Deontic logic is concerned with such normative concepts as obligation, permission, and prohibition. My talk will consist of two parts. In the first, I will introduce the field by discussing the most studied normative reasoning formalism, the so-called ``Standard Deontic Logic'' (SDL), as well as some of its open problems. In the second part of the talk, I will zoom in on one of these problems: how to draw inferences in the presence of normative conflicts. One prominent answer suggests restricting attention to maximally consistent subsets of the premise set. I will show how to turn this suggestion into a full-blown logic with a semantics and a proof-theory. I will conclude by discussing this logic's merits.
Skinner 1115
Department of Philosophy, Skinner Building, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7505
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