Modeling Deontic Inconsistency in Moral Dilemmas

Resumen

Paraconsistent deontic logics have been proposed to deal with deontic paradoxes. We argue that these systems have been misdirected when used to solve deontic paradoxes not grounded on deontic inconsistency. Although the solutions are a formally satisfactory way out of the paradoxes, philosophically they are unsatisfactory. As an example, we discuss how some paraconsistent deontic logics have dealt with Chisholm’s Paradox. A paraconsistent deontic logic should be used to solve paradoxes directly related to deontic inconsistency, as in the case of moral dilemmas. We show how some of these logics can model moral dilemmas while avoiding trivialization. We then consider the philosophical viability of their treatment of moral dilemmas. We argue that DPI  is a system that models moral dilemmas in a philosophically satisfactory way. We offer an interpretation for this system, which reads the operator ⊟ as formalizing non-dilemmatic situations. We discuss its philosophical consequences.