A Math-Philosophical Approach to Deontic Concepts

Ilaria Canavotto (LMU/MCMP) gives a talk at the Workshop on Five Years MCMP: Quo Vadis, Mathematical Philosophy? (2-4 June, 2016) titled "A Math-Philosophical Approach to Deontic Concepts". Abstract: The aim of this talk is to present relevant open lines of research in deontic logic, especially in deontic logic of actions (ought-to-do logic), so as to provide evidence of the potential that mathematical philosophy has in the analysis of prescriptive concepts. I will do this by first making explicit what I take mathematical philosophy to be, at least ideally. I will then consider to what extent dynamic deontic logic (DDL) approaches the proposed model, and suggest that DDL represents a promising starting point to further investigate themes and address problems which are central both to action logic and deontic logic, including the distinction between action and ability, the characterization of a proper notion of action negation and the problem of accounting for normative conflicts without incurring in a trivialization of the system.