Wertgyukijh

Some Nasty Problems in the Formal Logic of Ethics
Author(s): Alan Ross Anderson

Source: Noûs, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Dec., 1967), pp. 345-360
Published by: Wiley
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SomeNasty Problemsin the
FormalLogic of Ethics
ALAN Ross ANDERSON

UNIVERSITY OF PrITSBURGH
In a number of papers written over the past six or seven

years,' I have tried to defend, from two points of view, the fol-
lowing thesis:
If a set of rules states or implies that it is obligatory that a
certain state-of-affairsp obtain, and if in fact p does not
obtain, then the set of rules in question has been violated.
Or, put less ponderously:
When a rule says you are supposed to do something, and
you don't do it, that means you've broken that rule.
The thesis so put sounds innocuous enough, but such is the
perversity of my professional colleagues and critics2 (the two
collections being almost, if not exactly, coextensive) that argu-
ments on the matter seem to be required. These I have attempted
to provide, as I said, from two points of view: firstly that of a
philosopher of ethics or law, and secondly that of a formal logi-
cian. The main purpose of the present paper is to consider some
problems in the formal logic of the matter, but I will first devote
a few paragraphsto the philosophical issues involved, since (if
experienceis to be relied on) these are the aspects of the problem
likely to generate the most confusion. (I shall try to indicate
later that the formal logic also yields a measure of befuddlement-
but of a different kind.)
1 See especially Anderson 1956, 1958a, and 1958b (in the bibliography
below).
2 See Berg 1960, Castanfeda1959, Chisholm 1963, Fisher 1962, Lemmon
and Nowell-Smith 1960, Prior 1958, Rescher 1962, or Rickman 1963.
345

346 NOUS
The leading idea behind the suggestion that

it is obligatory that p
can be taken to mean
if not-p, then V
(where V is some bad state-of-affairs)lies in the fact that this
sort of reasoning is involved in many common justificationsof
"ought'-statements.
As I have mentioned elsewhere,3 when someone is told
that he ought to do something, and asks why, the reply very
often has the form: "Well, if you don't, then . . . ," where the
lacuna is filled in with a descriptionof some state-of-affairswhich
the questioner is expected to recognize as bad. When, for ex-
ample, I tell my children that it is time to go to bed, and they
ask why, I usually begin by talking about how they will feel
the next day, the general deleterious effect on the health which
attends insufficientrest, and the like. And if, after a prolonged
argument, the final appeal is to the argumentum ad baculum,
I can at least assuage my logical conscience with the thought
that I have committed only a material fallacy. The point is that
I have described an undesirable consequence relevant to their
failing in their duty-and in this case, anyway, it usually does
the trick.
And I think probably in other cases as well. Imagine a con-
versation as follows:
A: You know, you ought to do p.
B: Really? Why? Suppose I don't; then what?
A: Oh, nothing. It doesn't really make any difference.
Still, you ought to do it.
B: But why? Do you mean that nothing will go wrong
if I don't follow your advice? Isn't it even true that if I fail
to do p that I won't have fulfilled my (alleged) obligation?
And isn't that bad?
A: (dispiritedly) No.
The stupefactionoccasioned by this conversationlies, I sub-
mit, in the fact that it is analytic of the notion of obligation that
person 1958b.

SOME NASTY PROBLEMS IN THE FORMAL LOGIC OF ETHICS 347
if an obligation is not fulfilled, then something has gone wrong.

Just what has gone wrong, I will leave to you to decide (since,
as I mentioned earlier, I want to talk here about logic, rather
than ethics or law). But something must go wrong, if obligations
are not met, and for the rest of this philosophicalprologue I will
try to describe a minimal "bad thing" which might do the trick
for the logical purposes at hand.
Let us suppose that we are interested in behavior which is
rule-governed, where our rules involve obligations, permissions,
prohibitions, and the like. Where, in our culture, could we look
for the nicest, neatest, purest, cleanest manifestation of these
ideas? There is a sociological tradition, going back to Georg
Simmel, which provides us with an answer to this question: the
nifty examples of "pure"rule-governedbehavior are to be found
in "the play-forms of sociation,"4elegant examples of which are
social games: checkers, chess, g6, Monopoly, kalah, and so on.
These rules, unlike our legal or moral maxims, are unambiguous
in statement, and have no vaguenesses in applications.And there
are two aspects of social games which make them extremely at-
tractive from the point of view I have been trying to outline.
(1) It is perfectly clear what the "bad thing" is. The only
bad thing about opening a chess game with
White: P-KR6
is that such a move is forbidden by the rules. If, that is, one
wants to play chess, one had better obey the rules of the game;
else one is defeating one's purpose. Otherwise put, in saying that
the opening move mentioned above is forbidden, one is saying
simply that if one makes such a move, one is violating the rules:
if (P-KR6), then V.
(2) It is equally perfectly clear that no standard chess
manual explicitly precludes making such an opening move. Rather,
it follows from the rules in such a chess manual that this move is
forbidden. And these rules of logical consequence are just as
strong and hardheaded as anyone could want. We don't in fact
have endless argumentsabout what the rules for chess allow; the
consequence relation is perfectly clear to us all.
I have mentioned that in social games we have no difficulty
'See Simmel 1917 (1950 in English), especially pp. 45 ff.; and for a
more recent study of similar ideas, Anderson and Moore 1960.

348 NOeS
in knowing what "bad thing" violation of the rules leads to: it

leads to a violation of the rules. And I have mentioned that our
reasonings in these particulars are subject to the same sort of
inter-subjective agreement as is honorifically given to logic as
applied in the sciences. Whether these considerationscarry over
nicely into more serious concerns (Health, Education, Welfare-
State, Treasury,War, . . . and the rest of the cabinet) may be
moot. But for present purposes I would like to ask you to enter-
tain the possibility that they do, and that there is some appro-
priate sense in which to say
you ought to do p,
has the same force as saying
if you don't do p, then V,
where V describes something we don't like (violating some set
of -rules,even if only the rules of a game).
II
The principal logical question I would like to consider is
the following: what sense of "if ... then--" does justice to the
felt intuitions described above? Several suggestions come to mind,
and what I shall do first is to discount a number of wrong an-
swers, before giving you the right one.
a) The "leading idea" I mentioned above was first put
forward by Herbert Bohnert, in 1945.5 Like many of us, Bohnert
was at that time laboring under a delusion to the effect that
material "implication":
Pq
could sensibly be interpreted as an implication relation. Accord-
ingly, he suggested that "it ought to be the case that p" could be
interpreted as
P :D V,
where again V represents the "bad thing." But of course this
won't do, since from
_p
5 See Bohnert 1945.

we can infer trivially
Fvv,
hence,
pD V.
So that from the fact that p, on this interpretationof "if . . .

then--," we could infer f D V, i.e., Op; which would mean
that anything that happens ought to happen, in defiance of what
we all recognize as la condition humaine.6
The difficulty of course stems from the supposition that
V V can be interpreted as meaning (or "implying,"as it does
intuitionistically) that if p. then V. In the light of some recent
literature on this topic,7 I hope we can all agree that such a
supposition should really occasion nothing more than general
laughter.
b) But it still seems that Bohnert's intuitions concerning
the relation between obligation and rule-violation have some
merit. It was in an attempt to salvage such intuitions that I pro-
posed several years ago to regard "it is obligatory that p" as
meaning "failure of p strictly implies' the bad thing.""But this,
course was also hampered by a delusion, namely that strict 'im-
plication' could be regarded as an implication relation. The idea
does however have a certain attractiveness, especially since a
substantial group of obvious truths are forthcoming from the
definition (together with an axiom to the effect that "the bad
thing" is avoidable-see below for a considerationof some of the
"obvious truths"). The difficulty encountered under (a) is ob-
viated, since under the second proposal we no longer have
if p then Op.
But other nuisances arise. For example, if pI happens - to be
necessarily true, p is obligatory (i.e., if [lp, then strictly "im-
plies" anything, V in particular; so we have "if [ip then Op,"
which is unhappy if "O"is thought of as denoting moral or legal
"Actually, this account does less than justice to Bohnert's view of the
matter; he includes some ad hoc restrictions designed exactly to avoid this
consequence. But no arguments are offered to show that the restrictions
suffice to eliminate other "bad" cases.
' See Anderson and Belnap 1962a and 1962b.

350 NOUS
obligation.8) And worse: how are we to interpret the strict

implication hook " 3" in the definition?
It is notoriously false that if p is obligatory, then P has a
"bad thing" as a logical consequence. And it is equally false that
if p is obligatory, then p has a "'badthing" as a causal conse-
quence; we have all gotten away with something, even if not
murder. What we would like, returning to the earlier examples
of rules for games, is some sort of 'if . . . then--" relation which
we can stipulate as true, as we can't for a logical or causal "if ...
then--"; in the logical or causal cases the facts are already
ahead of us.
c) The last observation makes it clear also that logical
implication, in the sense of the formal system E of entailment9
won't do either. If we interpret
in this system as meaning that p is a relevant and logically suffi-

cient condition for q, then it is clear that we can't simply stipulate
(for a set of rules for a game, say) that a certain kind of move
is obligatory, at least in the sense mentioned above. To say that
it is obligatory not to open with P-KR6 would under this inter-
pretation mean that P-KR6 as an opener for White logically
entails violating the rules of chess. But this is simply not true,
since the antecedent suppresses the contingent fact (required for
validity of the argument)'0 that chess rules are what they are.
We can't simply stipulate that one proposition is a logical conse-
quence of another.It is, or it isn't; but there is nothing we can do
about it, as all good Platonists know.
To put the matter differently, it might be illuminating to
contrast
if A and B. then A,
with
if White opens with P-KR6,then the rules of chess have been
violated.
In the first case, the antecedent entails (logically) the con-
B
There are some delicate issues here; see e.g. von Wright 1951, Lemmon
1957, and Anderson 1959a.
o See Footnote 7.
1
On suppressing premisses, see Anderson and Belnap 1961.

sequent, and nothing further need be said about the matter. In

the second case, however, the antecedent in some sense implies
the consequent (e.g., it materially "implies"the consequent, and
the antecedent is moreover relevant to the consequent). But it
does not fiercely imply the consequent, as in the case of the first;
certain wishy-washy elements are introduced into the situation by
the fact that chess is defined as it is.
And, as mentioned above, taking the "if ... then-" in the
definition of an obligation as entailment has some immediately
unsatisfactoryconsequences. Entailments, if true at all, are logi-
cally true, and we come up again with the result that obligation-
statements (being, on this view, entailments) are, if true at all,
necessarily true (in the sense of logical necessity). And this is
clearly counter to our usual practice in dealing with such state-
ments-and probably counter to our intent as well.
So the problem we face is this: can we state formally the
properties of some "if ... then--"' relation which will enable us
to stipulate that some of these "if . . . then--" relations are true
(as we must in the course of stipulating the rules of a game),
without landing us at the same time in the ludicrous position of
taking e.g. material "implication" as an implication relation?
Fortunately,there is (I contend) a good answer to this question.
But unfortunately,the technical, formal results are too lengthy to
present in detail here. So we will shift gears again; and I will now
ask you to regard me as an oracle for the formal systems I have
in mind, and try to test a number of propositions (which I will
assert, without proof, are in fact provable in the formal system in
question) against your intuitions.
First, however, we need a little notation. For the notion
that p is a relevant and logically sufficientcondition for q, I shall
use
p- q
also read 'p entails q." For the notion that p is a relevant and
sufficient [but not necessarily a logically sufficient] condition for
q, we write
p -<< q,
also read "p relevantly implies q."

The system R of relevant implication can be defined from

352 NOTS
the following axioms, with the help of the rules of modus ponens
and adunction:
1. p -< p
2. (p- q) A<( q << r) '(p, -- '>r))
3. p,-?" ((p- q) --q)
4. (p, (p, -<"q)) "<(p, q)
5. (p A q) - p
6. (p A q) - q
7. ( (p,--'<q) A (p,- <<
r) ) A' (p (q /\ r))
8. p -<(pVq)
9. q-?t(pVq)
10. ( (p, -'r) A (q -<4r) t(p Vq) o<<r)
11. (pA (qVr))--'< ((pAq) Vr)
12. (plum< p) -<<~p
13. (p,-"I q) -' (q U<~P)
14. Fop -<<p
It should be mentioned that the first four axioms are equivalent

to the weak positive implicational carculus of Church and Moh
Shaw-Kwei (for bibliographical and other details see Anderson
and Belnap 1962a), and that AR-- B is provable in R only if
A and B share a variable (see Belnap's paper cited in Anderson
and Belnap 1962b), R thus satisfying a necessary condition for
relevance of antecedent to consequent.Addition of suitable axioms
for necessity (as primitive) then yields a system equivalent to the
system E of entailment described in the papers just cited.
The distinction between "entailment"and "relevantimplica-
tion" is probably difficult to appreciate without a reasonably
careful study of the formal systems involved. But some intuitive
notion of the difference can probably be brought out by the
following observations:
(1) The distinction between "material implication" and
"strict implication"is, I will take it, familiar. We say that p
"strictly implies" q, when and only when it is necessary that p
"materiallyimplies"q. Alternatively,we may say that p "materially
implies"q when it is false that p is true and q is false; and that p
"strictlyimplies"q when it is impossible that p is true and q is
false. Or, finally, we may say that "strictimplication"is simply the
necessity of "materialimplication."In familiar notation, we may
summarize these statements as:

p q El (p D q),
where
p :> q = (p A ~q);
and
p 3 q = ~O(p A q).
(2) The first of these relations obtains also as between
relevant implication and entailment; the latter is the (logical)
necessity of the former. With suitable assumptions about logical
necessity, we may parallel
p 3 q (p D q)
by observingthat p entails q if and only if necessarilyp relevantly
implies q:
p-> q L](p- <q).
But after this point the analogy breaks down, since we cannot
give a purely truth-functionaldefinition of relevant implication;
the truth of a relevant implication depends not only on the truth-
value of antecedent and consequent, but also on the question of
the relevance of the antecedent to the consequent-i.e., on the
meanings (in an intensional sense) of the two terms of the
relation:
To return to our earlier example [p. 7, above], we have
(1) (pA q) -p,

since p A q is both relevant and logically sufficientfor p, but we
have only
(2) P-KR6-?VV,
since P-KR6, while relevant to and sufficient for the violation of
chess rules, is not logically sufficientfor V, since the truth of (2)
(unlike the truth of (1)), depends essentially on the contingent
fact that chess rules are what they are.
I hope that this way of distinguishing"p is relevant to and
sufficient for q" (-<<), and "p is relevant to and logically suffi-
cient for q" (->) will be relevant and sufficientfor the purposes
at hand, and also that the earlier remarkswill make it clear why
we want to define the notion of obligation with the help of rele-

354 NOUS
vant implication, rather than entailment. Supposing that enough

has been said, we now define
Op = d! '- p-<< V,
Fp = df 0 A p, and
Pp = df Fp,
where 0 means "it is obligatory that," F means "it is forbidden
that' (or "obligatorily,not"), and P means "it is permitted that"
(or "not forbidden"). So the definition of obligation will be
couched in the "if . . . then--" of relevant implication,though we
shall also use the stricter "if . . . then--" of entailment in trying
to sort out the consequences of statements concerning obligations,
prohibitions, and the like.
The formal details concerning the two relations -> (en-
tailment) and -<< (taken from Church'sweak pure implicational
calculus) have been discussed in the literatureby enough people
other than Belnap and myself so that there appears to be reason
to believe that the two topics are not totally idiosyncratic.I will
accordingly (as remarkedabove) assume that someone can catch
me out if I lie about the formalism,and so turn to the intuitive
considerationspromised just before this notational excursis.
III
The remainderof this paper will then consist of three parts:
(1) Statement of a number of theorems which should (I
maintain) satisfy our intuitions concerning logical relations as
among propositions to the effect that certain states-of-affairsare
obligatory, permitted, forbidden, and the like.
(2) Statement of several theorems about which our intui-
tions do not seem to give us quite such clear indications as to
whether or not they should be regarded as true.
(3) Statement of one or two examples of theorems which
have a prima facie implausible appearance, from an intuitive
point of view, together with some considerations designed to
explain away the appearanceof anomaly.
(1) Intuitively O.K. theorems. I will simply make a small
list of formulas which are, as most writers on the topic agree,
intuitively all right,-all of which are provable with the definitions

proposed above (together with an axiom or theorem guaranteeing

that the "bad thing,"-i.e., violating the rules-is avoidable).
1. Op->Pp
2. P(p V q) < >(Pp V Pq)
These two theorems characterize the most important features of
the system of deontic logic originally presented by von Wright
(though in his treatment the deontic modalities were primitive
ratherthan defined, and he took the arrow in the sense of material
"implication.")
3. (O(p -<<q)AOp) ->Oq
This theorem has in some sense to do with the idea of con-
mitnwnt. To say O(p -<< q), i.e., it ought to be the case that if
p then q, means (in a way-there are some tricky details here) "
that doing p commits one to q. What the theorem states is that it
is a logical consequence of the fact that p commits one to q (in
this sense), taken in conjunctionwith the fact that p is obligatory,
that q is also obligatory. Similarlywe have
4. (O(p - q) A Pp) ->Pq.
That is, if p is permitted, and p "commits"us to q, then q must
be all right too.
Two more happy examples (without comment):
5. O(pVq) ->PpVPq
6. O( (p -<<q) A q) -> Fp
(2) Some less obvious candidates. Here I wish to discuss
three chaps, all of which were theorems under the old, deluded,
notion that the appropriate sense of "if . . . then--" could be
taken (formally) as strict implication in the sense of Lewis's S4.
They are as follows:
a) Op EiOp,
b) Op >OOp, and
c) O(if Op then p).
(a) The first of these will be a theorem if we interpret the
"if . . . then--" in the definition of "obligation"as a logical
"if . then--," in view of the familiar properties of modalities
11 See Rescher 1962, and Anderson 1962.

356 NOUS
in Lewis's S4. That is, if the bad thing V is taken as a consequence

(in the sense of strict "implication")of the failure of p, so that
Op =jF V,
then since strict "implications,"if true at all, are necessarily true,
we have
or
o-3V implies 0(p V),
Op implies LiOp.
For this reason I tend to count (a) as bad, and we observe that
with 0 defined in terms of relevant implication rather than the
hook, (a) fails. Fine.
(b) For similar reasons, it is unhappy to have a statement
that p is obligatoryentail its own obligation. Indeed it is hard to
know even what it might mean to say OOp. If 0 is defined in
terms of strict "implication"(in the sense of Lewis's S4), then
the formula emerges as a theorem; but with the definition pro-
posed above, it does not. Another point in our favor.
(c) We turn finally to
O (if Op then p).
This is, I claim, good, if we understand the "if . . . then--"
right. Of course it is notoriously false, under any understanding
of "if . . . then--," that
if Op then p.
But wouldn'tit be nice if it were true? In fact, it ought to be true,
and would be, if this were the best of all possible worlds.
And the formula in question does turn out to be a theorem
under the proposed definitionof 0, provided the "if ... then--"
is taken in the same sense. That is, we have
O(Op -P),
which is stronger than
O(Op Dp),
but not so strong as the silly

O(Op ->
where the -- has the sense of logical (or even causal) conse-

quence. As mentioned before, it is hard to know how even to

interpret formulas of the form
O(p-> q).
I, at least, find it hard to think of any sensible normativesense of
"ought"in which it would make sense to say that a logical (or
causal) statement"ought" to be true.
So of the three formulas, a) and b) fail under the present
proposal, but c) remains; and these three points accord, I claim,
with our intuitions.
(3) An apparent bad guy. In a large part of classical logic,
we understand the semantics of our formal syntactical systems
quite well. Thanks to the labors of Post, Carnap, Tarski, Gbdel,
and others, we have some fascinating theorems concerning rela-
tions between truth and provability for the classical two-valued
propositional calculus, classical quantification theory, and many
other systems. Even for some systems of deontic logic in which
the deontic modes are taken as primitive,adequate semantics have
been provided by Saul Kripke. This is, however, not yet true for
the system I have been considering,and we are consequently (for
this system) still in the position of Whitehead and Russell work-
ing on Principia Mathematica,or Lewis working on strict impli-
cation. For the consideration of semantical problems, the only
presently available recourse is to our intuitive semantics con-
cerning the notions in question: the only way we have at the
moment for testing the proposals outlined above is to search for
theorems that are counter-intuitive.For this reason I should like
to consider a couple of examples which put the theory in a rea-
sonably bad light, at least prima facie, and then to reassure
everyone by explaining away the apparently bad features.
Consider the theorem
(pa- (q -?r)) (q -? (p -r))
This form of the law of permutation is easily proved in the
system in question, and if we replace r by V, we have
(p -<< (q -< )) - (q -<< (p -<<V)),
or, on the deontic interpretation:
(p -< Fq) -> (q -<<Fp),
i.e., if p implies that q is forbidden, then q implies that p is

358 NOUS
forbidden. I suppose that it is hard for most of us to think of

examples to which such a principle might be applicable. But it
might be easier to see an application if we replace q by q
throughout, and rewrite the formula equivalently as follows:
(p-? Oq) --(q(- Fp).
And now a hoary example comes to mind: if making a promise
(p) implies that we ought to fulfill it (Oq), then if it is not to be
fulfilled, ( ), the promiseshould not be made (Fp). And although
the example is gummed up with matters having to do with the
tenses of English verbs (a topic which the formalism does not
take into account), it still lies not too harshly on the ear.
But now let us try to make the situation worse, by replacing
p throughout by Oq, obtaining
(Oq -< Oq) -> -<<FOq).
Here the antecedent is true (indeed necessarily true), and we
may therefore detach, winding up with
q--<<FOq,
or equivalently
r -<< OPr;
i.e., if r happens, then it ought to be permitted.
Example [?]: If I cheated on the exam, then I ought to
have been permitted to do so.
Question: Does the formula really bear this interpre-
tation?
Answer: No.
So now we have to do some fancy foot-workin order to see
why not.
I think that the easiest way of seeing why the interpretation
suggested above won't do is to unpack the definitions.The theorem
comes to
r -< (Pr-?V),
or
r <((re-V) -<V),
which, as a logical principle for -A, looks unexceptionable.And

the preceding formula then bears the sense "if r happens, then if
r is not permitted, we are in trouble."But if we are in trouble
when r is not permitted, then r ought to be permitted (because
we don't want to get in trouble). So (now to find an interpreta-
tion which squareswith our ordinaryway of talking), if r happens,
then it ought to be the kind of thing that is permitted. I.e.,
r -< OPr.
With these considerationswe are home, for present purposes
anyway. To summarize,I will announce three claims I would like
to defend:
First: It is analytic of the notion of "obligation"that if obli-
gations (in any of the various legal, or moral, or ethical, or game-
like senses of the term) are not fulfilled, then something goes
haywire. I take this to be a logical point, the substantive matters
having to do with law, morals, ethics, or games, being dependent
on what it means to "go haywire."
Second: Granted the first point, it is patent that none of the
classical "senses" of "if . . . then--" answer to the requirements
of deontic logic. Detailed examination shows that neither mate-
rial nor strict "implication"will do.
Third: Defining deontic modalities in terms of "relevant
implication,"and using the necessity thereof (i.e., entailment) as
the appropriatesense of "logical consequence,"yields a system of
deontic logic which satisfies all our dearest desires: it is faithful
to the rigor loved by logicians, to the justice loved by us all, and
to our common discourse.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alan Ross Anderson,"The formal analysisof normativesystems," (1956),
reprinted in The Logic of decision and action, ed. Nicholas Rescher
(Pittsburgh, 1967).
- "Reductionof deontic logic to alethic modal logic," Mind, LXVII
(1958a): 100-103.
- "The logic of norms," Logique et analyse, n. s. 10 Ann6e
(1958b): 84-9-1.
- Review of E. J. Lemmon 1957 (below), Zentralblattfur Mathe-
matik, LXXX (1959a), p. 242.
- "On the logic of commitment," Philosophical studies, X
(1959b): 23-27.
, "Reply to Mr. Rescher," Philosophical studies, XIII (1962):
6-8.

360 Notrs
Alan Ross Andersonand Nuel D. Belnap, Jr., "Enthymnemes," Journalof

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Some Nasty Problems in the Formal Logic of Ethics

Author(s): Alan Ross Anderson

This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 16:40:12 PM

ALAN Ross ANDERSON

In a number of papers written over the past six or seven

This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 16:40:12 PM

The leading idea behind the suggestion that

This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 16:40:12 PM

if an obligation is not fulfilled, then something has gone wrong.

This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 16:40:12 PM

in knowing what "bad thing" violation of the rules leads to: it

5 See Bohnert 1945.

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we can infer trivially

So that from the fact that p, on this interpretationof "if . . .

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obligation.8) And worse: how are we to interpret the strict

in this system as meaning that p is a relevant and logically suffi-

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sequent, and nothing further need be said about the matter. In

also read "p relevantly implies q."

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It should be mentioned that the first four axioms are equivalent

This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 16:40:12 PM

(1) (pA q) -p,

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vant implication, rather than entailment. Supposing that enough

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proposed above (together with an axiom or theorem guaranteeing

11 See Rescher 1962, and Anderson 1962.

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in Lewis's S4. That is, if the bad thing V is taken as a consequence

but not so strong as the silly

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quence. As mentioned before, it is hard to know how even to

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forbidden. I suppose that it is hard for most of us to think of

This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 16:40:12 PM

This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 16:40:12 PM

Alan Ross Andersonand Nuel D. Belnap, Jr., "Enthymnemes," Journalof

This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 30 Aug 2013 16:40:12 PM

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