Basic Action Deontic Logic

The aim of this paper is to introduce a system of dynamic deontic logic in which the main problems related to the definition of deontic concepts, especially those emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law, are solved. The basic idea is to introduce two crucial distinctions allowing us to differentiate (i) what is ideal with respect to a given code, which fixes the types of action that are abstractly prescribed, and what is ideal with respect to the specific situation in which the agent acts, and (ii) the transitions associated with actions and the results of actions, which can obtain even without the action being performed

Bases for an Action Logic to Model Negative Modes of Actions

Currently available systems of action deontic logic are not designed to model procedures to assess the conduct of an agent which take into account the intentions of the agent and the circumstances in which she is acting. Yet, procedures of this kind are essential to determine what counts as culpable not doing. In light of this, we design an action logic, AL, in which it is possible to distinguish actions that are objectively possible for an agent, viz. there are no objective impediments for the agent to do them, and actions that, besides being objectively possible, are compatible with the setting or intentions of the agent

Enriching Deontic Logic

It is well known that systems of action deontic logic emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law are subject to paradoxes. In general, paradoxes are acknowledged as such if we have intuitions telling us that things should be different. The aim of this paper is to introduce a paradox-free deontic action system by (i) identifying the basic intuitions leading to the emergence of the paradoxes and (ii) exploiting these intuitions in order to develop a consistent deontic framework, where it can be shown why some phenomena seem to be paradoxical and why they are not so if interpreted in a correct way

Free choice permission in STIT

We argue for a new approach to free choice permission in the context of a-temporal STIT logic. According to our analysis, an agent has a free choice permission w.r.t. two propositions phi and psi iff (a) the agent is permitted to see to phi Lambda inverted left perpendicular psi and (b) the agent is permitted to see to psi Lambda inverted left perpendicular phi The primitive notion of permission we use is the dual of one of Horty's operators for "ought to do" from (Horty, 2001). We argue that the approach improves on existing proposals in various ways