But if I say ‘If you break into my house, I’ll call the police’ that is not a threat, if that is normally what we do when a burglary happens.
So I would say that splitting the money evenly is in some way the fairest way to deal with this, and where we would want the culture to end up. So if I say that I’ll reject an unfavorable split, it is not a threat, but if I say I’ll reject anything under $9 it is a threat, because I am trying to get more than my fair share.
This also works nicely with ‘we shouldn’t give in to threats’. People shouldn’t give in to random threats of violence, but if the wider culture wants them to cooperate, giving in is prosocial. Not stealing because you’d get arrested is a good thing for society, in most cases.
Of course this does then require some sort of judgement on what the difference between a legitimate and illegitimate consequence is, and that is a really hard question. I don’t know how to answer it, but I’d gesture towards something like ‘those consequences that make society a better place to live in’.