Contextualism about Deontic Conditionals
Aaron Bronfman
J.L. Dowell
Draft at 3/2/15
If you are a semanticist, how best to understand the formal semantics of modal
expressions is an issue that wears its interest on its sleeve. The issue, however, is of broader
interest and importance to those concerned with other debates. One main task of metaethics, for
example, is to understand ordinary moral and, more broadly, normative and evaluative discourse.
Identifying the best semantics and pragmatics of deontic modal expressions in particular would
make an important contribution to metaethicists’ understanding of such discourse.
Recently, some philosophers of language and linguists have wondered whether there are
any expressions that require a relativist’s distinctive treatment.
Contextualists about some
expression E hold that the contribution E makes to the determination of the truth-conditions of
utterances containing E varies from context of use to context of use. Relativists about E, in
contrast, hold that it makes an invariant contribution to the determination of truth-conditions on
any occasion of use. Unlike standard semantic invariantists, however, relativists hold that the
circumstances of evaluation that determine the truth of utterances containing E are more finegrained than the standardly assumed possible worlds. What in addition is needed to determine a
truth-value, for the relativist, depends upon what E is. In the case of deontic modals, some
relativists argue that that addition is a body of information: Deontic modal sentences are true or
false at world, information pairs.1
Assessing the prospects for relativism about deontic modals is crucial to answering the
larger question of whether relativism is a viable research program. Central among the cases that
are thought to motivate relativism are cases involving deontic modals whose truth requires that
1
MacFarlane (2014).
they are sensitive to a body of information in some way. 2 Parfit’s miners scenario is such a case.
A significant point of contention is whether a contextualist can account for our judgments about
deontic modals in that case. A challenge for the contextualist, then, is to identify a contextualist
account of modal expressions that fits with those judgments and is independently plausible.3
Here our goal is to help identify the contextualist’s most worthy competitor to relativism.
Recently, some philosophers of language and linguists have argued that, while there are
contextualist-friendly semantic theories of deontic modals that fit with the relativist’s challenge
data, the best such theories are not Lewis-Kratzer-style semantic theories.4 If correct, this would
be important: It would show that the theory that has for many years enjoyed the status of the
default view of modals in English and other languages is in need of revision.
Here we defend the default view by showing how a Kratzer-style semantics is able to
make available readings of the relevant utterances that fit with the pretheoretical judgments
opponents purport it cannot fully capture. Having established this, we turn to considering the
more theoretical grounds proponents have offered for preferring their rival contextualist views.
Here the question is to what extent such grounds favor semantic over what Korta and Perry call
“near-side pragmatic”5 explanations of our judgments. In particular, we argue that our favored
2
Kolodny and MacFarlane (2010).
Some have argued that the best data for relativism about deontic and epistemic modals is given
not by data at issue here, but by data involving disagreement. For replies to the contention that
the contextualist cannot accommodate the disagreement data, see Dowell (2011, 2013).
4
To be clear, we are not suggesting that a Lewis-Kratzer-style formal semantics for modals can
only be given a contextualist construal. For all we say here, there is a relativist interpretation of
that semantics that does as well as the contextualist one we shall defend. Here we aim to assess
the claim some contextualists have defended that a Lewis-Kratzer-style semantics under a
contextualist interpretation cannot fit with the data we discuss here. (For discussion of one way
to implement relativism in a Kratzer-style framework, see Egan (2011).)
5
“Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specific events, the intentional acts
of speakers at times and places, typically involving language. Logic and semantics traditionally
deal with properties of types of expressions, and not with properties that differ from token to
3
2
readings figure in near-side pragmatic explanations of those judgments that possess the
methodological and theoretical advantages of systematicity and unity at least as well as, if not to
a greater extent than, those of opponents who argue for their revised semantic theories on the
basis of these advantages.6 In this way, our discussion is a case study contribution to the larger
debate among philosophers of language and linguists over when to prefer semantic over such
pragmatic explanations.7
Below, we first explain the basic features of Kratzer’s semantics for modal expressions,
including conditionals. Then we consider and meet the challenge cases in turn. Finally, we
show how our readings are able to meet any remaining objections and pose a few of our own to
the rival theories thought to be motivated by these challenges to Kratzer’s canonical view.
1. Kratzer-Style Contextualism
On Angelika Kratzer’s canonical semantics, modal expressions are semantically neutral;
they make a single contribution to the determination of a proposition on every occasion of use.
What modulates the type of modality expressed—teleological, bouletic, deontic, epistemic, or
token, or use to use… The utterances philosophers usually take as paradigmatic are assertive
uses of declarative sentences, where the speaker says something. Near-side pragmatics is
concerned with the nature of certain facts that are relevant to determining what is said. Far-side
pragmatics is focused on what happens beyond saying: what speech acts are performed in or by
saying what is said, or what implicatures…are generated by saying what is said.” (Korta and
Perry, 2012: 2-3)
6
Along with Dowell (2011, 2012, 2013) and Bronfman and Dowell (forthcoming), this
discussion thus contributes to the larger project of defending a Kratzer-style, flexible
contextualist semantics for modal expressions, supplemented with a near-side pragmatic account
of how it is that contexts provide the parameter values needed to secure appropriate readings.
7
For another such case study, see von Fintel (2001) and Gillies (2007) who each argue for a
dynamic semantic theory of counterfactuals on the grounds that the standard, Lewis-Stalnaker
semantics is unable to explain our judgments about the felicity of Sobel and reverse Sobel
sequences. See also Moss (2012), who defends the standard semantics by providing a near-side
pragmatic explanation of our judgments in such cases.
3
alethic—is the context of use.8 The plausibility of the resulting view lies in part in its ability to
provide simple and unified explanations of a wide range of language use. Together with broad
cross-linguistic support, the simplicity of Kratzer’s semantics earns its status as the default
view.9
Central to a Kratzer-style semantics is its treatment of modal expressions as quantifiers
over possibilities. Typically, those domains of quantification are restricted. Restrictions not
represented explicitly in the linguistic material are provided as a function of the context of
utterance. The contextual supplementation is twofold. First, context determines a modal base, f,
a function from a world of evaluation, w, to a set of worlds, f(w), the modal background.
Modal bases may be either epistemic or circumstantial. An epistemic modal base is a
function f that takes a world of evaluation w and returns the set of worlds consistent with the
body of information in w that has some property or properties. Which properties are relevant is
determined by which f is contextually selected; for example, that function may take the
information that has the property of being the speaker’s at a designated time t in w as an
argument and give us the set of worlds compatible with that information. In principle, context
might select any number of different fs.
A circumstantial modal base is a value for f that takes a world of evaluation as an
argument and delivers a set of worlds circumstantially alike in particular respects. Here, too,
what makes a circumstance among the relevant ones at a world of evaluation will depend upon
which f is contextually selected; for example, a particular value for f may make circumstances
that determine causal relations between actions and outcomes at the world of evaluation relevant.
8
9
Kratzer (1977) and (1981).
Some parts of our exposition draw on Bronfman and Dowell (forthcoming).
4
The modal background in that case would be the set of worlds alike with respect to those
circumstances.
A second source of contextual supplementation is an ordering source, a function g from a
world of evaluation w to a ranking of worlds in the modal background. Which features of a
world w′ in f(w) give it its relative ranking depends upon the value for g. For example, g might
rank w′ depending upon how well some salient agent acts in accordance with the reasons she has
or the obligations that apply to her in w.
Or it might rank w′ in terms of how well it
approximates some impartial ideal. The highest ranked or best such worlds make up the modal’s
domain. ‘Ought’, the modal of concern here, functions as a universal quantifier over its domain:
‘ought ’ comes out true at a context-world pair just in case all of the best worlds as determined
by that context and world are -worlds.10
Since part of what is at issue in the puzzle cases here is the plausibility of a full Kratzerstyle account of deontic conditionals, we’ll need her account of the indicative conditional on the
table. On her semantics for that conditional, the function of the antecedent is to restrict the
domain of a modal in the consequent.11 This is, at least typically, a covert necessity modal. So,
a conditional of the form ‘if , then ’ where ‘’ does not itself contain a modal, has the
structure if , must . To see whether such a conditional is true, we see whether every
(relevant) -world is also a -world. If so, then the conditional is true. Here we follow Kratzer
10
Here we simplify aspects of Kratzer (1991a) and (2012) to avoid introducing complexities of
that account not at issue here. In particular, we adopt the Limit Assumption, and we ignore the
issue of how best the mark the apparent distinction between “must” and “ought”. Cariani,
Kaufmann, and Kaufmann (2013) and Carr (2014) also adopt these simplifications in expositing
their own views.
11
In some cases not at issue here, the antecedent may restrict a quantifier elsewhere in the
sentence, as in “Always, if a man buys a horse, he pays cash for it” (Kratzer (1991b)).
5
in assuming that the covert modal is an epistemic necessity modal: The relevant -worlds are the
-worlds that are compatible with some contextually determined body of information.12
There are a few options for combining this account of the indicative conditional with her
semantics for modal expressions generally. For all the deontic conditionals we discuss, we’ll
adopt the view that a covert epistemic necessity modal takes scope over the deontic modal.13
There are a couple of different readings14 of the whole conditional, if , must[ought ] that may
result, depending upon the context. In all cases, we assume the antecedent retains its usual
semantic function of restricting the domain of the covert modal. A bit more formally, treating w
as the world of evaluation, the covert modal’s domain will be worlds, w′, each of which is a world. To be true, the conditional then requires that the deontic modal is true at each of the
worlds w′. To determine this, the deontic modal requires values for f(w′) and g(w′). These, we’ll
argue, are determined flexibly as a function of the context of utterance.
Together they’ll
determine a set of worlds w′′ that make up the deontic modal’s domain.
2. Miner Variations
The MINERS Objection
The famous miners scenario is one case thought to pose a challenge for a Kratzer-style
framework. Here is Niko Kolodny and John MacFarlane’s characterization (MINERS):
Ten miners are trapped either in shaft A or in shaft B, but we do not know which.
Flood waters threaten to flood the shafts. We have enough sandbags to block one
shaft, but not both. If we block one shaft, all the water will go into the other shaft,
12
Kratzer (1991b).
For discussion of this type of view and some reasons for adopting it, see, for example, Carr
(2014), von Fintel (2011), von Fintel and Iatridou (ms), Frank (1996), Geurts (ms), and Kratzer
(2012).
14
By a ‘reading’, we simply mean a way a listener might reasonably interpret what’s said by an
utterance.
13
6
killing any miners inside it. If we block neither shaft, both shafts will fill halfway
with water, and just one miner, the lowest in the shaft, will be killed. (2010: 115)
In a recent paper, Fabrizio Cariani, Magdalena Kaufmann, and Stefan Kaufmann argue
that there is no way for a Kratzer-style semantics to fit with all of our pretheoretical judgments
about MINERS.15 Among these judgments are the following truth-assessments:
NEITHER: We (they) ought to block neither shaft.
True.
IF-A: If the miners are in A, we (they) ought to block A.
True.
IF-B: If the miners are in B, we (they) ought to block B.
True.
Not only must a theory fit with these truth-assessments, they suggest, it must render them all
“true on the deliberative reading of ‘ought’” (2013: 231, footnote 14). Hence, they argue that
any Kratzer-friendly readings either fail to accommodate all three truth-assessments or else do
not all qualify as deliberative readings.
In order to evaluate the Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann claim that a Kratzer-style
semantics cannot fit with our truth-assessments of these sentences under a ‘deliberative reading’,
we’ll need an understanding of what it takes for a use of “ought” to get a ‘deliberative reading’ in
their sense. They offer a few suggestions. One is by contrast with an “objective” reading, which
seems to be relative to circumstances, known and unknown (2013: 227). Another suggestion:
“Deliberative modality” is “the particular flavor of modality in play in practical deliberations”
(2013: 226). Finally, it is the kind “exhibited by”
ARTICLE: We ought to read that article.
ARTICLE, they suggest, is “easily understood as suggesting that reading that article is the thing
to do” (2013: 225).
15
See also Charlow (2013).
7
One difficulty for seeing what exactly they have in mind is that the last two suggestions
for how to understand “deliberative modality” or “deliberative reading” do not contrast with an
objective reading in MINERS as their first suggestion holds. To see this, notice that when
NEITHER, IF-A, and IF-B figure in someone’s reasoning about what to do in MINERS, they will
each exhibit deliberative modality in the second sense. This is compatible with the conditionals
receiving objective readings. As we’ll argue below, it’s easy to identify readings on which
utterances of all three sentences are true with the conditionals receiving objective readings. So,
if to be deliberative is to figure in practical reasoning, it will be easy to see how all three can be
true under a ‘deliberative reading’.
Moreover, insofar as conditionals can suggest that some action is the ‘thing to do’,
objective readings of the conditionals may also be deliberative in their third sense, e.g. in
contexts in which agents make it clear that what they objectively ought to do settles the question
of what is the thing to do. Since we believe that the contrast with objective readings is what is
most important for understanding the objection to Kratzer that Cariani, Kaufmann, and
Kaufmann seem to have in mind, we will try to improve on their suggestions in a way that
preserves this.
Deliberative Readings: Subjective and Advisability
As we’ll see, improving on their formulation is a bit tricky. Mark Schroeder’s (2011)
discussion of the deliberative ‘sense’ of “ought” offers an initial starting point. According to
Schroeder, such an “ought” exhibits five hallmarks: First, the deliberative sense “matters directly
for advice”. While the objective ‘ought’ may figure in good deliberation about what to do, the
deliberative sense settles the question of what it is advisable to do. Second, the deliberative
sense is “the right kind of thing to close deliberation”, to ‘settle the question of what to do’.
8
Third, one is “accountable” for doing as one ought in this sense; failure to do so leaves one open
to “legitimate criticism”. Fourth, it’s the sense of “ought” constrained by what one can do and,
finally, it’s the sense “more closely connected” to the notion of obligation, albeit imperfectly.
While we agree that these are features of “ought”s that figure in practical reasoning, it
will be important for later discussion to note that there are cases in which there is no single
ought-claim that bears all five hallmarks. Instead, there will be distinct ought-claims each of
which possesses a different, proper subset of these features. In these cases, acting so as to
comply with one such claim is incompatible with complying with the other.
Eavesdropper scenarios provide good illustrations. Here’s an example from MacFarlane
(forthcoming): Suppose you are deciding whether you ought to bet on Blue Blazer or Exploder,
two horses in an upcoming race. You know that, in the past, Blue Blazer has proven itself the
faster horse. In light of this you conclude,
BLAZER: I ought to bet on Blue Blazer.
Suppose, though, that, unbeknownst to you, I am eavesdropping on your conversation from
behind a bush. Unlike you, I know that today Blue Blazer will be suffering from the effects of a
drug. MacFarlane holds that here “it makes sense for me to think that you are wrong, and to
say”,
EXPLODER: “No, you ought to bet on Exploder” (342).
Let this be a case in which you do not and could not learn that Blue Blazer has been
drugged prior to placing your bet and so you go ahead and bet on that horse. Have you done as
you ought, in Schroeder’s deliberative sense?
No doubt you are not subject to legitimate
criticism for betting as you do; in this sense, you have done as you ought. But you have not done
what it would be advisable for you to do. It is not advisable for you to bet on a drugged horse.
9
Here your utterance bears some of the hallmarks of Schroeder’s ‘deliberative sense’ of “ought”
and my utterance bears others. MacFarlane has characterized these “ought”s of advice as inbetween a so-called ‘subjective’ “ought”, which is tied to information within a deliberating
agent’s epistemic reach, and an objective ‘ought’, which is not information-sensitive. Such ‘inbetween’ “ought”s are central to his case for relativism. Below we show how all three readings
can be made available within a Kratzer-style framework. Seeing how this is so will be important
for seeing how a Kratzer-style semantics can fit with the pretheoretical judgments of ordinary
speakers for the full range of MINERS cases.
Kratzer-Friendly Readings for Miner Variations
Since our view is contextualist, which reading a deontic modal sentence receives will be
determined as a function of the context of utterance. This means that the best data for testing
theories will be speakers’ judgments about a series of variations on the basic MINERS scenario,
each of which fills out the conversational context in a slightly different way. As we’ll see, which
reading will be most natural for our sentences will depend upon which version of the scenario is
under consideration. One important dimension along which MINERS scenarios may vary is in
whether deliberating agents expect to receive more information about the location of the miners
prior to the time at which they need to act. Call “EXPECTATION-KNOW” some scenario in
which deliberating agents know they will learn the location of the miners prior to that time. Call
“EXPECTATION-MIGHT” some scenario in which they know they might, but also might not,
learn their location (learning and not learning their location are equally likely). Let “EXPECTNOT” be a case in which agents know they won’t learn more.
We consider the following judgments to constitute theoretically neutral data: NEITHER
sounds bad—indeed, clearly false—in EXPECTATION-KNOW, sounds unwarranted in
10
EXPECTATION-MIGHT, and sounds fine—indeed, clearly true—in EXPECT-NOT. IF-A and
IF-B can each sound fine in any of these cases. We also accept the Cariani, Kaufmann, and
Kaufmann claim that NEITHER, IF-A, and IF-B may all be true as uttered in the course of a
single conversation among agents deliberating about what to do in MINERS.
One of their central motivations for positing a more complex semantics16 for deontic
modals along with a novel semantic rule for deontic conditionals is their claim that no Kratzerstyle semantics can fit with the full range of this data. Our next task is to show that this is not so
by showing how a Kratzer-style semantics can secure readings that fit with these judgments. We
do this in several steps. First, we identify readings and contexts that make NEITHER, IF-A, and
IF-B all true. Then we show how they can all be assertible in the course of a single piece of
deliberation. Recall that Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann claim that part of the data is that
they are all true under a “deliberative reading” (footnote 14). As we saw, to test this, we need to
identify what it takes for a reading of a modal to be “deliberative”. We now have a few
overlapping, but distinct senses of “deliberative reading”. Following one of their suggestions,
we have the view that a deliberative reading is any reading of a modal sentence such that, under
that reading, it is properly assertible in the course of a single piece of practical deliberation. We
also, as suggested by Schroeder’s hallmarks, have two more specific types of deliberative
reading: a subjective reading, which is tied to an agent’s available information, and an
advisability reading, which is connected to what it is advisable for a deliberating agent to do
(perhaps tied to an advisor’s information). Here we show how the Kratzerian can accommodate
true readings under each of these senses of “deliberative reading”.
16
For the sense in which their semantics is more complex, see footnote 33.
11
We begin with NEITHER. Our reading for NEITHER will be the same for all of our
cases, but, for the sake of concreteness, we’ll focus on the context in which it sounds best,
EXPECT-NOT. Here we think NEITHER receives what we’ll call a “subjective” reading.
Subjective readings are information-sensitive, where the relevant information is, very roughly,
the information a relevant agent has at the time of action, t.17 Informally, NEITHER would seem
to express the proposition that blocking neither is, of the actions available to the deliberating
agents, deontically ideal, in light of the information they have at the time that action is
necessary.18
More formally, context will select an f that maps a world of evaluation w onto the set of
worlds w′ like w with respect to the laws and circumstances up until the time of action t, where
we assume that this will hold fixed the options agents have in w at t. Various issues arise in
characterizing an agent’s options. We simply adopt one workable model with the following
features. (i) An option of an agent is represented as the proposition that she performs some
physical or mental action or intentional inaction. (ii) For something to count as an agent’s
option, the agent must know that she is able to perform it and know how to implement it.19 Thus,
for example, “S selects the winning lottery number” can fail to be one of S’s options, even
though, for each number, n, “S selects n,” may be one of S’s options. (iii) Options are assumed
17
More generally, subjective readings can be sensitive to bodies of information available at a
world of evaluation by some designated time relevant for the ranking of the agent’s options. The
information need not be limited to the information the agent actually has; it may also include
information she could or should have gathered, or information within her ‘epistemic reach’.
18
Some might see NEITHER as making a claim, not about deontic ideality, but rather about
some particular conception of deontic ideality, such as maximizing expected utility. While we
do not rule this out as a possible reading, we find sentences such as NEITHER to be most
naturally understood as making claims that can be the objects of dispute between, for example,
consequentialists and non-consequentialists, and so we see them as invoking the thinner notion
of deontic ideality.
19
Or perhaps an agent’s options are fixed not by what she knows but, more broadly, by what she
is in a position to know she is able to perform by t.
12
to be as fine-grained as possible. Thus “S walks” would not qualify as one of S’s options, but “S
walks straight ahead, slowly, while chewing gum…” could. Because each option specifies the
agent’s behavior so precisely that she does not have any further flexibility in how to act, options
are mutually exclusive.20 For simplicity, we will treat blocking neither as such a fine-grained
option, although doing this is not necessary to our account here. (iv) Options are assumed to
take place over some fixed time period, which may vary with context. To simplify, we assume
the relevant options (e.g. blocking neither) can be performed instantaneously: perhaps one must
now irrevocably decide whether to block a shaft or none. This helps to put aside complexities
such as starting to block one shaft and then switching to the other.
In the case of NEITHER, context will select a value for g that maps w onto the set of
worlds w′ in which agents perform that action, , of their options, O, that is deontically ideal,
given the information our agents have at t in w.21 Since in EXPECT-NOT that action is blocking
neither, NEITHER comes out true.
Under this reading, NEITHER is unwarranted as a
conclusion of practical deliberation in EXPECTATION-MIGHT and false in EXPECTATIONKNOW. This pattern fits precisely with our pretheoretical judgments about these cases.
Having provided a plausible Kratzer-style reading for NEITHER, we turn now to
identifying plausible readings of IF-A and IF-B, showing how they are assertible in the course of
a single piece of deliberation. So, what should the Kratzerian say about IF-A and IF-B in our
MINERS cases? The issue here is a bit complex as these sentences have available objective,
subjective, and advisability readings in some of these cases.
20
Here we may simplify by assuming options to be as fine-grained as possible because any
Kratzer-style semantics validates Inheritance, so settling which fine-grained options one ought
perform will settle which coarse-grained options one ought perform. (The principle of
Inheritance holds that if  entails , then ought  entails ought .)
21
Recall that we’re trying to keep this reading simple and reader-friendly. For a more general
formulation of subjective readings, see footnote 17.
13
Start with the objective readings in EXPECT-NOT. There are a couple of ways of filling
out the conversational context of EXPECT-NOT to secure felicitous objective readings of these
conditionals in the course of a single piece of deliberation. Imagine that agents have not yet
arrived at the place in their deliberations in which they realize they will not learn the location of
the miners by t. In that case, they may think that what they objectively ought to do may settle
their deliberative question. IF-A and IF-B may then represent their thinking about what might
objectively be the case. Alternatively, IF-A and IF-B on an objective reading might each
articulate part of their understanding of the case. They might, for example, play such a role in a
conversation such as the following:
Emma: Ok. Here’s the situation: The miners are all trapped in either shaft A or
shaft B. Only if we use all of our sandbags to block the shaft they’re in, will we
save all the miners.
Lila: I see. So, if they’re all in A, we should block A and if they’re all in B, we
should block B.
Emma: Right. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to figure out where they
are by the time we have to decide what to do.
This might be the beginning of a conversation that eventuates in their deliberative conclusion,
expressed by NEITHER.
Finally, each conditional IF-A and IF-B may express a lament about the tragedy of the
situation, even after they have concluded that blocking neither is what they should do. It would
figure naturally, for example, in a conversation such as this one:
Emily: All things considered, we’re going to have to block neither shaft. It’s
such a tragedy that we don’t know where the miners are!
Lily: What’s so bad about that?
Emily: Because, if they’re in A, we should block A. And if they’re in B, we
should block B!
14
Representing our objective readings for IF-A and IF-B more formally requires saying a
bit about our treatment of deontic conditionals. Recall that we treat such conditionals as doubly
modalized: Each contains a covert, epistemic modal scoped over the overt, deontic modal. On
our objective reading, then, the antecedent of IF-A restricts the domain of a covert, epistemic
modal to the epistemically possible worlds w′ in which the miners are in A.
The modal
background for the overt, deontic modal will be the set of worlds alike with respect to the
relevant circumstances in w′, including that the miners are in A. The value for g(w′) will be the
worlds in which agents perform that action, of those available to them, which is deontically ideal
in light of the relevant circumstances in w′. These will all be worlds in which agents block A.
So, IF-A comes out true. Similar considerations will make IF-B come out true.
We have been discussing EXPECT-NOT, in which the conditionals may be felicitously
uttered, though less practically useful than in EXPECTATION-MIGHT and EXPECTATIONKNOW. Their practical use, under objective readings, improves in those latter two cases. This
won’t make those readings deliberative in either of the two senses we identified from
Schroeder’s hallmarks, what we’re calling the ‘subjective sense’ or the ‘sense of advisability’.
But it will suffice to make them deliberative in the Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann sense
we’re focusing on, namely, the sense of playing a role in a single piece of deliberation.
So far, we’ve focused on Kratzer-friendly objective readings of IF-A and IF-B that can
play a deliberative role. In addition, there’s a second, information-sensitive, Kratzer-friendly
reading available, with which the features of EXPECT-NOT, EXPECTATION-KNOW, and
EXPECTATION-MIGHT are also compatible. As we’ll see, this reading may be thought of as an
advisability reading, one that is ‘in-between’ the subjective and objective readings. Crucially,
we think these cases do not mandate an advisability reading, rather than an objective reading, of
15
these conditionals; indeed, for EXPECTATION-KNOW, subjective readings are also available.
Here we merely use these conditionals to illustrate how advisability readings are available within
a Kratzer-style framework, as well as to show that these conditionals may receive deliberative
readings in one of the senses suggested by Schroeder’s hallmarks. Below we will consider cases
in which subjective and objective readings are unavailable, as evidence that sometimes modals
naturally take advisability readings.22
On an advisability reading of IF-A and IF-B, in addition to its usual semantic function of
updating the value for f for the covert modal, the antecedent serves to pragmatically indicate a
value for the deontic modal’s g parameter. In contrast to the objective reading, here g(w′) will
rank each world w′′ in the deontic modal’s modal background in terms of the deontic ideality, in
light of some body of information, of the action agents perform in w′′. Which information is
relevant? We suggest it is a hypothetical body of information consisting of the information
deliberating agents have at t in w′ together with information specifying where the miners are
located in w′. Thus if the miners are located in A at w′, the additional information specifies that
they are in A; if they are located in B at w′, the additional information specifies that they are in
B. Since the semantic function of the antecedent of IF-A is to restrict the domain of the covert
modal to worlds in which the miners are in A, and these are the worlds at which the overt deontic
modal will be evaluated, the information getting added to the agent’s information for the
purposes of ranking their options is the information that the miners are in A.
Adding this information to the relevant body, we’re suggesting, is a pragmatic function of
the antecedent. Since the objective reading is also available in our MINERS cases, we are not
22
Here and elsewhere, in offering these readings, we do not claim that no other readings are
possible.
16
suggesting that this reading is forced. Rather, the conversational context permits the antecedent
to play this pragmatic role.
How exactly might it play this role? One idea is that playing this role is suggested by the
relevance of the conditional for conversational purposes. In each of our MINERS scenarios,
agents are deliberating about what to do. Uttering the conditionals is to help settle this practical
question.
Agents do not know the location of the miners in any of these scenarios.
In
EXPECTATION-KNOW, they know they will come to know their location. In that case, what
would be deontically ideal in light of information agents are in a position to have by t updated
with information about where the miners are located is highly relevant; indeed, it reflects the
epistemic position they expect to be in. This suffices to make uttering each of the conditionals,
on this reading, highly relevant. In EXPECTATION-MIGHT, agents know they may or may not
learn the miners’ location by t. In this case, too, IF-A and IF-B under the advisability reading
will be relevant to their practical deliberation.
Having discussed NEITHER, IF-A, and IF-B, we now turn to two additional sentences
from Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann:
IF-STILL: If the miners are in A, we (they) still ought to block neither.
EXISTS: We (they) ought to block the shaft the miners are in.23
What are our pretheoretical judgments about utterances of these sentences in our MINERS cases?
Like NEITHER, IF-STILL sounds bad in EXPECTATION-KNOW, not much better in
EXPECTATION-MIGHT and best in EXPECT-NOT. EXISTS sounds best in EXPECTATIONKNOW and can sound fine in EXPECTATION-MIGHT. It may sound false in EXPECT-NOT,
This is not quite the sentence Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann consider. Theirs is “there is
a shaft we ought to block” (EXISTS′). We prefer EXISTS on the grounds that, at least in the
case of EXPECTATION-KNOW, it has a clearer action-guiding use than EXISTS′.
23
17
unless conversational context makes it a clear lament (e.g. of their inability to know how to save
all ten miners). As with IF-A and IF-B under objective readings, EXISTS may also serve as an
attempt to articulate a shared understanding of MINERS as a basis for or in the course of
deliberation. This pattern of judgments is fully explained within a Kratzer-style framework with
an objective reading. In EXPECTATION-KNOW, EXISTS is also felicitous under a subjective
reading, where g(w) will rank worlds w′ in the modal background in terms of the deontic ideality,
in light of the information agents will have at t in w, of the action performed in w′.
What explains our judgments for IF-STILL? We’ve seen that, like NEITHER, IF-STILL
sounds best in EXPECT-NOT and that IF-A and IF-B can also sound fine in that case. We
suggested two available readings for these latter conditionals in all our MINERS cases: An
objective reading and an advisability reading.24 On each of those readings, the antecedent has a
role to play in determining which action is best. If the antecedent plays such a role for IFSTILL, though, it won’t come out true in EXPECT-NOT. But it does seem true in that case.
Why might the antecedent in IF-STILL not play such a role in EXPECT-NOT, though it does for
each of IF-A and IF-B?
The answer rests on the role of “still”, which seems to flag the irrelevance of the
antecedent to the interpretation of the deontic modal.25 We might imagine IF-STILL uttered in
response to an utterance of IF-A. As we’ve seen, IF-A might be uttered in EXPECT-NOT as
part of the agents’ attempt to articulate a shared understanding of the case. IF-STILL might then
24
The subjective reading of the conditionals is unwarranted in EXPECTATION-MIGHT and
false in EXPECT-NOT.
25
We seem to find “still” playing this role in other indicative conditionals containing contextsensitive expressions, e.g.
A: The Sharks might win.
A: If he wants to play basketball, he’s not tall.
B: But what if they lose their best player? B: No, even if he wants to play basketball,
A: Even if they lose their best player, they
he’s still tall.
still might win.
18
flag the irrelevance of the location of the miners to arriving at their practical conclusion, given
that they won’t learn the miners’ location by t.26
Three-Shaft Version of MINERS
Thinking about how best to understand these deontic conditionals within a Kratzer-style
framework puts us in a position to think about how best to understand a more difficult type of
case. Here’s a three-shaft version of the miners case from Kai von Fintel:27
Imagine there are three shafts: A, B, and C. We don’t know where the miners are.
If we block the right shaft, all miners are safe. If we do nothing, two miners die.
We can blow up Shaft A, which would of course kill all miners if they are in A,
but if they’re not, then blowing up Shaft A and not blocking either B or C will
mean that only one miner dies. So, in our maximally ignorant information state,
we ought to block none of the shafts. In an objective sense, we should block the
shaft the miners are in. Now, consider the following conditional:
[MORE INFORMATION:] If they are not in A, we ought to blow A up.
Von Fintel reports that he can hear this as true. We agree that there are ways of filling out the
conversational context that would make an utterance of MORE INFORMATION felicitous. A
best-case scenario will be one in which agents know they might learn whether the miners are in
A and know they’ll learn nothing else. Call “EXPECTATION-WHETHER-IN-A-MIGHT” a
version of such a case in which agents believe they have a 50% chance of learning whether the
miners are in A before the time they need to act. The felicity of utterances such as MORE
Besides the use of the word “still,” there are other means by which conversational context can
signal the irrelevance of the antecedent to determining which action is best. In such cases it is
possible for conditionals not containing the word “still” to carry the reading we offer for IFSTILL. For example, if in EXPECT-NOT, one conversational participant says, “We can’t decide
what to do until we know where the miners are, since if the miners are in A, we should block A,”
another may reply, “No, if the miners are in A, we should block neither shaft. And the same
holds if they are in B. We have no way of knowing where the miners are, so regardless of where
they are, we should block neither shaft.” In this case, the conditional “if the miners are in A, we
should block neither shaft” is acceptable because context makes it clear that the antecedent is not
intended as a necessary condition for the assertion of the consequent.
27
Von Fintel (ms).
26
19
INFORMATION can seem puzzling within a Kratzer-style framework, as their felicity can’t be
explained by either a subjective or an objective reading. On the subjective reading we’ve
suggested, context selects a value for f that takes a world of evaluation w′ to a set of worlds
compatible with facts about the agents’ options in w′ together with facts about which information
agents in w′ have at t. Suppose agents don’t learn by t whether the miners are in A. In that case,
the conditional will be false: Blowing A up is not the deontically ideal action in light of the body
of information agents will have at t as, in that case, that body will leave open the possibility that
the miners are in A and blowing up A will result in all of their deaths. Suppose the miners are in
B; in that case the objective reading comes out false. So what would explain what makes MORE
INFORMATION sound true in EXPECTATION-WHETHER-IN-A-MIGHT? We suggest that,
unlike IF-A and IF-B in the MINERS scenarios, here MORE INFORMATION most naturally
receives an advisability reading. On such a reading, recall, the antecedent, in addition to its usual
semantic role, pragmatically indicates an update to the body of information relevant for ranking
the worlds in the deontic modal’s modal background. In MORE INFORMATION, this update
adds to the information agents have in worlds w′ in the domain of the covert modal information
about whether the miners are in A. The antecedent guarantees that each such w′ will be a world
in which the miners are not in A. So the worlds w′′ in the domain of the deontic modal will be
ranked in accordance with whether the agent performs, in w′′, the action, of their options, which
is deontically ideal in light of that updated body of information. In all of the best such worlds,
our agents are blowing up A. So, MORE INFORMATION comes out true.
Von Fintel has offered an alternative explanation of how MORE INFORMATION comes
out true. He holds that MORE INFORMATION is “shorthand” or “enthymematic” for the
longer sentence:
20
“If we learn that they are not in A, we ought to blow A up.” (28)
In EXPECTATION-WHETHER-IN-A-MIGHT, this sentence is straightforwardly true on a
subjective reading. In this case, if the agents learn the miners are not in A, they will learn
nothing else. In particular, they will not learn more specific information pinpointing the location
of the miners in B or in C. So if they learn the miners are not in A, it will be deontically ideal
given their information at t for them to blow A up. Thus if von Fintel is right, there is no need to
posit an advisability reading to explain the truth of MORE INFORMATION.
There is, however, an additional piece of data that our account is better placed to explain.
Begin with the case EXPECTATION-WHETHER-IN-A-MIGHT, in which the agents have a 50%
chance of learning nothing about the location of the miners, and a 50% chance of learning
whether or not the miners are in A. Suppose the agents are aware that if, when the time of action
comes, they knowingly allow even one miner to die unnecessarily, they will be put in jail. In this
case, we hear the following sentence as unwarranted:
If the miners are not in A, we’ll go to jail if we don’t blow A up.
Intuitively, the agents are not warranted in asserting this sentence since there is a 50% chance
they will remain in their state of complete ignorance about the location of the miners. If so, they
will not be put in jail for failing to blow A up. Similarly, we hear the following sentence as
unwarranted:
MORE INFORMATION JAIL: If the miners are not in A, then we ought to blow
A up and we’ll go to jail if we don’t.
But the proposal that MORE INFORMATION is read enthymematically would tend to predict
that MORE INFORMATION JAIL should be heard as warranted since it would be read as
enthymematic for:
21
If we learn that the miners are not in A, then we ought to blow A up and we’ll go
to jail if we don’t.
In contrast, our account, on which MORE INFORMATION is not enthymematic, does not issue
such a prediction. This is some evidence in favor of the advisability reading.
3. Self-Frustrating Decisions
Jennifer Carr has argued that Kratzer-style contextualism cannot adequately account for
cases of “self-frustrating” decisions. These arise in unusual cases where performing an action
would indicate the existence of reasons against performing that very action. Carr uses the case
DEATH IN DAMASCUS, from Gibbard and Harper (1978), as an example:
If you are in the same city as Death tomorrow, then you’ll die. Death has planned
to be wherever he predicts you’ll be, and he’s very reliable in such predictions.
Your options are to stay in Damascus or to go to Aleppo. But, as you know, if
you stay in Damascus, then that’s excellent evidence that Death will already be
there. Similarly for going to Aleppo. (Carr forthcoming: 12)
This places you in an unfortunate situation: you expect with high probability that,
whichever decision you make, you will die. Assume you have not made up your mind about
where to go, and you now regard either city as equally likely. Your options are then symmetric:
they offer equally bad prospects. Given this symmetry, we will assume, with Carr, that both
options are permissible: you may go to either city. Because you may go to Aleppo, we cannot
say you should not go to Aleppo. Hence we have:
ALEPPO: It’s not the case that you should not go to Aleppo.
Consider now the conditional:
IF-ALEPPO: If you go to Aleppo, you should not go to Aleppo.
The reasoning behind IF-ALEPPO goes roughly as follows: If you will in fact go to Aleppo, then
Death is very likely waiting for you in Aleppo, and so you should not go to Aleppo. IF-ALEPPO
22
uses the antecedent to generate a new set of probabilities for Death’s location, and then evaluates
your options in light of those new probabilities. We will assume, with Carr, that IF-ALEPPO
has a true reading along these lines.
We now consider how Kratzer-style contextualism can account for the truth of ALEPPO
and IF-ALEPPO. Just as for the miners sentences, such a view will hold that ALEPPO says
what it does because context supplies appropriate values for the parameters f and g. ALEPPO is
most plausibly heard as a claim about how it is rational or reasonable for the agent to act, given
her information. It is motivated by the thought that, given the agent’s information, it is equally
reasonable to go to either city. It denies the claim that not going to Aleppo is the agent’s
uniquely most reasonable option. In other words, it denies the claim that not going to Aleppo is
deontically ideal in light of the agent’s information.
We propose to capture the content of ALEPPO with similar parameter values to those
used for NEITHER. The modal background is circumstantial: f(w) maps a world to the set of
worlds in which the laws and circumstances up through the time of action t are the same as they
are in w. In all these worlds, the agent has the same options as she does at w: go to Aleppo and
stay in Damascus. The only feature that matters to how a world w′ in the modal background is
ranked is the option the agent chooses in w′. In particular, g(w) ranks worlds w′ on the basis of
whether the option performed in w′ is deontically ideal in light of the information that the agent
has in w. If all options are deontically ideal in light of the agent’s information at w, then g(w)
treats all worlds in f(w) as tied-for-best. Otherwise, g(w) divides the worlds into two groups: it
ranks as tied-for-best all w′ where the option the agent selects in w′ is deontically ideal in light of
her information at w, and it ranks all other worlds as tied-for-worst.
23
With these choices for f and g, ALEPPO plausibly comes out true according to causal
decision theory.28
Given that the case and her information are symmetric, she judges her
prospects if she were to go to Aleppo as equivalent to her prospects if she were to go to
Damascus. So a proponent of causal decision theory will hold that the worlds where the agent
stays in Damascus and those where she goes to Aleppo are all deontically ideal. Hence some of
the highest g(w)-ranked worlds in f(w) are worlds where she goes to Aleppo, and so it is not the
case that she should not go to Aleppo.
Just as for IF-A, IF-B, and MORE INFORMATION, we suggest an advisability reading
for IF-ALEPPO.29 Going through our account step-by-step, we see IF-ALEPPO as doublymodalized.30 The antecedent you go to Aleppo restricts the higher, covert epistemic modal,
limiting us to what is true in all epistemically possible worlds in which you go to Aleppo. In
itself, this does not do much to help IF-ALEPPO come out true. If context supplies the same
parameter values f and g to the deontic modal in IF-ALEPPO as it does for ALEPPO, then this
conditional will come out false, since those parameter values make the consequent you should
not go to Aleppo false in all epistemically possible worlds.
This is where the second, pragmatic role for the antecedent comes in. On our view, the
antecedent if you go to Aleppo can indicate to the hearer that different parameter values are in
28
For the sake of concreteness, we follow Carr in focusing on how a causal decision theorist
might approach this case. Of course, the type of Kratzer-style semantics we’re defending is not
committed the truth of causal decision theory as opposed to, for example, evidential decision
theory.
29
Because the case stipulates only a high likelihood that Death has correctly predicted the
agent’s location, an assertion of IF-ALEPPO would not be warranted on an objective reading. A
subjective reading holds more promise since we might read IF-ALEPPO along the following
lines: if the agent will go to Aleppo, then she will know this at the time of decision, and given
this knowledge at that time she subjectively should not go to Aleppo. But we can put this aside
by assuming the agent will make her decision without advance notice of what she will decide.
30
As Carr (2014) explains, the single-modal view would not predict the truth of IF-ALEPPO, for
reasons derived from the ‘If p, ought p’ problem (Frank (1996)).
24
play. Our suggestion is that the value of f remains unchanged: f(w) still consists of worlds w′ that
are circumstantially like w. But g is no longer a ranking of worlds in terms of deontic ideality
given the agent’s information. Rather, it is a ranking of worlds in terms of deontic ideality given
a hypothetical body of information consisting of the agent’s information plus information
specifying which city she goes to in w. In other words, g(w) ranks worlds w′ on the basis of
whether the option performed in w′ is deontically ideal in light of the information that the agent
has in w plus information specifying which city she goes to in w. Because the agent does not
know where she will go, two kinds of worlds w are epistemically possible for her: those where
this hypothetical body of information includes her going to Aleppo and those where it includes
her staying in Damascus.
The antecedent of IF-ALEPPO, however, restricts the modal
background to those epistemically possible worlds where she goes to Aleppo, and hence to
worlds where the hypothetical body of information includes her going to Aleppo. Given causal
decision theory, staying in Damascus is deontically ideal given such a body of information. The
reason is that a body of information that includes the fact that the agent goes to Aleppo supports
with high probability the claim that Death is in Aleppo, and so assigns the highest causal
expected utility to the agent’s going to Damascus.31
Our analysis of IF-ALEPPO is thus quite similar to our analysis of the advisability
reading of IF-A (and of IF-B and MORE INFORMATION). However, in discussing the miners
case, we noted that IF-A is most clearly relevant to the conversation when it is possible we will
learn the location of the miners before we need to act, since then it offers advice that may be
practically useful. IF-ALEPPO does not appear relevant in the same way. While IF-A could
To follow Carr’s discussion and focus on the semantic issue, we put aside some controversy
over whether this is indeed the best interpretation of causal decision theory. See Joyce (2012)
for discussion.
31
25
potentially lead us to block A were we to learn the miners are in A, IF-ALEPPO cannot lead the
agent to stay in Damascus should she learn that she will go to Aleppo: if the agent genuinely
learns that she will go to Aleppo, then it cannot be true that she will stay in Damascus.
However, we also noted that IF-A can be relevant even if we know we will not learn the
location of the miners before we need to act. It can be part of the process of articulating our
understanding of the situation, or part of a lament about the tragedy of the situation. IF-ALEPPO
appears to have a similar use. In conjunction with “If you stay in Damascus, you shouldn’t stay
in Damascus,” it can help to articulate our understanding of the facts of the case. It can also
express an aspect of the tragedy of the situation, pointing out that knowledge of either decision
would support doing the opposite.
4. Objections: Assessing Semantic versus Near-side Pragmatic Explanations
We have argued that Kratzer-style semantics can account for the data in MINERS and in
DEATH IN DAMASCUS. Two recent papers, however, appear to claim that this is impossible.
Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann write that Kratzer-style semantics incorrectly predicts the
falsity of NEITHER in MINERS (2013: 241). Similarly, Carr writes that Kratzer-style semantics,
unless modified, cannot “predict or model” the data about iffy oughts, as exemplified by DEATH
IN DAMASCUS (forthcoming: 18). On closer inspection, however, these papers do allow the inprinciple possibility of a Kratzer-style account compatible with the data (2013: 231, footnote 14;
forthcoming: 15). They hold, instead, that there are further, more broadly theoretical reasons to
reject any such account. Although neither of these papers considers the kind of solution we have
offered here, it is worth looking at whether any objections they offer raise difficulties for our
proposal.
26
Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann argue against one Kratzer-style proposal on the
grounds that it invokes a parameter value that is not “a natural object to be contextually salient”
(2013: 256). Similarly, Carr argues against a Kratzer-style proposal on the grounds that it
invokes a parameter value that is “ad hoc” and that “might not even make sense” in DEATH IN
DAMASCUS (forthcoming: 15).
We do not believe the parameter values we have invoked are susceptible to these
objections. In analyzing NEITHER and ALEPPO, we use a circumstantial modal base f that
holds fixed the agent’s options. This is a natural choice in contexts of deliberation, where the
interest is in selecting one option from among those available to the agent. For the ordering g,
we order options by their deontic ideality in light of the agent’s information. This, too, is salient
in deliberative contexts: deliberators care about whether their action is reasonable in light of the
information they have. One might object that an agent’s primary interest in deliberation is in the
goodness or badness of outcomes, and so hold that the contextually-salient ordering must be
information-insensitive. Perhaps thinking along these lines, Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann
consider a Kratzer-style approach that ranks worlds in terms of how many miners are actually
saved. We agree that an information-insensitive ordering can be contextually salient; indeed,
such an ordering is in play in objective ought sentences such as EXISTS. Nevertheless, when
uncertainty is important, it is plausible that deliberative attention will turn to an informationsensitive ordering.
A similar story holds for the parameter values we have invoked for MORE
INFORMATION and IF-ALEPPO. There, we hold that options are ordered in terms of their
deontic ideality given a hypothetical body of information consisting of the agent’s information
plus an additional fact. In accord with our observations above, there are a variety of contexts
27
where this parameter value may be salient. For example, if deliberators believe they may learn
an additional fact, then planning ahead may require asking now what their information plus that
fact supports doing. Alternatively, if it would be desirable (though impossible) to know some
additional fact, an ordering that takes this fact into account may become salient, as a way of
noting the contrast between the information we have and the information we wish we had. Such
orderings also express an aspect of the distinctive tragedy of dilemmas such as DEATH IN
DAMASCUS.
Carr raises a more specific problem for a Kratzer-style approach to IF-ALEPPO in
DEATH IN DAMASCUS. She considers a modal background that (i) contains only worlds where
Death is in Aleppo, on the grounds that Death must be in the same place as you and the
antecedent assumes you go to Aleppo, and yet (ii) contains worlds where you go to Aleppo and
worlds where you go to Damascus. Carr writes that this proposal “assumes in the very same
breath that Death must be in the same place as you and that he might not be” and concludes such
a stipulation “might not even make sense” (14-15). Our proposal avoids such an apparent
contradiction in a way similar to Carr’s own proposal. We distinguish between the agent’s
options and the agent’s information (actual or hypothetical) about which option she will choose.
The hypothetical information state including the agent’s information plus the fact that she will go
to Aleppo places both the agent and (with high probability) Death in Aleppo tomorrow.
Working with such a hypothetical information state is consistent with maintaining that the agent
has the option to choose either city: in understanding the conditional, we assume hypothetically
that the agent will, out of her two actual options, choose Aleppo. Of course, the case has the odd
feature that the agent believes that, whichever city she chooses, she will be in the same place as
Death, but also believes that if she were to choose otherwise than she actually does, she would
28
avoid Death. Still, this feature appears to be coherent and, in any event, is essential to the
description of the case given by Gibbard and Harper.
In arguing against Kolodny and MacFarlane (2010), Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann
point to transparency as a “main advantage” of their own account. They hold that it is desirable
to represent the agents’ priorities “transparently and independently of the information available
to them” (256). In MINERS, they represent the priorities as saving more, rather than fewer,
miners; the priorities are thus specified without reference to the agents’ information.
The
account we have offered above lacks this feature: the ranking of worlds given by our parameter
value for g is not independent of the agent’s information.
We do not see this as a disadvantage. Notice first that the ordering of worlds in play in a
given use of a modal expression may depend on many things. For example, what one must do,
legally speaking, may depend on the facts of the case, the laws themselves, court opinions,
conventions of interpretation, and perhaps on the substance of morality itself. It would be
premature to conclude from this that the semantic value for the legal ‘must’ has argument places
for each of these things.
In the case at hand, it is true that some substantive views about how one should act are
naturally represented as separating the role of information and priorities: the MaxiMin view
invoked by Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann is an example. However, other substantive views
do not naturally fit this model. For example, a non-consequentialist view might impose an
absolute prohibition on imposing a significant risk of harm on an innocent person in any
circumstance where this can be avoided. The view allows trivial risks, but rules out risks above
a threshold. Such a view, in its most natural representation, invokes the agent’s information in
specifying the relevant priorities: what the agent should be concerned with is specified partly in
29
terms of the risks from her point of view. While one could implement such a view consistent
with the letter of transparency (for example, by having most or all of the work done by a decision
rule parameter, with little or no role for priorities), transparency in itself does not appear
desirable here.
Probably the main source of resistance to our proposal will be a broadly theoretical
consideration cited by both Carr and Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann: systematicity.32
Indeed, Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann defend transparency at least partly on the grounds
that it secures systematicity: their account derives the ordering of options via a novel semantic
rule that operates on the antecedent of a conditional as well as information, priorities, and a
decision problem. Carr, too, cites systematicity and derives the ordering of options from a novel
semantic rule that operates on the antecedent of a conditional as well as information and a
function from information to orderings.33 Our account appeals to no such semantic derivation.
The parameter values (e.g. the value for g that refers to deontic ideality in light of an information
state) are supplied by context directly to the consequent of the conditional, rather than being
derived by a semantic rule. In assigning this role to context, rather than to a novel semantic rule,
our account provides a near-side pragmatic explanation for how the needed truth-conditions get
assigned.
Given that, as we show above, a Kratzer-style semantics does make room for readings
that fit with our judgments in the puzzle cases, some more theoretical consideration is required to
decide between the two rival, semantic and pragmatic, explanations of the cases. Appeal to
systematicity would seem to be the right sort of consideration to play that role. However, a
32
See also Charlow (2013).
These accounts constitute additions to the Kratzer framework, insofar as the rules and
additional parameters they invoke can be used to recover the Kratzer framework by choosing
trivial values for certain parameters.
33
30
significant worry about the systematicity argument is whether the rival semantic proposals can,
in fact, be developed in a systematic way. For example, the derivations offered by Cariani,
Kaufmann, and Kaufmann assume the MaxiMin decision rule. While it is easy to generalize the
account to, say, the MaxiMax decision rule, it is not clear how to generalize it to more
sophisticated decision rules (such as expected utility maximization or non-consequentialist
approaches to uncertainty) while preserving the kinds of derivations cited as evidence of the
account’s systematicity. The ability to offer such derivations only for a small subset of decision
rules is not an advantage in systematicity.
But we will argue more directly that considerations of systematicity actually favor our
pragmatic approach. Notice first that, given the variety of readings in principle available to a
modal expression, hearers clearly do have a substantial ability to tell which parameter values are
intended for a given sentence. In particular, readings can vary in what information or facts are
relevant: it can be the information the agent will in fact have at the time of action, the
information she could or should have by that time, an advisor’s information, or alternatively all
the relevant facts (whether known by anyone or not). A key part of our proposal is to say that
the relevant information may be the agent’s information plus some contextually relevant fact as
in MORE INFORMATION or IF-ALEPPO.
To see that such a proposal isn’t ad hoc, but enjoys independent support, consider a case
from DeRose (1991) regarding “John, who has some symptoms indicative of cancer, and a
‘filtering’ test which John’s doctor decides to run and which has two possible results: If the
results are ‘negative,’ then cancer is conclusively ruled out; if the results are ‘positive,’ then John
might, but also might not, have cancer: further tests will have to be run.” (582) The test has been
31
run, but the results are not known by anyone. DeRose notes that Jane, who is familiar with the
situation but does not have the test results, could say:
“I don’t know whether it’s possible that John has cancer.” (593)
What Jane does not know is, roughly, whether John’s having cancer is compatible with what she
knows combined with the information from the test results. This has a clear structural similarity
to our own account, where the relevant body of information is the agent’s combined with some
additional fact.34
On analogy with DeRose’s case, consider a version of von Fintel’s three-shaft version of
the miners case. The agents in this case know the following: They will not learn anything about
the location of the miners before the time they need to act. There is, however, a test that can
determine whether or not the miners are in A. If they are in A, it says they are in A. If they are
in B or C, it simply says they are not in A. The test has been run, but the results are not known
by anyone. An agent in the case could say:
I don’t know whether we ought to blow A up.
The information relevant to this sentence is not the information the agent will actually have at the
time of action, since that supports doing nothing and so definitively does not support blowing A
up. Nor is it all the possible information about the case, since this would support blocking
whichever the shaft the miners are in. Rather it is the agent’s information about the case
combined with information specifying whether or not the miners are in A.
This example is thus best interpreted with just the kind of parameter value we have
posited. Because “I don’t know whether we ought to blow A up” is not a conditional, we cannot
say here that the parameter value is somehow derived from a semantic rule operating on an
See Dowell (2011) for discussion of a version of DeRose’s case in keeping with our present
proposal.
34
32
antecedent. Instead, the context, which includes the sentence itself, supplies the parameter value
directly to the modal. Thus, the very mechanism and type of parameter value we posit for
MORE INFORMATION and IF-ALEPPO quite plausibly operates in this case. Our account of
these sentences is systematic insofar as it simply extends a mechanism we already have reason to
accept.
Indeed, our account offers a particularly unified and systematic account of the following
piece of discourse (TEST):
I don’t know whether we ought to blow A up. If the miners are not in A, we
ought to blow A up. If the miners are in A, we ought not blow A up.
On our account, context supplies the same parameter values to the modals in all of these
sentences: the ordering g ranks worlds on the basis of what is deontically ideal in light of the
agent’s information plus the fact about whether or not the miners are in A. Below we will
consider in more detail a dilemma that this case raises for our rivals. But at this point, it is worth
noting that the pattern of explanation they offer for MINERS and DEATH IN DAMASCUS, in
which a semantic rule operates on a contextually supplied parameter value (or values) in
conjunction with the antecedent of a conditional to yield a new ordering, would be overly
complex here. On that pattern, one would end up saying that context supplies one value for g to
the first sentence, and then a different value g′ to the two conditionals, but that this value gets
operated on in conjunction with the antecedents to yield a new ordering, possibly the same as the
original g, that gets the truth conditions right.35 Such an account invokes both a novel semantic
rule with additional parameter(s) and an unmotivated context shift. We posit neither of these,
and thus offer a simpler, more systematic account of this discourse.
35
On Carr’s account, this could be implemented via a context shift in the information parameter.
33
Carr offers a final objection to the potential for a Kratzer-style account to handle the data
in DEATH IN DAMASCUS: equivocation. She writes that an adequate account must allow an
“unequivocal treatment of expressions of reasonable decision theories.” Carr seems to grant here
that a Kratzer-style view could accommodate the data with appropriate parameter values, but
maintains that ALEPPO and IF-ALEPPO “should be compatible at a single context” on the
grounds that “they are all the deliverances of a unified and coherent body of norms: namely,
causal decision theory plus the desire to avoid death” (15). Similarly Cariani, Kaufmann, and
Kaufmann write “we believe (although there is naturally room for further argument) that the data
point is that it is these very conditionals (i.e. [IF-A and IF-B]) that are true on the deliberative
interpretation of ought” (231, footnote 14). This, too, suggests the view that a single parameter
value must be in play for NEITHER, which is clearly deliberative, as well as IF-A and IF-B.
If there is an intuition that NEITHER, IF-A, and IF-B are true on the very same readings
of the modals, we are not sure just what it is supposed to be. As a point of comparison, consider
a reading of IF-A on which it is false. Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann call this the “nonreflecting” reading of the conditional, which they elucidate as follows:
If the miners are in shaft A, we (still) ought to block neither shaft, for their being
in shaft A doesn’t mean that we know where they are. Indeed, no matter where
the miners are, we ought to block neither shaft. (227)
It does seem plausible that this instance of “if the miners are in shaft A, we ought to block
neither shaft” involves the very same reading of the modal as does NEITHER; indeed, Cariani,
Kaufmann, and Kaufmann “take it to be obvious that the non-reflecting interpretation is
deliberative” (240, footnote 31). Yet, as these authors acknowledge, there is not quite this
feeling of sameness between IF-A when heard as true and NEITHER (228, footnote 6; 231,
footnote 14; 240, footnote 31).
34
We agree that there is some feeling of commonality between IF-A, even when heard as
true, and NEITHER. Indeed, our account explains this in line with Carr’s idea that, in DEATH
IN DAMASCUS, sentences like these are “the deliverances of a unified and coherent body of
norms.” On our view, IF-A and NEITHER both invoke an ordering of worlds in terms of
deontic ideality. These sentences do flow from the same norms, perhaps even norms of causal
decision theory. However, there is a slight difference between them: NEITHER applies these
norms to our actual information, while IF-A (on its advisability reading) applies these norms to
our actual information plus information specifying the location of the miners. Our account
therefore explains why the feeling of commonality is weaker here than it is between IF-A on its
non-reflecting reading and NEITHER. In the latter case, the ordering is identical between the
two sentences, while in the former it is merely very similar.
One might try to press the point about equivocation against our proposal on more
theoretical grounds. Carr, as quoted above, may hold as a desideratum that it should be possible
in English to express the deliverances of causal decision theory without a change in contextually
supplied parameter values. We need not decide whether this is a legitimate desideratum, since
our view satisfies it. On our view, one may express the deliverances of causal decision theory
without a change in contextually supplied parameter values by using the subjective ‘ought’ in a
set of conditionals of the form: “if your credences and values are …, you ought to …”. Our view
would not, of course, meet the stronger desideratum that every discourse that expresses the
deliverances of causal decision theory must involve no change in contextually supplied
35
parameter values. But this stronger desideratum would be unmotivated given the general utility
to conversation of such changes for modals, quantifier domains, and demonstratives.36,37
Considerations of whether a set of sentences is intuitively equivocal may ultimately
support our account in a different way. Consider again the piece of discourse mentioned above,
TEST, for von Fintel’s three-shaft version of the miners case, where we stipulate the existence of
test results that tell whether or not the miners are in A:
I don’t know whether we ought to blow A up. If the miners are not in A, we
ought to blow A up. If the miners are in A, we ought not blow A up.
These sentences do not appear to be equivocal. This leads to a dilemma for the views of Carr
and Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann. They may choose to go contrary to this intuition, and
insist that context supplies different parameter values for the first sentence than for the
conditionals. This, we think, would further undermine their appeal to a sense of commonality
between IF-A and NEITHER to argue for sameness of contextually supplied parameter values
there. As mentioned above, it also appears to be a needlessly complex account of this piece of
discourse, one which invokes both a novel semantic rule with additional parameter(s) and an
unmotivated context shift, in contrast to our straightforward account.
36
For example, we easily navigate an unannounced shift from the circumstantial modality of
“hydrangeas can grow here” to the legal modality of “you can plant anything that won’t block
visibility around the corner.” It would be possible, but more cumbersome, to express these
thoughts without relying on context to supply the appropriate parameter values. Dowell (2011,
2013) defends the view that our ability to detect speaker intentions underwrites our competence
with contextually supplied parameter values.
37
Jennifer Carr (pc) asks whether our willingness to posit covert modals, combined with
contextual flexibility, might undermine the reasons for accepting the view of if-clauses as
restrictors. She suggests that reading ‘if p, then q’ as must(p  q), where an epistemic ‘must’
takes scope over a material conditional, would then offer a simpler semantics. We note that such
a view would need to add a condition to avoid the consequence that ‘if p, then q’ is true
whenever must(~p) is true. Given this, we do not regard the alternative as simpler than the
restrictor view. The viability of the alternative depends in part on whether it can be developed to
deal systematically with the full range of data that have been taken to motivate the restrictor view
(e.g. Lewis (1975)), a question we do not explore here.
36
Alternatively, they could hold that context supplies the same parameter values to all these
sentences. In that case, they grant that conditionals like MORE INFORMATION, IF-A, and IFALEPPO receive, in cases like this one, their true readings simply because context supplies the
appropriate parameter values, and not because a novel semantic rule is in play. This puts strong
pressure on their accounts to hold that these conditionals receive their true readings in other
cases, such as the standard MINERS or DEATH IN DAMASCUS cases, for the same reason.
Overall, on this branch, all sides are committed to the core of the Kratzer semantics and to the
existence of a pragmatic mechanism that can assign the kind of parameter values we have
posited in the standard MINERS or DEATH IN DAMASCUS cases.
Our opponents add
commitments to a more complicated semantics and to the claim that the pragmatic mechanism
that is common ground cannot operate in those cases. The additional commitments of the
opposing views might be justified if there were strong independent reason to hold that those
cases cannot involve a shift in contextually supplied parameter values, but our investigation of
this issue above has revealed no such reason. Theoretical virtues would thus appear to favor our
account over the alternatives.
5. Conclusion
There has been much recent work in the literature in the philosophy of language,
linguistics, and metaethics over whether a Kratzer-style contextualist semantics for modal
expressions can be made to fit with the full range of data in a series of puzzle cases. Part of what
is at stake in these debates is the viability of relativism as a research program in the philosophy
of language and linguistics; much of the motivation for relativism is the claim that no
contextualist semantics for some expression E is plausible.
37
Also at issue is to what extent linguists and philosophers of language should prefer
semantic over near-side pragmatic explanations of ordinary speakers’ judgments that make up
the primary data for semantic and pragmatic theories. As we’ve seen here, some contextualists,
like relativists, defend their novel semantic proposals on the grounds that no Kratzer-style
semantics can be made to fit with the full range of data in MINERS or in DEATH IN
DAMASCUS. Here we have shown how this is not so, by identifying available Kratzer-friendly
readings that fit with the agreed upon data. This includes showing both how all of NEITHER,
IF-A, and IF-B may be true in a single piece of practical reasoning in MINERS and how
ALEPPO and IF-ALEPPO may both be true in DEATH IN DAMASCUS, under the assumption
that the norms in play are those of causal decision theory.
The remaining objection to Kratzer-friendly readings in those cases is the claim that it is
“ad hoc” or “unsystematic” to suppose that context is able to secure the needed parameter values,
as our pragmatic explanation requires. But we have seen how this objection is misplaced; clear
features of the context in which those utterances are felicitous are features that make the needed
parameter values highly salient. We have also, in considering DeRose’s case and a parallel
three-shaft MINERS case, identified independent evidence for the contextual availability of what
we are calling the “advisability” readings that we posit for MORE INFORMATION and for IFALEPPO. This is further evidence that positing such readings is not ad hoc, but required on
grounds independent of the issues raised here.
Finally, we have seen that the charge that the readings we identify are “unsystematic” is
also misplaced. Our theory is able to identify the sense of commonality between NEITHER and
IF-A and IF-B that is pretheoretically plausible and likewise for the piece of discourse TEST. In
contrast, our opponents are faced with a dilemma. In accounting for TEST, they must either
38
offer a needlessly complex explanation that undermines their general appeal to the sameness of
contextually supplied parameter values, or else endorse all the materials needed for own account,
thus making their additional commitments appear superfluous.
We conclude that a Kratzer-style, flexible contextualist semantics, supplemented with a
near-side pragmatic account of how it is that contexts supply the needed parameter values,
remains the view to beat.
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