Boulesic Logic, Deontic Logic and the Structure of a Perfectly Rational Will

Abstract

In this paper, I will discuss boulesic and deontic logic and the relationship between these branches of logic. By 'boulesic logic,' or 'the logic of the will,' I mean a new kind of logic that deals with 'boulesic' concepts, expressions, sentences, arguments and systems. I will concentrate on two types of boulesic expression: 'individual x wants it to be the case that' and 'individual x accepts that it is the case that.' These expressions will be symbolised by two sentential operators that take individuals and sentences as arguments and give sentences as values. Deontic logic is a relatively well-established branch of logic. It deals with normative concepts, sentences, arguments and systems. In this paper, I will show how deontic logic can be grounded in boulesic logic. I will develop a set of semantic tableau systems that include boulesic and alethic operators, possibilist quantifiers and the identity predicate; I will then show how these systems can be augmented by a set of deontic operators. I use a kind of possible world semantics to explain the intended meaning of our formal systems. Intuitively, we can think of our semantics as a description of the structure of a perfectly rational will. I mention some interesting theorems that can be proved in our systems, including some versions Daniel Rönnedal Organon F 27 (2) 2020: 187-262 of the so-called hypothetical imperative. Finally, I show that all systems that are described in this paper are sound and complete with respect to their semantics.

Quantified Temporal Alethic Boulesic Doxastic Logic

“…The results in this paper build on the author's previous work on (non-temporal) doxastic logic[89] and (non-temporal) boulesic logic[91]. See also[88,90].…”

“…Boulesic logic, 'the logic of the will', is a new kind of logic. It is introduced by [91] and deals with 'boulesic' attitudes such as wanting and accepting or consenting. Every system includes five boulesic operators W, A, R, I and N , five sentential operators that take individual terms and formulas as arguments and generate formulas as values.…”

“…For an introduction to various philosophical views on rationality, see, for example [75]. For reasons why we should be interested in boulesic logic, see [91].…”