We present a new axiomatization of the deontic fragment of Anderson's relevant deontic logic, give an Andersonian reduction of a relevant version of Mally's deontic logic previously discussed in this journal, study the effect of adding propositional quantification to Anderson's system, and discuss the meaning of Anderson's propositional constant in a wide range of Andersonian deontic systems.

It has been argued that ethically correct robots should be able to reason about right and wrong. In order to do so, they must have a set of do’s and don’ts at their disposal. However, such a list may be inconsistent, incomplete or otherwise unsatisfactory, depending on the reasoning principles that one employs. For this reason, it might be desirable if robots were to some extent able to reason about their own reasoning—in other words, if they had some meta-ethical capacities. (...) In this paper, we sketch how one might go about designing robots that have such capacities. We show that the field of computational meta-ethics can profit from the same tools as have been used in computational metaphysics. (shrink)

We describe a new way in which theories about the deontic status of actions can be represented in terms of the standard two-sorted extensional predicate calculus. Some of the resulting formal theories are easy to implement in Prolog; one prototype implementation--R. M. Lee's deontic expert shell DX--is briefly described.

In 1926, Ernst Mally proposed a number of deontic postulates. He added them as axioms to classical propositional logic. The resulting system was unsatisfactory because it had the consequence that A is the case if and only if it is obligatory that A. We present an intuitionistic reformulation of Mally’s deontic logic. We show that this system does not provide the just-mentioned objectionable theorem while most of the theorems that Mally considered acceptable are still derivable. The resulting system is unacceptable (...) as a deontic logic, but it does make sense as a lax logic in the modern sense of the word. (shrink)

In 1926, Mally presented the first formal system of deontic logic. His system had several consequences which Mally regarded as surprising but defensible. It also, however, has the consequence that A is obligatory if and only if A is the case, which is unacceptable from the point of view of any reasonable deontic logic. We describe Mally's system and discuss how it might reasonably be repaired.

Basisbegrippen. Een formeel model voor de ontwikkeling van de kunst is een structuur T, <, K, , d, p, q, s, B , waarbij T een verzameling van “tijdstippen” is, < (“is eerder dan”) een relatie op T is, K een verzameling van “mogelijke kunstwerken” is, (“levert commentaar op”) een relatie op K is, d, p, q en s functies van K naar de verzameling van alle deelverzamelingen van K zijn, en B een functie van T naar de verzameling van (...) alle deelverzamelingen van K is. d(x) is de discipline waartoe kunstwerk x behoort, p(x) is het proc´ed´e waarmee x vervaardigd is, q(x) is de kwaliteit van x, s(x) is de stijl van x, en B(t) is de verzameling kunstwerken die op tijdstip t bestaan. (shrink)

In 1926, Mally proposed the first formal deontic system. As Mally and others soon realized, this system had some rather strange consequences. We show that the strangeness of Mally's system is not so much due to Mally's informal deontic principles as to the fact that he formalized those principles in terms of the propositional calculus. If they are formalized in terms of relevant logic rather than classical logic, one obtains a system which is related to Anderson's relevant deontic logic and (...) not nearly as strange as Mally's own system. (shrink)

We present axiomatizations of the deontic fragment of Anderson's relevant deontic logic (the logic of obligation and related concepts) and the eubouliatic fragment of Anderson's eubouliatic logic (the logic of prudence, safety, risk, and related concepts).

We discuss three aspects of the intuitionistic reformulation of Mally’s deontic logic that was recently proposed ). First, this reformulation is more similar to Standard Deontic Logic than appears at first sight: like Standard Deontic Logic, it is Kanger reducible and Anderson reducible to alethic logic and it has a semantical interpretation that can be read in deontic terms. Second, this reformulation has an extension that provides 100% of the theorems stated by Mally himself. Third, it is interesting to view (...) Mally’s original deontic logic as an extension of this reformulation. (shrink)