Abstract
Hohfeld’s analysis (Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 1913, 1917) on the different types of rights and duties is highly influential in analytical legal theory, and it is considered as a fundamental theory in AI&Law and normative multi-agent systems. Yet a century later, the formalization of this theory remains, in various ways, unresolved. In this paper I provide a formal analysis of how the working of a system containing Hohfeldian rights and duties can be delineated. This formalization starts from using the same tools as the classical ones by Kanger and Lindahl used, but instead of focusing on the algebraic features of rights and duties, it aims at providing a comprehensive analysis of what these rights and duties actually are and how they behave and at saying something substantial on Power too—maintaining all along the Hohfeldian intentions that these rights and duties are sui generis and inherently relational.
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Acknowledgements
Open access funding provided by Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE). The research leading to this paper partly has been conducted during visiting fellowships in the Law School of the University of Edinburgh and in the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at London School of Economics and Political Science. I am grateful for the comments on this paper’s earlier versions to Marek Sergot, David Makinson, Olivier Roy, Burkhard Schafer, and the anonymous reviewers. The research reported in this paper was supported by the Higher Education Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities in the frame of Artificial Intelligence research area of Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME FIKP-MI/FM). Support provided by the research Project K-116191 of the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund is also gratefully acknowledged.
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Markovich, R. Understanding Hohfeld and Formalizing Legal Rights: The Hohfeldian Conceptions and Their Conditional Consequences. Stud Logica 108, 129–158 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11225-019-09870-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11225-019-09870-5