This paper argues that moral distress is a distinctive category of reactive attitudes that are taken to be part and parcel of the social dynamics for recognition. While moral distress does not demonstrate evidence of wrongdoing, it does emotionally articulate a demand for normative attention that is addressed to others as moral providers. The argument for this characterization of the deontic power of moral distress builds upon two examples in which the cognitive value of the victim’s emotional experience (...) is controversial: the case of micro-aggression, and the case of misplaced distress. In contrast to appraisal and perceptual models of distress, it is argued that its epistemic and normative value is dialogical rather than evidential, in that it presses claims that engage the audience in a normative discussion about the normative standing of the claimant, the proper grounds of the attitude, and the normative standards used to assess them. (shrink)

This article analyzes the thesis of ethical relativism, as defended by Alchourrón and Bulygin. These authors offer, on the one hand, a suggestive conception according to which the question “what are our obligations?” is equivalent to thinking about what is to be done; on the other hand, they defend a relativist conception of ethics. They present three objections to constructivist accounts of ethics that are not relativist: a) the argument of the burden of the proof; b) a version of the (...) dilemma of Euthyphro, and c) the argument of particularism. This article presents counterarguments to these objections in the attempt to show that they are not conclusive and that a space therefore remains for objectivity in the normative sphere. Keywords: Alchourrón-Bulygin, ethical relativism, ethical constructivism, burden of proof, particularism. (shrink)

According to deontic justice theory, individuals often feel principled moral obligations to uphold norms of justice. That is, standards of justice can be valued for their own sake, even apart from serving self-interested goals. While a growing body of evidence in business ethics supports the notion of deontic justice, skepticism remains. This hesitation results, at least in part, from the absence of a coherent framework for explaining how individuals produce and experience deontic justice. To address this need, (...) we argue that a compelling, yet still missing, step is to gain further understanding into the underlying neural and psychological mechanisms of deontic justice. Here, we advance a theoretical model that disentangles three key processes of deontic justice: The use of justice rules to assess events, cognitive empathy, and affective empathy. Together with reviewing neural systems supporting these processes, broader implications of our model for business ethics scholarship are discussed. (shrink)

Modality and negation, as two important linguistic features used to realise subjectivity, have been investigated within various disciplines, such as logic, linguistics and philosophy, and law. The interaction between modality and negation, as a relatively new and undeveloped domain, has however not been paid due attention in scholarship. This corpus-based study investigates three aspects of their interaction: the differentiation of the deontic value by negation, the categorization of deontic modality in Hong Kong legislation via negation, and distribution (...) patterns of deontic modality, especially distribution patterns of the negation of modality, in Hong Kong legislation. This study shows that negation is a powerful linguistic mechanism not only for determining the nature and functions of modality, but also for determining the value of modality. This study also reveals that negation helps us to investigate the distribution of deontic modality in Hong Kong legislation and hence revisit the legal framework in Hong Kong. A study taking into account the discursive and professional aspects of the interaction between deontic modality and negation will provide a theoretical basis for the natural language processing of modality and negation in legislation and also offer important implications for the study of negation and modality in general contexts. (shrink)

Great thinkers have devoted to explaining morality and ethics in human beings. The major reflections have resulted in a well-known dichotomy, that of matters of fact and matters of value, or what is known as the theoretical world, which is objective, and the practical world, that of affections. With the birth of analytic philosophy, the emphasis is placed on language allowing to explain philosophical problems, such as validity. This study proposes the following thesis: it is possible to derive “ought” (...) from “is”, as it is evidenced in the Spanish verb “tocar” and several of its verbal periphrasis. To achieve this, a naturalization of morality is proposed from the postulates of two theories, namely, cognitive semantics (Talmy 2000) and the Modular Theory of Modalities (Gosselin 2010). The methodology applied consists of both a semantic and a cognitive analysis of “tocar”, for which a corpus was collected in literary texts and presidential speeches. The main result shows that “tocar” has a prototypical descriptive semantic value, alethic value, and new prescriptive semantic values. It is concluded that the new semantic values for this verb and its periphrasis are the deontic and the axiological ones, which demonstrates once again the evolutionary character of language and the need to provide empirical information on philosophical issues, such as morality. (shrink)

According to a recent challenge to Kratzer's canonical contextualist semantics for deontic modal expressions, no contextualist view can make sense of cases in which such a modal must be information-sensitive in some way. Here I show how Kratzer's semantics is compatible with readings of the targeted sentences that fit with the data. I then outline a general account of how contexts select parameter values for modal expressions and show, in terms of that account, how the needed, contextualist-friendly readings might (...) plausibly get selected in the challenge cases. (shrink)

Deontic constraints prohibit an agent performing acts of a certain type even when doing so will prevent more instances of that act being performed by others. In this article I show how deontic constraints can be interpreted as either maximizing or non-maximizing rules. I then argue that they should be interpreted as maximizing rules because interpreting them as non-maximizing rules results in a problem with moral advice. Given this conclusion, a strong case can be made that consequentialism provides (...) the best account of deontic constraints. (shrink)

This article contains an overview of the author's long‐standing involvement with deontic logic, both from a technical and from a wider philosophical point of view. As far as the formal aspects of deontic logic are concerned, the author describes his intellectual development from the original discovery of the analogy between modal (and deontic) notions on the one hand, and quantifiers on the other, through the formulation of a systematic theory of dyadic deontic concepts, to the proposal (...) of a formal logic of action as a foundation for deontic logic. In a more philosophical vein, the author discusses such questions as the very possibility of deontic logic if norms have no truth‐value, the relation between the descriptive interpretation of classical deontic logic and the logic of norm‐propositions, the correct representation of conditional or hypothetical norms, the distinction between moral obligation and practical necessity, and the interdefinability of permission and obligation. (shrink)

Contrastivists view ought-sentences as expressing comparisons among alternatives. Deontic actualists believe that the value of each alternative in such a comparison is determined by what would actually happen if that alternative were to be the case. One of the arguments that motivates actualism is a challenge to the principle of agglomeration over conjunction—the principle according to which if you ought to run and you ought to jump, then you ought to run and jump. I argue that there is (...) no way of developing the actualist insight into a logic that invalidates the agglomeration principle without also invalidating other desirable patterns of inference. After doing this, I extend the analysis to other contrastive views that challenge agglomeration in the way that the actualist does. This motivates skepticism about the actualist’s way of challenging agglomeration. (shrink)

The respect for one’s conscience is rooted in a broader respect for the human person. The conscience represents a person’s ability to identify the values and goods that inform her moral identity. Ignoring or overriding a person’s conscience can lead to significant moral and emotional distress. Refusals to respect a person’s conscientious objection to cases of killing are a source of incisive distress, since judgments that it is impermissible to kill so-and-so are typically held very strongly and serve as central (...) moral commitments in one’s moral identity. I think it is wrong for a college basketball coach to pay his players, but I think it is really wrong to kill people. This article argues that any and all arguments for not respecting a conscientious objection to abortion commit a deontic fallacy. Briefly, arguments for the permissibility of abortion are structurally such that abortion is at best permissible, not obligatory. Now, arguments to justify overriding or ignoring a person’s objection to performing action (α) must understand action (α) as being obligatory. Thus, arguments for ignoring conscientious objections to performing abortion are incongruent with the actual philosophical justifications for abortion. Such arguments, then, commit a deontic fallacy. (shrink)

The paper discusses the potential value of a deontic approach to database specification. More specifically, some different types of integrity constraints are considered and a distinction is drawn between necessary (hard) and deontic (soft) constraints.Databases are compared with other normative systems. A deontic logic for database specification is proposed and the problems of how to react to, and of how to correct, or repair, a situation which arises through norm violation are discussed in the context of (...) this logic. The limitations of the proposed logic and possible modifications and extensions of it are analysed. (shrink)

Standard deontic logic (SDL) is defined on the basis of possible world semantics and is a logic of alethic-deontic modalities rather than deontic modalities alone. The interpretation of the concepts of obligation and permission comes down exclusively to the logical value that a sentence adopts for the accessible deontic alternatives. Here, we set forth a different approach, this being a logic which additionally takes into consideration whether sentences stand in relation to the normative system or (...) to the system of values under which we predicate the deontic qualifications. By taking this aspect into account, we arrive at a logical system which preserves laws proper to a deontic logic but where the standard paradoxes of deontic logic do not arise. It is a logic of strictly-deontic modalities DR. (shrink)

Ethical thought is articulated around normative concepts. Standard examples of normative concepts are good, reason, right, ought, and obligatory. Theorists often treat the normative as an undifferentiated domain. Even so, it is common to distinguish between two kinds of normative concepts: evaluative or axiological concepts, such as good, and deontic concepts, such as ought. This encyclopedia entry discusses the many differences between the two kinds of concepts.

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In this paper, we indicate how Jan Woleński’s non-linguistic concept of the norm allows us to clarify the deontic relationship between sentences and the given normative system. A relationship of this kind constitutes a component of the metalogic of relating deontic logic, which subjects the logical value of the deontic sentence to the logical value of the constituent sentence and its relationship with a given normative system in the accessible possible worlds.

In everyday life it is common to judge people morally responsible for their actions, but there is a time-honored philosophical challenge to this practice with which we are all familiar. The challenge can be put briefly as follows: moral responsibility requires that agents have a certain kind of control that is compatible with neither causal determinism nor its contradictory, causal indeterminism; hence moral responsibility is impossible. Haji notes that judgments about moral responsibility- which I will call hypological judgments—are not the (...) only category of moral, or morally relevant, judgments. There are also deontic judgments, which have to do with moral obligation, right, and wrong; aretaic judgments, which have to do with moral virtue and vice; and axiological judgments, which have to do with intrinsic and extrinsic value. In principle, a challenge to all such judgments can be made that parallels the challenge to hypological judgments: that they presuppose a certain kind of control that is compatible with neither determinism nor indeterminism and are therefore to be rejected. It is a surprising fact that, whereas the challenge to hypological judgments has been the subject of intense debate for centuries, the analogous challenges to the other kinds of judgments have received comparatively little, if any, attention. In this book, Haji seeks to rectify this omission. He concerns himself primarily with the challenge to deontic judgments. During the course of his discussion he deals in depth with the original challenge to hypological judgments, devotes a chapter to the challenge to aretaic judgments, and makes certain remarks in passing about the challenge to axiological judgments. (shrink)

There are a number of concepts of common-sense morality, what one must do, what one ought to do, the supererogatory, the minimum that duty allows, the morally optional and the morally indifferent, that philosophers have been hard-pressed to represent in an integrated conceptual framework. Indeed, many philosophers have despaired at the attempt and concluded that only a fragment of these concepts belong to that fundamental sphere of morality that is the central focus of the ethicist. For example, the traditional scheme, (...) with its triad of the obligatory, the forbidden and the permissible, pigeonholes all actions into three mutually exclusive and exhaustive classes: those which are obligatory, those which are forbidden and those which are optional. Hence, at best, it can represent exactly two of the six aforementioned concepts. For from the standpoint of this scheme, what one must do and what one ought to do can't be distinguished and hence they can't both be represented. Although the morally optional can be represented, the supererogatory, one of its subclasses, cannot be represented. Furthermore, the morally indifferent, another subclass of the optional--one which is obviously disjoint from the supererogatory--cannot be represented. Finally, the minimum that duty allows finds no distinctive place in the traditional scheme. Thus, on the face of it, the traditional scheme is radically incomplete. ;I present, motivate and defend a new conceptual scheme for common-sense morality in which these concepts are represented and systematically integrated. An intuitively motivated semantic framework underpinning this conceptual scheme is also presented. Such a scheme, along with the associated semantic framework, is motivated by reflecting on the supererogationist's objections to utilitarianism and to the traditional scheme. But in addition, a new integrated network of linguistic motivations for this conceptual scheme is uncovered, one which is completely independent of supererogationistic considerations. Hence, these two separate sources of evidence for the centrality of this new scheme to our pre-theoretic thinking corroborate one another--thus jointly boosting the evidence beyond the mere sum of their separate evidential values. (shrink)

Kolodny and MacFarlane have made a pioneering contribution to our understanding of how the interpretation of deontic modals can be sensitive to evidence and information. But integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard Kratzerian framework for modals suggests ways of capturing the relevant data without treating deontic modals as “informational modals” in their sense. I show that though one such way of capturing the data within the standard semantics fails, an alternative does not. Nevertheless I argue that (...) we have good reasons to adopt an information-sensitive semantics of the general type Kolodny and MacFarlane describe. Contrary to the standard semantics, relative deontic value between possibilities sometimes depends on which possibilities are live. I develop an ordering semantics for deontic modals that captures this point and addresses various complications introduced by integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard semantic framework. By attending to these complexities, we can also illuminate various roles that information and evidence play in logical arguments, discourse, and deliberation. (shrink)

Greaves and MacAskill argue for ​axiological longtermism​, according to which, in a wide class of decision contexts, the option that is ​ex ante best is the option that corresponds to the best lottery over histories from ​t onwards, where ​t ​is some date far in the future. They suggest that a ​stakes-sensitivity argument may be used to derive ​deontic longtermism from axiological longtermism, where deontic longtermism holds that in a wide class of decision contexts, the option one ought (...) to choose is the option that corresponds to the best lottery over histories from ​t onwards, where ​t is some date far in the future. This argument appeals to the ​Stakes Principle​: when the axiological stakes are high, non-consequentialist constraints and prerogatives tend to be insignificant in comparison, so that what one ought to do is simply whichever option is best. I argue that there are strong grounds on which to reject the ​Stakes Principle​. Furthermore, by reflecting on the Non-Identity Problem, I argue that there are plausible grounds for denying the existence of a sound argument from axiological longtermism to deontic longtermism insofar as we are concerned with ways of improving the value of the future of the kind that are focal in Greaves and MacAskill’s presentation. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss boulesic and deontic logic and the relationship between these branches of logic. By ‘boulesic logic,’ or ‘the logic of the will,’ I mean a new kind of logic that deals with ‘boulesic’ concepts, expressions, sentences, arguments and systems. I will concentrate on two types of boulesic expression: ‘individual x wants it to be the case that’ and ‘individual x accepts that it is the case that.’ These expressions will be symbolised by two sentential (...) operators that take individuals and sentences as arguments and give sentences as values. Deontic logic is a relatively well-established branch of logic. It deals with normative concepts, sentences, arguments and systems. In this paper, I will show how deontic logic can be grounded in boulesic logic. I will develop a set of semantic tableau systems that include boulesic and alethic operators, possibilist quantifiers and the identity predicate; I will then show how these systems can be augmented by a set of deontic operators. I use a kind of possible world semantics to explain the intended meaning of our formal systems. Intuitively, we can think of our semantics as a description of the structure of a perfectly rational will. I mention some interesting theorems that can be proved in our systems, including some versions of the so-called hypothetical imperative. Finally, I show that all systems that are described in this paper are sound and complete with respect to their semantics. (shrink)

In everyday life it is common to judge people morally responsible for their actions, but there is a time-honored philosophical challenge to this practice with which we are all familiar. The challenge can be put briefly as follows: moral responsibility requires that agents have a certain kind of control that is compatible with neither causal determinism nor its contradictory, causal indeterminism; hence moral responsibility is impossible. Haji notes that judgments about moral responsibility- which I will call hypological judgments—are not the (...) only category of moral, or morally relevant, judgments. There are also deontic judgments, which have to do with moral obligation, right, and wrong; aretaic judgments, which have to do with moral virtue and vice; and axiological judgments, which have to do with intrinsic and extrinsic value. In principle, a challenge to all such judgments can be made that parallels the challenge to hypological judgments: that they presuppose a certain kind of control that is compatible with neither determinism nor indeterminism and are therefore to be rejected. It is a surprising fact that, whereas the challenge to hypological judgments has been the subject of intense debate for centuries, the analogous challenges to the other kinds of judgments have received comparatively little, if any, attention. In this book, Haji seeks to rectify this omission. He concerns himself primarily with the challenge to deontic judgments. During the course of his discussion he deals in depth with the original challenge to hypological judgments, devotes a chapter to the challenge to aretaic judgments, and makes certain remarks in passing about the challenge to axiological judgments. (shrink)

In everyday life it is common to judge people morally responsible for their actions, but there is a time-honored philosophical challenge to this practice with which we are all familiar. The challenge can be put briefly as follows: moral responsibility requires that agents have a certain kind of control that is compatible with neither causal determinism nor its contradictory, causal indeterminism; hence moral responsibility is impossible. Haji notes that judgments about moral responsibility- which I will call hypological judgments—are not the (...) only category of moral, or morally relevant, judgments. There are also deontic judgments, which have to do with moral obligation, right, and wrong; aretaic judgments, which have to do with moral virtue and vice; and axiological judgments, which have to do with intrinsic and extrinsic value. In principle, a challenge to all such judgments can be made that parallels the challenge to hypological judgments: that they presuppose a certain kind of control that is compatible with neither determinism nor indeterminism and are therefore to be rejected. It is a surprising fact that, whereas the challenge to hypological judgments has been the subject of intense debate for centuries, the analogous challenges to the other kinds of judgments have received comparatively little, if any, attention. In this book, Haji seeks to rectify this omission. He concerns himself primarily with the challenge to deontic judgments. During the course of his discussion he deals in depth with the original challenge to hypological judgments, devotes a chapter to the challenge to aretaic judgments, and makes certain remarks in passing about the challenge to axiological judgments. (shrink)

Error theories about practical deontic judgements claim that no substantive practical deontic judgement is true. Practical deontic judgements are practical in the sense that they concern actions, and they are deontic in the sense that they are about reasons, rightness, wrongness, and obligations. This paper assumes the truth of an error theory about practical deontic judgements in order to examine its ramifications. I defend three contentions. The first is that, if so-called fitting-attitude analyses of (...) class='Hi'>value fail, the truth of some substantive evaluative judgements would not be threatened by the fact that no substantive practical deontic judgment is true. Secondly, in light of the truth of these evaluative judgements, the best thing we could do is to continue to make practical deontic judgements despite the truth of an error theory about practical deontic judgements. My third contention is that, if some evaluative judgements are unaffected by an error theory about practical deontic judgements, then such an error theory will eventually lead us to some version of consequentialism. (shrink)

If a native of India asserts "Killing cattle is wrong" and a Nebraskan asserts "Killing cattle is not wrong", and both judgments agree with their respective moralities and both moralities are internally consistent, then the moral relativist says both judgments are fully correct. At this point relativism bifurcates. One branch which we call content relativism denies that the two people are contradicting each other. The idea is that the content of a moral judgment is a function of the overall moral (...) point of view from which it proceeds. The second branch which we call truth value relativism affirms that the two judgments are contradictory. Truth value relativism appears to be logically incoherent. How can contradictory judgments be fully correct? For though there will be a sense of correctness in which each judgment is correct — namely by that of being correct relative to the morality relative to which each was expressed — if contradictory, the judgments cannot both be true, and thus cannot both be correct in this most basic sense of correctness. We defend truth value relativism against this sort of charge of logical incoherence by showing it can be accommodated by the existing semantical metatheories of deontic logic. Having done this we go on to argue that truth value relativism is the best version of relativism. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts are those that lie “beyond the call of duty.” There are two standard ways to define this idea more precisely. Although the definitions are often seen as equivalent, I argue that they can diverge when options are infinite, or when there are cycles of better options; moreover, each definition is acceptable in only one case. I consider two ways out of this dilemma.

The thesis defended, the “guise of the ought”, is that the formal objects of desires are norms (oughts to be or oughts to do) rather than values (as the “guise of the good” thesis has it). It is impossible, in virtue of the nature of desire, to desire something without it being presented as something that ought to be or that one ought to do. This view is defended by pointing to a key distinction between values and norms: positive and (...) negative norms (obligation and interdiction) are interdefinable through negation; positive and negative values aren’t. This contrast between the norms and values, it is argued, is mirrored, within the psychological realm, by the contrast between the desires and emotions. Positive and negative desires are interdefinable through negation, but positive and negative emotions aren’t. The overall, Meinongian picture suggested is that norms are to desires what values are to emotions. (shrink)

The document titled “14 points of Wilson” was announced by the President of the United States Woodrow Wilson in his speech addressed to the United States Congress on 8th January 1918. The speech is one of the most well known documents of the First World War as it touched upon several world issues. The text has been interpreted ever since in respect to the importance and real meaning of points formulated by Wilson. One of the points referred to Poland. The (...) aim of the paper is to focus on the exponents of deontic modality used in that text of historical value and to find the answer to the question concerning the deontic value of each point. The analysis will encompass the principles of deontic logic as well as the meaning of deontic modals in legal discourse at the time of speech delivery as those 14 points should be classified as a text belonging to legal genres. The aim of the paper is to present the historical background and the linguistic analysis in order to find out whether historical facts, interpretations and language used correspond with one another. (shrink)

Trivalence is quite natural for deontic action logic, where actions are treated as good, neutral or bad.We present the ideas of trivalent deontic logic after J. Kalinowski and its realisation in a 3-valued logic of M. Fisher and two systems designed by the authors of the paper: a 4-valued logic inspired by N. Belnap’s logic of truth and information and a 3-valued logic based on nondeterministic matrices. Moreover, we combine Kalinowski’s idea of trivalence with deontic action logic (...) based on boolean algebra. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between the ascription of value to an object and an assessment of conative attitudes taken towards that object. It argues that this relationship is captured by an a priori necessary truth that falls out of the mastery conditions for the concept of value: what has value is worth valuing, when valuing is understood to be a relatively stable conative attitude distinct from judging valuable. What kind of assessment of attitude is at stake? (...) How are we to understand the worth-relation that holds between an object and the attitude? It is argued that deontological, evaluative and alethic eluciations of the worth-relation are wrongheaded. We should be looking for a mind-world relation that marks a success in how the emotional and motivational energies integral to valuing are directed: a success that does not consist in meeting a deontic requirement, in exemplifying value, or in representing truly. (shrink)

Desires matter. How are we to understand the intentionality of desire? According to the two classical views, desire is either a positive evaluation or a disposition to act: to desire a state is to positively evaluate it or to be disposed to act to realize it. This Ph.D. Dissertation examines these conceptions of desire and proposes a deontic alternative inspired by Meinong. On this view, desiring is representing a state of affairs as what ought to be or, if one (...) prefers, as what should be. Desire involves a deontic manner of representing: a norm of the ought-to-be type features in desire’s intentional mode, as opposed to content. The dissertation is structured in three parts. In order to defend this conception, I formulate three main desiderata for a promising theory of the intentionality of desire in the introduction (§0). The first concerns desire’s direction of fit, i.e. the intuition that the world should conform to our desires. The second concerns the death of desire principle, i.e. the intuition that one cannot desire what one represents as actual. The last pertains to desire’s role in psychological explanations, i.e. the intuition that desires can explain some mental states and be explained by other mental states. The first part examines the main conceptions of desire in light of these desiderata. I argue that the classical pictures of desire do not adequately meet our desiderata. The first chapter is devoted to the evaluative conception (§1), while the second examines the motivational approach (§2). Following these criticisms, I then present the deontic view of desire (§3). In the second part, I defend this conception with the help of three arguments. The main idea is that appealing to norms of the ought-to-be type can satisfy our chief desiderata: the world should conform to norms (world-to-mind direction of fit, §4), norms are grounded on values and in turn ground obligations (explanation, §5), and norms are about non-actual states of affairs (death of desire principle, §6). In the last part, I develop the deontic view to draw a cartography of the various types of desire. Some desires are correct, while others are inappropriate. This distinction is explained by the deontic conception, as it matches that between states of affairs that ought to obtain and states that should not obtain (§7). Two study cases are examined: caprice and the impermissibility of desire aggregation. Intuitively, hopes, wishes, or urges are types of desire. The next chapter presents a typology inspired by the deontic view and the type of norms there are (§8). The last chapter discusses the main objections to the deontic approach (§9). In conclusion, I show the relevance of the deontic view for several debates in philosophy of mind and ethics. Desires are crucial because they are the ‘eye’ of what should be. (shrink)

In a recent paper, under the auspices of an unorthodox variety of bilateralism, we introduced a new kind of proof-theoretic semantics for the base modal logic \(\mathbf{K}\), whose values lie in the closed interval \([0,1]\) of rational numbers [14]. In this paper, after clarifying our conception of bilateralism – dubbed “soft bilateralism” – we generalize the fractional method to encompass extensions and weakenings of \(\mathbf{K}\). Specifically, we introduce well-behaved hypersequent calculi for the deontic logic \(\mathbf{D}\) and the non-normal modal (...) logics \(\mathbf{E}\) and \(\mathbf{M}\) and thoroughly investigate their structural properties. (shrink)

According to an attractive and widely held view, all practical reasons are explained in terms of the (instrumental or final) value of the action supported by the reason. I argue that this theory is incompatible with plausible assumptions about the practical reasons that correspond to certain moral rights, including the right to a promised action and the right to an exclusive use of one’s property. The argument is an explanatory rather than extensional one: while the actions supported by the (...) relevant reasons (e.g. keeping a valid promise or respecting property) can be argued to have a certain kind of value, I argue that this value presupposes a moral right, and therefore cannot explain the reason. Reflection on such cases suggest the conclusion that reasons that are subject to normative powers are generally not value-based. This also has important implications for the dialectic between ‘value-first’ and ‘reasons-first’ approaches to normativity. (shrink)

What’s the relation between values and reasons for action ? According to some all reasons are grounded in values. If one adds to this the thought that values themselves depend on non-evaluative or factual features of things, one gets what one can call after Jonathan Dancy the “layer-cake conception”. According to others, we should replace the layer-cake picture by what he calls the “buck-passing account of values” (Scanlon 1998). The main characteristic of this conception is that it denies that reasons (...) are grounded in values. This is not because some reasons would not be grounded in values. Rather, Scanlon’s claim is that values cannot ground reasons. I shall argue that Scanlon’s conception does not get things right: his account of values amounts in fact to a normative or deontic definition of the evaluative. (shrink)

According to the axiologist the value concepts are basic and the deontic concepts are derivative. This paper addresses two fundamental problems that arise for the axiologist. Firstly, what ought the axiologist o understand by the value of an act? Second, what are the prospects in principle for an axiological representation of moral theories. Can the deontic concepts of any coherent moral theory be represented by an agent-netural axiology: (1) whatever structure those concepts have and (2) whatever (...) the causal structure of the world happens to be. We show that the answer is "almost always". The only substantive constraint is that autonomous moral agents cannot have the power to simultaneously block the options open to other autonomous moral agents. But this seems to be part and parcel of the notion of an autonomous moral agent. (shrink)

This book has two main aims. First, it develops and defends a constitutive account of normative reasons as premises of good reasoning. This account says, roughly, that to be a normative reason for a response (such as a belief or intention) is to be premise of good reasoning, from fitting responses, to that response. Second, building on the account of reasons, it develops and defends a fittingness-first account of the structure of the normative domain. This account says that there is (...) a single normative property, fittingness, which is normatively basic, and on which all other normative properties depend. On this view, reasons, oughts, value, and other normative phenomena all ultimately depend on fittingness. The account of normative reasons is a part of this general view of the normative domain. The book begins, in chapter 1, by motivating the account of reasons as premises of good reasoning. Chapter 2 argues that good reasoning is, roughly, reasoning that preserves fittingness. Chapter 3 addresses the question of what fittingness is. Chapter 4 defends constitutive accounts of evaluative properties, like goodness, in terms of fitting attitudes. Chapters 5 and 6 shows how the view provides an attractive account of how reasons determine the deontic status of a response – whether you ought or may so respond. Chapter 7 addresses some challenges concerning certain reasons for belief, the relationship between reasons for action and reasons for intention, and reasons for emotion. (shrink)

The present article discusses Dietrich von Hildebrand’s theory of action as presented in his Die Idee der sittlichen Handlung, and focuses on the moral relevance Hildebrand assigns to diff erent kinds of motivations. The act of will which leads to a moral action, Hildebrand claims, can be “founded” or “motivated” in different ways and, in particular, it can be motivated by an act of cognizing or by an act of value-taking. The act of cognizing grasps the state of aff (...) airs that the action strives to bring about as a deontic state of aff airs, i.e., as a state of aff airs that ought to be. By contrast, the act of value-taking is primarily directed towards the values inhering in this state of aff airs. Although both kinds of motivations are morally sound, Hildebrand argues that the latter is preferable due to its vicinity to values and to its immediacy in the way in which it grasps values. In what follows, Hildebrand’s view is reconstructed, assessed and evaluated against the background of Adolf Reinach’s theory of intentionality. More specifically, two elements of Reinach’s thought are highlighted as being central for Hildebrand’s understanding of the notion of an action. First, it is argued that Hildebrand’s idea of the act of willing as a stance that can be founded either by an act of cognizing or by an act of presentation is developed in strict symmetry with Reinach’s view that conviction is a stance that can be founded by means of an identical mechanism. Secondly, it will be shown that Hildebrand adopts the notion of a state of affairs from Reinach. (shrink)

The present article provides a taxonomic analysis of bimodal logics of normative ideality and normative awfulness, two notions whose meaning is here explained in terms of the moral values pursued by a given community. Furthermore, the article addresses the traditional problem of a reduction among deontic concepts: we explore the possibility of defining other relevant normative notions, such as obligation, explicit permission and Hohfeldian relations, in terms of ideality and awfulness. Some proposals in this respect, which have been formulated (...) in the literature over the years, are here improved and discussed with reference to the various logics that we will introduce. (shrink)

Traditional moral theories appear to be unable to give a credible account of the relationship between deontic and axiological concepts, i.e. duty and value. Of the two traditional solutions to this problem, one emphasises the independence of the two realms, whereas Mill argues that duty is definable in terms of goodness. In this paper I present Meinong's Law of Omission which offers, in my opinion, a promising alternative to these two traditional views.

Traditional moral theories appear to be unable to give a credible account of the relationship between deontic and axiological concepts, i.e. duty and value. Of the two traditional solutions to this problem, one emphasises the independence of the two realms, whereas Mill argues that duty is definable in terms of goodness. In this paper I present Meinong's Law of Omission which offers, in my opinion, a promising alternative to these two traditional views.

Many have been attracted to the idea that for something to be good there just have to be reasons to favour it. This view has come to be known as the buck-passing account of value. According to this account, for pleasure to be good there need to be reasons for us to desire and pursue it. Likewise for liberty and equality to be values there have to be reasons for us to promote and preserve them. Extensive discussion has focussed (...) on some of the problems that the buck-passing account faces, such as the 'wrong kind of reason' problem. Less attention, however, has been paid as to why we should accept the buck-passing account or what the theoretical pay-offs and other implications of accepting it are. The Normative and the Evaluative provides the first comprehensive motivation and defence of the buck-passing account of value. Richard Rowland argues that the buck-passing account explains several important features of the relationship between reasons and value, as well as the relationship between the different varieties of value, in a way that its competitors do not. He shows that alternatives to the buck-passing account are inconsistent with important views in normative ethics, uninformative, and at odds with the way in which we should see practical and epistemic normativity as related. In addition, he extends the buck-passing account to provide an account of moral properties as well as all other normative and deontic properties and concepts, such as fittingness and ought, in terms of reasons. (shrink)

Using Leventhal’s (Social exchange: Advances in theory and research, Plenum Press, New York, 1980 ) rules of procedural justice as well as deontic justice (Folger in Research in social issues in management, Information Age, Greenwich, CT, 2001 ), we examine how personal value for diversity moderates the negative relationship between perceived discrimination against minorities (i.e., racial minorities and females) at work and the perceived procedural justice of minorities’ treatment by the organization. Through a field survey of 190 employees, (...) we found that observers high in personal value for diversity have stronger negative reactions to the mistreatment of women and racial minorities than observers low in personal value for diversity. These findings support and extend the deontic justice perspective because those who personally value diversity had the strongest negative reactions toward the discriminatory treatment of minorities. (shrink)

The paper argues that Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen’s fitting-attitude analysis of ‘good’ and ‘good for’ allows us to interpret and justify Kant’s Formula of Humanity (FH) in a constructive way. His classification of ‘good’ as a non-relational intrinsic final value and ‘good for’ as a relational extrinsic final value sheds light on two main features of FH, namely that it requires us to display a specific attitude to human beings, while also obligating us to recognize this value in the (...) relational dimension. Based on a reflection of what attitudes toward persons are fitting, we might well come to endorse that persons are “ends in themselves” and merit respect and recognition. I then argue (by way of an ethical reading of Kant’s demand to leave the state of nature and move to a rightful civil condition) that we have, in addition to a fitting attitude, deontic normative reasons (not mere pro tanto reasons) for making this very attitude toward persons the principal standard for our relations to others and to ourselves. (shrink)

This book has two main aims. First, it develops and defends a constitutive account of normative reasons as premises of good reasoning. This account says, roughly, that to be a normative reason for a response (such as a belief or intention) is to be premise of good reasoning, from fitting responses, to that response. Second, building on the account of reasons, it develops and defends a fittingness-first account of the structure of the normative domain. This account says that there is (...) a single normative property, fittingness, which is normatively basic, and on which all other normative properties depend. On this view, reasons, oughts, value, and other normative phenomena all ultimately depend on fittingness. The account of normative reasons is a part of this general view of the normative domain. The book begins, in Chapter 1, by motivating the account of reasons as premises of good reasoning. Chapter 2 argues that good reasoning is, roughly, reasoning that preserves fittingness. Chapter 3 addresses the question of what fittingness is. Chapter 4 defends constitutive accounts of evaluative properties, like goodness, in terms of fitting attitudes. Chapters 5 and 6 shows how the view provides an attractive account of how reasons determine the deontic status of a response—whether you ought or may so respond. Chapter 7 addresses some challenges concerning certain reasons for belief, the relationship between reasons for action and reasons for intention, and reasons for emotion. (shrink)