Obligation and the conditional in stit theory
The discussion of conditional obligations is an intricate issue in deontic logic. Do we use modus ponens to derive obligation statements from conditional obligation statements (B, (B implies Oblg:A) / Oblg:A) or do we argue as follows: B, Oblg:(B implies A) / Oblg:A? The author investigates the issue of conditions under which the latter type of argument is valid in the context of a particular deontic logic based on Belnap, Perloff and Xu's stit theory (seeing-to-it-that theory) of agency. Necessary and sufficient conditions on X in the inference X, Oblg:[a stit: (B implies A)] / Oblg:[a stit: A] are developed. This is a significant and illuminating contribution to the discussion of problems related to the formalization of conditional obligations.
scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1901331