The Role of Deontic Logic in the Specification of Information Systems

In this paper we discuss the role that deontic logic plays in the specification of information systems, either because constraints on the systems directly concern norms or, and even more importantly, system constraints are considered ideal but violable (so-called `soft¿ constraints).\ud To overcome the traditional problems with deontic logic (the so-called paradoxes), we first state the importance of distinguishing between ought-to-be and ought-to-do constraints and next focus on the most severe paradox, the so-called Chisholm paradox, involving contrary-to-duty norms. We present a multi-modal extension of standard deontic logic (SDL) to represent the ought-to-be version of the Chisholm set properly. For the ought-to-do variant we employ a reduction to dynamic logic, and show how the Chisholm set can be treated adequately in this setting. Finally we discuss a way of integrating both ought-to-be and ought-to-do reasoning, enabling one to draw conclusions from ought-to-be constraints to ought-to-do ones, and show by an example the use(fulness) of this

"Freedom" through Repression: Epistemic Closure in Agricultural Trade Negotiations

A central concern of critical theory is that of how the forces of Modern reason cause certain logics to become reified in the name of rational progress. Two such logics – the ongoing spread of liberal capitalism, and territorial particularism – are simultaneously embodied within social institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) that regulate the global economy, a phenomenon that occurs on the premise of maximising global welfare. Building upon a critical reading of Jürgen Habermas' theory of communicative action, this article undertakes an empirical immanent critique of the extent to which such logics repress the possibility of normative imperatives being considered within agricultural trade negotiations. Specifically, it argues that the dialectic of functionalist and communicative rationality, operating as a theoretical heuristic, reveals that the DDA is susceptible to an ethical indictment that arises from its inability to countenance the alternatives to the dual logics of neo-liberalism and state-interest that could otherwise emerge from a free and rational discussion. The nature of the WTO as a site of social action is revealed to be that of a closed epistemic community in which important normative claims are repressed, and as such, one in which the underlying rational bases for communication are fundamentally distorted

Avoiding deontic explosion by contextually restricting aggregation

In this paper, we present an adaptive logic for deontic conflicts, called P2.1(r), that is based on Goble's logic SDLaPe-a bimodal extension of Goble's logic P that invalidates aggregation for all prima facie obligations. The logic P2.1(r) has several advantages with respect to SDLaPe. For consistent sets of obligations it yields the same results as Standard Deontic Logic and for inconsistent sets of obligations, it validates aggregation "as much as possible". It thus leads to a richer consequence set than SDLaPe. The logic P2.1(r) avoids Goble's criticisms against other non-adjunctive systems of deontic logic. Moreover, it can handle all the 'toy examples' from the literature as well as more complex ones

Reasonably good corporate governance

Attempts to determine what constitutes “good” corporate governance have become mired in the quicksand of the ethical conflict between duty and utility, virtue and rights, as well as the fight over for whose good the organization exists. This paper takes a different tack. Drawing upon evidence from the efforts to build and develop the UK code of corporate governance, it argues that the nature of “good” is intractable, but that in the practical world a philosophically pragmatic approach applies, exemplified in the preference for a comply-or-explain approach rather than more formal modes of regulation. Using Toulmin’s (2001) of advocacy the reasonable, in opposition to the rational, it argues that “reasonably good” governance is the best that can be expected, given the contingent nature of organizational life and strategies and the uncertain and potentially fungible benefits of various mechanisms of corporate governance

IR theory, historical materialism, and the false promise of international historical sociology

The three-decades old call for an inter-disciplinary rapprochement between IR Theory and Historical Sociology, starting in the context of the post-positivist debate in the 1980s, has generated a proliferating repertory of contending paradigms within the field of IR, including Neo-Weberian, Post-Structuralist, and Constructivist approaches. Within the Marxist literature, this project comprises an equally rich and diverse set of theoretical traditions, including World-Systems Theory, Neo-Gramscian IR/IPE, the Amsterdam School, Political Marxism, Neo-Leninism, and Postcolonial Theory. More recently, a “third wave” of approaches has been announced from within the field of IR, suggesting to move the dialogue from inter-disciplinarity towards an integrated super-discipline of International Historical Sociology (IHS). This proposition has been most persistently advanced by advocates of the theory of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD), claiming to constitute a universal, unitary and sociological theory of IR. This article charts the intellectual trajectory of this ongoing IR/HS dialogue. It moves from a critique of Neo-Weberianism to a critique of UCD against the background of the original promise of the turn in IR to Historical Sociology: the supersession of the prevailing rationalism, structuralism, and positivism in extant mainstream IR approaches through the mobilization of alternative and non-positivistic traditions in the social sciences. This critique will be performed by setting UCD in dialogue with Political Marxism. By anchoring both approaches at opposite ends on the spectrum of Marxist conceptions of social science – respectively the scientistic and the historicist - the argument is that UCD reneges on the promise of Historical Sociology for IR by re-aligning, first by default and now by design, with the meta-theoretical premises of Neo-Realism. This is most visibly expressed in the articulation of a deductive-nomological covering law, leading towards acute conceptual and ontological anachronisms, premised on the radical de-historicisation of the fields of ontology, conceptuality and disciplinarity. This includes the semantic neutering and hyper-abstract re-articulation of the very category, which in IR’s self-perception lends legitimacy to its claim of disciplinary distinctiveness: the international. The article concludes by suggesting that an understanding of Marxism as a historicist social science subverts all calls for the construction of grand theories and, a fortiori, a unitary super-discipline of IHS, premised on a set of universal, space-time indifferent, and abstract categories that hold across the spectrum of world history. In contrast, recovering the historicist credentials of Marxism demands a constant temporalisation and specification of the fields of ontology, agency, conceptuality and disciplinarity. The objective is to lay the foundations for a historicist social science of geopolitics

Prioritized Conditional Imperatives:Problems and a New Proposal

The sentences of deontic logic may be understood as describing what an agent ought to do when faced with a given set of norms. If these norms come into conflict, the best the agent can be expected to do is to follow a maximal subset of the norms. Intuitively, a priority ordering of the norms can be helpful in determining the relevant sets and resolve conflicts, but a formal resolution mechanism has been difficult to provide. In particular, reasoning about prioritized conditional imperatives is overshadowed by problems such as the `order puzzle\u27 that are not satisfactorily resolved by existing approaches. The paper provides a new proposal as to how these problems may be overcome

Designing Normative Theories for Ethical and Legal Reasoning: LogiKEy Framework, Methodology, and Tool Support

A framework and methodology---termed LogiKEy---for the design and engineering of ethical reasoners, normative theories and deontic logics is presented. The overall motivation is the development of suitable means for the control and governance of intelligent autonomous systems. LogiKEy's unifying formal framework is based on semantical embeddings of deontic logics, logic combinations and ethico-legal domain theories in expressive classic higher-order logic (HOL). This meta-logical approach enables the provision of powerful tool support in LogiKEy: off-the-shelf theorem provers and model finders for HOL are assisting the LogiKEy designer of ethical intelligent agents to flexibly experiment with underlying logics and their combinations, with ethico-legal domain theories, and with concrete examples---all at the same time. Continuous improvements of these off-the-shelf provers, without further ado, leverage the reasoning performance in LogiKEy. Case studies, in which the LogiKEy framework and methodology has been applied and tested, give evidence that HOL's undecidability often does not hinder efficient experimentation.Comment: 50 pages; 10 figure

Policy Conflict Analysis in Distributed System Management

Accepted versio