On the Two Faces of Deontics: Semantic Betterness and Syntactic Priority
Johan van Benthem, Davide Grossi, Fenrong Liu

Abstract:
This paper looks at deontic logic as resulting from both a
betterness ordering on states (i.e., a `deontic preference') and a priority
ordering on properties (i.e., a `law' explicitly representing a standard of
behavior). The correspondence between these two orderings oers a rich
perspective from which to look at deontic scenarios and puzzles, and in
particular at contrary-to-duties. The framework naturally lends itself to
describing dynamics involving both orderings, thereby providing a new
analysis of norm change as `betterness change'.