Direct willing into future action fails but indirect self-binding through external devices works

Evidence

But his deafened crew could not hear his pleas, and, as ordered, they only bound him tighter and rowed harder — until the island and its deadly song fell away behind them. Odysseus had heard the Sirens and survived, the only man ever to do so — not by being stronger than the temptation, but by being wise enough, in advance, to know he would be weak, and to bind himself against his own weakness before the moment of temptation came. — , A Year of World Stories, 14165 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Our problem in asserting our trustworthiness is similar to Alberich’s in asserting his disavowal of ever loving or lusting. When the time comes to live up to our assertions, we may face forcefully contrary motivations. Other things being equal, we might readily fulfill our commitment. Other things are often not at all equal, however. Once we already have whatever led us to our commitment in the first place, we may no longer find it in our interest to keep the commitment, even though, if we had been able to get our benefit and fulfill our commitment in a single moment, we might happily have done so. What we lose when receipt of the benefit and fulfillment of the commitment are separated in time is the coupling of the motivations into, in essence, a single motivation. It would be strange in the future moment to say that we violate our earlier motivation when we no longer wish to fulfill our commitment. This is the central problem of bald commitments into the future: we cannot tie our future and present motivations together to yield a single “net” motivation for action. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 205 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Self-binding in advance defeats temptation that cannot be resisted at the moment — , A Year of World Stories, 14165; Self-binding as first move lets a present self control a future self; Time-separated commitments cannot couple present and future motivations into a single net motivation — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 205

Related

• Self-binding as first move lets a present self control a future self (similarity 0.88)
• Self-binding in advance defeats temptation that cannot be resisted at the moment (similarity 0.85)
• Successful self-binding commitment depends on trustworthy others enforcing it (similarity 0.84)
• Time-separated commitments cannot couple present and future motivations into a single net motivation (similarity 0.80)
• People can will future actions indirectly by engineering external stimuli that trigger internal responses (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Self-binding in advance defeats temptation that cannot be resisted at the moment #corroborates (0.95) — , A Year of World Stories, 14165
• Self-binding as first move lets a present self control a future self #corroborates (0.95)
• Time-separated commitments cannot couple present and future motivations into a single net motivation #contradicts (0.90) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 205