Ought and agency

Abstract A thorny question surrounding the meaning of ought concerns a felt distinction between deontic uses that seem to evaluate state affairs versus those describe requirement or obligation perform an action, as in (A) and (B), respectively. There not be childhood death disease. (B) You keep promise. Various accounts have been offered explain contrast “agentive” “non-agentive” sentences. One such account is Agency-in-the-Prejacent theory (“AIP”), which traces difference particular kind ambiguity prejacent. This has criticized linguistically unviable. Indeed, I level few novel complaints against AIP myself present paper. But kernel genuine insight allows us contrast—that agentive non-agentive sentences owes part way natural language encodes information about agency. develop this idea into that, like AIP, complement modal. However, according view propose, Coercion View, linguistically-motivated coercion operation produces necessary grammatical conditions for , turn allow variadic function operator style (in: Recanati, Literal Meaning. Cambridge University Press, 2004) produce semantic effect we see on display readings . Having explained mechanism by get structure, show it corroborates some central intuitions underwriting submit View offers explanation take at least seriously any its competitors.