Ralph Wedgwood. “The Meaning of Ought”. ms. Also available in a pdf-version.

My conceptual role semantics for the term ‘ought’– according to which the basic meaning-constituting conceptual role of ‘ought’ is its role in practical reasoning– can explain the central logical features of the term. It can explain the precise ways in which ‘ought’ is systematically context-sensitive; it can provide an explanation of why the standard deontic logic is the correct logic for each of the many concepts that can be expressed by ‘ought’; and it enables us to answer the objections that have been raised against that standard deontic logic– even though this deontic logic commits us to something so controversial-sounding as postulating a necessary connection between the terms ‘ought’ and ‘best’.