Anankastic conditionals and the default theory of reasons

Abstract I identify and develop a solution to the puzzles of anankastic conditionals that is novel in the sense that it has gone largely unnoticed, but also well-worn in that the materials for it have long been available. The solution involves an integration of the classical Kratzerian premise semantics and a default theory of reasons (such as the one presented in Horty (Reasons as Defaults, Oxford University Press, 2012), leveraging several decades of research on default logic). To stress-test the proposal I also investigate how it might be applied to the variety of anankastic-adjacent data discussed by Condoravdi and Lauer (Semant Pragmat 9:1–69, 2016). The resulting approach is not just a natural fit for the problem of anankastic conditionals, but also an independently promising modification of the classical account of modals.