Ten Philosophical Problems in Deontic Logic

Abstract

The paper discusses ten philosophical problems in deontic logic: how to
formally represent norms, when a set of norms may be termed `coherent', how to
deal with normative conflicts, how contrary-to-duty obligations can be
appropriately modeled, how dyadic deontic operators may be redefined to relate
to sets of norms instead of preference relations between possible worlds, how
various concepts of permission can be accommodated, how meaning postulates and
counts-as conditionals can be taken into account, and how sets of norms may be
revised and merged. The problems are discussed from the viewpoint of
input/output logic as developed by van der Torre Makinson. We argue
that norms, not ideality, should take the central position in deontic
semantics, and that a semantics that represents norms, as input/output logic
does, provides helpful tools for analyzing, clarifying and solving the problems
of deontic logic.