Ufuk Özbe

A normative power is the authority to effect a normative change through a declaration of will. This paper uncovers a fundamental asymmetry between potestative concepts (related to normative powers) and deontic concepts (related to duties). The deontic conceptual network consists of three mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive positions: obligatory, forbidden, and optional. Similarly, the modal network encompasses: necessary, impossible, and contingent. While the potestative network appears to follow a similar pattern – an impression reinforced by the Hohfeldian scheme – it lacks this triangular structure. Overlooking this asymmetry has led several philosophers to adopt unintelligible positions such as the notion of a necessary normative power, where an agent can effect a normative change by exercising their normative power but lacks the power not to do so. I show that this is conceptually flawed. Unlike the deontic may and the possibility can, the normative power can lacks a dual (A and B are duals of each other iff ¬A(¬x) = B(x)). This asymmetry exists because deontic and modal terms are bipartite – relating to action or omission – whereas normative power pertains solely to changing a normative situation, not to refraining from doing so. The extended Hohfeldian framework I propose makes this structural difference explicit.

Hohfeld’s distinction between liberties and anti-interference claims generates the puzzling category of naked liberties: X has the liberty to φ while Y likewise has the liberty to forcibly prevent X’s φ-ing. I explain how the Hohfeldian scheme creates this category, clarify its structure, and defend it against recent objections by Heidi Hurd and Michael Moore. Their analogy between intra-personal and inter-personal moral conflicts does not support eliminating naked liberties from our conceptual framework. Contrary to their assertion, the category is needed to make normative sense of certain rare but significant real-world situations, such as consensual competitions and symmetrical emergency cases. I also show that Hurd and Moore’s alternative deontic framework faces serious technical problems. Finally, I make a general case for keeping the Hohfeldian distinction: it preserves analytical nuance in our conceptual frameworks and enables us to represent substantive moral disagreements without settling them by definitional fiat.

Two assassins shoot at their respective targets—one hits, one misses. Two drivers text while driving—one hits a pedestrian, the other does not. Are the agents who cause harm more blameworthy than their counterparts? Philosophers often claim we must treat these cases symmetrically: outcome luck either matters in both cases or in neither. I challenge this assumption by defending an asymmetrical view. While outcome luck makes a difference in the drivers’ case, it cannot reduce the missing assassin’s blameworthiness. By texting while driving, both drivers incurred the moral risk of ending up more blameworthy if they harmed someone. The fortunate driver deserves less blame than her counterpart because she neither intended nor caused harm. This reasoning does not extend to the missing assassin, who is not lucky in the everyday sense; she missed contrary to her intention. I propose that luck’s mitigating influence is strongest in negligence cases but diminishes as the agent’s quality of will worsens, moving along the spectrum from negligence through recklessness to direct intent.

The fundamental laws of logic hold independently of us. Thus, if there were beings who thought in contradiction to these laws, they would be in error. The paper defends this stance of Frege's against Wittgenstein's combination of logical constitutivism and logical naturalism. Frege's arguments against psychologism are more general than his usual wording suggests and are, at their core, directed against the whole of logical naturalism. Contrary to prevailing opinions on this subject, I argue that constitutivism alone cannot deflect Frege's attack. Rather, constitutivism is neutral to the opposition between logical realism and logical naturalism. The later Wittgenstein was not only a constitutivist, but, as will be explained, also a logical naturalist. By shedding new light on the logical alien problem, I attempt to apply Frege's generalized arguments to Wittgensteinian naturalism. This naturalism inevitably leads to a radical and self-undermining relativism.