Expected value of conditionals and expected utility: A probabilistic account of conditional evaluative constructions

Abstract

This paper develops a probabilistic account of the Korean conditional evaluative construction that conveys obligation, which is expressed in terms of a conditional and an evaluative predicate. Assuming that conditionals denote the degree of support for the consequent given the antecedent and that evaluative predicates are measure functions that return the utility value of a given world argument, the compositional semantics of the construction at hand gives rise to an expected utility-based semantics of deontic modality. I point out its relevance to decision theory and further offer a principled solution the problem of supererogation.