Logics for AI and Law: Joint Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Logics for New-Generation Artificial Intelligence and the International Workshop on Logic, AI and Law, September 8-9 and 11-12, 2023, Hangzhou

This comprehensive volume features the proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Logics for New-Generation Artificial Intelligence and the International Workshop on Logic, AI and Law, held in Hangzhou, China on September 8-9 and 11-12, 2023. The collection offers a diverse range of papers that explore the intersection of logic, artificial intelligence, and law. With contributions from some of the leading experts in the field, this volume provides insights into the latest research and developments in the applications of logic in these areas. It is an essential resource for researchers, practitioners, and students interested in the latest advancements in logic and its applications to artificial intelligence and law

Critical Philosophy of Halakha (Jewish Law): The Justification of Halakhic Norms and Authority

Contemporary conflicts over such issues as abortion, same-sex marriage, circumcision, and veiling highlight the need for renewed reflection on the justification of religious norms and authority. While abstract investigation of these questions is necessary, inquiry into them is not foreign to religious traditions. Philosophical engagement with these traditions of inquiry is both intellectually and practically advantageous. This does not demand, however, that these discussions be conducted within a discourse wholly internal to a particular religious tradition; dialogue between a religious tradition and philosophical reflection can be created that is mutually beneficial. To that end, this dissertation explores a central issue in philosophy of halakha (Jewish law): the relation between the justification of halakhic norms and halakhic-legal practice. A central component of philosophy of halakha is the project of ta'amei ha-mitzvot (the reasons for the commandments). Through such inquiry, Jewish thinkers attempt to demonstrate the rationality of Jewish religious practice by offering reasons for halakhic norms. At its best, it not only seeks to justify halakhic norms but also elicits sustained reflection on issues in moral philosophy, including justification and normativity. Still, there is a tendency among its practitioners to attempt to separate this project from halakhic-legal practice. Legal practice is thus isolated from philosophical reflection, and the reasons for the norms do not guide their application. Ta'amei ha-mitzvot therefore also provokes queries in legal philosophy concerning the relation between normative and legal justification. This study explores the relation between the justification of halakhic norms and halakhic-legal practice in modern Jewish thought by placing it into dialogue with both moral and legal philosophy. This occurs in two stages: First, the philosophies of halakha of three influential twentieth-century Jewish thinkers, Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994), Joseph Soloveitchik (1903-1993), and Eliezer Berkovits (1908-1992) are examined and critically assessed. It is shown that despite the denials of Leibowitz and Soloveitchik, all their accounts of the reasons for the commandments influence their approaches to halakhic-legal practice; they each combine a foundationalist approach to justification with skepticism about the practical normativity of reason; and none of them adequately grounds halakhic-legal authority. However, their skepticism is based on unduly constricted conceptions of reason and untenable alternative sources of normativity, such as will, metaphysics, or revelation. Second, through engagements with the work of Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Raz an alternative to their accounts of the justification of halakhic norms and authority is developed. This alternative is described as critical philosophy of halakha, for it does not attempt to justify halakhic norms or authority but articulates the rational constraints on, and practical consequences of, their justification. In terms of justification, this account is contextualist, that is, pragmatic and intersubjective, rather than foundationalist, and it is responsive to failures of justification. Correspondingly, it entails pluralism yet avoids moral and epistemic relativism. In terms of authority, this account is instrumentalist and thus mediates between normative and legal justification without reducing the latter to the former. Consequently, authority is circumscribed as opposed to total. Critical philosophy of halakha therefore represents a method whereby the modern religious believer may hold herself accountable to both her faith and other individuals

Under a Censored Sky: Astronomy and Rabbinic Authority in the Talmud Bavli and Related Literature

Until the last few decades of the twentieth century, research on Judaism and astronomy and related celestial sciences tended to emphasize the medieval and Second Temple periods. To date, with the exception of analyses of the Jewish calendar and its development, few studies in the history of science have focused upon the rabbinic period, although a growing number of scholars, including Annette Yoshiko Reed, Noah Efron, and Menachem Fisch, have begun to address this gap. The emerging sub-field of the history of rabbinic science ca. 70-750 C.E., spans the fields of both Jewish studies and the history of science. This dissertation represents an original contribution to knowledge, demonstrating both the richness of celestial discourse in the Babylonian Talmud and the nuanced play of differing typologies of rabbinic authority articulated by Avi Sagi, Michael S. Berger, and other scholars, particularly epistemic and deontic authority. These are shown to interact strongly with rabbinic discourses addressing the overlapping celestial concerns of astronomy, astrology, astral magic, astrolatry, and cosmogony. By examining these astronomical topics together in a study of this kind for the first time, I demonstrate a recurrent pattern of tight rabbinic controls over the celestial sciences preserved in the Babylonian Talmud. This is of importance to the trajectory of Jewish scientific thought due to the enduring centrality of the Bavli. I also underscore an idealized portrayal of rabbinic legal deontic authority over these sciences, and a focus upon shows of honour and prestige associated with the rabbinic station itself in the Bavli. Further, I highlight the ways in which these preserved talmudic portrayals also serve to illuminate the self-presentation of the rabbis as inheritors of the interpretive and legislative powers bequeathed to them by God, the cosmic lawgiver, at the time of creation and at the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai

Toward a normative theory of rationality

This project offers an articulation of rationality in terms of normativity—that what it means to be acting rationally, in thought or in deed, can be understood via a notion of being bound or obliged to certain behaviors given a prior structure that delimits what is rational to assert in a discourse or perform in a society. In the explicit articulation of the role of norms in limning rationality, this project also emphasizes the opportunity and obligation to self-critically assess the value of the metalinguistic and metapractical standards that license rational assertions and behaviors. After an introduction, section 2 examines the role of rational constraint in Kant’s account of representation, concluding that the transcendental story his philosophy leaves us with impels us to look for an immanent socio-linguistic account of the normativity that obliges us to think and behave in certain ways, rather than lodging the force of normativity in transcendentality. Section 3 then examines Robert Brandom’s inferential semantics by addressing prominent responses to Brandom’s program, making explicit two ways in which normativity operates in inferentialism—one at the level of objectlanguage in the articulation of the propositional commitments and entitlements that specify propositional content, the other at the level of the metalinguistic appraisal of the standards that drive object-language inferentialism. Section 4 turns to the theoretical status of normativity and its role in practical behavior, where it is argued that a notion of normativity can underpin a theory of intentional states. Examining positions on naturalism, the author proposes that a causal account of intentionality, made explicit by the prescriptive nature of the theory advanced, provides a naturalist view of normativity for which norms are in explanations of social states as laws are in explanations of physical states. Hence the obligation to self-critically reflect on and revise the norms that delimit ethical behavior in social systems is understood as commensurate with the obligation to self-critically reflect on and revise the norms that delimit warranted assertions in epistemic discourse. The conclusion offers some remarks on the prospects for rational revision in both a discipline’s discourse and a society’s standards of behavior

A critical analytic literature review of virtue ethics for social work: beyond codified conduct towards virtuous social work

This submission is based on a critical analytical literature review of the moral paradigm of virtue ethics and a specific application of this to social work value discourse in search of lost identity. It echoes the philosophical academy's paradigmatic wars between 'act' and 'agent' appraisals in moral theory. Act appraisal theories focus on a person's act as the primary source of moral value whereas agent appraisal theories - whether 'agentprior' or stricter 'agent-based’ versions - focus on a person’s disposition to act morally. This generates a philosophical debate about which type of appraisal should take precedence in making an overall evaluation of a person's moral performance. My starting point is that at core social work is an altruistic activity entailing a deep commitment, a 'moral impulse', towards the distressed 'other'. This should privilege dispositional models of value that stress character and good motivation correctly applied - in effect making for an ethical career built upon the requisite moral virtues. However, the neo-liberal and neo-conservative state hegemony has all but vanquished the moral impulse and its correct application. In virtue ethical language, we live in 'vicious' times. I claim that social work’s adherence to act appraisal Kantian and Utilitarian models is implicated in this loss. Kantian 'deontic' theory stresses inviolable moral principle to be obeyed irrespective of outcome: Utilitarian 'consequentualist' theory calculates the best moral outcome measured against principle. The withering of social work as a morally active profession has culminated in the state regulator's Code of Practice. This makes for a conformity of behaviour which I call 'proto-ethical' to distinguish it from 'ethics proper'. The Code demands that de-moralised practitioners dutifully follow policy, rules, procedures and targets - ersatz, piecemeal and simplistic forms of deontic and consequentualist act appraisals. Numerous inquiries into social work failures indict practitioners for such behaviour. I draw upon mainstream virtue ethical theory and the emergent social work counter discourse to get beyond both code and the simplified under-theoretisation of social work value. I defend a thesis regarding an identity-defining cluster of social work specific virtues. I propose two modules: 'righteous indignation’ to capture the heartfelt moral impulse, and 'just generosity' to mindfully delineate the scope and legitimacy of the former. Their operation generates an exchange relationship with the client whereby the social worker builds 'surplus value' to give back more than must be taken in the transaction. I construct a social work specific minimal-maximal 'stability standard' to anchor the morally correct expression of these two modules and the estimation of surplus value. In satisficing terms, the standard describes what is good enough but is also potentially expansive. A derivative social work practice of moral value is embedded in an historic 'care and control' dialectic. The uncomfortable landscape is one of moral ambiguity and paradoxicality, to be navigated well in virtue terms. I argue that it is incongruous to speak of charactereological social worker virtues and vices and then not to employ the same paradigm to the client’s moral world. This invites a functional analysis of virtue. The telos of social work - our moral impulse at work - directs us to scrutiny of the unsafe household. Our mandate is the well-being of the putative client within, discoursed in terms of functional life-stage virtues and vicious circumstance. I employ the allegorical device of a personal ethical journey from interested lay person to committed social worker, tracking the character-building moral peregrinations. I focus on two criticisms of virtue ethics - a philosophical fork. It is said that virtue ethical theory cannot of itself generate any reliable, independently validated action guidance. In so far as it does, the theory will endorse an as-given, even reactionary, criterion of right action, making 'virtue and vice' talk the bastion of the establishment power holders who control knowledge. I seek to repudiate these claims. Given that this demands a new approach to moral pedagogy, the practical implications for the suitability and training of social workers are discussed

A Contemporary Examination of the A Fortiori Argument Involving Jewish Traditions

This study proposes to clarify the a fortiori argument’s components, structure, definitions, formulations, and logical status, as well as the specific conditions under which it is to be employed, both generally and in a Jewish context. Typically, the argument claims this: if a lesser (or greater) case has a feature, a correspondingly greater (or lesser) case has that feature too. While evident in ancient thought, the argument is often central to Jewish deliberations that may continue for centuries; so this Jewish use forms the main context and material of this study. However, as general reasoning employs the argument, tracing its common forms helps to delineate its terms and relations. While the argument aspires to be true and it can be deductively valid in those cases where heritable properties recur, it is more likely to be inductively probable. In any case, the thesis presents a number of deductive formalizations, while more complex treatments are left to the appendix or further study. Inasmuch as the a fortiori is claimed to be a type of analogy, both its likenesses and its differences are set out and exemplified in a number of comparative mathematical, practical, legal, and other formats. Once the conclusion’s feature is deductively valid or inductively likely, the amount that one accords to the feature in the new case needs to be determined. Logically, the a fortiori’s conclusion can be either limited to the same feature given in one of its premises or else proportioned to it in a way that suits both premises. Mathematically, the same outcome is just one possible ratio. However, the early Jewish stand of the Mishnah usually retains the same tradition or least onerous result as sufficient (the dayo) for the new case. A detailed analysis covers this and later Rabbinic use, and especially Maccoby’s recent claim that the same given alone is correct, which I show to be extreme, for even in a Jewish context it generates several problems. When one includes sensible a fortiori proportions and the possibility of mercy, good moral reasoning can be reconciled with true religious values and traditional precedents. In all, the conclusion’s amount, particularly in practical issues, involves an extra decision procedure that considers the relevant factors of the actual case. Once the a fortiori’s informal and formal aspects are dealt with adequately and its fallacious uses avoided, the argument’s overall reasonableness is better appreciated

The Influence of Innate Behavioral Predispositions on Conflict Stakeholder Interactions in Mediation: The Camp David Accords of 1978

This constructivist grounded theory study will explore the possibility that early socio-cultural experience in concert with innate cognitive mechanisms are essential components of a dual process of decision-making. Each element may influence conflict actors toward predictable predispositional behaviors manifest as bias. Specifically, we are concerned that these biases will influence the perceived and actual neutrality of the principle mediator thus compromising a mediation success. The presence of these predispositions in both mediators and conflict stakeholder challenges the validity of the conclusions in other research that does not consider the true impact of cultural dissonance on more than a superficial insinuation of social facts. This will be accomplished through interrogating data yielded through content analysis of the actors’ use of language both spoken and written utilizing the techniques used in grounded theory studies