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This article suggests that fact checking is a useful but incomplete framework for delivering an epistemically healthy public sphere. Through a brief history of the fact/value distinction, it is argued that there is no secure justification for limiting interventions aimed at improving the emergent digital public sphere only to factual claims. On this basis, the heuristic principle of ‘value checking’ is outlined, as a complement to fact checking in the epistemic regulation of democratic discourse. Value checking would accept that more sophisticated and deliberative communication is a vital requirement for a well-functioning public sphere, and that this can be promoted through new forms of epistemic regulation. However, it would reject the notion that fact checking is sufficient to achieve this, suggesting that the promotion of healthy political communication should also extend to value-based reasoning. The principle of value checking could be added to the fact-checking paradigm as a means of further enriching the public sphere in the ‘post-truth’ age.

Abductive Logic Programming (ALP) has been proven very effective for formalizing societies of agents, commitments and norms, in particular by mapping the most common deontic operators (obligation, prohibition, permission) to abductive expectations. In our previous works, we have shown that ALP is a suitable framework for representing norms. Normative reasoning and query answering were accommodated by the same abductive proof procedure, named 𝒮CIFF. In this work, we introduce a defeasible flavour in this framework, in order to possibly discharge obligations in some scenarios. Abductive expectations can also be qualified as dischargeable, in the new, extended syntax. Both declarative and operational semantics are improved accordingly, and proof of soundness is given under syntax allowedness conditions Moreover, the dischargement itself might be proved invalid, or incoherent with the rules, due to new knowledge provided later on. In such a case, a discharged expectation might be reinstated and hold again after some evidence is given. We extend the notion of dischargement to take into consideration also the reinstatement of expectations. The expressiveness and power of the extended framework, named 𝒮CIFF𝒟, is shown by modeling and reasoning upon a fragment of the Japanese Civil Code. In particular, we consider a case study concerning manifestations of intention and their rescission (Section II of the Japanese Civil Code).

This paper illustrates how normative reasoning was applied to empirical applications of different indicator options in order to revise the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) indicators in 2018 to better align with the SDGs. Given the emphasis in the SDGs on leaving no one behind, the household surveys used to estimate the global MPI were explored to see which could create individual level MPIs, but country coverage would be sharply reduced by half. The paper then applies consistent criteria to assess whether 33 potential additional indicators could be added to strengthen the global MPI, and applies a set of criteria which in the end ruled out new indicators. Finally it both illustrates and describes the iterative interplay of normative and technical considerations underlying adjustments in three original indicators – child mortality, nutrition, and housing – which involves considering the joint distribution of alternative indicators across twenty trial measures for all countries.

Prominent theories in moral psychology maintain that a core aspect of moral competence is the ability to distinguish moral norms, which derive from universal principles of justice and fairness, fro...

This article seeks to address the problem of the ‘resource consumption bottleneck’ of creating legal semantic technologies manually. It describes a semantic role labeling based information extraction system to extract definitions and norms from legislation and represent them as structured norms in legal ontologies. The output is intended to help make laws more accessible, understandable, and searchable in a legal document management system.

Simulation is a useful tool for evaluating behavioral interventions when the adoption rate among a population is uncertain. Individual agent models are often prohibitively expensive, but, unlike stochastic models, allow studying compliance heterogeneity. In this paper we demonstrate the feasibility of evaluating behavioral intervention policies using large-scale data-driven agent-based simulations. We explain how the simulation is calibrated with respect to real-world data, and demonstrate the utility of our approach by studying the effectiveness of interventions used in Virginia in early 2020 through counterfactual simulations.

Durch die zunehmende Bedeutung von ethischer KI hat das Durchsetzen von ethischen,gesellschaftlichen und rechtlichen Normen gegenüber autonom agierenden Agenten ebenfalls an Bedeutung gewonnen. Über Normen zu argumentieren (normative reasoning) ist in vielen Fällen schwer, da sich Normen oft widersprechen, nur unter bestimmten Umständen gültig sind oder verletzt werden müssen. Eine Art über Normen zu argumentieren ist es, sie in logischer Form zu kodieren (Genaueres dazu auf Seite 63) und Prioritäten unter ihnen festzulegen. Über die Jahre wurden mehrere Ansätze vorgeschlagen. Diese Masterarbeit stellt eine einfache Methode zur Kodierung normativer Systeme unter Verwendung von “weak constraints” (schwache Einschränkungen) in Answer Set Programming vor. Answer Set Programming ist ein deklarativer Problemlösungsansatz,der seine Wurzeln in der Wissensrepräsentation, der logischen Programmierung und der nicht-monotonen Argumentation hat. Wir haben uns aufgrund der Ausdrucksstärke von Answer Set Programming und der Effizienz der verfügbaren Löser für diesen Ansatz entschieden. Standard Deontic Logic ist das erste logische System, das eingeführt wurde,um über Verpflichtungen, Erlaubnisse und verwandte Konzepte zu argumentieren. Wir beschreiben einige der bekanntesten deontischen Paradoxa, die zeigen, dass Standard Deontic Logic manche Aspekte, welche wir im Alltag verwenden um über Normen zu argumentieren, nicht erfassen kann. Wir kodieren diese Paradoxa fallweise unter Verwendung einer gemeinsamen Basis. Anfangs kodieren wir einige der deontischen Paradoxa.Wir abstrahieren und verallgemeinern diese Kodierungen um eine einfache Methodik zur Kodierung normativer Systeme zu entwickeln. Anhand von zwei Fallstudien wird diese Methodik demonstriert. In der ersten Fallstudie kodieren wir eine vereinfachte Version eines Beispiels aus der realen Welt, nämlich die Pflichten eines Agenten beim Autofahren.In der zweiten Fallstudie verwenden wir unsere Methodik, um die Normen für “ethische”Versionen des Pacman-Videospiels von Neufeld et al. (CADE, 2021) zu kodieren und zu implementieren., As ethical AI is becoming increasingly important so is the topic of enforcing ethical, legal and social norms on agents acting autonomously. Reasoning about norms (normativereasoning) is in many cases quite hard as often norms contradict each other, might only hold under certain circumstances or need to be violated. A way to reason about norms, isto encode them in some logic (discussed further on page 63) and determine prioritisation among these. Multiple approaches have been proposed over the years. This master thesis introduces a simple methodology to encode normative systems using weak constraints in Answer Set Programming. Answer Set Programming is a declarative problem solving approach, with roots in knowledge representation, logic programming and non-monotonic reasoning. We chose this approach because of the expressivity of Answer Set Programming and the efficiency of available solvers. Standard Deontic Logic is the first logical systemintroduced to reason about obligations, permissions and related concepts. We discuss some of the most famous deontic paradoxes which show that Standard Deontic Logic fails to capture aspects of real world reasoning about norms. We encode these paradoxes on a case by case basis using a common core. We start by encoding some of the deonticparadoxes. Through abstracting and generalising those encodings we develop a simplemethodology for encoding normative systems. Our methodology is demonstrated on two case studies. In the first case study we encode a simplified version of a real worldexample, namely the obligations of an agent while driving. For the second case study, we use our methodology to encode and implement the norms for “ethical” versions of the video game Pacman by Neufeld et al. (CADE, 2021).

Defeasible deontic logic uses techniques from non-monotonic logic to address various challenges in normative reasoning, such as prima facie permissions and obligations, moral dilemmas, deontic detachment, contrary-to-duty reasoning and legal interpretation. In this article, we use formal argumentation to design defeasible deontic logics, based on two classical deontic logics. In particular, we use the ASPIC+ structured argumentation theory to define non-monotonic variants of well-understood monotonic modal logics. We illustrate the ASPIC+-based approach and the resulting defeasible deontic logics using argumentation about strong permission.

Coercion and the Nature of Law, by Kenneth Himma, claims to be an essay in descriptive conceptual analysis and there are good reasons to also take it as an essay in legal positivism. These amount to and imply certain methodological commitments. In this article I explore the compatibility between such commitments and Himma’s elaboration on the conceptual relation between law and coercion. The result will be that those commitments are not thoroughly honoured, as Himma’s argument moves from the descriptive to the normative when making the case for law’s “conceptual” function being peacekeeping and when fleshing out what sort of reasons for action the law provides.

The aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a difference to the social world, they raise some similar moral and regulatory challenges, which require us to rethink some of our anthropocentric moral assumptions. Are humans always responsible for those entities’ actions, or could the entities bear responsibility themselves? Could the entities engage in normative reasoning? Could they even have rights and a moral status? I will tentatively defend the (increasingly widely held) view that, under certain conditions, artificial intelligent systems, like corporate entities, might qualify as responsible moral agents and as holders of limited rights and legal personhood. I will further suggest that regulators should permit the use of autonomous artificial systems in high-stakes settings only if they are engineered to function as moral (not just intentional) agents and/or there is some liability-transfer arrangement in place. I will finally raise the possibility that if artificial systems ever became phenomenally conscious, there might be a case for extending a stronger moral status to them, but argue that, as of now, this remains very hypothetical.