Actualists hold that contrary-to-duty scenarios give rise to deontic dilemmas and provide counterexamples to the transmission principle, according to which we ought to take the necessary means to actions we ought to perform. In an earlier article, I have argued, contrary to actualism, that the notion of ‘ought’ that figures in conclusions of practical deliberation does not allow for deontic dilemmas and validates the transmission principle. Here I defend these claims, together with my possibilist account of contrary-to-duty (...) scenarios, against Stephen White’s recent criticism. (shrink)

We investigate under what conditions contrary-to-duty (CTD) structures lacking temporal and action elements can be given a coherent reading. We argue, contrary to some recent proposals, that CTD is not an instance of defeasible reasoning, and that methods of nonmonotonic logics are inadequate since they are unable to distinguish between defeasibility and violation of primary obligations. We propose a semantic framework based on the idea that primary and CTD obligations are obligations of different kinds: a CTD obligation pertains (...) to, or pre-supposes, a certain context in which a primary obligation is already violated. This framework is presented initially as an extension of Standard Deontic Logic (SDL), a normal modal logic of type KD, and is illustrated by application to a series of examples. The concluding section is concerned with some resemblances between CTD and defeasible reasoning. We show first that the SDL-based framework contains a flaw and must be adjusted. A discussion of possible adjustments, including an alternative treatment in terms of a preference-based semantics, reveals difficulties that are reminiscent of problems in defeasible reasoning and intensional accounts of defeasible conditionals. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of contrary-to-duty reasoning from the proof-theoretical perspective of category theory. While Chisholm’s paradox hints at the need of dyadic deontic logic by showing that monadic deontic logics are not able to adequately model conditional obligations and contrary-to-duties, other arguments can be objected to dyadic approaches in favor of non-monotonic foundations. We show that all these objections can be answered at one fell swoop by modeling conditional obligations within a deductive system defined as (...) an instance of a symmetric monoidal closed category. Using category theory as a foundational framework for logic, we show that it is possible to model conditional normative reasoning and conflicting obligations within a monadic approach without adding further operators or considering deontic conditionals as primitive. (shrink)

A contrary-to-duty obligation is an obligation telling us what ought to be the case if something that is wrong is true. For example: ‘If you have done something bad, you should make amends’. Doing something bad is wrong, but if it is true that you did do something bad, it ought to be the case that you make amends. Here are some other examples: ‘If he is guilty, he should confess’, ‘If you have hurt your friend, you should apologise (...) to her’, ‘If she will not keep her promise to him, she ought to call him’, ‘If the books are not returned by the due date, you must pay a fine’. Alternatively, we might say that a contrary-to-duty obligation is a conditional obligation where the condition (in the obligation) is forbidden, or where the condition is fulfilled only if a primary obligation is violated. In the first example, he should not be guilty; but if he is, he should confess. You should not have hurt your friend; but if you have, you should apologise. She should keep her promise to him; but if she will not, she ought to call him. The books ought to be returned by the due date; but if they are not, you must pay a fine. -/- Contrary-to-duty obligations are important in our moral and legal thinking. They turn up in discussions concerning guilt, blame, confession, restoration, reparation, punishment, repentance, retributive justice, compensation, apologies, damage control, and so forth. The rationale of a contrary-to-duty obligation is the fact that most of us do neglect our primary duties from time to time and yet it is reasonable to believe that we should make the best of a bad situation, or at least that it matters what we do when this is the case. -/- We want to find an adequate symbolisation of such obligations in some logical system. However, it has turned out to be difficult to do that. This is shown by the so-called contrary-to-duty (obligation) paradox, sometimes called the contrary-to-duty imperative paradox. The contrary-to-duty paradox arises when we try to formalise certain intuitively consistent sets of ordinary language sentences, sets that include at least one contrary-to-duty obligation sentence, by means of ordinary counterparts available in various monadic deontic logics, such as the so-called Standard Deontic Logic and similar systems. In many of these systems the resulting sets are inconsistent in the sense that it is possible to deduce contradictions from them, or else they violate some other intuitively plausible condition, for example that the members of the sets should be independent of each other. This article discusses this paradox and some solutions that have been suggested in the literature. -/- (Submitted: 2017-10-23; Published in 2022). (shrink)

A contrary-to-duty obligation is an obligation that tells us what ought to be the case if something that is wrong or forbidden is true. Alternatively, we might say that a contrary-to-duty obligation is a conditional obligation where the condition is fulfilled only if a primary obligation is violated. Consider this example: “If you have hurt her feelings, you should make amends.” Since contrary-to-duty obligations play an important role in our moral and legal thinking, we want to find (...) a good analysis of this concept. However, it has turned out to be difficult to formalize various contrary-to-duty obligations. This is illustrated by the so-called contrary-to-duty paradox. This paradox is generated when we try to symbolize various scenarios that include at least one contrary-to-duty obligation in many formal deontic systems, such as Standard Deontic Logic. Such symbolizations are often inconsistent or entail some other problematic consequences. This entry is a brief introduction to this problem. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss some examples of the so-called contrary-to-duty paradox, a well-known puzzle in deontic logic. A contrary-to-duty obligation is an obligation telling us what ought to be the case if something forbidden is true, for example: ‘If she is guilty, she should confess’. Contrary-to-duty obligations are important in our moral and legal thinking. Therefore, we want to be able to find an adequate symbolisation of such obligations in some logical system, a task that (...) has turned out to be difficult. This is shown by the so-called contrary-to-duty paradox. I will investigate and evaluate one kind of solution to this problem that has been suggested in the literature, which I will call the ‘counterfactual solution’. I will use some recent systems that combine not only counterfactual logic and deontic logic, but also temporal logic, in my analysis of the paradox. I will argue that the counterfactual solution has many attractive features and that it can give a fairly satisfactory answer to some examples of the contrary-to-duty paradox, but that it nevertheless has some serious problems. The conclusion is that, notwithstanding the many attractive features of the solution, there seem to be other approaches to the paradox that are more promising. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relation between deontic logic and the study of conversational interactions. Special attention is given to the notion of remedial interchange as analysed by sociologists and linguistic pragmaticians. This notion is close to the one of contrary-to-duty (reparational) obligation, which deontic logicians have been studying in its own right. The present article also investigates the question of whether some of the aspects of conversational interactions can fruitfully be described by using formal tools originally developed in the (...) study of iterated belief change. I here adapt the latter tools to deontic logic, and attempt an account of remedial interchange (and, more generally, contrary-to-duty reasoning) in terms of commutation. This account brings the dynamics of obligations to the fore. (shrink)

I argue that normative requirements should be interpreted as the conditional obligations of dyadic deontic logic. Semantically, normative requirements are conditionals understood as restrictors, the prevailing view of conditionals in linguistics. This means that Modus Ponens is invalid, even when the premises are known.

A contrary-to-duty obligation (sometimes called a reparational duty) is a conditional obligation where the condition is forbidden, e.g. “if you have hurt your friend, you should apologise”, “if he is guilty, he should confess”, and “if she will not keep her promise to you, she ought to call you”. It has proven very difficult to find plausible formalisations of such obligations in most deontic systems. In this paper, we will introduce and explore a set of temporal alethic dyadic deontic (...) systems, i.e., systems that include temporal, alethic and dyadic deontic operators. We will then show how it is possible to use our formal apparatus to symbolise contrary-to-duty obligations and to solve the so-called contrary-to-duty (obligation) paradox, a problem well known in deontic logic. We will argue that this response to the puzzle has many attractive features. Semantic tableaux are used to characterise our systems proof theoretically and a kind of possible world semantics, inspired by the so-called T× W semantics, to characterise them semantically. Our models contain several different accessibility relations and a preference relation between possible worlds, which are used in the definitions of the truth conditions for the various operators. Soundness results are obtained for every tableau system and completeness results for a subclass of them. (shrink)

In this paper we present a Gentzen system for reasoning with contrary-to-duty obligations. The intuition behind the system is that a contrary-to-duty is a special kind of normative exception. The logical machinery to formalise this idea is taken from substructural logics and it is based on the definition of a new non-classical connective capturing the notion of reparational obligation. Then the system is tested against well-known contrary-to-duty paradoxes.

We show that Carmo and Jones’ condition 5 conflicts with the other conditions on their models for contrary-to-duty obligations. We then propose a resolution to the conflict.

This paper concerns Kant's view of the relations between an actions's moral permissibility and its moral worth. In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant holds that only morally permissible actions can have moral worth. By restricting moral worth to morally permissible actions, Kant generates an asymmetrical account of how two kinds of failure affect an actions's moral worth. While failure to judge correctly whether one's action is morally permissible precludes it from having moral worth failure to attain the (...) end of one's action does not. I argue that this asymmetrical account is implausible. Kant, I claim, should acknowledge that morally permissible actions can have moral worth. After addressing objections to this claim, I consider Kant's position in a later work: the Metaphysics of Moreals. I argue that though he does not go far enough, Kant moves toward recognizing that some morally impermissible actions can have moral worth. (shrink)

In an article in this journal, Katherine Drabiak argues that green lighting genome editing of human embryos is contrary to “fundamental human rights law.” According to the author, genome editing of human embryos violates what we should recognize as a fundamental human right to inherit a genome without deliberate manipulation. In this reply article, we assess Drabiak's legal analysis and show methodological and substantive flaws. Methodologically, her analysis omits the key international legal instruments that form the so‐called International Bill (...) of Rights and thus fails to provide a full and accurate account of the fundamental international human rights standards. Substantively, Drabiak invokes, as a basis for prohibiting gene editing of human embryos, a legal standard (the rights and integrity of the future child) that is unknown to international law. Contrary to Drabiak's account, genome editing of human embryos is not prohibited under international law. Indeed, the right to health and the right to benefit from scientific progress may be interpreted as the basis of a legal duty to provide equality of access to germline gene editing, once determined it is beneficial and safe to use. (shrink)

Many philosophers have objected to Kant’s account of duties regarding non-human nature, arguing that it does not ground adequate moral concern for non-human natural entities. However, the traditional interpretation of Kant on this issue is mistaken, because it takes him to be arguing merely that humans should abstain from animal cruelty and wanton destruction of flora solely because such actions could make one more likely to violate one’s duties to human beings. Instead, I argue, Kant’s account of (...) class='Hi'>duties regarding nature grounds much stronger limitations on how humans may treat non-human animals and flora, since such duties are rooted in the imperfect duty to increase one’s own moral perfection. This duty proscribes actions affecting non-human nature that decrease one’s moral perfection, such as those that cause organisms unnecessary harm. Moreover, the duty to moral perfection prescribes (but does not strictly require) actions affecting non-human nature that increase one’s moral perfection, such as those that benefit organisms. Given this interpretation, I show that, contrary to a widely held view, Kant’s moral philosophy can ground a coherent and robust approach to environmental ethics. (shrink)

This article argues that congregations should be seen as grassroots public moral agents, on the ground working to bring what they discern as God's preferred future into being. Deliberations among congregations of all social backgrounds are a way of doing ethics "polycentrically," without a dominant center. Because cultural and social boundaries are permeable and people in various social groups can imaginatively enter the worlds of people unlike themselves, they can engage those perspectives morally on an equal footing. The essay addresses (...) ethicists' participation in congregations' moral deliberation and action, and concludes with a plea for theological ethicists to consider congregations in their work. (shrink)

We recently argued that—contrary to what we call the dominant view— physicians ought to avoid engaging patients on religious grounds.1 The six responses to our article present an array of concerns and have provided us with the opportunity to consider further aspects of our view. While we cannot reply to all the relevant issues, our aim here is to reply to the most significant concerns. Against our Public Reason Argument, Nick Colgrove maintains that physicians are not relevantly akin to (...) public officials and should therefore not be constrained by public reasons. Colgrove does not take issue with the idea that it may be reasonable for public officials to justify their policymaking according to public reasons because their policies affect a diverse population. But since ‘the [medical] decision being made is not binding for other patients,’ physicians need not be constrained by public reasons.2 Colgrove’s criticism hinges on the claim that deliberation ought to be constrained by public reason only if the outcome of such deliberation is a policy or a rule that a diverse group of people must follow. We disagree with this claim. We do not believe, nor did we argue, that this is a necessary condition for when we are morally required to cite public reasons. Instead we believe that three facts together provide sufficient reason for why physicians should generally be constrained by public reasons: physicians are directly and indirectly paid by the state via Medicare and Medicaid; physicians allocate public resources; and physicians are regulated by the state. Colgrove takes particular issue with our ‘Dr Chatterjee case’, which is meant to illustrate why citing religious reasons is inappropriate. And our explanation for why we find this case jarring …. (shrink)

In some cases, you may release someone from some obligation they have to you. For instance, you may release them from a promise they made to you, or an obligation to repay money they have borrowed from you. But most take it as clear that, if you have an obligation to someone else, you cannot in any way release yourself from that obligation. I shall argue the contrary. The issue is important because one standard problem for the idea of (...) having duties to oneself relies on the impossibility of self-release. The argument is that a duty to oneself would be a duty from which one could release oneself, but that this is an absurdity, and so there can be no duties to oneself. This argument is to be rejected because a duty from which one can release oneself is perfectly possible, and such release occurs quite properly from time to time. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore and offer different hypotheses that could account for an adequate understanding of the duty to die and its relation to biopolitics from two neglected approaches. First, death will be analysed from a biopolitical perspective to understand the crucial role it has in biopower. Second, the focus lies on the two-folded implication that death has in biopower, for it could be either a defiance of it or the final sublimation of its control. Similarly, the next section (...) addresses the relations between death and neoliberalism from a biopolitical perspective, exploring the possibility of understanding the duty to die as resistance to economic mandates or, on the contrary, as the fulfilment of neoliberal interests. Finally, as a continuation of the relations between the duty to die and neo-liberalism, the paper analyses a similar two-folded view of the former from a psychopolitical perspective. (shrink)

In 'The duty to miscegenate', I harness John Stuart Mill's 19th century theory of social freedom to explain and to dismantle contemporary racialised and gendered injustice. In the first chapter—Social stigmatisation: 'a social tyranny'—I argue that persons racialised-and-gendered-as-black-women were, in the past, unjustly stigmatised by legal penalties against 'miscegenation' and are still, today, unjustly stigmatised by white male avoidance of cross-racial marriage and companionship. In the second chapter—Encounters that count: 'a foundation for solid friendship'—I argue that we can dismantle this (...) stigmatisation, by engaging in regular and frequent cross-racial commensality with persons racialised-and-gendered-as-black-women. In the third chapter—White right: 'a right to avoid'—I argue that, although we have a right to avoid commensal encounters with others, we do not have a right to avoid persons we racialise as black. On the contrary, we have a duty to encounter them, on terms of equality and intimacy. (shrink)

The relationship between memory and history, which has preoccupied historiography and the philosophy of history since the middle of the nineteenth century, took a particular course in France at the end of the millennium. The forms this relationship took in this particular context have been the subject of heated debate around whether the reconstruction of the past should bear the sign of a moral imperative or, on the contrary, it should be kept away from any moral conditioning. To address (...) this question and underline its particular relevance to the present, I will revisit a significant debate, based around Paul Ricoeur’s interpretation of the duty of memory developed in his book Memory, History, Forgetting. I will do this by means of a three-step approach. First, a short introduction will provide several guidelines for understanding the issues at stake in the debate in which Ricoeur was caught and explanations regarding the significance of the main notions around which the discussions took place, i.e., the duty and work of memory. Second, I will identify how historical debates, political decisions and civic concerns about the past gradually coagulated into two different “camps” in France during the 1980s and 1990s, i.e., the advocates of memory against those of history, foreshadowing the emergence of a historiographical crisis, the stakes of which I will analyse in detail. Finally, I will show how Ricoeur’s solution to this debate, i.e., an incomplete dialectic between the duty and the work of memory, developed on the horizon of justice, continues to have relevance for the present, being an innovative form of “defatalizing” the past. (shrink)

BackgroundNormally, physicians understand they have a duty to treat patients, and they perform accordingly consistent with codes of medical practice, standards of care, and inner moral motivation. In the case of COVID-19 pandemic in a developing country such as Bangladesh, however, the fact is that some physicians decline either to report for duty or to treat patients presenting with COVID-19 symptoms. At issue ethically is whether such medical practitioners are to be automatically disciplined for dereliction of duty and gross negligence; (...) or, on the contrary, such physicians may legitimately claim a professional right of autonomous judgment, on the basis of which professional right they may justifiably decline to treat patients.MethodsThis ethical issue is examined with a view to providing some guidance and recommendations, insofar as the conditions of medical practice in an under-resourced country such as Bangladesh are vastly different from medical practice in an industrialized nation such as the USA. The concept of moral dilemma as discussed by philosopher Michael Shaw Perry and philosopher Immanuel Kant’s views on moral appeal to “emergency” are considered pertinent to sorting through the moral conundrum of medical care during pandemic.ResultsOur analysis allows for conditional physician discretion in the decision to treat COVID-19 patients, i.e., in the absence of personal protective equipment (PPE) combined with claim of duty to family. Physicians are nonetheless expected to provide a minimum of initial clinical assessment and stabilization of a patient before initiating transfer of a patient to a “designated” COVID-19 hospital. The latter is to be done in coordination with the national center control room that can assure admission of a patient to a referral hospital prior to ambulance transport.ConclusionsThe presence of a moral dilemma (i.e., conflict of obligations) in the pandemic situation of clinical care requires institutional authorities to exercise tolerance of individual physician moral decision about the duty to care. Hospital or government authority should respond to such decisions without introducing immediate sanction, such as suspension from all clinical duties or termination of licensure, and instead arrange for alternative clinical duties consistent with routine medical care. (shrink)

This final chapter argues that the determination of public duties to our needs in African politics ought to be based on established social and political rights derived from recognised African customary norms. The argument is motivated by a basic limitation with two opposed approaches to African political theory of needs—realist and communitarian—which struggle with the naturalistic fallacy in determining objective public needs, since they dismiss the security of rights-based law as the basis for the legitimate determination of public (...) class='Hi'>duties towards human needs by the state. On the basis of a critique of these two views, it is argued that duties to needs are not an alternative or substitute to rights, but, on the contrary, human rights legitimate public duties to needs, and African human needs are best served by rights interpreted through recognised African customary practices. (shrink)

Most people believe that we have a duty to gather evidence on both sides of central moral and political controversies, in order to fulfil our epistemic responsibilities and come to hold justified cognitive attitudes on these matters. I argue, on the contrary, that to the extent to which these controversies require special expertise, we have no such duty. We are far more likely to worsen than to improve our epistemic situation by becoming better informed on these questions. I suggest (...) we do better to embrace the views of experts who are also morally wise. I argue that this is likely to lead to more accurate beliefs about these political and moral controversies; in any case, it will avoid the incoherence and irrationality which are the likely consequence of open-minded evidence gathering. (shrink)

In “On duties to oneself,” Marcus G. Singer argued that, contrary to long established philosophical tradition, there are no duties to oneself. Singer observes that to have a duty is to be accountable to someone for that duty’s fulfillment, and while she to whom a duty is owed may release the person who has the duty from being bound to fulfill it, the latter cannot release herself from the duty. For releasing oneself from a duty is no (...) different from simply opting not to fulfill it, which would make the duty no more than a mere option and rob it of its categorical character. Singer thus argues that (a) A has a duty against herself; (b) if A has a duty against herself, then A is accountable to herself for the duty’s performance; (c) if A has a duty against herself, A can release herself from the duty; and (d) because a person is accountable to the individual owed the duty for its fulfillment, no one can release herself from an obligation, form an inconsistent set. (shrink)

Is there is a moral obligation to militarily intervene in another state to stop a genocide from happening (if this can be done with proportionate force)? My answer is that under exceptional circumstances a state or even a non-state actor might have a duty to stop a genocide (for example if these actors have promised to do so), but under most circumstances there is no such obligation. To wit, “humanity,” states, collectives, and individuals do not have an obligation to make (...) such promises in the first place or to create institutions that would impose a legal obligation of intervention upon them. Nor do states or persons or humanity “collectively” have – originally, without specifically creating such duties by contracts or promises – any pro tanto or special duties to save strangers at considerable cost to themselves or their own citizens (including their soldiers). That is, these costs do not merely override a duty to intervene, but rather there is no such duty to begin with – as shown by the fact that in such cases of non-intervention agents would not owe those they let die any compensation: if I do not save someone’s life because saving him would have cost me my arm or would have come with a high risk of losing my own life or would have forced me to kill innocent bystanders, I do not owe this person compensation. Thus the point of this chapter is that there is no “natural” or “general” or “original” duty to militarily intervene (or to create a legal obligation) to stop a genocide. I will consider and refute a number of arguments to the contrary, for example by Lango, Tan, and Pattison. (shrink)

Mark Murphy has argued that the relationship between a creator and their creatures is not a special relationship that generates new moral obligations for the creator. Murphy’s position is grounded, in part, on his claim that there are no good arguments to the contrary and that the creator-creature relationship is not a relationship between equals. I argue that there are good reasons to think that a creator and creature being equals is not required for such an obligation. I offer (...) an argument for such an obligation based on the moral significance of thrusting upon sentient or rational beings significant, unsought, and wholly new circumstances. More specifically, I argue that it is reasonable to conclude that a creator enters into a duty-generating special relationship with their creatures to promote their creatures’ well-being, when the creator is the voluntary source of the creatures’ wholly new and unconsented to circumstances from which to flourish or languish and it would cost the creator virtually nothing to promote the creatures’ welfare. (shrink)

Aristotle believes that an agent lacks virtue unless she enjoys the performance of virtuous actions, while Kant claims that the person who does her duty despite contrary inclinations exhibits a moral worth that the person who acts from inclination lacks. Despite these differences, this chapter argues that Aristotle and Kant share a distinctive view of the object of human choice and locus of moral value: that what we choose, and what has moral value, are not mere acts, but actions: (...) acts done for the sake of ends. Morally good actions embody a kind of intrinsic value that inspires us to do them from duty (in Kant) or for the sake of the noble (in Aristotle). The chapter traces the difference in their attitudes about doing one's duty with pleasure to a difference in their attitudes towards pleasure itself: Aristotle sees it as a perception of the good, while Kant thinks of it as mere feeling. (shrink)

I attempt first to disentangle three aspects of Kant’s distinction between perfect and imperfect duty. There is the central distinction between principles of duty contrary to that which is contradictory in conception/consistent in conception but contradictory in will. There is also a distinction between essential and non-essential duties: those which cannot, or occasionally can, be passed over consistent with the requirements of morality. Finally, there is a distinction between duties that exhibit a scalar aspect – degrees of (...) goodness or virtue – and duties that do not. My aim is to show how these distinct considerations can be reconciled as aspects of a single distinction, and I conclude that the remarkable complexity of Kant’s perfect/imperfect distinction is actually a strength, rather than a weakness. (shrink)

According to a persistent assumption in legal philosophy, the social rule at the foundation of a legal system (the Rule of Recognition) serves both an epistemic and a duty-imposing function. Thus, some authors have claimed that it would be a formidable problem for legal philosophy to explain how such social rules can impose duties, and some have taken it upon themselves to show how social practices might just do that. However, I argue that this orthodox assumption about the dual (...) function of rule of recognition is ill-founded. Contrary to the orthodox view, we have no good reasons to ascribe more than an epistemic function to the rule of recognition. Accordingly, the norms deriving immediately from the rule of recognition are no different than those entailed by other epistemic, grammatical or syntactic norms. Consequently, accounts of the normativity of law need not explain how social practices like conventions or plans might impose duties on the officials of a legal system. (shrink)

Viewed in its entirety, moral philosophizing, and the moral behavior of people throughout history, presents a curious puzzle. On the one hand, interpersonal duties display a remarkably stable core content: morality the world over enjoins people to keep their word; refrain from violence, theft and cheating; and help those in need. On the other hand, the asserted motives that drive people’s moral actions evince a dazzling diversity: from empathy or sympathy, to practical or prudential reason, to custom and honor, (...) cultural identity, excellence and independence, faith and spirituality, narrative and beauty, and more besides. I term this twin phenomenon—a core of fixed moral duties driven by diverse motives—“moral motive pluralism.” In this article, I marshal evidence to show the prevalence of the phenomenon. Contrary to widespread assumptions, across generations and cultures, diverse motives drive different people to perform their moral duties. But despite this diversity, each different motive impels conscientious compliance with the same core moral duties. I argue this phenomenon undermines key types of evidence commonly employed to justify popular moral philosophies, and provides us with reason to seriously consider certain sorts of ethical theories—especially “functionalist” accounts of morality. (shrink)

Conditionals that contain a modality in the consequent give rise to a particular semantic phenomenon whereby the antecedent of the conditional blocks possibilities when interpreting the modality in the consequent. This explains the puzzling logical behaviour of constructions like "If you don't buy a lottery ticket, you can't win", "If you eat that poison, it is unlikely that you will survive the day" and "If you kill Harry, you ought to kill him gently". In this paper it is argued that (...) a semantic version of the Ramsey Test provides a key in the analysis of such constructions. The logic for this semantics is axiomatized and some examples are studied, among them a well-known puzzle for contrary-to-duty obligations. (shrink)

This article proposes a systematic application of recent developments in the logic of preference to a number of topics in deontic logic. The key junction is the well‐known Hansson conditional for dyadic obligations. These conditionals are generalized by pairing them with reasoning about syntactic priority structures. The resulting two‐level approach to obligations is tested first against standard scenarios of contrary‐to‐duty obligations, leading also to a generalization for the Kanger‐Anderson reduction of deontic logic. Next, the priority framework is applied to (...) model two intuitively different sorts of deontic dynamics of obligations, based on information changes and on genuine normative events. In this two‐level setting, we also offer novel takes on vexed issues such as the Chisholm paradox and modelling strong permission. Finally, the priority framework is shown to provide a unifying setting for the study of operations on norms as such, in particular, adding or deleting individual norms, and even merging whole norm systems in different manners. (shrink)

In this book, Toby Svoboda develops and defends a Kantian environmental virtue ethic, challenging the widely-held view that Kant's moral philosophy takes an instrumental view toward nature and animals and has little to offer environmental ethics. On the contrary, Svoboda posits that there is good moral reason to care about non-human organisms in their own right and to value their flourishing independently of human interests, since doing so is constitutive of certain virtues. Svoboda argues that Kant’s account of indirect (...) duties regarding nature can ground a compelling environmental ethic: the Kantian duty to develop morally virtuous dispositions strictly proscribes unnecessarily harming organisms, and Svoboda argues that this duty compels us to act in ways that benefit non-human organisms, given that doing so can enhance one’s virtues. Svoboda’s argument engages the recent literature on environmental virtue and provides an original argument for an environmental virtue ethic firmly rooted in Kant’s moral philosophy. (shrink)

In latter-day discussions on corporate morality, duties of commission are fiercely debated. Moral institutionalists argue that duties of commission—such as a duty of assistance—overstep the boundaries of moral duty owed by economic agents. " Moral institutionalism" is a newly coined term for a familiar position on market morality. It maintains that market morality ought to be restricted, excluding all duties of commission. Neo-Classical thinkers such as Baumol and Homann defend it most eloquently. They underpin their position with (...) concerns that go to the core of liberalism—the dominant western political theory that sustains the ideals of both the free market and the free, rational person. Those authors claim that liberalism calls for a fully differentiated market because it resents the politicization of the market. Fully differentiated markets exclude duties of commission. They also claim that full differentiation of the market closes the troublesome gap between moral motivation and moral virtue. Full differentiation redeems the promise of "easy virtue". In this paper moral institutionalism will be rejected from a Kantian point of view, mostly inspired by Herman's thesis on the invisibility of morality. Liberalism may perhaps ban the politicization of the market; it does not forbid its moralization. The idea of a fully differentiated market must also be rejected because it is either morally over-demanding (to the morally autonomous person) or morally hazardous (to the person with failing moral motivation). Contrary to what the moral institutionalists claim, right action, morally, is actually quite difficult in fully differentiated markets. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to show that it is not the case that positive duties can be derived from Kant’s so-called universalizability tests. I begin by explaining in detail what I mean by this and distinguishing it from a few things that I am not doing in this paper. After that, I confront the idea of a maxim contradictory, a concept that is advanced by many com- mentators in the attempt to derive positive duties from the (...) universalizability tests. I ex- plain what a maxim contradictory is and how the concept is used to derive positive duties. Then I argue that the notion of a maxim contradictory presupposes an objectionable form of maxim realism. I move from there to the idea of a maxim contrary and the deliberative field. These two ideas are used in tandem by commentators who do not appeal to maxim contradictories. I explain how these concepts are used to derive positive duties and then I argue that there is a systematic error in the derivations that enables one to see that they cannot work. (shrink)

This chapter, contrary to moderate, radical and limited communitarians’ attempts to include and defend human rights in African political thought, shifts our attention to the primacy of needs in African political thought. It does so by appeal primarily to the ethical concept of personhood in African philosophy. It offers an interpretation of the relationship between ethics and politics inherent in the normative concept of personhood, which has tended to be construed to entail the politics of human rights. To unfold (...) a novel interpretation of politics in relation to the ethical notion of personhood, it relies on Menkiti’s philosophical writings that points us to the politics of duties. It proceeds to explain the importance of duties in the political thought associated with Afro-communitarianism in terms of the primacy of needs. The basic insight that emerges in this chapter is that the provision of basic needs is indispensable for the kind of agency required for the achievement of personhood. (shrink)

In this paper I am going to raise a problem for recent attempts to derive positive duties from Kant’s universalizability tests. In particular, I argue that these recent attempts are subject to reductio and that the most obvious way of patching them renders them impracticable. I begin by explaining the motivation for these attempts. Then I describe how they work and begin my attack. I conclude by considering some patches.

Professionals have a role obligation to satisfy certain standards when performing their work. However, as professionals, can they perform morally praiseworthy acts that are not within the scope of duty? According to applied professional ethics, the answer is yes, whereas some theoretical accounts of supererogation deny this possibility. I examine and ultimately reject two very different theoretical accounts that deny professional supererogation. First, a recent interpretation of Aristotle uses examples from the professional context to illustrate that the moral category of (...) supererogation is not needed to describe heroic acts. Second, David Heyd’s account of supererogation argues that the category applies to natural duties alone and not to professional as professionals. Contrary to these claims, I argue that it is not only conceptually coherent to allow for the possibility of going beyond the call of duty but also morally important for assessments of responsibility and blame in professional life. (shrink)

Kant uses ‘wish’ as a technical term to denote a strange species of desire. It is an instance in which someone wills an object that she simultaneously knows she cannot bring about. Or in more Kantian garb: it is an instance of the faculty of desire’s (or will’s) failing insofar as a desire (representation) cannot be the cause of the realization of its corresponding object in reality. As a result, Kant originally maintained it to be antithetical to morality, which deals (...) with ‘ought implies can’. However, Kant’s notion of wish is not static. On the contrary, I argue in this article that Kant re-evaluated the capacity to wish as (to some extent) causally efficacious and, further, of moral relevance. This re-evaluation has not been discussed in the literature, yet has been lurking in plain sight in a subtle but decisive shift evident in two versions of a footnote from the *Critique of the Power of Judgement* (KU). (shrink)

In his paper ‘The truth behind conscientious objection’ Nir Ben-Moshe develops a new approach aimed at justifying conscientious objection without relying on respect of moral integrity of the conscientious objector or tolerance towards her moral views.1 According to Ben-Moshe, the problem with justifications of CO based on moral integrity and tolerance is that ‘truth of conscience’s claims is irrelevant to their justification’. He argues, to the contrary, that whether the claims of the conscientious objector are true or false makes (...) a difference in assessing whether their objection is justifiable or not. He goes on explaining that someone’s CO can be justified if it can be proved that ‘conscience can express true moral claims’. Ben-Moshe then proceeds to explain how one can determine true moral claims. He develops an account of conscience that is modelled on that of Adam Smith. In particular, he uses the idea of the ‘impartial spectator’ to show how a true claim of conscience can emerge after careful thinking from the point of view of an impartial perspective. So, if the healthcare practitioner wants to object to a certain medical procedure after considering the issue at hand from the moral standpoint of such impartial spectator, then her claims of conscience are true (or …. (shrink)