Disambiguating Permissions: A Contribution from Mimamsa

Abstract

The notion of permission has received less attention than obligation from the deontic logic community, that has often taken for granted the interdefinability of deontic operators (obligations, prohibitions and permissions). Yet, permission has proven to be a complex topic with various nuances that require careful treatment, and can lead to unwanted consequences if the interdefinability is kept. In contrast, the Sanskrit philosophical school of M¯ım¯am. s¯a refuted this interdefinability and instead established independent definitions for deontic concepts. This article focuses on the exploration of permission within M¯ım¯am. s¯a and its formalization through Hilbert axioms and semantics. We also compare the M¯ım¯am. s¯a approach to contemporary deontic logic discussions, and show that the central paradoxes of permission do not arise in the M¯ım¯am. s¯a paradigm.