Contextualism about Deontic ConditionalsAaron BronfmanJ.L. Dowell

Draft at 3/2/15

If you are a semanticist, how best to understand the formal

semantics of modal expressions is an issue that wears its

interest on its sleeve. The issue, however, is of broader

interest and importance to those concerned with other debates.

One main task of metaethics, for example, is to understand

ordinary moral and, more broadly, normative and evaluative

discourse. Identifying the best semantics and pragmatics of

deontic modal expressions in particular would make an important

contribution to metaethicists’ understanding of such discourse.

Recently, some philosophers of language and linguists have

wondered whether there are any expressions that require a

relativist’s distinctive treatment. Contextualists about some

expression E hold that the contribution E makes to the

determination of the truth-conditions of utterances containing E

varies from context of use to context of use. Relativists about

E, in contrast, hold that it makes an invariant contribution to

the determination of truth-conditions on any occasion of use.

Unlike standard semantic invariantists, however, relativists hold

that the circumstances of evaluation that determine the truth of

utterances containing E are more fine-grained than the standardly

assumed possible worlds. What in addition is needed to determine

a truth-value, for the relativist, depends upon what E is. In

the case of deontic modals, some relativists argue that that

addition is a body of information: Deontic modal sentences are

true or false at world, information pairs.1

Assessing the prospects for relativism about deontic modals

is crucial to answering the larger question of whether relativism

is a viable research program. Central among the cases that are

thought to motivate relativism are cases involving deontic modals

whose truth requires that they are sensitive to a body of

information in some way.2 Parfit’s miners scenario is such a

case. A significant point of contention is whether a

contextualist can account for our judgments about deontic modals

in that case. A challenge for the contextualist, then, is to

1 MacFarlane (2014).2 Kolodny and MacFarlane (2010).

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identify a contextualist account of modal expressions that fits

with those judgments and is independently plausible.3

Here our goal is to help identify the contextualist’s most

worthy competitor to relativism. Recently, some philosophers of

language and linguists have argued that, while there are

contextualist-friendly semantic theories of deontic modals that

fit with the relativist’s challenge data, the best such theories

are not Lewis-Kratzer-style semantic theories.4 If correct, this

would be important: It would show that the theory that has for

many years enjoyed the status of the default view of modals in

English and other languages is in need of revision.

3 Some have argued that the best data for relativism aboutdeontic and epistemic modals is given not by data at issue here,but by data involving disagreement. For replies to thecontention that the contextualist cannot accommodate thedisagreement data, see Dowell (2011, 2013).4 To be clear, we are not suggesting that a Lewis-Kratzer-styleformal semantics for modals can only be given a contextualistconstrual. For all we say here, there is a relativistinterpretation of that semantics that does as well as thecontextualist one we shall defend. Here we aim to assess theclaim some contextualists have defended that a Lewis-Kratzer-style semantics under a contextualist interpretation cannot fitwith the data we discuss here. (For discussion of one way toimplement relativism in a Kratzer-style framework, see Egan(2011).)

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Here we defend the default view by showing how a Kratzer-

style semantics is able to make available readings of the

relevant utterances that fit with the pretheoretical judgments

opponents purport it cannot fully capture. Having established

this, we turn to considering the more theoretical grounds

proponents have offered for preferring their rival contextualist

views. Here the question is to what extent such grounds favor

semantic over what Korta and Perry call “near-side pragmatic”5

explanations of our judgments. In particular, we argue that our

favored readings figure in near-side pragmatic explanations of

those judgments that possess the methodological and theoretical

advantages of systematicity and unity at least as well as, if not

to a greater extent than, those of opponents who argue for their

5 “Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specificevents, the intentional acts of speakers at times and places,typically involving language. Logic and semantics traditionallydeal with properties of types of expressions, and not withproperties that differ from token to token, or use to use… Theutterances philosophers usually take as paradigmatic areassertive uses of declarative sentences, where the speaker sayssomething. Near-side pragmatics is concerned with the nature ofcertain facts that are relevant to determining what is said. Far-side pragmatics is focused on what happens beyond saying: what speechacts are performed in or by saying what is said, or whatimplicatures…are generated by saying what is said.” (Korta andPerry, 2012: 2-3)

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revised semantic theories on the basis of these advantages.6 In

this way, our discussion is a case study contribution to the

larger debate among philosophers of language and linguists over

when to prefer semantic over such pragmatic explanations.7

Below, we first explain the basic features of Kratzer’s

semantics for modal expressions, including conditionals. Then we

consider and meet the challenge cases in turn. Finally, we show

how our readings are able to meet any remaining objections and

pose a few of our own to the rival theories thought to be

motivated by these challenges to Kratzer’s canonical view.

1. Kratzer-Style Contextualism

6 Along with Dowell (2011, 2012, 2013) and Bronfman and Dowell(forthcoming), this discussion thus contributes to the largerproject of defending a Kratzer-style, flexible contextualistsemantics for modal expressions, supplemented with a near-sidepragmatic account of how it is that contexts provide theparameter values needed to secure appropriate readings.7 For another such case study, see von Fintel (2001) and Gillies(2007) who each argue for a dynamic semantic theory ofcounterfactuals on the grounds that the standard, Lewis-Stalnakersemantics is unable to explain our judgments about the felicityof Sobel and reverse Sobel sequences. See also Moss (2012), whodefends the standard semantics by providing a near-side pragmaticexplanation of our judgments in such cases.

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On Angelika Kratzer’s canonical semantics, modal expressions

are semantically neutral; they make a single contribution to the

determination of a proposition on every occasion of use. What

modulates the type of modality expressed—teleological, bouletic,

deontic, epistemic, or alethic—is the context of use.8 The

plausibility of the resulting view lies in part in its ability to

provide simple and unified explanations of a wide range of

language use. Together with broad cross-linguistic support, the

simplicity of Kratzer’s semantics earns its status as the default

view.9

Central to a Kratzer-style semantics is its treatment of

modal expressions as quantifiers over possibilities. Typically,

those domains of quantification are restricted. Restrictions not

represented explicitly in the linguistic material are provided as

a function of the context of utterance. The contextual

supplementation is twofold. First, context determines a modal

base, f, a function from a world of evaluation, w, to a set of

worlds, f(w), the modal background.

8 Kratzer (1977) and (1981).9 Some parts of our exposition draw on Bronfman and Dowell(forthcoming).

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Modal bases may be either epistemic or circumstantial. An

epistemic modal base is a function f that takes a world of

evaluation w and returns the set of worlds consistent with the

body of information in w that has some property or properties.

Which properties are relevant is determined by which f is

contextually selected; for example, that function may take the

information that has the property of being the speaker’s at a

designated time t in w as an argument and give us the set of

worlds compatible with that information. In principle, context

might select any number of different fs.

A circumstantial modal base is a value for f that takes a

world of evaluation as an argument and delivers a set of worlds

circumstantially alike in particular respects. Here, too, what

makes a circumstance among the relevant ones at a world of

evaluation will depend upon which f is contextually selected; for

example, a particular value for f may make circumstances that

determine causal relations between actions and outcomes at the

world of evaluation relevant. The modal background in that case

would be the set of worlds alike with respect to those

circumstances.

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A second source of contextual supplementation is an ordering

source, a function g from a world of evaluation w to a ranking

of worlds in the modal background. Which features of a world w′

in f(w) give it its relative ranking depends upon the value for

g. For example, g might rank w′ depending upon how well some

salient agent acts in accordance with the reasons she has or the

obligations that apply to her in w. Or it might rank w′ in terms

of how well it approximates some impartial ideal. The highest

ranked or best such worlds make up the modal’s domain. ‘Ought’,

the modal of concern here, functions as a universal quantifier

over its domain: ‘ought ’ comes out true at a context-world

pair just in case all of the best worlds as determined by that

context and world are -worlds.10

Since part of what is at issue in the puzzle cases here is

the plausibility of a full Kratzer-style account of deontic

conditionals, we’ll need her account of the indicative

10 Here we simplify aspects of Kratzer (1991a) and (2012) to avoidintroducing complexities of that account not at issue here. Inparticular, we adopt the Limit Assumption, and we ignore theissue of how best the mark the apparent distinction between“must” and “ought”. Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann (2013) andCarr (2014) also adopt these simplifications in expositing theirown views.

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conditional on the table. On her semantics for that conditional,

the function of the antecedent is to restrict the domain of a

modal in the consequent.11 This is, at least typically, a covert

necessity modal. So, a conditional of the form ‘if , then ’

where ‘’ does not itself contain a modal, has the structure if

, must . To see whether such a conditional is true, we see

whether every (relevant) -world is also a -world. If so, then

the conditional is true. Here we follow Kratzer in assuming that

the covert modal is an epistemic necessity modal: The relevant

-worlds are the -worlds that are compatible with some

contextually determined body of information.12

There are a few options for combining this account of the

indicative conditional with her semantics for modal expressions

generally. For all the deontic conditionals we discuss, we’ll

adopt the view that a covert epistemic necessity modal takes

scope over the deontic modal.13 There are a couple of different11 In some cases not at issue here, the antecedent may restrict aquantifier elsewhere in the sentence, as in “Always, if a manbuys a horse, he pays cash for it” (Kratzer (1991b)).12 Kratzer (1991b).13 For discussion of this type of view and some reasons foradopting it, see, for example, Carr (2014), von Fintel (2011),von Fintel and Iatridou (ms), Frank (1996), Geurts (ms), andKratzer (2012).

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readings14 of the whole conditional, if , must[ought ] that may

result, depending upon the context. In all cases, we assume the

antecedent retains its usual semantic function of restricting the

domain of the covert modal. A bit more formally, treating w as

the world of evaluation, the covert modal’s domain will be

worlds, w′, each of which is a -world. To be true, the

conditional then requires that the deontic modal is true at each

of the worlds w′. To determine this, the deontic modal requires

values for f(w′) and g(w′). These, we’ll argue, are determined

flexibly as a function of the context of utterance. Together

they’ll determine a set of worlds w′′ that make up the deontic

modal’s domain.

2. Miner Variations

The MINERS Objection

The famous miners scenario is one case thought to pose a

challenge for a Kratzer-style framework. Here is Niko Kolodny

and John MacFarlane’s characterization (MINERS):

14 By a ‘reading’, we simply mean a way a listener mightreasonably interpret what’s said by an utterance.

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Ten miners are trapped either in shaft A or in shaft B,but we do not know which. Flood waters threaten toflood the shafts. We have enough sandbags to block oneshaft, but not both. If we block one shaft, all thewater will go into the other shaft, killing any minersinside it. If we block neither shaft, both shafts willfill halfway with water, and just one miner, the lowestin the shaft, will be killed. (2010: 115)

In a recent paper, Fabrizio Cariani, Magdalena Kaufmann, and

Stefan Kaufmann argue that there is no way for a Kratzer-style

semantics to fit with all of our pretheoretical judgments about

MINERS.15 Among these judgments are the following truth-

assessments:

NEITHER: We (they) ought to block neither shaft.

True.

IF-A: If the miners are in A, we (they) ought to block

A. True.

IF-B: If the miners are in B, we (they) ought to block

B. True.

Not only must a theory fit with these truth-assessments, they

suggest, it must render them all “true on the deliberative

reading of ‘ought’” (2013: 231, footnote 14). Hence, they argue

that any Kratzer-friendly readings either fail to accommodate all15 See also Charlow (2013).

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three truth-assessments or else do not all qualify as

deliberative readings.

In order to evaluate the Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann

claim that a Kratzer-style semantics cannot fit with our truth-

assessments of these sentences under a ‘deliberative reading’,

we’ll need an understanding of what it takes for a use of “ought”

to get a ‘deliberative reading’ in their sense. They offer a few

suggestions. One is by contrast with an “objective” reading,

which seems to be relative to circumstances, known and unknown

(2013: 227). Another suggestion: “Deliberative modality” is “the

particular flavor of modality in play in practical deliberations”

(2013: 226). Finally, it is the kind “exhibited by”

ARTICLE: We ought to read that article.

ARTICLE, they suggest, is “easily understood as suggesting that

reading that article is the thing to do” (2013: 225).

One difficulty for seeing what exactly they have in mind is

that the last two suggestions for how to understand “deliberative

modality” or “deliberative reading” do not contrast with an

objective reading in MINERS as their first suggestion holds. To

see this, notice that when NEITHER, IF-A, and IF-B figure in

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someone’s reasoning about what to do in MINERS, they will each

exhibit deliberative modality in the second sense. This is

compatible with the conditionals receiving objective readings.

As we’ll argue below, it’s easy to identify readings on which

utterances of all three sentences are true with the conditionals

receiving objective readings. So, if to be deliberative is to

figure in practical reasoning, it will be easy to see how all

three can be true under a ‘deliberative reading’.

Moreover, insofar as conditionals can suggest that some

action is the ‘thing to do’, objective readings of the

conditionals may also be deliberative in their third sense, e.g.

in contexts in which agents make it clear that what they

objectively ought to do settles the question of what is the thing

to do. Since we believe that the contrast with objective

readings is what is most important for understanding the

objection to Kratzer that Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann seem to

have in mind, we will try to improve on their suggestions in a

way that preserves this.

Deliberative Readings: Subjective and Advisability

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As we’ll see, improving on their formulation is a bit

tricky. Mark Schroeder’s (2011) discussion of the deliberative

‘sense’ of “ought” offers an initial starting point. According

to Schroeder, such an “ought” exhibits five hallmarks: First, the

deliberative sense “matters directly for advice”. While the

objective ‘ought’ may figure in good deliberation about what to

do, the deliberative sense settles the question of what it is

advisable to do. Second, the deliberative sense is “the right

kind of thing to close deliberation”, to ‘settle the question of

what to do’. Third, one is “accountable” for doing as one ought

in this sense; failure to do so leaves one open to “legitimate

criticism”. Fourth, it’s the sense of “ought” constrained by

what one can do and, finally, it’s the sense “more closely

connected” to the notion of obligation, albeit imperfectly.

While we agree that these are features of “ought”s that

figure in practical reasoning, it will be important for later

discussion to note that there are cases in which there is no

single ought-claim that bears all five hallmarks. Instead, there

will be distinct ought-claims each of which possesses a

different, proper subset of these features. In these cases,

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acting so as to comply with one such claim is incompatible with

complying with the other.

Eavesdropper scenarios provide good illustrations. Here’s

an example from MacFarlane (forthcoming): Suppose you are

deciding whether you ought to bet on Blue Blazer or Exploder, two

horses in an upcoming race. You know that, in the past, Blue

Blazer has proven itself the faster horse. In light of this you

conclude,

BLAZER: I ought to bet on Blue Blazer.

Suppose, though, that, unbeknownst to you, I am eavesdropping on

your conversation from behind a bush. Unlike you, I know that

today Blue Blazer will be suffering from the effects of a drug.

MacFarlane holds that here “it makes sense for me to think that

you are wrong, and to say”,

EXPLODER: “No, you ought to bet on Exploder” (342).

Let this be a case in which you do not and could not learn

that Blue Blazer has been drugged prior to placing your bet and

so you go ahead and bet on that horse. Have you done as you

ought, in Schroeder’s deliberative sense? No doubt you are not

subject to legitimate criticism for betting as you do; in this

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sense, you have done as you ought. But you have not done what it

would be advisable for you to do. It is not advisable for you to

bet on a drugged horse. Here your utterance bears some of the

hallmarks of Schroeder’s ‘deliberative sense’ of “ought” and my

utterance bears others. MacFarlane has characterized these

“ought”s of advice as in-between a so-called ‘subjective’

“ought”, which is tied to information within a deliberating

agent’s epistemic reach, and an objective ‘ought’, which is not

information-sensitive. Such ‘in-between’ “ought”s are central to

his case for relativism. Below we show how all three readings

can be made available within a Kratzer-style framework. Seeing

how this is so will be important for seeing how a Kratzer-style

semantics can fit with the pretheoretical judgments of ordinary

speakers for the full range of MINERS cases.

Kratzer-Friendly Readings for Miner Variations

Since our view is contextualist, which reading a deontic

modal sentence receives will be determined as a function of the

context of utterance. This means that the best data for testing

theories will be speakers’ judgments about a series of variations

on the basic MINERS scenario, each of which fills out the

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conversational context in a slightly different way. As we’ll

see, which reading will be most natural for our sentences will

depend upon which version of the scenario is under consideration.

One important dimension along which MINERS scenarios may vary is

in whether deliberating agents expect to receive more information

about the location of the miners prior to the time at which they

need to act. Call “EXPECTATION-KNOW” some scenario in which

deliberating agents know they will learn the location of the

miners prior to that time. Call “EXPECTATION-MIGHT” some scenario

in which they know they might, but also might not, learn their

location (learning and not learning their location are equally

likely). Let “EXPECT-NOT” be a case in which agents know they

won’t learn more.

We consider the following judgments to constitute

theoretically neutral data: NEITHER sounds bad—indeed, clearly

false—in EXPECTATION-KNOW, sounds unwarranted in EXPECTATION-MIGHT,

and sounds fine—indeed, clearly true—in EXPECT-NOT. IF-A and IF-

B can each sound fine in any of these cases. We also accept the

Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann claim that NEITHER, IF-A, and IF-

B may all be true as uttered in the course of a single

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conversation among agents deliberating about what to do in

MINERS.

One of their central motivations for positing a more complex

semantics16 for deontic modals along with a novel semantic rule

for deontic conditionals is their claim that no Kratzer-style

semantics can fit with the full range of this data. Our next

task is to show that this is not so by showing how a Kratzer-

style semantics can secure readings that fit with these

judgments. We do this in several steps. First, we identify

readings and contexts that make NEITHER, IF-A, and IF-B all true.

Then we show how they can all be assertible in the course of a

single piece of deliberation. Recall that Cariani, Kaufmann, and

Kaufmann claim that part of the data is that they are all true

under a “deliberative reading” (footnote 14). As we saw, to test

this, we need to identify what it takes for a reading of a modal

to be “deliberative”. We now have a few overlapping, but

distinct senses of “deliberative reading”. Following one of

their suggestions, we have the view that a deliberative reading

is any reading of a modal sentence such that, under that reading,16 For the sense in which their semantics is more complex, seefootnote 33.

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it is properly assertible in the course of a single piece of

practical deliberation. We also, as suggested by Schroeder’s

hallmarks, have two more specific types of deliberative reading:

a subjective reading, which is tied to an agent’s available

information, and an advisability reading, which is connected to

what it is advisable for a deliberating agent to do (perhaps tied

to an advisor’s information). Here we show how the Kratzerian

can accommodate true readings under each of these senses of

“deliberative reading”.

We begin with NEITHER. Our reading for NEITHER will be the

same for all of our cases, but, for the sake of concreteness,

we’ll focus on the context in which it sounds best, EXPECT-NOT.

Here we think NEITHER receives what we’ll call a “subjective”

reading. Subjective readings are information-sensitive, where

the relevant information is, very roughly, the information a

relevant agent has at the time of action, t.17 Informally,

NEITHER would seem to express the proposition that blocking17 More generally, subjective readings can be sensitive to bodiesof information available at a world of evaluation by somedesignated time relevant for the ranking of the agent’s options.The information need not be limited to the information the agentactually has; it may also include information she could or shouldhave gathered, or information within her ‘epistemic reach’.

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neither is, of the actions available to the deliberating agents,

deontically ideal, in light of the information they have at the

time that action is necessary.18

More formally, context will select an f that maps a world of

evaluation w onto the set of worlds w′ like w with respect to the

laws and circumstances up until the time of action t, where we

assume that this will hold fixed the options agents have in w at

t. Various issues arise in characterizing an agent’s options.

We simply adopt one workable model with the following features.

(i) An option of an agent is represented as the proposition that

she performs some physical or mental action or intentional

inaction. (ii) For something to count as an agent’s option, the

agent must know that she is able to perform it and know how to

implement it.19 Thus, for example, “S selects the winning

18 Some might see NEITHER as making a claim, not about deonticideality, but rather about some particular conception of deonticideality, such as maximizing expected utility. While we do notrule this out as a possible reading, we find sentences such asNEITHER to be most naturally understood as making claims that canbe the objects of dispute between, for example, consequentialistsand non-consequentialists, and so we see them as invoking thethinner notion of deontic ideality.19 Or perhaps an agent’s options are fixed not by what she knowsbut, more broadly, by what she is in a position to know she isable to perform by t.

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lottery number” can fail to be one of S’s options, even though,

for each number, n, “S selects n,” may be one of S’s options.

(iii) Options are assumed to be as fine-grained as possible.

Thus “S walks” would not qualify as one of S’s options, but “S

walks straight ahead, slowly, while chewing gum…” could. Because

each option specifies the agent’s behavior so precisely that she

does not have any further flexibility in how to act, options are

mutually exclusive.20 For simplicity, we will treat blocking neither

as such a fine-grained option, although doing this is not

necessary to our account here. (iv) Options are assumed to take

place over some fixed time period, which may vary with context.

To simplify, we assume the relevant options (e.g. blocking neither)

can be performed instantaneously: perhaps one must now

irrevocably decide whether to block a shaft or none. This helps

to put aside complexities such as starting to block one shaft and

then switching to the other.

20 Here we may simplify by assuming options to be as fine-grainedas possible because any Kratzer-style semantics validatesInheritance, so settling which fine-grained options one oughtperform will settle which coarse-grained options one oughtperform. (The principle of Inheritance holds that if entails, then ought entails ought .)

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In the case of NEITHER, context will select a value for g

that maps w onto the set of worlds w′ in which agents perform

that action, , of their options, O, that is deontically ideal,

given the information our agents have at t in w.21 Since in

EXPECT-NOT that action is blocking

neither, NEITHER comes out true. Under this reading, NEITHER is

unwarranted as a conclusion of practical deliberation in

EXPECTATION-MIGHT and false in EXPECTATION-KNOW. This pattern fits

precisely with our pretheoretical judgments about these cases.

Having provided a plausible Kratzer-style reading for

NEITHER, we turn now to identifying plausible readings of IF-A

and IF-B, showing how they are assertible in the course of a

single piece of deliberation. So, what should the Kratzerian say

about IF-A and IF-B in our MINERS cases? The issue here is a bit

complex as these sentences have available objective, subjective,

and advisability readings in some of these cases.

Start with the objective readings in EXPECT-NOT. There are

a couple of ways of filling out the conversational context of

21 Recall that we’re trying to keep this reading simple andreader-friendly. For a more general formulation of subjectivereadings, see footnote 17.

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EXPECT-NOT to secure felicitous objective readings of these

conditionals in the course of a single piece of deliberation.

Imagine that agents have not yet arrived at the place in their

deliberations in which they realize they will not learn the

location of the miners by t. In that case, they may think that

what they objectively ought to do may settle their deliberative

question. IF-A and IF-B may then represent their thinking about

what might objectively be the case. Alternatively, IF-A and IF-B

on an objective reading might each articulate part of their

understanding of the case. They might, for example, play such a

role in a conversation such as the following:

Emma: Ok. Here’s the situation: The miners are alltrapped in either shaft A or shaft B. Only if we useall of our sandbags to block the shaft they’re in, willwe save all the miners.

Lila: I see. So, if they’re all in A, we should blockA and if they’re all in B, we should block B.

Emma: Right. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be ableto figure out where they are by the time we have todecide what to do.

This might be the beginning of a conversation that eventuates in

their deliberative conclusion, expressed by NEITHER.

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Finally, each conditional IF-A and IF-B may express a lament

about the tragedy of the situation, even after they have

concluded that blocking neither is what they should do. It would

figure naturally, for example, in a conversation such as this

one:

Emily: All things considered, we’re going to have toblock neither shaft. It’s such a tragedy that we don’tknow where the miners are!

Lily: What’s so bad about that?

Emily: Because, if they’re in A, we should block A.And if they’re in B, we should block B!

Representing our objective readings for IF-A and IF-B more

formally requires saying a bit about our treatment of deontic

conditionals. Recall that we treat such conditionals as doubly

modalized: Each contains a covert, epistemic modal scoped over

the overt, deontic modal. On our objective reading, then, the

antecedent of IF-A restricts the domain of a covert, epistemic

modal to the epistemically possible worlds w′ in which the miners

are in A. The modal background for the overt, deontic modal will

be the set of worlds alike with respect to the relevant

circumstances in w′, including that the miners are in A. The

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value for g(w′) will be the worlds in which agents perform that

action, of those available to them, which is deontically ideal in

light of the relevant circumstances in w′. These will all be

worlds in which agents block A. So, IF-A comes out true.

Similar considerations will make IF-B come out true.

We have been discussing EXPECT-NOT, in which the

conditionals may be felicitously uttered, though less practically

useful than in EXPECTATION-MIGHT and EXPECTATION-KNOW. Their

practical use, under objective readings, improves in those latter

two cases. This won’t make those readings deliberative in either

of the two senses we identified from Schroeder’s hallmarks, what

we’re calling the ‘subjective sense’ or the ‘sense of

advisability’. But it will suffice to make them deliberative in

the Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann sense we’re focusing on,

namely, the sense of playing a role in a single piece of

deliberation.

So far, we’ve focused on Kratzer-friendly objective readings

of IF-A and IF-B that can play a deliberative role. In addition,

there’s a second, information-sensitive, Kratzer-friendly reading

available, with which the features of EXPECT-NOT, EXPECTATION-

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KNOW, and EXPECTATION-MIGHT are also compatible. As we’ll see,

this reading may be thought of as an advisability reading, one that

is ‘in-between’ the subjective and objective readings.

Crucially, we think these cases do not mandate an advisability

reading, rather than an objective reading, of these conditionals;

indeed, for EXPECTATION-KNOW, subjective readings are also

available. Here we merely use these conditionals to illustrate

how advisability readings are available within a Kratzer-style

framework, as well as to show that these conditionals may receive

deliberative readings in one of the senses suggested by

Schroeder’s hallmarks. Below we will consider cases in which

subjective and objective readings are unavailable, as evidence

that sometimes modals naturally take advisability readings.22

On an advisability reading of IF-A and IF-B, in addition to

its usual semantic function of updating the value for f for the

covert modal, the antecedent serves to pragmatically indicate a

value for the deontic modal’s g parameter. In contrast to the

objective reading, here g(w′) will rank each world w′′ in the

deontic modal’s modal background in terms of the deontic22 Here and elsewhere, in offering these readings, we do not claimthat no other readings are possible.

26

ideality, in light of some body of information, of the action

agents perform in w′′. Which information is relevant? We suggest

it is a hypothetical body of information consisting of the

information deliberating agents have at t in w′ together with

information specifying where the miners are located in w′. Thus

if the miners are located in A at w′, the additional information

specifies that they are in A; if they are located in B at w′, the

additional information specifies that they are in B. Since the

semantic function of the antecedent of IF-A is to restrict the

domain of the covert modal to worlds in which the miners are in

A, and these are the worlds at which the overt deontic modal will

be evaluated, the information getting added to the agent’s

information for the purposes of ranking their options is the

information that the miners are in A.

Adding this information to the relevant body, we’re

suggesting, is a pragmatic function of the antecedent. Since the

objective reading is also available in our MINERS cases, we are

not suggesting that this reading is forced. Rather, the

conversational context permits the antecedent to play this

pragmatic role.

27

How exactly might it play this role? One idea is that

playing this role is suggested by the relevance of the

conditional for conversational purposes. In each of our MINERS

scenarios, agents are deliberating about what to do. Uttering

the conditionals is to help settle this practical question.

Agents do not know the location of the miners in any of these

scenarios. In EXPECTATION-KNOW, they know they will come to know

their location. In that case, what would be deontically ideal in

light of information agents are in a position to have by t

updated with information about where the miners are located is

highly relevant; indeed, it reflects the epistemic position they

expect to be in. This suffices to make uttering each of the

conditionals, on this reading, highly relevant. In EXPECTATION-

MIGHT, agents know they may or may not learn the miners’

location by t. In this case, too, IF-A and IF-B under the

advisability reading will be relevant to their practical

deliberation.

Having discussed NEITHER, IF-A, and IF-B, we now turn to two

additional sentences from Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann:

28

IF-STILL: If the miners are in A, we (they) still ought

to block neither.

EXISTS: We (they) ought to block the shaft the miners

are in.23

What are our pretheoretical judgments about utterances of these

sentences in our MINERS cases? Like NEITHER, IF-STILL sounds bad

in EXPECTATION-KNOW, not much better in EXPECTATION-MIGHT and best

in EXPECT-NOT. EXISTS sounds best in EXPECTATION-KNOW and can

sound fine in EXPECTATION-MIGHT. It may sound false in EXPECT-NOT,

unless conversational context makes it a clear lament (e.g. of

their inability to know how to save all ten miners). As with IF-

A and IF-B under objective readings, EXISTS may also serve as an

attempt to articulate a shared understanding of MINERS as a basis

for or in the course of deliberation. This pattern of judgments

is fully explained within a Kratzer-style framework with an

objective reading. In EXPECTATION-KNOW, EXISTS is also

felicitous under a subjective reading, where g(w) will rank

23 This is not quite the sentence Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmannconsider. Theirs is “there is a shaft we ought to block” (EXISTS′). We prefer EXISTS on the grounds that, at least in the caseof EXPECTATION-KNOW, it has a clearer action-guiding use thanEXISTS′.

29

worlds w′ in the modal background in terms of the deontic

ideality, in light of the information agents will have at t in w,

of the action performed in w′.

What explains our judgments for IF-STILL? We’ve seen that,

like NEITHER, IF-STILL sounds best in EXPECT-NOT and that IF-A

and IF-B can also sound fine in that case. We suggested two

available readings for these latter conditionals in all our

MINERS cases: An objective reading and an advisability reading.24

On each of those readings, the antecedent has a role to play in

determining which action is best. If the antecedent plays such a

role for IF-STILL, though, it won’t come out true in EXPECT-NOT.

But it does seem true in that case. Why might the antecedent in

IF-STILL not play such a role in EXPECT-NOT, though it does for

each of IF-A and IF-B?

The answer rests on the role of “still”, which seems to flag

the irrelevance of the antecedent to the interpretation of the

deontic modal.25 We might imagine IF-STILL uttered in response24 The subjective reading of the conditionals is unwarranted inEXPECTATION-MIGHT and false in EXPECT-NOT.25 We seem to find “still” playing this role in other indicativeconditionals containing context-sensitive expressions, e.g.A: The Sharks might win. A: If he wants to playbasketball, he’s not tall.

30

to an utterance of IF-A. As we’ve seen, IF-A might be uttered in

EXPECT-NOT as part of the agents’ attempt to articulate a shared

understanding of the case. IF-STILL might then flag the

irrelevance of the location of the miners to arriving at their

practical conclusion, given that they won’t learn the miners’

location by t.26

Three-Shaft Version of MINERS

Thinking about how best to understand these deontic

conditionals within a Kratzer-style framework puts us in a

position to think about how best to understand a more difficult

B: But what if they lose their best player? B: No, even if hewants to play basketball, A: Even if they lose their best player, they he’s stilltall. still might win.26 Besides the use of the word “still,” there are other means bywhich conversational context can signal the irrelevance of theantecedent to determining which action is best. In such cases itis possible for conditionals not containing the word “still” tocarry the reading we offer for IF-STILL. For example, if inEXPECT-NOT, one conversational participant says, “We can’t decidewhat to do until we know where the miners are, since if theminers are in A, we should block A,” another may reply, “No, ifthe miners are in A, we should block neither shaft. And the sameholds if they are in B. We have no way of knowing where theminers are, so regardless of where they are, we should blockneither shaft.” In this case, the conditional “if the miners arein A, we should block neither shaft” is acceptable becausecontext makes it clear that the antecedent is not intended as anecessary condition for the assertion of the consequent.

31

type of case. Here’s a three-shaft version of the miners case

from Kai von Fintel:27

Imagine there are three shafts: A, B, and C. We don’tknow where the miners are. If we block the rightshaft, all miners are safe. If we do nothing, twominers die. We can blow up Shaft A, which would ofcourse kill all miners if they are in A, but if they’renot, then blowing up Shaft A and not blocking either Bor C will mean that only one miner dies. So, in ourmaximally ignorant information state, we ought to blocknone of the shafts. In an objective sense, we shouldblock the shaft the miners are in. Now, consider thefollowing conditional:

[MORE INFORMATION:] If they are not in A, we ought toblow A up.

Von Fintel reports that he can hear this as true. We agree that

there are ways of filling out the conversational context that

would make an utterance of MORE INFORMATION felicitous. A best-

case scenario will be one in which agents know they might learn

whether the miners are in A and know they’ll learn nothing else.

Call “EXPECTATION-WHETHER-IN-A-MIGHT” a version of such a case in

which agents believe they have a 50% chance of learning whether

the miners are in A before the time they need to act. The

felicity of utterances such as MORE INFORMATION can seem puzzling

within a Kratzer-style framework, as their felicity can’t be27 Von Fintel (ms).

32

explained by either a subjective or an objective reading. On the

subjective reading we’ve suggested, context selects a value for f

that takes a world of evaluation w′ to a set of worlds compatible

with facts about the agents’ options in w′ together with facts

about which information agents in w′ have at t. Suppose agents

don’t learn by t whether the miners are in A. In that case, the

conditional will be false: Blowing A up is not the deontically

ideal action in light of the body of information agents will have

at t as, in that case, that body will leave open the possibility

that the miners are in A and blowing up A will result in all of

their deaths. Suppose the miners are in B; in that case the

objective reading comes out false. So what would explain what

makes MORE INFORMATION sound true in EXPECTATION-WHETHER-IN-A-

MIGHT? We suggest that, unlike IF-A and IF-B in the MINERS

scenarios, here MORE INFORMATION most naturally receives an

advisability reading. On such a reading, recall, the antecedent,

in addition to its usual semantic role, pragmatically indicates

an update to the body of information relevant for ranking the

worlds in the deontic modal’s modal background. In MORE

INFORMATION, this update adds to the information agents have in

33

worlds w′ in the domain of the covert modal information about

whether the miners are in A. The antecedent guarantees that each

such w′ will be a world in which the miners are not in A. So the

worlds w′′ in the domain of the deontic modal will be ranked in

accordance with whether the agent performs, in w′′, the action, of

their options, which is deontically ideal in light of that

updated body of information. In all of the best such worlds, our

agents are blowing up A. So, MORE INFORMATION comes out true.

Von Fintel has offered an alternative explanation of how

MORE INFORMATION comes out true. He holds that MORE INFORMATION

is “shorthand” or “enthymematic” for the longer sentence:

“If we learn that they are not in A, we ought to blow A up.”

(28)

In EXPECTATION-WHETHER-IN-A-MIGHT, this sentence is

straightforwardly true on a subjective reading. In this case, if

the agents learn the miners are not in A, they will learn nothing

else. In particular, they will not learn more specific

information pinpointing the location of the miners in B or in C.

So if they learn the miners are not in A, it will be deontically

ideal given their information at t for them to blow A up. Thus

34

if von Fintel is right, there is no need to posit an advisability

reading to explain the truth of MORE INFORMATION.

There is, however, an additional piece of data that our

account is better placed to explain. Begin with the case

EXPECTATION-WHETHER-IN-A-MIGHT, in which the agents have a 50%

chance of learning nothing about the location of the miners, and

a 50% chance of learning whether or not the miners are in A.

Suppose the agents are aware that if, when the time of action

comes, they knowingly allow even one miner to die unnecessarily,

they will be put in jail. In this case, we hear the following

sentence as unwarranted:

If the miners are not in A, we’ll go to jail if we don’t

blow A up.

Intuitively, the agents are not warranted in asserting this

sentence since there is a 50% chance they will remain in their

state of complete ignorance about the location of the miners. If

so, they will not be put in jail for failing to blow A up.

Similarly, we hear the following sentence as unwarranted:

MORE INFORMATION JAIL: If the miners are not in A, thenwe ought to blow A up and we’ll go to jail if we don’t.

35

But the proposal that MORE INFORMATION is read enthymematically

would tend to predict that MORE INFORMATION JAIL should be heard

as warranted since it would be read as enthymematic for:

If we learn that the miners are not in A, then we oughtto blow A up and we’ll go to jail if we don’t.

In contrast, our account, on which MORE INFORMATION is not

enthymematic, does not issue such a prediction. This is some

evidence in favor of the advisability reading.

3. Self-Frustrating Decisions

Jennifer Carr has argued that Kratzer-style contextualism

cannot adequately account for cases of “self-frustrating”

decisions. These arise in unusual cases where performing an

action would indicate the existence of reasons against performing

that very action. Carr uses the case DEATH IN DAMASCUS, from

Gibbard and Harper (1978), as an example:

If you are in the same city as Death tomorrow, thenyou’ll die. Death has planned to be wherever hepredicts you’ll be, and he’s very reliable in suchpredictions. Your options are to stay in Damascus orto go to Aleppo. But, as you know, if you stay inDamascus, then that’s excellent evidence that Deathwill already be there. Similarly for going to Aleppo.(Carr forthcoming: 12)

36

This places you in an unfortunate situation: you expect with

high probability that, whichever decision you make, you will die.

Assume you have not made up your mind about where to go, and you

now regard either city as equally likely. Your options are then

symmetric: they offer equally bad prospects. Given this

symmetry, we will assume, with Carr, that both options are

permissible: you may go to either city. Because you may go to

Aleppo, we cannot say you should not go to Aleppo. Hence we

have:

ALEPPO: It’s not the case that you should not go to

Aleppo.

Consider now the conditional:

IF-ALEPPO: If you go to Aleppo, you should not go to

Aleppo.

The reasoning behind IF-ALEPPO goes roughly as follows: If you

will in fact go to Aleppo, then Death is very likely waiting for

you in Aleppo, and so you should not go to Aleppo. IF-ALEPPO

uses the antecedent to generate a new set of probabilities for

Death’s location, and then evaluates your options in light of

37

those new probabilities. We will assume, with Carr, that IF-

ALEPPO has a true reading along these lines.

We now consider how Kratzer-style contextualism can account

for the truth of ALEPPO and IF-ALEPPO. Just as for the miners

sentences, such a view will hold that ALEPPO says what it does

because context supplies appropriate values for the parameters f

and g. ALEPPO is most plausibly heard as a claim about how it is

rational or reasonable for the agent to act, given her

information. It is motivated by the thought that, given the

agent’s information, it is equally reasonable to go to either

city. It denies the claim that not going to Aleppo is the agent’s

uniquely most reasonable option. In other words, it denies the

claim that not going to Aleppo is deontically ideal in light of the

agent’s information.

We propose to capture the content of ALEPPO with similar

parameter values to those used for NEITHER. The modal background

is circumstantial: f(w) maps a world to the set of worlds in

which the laws and circumstances up through the time of action t

are the same as they are in w. In all these worlds, the agent

has the same options as she does at w: go to Aleppo and stay in

38

Damascus. The only feature that matters to how a world w′ in the

modal background is ranked is the option the agent chooses in w′.

In particular, g(w) ranks worlds w′ on the basis of whether the

option performed in w′ is deontically ideal in light of the

information that the agent has in w. If all options are

deontically ideal in light of the agent’s information at w, then

g(w) treats all worlds in f(w) as tied-for-best. Otherwise,

g(w) divides the worlds into two groups: it ranks as tied-for-

best all w′ where the option the agent selects in w′ is

deontically ideal in light of her information at w, and it ranks

all other worlds as tied-for-worst.

With these choices for f and g, ALEPPO plausibly comes out

true according to causal decision theory.28 Given that the case

and her information are symmetric, she judges her prospects if

she were to go to Aleppo as equivalent to her prospects if she

were to go to Damascus. So a proponent of causal decision theory

will hold that the worlds where the agent stays in Damascus and

28 For the sake of concreteness, we follow Carr in focusing on howa causal decision theorist might approach this case. Of course,the type of Kratzer-style semantics we’re defending is notcommitted the truth of causal decision theory as opposed to, forexample, evidential decision theory.

39

those where she goes to Aleppo are all deontically ideal. Hence

some of the highest g(w)-ranked worlds in f(w) are worlds where

she goes to Aleppo, and so it is not the case that she should not

go to Aleppo.

Just as for IF-A, IF-B, and MORE INFORMATION, we suggest an

advisability reading for IF-ALEPPO.29 Going through our account

step-by-step, we see IF-ALEPPO as doubly-modalized.30 The

antecedent you go to Aleppo restricts the higher, covert epistemic

modal, limiting us to what is true in all epistemically possible

worlds in which you go to Aleppo. In itself, this does not do

much to help IF-ALEPPO come out true. If context supplies the

same parameter values f and g to the deontic modal in IF-ALEPPO

as it does for ALEPPO, then this conditional will come out false,

29 Because the case stipulates only a high likelihood that Deathhas correctly predicted the agent’s location, an assertion of IF-ALEPPO would not be warranted on an objective reading. Asubjective reading holds more promise since we might read IF-ALEPPO along the following lines: if the agent will go to Aleppo,then she will know this at the time of decision, and given thisknowledge at that time she subjectively should not go to Aleppo.But we can put this aside by assuming the agent will make herdecision without advance notice of what she will decide.30 As Carr (2014) explains, the single-modal view would notpredict the truth of IF-ALEPPO, for reasons derived from the ‘Ifp, ought p’ problem (Frank (1996)).

40

since those parameter values make the consequent you should not go to

Aleppo false in all epistemically possible worlds.

This is where the second, pragmatic role for the antecedent

comes in. On our view, the antecedent if you go to Aleppo can

indicate to the hearer that different parameter values are in

play. Our suggestion is that the value of f remains unchanged:

f(w) still consists of worlds w′ that are circumstantially like

w. But g is no longer a ranking of worlds in terms of deontic

ideality given the agent’s information. Rather, it is a ranking

of worlds in terms of deontic ideality given a hypothetical body

of information consisting of the agent’s information plus

information specifying which city she goes to in w. In other

words, g(w) ranks worlds w′ on the basis of whether the option

performed in w′ is deontically ideal in light of the information

that the agent has in w plus information specifying which city

she goes to in w. Because the agent does not know where she

will go, two kinds of worlds w are epistemically possible for

her: those where this hypothetical body of information includes

her going to Aleppo and those where it includes her staying in

Damascus. The antecedent of IF-ALEPPO, however, restricts the

41

modal background to those epistemically possible worlds where she

goes to Aleppo, and hence to worlds where the hypothetical body

of information includes her going to Aleppo. Given causal

decision theory, staying in Damascus is deontically ideal given

such a body of information. The reason is that a body of

information that includes the fact that the agent goes to Aleppo

supports with high probability the claim that Death is in Aleppo,

and so assigns the highest causal expected utility to the agent’s

going to Damascus.31

Our analysis of IF-ALEPPO is thus quite similar to our

analysis of the advisability reading of IF-A (and of IF-B and

MORE INFORMATION). However, in discussing the miners case, we

noted that IF-A is most clearly relevant to the conversation when

it is possible we will learn the location of the miners before we

need to act, since then it offers advice that may be practically

useful. IF-ALEPPO does not appear relevant in the same way.

While IF-A could potentially lead us to block A were we to learn

the miners are in A, IF-ALEPPO cannot lead the agent to stay in31 To follow Carr’s discussion and focus on the semantic issue, weput aside some controversy over whether this is indeed the bestinterpretation of causal decision theory. See Joyce (2012) fordiscussion.

42

Damascus should she learn that she will go to Aleppo: if the

agent genuinely learns that she will go to Aleppo, then it cannot

be true that she will stay in Damascus.

However, we also noted that IF-A can be relevant even if we

know we will not learn the location of the miners before we need

to act. It can be part of the process of articulating our

understanding of the situation, or part of a lament about the

tragedy of the situation. IF-ALEPPO appears to have a similar

use. In conjunction with “If you stay in Damascus, you shouldn’t

stay in Damascus,” it can help to articulate our understanding of

the facts of the case. It can also express an aspect of the

tragedy of the situation, pointing out that knowledge of either

decision would support doing the opposite.

4. Objections: Assessing Semantic versus Near-side Pragmatic

Explanations

We have argued that Kratzer-style semantics can account for

the data in MINERS and in DEATH IN DAMASCUS. Two recent papers,

however, appear to claim that this is impossible. Cariani,

Kaufmann, and Kaufmann write that Kratzer-style semantics

43

incorrectly predicts the falsity of NEITHER in MINERS (2013:

241). Similarly, Carr writes that Kratzer-style semantics,

unless modified, cannot “predict or model” the data about iffy

oughts, as exemplified by DEATH IN DAMASCUS (forthcoming: 18). On

closer inspection, however, these papers do allow the in-

principle possibility of a Kratzer-style account compatible with

the data (2013: 231, footnote 14; forthcoming: 15). They hold,

instead, that there are further, more broadly theoretical reasons

to reject any such account. Although neither of these papers

considers the kind of solution we have offered here, it is worth

looking at whether any objections they offer raise difficulties

for our proposal.

Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann argue against one Kratzer-

style proposal on the grounds that it invokes a parameter value

that is not “a natural object to be contextually salient” (2013:

256). Similarly, Carr argues against a Kratzer-style proposal on

the grounds that it invokes a parameter value that is “ad hoc”

and that “might not even make sense” in DEATH IN DAMASCUS

(forthcoming: 15).

44

We do not believe the parameter values we have invoked are

susceptible to these objections. In analyzing NEITHER and

ALEPPO, we use a circumstantial modal base f that holds fixed the

agent’s options. This is a natural choice in contexts of

deliberation, where the interest is in selecting one option from

among those available to the agent. For the ordering g, we order

options by their deontic ideality in light of the agent’s

information. This, too, is salient in deliberative contexts:

deliberators care about whether their action is reasonable in

light of the information they have. One might object that an

agent’s primary interest in deliberation is in the goodness or

badness of outcomes, and so hold that the contextually-salient

ordering must be information-insensitive. Perhaps thinking along

these lines, Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann consider a Kratzer-

style approach that ranks worlds in terms of how many miners are

actually saved. We agree that an information-insensitive

ordering can be contextually salient; indeed, such an ordering is

in play in objective ought sentences such as EXISTS.

Nevertheless, when uncertainty is important, it is plausible that

45

deliberative attention will turn to an information-sensitive

ordering.

A similar story holds for the parameter values we have

invoked for MORE INFORMATION and IF-ALEPPO. There, we hold that

options are ordered in terms of their deontic ideality given a

hypothetical body of information consisting of the agent’s

information plus an additional fact. In accord with our

observations above, there are a variety of contexts where this

parameter value may be salient. For example, if deliberators

believe they may learn an additional fact, then planning ahead

may require asking now what their information plus that fact

supports doing. Alternatively, if it would be desirable (though

impossible) to know some additional fact, an ordering that takes

this fact into account may become salient, as a way of noting the

contrast between the information we have and the information we

wish we had. Such orderings also express an aspect of the

distinctive tragedy of dilemmas such as DEATH IN DAMASCUS.

Carr raises a more specific problem for a Kratzer-style

approach to IF-ALEPPO in DEATH IN DAMASCUS. She considers a modal

background that (i) contains only worlds where Death is in

46

Aleppo, on the grounds that Death must be in the same place as

you and the antecedent assumes you go to Aleppo, and yet (ii)

contains worlds where you go to Aleppo and worlds where you go to

Damascus. Carr writes that this proposal “assumes in the very

same breath that Death must be in the same place as you and that

he might not be” and concludes such a stipulation “might not even

make sense” (14-15). Our proposal avoids such an apparent

contradiction in a way similar to Carr’s own proposal. We

distinguish between the agent’s options and the agent’s

information (actual or hypothetical) about which option she will

choose. The hypothetical information state including the agent’s

information plus the fact that she will go to Aleppo places both

the agent and (with high probability) Death in Aleppo tomorrow.

Working with such a hypothetical information state is consistent

with maintaining that the agent has the option to choose either

city: in understanding the conditional, we assume hypothetically

that the agent will, out of her two actual options, choose

Aleppo. Of course, the case has the odd feature that the agent

believes that, whichever city she chooses, she will be in the

same place as Death, but also believes that if she were to choose

47

otherwise than she actually does, she would avoid Death. Still,

this feature appears to be coherent and, in any event, is

essential to the description of the case given by Gibbard and

Harper.

In arguing against Kolodny and MacFarlane (2010), Cariani,

Kaufmann, and Kaufmann point to transparency as a “main

advantage” of their own account. They hold that it is desirable

to represent the agents’ priorities “transparently and

independently of the information available to them” (256). In

MINERS, they represent the priorities as saving more, rather than

fewer, miners; the priorities are thus specified without

reference to the agents’ information. The account we have

offered above lacks this feature: the ranking of worlds given by

our parameter value for g is not independent of the agent’s

information.

We do not see this as a disadvantage. Notice first that the

ordering of worlds in play in a given use of a modal expression

may depend on many things. For example, what one must do,

legally speaking, may depend on the facts of the case, the laws

themselves, court opinions, conventions of interpretation, and

48

perhaps on the substance of morality itself. It would be

premature to conclude from this that the semantic value for the

legal ‘must’ has argument places for each of these things.

In the case at hand, it is true that some substantive views

about how one should act are naturally represented as separating

the role of information and priorities: the MaxiMin view invoked

by Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann is an example. However, other

substantive views do not naturally fit this model. For example,

a non-consequentialist view might impose an absolute prohibition

on imposing a significant risk of harm on an innocent person in

any circumstance where this can be avoided. The view allows

trivial risks, but rules out risks above a threshold. Such a

view, in its most natural representation, invokes the agent’s

information in specifying the relevant priorities: what the agent

should be concerned with is specified partly in terms of the

risks from her point of view. While one could implement such a

view consistent with the letter of transparency (for example, by

having most or all of the work done by a decision rule parameter,

with little or no role for priorities), transparency in itself

does not appear desirable here.

49

Probably the main source of resistance to our proposal will

be a broadly theoretical consideration cited by both Carr and

Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann: systematicity.32 Indeed,

Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann defend transparency at least

partly on the grounds that it secures systematicity: their

account derives the ordering of options via a novel semantic rule

that operates on the antecedent of a conditional as well as

information, priorities, and a decision problem. Carr, too,

cites systematicity and derives the ordering of options from a

novel semantic rule that operates on the antecedent of a

conditional as well as information and a function from

information to orderings.33 Our account appeals to no such

semantic derivation. The parameter values (e.g. the value for g

that refers to deontic ideality in light of an information state)

are supplied by context directly to the consequent of the

conditional, rather than being derived by a semantic rule. In

assigning this role to context, rather than to a novel semantic

32 See also Charlow (2013).33 These accounts constitute additions to the Kratzer framework,insofar as the rules and additional parameters they invoke can beused to recover the Kratzer framework by choosing trivial valuesfor certain parameters.

50

rule, our account provides a near-side pragmatic explanation for

how the needed truth-conditions get assigned.

Given that, as we show above, a Kratzer-style semantics does

make room for readings that fit with our judgments in the puzzle

cases, some more theoretical consideration is required to decide

between the two rival, semantic and pragmatic, explanations of

the cases. Appeal to systematicity would seem to be the right

sort of consideration to play that role. However, a significant

worry about the systematicity argument is whether the rival

semantic proposals can, in fact, be developed in a systematic

way. For example, the derivations offered by Cariani, Kaufmann,

and Kaufmann assume the MaxiMin decision rule. While it is easy

to generalize the account to, say, the MaxiMax decision rule, it

is not clear how to generalize it to more sophisticated decision

rules (such as expected utility maximization or non-

consequentialist approaches to uncertainty) while preserving the

kinds of derivations cited as evidence of the account’s

systematicity. The ability to offer such derivations only for a

small subset of decision rules is not an advantage in

systematicity.

51

But we will argue more directly that considerations of

systematicity actually favor our pragmatic approach. Notice

first that, given the variety of readings in principle available

to a modal expression, hearers clearly do have a substantial

ability to tell which parameter values are intended for a given

sentence. In particular, readings can vary in what information

or facts are relevant: it can be the information the agent will

in fact have at the time of action, the information she could or

should have by that time, an advisor’s information, or

alternatively all the relevant facts (whether known by anyone or

not). A key part of our proposal is to say that the relevant

information may be the agent’s information plus some contextually

relevant fact as in MORE INFORMATION or IF-ALEPPO.

To see that such a proposal isn’t ad hoc, but enjoys

independent support, consider a case from DeRose (1991) regarding

“John, who has some symptoms indicative of cancer, and a

‘filtering’ test which John’s doctor decides to run and which has

two possible results: If the results are ‘negative,’ then cancer

is conclusively ruled out; if the results are ‘positive,’ then

John might, but also might not, have cancer: further tests will

52

have to be run.” (582) The test has been run, but the results are

not known by anyone. DeRose notes that Jane, who is familiar

with the situation but does not have the test results, could say:

“I don’t know whether it’s possible that John has cancer.”

(593)

What Jane does not know is, roughly, whether John’s having cancer

is compatible with what she knows combined with the information

from the test results. This has a clear structural similarity to

our own account, where the relevant body of information is the

agent’s combined with some additional fact.34

On analogy with DeRose’s case, consider a version of von

Fintel’s three-shaft version of the miners case. The agents in

this case know the following: They will not learn anything about

the location of the miners before the time they need to act.

There is, however, a test that can determine whether or not the

miners are in A. If they are in A, it says they are in A. If

they are in B or C, it simply says they are not in A. The test

has been run, but the results are not known by anyone. An agent

in the case could say:34 See Dowell (2011) for discussion of a version of DeRose’s casein keeping with our present proposal.

53

I don’t know whether we ought to blow A up.

The information relevant to this sentence is not the information

the agent will actually have at the time of action, since that

supports doing nothing and so definitively does not support

blowing A up. Nor is it all the possible information about the

case, since this would support blocking whichever the shaft the

miners are in. Rather it is the agent’s information about the

case combined with information specifying whether or not the

miners are in A.

This example is thus best interpreted with just the kind of

parameter value we have posited. Because “I don’t know whether

we ought to blow A up” is not a conditional, we cannot say here

that the parameter value is somehow derived from a semantic rule

operating on an antecedent. Instead, the context, which includes

the sentence itself, supplies the parameter value directly to the

modal. Thus, the very mechanism and type of parameter value we

posit for MORE INFORMATION and IF-ALEPPO quite plausibly operates

in this case. Our account of these sentences is systematic

insofar as it simply extends a mechanism we already have reason

to accept.

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Indeed, our account offers a particularly unified and

systematic account of the following piece of discourse (TEST):

I don’t know whether we ought to blow A up. If theminers are not in A, we ought to blow A up. If theminers are in A, we ought not blow A up.

On our account, context supplies the same parameter values to the

modals in all of these sentences: the ordering g ranks worlds on

the basis of what is deontically ideal in light of the agent’s

information plus the fact about whether or not the miners are in

A. Below we will consider in more detail a dilemma that this

case raises for our rivals. But at this point, it is worth

noting that the pattern of explanation they offer for MINERS and

DEATH IN DAMASCUS, in which a semantic rule operates on a

contextually supplied parameter value (or values) in conjunction

with the antecedent of a conditional to yield a new ordering,

would be overly complex here. On that pattern, one would end up

saying that context supplies one value for g to the first

sentence, and then a different value g′ to the two conditionals,

but that this value gets operated on in conjunction with the

antecedents to yield a new ordering, possibly the same as the

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original g, that gets the truth conditions right.35 Such an

account invokes both a novel semantic rule with additional

parameter(s) and an unmotivated context shift. We posit neither

of these, and thus offer a simpler, more systematic account of

this discourse.

Carr offers a final objection to the potential for a

Kratzer-style account to handle the data in DEATH IN DAMASCUS:

equivocation. She writes that an adequate account must allow an

“unequivocal treatment of expressions of reasonable decision

theories.” Carr seems to grant here that a Kratzer-style view

could accommodate the data with appropriate parameter values, but

maintains that ALEPPO and IF-ALEPPO “should be compatible at a

single context” on the grounds that “they are all the

deliverances of a unified and coherent body of norms: namely,

causal decision theory plus the desire to avoid death” (15).

Similarly Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann write “we believe

(although there is naturally room for further argument) that the

data point is that it is these very conditionals (i.e. [IF-A and

IF-B]) that are true on the deliberative interpretation of ought”35 On Carr’s account, this could be implemented via a contextshift in the information parameter.

56

(231, footnote 14). This, too, suggests the view that a single

parameter value must be in play for NEITHER, which is clearly

deliberative, as well as IF-A and IF-B.

If there is an intuition that NEITHER, IF-A, and IF-B are

true on the very same readings of the modals, we are not sure

just what it is supposed to be. As a point of comparison,

consider a reading of IF-A on which it is false. Cariani,

Kaufmann, and Kaufmann call this the “non-reflecting” reading of

the conditional, which they elucidate as follows:

If the miners are in shaft A, we (still) ought to blockneither shaft, for their being in shaft A doesn’t meanthat we know where they are. Indeed, no matter wherethe miners are, we ought to block neither shaft. (227)

It does seem plausible that this instance of “if the miners are

in shaft A, we ought to block neither shaft” involves the very

same reading of the modal as does NEITHER; indeed, Cariani,

Kaufmann, and Kaufmann “take it to be obvious that the non-

reflecting interpretation is deliberative” (240, footnote 31).

Yet, as these authors acknowledge, there is not quite this

feeling of sameness between IF-A when heard as true and NEITHER

(228, footnote 6; 231, footnote 14; 240, footnote 31).

57

We agree that there is some feeling of commonality between

IF-A, even when heard as true, and NEITHER. Indeed, our account

explains this in line with Carr’s idea that, in DEATH IN DAMASCUS,

sentences like these are “the deliverances of a unified and

coherent body of norms.” On our view, IF-A and NEITHER both

invoke an ordering of worlds in terms of deontic ideality. These

sentences do flow from the same norms, perhaps even norms of

causal decision theory. However, there is a slight difference

between them: NEITHER applies these norms to our actual

information, while IF-A (on its advisability reading) applies

these norms to our actual information plus information specifying

the location of the miners. Our account therefore explains why

the feeling of commonality is weaker here than it is between IF-A

on its non-reflecting reading and NEITHER. In the latter case,

the ordering is identical between the two sentences, while in the

former it is merely very similar.

One might try to press the point about equivocation against

our proposal on more theoretical grounds. Carr, as quoted above,

may hold as a desideratum that it should be possible in English

to express the deliverances of causal decision theory without a

58

change in contextually supplied parameter values. We need not

decide whether this is a legitimate desideratum, since our view

satisfies it. On our view, one may express the deliverances of

causal decision theory without a change in contextually supplied

parameter values by using the subjective ‘ought’ in a set of

conditionals of the form: “if your credences and values are …,

you ought to …”. Our view would not, of course, meet the

stronger desideratum that every discourse that expresses the

deliverances of causal decision theory must involve no change in

contextually supplied parameter values. But this stronger

desideratum would be unmotivated given the general utility to

conversation of such changes for modals, quantifier domains, and

demonstratives.36,37

36 For example, we easily navigate an unannounced shift from thecircumstantial modality of “hydrangeas can grow here” to thelegal modality of “you can plant anything that won’t blockvisibility around the corner.” It would be possible, but morecumbersome, to express these thoughts without relying on contextto supply the appropriate parameter values. Dowell (2011, 2013)defends the view that our ability to detect speaker intentionsunderwrites our competence with contextually supplied parametervalues. 37 Jennifer Carr (pc) asks whether our willingness to posit covertmodals, combined with contextual flexibility, might undermine thereasons for accepting the view of if-clauses as restrictors. Shesuggests that reading ‘if p, then q’ as must(p q), where anepistemic ‘must’ takes scope over a material conditional, would

59

Considerations of whether a set of sentences is intuitively

equivocal may ultimately support our account in a different way.

Consider again the piece of discourse mentioned above, TEST, for

von Fintel’s three-shaft version of the miners case, where we

stipulate the existence of test results that tell whether or not

the miners are in A:

I don’t know whether we ought to blow A up. If theminers are not in A, we ought to blow A up. If theminers are in A, we ought not blow A up.

These sentences do not appear to be equivocal. This leads to a

dilemma for the views of Carr and Cariani, Kaufmann, and

Kaufmann. They may choose to go contrary to this intuition, and

insist that context supplies different parameter values for the

first sentence than for the conditionals. This, we think, would

further undermine their appeal to a sense of commonality between

IF-A and NEITHER to argue for sameness of contextually supplied

parameter values there. As mentioned above, it also appears to

then offer a simpler semantics. We note that such a view wouldneed to add a condition to avoid the consequence that ‘if p, thenq’ is true whenever must(~p) is true. Given this, we do notregard the alternative as simpler than the restrictor view. Theviability of the alternative depends in part on whether it can bedeveloped to deal systematically with the full range of data thathave been taken to motivate the restrictor view (e.g. Lewis(1975)), a question we do not explore here.

60

be a needlessly complex account of this piece of discourse, one

which invokes both a novel semantic rule with additional

parameter(s) and an unmotivated context shift, in contrast to our

straightforward account.

Alternatively, they could hold that context supplies the

same parameter values to all these sentences. In that case, they

grant that conditionals like MORE INFORMATION, IF-A, and IF-

ALEPPO receive, in cases like this one, their true readings

simply because context supplies the appropriate parameter values,

and not because a novel semantic rule is in play. This puts

strong pressure on their accounts to hold that these conditionals

receive their true readings in other cases, such as the standard

MINERS or DEATH IN DAMASCUS cases, for the same reason. Overall,

on this branch, all sides are committed to the core of the

Kratzer semantics and to the existence of a pragmatic mechanism

that can assign the kind of parameter values we have posited in

the standard MINERS or DEATH IN DAMASCUS cases. Our opponents add

commitments to a more complicated semantics and to the claim that

the pragmatic mechanism that is common ground cannot operate in

those cases. The additional commitments of the opposing views

61

might be justified if there were strong independent reason to

hold that those cases cannot involve a shift in contextually

supplied parameter values, but our investigation of this issue

above has revealed no such reason. Theoretical virtues would

thus appear to favor our account over the alternatives.

5. Conclusion

There has been much recent work in the literature in the

philosophy of language, linguistics, and metaethics over whether

a Kratzer-style contextualist semantics for modal expressions can

be made to fit with the full range of data in a series of puzzle

cases. Part of what is at stake in these debates is the

viability of relativism as a research program in the philosophy

of language and linguistics; much of the motivation for

relativism is the claim that no contextualist semantics for some

expression E is plausible.

Also at issue is to what extent linguists and philosophers

of language should prefer semantic over near-side pragmatic

explanations of ordinary speakers’ judgments that make up the

primary data for semantic and pragmatic theories. As we’ve seen

62

here, some contextualists, like relativists, defend their novel

semantic proposals on the grounds that no Kratzer-style semantics

can be made to fit with the full range of data in MINERS or in

DEATH IN DAMASCUS. Here we have shown how this is not so, by

identifying available Kratzer-friendly readings that fit with the

agreed upon data. This includes showing both how all of NEITHER,

IF-A, and IF-B may be true in a single piece of practical

reasoning in MINERS and how ALEPPO and IF-ALEPPO may both be true

in DEATH IN DAMASCUS, under the assumption that the norms in play

are those of causal decision theory.

The remaining objection to Kratzer-friendly readings in

those cases is the claim that it is “ad hoc” or “unsystematic” to

suppose that context is able to secure the needed parameter

values, as our pragmatic explanation requires. But we have seen

how this objection is misplaced; clear features of the context in

which those utterances are felicitous are features that make the

needed parameter values highly salient. We have also, in

considering DeRose’s case and a parallel three-shaft MINERS case,

identified independent evidence for the contextual availability

of what we are calling the “advisability” readings that we posit

63

for MORE INFORMATION and for IF-ALEPPO. This is further evidence

that positing such readings is not ad hoc, but required on

grounds independent of the issues raised here.

Finally, we have seen that the charge that the readings we

identify are “unsystematic” is also misplaced. Our theory is

able to identify the sense of commonality between NEITHER and IF-

A and IF-B that is pretheoretically plausible and likewise for

the piece of discourse TEST. In contrast, our opponents are

faced with a dilemma. In accounting for TEST, they must either

offer a needlessly complex explanation that undermines their

general appeal to the sameness of contextually supplied parameter

values, or else endorse all the materials needed for own account,

thus making their additional commitments appear superfluous.

We conclude that a Kratzer-style, flexible contextualist

semantics, supplemented with a near-side pragmatic account of how

it is that contexts supply the needed parameter values, remains

the view to beat.

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