Conditions for the acceptance of deontic conditionals.

Recent psychological research has investigated how people assess the probability of an indicative conditional. Most people give the conditional probability of q given p as the probability of if p then q. Asking about the probability of an indicative conditional, one is in effect asking about its acceptability. But on what basis are deontic conditionals judged to be acceptable or unacceptable? Using a decision theoretic analysis, we argue that a deontic conditional, of the form if p then must q or if p then may q, will be judged acceptable to the extent that the p & q possibility is preferred to the p & not-q possibility. Two experiments are reported in which this prediction was upheld. There was also evidence that the pragmatic suitability of permission rules is partly determined by evaluations of the not-p & q possibility. Implications of these results for theories of deontic reasoning are discussed.     

Prima facie obligation

This paper presents a nonmonotonic deontic logic based on commonsense entailment. It establishes criteria a successful account of obligation should satisfy, and develops a theory that satisfies them. The theory includes two conditional notions of prima facie obligation. One is constitutive; the other is epistemic, and follows nonmonotonically from the constitutive notion. The paper defines unconditional notions of prima facie obligation in terms of the conditional notions.     

Social roles and utilities in reasoning with deontic conditionals

A set of experiments is reported in which a new formulation of deontic thinking is tested. This is that people represent subjective utilities inherent in conforming to or violating deontic statements, along with the social dynamics of these statements. The experiments used Wason's selection task and tested people's understanding of conditional permission. In the first two experiments, familiar scenarios referring to family interactions were used. In the third, an imaginary business content was used. In both cases it was apparent that people's thinking depended on their representation of the utilities associated with the agent of a permission statement (the party who lays down the rule) and the actor (the party whose behaviour is its target). The results are discussed as favouring an explanation in terms of mental models, rather than the schema theories which have dominated this field hitherto.     

Permission from an Input/Output Perspective

Input/output logics are abstract structures designed to represent conditional obligations and goals. In this paper we use them to study conditional permission. This perspective provides a clear separation of the familiar notion of negative permission from the more elusive one of positive permission. Moreover, it reveals that there are at least two kinds of positive permission. Although indistinguishable in the unconditional case, they are quite different in conditional contexts. One of them, which we call static positive permission, guides the citizen and law enforcement authorities in the assessment of specific actions under current norms, and it behaves like a weakened obligation. Another, which we call dynamic positive permission, guides the legislator. It describes the limits on the prohibitions that may be introduced into a code, and under suitable conditions behaves like a strengthened negative permission.     

Evoking the permission schema: The impact of explicit negation and a violation-checking context

Cheng and Holyoak (1985) proposed that realistic reasoning in deontic contexts is based on pragmatic schemas such as those for assessing compliance with or violation of permission and obligation rules, and that the evocation of these schemas can facilitate performance in Wason's (1966) selection task. The inferential rules in such schemas are intermediate in generality between the content-independent rules proposed by logicians and specific cases stored in memory. In one test of their theory, Cheng and Holyoak demonstrated that facilitation could be obtained even for an abstract permission rule that is devoid of concrete thematic content. Jackson and Griggs (1990) argued on the basis of several experiments that such facilitation is not due to evocation of a permission schema, but, rather, results from a combination of presentation factors: the presence of explicit negatives in the statement of cases and the presence of a violation-checking context. Their conclusion calls into question both the generality of content effects in reasoning and the explanation of these effects. We note that Jackson and Griggs did not test whether the same combination of presentation factors would produce facilitation for an arbitrary rule that does not involve deontic concepts, as their proposal would predict. The present study tested this prediction. Moreover, we extended Jackson and Griggs' comparisons between performance with an abstract permission rule versus an arbitrary rule, introducing clarifications in the statement of each. No facilitation was observed for an arbitrary rule even when explicit negatives and a violation-checking context were used, whereas strong facilitation was found for the abstract permission rule under the same conditions. Performance on the arbitrary rule was not improved even when the instructions indicated that the rule was conditional rather than biconditional. In contrast, a small but reliable degree of facilitation was obtained for the abstract permission rule, with violation-checking content even in the absence of explicit negatives. The theory of pragmatic reasoning schemas can account for both the present findings and those reported by Jackson and Griggs.     

Combinations of tense and deontic modality: On the approach to temporal logic with historical necessity and conditional obligation

We consider three infinite hierarchies of what I call “two-dimensional temporal logics with explicit realization operators”, viz. (i) one without historical or deontic modalities, (ii) one with historical but without deontic modalities, and (iii) one with historical and with dyadic deontic modalities for conditional obligation and permission. Sound and complete axiomatizations are obtained for all three hierarchies relative to a simplified version of the finite co-ordinate-system semantics given for so-called T × W logic of historical necessity in [L. Åqvist, The logic of historical necessity as founded on two-dimensional modal tense logic, J. Philos. Logic 28 (1999) 329–369].     

Concrete problems in the abstract deontic selection task - and how to solve them

The abstract deontic selection task was introduced by Cheng and Holyoak with the aim of demonstrating that people possess abstract reasoning schemas for processing deontic rules about what an individual must, must not, may, or need not do. Solving this task requires people to detect possible rule violators. The average solution rate across several studies, while being substantially higher than that with abstract nondeontic tasks, did not reach the level obtained with concrete deontic tasks. A task analysis based on the deontic principles by Beller uncovers several problems with the formulation of the original task. They concern the presentation of the deontic rule as well as the instructions (focusing on rule following) and result in a specific selection behaviour. Three experiments replicate the difficulties with the original task and show that task performance increases when the formulation problems are resolved. The best performance was obtained with a task that combined a genuine violation detection instruction with a genuine permission rule. Interestingly, permissions are weak deontic rules that, if taken literally, cannot be violated in a deontic sense. Therefore, people must interpret these rules as implying a strong deontic constraint (i.e., a ban), which then constitutes the basis for solving the task. The results provide novel insights into the interpretation of deontic rules and into the role that these content-specific, but abstract, tasks can play for the study of reasoning processes.     

Naïve deontics: a theory of meaning, representation, and reasoning

Deontic assertions concern what one ought to do, may do, and ought not to do. This paper proposes a theory of their meanings and of how these meanings are represented in mental models. The meanings of deontic assertions refer to sets of permissible and impermissible states. An experiment corroborated the ability of individuals to list these states. The most salient were those corresponding to the mental models of the assertions. When individuals reason, they rely on mental models, which do not make all states explicit. The theory predicts the most frequent conclusions drawn from deontic premises. It also predicts the occurrence of illusory inferences from assertions of permission, i.e., inferences that seem highly plausible but that are in fact invalid. Assertions of prohibitions, according to the theory, should reduce the illusions. Further experiments corroborated these predictions.     

Pragmatic Schemas and the Selection Task: To Reason or Not to Reason

Cheng and Holyoak (1985) have proposed that people possess classes of linguistically based schemas that have an internal structure that is determined by pragmatic considerations. They found that when permission schemas (“If you want to do P, then you must do Q”) are used in the selection task, the success rate is much superior to what is usually observed. According to Cheng and Holyoak, this is due to the fact that the permission schema is defined by a set of production rules that give the same answers to problems of conditional inference as those of formal logic. In order to test this hypothesis specifically, 160 university students were given one of two tests. The first contained two sets of inferential reasoning tasks, one using a permission schema, the second using a relation of multiple causality. The second test employed the same two conditional relations, but in an appropriate context. The results indicated that subjects did better on the reasoning task with the schema of multiple causality when presented in context, but, as predicted, their performance was much worse on the inferential reasoning task with the permission schema, which generated a higher proportion of logically incorrect responses. These results suggest that contrary to what has been affirmed, permission schemas might not have a logical structure that is equivalent to conditional logic. A second experiment examined selection task performance using the same two relations in context. Performance on the permission schema was superior to that found with the relation of multiple causality. This confirmed previous results indicating that permission schemas do improve selection task performance, but also suggests that this effect is not related to understanding of conditional reasoning.     

Necessity, Sufficiency, and Perspective Effects in Causal Conditional Reasoning

A growing body of research indicates that in causal conditional reasoning, the conclusion that P is necessary for Q is suppressed where alternative conditions for Q are available. Similarly, the conclusion that P is sufficient for Q is suppressed where disabling conditions for P or additional requirements for Q are available. This paper describes experiments in which these factors were used to produce 'perspective effects' in causal contexts that appear identical to the perspective effects found in previous research with deontic tasks. It is therefore proposed that deontic perspective effects are themselves also attributable to the influence of pragmatic factors upon perceived necessity and sufficiency. A generalized theory based on a modification of the mental model theory of deontic reasoning is presented, which accounts for perspective effects across the two domains.     

Irrational Beliefs and Unconditional Self-Acceptance. II. Experimental Evidence for a Causal Link between Two Key Features of REBT

In a test of two key features of REBT, causal relationships between irrational beliefs and unconditional self-acceptance were experimentally investigated in a sample of 106 non-clinical participants using a priming technique. Priming participants with statements of irrational belief resulted in a decrease in unconditional self-acceptance whereas priming participants with statements of rational belief resulted in an increase in unconditional self-acceptance. In contrast, priming participants with statements about unconditional self-acceptance did not result in an increase in rational thinking and priming participants with statements about conditional self-acceptance did not result in an increase in irrational thinking. The present study is the first to provide evidence of a causal link between rational/irrational thinking and unconditional/conditional self-acceptance. The findings have important implications for the core hypothesis of REBT and underscore the advantages of experimental over correlational studies in theory-testing.     

Modal reasoning, models, and Manktelow and Over.

Manktelow and Over (1991) argue that their studies of Wason's selection task favor explanations of deontic reasoning based on mental models, but that such theories need to incorporate utilities. This theoretical note proposes a simpler explanation of the phenomena: subjects in the selection task consider only those cards that are explicitly represented in their models of the conditional, and so insight into the task depends on constructing fully explicit models. Such models for modal conditionals of the form, If p occurs then q may occur are: [formula: see text] Each line denotes a separate model, and the models represent either what is possible, or, in the deontic interpretation, what is permissible. A deontic rule is accordingly violated by the contingency: [symbol: see text] p and q, for example the rule, "If you spend more than 100 pounds, then you may take a free gift" is violated by taking the free gift (q) but not spending more than 100 pounds ([symbol: see text] p). If the rule is interpreted as a bi-conditional, then the second of the models, p and [symbol: see text] q, is also now a violation, for example spending more than 100 pounds (p) but not getting the free gift ([symbol: see text] q). Manktelow and Over's instructions lead subjects to focus on one or other of the two sorts of violations of the rule. There is accordingly no need to introduce utilities into models in order to explain the phenomena.     

Perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth among college students

Self-esteem scales tend to represent conditional perceptions of self-esteem. The Worth Index has been previously validated as an effective measure for identifying both conditional and unconditional perceptions of worth. We administered the Worth Index to 1,161 college-aged students at Brigham Young University to assess their current perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth. Both men and women agreed more strongly with items involving unconditional worth than conditional worth. A negative correlation was found between ratings of unconditional and conditional worth. Women had lower unconditional worth scores than men, which was related to being more likely to wish they were someone else, desire to have a better body, and to being concerned about weight. Agreement with two overview measures of self-esteem involving a "good" sense of self and stability of self-esteem was positively associated with agreement on statements about unconditional worth. This research shows the importance of incorporating unconditional worth into self-esteem measures.     

Against Unconditional Love

Abstract While unconditional love is frequently regarded as the best kind of romantic commitment, our commitments in general are not thought to be unconditional. In other contexts, we think conditional commitment (commitment which can in some sense be rendered intelligible by appeal to reasons) to be superior. This paper examines the peculiar status of unconditional love in the romantic context and argues that it is unwarranted; the best kind of romantic commitment should be viewed as conditional. The first part of the paper examines and criticises those arguments which attempt to defend conditional love by appeal to the idea that love is based upon the properties of the beloved. The second part of the paper examines Harry Frankfurt's narrowly subjective conception of unconditional love and highlights certain counterintuitive consequences of it. The final section of the paper argues that the best kind of love will prompt us to adopt two perspectives with regard to the beloved. While loving does involve the narrowly subjective perspective defended by Frankfurt, it also demands that we strive for a more objective perspective, which takes into consideration the reasons we might be able to offer to render our commitment intelligible to others.     

Five faces of minimality

We discuss similarities and residual differences, within the general semantic framework of minimality, between defeasible inference, belief revision, counterfactual conditionals, updating — and also conditional obligation in deontic logic. Our purpose is not to establish new results, but to bring together existing material to form a clear overall picture.     

Putting ifs to work: goal-based relevance in conditional directives

Conditional directives are used by speakers to instruct hearers which actions are to be taken should certain events occur. The authors demonstrate that conditional directives are distinct from indicative conditionals in which speakers predict what is likely to be observed should certain events occur. The 1st set of experiments shows that goal structure determines what information speakers will select to test whether conditional directives have been followed but that these selections do not reflect their interpretations of the deontic necessity and sufficiency of the conditional relation. The 2nd set of experiments shows that formulations of conditional directives differ in how clearly speakers consider them to express their situation-specific intentions and that hearers accurately perceive what speakers intend them to do as a result of these formulations. The authors' findings illustrate a form of social rationality common in everyday interaction, which broadens normative conceptions of conditionals.     

Understanding conditional promises and threats

Conditional promises and threats are speech acts that are used to manipulate other people's behaviour. Studies on human reasoning typically use propositional logic to analyse what people infer from such inducements. While this approach is sufficient to uncover conceptual features of inducements, it fails to explain them. To overcome this limitation, we propose a multilevel analysis integrating motivational, linguistic, deontic, behavioural, and emotional aspects. Commonalities and differences between conditional promises and threats on various levels were examined in two experiments. The first shows that both types of inducements are understood as being complementary on the linguistic level, but not reversible, due to the specific temporal order of their actions. In addition, it gives a first assessment of emotional reactions. The second experiment investigated the novel question of whether complementary promises and threats, despite semantic differences, both imply an obligation to cooperate on the deontic level. The data corroborate this hypothesis, and they support various appraisal-theoretical assumptions on the elicitation of emotions. They also reveal that content affects not only the attribution of emotions, but also the deontic interpretation.     

Semantic foundations for conditional permission

Conclusion The principal aim of the present paper has been the presentation of a semantical foundation for an important species of deontic logic (viz., the conditional variety). This semantical approach to the problem is essentially new and has the advantage of providing a complex of conceptual machinery by means of which this branch of applied logic can be placed upon a more rigorous and solid foundation. Above all, it makes available a logically rigorous criterion of acceptability for deontic principles by means of which questions in this sphere can be treated and resolved upon other than intuitive grounds.     

The task-specific nature of domain-general reasoning

This paper develops a theory of how interpretative processes constrain inferential performance on conditional reasoning tasks. Experiment 1 investigated the hypothesis that performance on common reasoning tasks is mediated by different interpretive variables. Necessity and sufficiency relations predicted performance on the conditional arguments task, whereas on the Wason task, performance was predicted by whether the conditional statement instantiated a deontic or a factual relation. Performance on the truth-table task was predicted by both sets of variables. Experiment 2 explored the mapping relation between interpretation, representation, and inference. It was observed that conditional responses to the Wason and arguments tasks were based on different representations of the conditional relationship. These data rule out a simple model of the interplay between interpretation and reasoning in which the interpretation of a statement is driven solely by its content, and instead, indicate that the interpretation of conditional relations is task-specific.