Abstract
To attack the sophists’ conception of weakness of will, Aristotle cites Sophocles’ (Aristotle, 335B.C., Philoctetes VII, 2, 1146a19). Philoctetes had wandered into a forbidden garden, through no fault of his own, and had been punished by the gods with a disfiguring disease. Banishing him to a remote island, they had taken everything from him but his bow. As the play opens, the gods reveal to Odysseus that only that bow can win the Trojan War. So, Odysseus orders Neoptolemus to trick Philoctetes out of his bow.
This paper was presented at the 1993 meeting of the Society for Exact Philosophy at York University. We would like to thank Marvin Belzer, Robert Koons, Barry Loewer, Paul McNamara, Michael Morreau, Donald Nute, and the rest of the audience for their helpful criticisms and remarks. We owe added and special thanks to Michael Morreau, who has taught us much in discussions over the past several years, and to several anonymous referees.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Aristotle (1962) Nicomachean Ethics, Translated by Martin Ostwald, New York: Macmillian Publishing Company.
Asher N., and Morreau, M. (1991). Common sense entailment: A modal theory of nonmonotonic reasoning, Proceedings of the 12th IJCAI. San Mateo, Morgan Kaufmann, 387–392.
Asher N., and Morreau, M. (1995) What some generic sentences mean, In J. Pelletier (ed.), The Generic Book. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pages 300–338.
Bonevac, D. (1991). Ethical impressionism: A response to Braybrooke. Social Theory and Practice 17: 157–173.
Bonevac, D., and Seung, T.K. (1988). Conflict in Practical Reasoning. Philosophical Studies 53: 315–345.
Castaneda, H.N. (1985). Aspectual Actions and Davidson’s Theory of Events. In LePore, E., and McLaughlin, B.P. (eds.), Aspects and Events, Blackwell, Oxford.
Castafieda, H.N. (1986). Obligations, aspectual actions, and circumstances. Philosophical Papers 15: 155–170.
Chisholm, R. (1963). Contrary-to-duty imperatives and deontic logic. Analysis 24: 33–36.
Chisholm, R. (1964). The Ethics of requirement. American Philosophical Quarterly 1: 147–153.
Conee, E. (1982). Against moral dilemmas. Philosophical Review 91: 87–97.
Duncan, M.L. (1982). The future of affermative action: A jurisprudential/legal critique. Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review 17.
Foot, R (1983). Moral realism and moral dilemmas. Journal of Philosophy 80: 379–398.
Forrester, J. (1984). Gentle murder, or the adverbial samaritan. The Journal of Philosophy 81: 193–197.
Frankena, W. (1973). Ethics. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs.
Goble, L. (1990). A logic of good, should and would, part I. Journal of Philosophical Logic 19: 169–200.
Goble, L. (1990). A logic of good, should and would, part II. Journal of Philosophical Logic 19: 253–276.
Goble, L. (1990). Murder most gentile: The paradox deepens. Philosophical Studies 64: 217–227.
Greenspan, R (1975). Conditional ought and hypothetical imperatives. The Journal of Philosophy 72: 259–276.
Horty, J. (1994). Moral dilemmas and nonmonotonic logic. Journal of Philosophical Logic 23:35–65.
Horty, J. (1993). Deontic logic as founded on nonmonotonic logic. Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence 9: 69–91.
Jones, A. J. I. (1991). On the Logic of Deontic Conditionals. Ratio Juris 4: 355–66.
Kant, I. (1785). Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Lewis White Beck, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianaplolis, (1959).
Lewis, D. (1973). Counterfactuals. Harvard University Press.
Lewis, D. (1974). Semantical analysis for dyadic deontic logic. In Stenlund, S. (ed.), Logical Theory and Semantic Analysis. K. Reidel, Dordrecht, pages 1–14.
Loewer, B., and Belzer, M. (1983). Dyadic deontic detachment. Synthese 54: 295–318.
Loewer, B., and Belzer, M. (1986). Help for the good samaritan paradox. Philosophical Studies 50: 117–28.
Marcus, R. B. (1966). Iterated deontic modalities. Mind 75: 580–81.
Marcus, R. B. (1980). Moral dilemmas and consistency. Journal of Philosophy 77: 121–136.
Mill, J. S. (1861). Utilitarianism. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, (1979).
Morreau, M. (1992). Conditionals in Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence. PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam.
Nagel, T. (1979). The frangmentation of value. In Mortal Questions. Cambridge University Press.
Nickle, J. (1975). Preferential policies in hiring and admissions: A jurisprudential approach. Columbia Law Review 75: 534.
Pietroski, P. (1993). Prima facie obligations, ceteris paribus laws in moral theory. Ethics 103: 489–515.
Pope, A. (1733). An essay on man. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, (1970).
Reiter, R. (1980). A logic for default reasoning. Artificial Intelligence 13: 81–132.
Ryle, G. (1931). Systematically misleading expressions. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 32: 139–170.
Ross, W. D. (1930). The Right and the Good. Oxford University Press.
Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (1985). A solution to forrester’s paradox of gentle murder. Journal of Philosophy 82.
Taylor, P. (1973). Reverse discriminiation and compensatory justice. Analysis 33: 177.
Thomason, F. (1981). Deontic logic as founded on tense logic. In Hilpinen, R. (ed.), New Studies in Deontic Logic. D. Reidel, Dordrecht.
Thomason, E (1981). Deontic logic and the role of freedom in moral deliberation. In Hilpinen, R. (ed.), New Studies in Deontic Logic. D. Reidel, Dordrecht.
van Frassen, B. C. (1972). The logic of conditional obligation. The Journal of Philosophical Logic 1: 417–438.
van Frassen, B. C. (1973). Values and the heart’s command. Jorunal of Philosophy 70: 5–19.
von Wright, G. H. (1951). Deontic logic. Mind 60: 1–15.
Williams, B. (1973). Ethical consistency. In Problems of the Self, Cambridge University Press, New York, 199–186.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Asher, N., Bonevac, D. (1997). Common Sense Obligation. In: Nute, D. (eds) Defeasible Deontic Logic. Synthese Library, vol 263. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8851-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8851-5_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4874-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-8851-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive