Deontic Logic Conference

Paola, while the theoretical complexities of deontic logic are beyond my 
level of comprehension, here are some practical thoughts related to 
these four bullet points in the conference announcement:

    * How do different perspectives on the evaluation of norms in social
    terms (e.g. individual vs. social, “flat groups” vs. networks of
    agents, in terms of explicit agreements vs. in terms of a social
    choice function) cash out in terms of formal logics?

Agreements aren't explicit unless they are documented, and documentation 
is insufficient unless it clearly and unambiguously spells out both the 
stakeholder roles as well as the performance indicators leading from 
inputs to outcomes in the value chain.

    * Can we suitably combine deontic logics and formal frameworks for
    reasoning about networks? What formal and philosophical hurdles
    should first be taken in order to merge these two lines of research?

There is no such thing as a "formal framework".  That is a contradiction 
in terms.  By definition, "frameworks" are relatively amorphous as well 
as incomplete in the sense they do not fulling specify the value chain 
and the stakeholder roles and responsibilities in model performance 
plans. And, yes, if value chains are fully documented, "reasoning" can 
be applied to learn how best to achieve the desired outcomes, based upon 
actual evidence shared in performance reports.

    * Can deontic terms such as must, ought, may acquire their meaning
    via social conventions? Could such a meaning acquisition be captured
    via a combination of logical and game theoretic tools?

In value chains, the difference between the meaning of the terms "must," 
"ought" and "may" is evidenced in the quality of the outputs and 
outcomes.  Some minimal amounts of inputs and degrees of processing are 
required to produce any usable output. Higher-quality outputs may be 
produced by additional inputs and processing, with diminishing returns.  
Yes, such meaning can be captured -- in performance plans and reports, 
preferably in an open, standard, machine-readable format like StratML 
Part 2.

    * How do rights and duties of institutions relate to those of their
    members from a legal and political perspective? How can this
    relation be represented formally?

The simple answer is that rights and duties are "represented" in 
documents (or, otherwise, the minds of mobs and dictators).  The common 
forms taken by such documents are laws, regulations, policies, 
directives, guidelines, etc. -- in relatively unstructured, 
non-semantically tagged, narrative formats ... all of which are poor and 
inadequate substitutes for actual model performance plans in open, 
standard, machine-readable format.

BTW, I don't understand the logic of using the same URL to point to two 
different "pages", i.e., the org's home page <http://deonticlogic.org/> 
as well as the conference announcement, thus making it impossible to 
refer directly to the latter.

Owen


On 2/12/2020 4:07 AM, Paola Di Maio wrote:
> Dear all
>
> I d like to explore the synergy between deontic logic and knowledge 
> representation.
> in relation to the many topics being discussed in this group
> http://deonticlogic.org/
>
> So (if my mind does not explode) I ll aim to put in an abstract, see 
> the wiki for a page that need filling out
> https://www.w3.org/community/aikr/wiki/Main_Page
>
> If anybody has any free neurons in their prefrontal cortex and would 
> like to contribute
> they would be most welcome!
>
> PDM
>
>