The irreducibility of personal obligation (Q975778)

The so-called Meinong-Chisholm Reduction (MCR) maintains that propositions of the ought-to-do, of personal obligation, are reducible to propositions of the ought-to-be, of impersonal obligations, that `\(s\) ought to \(\phi\)' is logically equivalent to `it ought to be that \(s\,\phi s\)'. This paper argues against this reduction. The argument is based on a number of examples that are supposed to show that MCR has unacceptable consequences. The examples are of the general type found in the familiar Contrary-to-Duty (C-t-D) paradoxes stemming from Chisholm's own work; here they turn on the obligations of a plurality of agents. The supposedly unacceptable consequences depend on certain principles commonly assumed for deontic logic, e.g., with `\(O\)' for impersonal oughts, that \(Op\,\&\,Oq\) entail \(O(p\,\&\, q)\), and conversely, or that if \(Op\) and \(p\) necessitates \(q\) then \(Oq\), etc., and how these principles preclude conflicts of obligation. The author does not consider whether the initial plausibility of MCR might itself count as a reason to question those principles. The author likewise does not consider whether the representation of the examples might suffer from the expressive limitations of the background deontic language, as revealed by other forms of C-t-D paradox. The discussion throughout is informal. The paper offers no account of the logic, if any, of statements of personal obligation, nor how such statements might be modelled. This makes it difficult to assess the import of the examples and the principles on which the conclusions depend. There are numerous lacunae in the References.