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Moral particularism in the light of deontic logic

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to strengthen the point made by Horty about the relationship between reason holism and moral particularism. In the literature prima facie obligations have been considered as the only source of reason holism. I strengthen Horty’s point in two ways. First, I show that contrary-to-duties provide another independent support for reason holism. Next I outline a formal theory that is able to capture these two sources of holism. While in simple settings the proposed account coincides with Horty’s one, this is not true in more complicated or “realistic” settings in which more than two norms collide. My chosen formalism is so-called input/output logic. A bottom-line example is introduced. It raises the issue of whether the conventional wisdom is right in assuming that normative reasons run parallel to epistemic ones.

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Notes

  1. http://leiterlegalphilosophy.typepad.com/leiter/2007/10/green-v-shapiro.html.

  2. Dancy’s views were historically developed in response to Hare.

  3. For an attempt to shed light on this matter using developments in statistical learning theory, see Harman (2005).

  4. This objection was raised by a reviewer for DEON’10.

  5. Cf. Dancy (2006, p. 77). The assumption that reasons are general as part of their meaning plays an important role in Hare’s analysis of the universalizability of ought-statements. Asking why the word “ought” has the property of universalizability, Hare gives the following reason among others: an “ought”-judgment must be supported by a reason; and this implies that the same judgment must be made whenever the same reason holds (cf. Hare 1952, p. 176, 1963, p. 21).

  6. A good exposition and judicious appraisal of the arguments by which the Ancients sought to refute the assumptions they took to underpin Protagorean relativism can be found in Lee (2005).

  7. This was pointed out to me by one referee.

  8. This example can be found in Dancy (1993, p. 60).

  9. The idea of constitutive rule is a theme that goes back to Searle (1964, 1969), and before that to Rawls (1955). For a comprehensive overview of the state of the art about logics for constitutive norms, see Grossi and Jones (2011).

  10. The promise example is for illustrative purposes only. Here I take the principle of promise-keeping to be a regulative norm, as does Ross in his theory of prima facie duties. He sees the principle of promise-keeping as falling under (as he calls it) the “duty of fidelity”. It is common in the philosophy of language to think of such a rule as constitutive of the act of promising. This view, which was championed by Searle among others, is not germane to my present purpose.

  11. My exposition of (unprioritized) IOL is confined to what is essential in the present context. For a more comprehensive account, the reader is referred to Makinson and van der Torre (2000, 2001).

  12. The set is consistent, and none of its proper extensions is consistent.

  13. This is (Stolpe 2010, theorem 2).

  14. Cf. Makinson and van der Torre (2000, observation 16). \(out^{+}_i (i=1,\ldots,4)\) is the throughput version of out i that allows inputs to reappear as outputs. In terms of the semantical definitions, we have out + i (G, A) = out i (G ∪ I, A), where I = {(y, y): y is a formula}.

  15. The contrast between the two approaches is emphasized by Makinson in (2005, pp. 107–108).

  16. This reading is related to Hansson’s interpretation of circumstances in so-called dyadic deontic logic (see Hansson 1969).

  17. Paternity questions are not always easy to answer. I follow Halpern (1997, p. 4), who seems to give Brass credit for the idea of using such a definition in the area of non-monotonic reasoning. The definition popped up in several places at around the same time, and had been used before in other areas.

  18. One could imagine that the meetings must be held within a relatively short time frame, and that Brown is already very busy. He can take at most two consecutive days off within the time frame in question—the other days he has to attend to his other duties, and these are stronger than the missions he has just been assigned. He will not be able to have the three meetings in two days. Still, he should be able to arrange two meetings.

  19. One could imagine that a strike in France disrupts flights and rail services between Paris and London.

  20. For another illustration, suppose I am in charge of hiring two people. Candidate a is my first choice, candidate b is my second choice, and candidate c is my third choice. Now, a and b cannot stand each other, and refuse to work at the same place. They come to me and say “If you hire him, I will turn your offer down”. If I stick to my initial ranking, I will pick up a and c.

  21. Cf. footnote 14.

  22. Thanks to Marek Sergot for suggesting me this example, though perhaps not in these exacts terms.

  23. Chemotherapy works by killing fast-growing cancer cells. Unfortunately, chemotherapy drugs cannot always tell the difference between cancer cells and fast-growing healthy cells, including red and white blood cells.

  24. http://www.neulasta.com/.

  25. In Dancy (2006, chapter 4.2), he points out that holism is uncontested for epistemic reasons, and therefore it would be surprising if practical reasons behaved differently.

  26. For illustration purposes, assume that these conditional probabilities encode statistical assertions about some population groups, and instantiate a, b and c into (this is the classical example of non-transitivity of default rules) being a student, being an adult, and being employed. The fact that I am unemployed does not imply that I am not an adult.

  27. I am indebted to Jeff Horty for drawing this possible reply to my attention.

  28. Why should the presence of \((\top,b\rightarrow c)\) in the current scenario make a difference? This is essentially due to the consistency requirement in condition b) of the definition for defeat, viz the restriction according to which A ∪ h(S S′/D′) should be consistent. Take \(D'=\{(\top,a\rightarrow b)\}.\) The only S′ that qualifies is \(\{(\top,a\rightarrow\neg b)\}. \, A \, \cup h((S_{12}^{\#}-S')\cup D'\) is consistent, but A ∪ h((S 12 − S′)∪ D′) is not.

  29. Cf. e.g. Lewis (1973, section 1.8), Adams (1975, chapter 1), Bennet (2003, chapter 59), Makinson (1999, section 3.2) and Hansen (2008, section 3.2).

  30. The formula 1Mb is also part of the output that is delivered by an argumentation framework based on the notion of reinstatement (cf. p. 8).

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the three anonymous referees for their criticisms. Special thanks are due to Marek Sergot for his example, and to Jeff Horty for his enthusiasm about the project and his insights. Thanks are also due to Jörg Hansen, David Makinson and Leendert van der Torre for valuable comments. The feedback received at DEON’10 and the workshop on the “Dynamics of Normative Reasoning” held on 6 Apr 11 at Ghent was also useful. Support from the National Research Fund (F.N.R.) of Luxembourg (grant PDR-08-013) is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Individual and Collective Reasoning (ICR) Group, Department of Computer Science and Communications (CSC), Faculty of Sciences, Technology and Communication (FSTC), University of Luxembourg, 6, rue Richard Coudenhove—Kalergi, 1359, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

    Xavier Parent

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Parent, X. Moral particularism in the light of deontic logic. Artif Intell Law 19, 75 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-011-9108-1

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