Abstract
1. In deontic logic, we must be able to discuss various predicates or attributes (properties and relations) of (human) acts. As place-holders for expressions denoting such predicates, we shall in this paper use the uppercase letters A, B, C, …, Q, R, …. The reader may think of them as standing for some (unspecified) properties and relations of human acts. It is important to realize, and to keep in mind, that these letters do not represent individual acts, but stand for certain general characteristics of such act-individuals (or for general characteristics of n-tuples of such individual acts).
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Notes
The main difference between the distinction (43)–(45) and the earlier distinction, deontic consequence vs. logical consequence, is of course that neither (43) nor (44) has to be true for logical (conceptual reasons, whereas the latter distinction dealt with two kinds of logical (conceptual) connections between statements.
The primary sources of this distinction in recent moral philosophy are the writings of Sir David Ross, especially The Right and the Good, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1930, and The Foundations of Ethics, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1939.
John R. Searle, ‘How to Derive Ought from Is’, Philosophical Review 73 (1964) 43–58, reprinted in Jerry H. Gill (ed.), Philosophy To-Day no. 1, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1968, pp. 218-235, and in Philippa Foot (ed.), Theories of Ethics, Oxford Readings in Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1968, pp. 101-114.
A case in point is the following: Searle says that the kind of criticism I just presented is in any case inconclusive, “for we can always rewrite the relevant steps … so that they include the ceteris paribus clause as part of the conclusion.” 106-120
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© 1970 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Hintikka, J. (1970). Some Main Problems of Deontic Logic. In: Hilpinen, R. (eds) Deontic Logic: Introductory and Systematic Readings. Synthese Library, vol 33. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3146-2_3
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