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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2010
In recent years philosophers have given a good deal of attention to imperatives. They have concerned themselves mainly with the logical grammar of sentences of this kind, that is to say their relations to each other and to interrogative and indicative sentences. Very often this topic has been raised in terms of the problem ‘Is imperative inference possible, and if so, what kind of inference is it?’. Many philosophers have contended that there are logically valid inferences that involve imperative sentences. Against this it has been argued that no such inferences are possible. It has even been held that there are no such things as imperatives at all – regarded, that is, as types of expression logically sui generis and independent of indicative sentences.
page 181 note 1 A valuable bibliography is to be found in The Logic of Commands (1966), by Rescher, N.Google Scholar.
page 181 note 1 For example Ross, A. in ‘Imperatives and Logic’ in Philosophy of Science (1944),Google ScholarHare, R. M. in The Language of Morals (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1952), andGoogle ScholarCastaneda, H. N. in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (1960)Google Scholar and in some of his other writings.
page 181 note 3 Williams, B. A. O. in the Analysis Supplement (1963).Google Scholar
page 181 note 4 Gibbons, P. C., ‘Imperatives and Logic’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy (1960),Google Scholar and Bohnert, H. G., ‘The Semiotic Status of Commands’ in Philosophy of Science (1945),Google Scholar discussed by Hare, R. M. in The Language of Morals, pp. 7 ffGoogle Scholar.
page 182 note 1 Hare, R. M., Freedom and Reason (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 54–5.Google Scholar
page 182 note 2 In his contribution to the symposium with Mayo, B., ‘The Varieties of Imperative’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supplementary vol. 31, 1957Google Scholar.
page 183 note 1 Bar-Hillel, Y., ‘Imperative Inference’, Analysis, Jan. 1966.Google Scholar
page 183 note 1 Op. cit., p. 16.
page 184 note 1 Freedom and Reason, pp. 54–5.Google Scholar
page 184 note 2 Hare does admit that the answer to the question ‘What shall I do?’ is not normally expressed in words, but that the agent ‘just acts’; however, he goes on to say that in order to give a satisfactory account of moral reasoning, we require an expression in words of what he leaves unuttered, and the form ‘Let me do a’ serves for this (Freedom and Reason, p. 55). It is significant that he later maintains that in making moral judgments, i.e. in saying that one ought to do a, one is ‘prescribing to oneself’, (op. cit., p. 73). In other words, what he leaves unuttered is an imperative.
page 185 note 1 Philosophical Investigations, p.88.Google Scholar
page 189 note 1 I must mention here two articles by Ernest Sosa, ‘On Practical Inference and the Logic of Imperatives’, and ‘The Logic of Imperatives’ in Theoria, vol. xxxii, part 3 (1966). In these he employs the concepts of ‘directive’ and ‘satisfy’ in a way similar to that which I outline. Unfortunately the two articles appeared too late for me to profit by them.
page 190 note 1 A doctrine both obscure and extravagant to the effect that interrogatives and imperatives can be prescribed as true or false may be found in an article by Leonard, H. S., ‘Interrogatives, Imperatives, Truth, Falsity and Lies’, in Philosophy of Science, vol. 26 (1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 193 note 1 I am grateful to Mr K. W. Mills for making this point clear to me.
page 193 note 1 Matt. 5. 48.
page 195 note 1 The preparation of this paper was assisted by a grant from Durham University.