Abstract
Within the standard system there are two different kinds of application of connectives, between which we have not distinguished by means of different symbols: on the one hand there are connectives in the norm-contents, rendering the norm-contents compound instead of elementary (internal connectives), on the other hand there are connectives, connecting elementary normative judgements so that compound normative judgements result (external connectives). In this chapter I will consider connectives in the norm-content. In the next chapter I will discuss the only external connective which sometimes causes difficulties, the negation.
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Notes
McLaughlin, 1955, p.400–402.
Von Wright, 1956, p.508.
Von Wright, 1956, p.508.
Ross, 1968, p.143,144.
Cf. Ross, 1968, p.141. Ross does, however, not profess this respect for ‘common sense’ in the context which is at issue here, but in discussing authors in whose opinion deontic logic is impossible.
Cf. the table of the internal deontic negation, in Ross, 1968, p.151.
Ross, 1968, p.154.
Hare, 1967–2, in Hare, 1971, p.37 ff.; see also section IV.5.
Ross, 1968, p.150.
Ross, 1941, p.62.
Ross, 1968, p.159.
Ross, 1968, p.160.
Cf. the tables in Ross, 1968, p.160.
Ross, 1968, p.161. I add that a reasoning with incompatible premisses is formally valid in logic, though not ‘sound’ as the premisses are false.
Cf. Von Wright, 1968, p.21, 22 and 26. ‘Weak’ and ‘strong’ do not only apply to the disjunction in the norm-content. It aims at the meaning of the P-operator in relation to every norm-content. The weak permission Pp only means that there is at least one permitted way to substantiate the norm-content p (cf. section V.9). The strong permission Pp, however, means that all ways to substantiate p are permitted (Pp is equivalent with P((p&q)v(p&-q)), which means that P(p&q) as well as P(p&-q) follows from the strong Pp). In 1981–1, p.417 (after having discussed, on p.416, a ‘relaxed’ attitude towards Ross’ paradox, which I discussed in section VI.5) Von Wright advocates a strong reading of ‘one ought (is permitted) to p or to q’. The argument he brings forward is: if I am ordered to p or to q and if I cannot be certain that both acts are permitted, then one of the acts may be prohibited, and I would run the risk that, in doing my duty, I would do something which is prohibited (a situation which cannot arise with Ross’ paradox, as in that situation I am ordered to p and can only infer that I am under an obligation to p or to q). In my opinion this argument is not very convincing: it usually is the case that if one is ordered to p, there are many ways to perform p which are not permitted (cf. McLaughlin’s example in IV.2). In Von Wright’s 1981 system of deontic logic (which differs from his 1968 system) the permission to p entails the permission to p and to q. This general feature of ‘strong permission’ is discussed below.
Von Wright, 1968, p.26.
Von Wright, 1968, p.26.
Von Wright, 1968, p.33.
Von Wright, 1968, p.33,34.
Von Wright, 1963, p.181.
Weinberger, 1970, p.94 ff.
Weinberger himself writes ‘if -p then ought -q’: he does not use the implication symbol ‘to avoid the problem of the undefined or defectively defined use of “⊃” with normative arguments’ and he also avoids ‘to put forward norm-sentences as arguments to truth-functional connectives, as this seems to be not permitted conceptually’ (1973, p.285, 286). In my opinion this is a weak argument: if 4 cannot be formulated in a (possibly broadened) standard system then Weinberger’s example cannot be brought against the standard system either. It would then have sufficed for Weinberger to remark that in his opinion the standard system does not contain possibilities for the formulation of conditional norms and the question whether the standard system provides an adequate reconstruction of our normative reasoning is then only relevant insofar as it concerns reasoning with unconditional norms. In order to regard Weinberger’s example as criticism of the standard system, ‘if -p then ought -q’ therefore has to be reconstructed in a WFF of the standard system.
Von Wright, 1951–1, p.4.
Von Wright, 1956, p.508, 509.
Prior, 1954, p.64, 65.
Prior, 1973 (first printed in 1955), p.224.
Cf. with regard to this argument as well as with regard to the following, Von Wright, 1965, in Hilpinen, 1971, p.108, 109. However, in 1981–1, p.411 ff. Von Wright withdraws his former opinion and argues that (external) material implication is adequate for formalizing conditional norms. The objection to this view which was based on the tautology -pi ⊃ (p ⊃ Oq) he now considers ‘not serious’: ‘the formula says ... that either it is the case that p or that -p or that it ought to be the case that q. This is a trivial truth of propositional logic ... ’(p.412). I agree with these last remarks: the formula, as such, is harmless. The question is, however, whether it is equally harmless to interpret its well-known part ‘p ⊃ Oq’ as a commitment. Nevertheless I do not consider this first problem decisive: it merely raises a few doubts. The second problem, which will be discussed in the next paragraph in the text, I consider far more serious. Von Wright, however, makes no reference at all to this problem in his 1981 publication.
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© 1989 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Soeteman, A. (1989). The Norm-Content of the Standard System. In: Logic in Law. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7821-9_6
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