IMPERATIVE CHANGE AND OBLIGATION TO DO.pdfVIP

BERISLAV ?ARNI? Imperative change and obligation to do In: Krister Segerberg and Rysiek Sliwinski (eds.) Logic, Law, Morality: Thirteen Essays in Practical Philosophy in Honour of Lennart ?qvist. pp. 79-95. Uppsala philosophical studies 51 Uppsala: Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University 2003. IMPERATIVE CHANGE AND OBLIGATION TO DO Berislav ?arni? The aim of this paper is to provide a solution for the problem (quoted below) posed by von Wright. Let ‘(A/B)’ stand for1 ‘a change from initial state A to resulting state B occurs (will occur)’ How is it possible that it is obligatory that an agent performs an action that makes (?A/A) come true while it is forbidden that s/he performs an action that makes (A/A) true? Let “p” stand for “the window is closed”. This state can result from two different actions of a given agent. One is the act of closing the window if it is open. The other is the act of preventing the window from opening should that happen if the agent stays passive. The first action produces a state which is not there. The second prevents a state which is there from vanishing. The two actions may have different “deontic status”. For example: closing the window, if open, may be obligatory, but preventing it from being open, should it be closed, may in fact be forbidden. (von Wright, 1999, p. 18) We will try to approach the problem following the idea that imperative logic has a natural connection with deontic logic. Intuitively, by uttering an imperative the “imperator” makes an action obligatory or forbidden for the addressee. The plan of the paper is as follows. First, we will try to find a solution using Lemmons (1965) system of change logic connecting logic of orders being in force and deontic logic. Second, we will analyze Aqvists (1965) approach to the problem of connecting imperative and deontic logic. Third, commanded change/prescribed actions approach to the semantics of imperatives (