This essay makes the case for, in the phrase of Angelika Kratzer, packing the fruits of the study of rational decision-making into our semantics for deontic modals—specifically, for parametrizing the truth-condition of a deontic modal to things like decision problems and decision theories. Then it knocks it down. While the fundamental relation of the semantic theory must relate deontic modals to things like decision problems and theories, this semantic relation cannot be intelligibly understood as representing the conditions under which a (...) deontic modal is true. Rather it represents the conditions under which it is accepted by a semantically competent agent. This in turn motivates a reorientation of the whole of semantic theorizing, away from the truth-conditional paradigm, toward a form of Expressivism. (shrink)

Contrastivism about ‘ought’ holds that ‘ought’ claims are relativized, at least implicitly, to sets of mutually exclusive but not necessarily jointly exhaustive alternatives. This kind of theory can solve puzzles that face other linguistic theories of ‘ought’, via the rejection or severe restriction of principles that let us make inferences between ‘ought’ claims. By rejecting or restricting these principles, however, the contrastivist takes on a burden of recapturing acceptable inferences that these principles let us make. This paper investigates the extent (...) to which a contrastivist can do this. (shrink)

Critical examination of Alchourrón and Bulygin’s set-theoretic definition of normative system shows that deductive closure is not an inevitable property. Following von Wright’s conjecture that axioms of standard deontic logic describe perfection-properties of a norm-set, a translation algorithm from the modal to the set-theoretic language is introduced. The translations reveal that the plausibility of metanormative principles rests on different grounds. Using a methodological approach that distinguishes the actor roles in a norm governed interaction, it has been shown that metanormative principles (...) are directed second-order obligations and, in particular, that the requirement related to deductive closure is directed to the norm-applier role rather than to the norm-giver role. The approach has been applied to the case of pure derogation yielding a new result, namely, that an independence property is a perfection-property of a norm-set in view of possible derogation. This paper in a polemical way touches upon several points raised by Kristan in his recent paper. (shrink)

Michael Ridge presents an original expressivist theory of normative judgments--Ecumenical Expressivism--which offers distinctive treatments of key problems in metaethics, semantics, and practical reasoning. He argues that normative judgments are hybrid states partly constituted by ordinary beliefs and partly constituted by desire-like states.

This paper discusses three potential varieties of update: updates to the common ground, structuring updates, and updates that introduce discourse referents. These different types of update are used to model different aspects of natural language phenomena. Not-at-issue information directly updates the common ground. The illocutionary mood of a sentence structures the context. Other updates introduce discourse referents of various types, including propositional discourse referents for at-issue information. Distinguishing these types of update allows a unified treatment of a broad range of (...) phenomena, including the grammatical evidentials found in Cheyenne (Algonquian) as well as English evidential parentheticals, appositives, and mood marking. An update semantics that can formalize all of these varieties of update is given, integrating the different kinds of semantic contributions into a single representation of meaning. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Imperatives occur ubiquitously in natural languages. They produce forces which change the addressee’s cognitive state and regulate her actions accordingly. In real life we often receive conflicting orders, typically, issued by various authorities with different ranks. A new update semantics is proposed in this paper to formalize this idea. The general properties of this semantics, as well as its background ideas are discussed extensively. In addition, we compare our framework with other approaches of deontic logics in the context of normative (...) conflicts. (shrink)

Deontic logic is standardly conceived as the logic of true statements about the existence of obligations and permissions. In his last writings on the subject, G. H. von Wright criticized this view of deontic logic, stressing the rationality of norm imposition as the proper foundation of deontic logic. The present paper is an attempt to advance such an account of deontic logic using the formal apparatus of update semantics and dynamic logic. That is, we first define norm systems and a (...) semantics of norm performatives as transformations of the norm system. Then a static modal logic for norm propositions is defined on that basis. In the course of this exposition we stress the performative nature of (i) free choice permission, (ii) the sealing legal principle and (iii) the social nature of permission. That is, (i) granting a disjunctive permission means granting permission for both disjuncts; (ii) non-prohibition does not entail permission, but the authority can declare that whatever he does not forbid is thereby permitted; and (iii) granting permission to one person means that all others are committed to not prevent the invocation of that permission. (shrink)

I motivate and characterize an intensional semantics for ‘ought’ on which it does not behave as a universal quantifier over possibilities. My motivational argument centers on taking at face value some standard challenges to the quantificational semantics, especially to the idea that ‘ought’-sentences satisfy the principle of Inheritance. I argue that standard pragmatic approaches to these puzzles are either not sufficiently detailed or unconvincing.

In English, discourse reference to time involves grammatical tenses interpreted as temporal anaphors. Recently, it has been argued that conditionals involve modal discourse anaphora expressed by a parallel grammatical system of anaphoric modals. Based on evidence from Kalaallisut, this paper argues that temporal and modal anaphora can be just as precise in a language that does not have either grammatical category. Instead, temporal anaphora directly targets eventualities of verbs, without mediating tenses, while modal anaphora involves anaphoric moods and/or attitudinal verbs.

The deontic modal must has two surprising properties: an assertion of must p does not permit a denial of p, and must does not take past tense complements. I first consider an explanation of these phenomena that stays within Angelika Kratzer’s semantic framework for modals, and then offer some reasons for rejecting that explanation. I then propose an alternative account, according to which simple must sentences have the force of an imperative.

In Contradiction advocates and defends the view that there are true contradictions, a view that flies in the face of orthodoxy in Western philosophy since Aristotle. The book has been at the center of the controversies surrounding dialetheism ever since its first publication in 1987. This second edition of the book substantially expands upon the original in various ways, and also contains the author’s reflections on developments over the last two decades. Further aspects of dialetheism are discussed in the companion (...) volume, Doubt Truth to be a Liar, also published by Oxford University Press in 2006. (shrink)

Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction is the successor to Sir John Lyons's important textbook Language, Meaning and Context (1981).While preserving the general structure of the earlier book, the author has substantially expanded its scope to introduce several topics that were not previously discussed, and to take account of new developments in linguistic semantics over the past decade. The resulting work is an invaluable guide to the subject, offering clarifications of its specialised terms and explaining its relationship to formal and philosophical semantics (...) and to contemporary pragmatics. With its clear and accessible style it will appeal to a wide student readership. Sir John Lyons is one of the most important and internationally renowned contributors to the study of linguistics. His many publications include Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (1968) and Semantics (1977). (shrink)

We consider a paradox involving indicative conditionals (‘ifs’) and deontic modals (‘oughts’). After considering and rejecting several standard options for resolv- ing the paradox—including rejecting various premises, positing an ambiguity or hidden contextual sensitivity, and positing a non-obvious logical form—we offer a semantics for deontic modals and indicative conditionals that resolves the paradox by making modus ponens invalid. We argue that this is a result to be welcomed on independent grounds, and we show that rejecting the general validity of modus (...) ponens is compatible with vindicating most ordinary uses of modus ponens in reasoning. (shrink)

This paper embeds the core part of Discourse Representation Theory in the classical theory of types plus a few simple axioms that allow the theory to express key facts about variables and assignments on the object level of the logic. It is shown how the embedding can be used to combine core analyses of natural language phenomena in Discourse Representation Theory with analyses that can be obtained in Montague Semantics.

This paper investigates how inquiry into normative language can improve substantive normative theorizing. First I examine two dimensions along which normative language differs: “strength” and “subjectivity.” Next I show how greater sensitivity to these features of the meaning and use of normative language can illuminate debates about three issues in ethics: the coherence of moral dilemmas, the possibility of supererogatory acts, and the connection between making a normative judgment and being motivated to act accordingly. The paper concludes with several brief (...) reflections on the theoretical utility of the distinction—at least so-called—between “normative” and “non-normative” language and judgment. Clarifying the language we use in normative conversation and theorizing can help us diagnose problems with bad arguments and formulate better motivated questions. This can lead to clearer answers and bring into relief new theoretical possibilities and avenues to explore. (shrink)

In Context and Content Robert Stalnaker develops a philosophical picture of the nature of speech and thought and the relations between them. Two themes in particular run through these collected essays: the role that the context in which speech takes place plays in accounting for the way language is used to express thought, and the role of the external environment in determining the contents of our thoughts. Stalnaker argues against the widespread assumption of the priority of linguistic over mental representation, (...) which he suggests has had a distorting influence on our understanding. The first part of the book develops a framework for representing contexts and the way they interact with the interpretation of what is said in them. This framework is used to help to explain a range of linguistic phenomena concerning presupposition and assertion, conditional statements, the attribution of beliefs, and the use of names, descriptions, and pronouns to refer. Stalnaker then draws out the conception of thought and its content that is implicit in this framework. He defends externalism about thought--the assumption that our thoughts have the contents they have in virtue of the way we are situated in the world--and explores the role of linguistic action and linguistic structure in determining the contents of our thoughts. Context and Content offers philosophers and cognitive scientists a summation of Stalnaker's important and influential work in this area. His new introduction to the volume gives an overview of this work and offers a convenient way in for those who are new to it. The Oxford Cognitive Science series is a new forum for the best contemporary work in this flourishing field, where various disciplines--cognitive psychology, philosophy, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and computational theory--join forces in the investigation of thought, awareness, understanding, and associated workings of the mind. Each book constitutes an original contribution to its subject, but will be accessible beyond the ranks of specialists, so as to reach a broad interdisciplinary readership. The series will be carefully shaped and steered with the aim of representing the most important developments in the field and bringing together its constituent disciplines. (shrink)

Within the scope of interest of deontic logic, systems in which names of actions are arguments of deontic operators (deontic action logic) have attracted less interest than purely propositional systems. However, in our opinion, they are even more interesting from both theoretical and practical point of view. The fundament for contemporary research was established by K. Segerberg, who introduced his systems of basic deontic logic of urn model actions in early 1980s. Nowadays such logics are considered mainly within propositional dynamic (...) logic (PDL). Two approaches can be distinguished: in one of them deontic operators are introduced using dynamic operators and the notion of violation, in the other at least some of them are taken as primitive. The second approach may be further divided into the systems based on Boolean algebra of actions and the systems built on the top of standard PDL. In the present paper we are interested in the systems of deontic action logic based on Boolean algebra. We present axiomatizations of six systems and set theoretical models for them. We also show the relations among them and the position of some existing theories on the resulting picture. Such a presentation allows the reader to see the spectrum of possibilities of formalization of the subject. (shrink)

Deontic logic is devoted to the study of logical properties of normative predicates such as permission, obligation and prohibition. Since it is usual to apply these predicates to actions, many deontic logicians have proposed formalisms where actions and action combinators are present. Some standard action combinators are action conjunction, choice between actions and not doing a given action. These combinators resemble boolean operators, and therefore the theory of boolean algebra offers a well-known athematical framework to study the properties of the (...) classic deontic operators when applied to actions. In his seminal work, Segerberg uses constructions coming from boolean algebras to formalize the usual deontic notions. Segerberg’s work provided the initial step to understand logical properties of deontic operators when they are applied to actions. In the last years, other authors have proposed related logics. In this chapter we introduce Segerberg’s work, study related formalisms and investigate further challenges in this area. (shrink)

Although it seems intuitively clear that acts of requesting are different from acts of commanding, it is not very easy to sate their differences precisely in dynamic terms. In this paper we show that it becomes possible to characterize, at least partially, the effects of acts of requesting and compare them with the effects of acts of commanding by combining dynamified deontic logic with epistemic logic. One interesting result is the following: each act of requesting is appropriately differentiated from an (...) act of commanding with the same content, but for each act of requesting, there is another act of commanding with much more complex content which updates models in exactly the same way as it does. We will also consider an application of our characterization of acts of requesting to acts of asking yes-no questions. It yields a straightforward formalization of the view of acts of asking questions as requests for information. (shrink)

This paper discusses an important puzzle about the semantics of indicative conditionals and deontic necessity modals (should, ought, etc.): the Miner Puzzle (Parfit, ms; Kolodny and MacFarlane, J Philos 107:115–143, 2010). Rejecting modus ponens for the indicative conditional, as others have proposed, seems to solve a version of the puzzle, but is actually orthogonal to the puzzle itself. In fact, I prove that the puzzle arises for a variety of sophisticated analyses of the truth-conditions of indicative conditionals. A comprehensive solution (...) requires rethinking the relationship between relevant information (what we know) and practical rankings of possibilities and actions (what to do). I argue that (i) relevant information determines whether considerations of value may be treated as reasons for actions that realize them and against actions that don’t, (ii) incorporating this normative fact requires a revision of the standard ordering semantics for weak (but not for strong) deontic necessity modals, and (iii) an off-the-shelf semantics for weak deontic necessity modals, due to von Fintel and Iatridou, which distinguishes “basic” and “higher-order” ordering sources, and interprets weak deontic necessity modals relative to both, is well-suited to this task. The prominence of normative considerations in our proposal suggests a more general methodological lesson: formal semantic analysis of natural language modals expressing normative concepts demands that close attention be paid to the nature of the underlying normative phenomena. (shrink)

In this paper, the set-theoretic approach in the logical theory of normative systems is extended using Broome’s definition of the normative code function. The syntax and semantics for first order metanormative language is defined, and metanormative language is applied in the formalization of the basic principles in Broome’s approach and in the construction of a logical typology of normative systems. Special attention is given to the types of normative systems which are not definable in terms of the properties of singular (...) sets of requirements (e.g. the realization equivalence of codes, the social compatibility of codes, and the compatibility of codes issued by different normative sources). Examples are given of the application of the typology in the interpretation of philosophical texts. Von Wright’s hypothesis on the connection of logical properties of normative systems, conceived set-theoretically, with standard deontic logic is proved by introducing the translation function between the metanormative language and the restricted language of standard deontic logic. The translation reveals that von Wright’s hypothesis must be appended. The problems of narrow and wide scope readings of the deontic conditionals and of the meaning of iterated deontic operators are addressed using the distinction between relative and absolute normative codes. The theorem on the existence of a realization equivalent absolute code for any relative code is proved. (shrink)

On the face of it, normative conflicts are commonplace. Yet standard deontic logic declares them to be logically impossible. That prompts the question, What are the proper principles of normative reasoning if such conflicts are possible? This paper examines several alternatives that have been proposed for a logic of 'ought' that can accommodate normative conflicts, and finds all of them unsatisfactory as measured against three criteria of adequacy. It then introduces a new logic that does meet all three criteria, and (...) so allows for the possibility of genuine normative conflicts. (shrink)

Here is an important new theory of human action, a theory that assumes actions are founded on choices made by agents who face an open future.

The aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to introduce the framework of update semantics and to explain what kind of semantic phenomena may successfully be analysed in it: (ii) to give a detailed analysis of one such phenomenon: default reasoning.

This paper develops an informal semantics for 'ought to be' and 'ought to be given...' and argues for its plausibility. A feature of the semantics is that it invalidates 'if a entails b, And o(a), Then o(b)' and 'if o(a) & o(b), Then o(a&b)', While validating detachment for conditional obligation.

This work explores the hypothesis that natural language is a tool for changing a language user's state of mind and, more specifically, the hypothesis that a sentence's meaning is constituted by its characteristic role in fulfilling this purpose. This view contrasts with the dominant approach to semantics due to Frege, Tarski and others' work on artificial languages: language is first and foremost a tool for representing the world. Adapted to natural language by Davidson, Lewis, Montague, et. al. this dominant approach (...) has crystalized as truth-conditional semantics: to know the meaning of a sentence is to know the conditions under which that sentence is true. Chapter 1 details the animating ideas of my alternative approach and shows that the representational function of language can be understood in terms of the more general function of changing representational mental states. Chapters 2-4 argue that the additional resources of this more general conception of meaning allow us to explain certain phenomena involving conditionals and grammatical mood that truth-conditional semantics does not. In the analysis of these specific phenomena and the articulation of the general approach on offer, it emerges that this approach combines insights and benefits from both use-theoretic and truth-theoretic work on meaning. (shrink)

Reviewed Works:John R. Steel, A. S. Kechris, D. A. Martin, Y. N. Moschovakis, Scales on $\Sigma^1_1$ Sets.Yiannis N. Moschovakis, Scales on Coinductive Sets.Donald A. Martin, John R. Steel, The Extent of Scales in $L$.John R. Steel, Scales in $L$.

Two groups of agents, G1 and G2, face a *moral conflict* if G1 has a moral obligation and G2 has a moral obligation, such that these obligations cannot both be fulfilled. We study moral conflicts using a multi-agent deontic logic devised to represent reasoning about sentences like "In the interest of group F of agents, group G of agents ought to see to it that phi". We provide a formal language and a consequentialist semantics. An illustration of our semantics with (...) an analysis of the Prisoner’s Dilemma follows. Next, necessary and sufficient conditions are given for (1) the possibility that a single group of agents faces a moral conflict, for (2) the possibility that two groups of agents face a moral conflict within a single moral code, and for (3) the possibility that two groups of agents face a moral conflict. (shrink)

We study a logic for deontic necessity and sufficiency, as originally proposed in van Benthem :36–41, 1979). Building on earlier work in modal logic, we provide a sound and complete axiomatization for it, consider some standard extensions, and study other important properties. After that, we compare this logic to the logic of “obligation as weakest permission” from Anglberger et al. :807–827, 2015).

Many languages grammatically mark evidentiality, i.e., the source of information. In assertions, evidentials indicate the source of information of the speaker while in questions they indicate the expected source of information of the addressee. This dissertation examines the semantics and pragmatics of evidentiality and illocutionary mood, set within formal theories of meaning and discourse. The empirical focus is the evidential system of Cheyenne (Algonquian: Montana), which is analyzed based on several years of fieldwork by the author.

Kolodny and MacFarlane have made a pioneering contribution to our understanding of how the interpretation of deontic modals can be sensitive to evidence and information. But integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard Kratzerian framework for modals suggests ways of capturing the relevant data without treating deontic modals as “informational modals” in their sense. I show that though one such way of capturing the data within the standard semantics fails, an alternative does not. Nevertheless I argue that we have (...) good reasons to adopt an information-sensitive semantics of the general type Kolodny and MacFarlane describe. Contrary to the standard semantics, relative deontic value between possibilities sometimes depends on which possibilities are live. I develop an ordering semantics for deontic modals that captures this point and addresses various complications introduced by integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard semantic framework. By attending to these complexities, we can also illuminate various roles that information and evidence play in logical arguments, discourse, and deliberation. (shrink)

This paper works within a particular framework for reasoning about actions—sometimes known as the framework of “stit semantics”—originally due to Belnap and Perloff, based ultimately on the theory of indeterminism set out in Prior’s indeterministic tense logic, and developed in full detail by Belnap, Perloff, and Xu [3]. The issues I want to consider arise when certain normative, or decision theoretic, notions are introduced into this framework: here I will focus on the notion of a right action, and so on (...) the formulation of act utilitarianism within this indeterministic setting. The problem is simply that there are two different, and conflicting, ways of defining this notion, both well-motivated, and both carrying intuitive weight. (shrink)