Deontic logic (adapted) for normative conflicts

Abstract

Normative conflicts are situations in which an agent ought to do each of several things but cannot do them all. They seem an all too frequent part of anyone's life. Yet standard deontic logic declares them to be logically impossible. Hence we look to adapt the standard principles to develop a logic of normative concepts that can accommodate such conflicts. Here I present the problem posed by normative conflicts, and how difficult it seems to be. I then introduce some promising new results that apply the framework of Adaptive Logic to this problem. I close, however, with a critical look at those results, and question how adequate they are.