Dynamic Foundations for Deontic Logic
Malte Willer · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2016
Abstract Several authors have observed that the tools and techniques developed within the field of nonmonotonic logic provide a fruitful framework for the theoretical study of deontic discourse and reasoning. The prominent sources of inspiration for the resulting work in deontic logic are the classical nonmonotonic analyses of reasoning with defeasible generalizations. But while the study of reasoning with defaults may help us understand the nature of prima facie obligations, it arguably does not generalize to address other major sources of nonmonotonicity in deontic discourse and reasoning: the violability of obligations and the sensitivity of obligations to epistemic uncertainty. In this chapter, Malte Willer argues that the tools and techniques developed within the field of dynamic semantics provide a more comprehensive foundation for deontic logic, the underlying observation being that the semantics of deontic ought is sensitive to the presence or absence of epistemic possibilities in discourse and reasoning.