THE LOGICAL SYNTAX OF DEONTIC OPERATORS.

The symbols 0 and P are well established in the literature of deontic logic as signifying respectively the operators `obligatory' and `permissible'. There is not, however, agreement on theft syntactic function in deontic wffs. For though there is general agreement in treating them as sentence-forming operators, several suggestions have been made concerning the kinds of expression upon which they may operate. In his pioneering 1951 paper author G. H. von Wright treats them as operating on what be calls "names of acts", such expressions as `theft' and `murder', though not on names of instances of these. Thus OA symbolises. "The act named by A is obligatory'.