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In this volume, John Horty brings to bear his work in logic to present a framework that allows for answers to key questions about reasons and reasoning, namely: What are reasons, and how do they support actions or conclusions?
Although the study of reasons plays an important role in both epistemology and moral philosophy, little attention has been devoted to the question of how, exactly, reasons interact to support the actions or conclusions they do. In this book, John F. Horty attempts to answer this question by providing a precise, concrete account of reasons and their interaction, based on the logic of default reasoning. The book begins with an intuitive, accessible introduction to default logic itself, and then argues that this logic can be adapted to serve as a foundation for a concrete theory of reasons. Horty then shows that the resulting theory helps to explain how the interplay among reasons can determine...
John Horty effectively develops deontic logic (the logic of ethical concepts like obligation and permission) against the background of a formal theory of agency. He incorporates certain elements of decision theory to set out a new deontic account of what agents ought to do under variousconditions over extended periods of time. Offering a conceptual rather than technical emphasis, Horty's framework allows a number of recent issues from moral theory to be set out clearly and discussed from a uniform point of view.
Normative reasons have become a popular theoretical tool in recent decades. One helpful feature of normative reasons is their weight. The fourteen new essays in this book theorize about many different aspects of weight. Topics range from foundational issues to applications of weight in debates across philosophy.
This volume presents a definitive introduction to twenty core areas of philosophical logic including classical logic, modal logic, alternative logics and close examinations of key logical concepts. The chapters, written especially for this volume by internationally distinguished logicians, philosophers, computer scientists and linguists, provide comprehensive studies of the concepts, motivations, methods, formal systems, major results and applications of their subject areas. The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic engages both general readers and experienced logicians and provides a solid foundation for further study.
'The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity' contains 44 commissioned chapters on a wide range of topics, and will appeal to readers with an interest in ethics or epistemology. A diverse selection of substantive positions are defended by leading proponents of the views in question, and provide broad coverage of the study of reasons and normativity across multiple philosophical subfields. In addition to focusing on reasons as part of the study of ethics and as part of the study of epistemology (as well as focusing on reasons as part of the study of the philosophy of language and as part of the study of the philosophy of mind), the Handbook covers recent developments concerning the nature of normativity in general. A number of the contributions to the Handbook explicitly address such "metanormative" issues, bridging subfields as they do so. --
The Handbook of Deontic Logic and Normative Systems presents a detailed overview of the main lines of research on contemporary deontic logic and related topics. Although building on decades of previous work in the field, it is the first collection to take into account the significant changes in the landscape of deontic logic that have occurred in the past twenty years. These changes have resulted largely, though not entirely, from the interaction of deontic logic with a variety of other fields, including computer science, legal theory, organizational theory, economics, and linguistics. This first volume of the Handbook is divided into three parts, containing nine chapters in all, each written by leading experts in the field. The first part concentrates on historical foundations. The second examines topics of central interest in contemporary deontic logic. The third presents some new logical frameworks that have now become part of the mainstream literature. A second volume of the Handbook is currently in preparation, and there may be a third after that.
In this book, legal scholars, philosophers, historians, and political scientists from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States analyze the common law through three of its classic themes: rules, reasoning, and constitutionalism. Their essays, specially commissioned for this volume, provide an opportunity for thinkers from different jurisdictions and disciplines to talk to each other and to their wider audience within and beyond the common law world. This book allows scholars and students to consider how these themes and concepts relate to one another. It will initiate and sustain a more inclusive and well-informed theoretical discussion of the common law's method, process, and structure. It will be valuable to lawyers, philosophers, political scientists, and historians interested in constitutional law, comparative law, judicial process, legal theory, law and society, legal history, separation of powers, democratic theory, political philosophy, the courts, and the relationship of the common law tradition to other legal systems of the world.
This fourth edition of Precedent in English Law presents a basic guide to the current doctrine of precedent in England, set in the wider context of the jurisprudential problems which any treatment of this topic involves. Such problems include the nature of _ratio_ _decidendi_ of a precedent and of its binding force, the significance of precedents alongside other sources of law, their role in legal reasoning, and the account which must be taken of them by any general theory of law. Considerable re-writing has been undertaken to update case-law and take account of the possible implications for the doctrine of precedent of the impact of European Community law, making it an indispensable work of reference for readers interested in the past history, present state, and future developments of English rules of precedent.
This is a philosophical but non-technical analysis of the very idea of a rule. Although focused somewhat on the role of rules in the legal system, it is also relevant to the place of rules in morality, religion, etiquette, games, language, and family governance. In both explaining the idea of a rule and making the case for taking rules seriously, the book is a departure both in scope and in perspective from anything that now exists.