Abstract
This paper concerns the semantic difference between strong and weak necessity modals. First we identify a number of explananda: their well-known intuitive difference in strength between ‘must’ and ‘ought’ as well as differences in connections to probabilistic considerations and acts of requiring and recommending. Here we argue that important extant analyses of the semantic differences, though tailored to account for some of these aspects, fail to account for all. We proceed to suggest that the difference between ’ought’ and ’must’ lies in how they relate to scalar and binary standards. Briefly put, must(ϕ) says that among the relevant alternatives, ϕ is selected by the relevant binary standard, whereas ought(ϕ) says that among the relevant alternatives, ϕ is selected by the relevant scale. Given independently plausible assumptions about how standards are provided by context, this explains the relevant differences discussed.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Cariani, F.: ‘Ought’ and Resolution Semantics. Noûs 47, 534–558 (2013)
Finlay, S.: Oughts and Ends. Philosophical Studies 143, 315–340 (2009)
Finlay, S.: What Ought Probably Means, and Why You Can’t Detach It. Synthese 177, 67–89 (2010)
Finlay, S.: Confusion of Tongues: A Theory of Normative Language (forthcoming Oxford U.P, 2014)
Hacquard, V.: Aspects of Modality. Ph.D. Thesis. MIT (2006)
Katz, G., Portner, P., Rubinstein, A.: Ordering Combination for Modal Comparison. In: Proceedings of SALT, vol. 22, pp. 488–507 (2012)
Kratzer, A.: What ‘must’ and ‘can’ must and can mean. Linguistics and Philosophy 1, 337–355 (1977)
Kratzer, A.: The notional category of modality. In: Eikmeyer, H.J., Rieser, H. (eds.) Words, worlds, and contexts: New approaches in word semantics, pp. 38–74. de Gruyter, Berlin (1981)
von Fintel, K., Iatridou, S.: How to say ought in foreign: The composition of weak necessity modals. In: Guéron, J., Lecarme, J. (eds.) Time and Modality, pp. 115–141. Springer (2008)
von Fintel, K., Iatridou, S.: What to Do If You Want to Go to Harlem: Anankastic Conditionals and Related Matters, http://mit.edu/fintel/www/harlem-rutgers.pdf (retrieved)
Lassiter, D.: Measurement and Modality: The Scalar Basis of Modal Semantics. Ph.D. Thesis, NYU (2011)
Jones, A.J.I., Pörn, I.: ‘Ought’ and ‘Must’. Synthese 66, 89–93 (1986)
Portner, P.: Imperatives and modals. Natural Language Semantics 15, 351–383 (2007)
Ridge, M.: Impassioned Belief. Oxford U.P., Oxford (2014)
Rubinstein, A.: Figuring out What We Ought to Do: The Challenge of Delineating Priorities. U. of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 19, 169–178 (2013)
Rubinstein, A.: Roots of Modality. U. of Massachusetts Amherst dissertation (2012)
Silk, A.: Modality, weights, and inconsistent premise sets. SALT 22, 43–64 (2012)
Sloman, A.: ‘Ought’ and ‘Better’. Mind 79, 385–394 (1970)
Snedegar, J.: Reason claims and constrastivism about reasons. Philosophical Studies 133, 231–242 (2013)
Wertheimer, R.: The Significance of Sense. Cornell University Press, London (1976)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Björnsson, G., Shanklin, R. (2014). ‘Must’, ‘Ought’ and the Structure of Standards. In: Cariani, F., Grossi, D., Meheus, J., Parent, X. (eds) Deontic Logic and Normative Systems. DEON 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8554. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08615-6_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08615-6_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08614-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08615-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)