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Norms and Deontic Logic

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Abstract

Deontic logic (from Ancient Greek déon, what is right) aims to formalize the links existing between the notions of obligation, prohibition, permission and optionality. Deontic logic is at the origin of normative systems which are used to model obligations, prohibitions and sanctions in organizations. In this chapter, we will first present standard deontic logic, then we will analyze its drawbacks. A synthesis of some problems tackled in normative systems is then presented: conditional obligations, norms with exceptions, violations, norms with deadlines and collective obligations. Finally, several application domains for deontic logic are examined.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The date of creation of a normative proposition is distinguished from its activation date: a regulation can be activated after its creation.

  2. 2.

    The same reasoning applies on permissions and prohibitions.

  3. 3.

    As early as 1958, Anderson (Anderson 1958) had proposed to define the obligation to be Ob by using the alethic necessity operator \(\Box \) and a deontic constant V, representing a state of violation: \(Ob\ \varphi {\mathop {=}\limits ^{def}} \Box (\lnot \varphi \longrightarrow V)\). Intuitively, this definition says that if \(\varphi \) is not realized, then a violation occurs.

  4. 4.

    Of course, there may be other cases when turning on your headlights is mandatory: at night, when going through a tunnel etc.

  5. 5.

    Notice that the reasoning is the same for the other deontic notions (prohibition, permission etc).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Télécom Bretagne, Brest, France

    Frédéric Cuppens & Nora Cuppens-Boulahia

  2. Université de Toulouse, ISAE-SUPAERO/DISC, Toulouse, France

    Christophe Garion

  3. CentraleSupélec, Rennes, France

    Guillaume Piolle

Authors
  1. Frédéric Cuppens
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  2. Christophe Garion
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  3. Guillaume Piolle
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  4. Nora Cuppens-Boulahia
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Correspondence to Frédéric Cuppens .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CRIL-CNRS, Université d'Artois and Institut Universitaire de France, Lens, France

    Pierre Marquis

  2. Aix Marseille Université, Université de Toulon, CNRS, LIS, Marseille, France

    Odile Papini

  3. IRIT, CNRS and Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

    Henri Prade

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Cuppens, F., Garion, C., Piolle, G., Cuppens-Boulahia, N. (2020). Norms and Deontic Logic. In: Marquis, P., Papini, O., Prade, H. (eds) A Guided Tour of Artificial Intelligence Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06164-7_8

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