Chapter Title: Normative Logic

Book Title: A New Stoicism

Book Author(s): Lawrence C. Becker
Published by: Princeton University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctt1pd2k82.8

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Part Two
T H E WAY T H I N G S M I G H T G O

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4
Normative Logic

This short chapter, together with its somewhat more elaborate appen-
dix and commentary at the end of the book, lays out in a formal way the
practical logic sketched informally in Part One. It tests that sketch for
hidden assumptions and consistency and is a further explanation of how
stoics propose to get from “is” to “ought.” Readers with limited patience
for formal logic will need only the informal exposition given here. The
calculus itself is confined to the appendix, and since the commentary that
would normally follow this chapter deals mostly with technical matters
related to the calculus, it is also in the appendix. Readers who are gripped
by the desire to see symbols may turn directly to the calculus. Enough
informal exposition is repeated there to make it intelligible, and it has the
advantage of giving a fuller and more precise account.
Nothing in the arguments of subsequent chapters will involve manipu-
lating the calculus, but everything in them depends on the existence and
coherence of it (or of something like it). Stoic ethical theory, given some
of its extraordinary claims, cannot afford to proceed without confidence
that the assemblage of assumptions and logical operations it employs
are clear and adequate for its purposes. We are therefore committed to
considering such matters in detail. What follows here, however, is offered
only with the aim of applying existing formal methods to ethics, and not
with the aim of extending logic itself in a significant way. These days, phi-
losophers are as specialized as everyone else. Those of us in ethics rarely
do anything original in logic, and our logicians return the favor.
We agree with Aristotle’s dictum that philosophers should not seek
more determinateness in their arguments than the subject matter permits
—and particularly that we should not expect to get the rigor and preci-
sion of mathematical demonstrations in the arguments of ethical theory.
But we also agree with Hume that the logic employed in ethics is often
deeply obscure; and we agree with Brian Barry that even when the logic
is clear, it often starts too close to its destination. It is our aim to avoid
all three of those pitfalls.
The task of working out this normative logic in detail shows that stoic
ethics does indeed have a sound method of deriving moral judgments
from facts about the world—a method that meets the following tests:
First, it is capable of representing the full range of behavioral norms rele-
vant to normative judgments, and of assigning a clear meaning to “moral

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38 CHAPTER 4

judgment” as opposed to other sorts of normative ones. Second, it makes

very plain just how we propose to derive moral judgments from facts
about the world. There is no logical sleight of hand here. And third, it
shows that such derivations can be logically sound, nontrivial, and sys-
tematically coherent.

Norms and Normative Propositions

Throughout these arguments we make a sharp distinction between norms

and normative propositions. In our lexicon, norms are facts about the in-
tentional behavior of particular agents; they are facts about agents’ goals,
projects, or endeavors—specifically about what they believe they must
do or be, ought to do or be, or may do or be. Normative propositions
are assertions about norms—attempts to represent facts about norms in
assertoric propositions about them. Such assertions can be true or false.
Indeed, in stoic logic they must be either true or false and cannot be
both. There is no middle ground of indeterminacy (or “higher” ground
of both-truth-and-falsity) about the truth value of a given representation
of a norm. We thus can make use of the resources of standard, bivalent,
truth-functional logic.

Types of Normative Propositions

The logic described here, however, diverges from standard presentations

of deontic logic in which the normative operators are obligation, permis-
sion, and prohibition—all interpreted in terms of the alethic modal no-
tions of necessity, possibility, and impossibility. Instead we use normative
operators of requirement, ought, and indifference, and it seems unlikely
that an adequate semantic interpretation of them can be given in terms
of modal logic. We make use of modal operators as well; we simply do
not claim that their semantics may serve for our normative ones. Further
discussion of these matters is given in the commentary to this chapter in
the appendix and (implicitly) throughout chapter 5.

OUGHT

We use “ought” in the following way: to say that an agent ought to do or

be x is to say that her doing (or being) x is advisable (but not necessarily
required) in terms of some endeavor that she has. That is, to say that she
ought to do x is to say that her doing x will advance one of her endeavors
along a defined trajectory toward its goals. Endeavors are intentional,

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N O R M AT I V E l O G I C 39

goal-directed activities. Some things we do in pursuit of them are, as we

say, steps in the right direction—on track, on course, on target, in accord
with what we are trying to do, effective, true to our purposes, right, cor-
rect. Other things are inadvisable, in the sense that they are deviations
from the defined trajectory. Still others are neither advisable nor inad-
visable, in the sense that they have no effect on our progress along the
trajectory. Note that, as in navigation, deviations from a defined course
do not necessarily prevent one from reaching one’s destination. One can
make course corrections to get back on the original path, or one can
chart a new course. Moreover, to say that an act is advisable is not to say
that it is unique in that regard (there may be several adequate solutions
to a given navigational problem), or that it is the optimal choice (one
solution may not be preferable to another).

REQUIREMENT

We use “requirement” in several distinct ways, which for convenience

are harmlessly conflated in the calculus, as they are in ordinary speech.
To say that an agent is required to do (or be) x is to say one or more of
three things: (a) It may be to say that her doing or being x is in some
sense a necessary condition for her pursuing some endeavor she has.
(b) It may be to say that within the terms of some endeavor, she ought to
be (or it is required that she be) sanctioned for doing or being non-x. Or
(c) it may be to say that her doing or being non-x would be a “nullity”
in her endeavor—would not count as pursuing that endeavor at all. (We
include nullity as an alternative to make note of the cases in which the
“necessity” for doing x, or the “sanction” for doing non-x, comes from
the fact that non-x does not count for anything. Legal requirements that
a will be witnessed are of this sort. Failing to meet them is just failing
to make a valid will. This is a special case of the “necessary condition”
alternative, but one that is frequently forgotten.) A prohibition is simply
a requirement that one not do (or be) x.
For present purposes we do not think this triple disjunction needs to be
broken apart to identify two or three different sorts of requirement. That
is, we do not think these distinctions affect the ordinal relationships or
inferences outlined below. Note that its being required that an agent do
x is quite distinct from its being the case that she ought to do it. Require-
ments often constrain or even frustrate the pursuit of a goal.

INDIFFERENCE

The indifference operator is interpreted as a logical remainder. To say

that it is a matter of indifference whether an agent does x is to say that

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40 CHAPTER 4

her doing x is neither advisable nor inadvisable, neither required nor

prohibited.
There are important and interesting logical relationships between these
normative operators and the various sorts of imperatives, endorsements,
recommendations, exclamations, and other speech acts typical of ethical
discourse. Imperatives, for example, often elide the distinction between
requirement and ought. (“Just do it” is ambiguous in that way.) And it
is challenging to try to think through the extent to which the meaning of
prescriptive language in general overlaps that of the normative proposi-
tions used here. We leave all such matters for another time.

Levels of Inclusiveness and Dominance

An agent’s endeavors, and hence the norms that are elements in them, are
often related hierarchically. For example, a training regimen pursued to
improve athletic performance is embedded, as it were, in the performance
endeavor, and the performance norms control or dominate the training
ones. Stoic normative logic defines moral norms formally as the ones
that are elements of our most inclusive and controlling endeavor. See the
axioms at the end of this chapter. It is the task of chapters 5–7 to describe
and defend a conception of what that endeavor (achieving and sustaining
virtue) amounts to.

Possibility and Necessity

Matters of possibility and necessity figure prominently in stoic ethics,

and so this normative logic includes modal operators, interpreted as un-
controversially as possible. The technical issues here we leave to the ap-
pendix, and we make only this informal observation about our use of
the alethic modalities. We distinguish three ranges of modality: logical,
theoretical, and practical. (a) Logical possibilities are the largest category,
including every possibility that is not self-contradictory. In terms of our
goal-directed endeavors, this also includes every possibility that is not
self-defeating. (b) Theoretical possibilities are a narrower set. What is
logically possible may not be possible in terms of our theories of the way
things work. Einsteinian physics, for example, holds that travel at speeds
greater than that of light is not possible; Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of
moral development holds that people cannot reach stage 6 without going
through stages 1–5 in order. So a proposition asserts that x is a theoretical
impossibility if it asserts that it is inconsistent with the laws, postulates,
predictions, or explanations of a given theory. (c) Practical possibility is a

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N O R M AT I V E l O G I C 41

still smaller set. It is defined by the abilities of given individuals in given

circumstances. So a proposition that asserts that x is a practical possibil-
ity asserts that it is logically consistent with the abilities of the people in
some referenced class. Note that theoretical and practical possibility are
merely context-restricted forms of logical possibility.

Conflicts and Ordinal Relationships

As will be clear in the section on normative constructs below, and will be

explained even more fully in chapter 5, the logic described here represents
and manipulates conflicting norms. It resolves all such conflicts, how-
ever, in three stages. First, it records whatever priorities are in fact built
into the types of norms involved. For example, in general we suppose that
requirements take priority over conflicting oughts, and that indifference
yields to either. Second, it records conflicts among requirements, or among
oughts or indifferences, in terms of ordinal relations of inclusiveness and
dominance that are constructable from them. Third, it gets closure on any
remaining conflicts among norms of the same rank by constructing nor-
mative propositions (moral ones) that represent forced choices.

Normative Constructs: Getting from Is to Ought

Certain constellations of facts, necessities, and possibilities license the

construction of normative propositions. Given facts about the rules of a
game, for example, and facts about the possibilities open to players, it is
plain how we can legitimately construct normative propositions about what
the players ought to do strictly in terms of the game they are playing. And
it is equally plain how we can then reconstruct such normative propositions
in terms of the players’ more comprehensive activities—by enlarging the
frame of reference to include facts about the various aims and preferences
that have brought them to play the game, and the terms under which they
are willing to stay in it. The normative power of such propositions is con-
ditional: If we restrict ourselves simply to the rules of the “game” we are
playing and the possibilities open to us, then we ought to . . . .
All the licit normative constructs in this logic are conditional in that
sense—they are all constructed from (and thus logically tethered to)
antecedents that define an ongoing activity, its participants, and their
possibilities. If the antecedent conditions are all-things-considered ones—
that is, if the antecedent ongoing activity in terms of which the normative
judgment is constructed is simply all-things-considered practical reasoning
applied to a given situation—then such constructs have some similarity to

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42 CHAPTER 4

categorical imperatives. This is so because, by definition, there is no way

to reconstruct all-things-considered judgments in terms of antecedents
that have not been considered. Thus in effect they have the sort of finality
claimed for categorical imperatives.

First-Order Constructs

The classic stoic injunction to “follow nature” is realized here as following

the facts. We begin with a look at a small sampling of frequently used rules
for transforming descriptive propositions about the aims, rules-of-play,
and practical possibilities within a given ongoing activity into normative
propositions about those activities. (For a fuller sample, see the appendix.)

FROM MEANS AND ENDS TO OUGHTS

For stoics, means/end reasoning is the underlying form of all practical

reasoning. It is implicit even in apparently noninstrumental inferences
from desires or categorical commitments, for example, because those in-
ferences depend on assumptions about their connection to eudaimonia
as human happiness or flourishing. And there is no practical reasoning
about that end, as opposed to a philosophical defense of it. However, it
would not be instructive, in a normative logic, to represent all inferences
simply in terms of means/end relationships. That would obscure many
important distinctions. Here we will treat means/end inferences on a par
with those about desires, commitments, appropriateness, and so forth.
Such means/end inferences at a given ordinal level take several forms,
depending on the possibilities for action. One is what we may call the
rule of the best means: if we can identify some course of action or trait x
as a practically possible means to achieving one or more of the goals we
are pursuing, and it is the best of the practical possibilities, then nothing-
else-considered, we ought to do x.
That leaves the cases in which there are several routes to the same goal,
none superior to the others. In such cases, though we need to avoid the
indecision of Buridan’s Ass, immobilized between two equidistant and
equally desirable piles of hay, the choice is arbitrary. So we resolve such
cases with an inference that the agent ought to make an arbitrary choice
between the means that are in equipoise.

OTHER OUGHTS

In some endeavors the desires of the participants are allowed to trump all
other considerations; the mere desire to do (or be) x counts as a sufficient

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N O R M AT I V E l O G I C 43

reason for doing or being x, nothing else considered. Improvised games

come to mind as an example—games in which the shifting whims of the
players are allowed to overturn any of the rules, so that what begins as
(say) a backyard game of croquet can mutate first into a test of love and
then into an indefinite range of games that are not croquet. In other en-
deavors, desires are subordinate to certain considerations (e.g., efficiency)
but are otherwise defined as sufficient reasons for action. And it may be
that in still other endeavors, a desire to do x never counts as sufficient
reason for doing it—or even counts as sufficient reason for not doing it.
We may represent these situations together in the following rule of
inference: if the desire to do (or be) x is a sufficient reason for doing it
in one of the agent’s endeavors, then (nothing-else-considered) the agent
ought to do or be x.
Similar rules are used to construct normative ought-propositions about
ideals, guidelines, and various kinds of transactional obligations.

FROM COMMITMENTS TO REQUIREMENTS

A given endeavor, practice, or institution may define participants as cat-

egorically committed to various courses of action merely from the fact
of their being participants in the endeavor. Such commitments are cat-
egorical in the sense that within the endeavor they are not conditioned
on anything but participation—not on the desires or goals of individ-
ual participants, or the consequences of the required acts, for example.
Such commitments are not optional within the endeavor. Thus our rule
is that if an agent is categorically committed to x in some endeavor, then
(nothing-else-considered) he is required to do or be x.

FROM STANDARDS TO OUGHT-NOTS

Many endeavors have standards of good form and appropriateness that

fall short of the requiredness of categorical commitments but are nonethe-
less important practical considerations. Such endeavors have an etiquette
as well as a set of goals, an aesthetic as well as a set of commitments, a
conception of what is fitting as well as a conception of what is effective.
When we disapprove of an admittedly licit and effective practice as ugly,
uncouth, or tacky—or commend a failure as classy—we appeal to such
standards. They are not typically employed, however, to identify a partic-
ular course of action or way of being that must or ought to be pursued.
Rather they are employed to assess conduct or character in terms of some
threshold of objectionability. Such appeals may be represented in a rule
of inference about things we ought not to do or be—a rule of this gen-
eral form: if x is standard or fitting conduct or character for an agent in

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44 CHAPTER 4

some endeavor, then (nothing else considered) he ought not to do or be

anything other than x.

Escalation

Conflicts obviously arise regularly between normative propositions con-

structed in the way just described—that is, in terms of discrete endeavors,
nothing else considered. We resolve such conflicts by means of rules for gen-
erating superordinate normative propositions that dominate the conflicting
ones. These rules do nothing more than represent ways in which our norms
actually do (often) have an implicit ordinal relationship to one another.
There are two crucial ways in which such ordinal relationships occur.
One we call comprehensiveness: when one endeavor is embedded in a
more comprehensive and controlling one, the latter’s norms are superor-
dinate. The other we call assessment: when we recognize one endeavor
as subject to assessment and correction by another, the latter’s norms are
superordinate.
Not every conflict is in principle resolvable in this way, however. Some-
times norms of the same ordinal rank conflict. We resolve such conflicts
with forced choices—that is, with rules of the following sort: conflicting
requirements at level n to choose between mutually exclusive courses
of conduct generate a normative proposition that resolves the matter at
level n  1.
There are a good many technical complications in this escalation process,
but the important point is getting a sound rule of closure for every case.

Transcendence

In stoic normative logic, normative propositions representing practical

reasoning, all things considered, are defined as moral ones. We thus need
rules for getting from propositions at a given level n to (unsubscripted)
moral ones. Such rules are merely variants of escalation rules in which
we include a premise that represents the result of all-things-considered
deliberation. Together with the axioms of our logic, we may then make
an inference to a moral proposition.

Axioms of Stoic Normative logic

This swift overview of a calculus of normative logic concludes with an

informal statement of four central postulates that are specifically stoic.

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N O R M AT I V E l O G I C 45

(There are others in the full system, but they address technical details
in the calculus.) The ones listed here are given a meta-ethical defense in
other chapters. Here they merely round out an intuitive picture of the
logical ground on which stoic ethical arguments ultimately rest.
Axiom of Encompassment. The exercise of our agency through practical in-
telligence, including practical reasoning all-things-considered, is the most
comprehensive and controlling of our endeavors.
Axiom of Finality. There is no reasoned assessment endeavor external to the
exercise of practical reasoning all-things-considered.
Axiom of Moral Priority. Norms generated by the exercise of practical reason-
ing all-things-considered are superordinate to all others.
Axiom of Futility. Agents are required not to make direct attempts to do (or
be) something that is logically, theoretically, or practically impossible.

We turn now from formal to substantive matters, including the defense

of these axioms.

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