This article provides a brief overview of several formal frameworks concerning the relation between knowledge on the one hand, and obligation on the other. We discuss the paradox of the knower, knowledge based obligation, knowingly doing, deontic dynamic epistemology, descriptive obligations, and responsibilities as dynamic epistemology.

Agents often face a choice of what to do. And it seems that, in most of these choice situations, the relevant reasons do not require performing some particular act, but instead permit performing any of numerous act alternatives. This is known as the basic belief. Below, I argue that the best explanation for the basic belief is not that the relevant reasons are incommensurable (Raz) or that their justifying strength exceeds the requiring strength of opposing reasons (Gert), but that they (...) are imperfect reasons—reasons that do not support performing any particular act, but instead support choosing any of the numerous alternatives that would each achieve the same worthy end. In the process, I develop and defend a novel theory of objective rationality, arguing that it is superior to its two most notable rivals. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss some examples of the so-called contrary-to-duty paradox, a well-known puzzle in deontic logic. A contrary-to-duty obligation is an obligation telling us what ought to be the case if something forbidden is true, for example: ‘If she is guilty, she should confess’. Contrary-to-duty obligations are important in our moral and legal thinking. Therefore, we want to be able to find an adequate symbolisation of such obligations in some logical system, a task that has turned out (...) to be difficult. This is shown by the so-called contrary-to-duty paradox. I will investigate and evaluate one kind of solution to this problem that has been suggested in the literature, which I will call the ‘counterfactual solution’. I will use some recent systems that combine not only counterfactual logic and deontic logic, but also temporal logic, in my analysis of the paradox. I will argue that the counterfactual solution has many attractive features and that it can give a fairly satisfactory answer to some examples of the contrary-to-duty paradox, but that it nevertheless has some serious problems. The conclusion is that, notwithstanding the many attractive features of the solution, there seem to be other approaches to the paradox that are more promising. (shrink)

A fitting-attitude analysis which understands value in terms of reasons and pro- and con-attitudes allows limited wriggle room if it is to respect a radical division between good and good-for. Essentially, its proponents can either introduce two different normative notions, one relating to good and the other to good-for, or distinguish two kinds of attitude, one corresponding to the analysis of good and the other to good-for. It is argued that whereas the first option faces a counterintuitive scope issue, an (...) attitudinal approach couched in terms of ‘for someone's sake’ attitudes has the unwelcome consequence that whatever is good for someone is also necessarily good. It is argued that this consequence can be avoided if we modify the standard way of formulating the fitting-attitude analysis of final impersonal value. (shrink)

I address three issues in this paper: first, just as many have thought that there is a requirement of alternative possibilities for the truth of judgments of moral responsibility, is there reason to think that the truth of judgments of intrinsic value also presupposes our having alternatives? Second, if there is this sort of requirement for the truth of judgments of intrinsic value, is there an analogous requirement for the truth of judgments of moral obligation on the supposition that obligation (...) supervenes on goodness? Third, if the truth of judgments of intrinsic value and those of moral obligation do presuppose our having access to alternatives, what should be said about whether determinism imperils the truth of such judgments? I defend an affirmative answer to the first question, a more guarded answer to the second, and a yet more restrained answer to the third. (shrink)

Frankfurt examples attempt to establish that a person can be morally responsible, morally blameworthy, for instance, for doing something despite not being able to do otherwise, as long as the conditions that render him unable to do otherwise play no role in bringing about what he does.Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 66 . A more cautious manner of arguing would be to assume only that it is not demonstrated that the agent is not (...) morally responsible. See, e.g., John M. Fischer, “Recent Work on Moral Responsibility,” Ethics, Vol. 110 ; Ishtiyaque Haji and Michael McKenna, “Defending Frankfurt’s Argument in Deterministic Contexts: A Reply to Palmer,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 103 ; and Ishtiyaque Haji and Michael McKenna, “Dialectical Delicacies in the Debate about Freedom and Alternative Possibilities,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 101 . But for present purposes, we can work with the stro .. (shrink)

The Fallibility Norm—the claim that we ought to take our fallibility into account when managing our beliefs—appears to conflict with several other compelling epistemic norms. To shed light on these apparent conflicts, I distinguish two kinds of norms: norms of perfection and norms of compensation. Roughly, norms of perfection tell us how agents ought to behave if they’re to be perfect; norms of compensation tell us how imperfect agents ought to behave in order to compensate for their imperfections. I argue (...) that the Fallibility Norm is a norm of compensation, and that thinking of it like this helps us make progress in debates surrounding disagreement, higher-order evidence, and coherence. (shrink)

This paper concerns a thorny problem posed by conditional requirements: we expect some modal conditionals of the form ‘if p, then it must be that p’ to be false, yet they all come out true given two basic assumptions needed to account for ordinary conditional requirement like ‘If the light turns red, then cars must stop’. The first assumption is a semantic expectation linking conditional requirements with absolute ones, the second is the possible-worlds-based definition of modal sentences. Keeping the former (...) means giving up the latter, a result with profound implications for Kratzer’s formal semantics, modifications thereof, as well as deontic logics. (shrink)

We are fallible, and knowledge of our fallibility has normative implications. But these normative implications appear to conflict with other compelling epistemic norms. We therefore appear to face a choice: reject fallibility-based norms or reject these other epistemic norms. I argue that there is a plausible third option: reconcile these two sets of norms. Once we properly understand the nature of each of these norms, we aren’t forced to reject either.