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16Supererogation and Its Conceptual Neighborhood Through a DWE LensIn David Heyd (ed.), Handbook of Supererogation, Springer Nature Singapore. pp. 131-163. 2023.I first provide an accessible overview of the DWE (Doing Well Enough) logical and semantic framework for representing going beyond the call and its family of kindred concepts in a tightly intergraded way. Next, a module, for representing some basic agent-evaluative notions is developed (“AA” for “Aretaic Assessment”), and then it is integrated with the more act-evaluative notions of DWE, thereby allowing for a representation of suberogation and supererogation (as distinct from going beyond the c…Read more
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Norms, Logics and Information Systems: New Studies on Deontic Logic and Computer Science (edited book)IOS Press. 1999.This anthology contains revised versions of selected papers presented at the fourth bi-annual international deontic logic conference, DEON’98. This volume includes our substantial introduction, and an article from me as a contributor. The volume includes papers from all four distinguished invited speakers, David Makinson, Donald Nute, Claudio Pizzi, and the founder of deontic logic, Georg Von Wright. Other notables among the authors are Dov Gabbay (co-editor of the Handbook on Philosophical Lo…Read more
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252Introduction to: Norms, Logics and Information Systems: New Studies on Deontic Logic and Computer ScienceIn Henry Prakken & Paul McNamara (eds.), Norms, Logics and Information Systems: New Studies on Deontic Logic and Computer Science, Ios Press. pp. 1-14. 1999.(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. The…Read more
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178Agency and Deontic LogicMind 113 (449): 179-185. 2004.This is a review of John Horty's book, _Agency and Deontic Logic_, OUP 2000.
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246Leibniz on Creation, Contingency and Pe-Se ModalityStudia Leibnitiana 22 (1): 29-47. 1990.Leibniz' first problem with contingency stems from his doctrine of divine creation (not his later doctrine of truth) and is solved via his concepts of necessity per se, etc. (not via his later concept of infinite analysis). I scrutinize some of the earliest texts in which the first problem and its solution occur. I compare his "per se modal concepts" with his concept of analysis and with the traditional concept of metaphysical necessity. I then identify and remove the main obstacle to Leibniz' e…Read more
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3864Deontic LogicIn Dov Gabbay & John Woods (eds.), The Handbook of the History of Logic, vol. 7: Logic and the Modalities in the Twentieth Century, Elsevier Press. pp. 197-288. 2006.Overview of fundamental work in deontic logic
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79Toward a framework for agency, inevitability, praise and blameNordic Journal of Philosophical Logic 5 (2): 135-159. 2000.There is little work of a systematic nature in ethical theory or deontic logic on aretaic notions such as praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, despite their centrality to common-sense morality. Without more work, there is little hope of filling the even larger gap of attempting to develop frameworks integrating such aretaic concepts with deontic concepts of common-sense morality, such as what is obligatory, permissible, impermissible, or supererogatory. It is also clear in the case of aretaic c…Read more
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1154Must I do what I ought (or will the least I can do do)?In Mark Brown & Jose' Carmo (eds.), Deontic Logic, Agency and Normative Systems, Berlin: Springer-verlag. pp. 154-173. 1996.Appears to give the first model-theoretic account of both "must" and "ought" (without conflating them with one another). Some key pre-theoretic semantic and pragmatic phenomena that support a negative answer to the main title question are identified and a conclusion of some significance is drawn: a pervasive bipartisan presupposition of twentieth century ethical theory and deontic logic is false. Next, an intuitive model-theoretic framework for "must" and "ought" is hypothesized. It is then show…Read more
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149Supererogation in deontic logic: Metatheory for DWE and some close neighboursStudia Logica 59 (3): 397-415. 1997.In "Doing Well Enough: Toward a Logic for Common Sense Morality", Paul McNamara sets out a semantics for a deontic logic which contains the operator It is supererogatory that. As well as having a binary accessibility relation on worlds, that semantics contains a relative ordering relation, . For worlds u, v and w, we say that u w v when v is at least as good as u according to the standards of w. In this paper we axiomatize logics complete over three versions of the semantics. We call the stronge…Read more
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1347Supererogation, Inside and Out: Toward an Adequate Scheme for Common Sense MoralityIn Mark Timmons (ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Volume I, Oxford University Press. pp. 202-235. 2011.The standard analysis of supererogation is that of optional actions that are praiseworthy to perform, but not blameworthy to skip. Widespread assumptions are that action beyond the call is at least necessarily equivalent to supererogation ("The Equivalence") and that forgoing certain agent-favoring prerogatives entails supererogation (“The Corollary”). I argue that the classical conception of supererogation is not reconcilable with the Equivalence or the Corollary, and that the classical analysi…Read more
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93Does the actual world actually exist?Philosophical Studies 69 (1). 1993.Assuming minimal fine-individuation--that there are some necessarily equivalent intensional objects (e.g. propositions) that are nonetheless distinct objects, on standard actualist frameworks, the answer to our title question is "No". First I specify a fully cognitively accessible, purely qualitative maximal consistent state of affairs (MCS). (That there is an MCS that is either fully graspable or purely qualitative is in itself quite contrary to conventional dogma.) Then I identify another MCS…Read more
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217Making room for going beyond the callMind 105 (419): 415-450. 1996.In the latter half of this century, there have been two mostly separate threads within ethical theory, one on 'superogation', one on 'common-sense morality'. I bring these threads together by systematically reflecting on doing more than one has to do. A rich and coherent set of concepts at the core of common-sense morality is identified, along with various logical connections between these core concepts. Various issues in common-sense morality emerge naturally, as does a demonstrably productive …Read more
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662Agential Obligation as Non-Agential Personal Obligation plus AgencyJournal of Applied Logic 2 (1): 117-152. 2004.I explore various ways of integrating the framework for predeterminism, agency, and ability in[P.McNamara, Nordic J. Philos. Logic 5 (2)(2000) 135] with a framework for obligations. However,the agential obligation operator explored here is defined in terms of a non-agential yet personal obligation operator and a non-deontic (and non-normal) agency operator. This is contrary to the main current trend, which assumes statements of personal obligation always take agential complements. Instead, I tak…Read more
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47Symposium on the work of Christine M. Korsgaard: IntroductionMetaphilosophy 42 (4): 349-352. 2011.Introduction and brief summary of revised symposium papers of Christopher Arroyo, David Cummiskey, Lydia Moland, and Stephan Bird-Pollan on the work of Professor Korsgaard and her replies. The symposia took place at the annual Northern New England Philosophical Association (NNEPA) conference, October 16–17, 2009, where Professor Korsgaard gave the keynote address, as well as participating in the symposia on her work, both held at the University of New Hampshire-Durham.
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145Doing well enough: Toward a logic for common-sense moralityStudia Logica 57 (1). 1996.On the traditional deontic framework, what is required (what morality demands) and what is optimal (what morality recommends) can't be distinguished and hence they can't both be represented. Although the morally optional can be represented, the supererogatory (exceeding morality's demands), one of its proper subclasses, cannot be. The morally indifferent, another proper subclass of the optional-one obviously disjoint from the supererogatory-is also not representable. Ditto for the permissibly su…Read more
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20Norms, Logics and Information Systems: New Studies on Deontic Logic and Computer Science (edited book)IOS Press. 1999.This anthology contains revised versions of selected papers presented at the the fourth bi-annual international deontic logic conference, DEON’06. There is a substantial introduction (see separate entry), papers from all four invited speakers, David Makinson, Donald Nute, Claudio Pizzi, and Georg Von Wright. After the introduction and lead chapter "Deontic Logic - as I See It" by G.H. von Wright, there are nineteen articles grouped under six headings, "Norms and Truth", "Agency and Time", "Anal…Read more
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120The Confinement Problem: How to Terminate Your Mom with Her TrustAnalysis 55 (4). 1995.Cliff Landesman provides a vivid description of a case where we have no best outcome available to us. He poses this as a problem for utilitarians who advise us to do the best we can. This does indeed make such advice impractical. I begin by contrasting older versions of utilitarianism with newer ones that have appeared in deontic logic and that were designed precisely to accommodate Landesman's sort of scenario. (I cast matters in terms of the Limit Assumption and world-theoretic versions of uti…Read more
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350Doing Well Enough in an Andersonian-Kangerian FrameworkIn Paul McNamara & Henry Prakken (eds.), Norms, Logics and Information Systems: New Studies on Deontic Logic and Computer Science, Ios Press. pp. 181-198. 1998.I recast the DWE ("Doing Well Enough") deontic framework as an Andersonian-Kangerian modal framework and explore its metatheory systematically.
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552Praise, blame, obligation, and DWE: Toward a framework for classical supererogation and kinJournal of Applied Logic 9 (2): 153-170. 2011.Continuing prior work by the author, a simple classical system for personal obligation is integrated with a fairly rich system for aretaic (agent-evaluative) appraisal. I then explore various relationships between definable aretaic statuses such as praiseworthiness and blameworthiness and deontic statuses such as obligatoriness and impermissibility. I focus on partitions of the normative statuses generated ("normative positions" but without explicit representation of agency). In addition to bein…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Deontic Logic |
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Deontic Logic |