The deliberative stit: A study of action, omission, ability, and obligation (Q1908789)

The paper specifies a modal semantics for a seeing-to-it-that operator dstit. Roughly, \(a\text{ dstit } A\) is true at a moment of some history iff (i) \(A\) is true in every history passing through the moment, compatible with the choice made by \(a\) at that time; and (ii) there are other histories passing through that moment at which \(A\) is not true. It compares this operator with other stit operators to be found in the literature, notably that of Belnap [see, e.g., \textit{N. Belnap} and \textit{M. Perloff}, ``Seeing to it that: a canonical form for agentives'', Theoria 54, 175-199 (1988)]. It also discusses the conceptual connections of such operators with many other related notions, including refraining, ability and obligation; and the appropriate stit-semantics incorporating such notions. A technical appendix establishes that a stit-semantics where obligation is relativised to an agent is equivalent (in a certain well-defined sense) to one where it is not.