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goodwill. To expose a semi-friendly relationship for such a goldenopportunity might not only be seen as a naive belief in morality, butas a step to destruction of the relationship. The conclusion of thisreasoning is to support trust when it is likely to mean trustworthy, butto be skeptical when trust is just faith.A paradox is that morals influenced by consideration aboutcompliance more often are criticized for having problems withobtaining this goal, while morals less concerned with compliancesucceed in avoiding such critical considerations. There is awidespread opinion that rationai morality has more severe problemswith compliance - maybe because at heart, morals are seen as anextra constraint, and a rationai consideration is no extra constraint butrather foresight or wisdom. It seems to me that proponents of purevirtue disregard the question of compliance. Just the statement thatnormative principles should be manifested in deeds, not only words,is not enough. Philosophers see themselves mare as law makers thanlaw enforcers. And the prospect of letting enforcement considerationinfluence what is to be considered right is seen as arguing in thewrong direction. However, disregarding a problem is not solving itand not even a good way of avoiding il.6 Rationality and punishmentStraight rationality is not only criticized for deficits in bringing theagent herself to comply, but also for providing weak reason for her topush others to behave according to morality (Sen 1987, p 73).Clarifying communication is a proper tool for everyone, but if youare an act egoist your possibilities of influencing others becomelimited to warnings and assurances. You can solve coordinationproblems by clarifying your next move, and if this move is in linewith your interest, the other person has no good reason to doubt thatyou will also walk the talk.In game theory threats and promises are called strategic moves andimply that a person B by promises or threats makes a commitment instage Oabout potentially doing some kind of sacrifice in stage 2. B'sbehavior in stage 2 is conditionally linked to what A will do in stage1. From strict act egoism it is rationai to make the promise or threatin stage 0, to influence A in doing something favorable to B, but notrationai for B to actually fulfil them in stage 2, regardless of A'sIII : 16