The purpose of this paper is to develop a class of semantic tableau systems for some dyadic deontic logics. We will consider 16 different pure dyadic deontic tableau systems and 32 different alethic dyadic deontic tableau systems. Possible world semantics is used to interpret our formal languages. Some relationships between our systems and well known dyadic deontic logics in the literature are pointed out and soundness results are obtained for every tableau system. Completeness results are obtained for all 16 pure (...) dyadic deontic systems and for 16 alethic dyadic deontic systems. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to point out the modelling choices that lead to different systems of deontic action logic. A kind of a roadmap is presented. On the one hand it can help the reader to find the deontic logic appropriate for an intended application relying on the information considering the way in which a deontic logic represents actions and how it characterises deontic properties in relation to (the representation of) actions. On the other hand it is a (...) guideline how to build a deontic action logic which satisfies the desired properties. (shrink)

Options and the subjective ought Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-18 DOI 10.1007/s11098-012-9880-0 Authors Brian Hedden, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.

In a recent paper, Sven Danielsson argued that the ‘original paradoxes' of deontic logic, in particular Ross's paradox and Prior's paradox of derived obligation, can be solved by restricting the modal inheritance rule. I argue that this does not solve the paradoxes.

. The author conceives rules as action‐determining ideas. They are general and of hypothetical form, and they are of three semantic types: descriptive, technological, and normative rules. The most important categorisation of normative rules is the distinction between rules of behaviour and power‐conferring rules. Both kinds of rules are necessary to establish institutions. Principles are a special kind of normative rules. The social existence of normative rules is connected with their institutionalisation as frames for action. The dynamics of rules is (...) in principle based on two elements: on socially approved habit, and/or on authorised norm creation. (shrink)

Metaethics is the study of metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language, insofar as they relate to the subject matter of moral or, more broadly, normative discourse – the subject matter of what is good, bad, right or wrong, just, reasonable, rational, what we must or ought to do, or otherwise. But out of these four ‘core’ areas of philosophy, it is plausibly the philosophy of language that is most central to metaethics – and not simply (...) because ‘metaethics’ was for a long time construed more narrowly as a name for the study of moral language. The philosophy of language is central to metaethics because both the advantages of and the open problems facing different metaethical theories differ sharply over the answers those theories give to central questions in the philosophy of language. In fact, among the open problems over which such theories differ, are included particularly further problems in the philosophy of language. This article briefly surveys a range of broad categories of views in metaethics and both catalogues some of the principal issues faced by each in the philosophy of language, as well as how those arise out of their answers to more basic questions in the philosophy of language. I make no claim to completeness, only to raising a variety of important issues. (shrink)

I was quite excited when I first read Restall and Russell’s (2010) paper. For two reasons. First, because the paper provides rigorous formulations and formal proofs of implication barrier the- ses, namely “theses [which] deny that one can derive sentences of one type from sentences of another”. Second (and primarily), because the paper proves a general theorem, the Barrier Con- struction Theorem, which unifies implication barrier theses concerning four topics: generality, necessity, time, and normativity. After thinking about the paper, I (...) am satisfied with its treatment of the first three topics, namely generality, necessity, and time. But I am not satisfied with its treatment of normativity, so my comments are exclusively on that topic. (shrink)

In this paper, illocutionary acts of commanding will be differentiated from perlocutionary acts that affect preferences of addressees in a new dynamic logic which combines the preference upgrade introduced in DEUL (dynamic epistemic upgrade logic) by van Benthem and Liu with the deontic update introduced in ECL II (eliminative command logic II) by Yamada. The resulting logic will incorporate J. L. Austin’s distinction between illocutionary acts as acts having mere conventional effects and perlocutionary acts as acts having real effects upon (...) attitudes and actions of agents, and help us understand why saying so can make it so in explicit performative utterances. We will also discuss how acts of commanding give rise to so-called “deontic dilemmas” and how we can accommodate most deontic dilemmas without triggering so-called “deontic explosion”. (shrink)

[full article, abstract in English; only abstract in Lithuanian] This article presents the results of a broader research project which aims to argue for the normativity of scientific laws. Usually scientific laws are regarded as descriptive, which contrasts them to prescriptive norms. To show their normativity, I utilize the logical account of explicitly normative systems by Carlos Alchourrón and Eugenio Bulygin. I identify the characteristic elements of normativity and analyse accounts of implicit normativity in science using those terms to show (...) the affinities of explicit and implicit normativities. The research project continues with the substantiation of the normativity of scientific laws in detail and the results will be presented in Normativity of Scientific Laws. (shrink)

In moral dilemmas, where circumstances prevent two or more equally justified prima facie ethical requirements from being fulfilled, it is often maintained that, since the agent cannot do both, conjoint obligation is overridden by Kant's principle that ought implies can, but that the agent nevertheless has a disjunctive obligation to perform one of the otherwise obligatory actions or the other. Against this commonly received view, it is demonstrated that although Kant's ought-can principle may avoid logical inconsistency, the principle is incompatible (...) with disjunctive obligation in standard deontic logic, and that it entails paradoxically that none of the conflicting dilemma actions will in fact occur. The principle appears to provide the only plausible safeguard against deontic antinomy, but cannot be admitted because of its collision with considered moral judgments. (shrink)

Scientists from various disciplines have begun to focus attention on the psychology and biology of human morality. One research program that has recently gained attention is universal moral grammar (UMG). UMG seeks to describe the nature and origin of moral knowledge by using concepts and models similar to those used in Chomsky's program in linguistics. This approach is thought to provide a fruitful perspective from which to investigate moral competence from computational, ontogenetic, behavioral, physiological and phylogenetic perspectives. In this article, (...) I outline a framework for UMG and describe some of the evidence that supports it. I also propose a novel computational analysis of moral intuitions and argue that future research on this topic should draw more directly on legal theory. (shrink)

The Logics of Deontic (In)Consistency (LDI's) can be considered as the deontic counterpart of the paraconsistent logics known as Logics of Formal (In)Consistency. This paper introduces and studies new LDI's and other paraconsistent deontic logics with different properties: systems tolerant to contradictory obligations; systems in which contradictory obligations trivialize; and a bimodal paraconsistent deontic logic combining the features of previous systems. These logics are used to analyze the well-known Chisholm's paradox, taking profit of the fact that, besides contradictory obligations do (...) not trivialize in LDI's, several logical dependencies of classical logic are blocked in the context of LDI's, allowing to dissolve the paradox. (shrink)

This paper describes and compares the first step in modern semantic theory for deontic logic which appeared in works of Stig Kanger, Jaakko Hintikka, Richard Montague and Saul Kripke in late 50s and early 60s. Moreover, some further developments as well as systematizations are also noted.

My first paper on the Is/Ought issue. The young Arthur Prior endorsed the Autonomy of Ethics, in the form of Hume’s No-Ought-From-Is (NOFI) but the later Prior developed a seemingly devastating counter-argument. I defend Prior's earlier logical thesis (albeit in a modified form) against his later self. However it is important to distinguish between three versions of the Autonomy of Ethics: Ontological, Semantic and Ontological. Ontological Autonomy is the thesis that moral judgments, to be true, must answer to a realm (...) of sui generis non-natural PROPERTIES. Semantic autonomy insists on a realm of sui generis non-natural PREDICATES which do not mean the same as any natural counterparts. Logical Autonomy maintains that moral conclusions cannot be derived from non-moral premises.-moral premises with the aid of logic alone. Logical Autonomy does not entail Semantic Autonomy and Semantic Autonomy does not entail Ontological Autonomy. But, given some plausible assumptions Ontological Autonomy entails Semantic Autonomy and given the conservativeness of logic – the idea that in a valid argument you don’t get out what you haven’t put in – Semantic Autonomy entails Logical Autonomy. So if Logical Autonomy is false – as Prior appears to prove – then Semantic and Ontological Autonomy would appear to be false too! I develop a version of Logical Autonomy (or NOFI) and vindicate it against Prior’s counterexamples, which are also counterexamples to the conservativeness of logic as traditionally conceived. The key concept here is an idea derived in part from Quine - that of INFERENCE-RELATIVE VACUITY. I prove that you cannot derive conclusions in which the moral terms appear non-vacuously from premises from which they are absent. But this is because you cannot derive conclusions in which ANY (non-logical) terms appear non-vacuously from premises from which they are absent Thus NOFI or Logical Autonomy comes out as an instance of the conservativeness of logic. This means that the reverse entailment that I have suggested turns out to be a mistake. The falsehood of Logical Autonomy would not entail either the falsehood Semantic Autonomy or the falsehood of Ontological Autonomy, since Semantic Autonomy only entails Logical Autonomy with the aid of the conservativeness of logic of which Logical Autonomy is simply an instance. Thus NOFI or Logical Autonomy is vindicated, but it turns out to be a less world-shattering thesis than some have supposed. It provides no support for either non-cognitivism or non-naturalism. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between commitment and obligation from a logical viewpoint. The principle of commitment implying obligation is proven in a specific logic of action preference which is a generalization of Meyer 's dynamic deontic logic. In the proposed formalism, an agent's commitment to goals is considered as a special kind of action which can change one's deontic preference andone's obligation to take some action is based on the preference and the effects of the action. In (...) this logic, it is shown that an agent has the obligation to take any action which is necessary for achieving as many committed goals as possible. The semantics of our logic is based on the possible world models for the dynamic logic of actions. A binary preference relation between possible worlds is associated with the model. Then the preference between actions are determined by comparing that of their consequences. According to the semantics, while the preference will influence the agent's choice of action, commitment is a kind of action that will change the agent's preference. Thus we can show how obligations arise from commitments via updating of deontic preference. The integrated semantics make it possible to express and reason about the mutual relationship among these mental attitudes in a common logic. (shrink)

The advantages and disadvantages of formalization in philosophy are summarized. It is concluded that formalized philosophy is an endangered speciality that needs to be revitalized and to increase its interactions with non-formalized philosophy. The enigmatic style that is common in philosophical logic must give way to explicit discussions of the problematic relationship between formal models and the philosophical concepts and issues that motivated their development.

The dominant practice of AI alignment assumes (1) that preferences are an adequate representation of human values, (2) that human rationality can be understood in terms of maximizing the satisfaction of preferences, and (3) that AI systems should be aligned with the preferences of one or more humans to ensure that they behave safely and in accordance with our values. Whether implicitly followed or explicitly endorsed, these commitments constitute what we term apreferentistapproach to AI alignment. In this paper, we characterize (...) and challenge the preferentist approach, describing conceptual and technical alternatives that are ripe for further research. We first survey the limits of rational choice theory as a descriptive model, explaining how preferences fail to capture the thick semantic content of human values, and how utility representations neglect the possible incommensurability of those values. We then critique the normativity of expected utility theory (EUT) for humans and AI, drawing upon arguments showing how rational agents need not comply with EUT, while highlighting how EUT is silent on which preferences are normatively acceptable. Finally, we argue that these limitations motivate a reframing of the targets of AI alignment: Instead of alignment with the preferences of a human user, developer, or humanity-writ-large, AI systems should be aligned with normative standards appropriate to their social roles, such as the role of a general-purpose assistant. Furthermore, these standards should be negotiated and agreed upon by all relevant stakeholders. On this alternative conception of alignment, a multiplicity of AI systems will be able to serve diverse ends, aligned with normative standards that promote mutual benefit and limit harm despite our plural and divergent values. (shrink)

According to Act Consequentialism, an act is right if and only if its outcome is not worse than the outcome of any alternative to that act. This view, however, leads to deontic paradoxes if the alternatives to an act are all other acts that can be done in the situation. A typical response is to only apply this rightness criterion to maximally specific acts and to take the alternatives to a maximally specific act to be the other maximally specific acts (...) that can be done in the situation. (This view can then be supplanted by a separate account for the rightness of acts that are not maximally specific.) This paper defends a rival view, Binary Act Consequentialism, where, for any voluntary act, that act is right if and only if its outcome is not worse than the outcome of not doing that act. Binary Act Consequentialism, which dates back to Jeremy Bentham, has few supporters. A number of seemingly powerful objections have been considered fatal. In this paper, I rebut these objections and put forward a positive argument for the view. (shrink)

This article examines the anxiety expressed by von Wright over the status of the deontic permission, P, as an independent normative category, given the interdefinability between P and O at the foundation of deontic logic. Two concerns are noted: the reducibility of P to O, and the inadequacy of P to convey a full permission in a social setting. Drawing on resources from the Hohfeldian analytical framework, the relational and aggregate features of permission are explored, and an aggregate conception of (...) permission, P, is recognized. With the assistance of insights from Demey and Smessaert on duals, Hansson on formalization, and Soames on interdefinability, it is concluded that the interdefinability thesis can be defended without threatening the independent status of P. Additional grounds for reaching this conclusion are provided from a detailed analysis of the relationship between P and P. Some implications of the more expansive notion of permission, P, are considered with regard to the resources of deontic logic and their application. (shrink)

In this work, we illustrate applications of a semantic framework for non-congruential modal logic based on hyperintensional models. We start by discussing some philosophical ideas behind the approach; in particular, the difference between the set of possible worlds in which a formula is true (its intension) and the semantic content of a formula (its hyperintension), which is captured in a rigorous way in hyperintensional models. Next, we rigorously specify the approach and provide a fundamental completeness theorem. Moreover, we analyse examples (...) of non-congruential systems that can be semantically characterized within this framework in an elegant and modular way. Finally, we compare the proposed framework with some alternatives available in the literature. In the light of the results obtained, we argue that hyperintensional models constitute a basic, general and unifying semantic framework for (non-congruential) modal logic. (shrink)

Ever since its formulation by Hume, the idea of an inferential barrier between non-ethical (“is”) propositions and ethical (“ought”) propositions (also known as Hume’s is-ought thesis) has received much philosophical attention. Prior’s Paradox appears to demonstrate that the ban on “is”-“ought” inferences is violated in every possible instance, from which it follows that Hume’s is-ought thesis must be false. In this article, I will formulate a logically rigorous version of Hume’s is-ought thesis, introduce Prior-style counterexamples, and suggest how they might (...) demonstrate the falsity of Hume’s is-ought thesis, identify the substitution criterion, and develop at length the unrestricted and restricted versions of this criterion as it is applied by Pigden and Schurz. Thereafter, I will outline Schurz’s defence of the is-ought gap in accordance with his interpretation of the substitution criterion, before introducing a more sophisticated version of Prior-style objections, proposing a possible response from Pigden, identifying the costs of Pigden’s response and counter proposing a response on behalf of Schurz through an extension of his approach, and offering concluding remarks. (shrink)

A thorny question surrounding the meaning of ought concerns a felt distinction between deontic uses of ought that seem to evaluate a state of affairs versus those that seem to describe a requirement or obligation to perform an action, as in and, respectively. There ought not be childhood death and disease. You ought to keep that promise. Various accounts have been offered to explain the contrast between “agentive” and “non-agentive” ought sentences. One such account is the Agency-in-the-Prejacent theory, which traces (...) the difference to a particular kind of ambiguity in the prejacent. This theory has been criticized as linguistically unviable. Indeed, I level a few novel complaints against AIP myself in the present paper. But AIP has a kernel of genuine insight which allows us to explain the contrast—that the distinction between agentive and non-agentive ought sentences owes in part to the way natural language encodes information about agency. I develop this idea into a novel account that, like AIP, traces the contrast to an ambiguity in the complement of the modal. However, according to the view I propose, the Coercion View, a linguistically-motivated coercion operation produces the necessary grammatical conditions for agentive ought, which in turn allow a kind of variadic function operator in the style of to produce the semantic effect we see on display in agentive readings of ought. Having explained the mechanism by which we get this structure, I show that it corroborates some of the central intuitions underwriting agentive ought. I submit that the Coercion View offers an explanation of agentive ought to take at least as seriously as any of its competitors. (shrink)

We introduce a multimodal framework of deontic action logic which encodes the interaction between two fundamental procedures in normative reasoning: conceptual classification and deontic classification. The expressive power of the framework is noteworthy, since it combines insights from agency logic and dynamic logic, allowing for a representation of many kinds of normative conflicts. We provide a semantic characterization for three axiomatic systems of increasing strength, showing how our approach can be modularly extended in order to get different levels of analysis (...) of normative reasoning. Finally, we discuss ways in which the framework can be used to capture other formalisms proposed in the literature, as well as to model searching problems in Artificial Intelligence. (shrink)

Nosso objetivo neste trabalho é apresentar uma proposta de solução a paradoxos relacionados à lógica deôntica presentes na literatura, reunidos sob o que é chamado de dilemas deônticos - situações nas quais duas obrigações conflitantes estão presentes num mesmo sistema normativo. Situações deste tipo, quando formalizadas (em SDL - standard deontic logic - ou em outras lógicas relacionadas), levam a uma inconsistência. Nossa proposta baseia-se em relações de preferência que geram uma ferramenta de escolha dentre as duas soluções normativas conflitantes, (...) o que evita a inconsistência e permite o pleno cumprimento do sistema. Justificativas filosóficas são fornecidas as ferramentas lógicas, bem como as suas implicações. (shrink)

We defend three controversial claims about preference, credence, and choice. First, all agents (not just rational ones) have complete preferences. Second, all agents (again, not just rational ones) have real-valued credences in every proposition in which they are confident to any degree. Third, there is almost always some unique thing we ought to do, want, or believe.

Since the middle of the last century, normative language has been much studied. In particular, the normative function performed by certain sentences and by certain speech acts has been investigated in depth. Still, the normative function performed by certain physical artifacts designed and built to regulate human behaviors has not yet been thoroughly investigated. We propose to call this specific type of artifacts with normative intent ‘deontic artifacts’. This article aims to investigate this normative phenomenon that is so widespread in (...) our daily reality, but so often forgotten by scholars of norms and normativity. (shrink)

Though there have been productive interactions between moral philosophers and deontic logicians, there has also been a tradition of neglecting the insights that the fields can offer one another. The most sustained interactions between moral philosophers and deontic logicians have notbeen systematic but instead have been scattered across a number of distinct and often unrelated topics. This chapter primarily focuses on three topics. First, we discuss the “actualism/possibilism” debate which, very roughly, concerns the relevance of what one will do at (...) some future time to what one ought to do at present (§2). This topic is also used to introduce various modal deontic logics. Second we discuss the particularism debate which, very roughly, concerns whether there can be any systematic general theory of what we ought to do (§3). This topic is also used to introduce various non-modal deontic logics. Third, we discuss collective action problems which concern the connection between the obligations of individuals and the behavior and obligations of groups of individuals (§4).This topic is also used to discuss formal systems that allow us to study the relationship between individuals and groups. The chapter also contains a general discussion of the relation between ethical theory and deontic logic (§1) and a brief consideration of other miscellaneous topics (§5). (shrink)

Von Wright’s philosophy is seldom seen as original when compared to that of his master, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Contrary to that orientation, this work seeks to establish the opposition of von Wright to Wittgenstein in relation to the question of whether ethics is an area where logic can legitimately extend. For Wittgenstein, logic deals with what is necessarily true. On the basis of this characterization of logic, Wittgenstein thinks that logic cannot legitimately help to capture ethics for the reason that the (...) referents of ethical discourse are not in the world. Only the referents of scientific discourse are there. For Wittgenstein, therefore, we must adopt a mystical position in ethics both by giving it the greatest importance but also by applying the greatest silence. Von Wright admits, following Wittgenstein, the varieties of goodness. However, he stresses that the varieties of goodness do not leave room for absolute relativism. Norms have both a prescriptive dimension that can be relative to a culture, and a descriptive dimension that makes them assessable to logical standards. (shrink)

Moral obligation and permissibility are usually thought to be interdefinable. Following the pattern of the duality definitions of necessity and possibility, we have that something’s being permissible could be defined as its not being obligatory to not do it. And that something’s being obligatory could be defined as its not being permissible to not do it. In this paper, I argue that neither direction of this alleged interdefinability works. Roughly, the problem is that a claim that some act is obligatory (...) or permissible entails that there is a moral law, whereas a negative claim that some act is not obligatory or not permissible does not. Nevertheless, one direction of the interdefinability can potentially be salvaged. I argue that, if we do not require the conceptual possibility of moral dilemmas, then there is a way to plausibly define obligation in terms of permissibility. I conclude that permissibility is the only feasible deontic primitive. (shrink)

(See also the separate entry for the volume itself.) This introduction has three parts. The first providing an overview of some main lines of research in deontic logic: the emergence of SDL, Chisholm's paradox and the development of dyadic deontic logics, various other puzzles/challenges and areas of development, along with philosophical applications. The second part focus on some actual and potential fruitful interactions between deontic logic, computer science and artificial intelligence. These include applications of deontic logic to AI knowledge representation (...) in legal systems, to modelling computer systems where it is expected that sub-ideal states will emerge and require countermeasures, to norm-governed human interactions with computer systems, and to the representation of some features of multi-agent systems where different agent-like computer systems interact with one another. The third and final part briefly groups and previews the papers in the anthology. (shrink)

The received wisdom on ability modals is that they differ from their epistemic and deontic cousins in what inferences they license and better receive a universal or conditional analysis instead of an existential one. The goal of this paper is to sharpen the empirical picture about the semantics of ability modals, and to propose an analysis that explains what makes the can of ability so special but that also preserves the crucial idea that all uses of can share a common (...) lexical semantics. The resulting framework combines tools and techniques from dynamic and inquisitive semantics with insights from the literature of the role of agency in deontic logic. It explains not only why the can of ability, while essentially being an existential modal operator, sometimes resists distribution over disjunction and interacts with its duals in particular and hitherto unnoticed ways, but also has a tendency to license free choice inferences. (shrink)

Presenting the first comprehensive, in-depth study of hyperintensionality, this book equips readers with the basic tools needed to appreciate some of current and future debates in the philosophy of language, semantics, and metaphysics. After introducing and explaining the major approaches to hyperintensionality found in the literature, the book tackles its systematic connections to normativity and offers some contributions to the current debates. The book offers undergraduate and graduate students an essential introduction to the topic, while also helping professionals in related (...) fields get up to speed on open research-level problems. (shrink)

STIT logic is a prominent framework for the analysis of multi-agent choice-making. In the available deontic extensions of STIT, the principle of Ought-implies-Can (OiC) fulfills a central role. However, in the philosophical literature a variety of alternative OiC interpretations have been proposed and discussed. This paper provides a modular framework for deontic STIT that accounts for a multitude of OiC readings. In particular, we discuss, compare, and formalize ten such readings. We provide sound and complete sequent-style calculi for all of (...) the various STIT logics accommodating these OiC principles. We formally analyze the resulting logics and discuss how the different OiC principles are logically related. In particular, we propose an endorsement principle describing which OiC readings logically commit one to other OiC readings. (shrink)

One of the objectives in the field of artificial intelligence for some decades has been the development of artificial agents capable of coexisting in harmony with people and other systems. The computing research community has made efforts to design artificial agents capable of doing tasks the way people do, tasks requiring cognitive mechanisms such as planning, decision-making, and learning. The application domains of such software agents are evident nowadays. Humans are experiencing the inclusion of artificial agents in their environment as (...) unmanned vehicles, intelligent houses, and humanoid robots capable of caring for people. In this context, research in the field of machine ethics has become more than a hot topic. Machine ethics focuses on developing ethical mechanisms for artificial agents to be capable of engaging in moral behavior. However, there are still crucial challenges in the development of truly Artificial Moral Agents. This paper aims to show the current status of Artificial Moral Agents by analyzing models proposed over the past two decades. As a result of this review, a taxonomy to classify Artificial Moral Agents according to the strategies and criteria used to deal with ethical problems is proposed. The presented review aims to illustrate (1) the complexity of designing and developing ethical mechanisms for this type of agent, and (2) that there is a long way to go (from a technological perspective) before this type of artificial agent can replace human judgment in difficult, surprising or ambiguous moral situations. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the possibility of reading the description of promise presented by Reinach in The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law under the light of Husserl’s Ideas I. In order to present my argument, first, I briefly present the phenomenological method proposed by Husserl in Ideas I highlighting eidetic reduction. Second, I present the Reinachian description of social acts emphasizing the act of promising. Third, and finally, I try to demonstrate that the Reinachian description of the social (...) act of promising is the description of a universal and necessary relation, a synthetic and a priori statement and corresponds to the idea of promise. (shrink)

Kulicki and Trypuz (2016) introduced three systems of multivalued deontic action logic to handle normative conflicts. The first system suggests a pessimistic view on normative conflicts, according to which any conflicting option represents something forbidden; the second system suggests an optimistic view, according to which any conflicting option represents something obligatory; finally, the third system suggests a neutral view, according to which any conflicting option represents something that is neither obligatory nor forbidden. The aim of the present paper is to (...) propose a fourth system in this family, which comes with a realistic view on normative conflicts: a normative conflict remains unsolved unless it is generated by two or more normative sources that can be compared. In accordance with this, we will provide a more refined formal framework for the family of systems at issue, which allows for explicit reference to sources of norms. Conflict resolution is thus a consequence of a codified hierarchy of normative sources. (shrink)

Some sacrifices—like giving a kidney or heroically dashing into a burning building—are supererogatory: they are good deeds beyond the call of duty. But if such deeds are really so good, philosophers ask, why shouldn’t morality just require them? The standard answer is that morality recognizes a special role for the pursuit of self-interest, so that everyone may treat themselves as if they were uniquely important. This idea, however, cannot be reconciled with the compelling picture of morality as impartial—the view that (...) we are each anyone’s equal. I propose an alternative Self-Other Symmetric account of our moral freedom: the limits on what morality may demand of us are set by the duties we owe to ourselves. I begin with a defense of the Self-Other Symmetry: the idea that we owe the same duties to ourselves—and have the same rights against ourselves—as any relevantly similar other. Because we are consenting parties to our own actions, I argue, our rights against ourselves do not function like the rights of unwilling others. Instead, they play a permissive function, allowing us to block the demand to give up what is ours. I conclude by uniting, aggravating, and trying to solve some paradoxes of supererogatory permissions, guided by the idea that morality cannot be reduced to a ranking of options from best-to-worst. Rights against oneself are an irreducible second dimension, one that we need if we are to unify rights and supererogation into an impartial moral vision. (shrink)

Desires matter. What are desires? Many believe that desire is a motivational state: desiring is being disposed to act. This conception aligns with the functionalist approach to desire and the standard account of desire's role in explaining action. According to a second influential approach, however, desire is first and foremost an evaluation: desiring is representing something as good. After all, we seem to desire things under the guise of the good. Which understanding of desire is more accurate? Is the guise (...) of the good even right to assume? Should we adopt an alternative picture that emphasizes desire's deontic nature? What do neuroscientific studies suggest? -/- Essays in the first section of the volume are devoted to these questions, and to the puzzle of desire's essence. In the second part of the volume, essays investigate some implications that the various conceptions of desire have on a number of fundamental issues. For example, why are inconsistent desires problematic? What is desire's role in practical deliberation? How do we know what we want? -/- This volume will contribute to the emergence of a fruitful debate on a neglected, albeit crucial, dimension of the mind. (shrink)

The semantics for a deontic action logic based on Boolean algebra is extended with an interpretation of action expressions in terms of sets of alternative actions, intended as a way to model choice. This results in a non-classical interpretation of action expressions, while sentences not in the scope of deontic operators are kept classical. A deontic structure based on Simons’ supercover semantics is used to interpret permission and obligation. It is argued that these constructions provide ways to handle various problems (...) related to free choice permission. The main result is a sound and complete axiomatization of the semantics. (shrink)

The completeness of the axiomatization of contingency logic over symmetric frames has been thought of as a nontrivial job, the unimodal case of which cannot be generalized to the finitely multimodal case, which in turn cannot be generalized to the infinitely multimodal case. This paper deals with the completeness of symmetric contingency logic with unlimitedly many modalities, no matter whether the set of modalities is finite or infinite.

Este texto tem como objetivo apresentar a principal motivação filosófica para se defender uma teoria causal da memória, que é explicar como pode um evento que se deu no passado estar relacionado a uma experiência mnêmica que se dá no presente. Para tanto, iniciaremos apresentando a noção de memória de maneira informal e geral, para depois apresentar elementos mais detalhados. Finalizamos apresentando uma teoria causal da memória que se beneficia da noção de veritação (truthmaking).

This paper presents an Anscombian alternative to the traditional deontic conception of ought. According to the Anscombian conception of ought developed here, ought is general as opposed to ‘peculiarly moral’, norm-referring instead of law- or obligation-referring, and ‘heroic’ in the sense that it does not presuppose that individuals can do or be as they ought. Its connection to matters of fact can, moreover, be clearly stated. In the first part of the paper, I describe some significant logical characteristics of this (...) conception, and argue that it provides a more suitable account of the oughts of ethics as compared to the deontic conception. One particular strength of the Anscombian conception of ought is that it does justice to the possibility of tragedy in human life, where tragedy is understood as the possibility that a thoroughly well-intentioned individual might sometimes ensure her own moral imperfection, precisely by doing what is morally right or best at every step along the way. To motivate this feature of the view, I sketch a corresponding picture of responsibility for actions in terms of ownership of one’s deeds. This conception of responsibility allows that what one ought to do is not always constrained by what one can do, while saving the intuitions about fairness and the practical scope of moral norms that principally motivate ‘ought implies can’. To illustrate and motivate the overall account I discuss a number of cases, including the character Winston from George Orwell’s 1984. (shrink)

It is well known that systems of action deontic logic emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law are subject to paradoxes. In general, paradoxes are acknowledged as such if we have intuitions telling us that things should be different. The aim of this paper is to introduce a paradox-free deontic action system by (i) identifying the basic intuitions leading to the emergence of the paradoxes (...) and (ii) exploiting these intuitions in order to develop a consistent deontic framework, where it can be shown why some phenomena seem to be paradoxical and why they are not so if interpreted in a correct way. (shrink)

Jean-François Lyotard s'interroga sulla forma delle organizzazioni sociali e ne identifica la problematica principale nell'eterogeneità che esse veicolano tra i differenti regimi di frasi: si sofferma, in particolare, sull'incompatibilità tra il regime della conoscenza e quello della libertà. A partire da tale riflessione, l'articolo esamina come le società attuali, multiculturali e globalizzate, siano chiamate oggi a compiere una scelta: abbracciare la sintesi dell'eterogeneo oppure rispettare e far rispettare la presenza inevitabile del dissidio. Nella prima occorrenza si corre il rischio di (...) trasformare il diritto in succedaneo dell'ordalia e di accendere la guerra di tutti contro tutti. Nella seconda, invece, si sperimenta la costruzione d'interazioni di tipo dipolare le quali, pur non potendo garantire contro lo scatenamento smisurato della violenza, riescono potenzialmente ad arginarlo. Queste ultime, infatti, spostano la misura della sopravvivenza dall'esclusione delle ostilità alla loro elusione, dal rifiutare il conflitto all'addomesticarlo, dal rinunciare allo sforzo muscolare al calibrarlo. (shrink)

The deontic status of tautologies and contradictions is one of the major puzzles for authors of early works on deontic logic. It is well-known that von Wright addresses this problem by adopting a Principle of Deontic Contingency, which says that tautologies are not necessarily obligatory and contradictions are not necessarily forbidden. A more radical solution is proposed by Anderson within a reductionist approach to deontic logic and consists in restricting the range of application of deontic modalities to contingent propositions. Anderson’s (...) solution has not received much attention in the literature, despite reflecting a typical feature of ordinary deontic reasoning, where non-contingent propositions are rarely, if ever, taken into account. In the present article we explore some of its formal consequences, providing a taxonomy of the properties of the Andersonian operators of obligation and permission for contingent propositions, O′ and P′, in the class of normal alethic systems. (shrink)