Truth as Utility: A Conceptual Synthesis

TL;DR

This paper develops a unified logical framework combining utilitarian and logical concepts to evaluate and compare the quality and desirability of solutions in reasoning and decision-making contexts, using multi-valued logic and complex constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a novel synthesis of utilitarian and logical concepts, extending Rescher's preference logics with constraint-dependent measures and mechanisms for representing complex utility relations.

Findings

Defines measures for solution quality and desirability in a possible worlds framework.

Proposes logical operations for combining goal-specific utility measures.

Extends modal logic to represent ignorance about utility values.

Abstract

This paper introduces conceptual relations that synthesize utilitarian and logical concepts, extending the logics of preference of Rescher. We define first, in the context of a possible worlds model, constraint-dependent measures that quantify the relative quality of alternative solutions of reasoning problems or the relative desirability of various policies in control, decision, and planning problems. We show that these measures may be interpreted as truth values in a multi valued logic and propose mechanisms for the representation of complex constraints as combinations of simpler restrictions. These extended logical operations permit also the combination and aggregation of goal-specific quality measures into global measures of utility. We identify also relations that represent differential preferences between alternative solutions and relate them to the previously defined desirability measures. Extending conventional modal logic formulations, we introduce structures for the representation of ignorance about the utility of alternative solutions. Finally, we examine relations between these concepts and similarity based semantic models of fuzzy logic.