Elzenberg and Issues Discussed about Obligation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/RF.2025.060Keywords
deontic logic, ought, obligation, meta-empirical will, Kant’s principle, moral dilemmas, supererogatoryAbstract
The paper presents the most important assumptions of Henryk Elzenberg’s formal axiology concerning the concepts of ought and obligation. For this purpose, the formal language of deontic logic was used. In this language, the HE theory was presented, which was characterized both from the syntactic and semantic side. Using the HE system’s theses, possible ways of resolving three currently debated issues related to moral obligation were shown: the question of Kant’s principle’s validity, the possibility of adopting moral dilemmas and supererogatory acts on the grounds of ethical theory. As it turned out, the key to all the resolutions was the precise distinction between the concepts of ought and obligation.
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