ABSTRACT
The idea that some, at least, of the terminology of moral philosophy can be treated by means of formal science is hardly new. Deontic logic is supposed to be the logic of "ought". Moral philosophers would seem to have "voted with their feet" leaving the area isolated from the main stream. When reminded of this humiliating fact, deontic logicians are often heard to mumble something about the unfortunate resistance of moral philosophers to formal methods. Goal theory is a place where one can bring together several different lines of inquiry. Intuitively a goal is a set of states or, in the parlance of philosophical logic, a proposition. Goal theory is formal science's answer to policy analysis and a way of relating its various components. Negation is not a particularly interesting notion to somebody constructing a logic of rules. This is because the natural history of quandaries is somewhat less rigid than that of contradictions.
