Some did; Yamamoto, for instance.
Yamamoto probably calculated that for Uncle Sam, losing the PI wasn't really that big a deal, since independence was in the works, anyway, so the US probably wouldn't engage in all-out war against Japan. And this view would have been backed up by historical fact - the Russo-Japanese War had not resulted in all-out war* between Russia and Japan, despite the fact that Japan had attacked the Russian Navy before declaring war. Japan went on to win that war because the Russians decided not to take it any further.
Near the end of WWII, Japan seemed to be hoping that it could negotiate an end to the Pacific War similar to the deal that the Russians got at the end of the Russo-Japanese War, where the Russians lost some territory, but business went on as usual, with the Romanovs 100% in charge and so on. We were looking to place GI's on Japanese soil and systematically demilitarize Japanese society. That wasn't going to happen without either the A-bomb or the invasion and occupation of the Japanese home islands.
* They probably figured the US couldn't possibly be more aggressive than the Russian bear, which had been expanding for centuries against its neighbors. They were wrong.
Ultimately, the Japanese thought Americans only cared about the bottom line, just like the Russians. The reason the Romanovs did not pursue the Russo-Japanese War to victory was for pure cost-benefit reasons - the costs exceeded the benefits. I don’t think it occurred to Yamamoto in his wildest dreams that American war aims in response to Pearl Harbor would involve the military occupation of the Japanese home islands. After all, WWI had resulted in an armistice, and no Allied troops on German soil.