Nested deontic modalities: Another view of parking on highways (Q1583744)

An `agentive' sentence says that an agent \(\alpha\) sees to it that \(Q\), or in notation: \([\alpha\text{ dstit}:Q]\), for \(Q\) any declarative sentence. The stit-theory of Belnap, Horty, Bartha and others gives a precise semantics for such sentences. This paper presents deontic sentences as doubly agentive. Each concerns what an agent is obligated (forbidden, permitted) to do, and thus applies a deontic operator to an agentive sentence, and each represents an authority's issuing the norm expressed, and thus is itself an agentive sentence saying that the authority sees to it that the addressee ought (ought not, may) see to it that \(Q\). So, e.g., instead of saying simply `\(\gamma\) is forbidden to park' we should say `\(\beta\) forbids \(\gamma\) to park', or better, `\(\beta\) sees to it that \(\gamma\) is forbidden to park'. The complement clause is given an Andersonian-type analysis, and the whole becomes \([\beta\text{ dstit}: ([\gamma\text{ dstit}: P(\gamma)]\supset S_\gamma)]\), with \(S_\gamma\) representing a sanction applicable to \(\gamma\) as instituted by \(\beta\). Unlike other treatments of deontic modalities in stit-theory, by construing deontic statements as agentive, the present account can accommodate iterated, or nested, deontic modalities, e.g., `\(\beta\) ought to forbid \(\gamma\) to park'. Since this is understood as issuing from an authority \(\alpha\), it says that \(\alpha\) sees to it that \(\beta\) is obligated to see to it that \(\gamma\) is forbidden to park. With `obligated' also being analyzed in an Andersonian way, this becomes \([\alpha\text{ dstit}: (\neg[\beta\text{ dstit}: ([\gamma\text{ dstit}: P(\gamma)]\supset S_\gamma)]\supset S_\beta)]\). With judicious use of quantifiers, this approach extends to more general statements, such as `Parking ought to be forbidden'.