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The Role of Deontic Logic in the Specification of Information Systems

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Logics for Databases and Information Systems

Part of the book series: The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science ((SECS,volume 436))

Abstract

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). 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.

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Authors
  1. J.-J. Ch. Meyer
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  2. R. J. Wieringa
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  3. F. P. M. Dignum
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Monmouth University, USA

    Jan Chomicki

  2. University of Magdeburg, Germany

    Gunter Saake

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Meyer, JJ.C., Wieringa, R.J., Dignum, F.P.M. (1998). The Role of Deontic Logic in the Specification of Information Systems. In: Chomicki, J., Saake, G. (eds) Logics for Databases and Information Systems. The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, vol 436. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5643-5_4

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