So far, so good—but…Consul wrote: ↑September 5th, 2022, 3:21 pmAre "deontological" and "moral" synonyms? Not generally, I think; but—touché!—I concede that the phrase "deontological/deontic necessity" is synonymous with "moral necessity", since there is no non-deontological moral (ethical) necessity.Leontiskos wrote: ↑September 4th, 2022, 4:10 pm "Deontological necessity" is one of your code words for "moral," so the result is the same. Substituting an analytically identical term for the definiendum creates the exact same problem.
Here's again what I wrote:
""Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation (attributed to and possessed by a person), a "must" qua deontological necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity), a requirement, a demand, a command—rather than something weaker, something non-obligatory: an advice, a recommendation, a suggestion, or an expectation."
If "deontological necessity" is replaced by "moral necessity", we get:
""Ought" is used morally (ethically) iff it expresses a (universalizable) duty or obligation (attributed to and possessed by a person), a "must" qua moral necessity (as opposed to ontological, logical, or physical necessity), a requirement, a demand, a command—rather than something weaker, something non-obligatory: an advice, a recommendation, a suggestion, or an expectation."
What is defined here is the moral meaning of "ought", and not the meaning of "moral"; so I doubt that this is really a case of a circular and thus formally inadequate definition.