DEONTIC LOGIC, MORAL DILEMMAS AND CONTRADICTION

an introduction to the discussion on formalization of moral dilemmas in deontic logic

Abstract

With the development of non-classical logics, new ways of representing a discourse and analyzing it have emerged. Deontic logic was founded with the purpose of analyzing the ethical discourse. Moral dilemmas are a special case in ethics as the discussion of their existence or not affects the philosophical view on how normative ethics should deal with its principles and whether they should permit the appearence of moral dilemas (MARCUS, 1980, p. 121). In this work we investigated if the discussion of moral dilemmas can interfere in the different foundations of existing deontic logic systems. The analysis begins with a brief presentation of deontic logic and then includes the favorable and contrary positions to the moral dilemas (LEMMON, 1962, p. 139 and CONEE, 1982, p. 87). Lastly, it was verified if there is a compromise between the justification of the existence of the moral dilemmas and the axioms assumed in a deontic system. It is concluded that there is some kind of a compromise between the defense of the moral dilemmas and the logical presuppositions assumed in any deontic systems.