Moral dilemmas and the logic of obligation

American Philosophical Quarterly

Volumn 39, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 259-274

  Holbo, John ^a  

^a NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE   (Singapore)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 59849092175     PISSN: 00030481     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (11)

1. and Moral Dilemmas and Moral Theory (Oxford University Press, 1996), ed., H. E. Mason. These will be cited as Gowans, 1987 and Mason, 1996
2. David Brink, "Moral Conflict and Its Structure," in Mason, 1996
3. Mary Mothersill anticipates this point. "There is a sense, admittedly not very clear, in which the pro-D's [defenders of dilemma] need the two deontic principles [AP and VP]." ("The Moral Dilemmas Debate," in Mason, 1996, p. 70)
4. Bernard Williams, "Ethical Consistency," in Problems of the Self (Cambridge, 1973), p. 175
5. Johann Wilhelm von Goethe, Faust, Part I, 1922-1939 (Princeton, 1984), tr. S. Atkins
6. Marcus, "More About Moral Dilemmas," p. 27
7. A. R. Anderson, "A Reduction of Deontic Logic to Alethic Modal Logic," (Mind, vol. 67, no. 265, 1958, pp. 100-103)
8. A. R. Anderson, "Some Nasty Problems in the Formal Logic of Ethics" (Nous, vol. 1, 1967, pp. 345-360, esp. p. 345). He tackles, and may solve, the aforementioned problem concerning the material conditional (see note 26)
9. Chess author Jeremy Silman, on how to make a plan: "Don't calculate! Instead, dream up various fantasy positions, i.e., the positions you would most like to achieve. Once you find a fantasy position that makes you happy, you must figure out if you can reach it. If you find that your choice was not possible to implement, you must create another dream position that is easier to achieve" (Siles, How to Reassess Your Chess, 1993, p. 28)
10. Jakko Hintikka, "Some Main Problems of Deontic Logic," in Deontic Logic: Introductory and Systematic Readings, ed. Risto Hilpinen (Reidel, 1971), p. 78. Henceforth, (Hilpinen, 1971)
11. Consider Dagfinn Føllesdal and Risto Hilpinen's definition of deontic logic as "the study of those sentences in which only logical words and normative expressions occur essentially" ("Deontic Logic: an Introduction," in Hilpinen, 1971, p. 1). The question is: what is the scope of "normative"? If it is construed narrowly, i.e., to cover only deontology, it is doubtful the analysis of obligation sentences proposed in this paper counts as deontic logic. If it is construed broadly, it is doubtful a formal deontic logic is possible. (The definition, incidentally, is originally due to A. R. Anderson.)