Nested deontic modalities: Another view of parking on highways
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Nested deontic modalities: Another view of parking on highways
zbMATH Open document ID: 0964.03022
DOI: 10.1023/A:1005463529426
author: Heinrich Wansing
published in: Erkenntnis
publication date: 2001-07-16T00:00:00Z
review text: An `agentive' sentence says that an agent \(\alpha\) sees to it that \(Q\), or in notation: \([\alpha\text{ dstit}:Q]\), for \(Q\) any declarative sentence. The stit-theory of Belnap, Horty, Bartha and others gives a precise semantics for such sentences. This paper presents deontic sentences as doubly agentive. Each concerns what an agent is obligated (forbidden, permitted) to do, and thus applies a deontic operator to an agentive sentence, and each represents an authority's issuing the norm expressed, and thus is itself an agentive sentence saying that the authority sees to it that the addressee ought (ought not, may) see to it that \(Q\). So, e.g., instead of saying simply `\(\gamma\) is forbidden to park' we should say `\(\beta\) forbids \(\gamma\) to park', or better, `\(\beta\) sees to it that \(\gamma\) is forbidden to park'. The complement clause is given an Andersonian-type analysis, and the whole becomes \([\beta\text{ dstit}: ([\gamma\text{ dstit}: P(\gamma)]\supset S_\gamma)]\), with \(S_\gamma\) representing a sanction applicable to \(\gamma\) as instituted by \(\beta\). Unlike other treatments of deontic modalities in stit-theory, by construing deontic statements as agentive, the present account can accommodate iterated, or nested, deontic modalities, e.g., `\(\beta\) ought to forbid \(\gamma\) to park'. Since this is understood as issuing from an authority \(\alpha\), it says that \(\alpha\) sees to it that \(\beta\) is obligated to see to it that \(\gamma\) is forbidden to park. With `obligated' also being analyzed in an Andersonian way, this becomes \([\alpha\text{ dstit}: (\neg[\beta\text{ dstit}: ([\gamma\text{ dstit}: P(\gamma)]\supset S_\gamma)]\supset S_\beta)]\). With judicious use of quantifiers, this approach extends to more general statements, such as `Parking ought to be forbidden'.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03B45
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03A05
zbMATH DE Number: 1523293
zbMATH Keywords: deontic logic
zbMATH Keywords: logic of agency
zbMATH Keywords: iterated deontic modalities
zbMATH Keywords: stit-theory
reviewed by: Louis F. Goble
MaRDI profile type: MaRDI publication profile
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description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1523293