Arguing from facts to duties

ARGUING FROM FACTS TO DUTIES (AND CONVERSELY) Txetxu Ausín & Lorenzo Peña Proceedings of the 5th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation ed. by Frans van Eemeren et alii Amsterdam: Sic Sat, 2003 ISBN 90-74049-07-9 pp. 45-48 Contents 0.— Introduction 1.— Deontic Notions and Possible-Worlds Semantics 2.— Detachment 3.— A New Approach to Deontic Argumentation 4.— Final Remark 5.— References 0.— Introduction One of the most controversial issues about arguments involving deontic and ethical matters is whether statements of duty or right can be inferred from statements of fact, and conversely. Most analytical philosophers have inclined to give a negative answer, alleging that duties or rights are not implied by mere facts (or the other way round), and hence that no combination of facts can imply a duty or a right, and no combination of duties or rights implies a fact. Not everybody has agreed, of course. Searle (1969) famously tried to derive duty assertions from factual assertions involving promises, but his interesting attempt has tended to be regarded as a failure owing to an equivocation on the meaning of «promise». Geach also defended the connection between facts and duties in certain sense.