The End-Relational Theory of 'Ought' and the Weight of Reasons

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

In this paper, I develop a standard-relational theory of ‘ought’ and a nonHumean theory of reasons (oughtism). Together, they explain why ‘A ought to X’ entails not only that there are reasons for A to X, but also that the balance of reasons favours X-ing. The latter explanation depends on a theory of weight, in which the weight of a reason depends on the position of a rule (standard) in an order of priorities. The theories are truth conditional, but do not require objective normative facts for the truth of ‘ought’ judgments and judgments about reasons.

Ethics, 2009

2009

This paper advances a reductive semantics for ‘ought’ and a naturalistic theory of normativity. It gives a unified analysis of predictive, instrumental, and categorical uses of ‘ought’: the predictive ‘ought’ is basic, and is interpreted in terms of probability. Instrumental ‘oughts’ are analyzed as predictive ‘oughts’ occurring under an ‘in order that’ modifer (the end-relational theory). The theory is then extended to categorical uses of ‘ought’: it is argued that they are special rhetorical uses of the instrumental ‘ought’. Plausible conversational principles explain how this end-relational ‘ought’ can perform the expressive functions of the moral ‘ought’. The notion of an ‘ought-simpliciter’ is also discussed.

Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity, 2018

Here we focus on two questions: What is the proper semantics for deontic modal expressions in English? And what is the connection between true deontic modal statements and normative reasons? Our contribution towards thinking about the first, which makes up the bulk of our paper, considers a representative sample of recent challenges to a Kratzer-style formal semantics for modal expressions, as well as the rival views—Fabrizio Cariani’s contrastivism, John MacFarlane’s relativism, and Mark Schroeder’s ambiguity theory—those challenges are thought to motivate. These include the Professor Procrastinate challenge to Inheritance (the principle that ‘If ought  and  entails , then ought ), as well as Parfit’s miners puzzle regarding information-sensitive deontic modals. Here we argue that a Kratzer-style view is able to meet all of the challenges we’ll consider. In addition, we’ll identify challenges for each of those rival views. Our overall conclusion is that a Kratzer-style semantics remains the one to beat. With this assumption in place, we then ask how we should understand the relationship between true deontic modal statements and normative reasons. Should, for example, we hold that the truth of such a statement entails the existence of a normative reason for some agent to comply? Here we argue that, in many cases, acceptance of Kratzer’s semantics for deontic modals leaves open for substantive normative theorizing the question of whether an agent has a normative reason to comply with what she ought to do.

Deontic Modality, 2016

This essay offers an account of the truth conditions of sentences involving deontic modals like 'ought', designed to capture the difference between objective and subjective kinds of 'ought' This account resembles the classical semantics for deontic logic: according to this account, these truths conditions involve a function from the world of evaluation to a domain of worlds (equivalent to a so-called "modal base"), and an ordering of the worlds in such domains; this ordering of the worlds itself arises from two further elementsa probability function and a value functionsince this ordering ranks the worlds in accordance with the expected value of certain propositions that are true at those worlds. Thus, a proposition of the form 'Ought (p)' is true at a world of evaluation w if and only if p is true at all the top-ranked worlds in the domain assigned to w. This domain of worlds consists of metaphysically possible worlds, while the probability function is defined over a space of epistemically possible worlds (which may include metaphysically impossible worlds, such as worlds where Hesperus is not Phosphorus). Evidence is given that this account assigns the correct truth conditions to a wide range of sentences involving 'ought'. Since these truth conditions involve both a domain of metaphysically possible worlds and a space of epistemically possible worlds, there are two corresponding kinds of conditional involving 'ought', depending on which space of worlds is restricted by the conditional. Finally, some objections that might be raised against this account are answered.

Studia Philosophiae Christianae, 2019

Joanna klIMczyk 'oUgHt', ownersHip and agentiVe oUgHt: reMarKs on tHe seMantic Meaning of 'indexed oUgHt' Abstract. Bernard Williams in his essay Ought and moral obligation (OMO) takes a stand on the proper logical interpretation of 'ought' sentences. He claims that ought being central to ethical reflection, that is, ought issuing personal requirements to agents, is to be interpreted like any ordinary 'ought'-as a propositional operator that is not indexed to a person. The driving idea behind Williams's logical point about 'ought' seems to be that logical interpretation of 'ought' sentences with moral content in terms of indexed ought lacks semantic significance. John Broome disagrees. In a series of his recent writings devoted to an analysis of the notion of normative ought, he defends the view opposite to the one fostered by Williams. According to Broome, indexation of 'ought' to agent matters for extra-logical reasons; it is a way of exhibiting that ought has its normative owner, which in turn is important for determining the holder of responsibility for the ought in question. In the paper I argue that Broome may be right, but his arguments do not show that fact. In particular, I claim that he is wrong in thinking that indexation in terms of ownership is useful in the analysis of 'ought' sentences with agentive content, and thus nicely applies to moral ought being a paradigmatic example of such sentences. According to my diagnosis, Broome's positive view about the semantic and ethical significance of interpreting agentive ought as indexed ought, suffers from one central problem. It alludes to an unsuccessful substantive semantics of 'indexed ought' that fails to give an accurate explanation of the meaning of the ought in question. I conclude the paper by offering an alternative to Broome's substantive semantics of 'indexed ought' , and explain why I think that it fares better in capturing the nature of the agentive ought.

Every adequate semantics for conditionals and deontic "ought" must offer a solution to the miners paradox about conditional obligations. Kolodny and MacFarlane have recently argued that such a semantics must reject the validity of modus ponens. I demonstrate that rejecting the validity of modus ponens is inessential for an adequate solution to the paradox

I motivate and characterize an intensional semantics for ‘ought’ on which it does not behave as a universal quantifier over possibilities. My motivational argument centers on taking at face value some standard challenges to the quantificational semantics, especially to the idea that ‘ought’-sentences satisfy the principle of Inheritance. I argue that standard pragmatic approaches to these puzzles are either not sufficiently detailed or unconvincing.

Noûs, 1974

This paper is the beginning of an explication of the "normative-descriptive" or "ought-is" distinction by way of the notion that our knowledge of other minds is the result of our imposition of constraints on the interpretation of events as actions by agents. My hope is that a general theory of rationality and the normative can be derived from an examination of the constraints it is rational to impose on agent-interpretation, i.e., of the fundamental knowledge we have of persons as persons. My attempt at an explication of the "ought-is" distinction takes the following form: I want to find an absolutely general way of determining when "ought"-sentences are true. Since the extensions of the account given below to interesting cases of "ought"-sentences such as moral and prudential cases depend on relatively complicated constraints on agent-interpretation,l this paper will deal only with the simplest case of "ought"-sentences, the "logical ought". If logic is thought of as a normative science of belief, it yields one of the simplest cases of the "normative-descriptive" dichotomy. By the "logical ought" I understand what might be called consequences of the canons of obedience to the laws of thought. An instance of such an "ought" occurs in "If you believe that frogs are green, you ought to believe that anything that's not green is not a frog." The "logical ought" is, as it were, the minimal rational "ought", the one that prescribes closure of belief under logical consequence and proscribes inconsistency of belief. It should be pointed out that the principles of the "logical ought" often come into conflict with other canons of rationality, just as principles of moral "oughts" come into conflict with each other. The example above is surely true even if NOUS 8 (1974) ?) 1974 by Indiana University 233

Studia Philosophiae Christianae, 2018

Bernard Williams in his essay Ought and moral obligation (OMO) takes a stand on the proper logical interpretation of ‘ought’ sentences. He claims that ought being central to ethical reflection, that is, ought issuing personal requirements to agents, is to be interpreted like any ordinary ‘ought’ – as a propositional operator that is not indexed to a person. The driving idea behind Williams’s logical point about ‘ought’ seems to be that logical interpretation of ‘ought’ sentences with moral content in terms of indexed ought lacks semantic significance. John Broome disagrees. In a series of his recent writings devoted to an analysis of the notion of normative ought, he defends the view opposite to the one fostered by Williams. According to Broome, indexation of ‘ought’ to agent matters for extra-logical reasons; it is a way of exhibiting that ought has its normative owner, which in turn is important for determining the holder of responsibility for the ought in question. In the paper I argue that Broome may be right, but his arguments do not show that fact. In particular, I claim that he is wrong in thinking that indexation in terms of ownership is useful in the analysis of ‘ought’ sentences with agentive content, and thus nicely applies to moral ought being a paradigmatic example of such sentences. According to my diagnosis, Broome’s positive view about the semantic and ethical significance of interpreting agentive ought as indexed ought, suffers from one central problem. It alludes to an unsuccessful substantive semantics of ‘indexed ought’ that fails to give an accurate explanation of the meaning of the ought in question. I conclude the paper by offering an alternative to Broome’s substantive semantics of ‘indexed ought’, and explain why I think that it fares better in capturing the nature of the agentive ought.