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From Oughts to Goals: A Logic for Enkrasia

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Abstract

This paper focuses on (an interpretation of) the Enkratic principle of rationality, according to which rationality requires that if an agent sincerely and with conviction believes she ought to X, then X-ing is a goal in her plan. We analyze the logical structure of Enkrasia and its implications for deontic logic. To do so, we elaborate on the distinction between basic and derived oughts, and provide a multi-modal neighborhood logic with three characteristic operators: a non-normal operator for basic oughts, a non-normal operator for goals in plans, and a normal operator for derived oughts. We prove two completeness theorems for the resulting logic, and provide a dynamic extension of the logic by means of product updates. We illustrate how this setting informs deontic logic by considering issues related to the filtering of inconsistent oughts, the restricted validity of deontic closure, and the stability of oughts and goals under dynamics.

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Acknowledgements

Authors are ordered alphabetically. We would like to thank John Horty, Olivier Roy, Igor Sedlár, Frederik Van De Putte, workshop audiences at DEON 2018 Utrecht and in Lublin, Bayreuth and Prague, as well as three anonymous reviewers for valuable feedback and suggestions. The work of DK was partially supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) as part of the joint project Collective Attitude Formation [RO 4548/8-1], by DFG and Grantová Agentura České Republiky (GAČR) through the joint project From Shared Evidence to Group Attitudes [RO 4548/6-1] and by the National Science Foundation of China as part of the project Logics of Information Flow in Social Networks [17ZDA026].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department, University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstraße 30, 95447, Bayreuth, Germany

    Dominik Klein & Alessandra Marra

  2. Political Science Department, University of Bamberg, Feldkirchenstraße 21, 96052, Bamberg, Germany

    Dominik Klein

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  1. Dominik Klein
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  2. Alessandra Marra
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Correspondence to Alessandra Marra.

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Special Issue: Permissions, Obligations, and Beyond Edited byPiotr Kulicki and Olivier Roy

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Klein, D., Marra, A. From Oughts to Goals: A Logic for Enkrasia. Stud Logica 108, 85–128 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11225-019-09854-5

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