Moral Principles: Hedged, Contributory, Mixed

In Deontic Logic and Normative Systems 2020/21 (2021)
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Abstract

It's natural to think that the principles expressed by the statements "Promises ought to be kept" and "We ought to help those in need" are defeasible. But how are we to make sense of this defeasibility? On one proposal, moral principles have hedges or built-in unless clauses specifying the conditions under which the principle doesn't apply. On another, such principles are contributory and, thus, do not specify which actions ought to be carried out, but only what counts in favor or against them. Drawing on a defeasible logic framework, this paper sets up three models: one model for each proposal, as well as a third model capturing a mixed view on principles that combines them. It then explores the structural connections between the three models and establishes some equivalence results, suggesting that the seemingly different views captured by the models are closer than standardly thought.

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Aleks Knoks
University of Luxembourg

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References found in this work

Slaves of the passions.Mark Schroeder - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Ethics without principles.Jonathan Dancy - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Modal Logic: An Introduction.Brian F. Chellas - 1980 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Critique of Pure Reason.I. Kant - 1787/1998 - Philosophy 59 (230):555-557.
Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Foundations of Language 13 (1):145-151.

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