Deontic Paradoxes in Library Lending Regulations: A Case Study in Flint

TL;DR

This paper examines whether the Flint language can represent library lending regulations without deontic paradoxes, contributing to understanding its expressive power in normative reasoning.

Contribution

It investigates Flint's ability to avoid known deontic paradoxes in a case study of library regulations, advancing formal analysis of its normative expressiveness.

Findings

Flint can express Sergot's library example.

Flint potentially avoids the Chisholm paradox.

Provides insights into Flint's relation to deontic logics.

Abstract

Flint is a frame-based and action-centered language developed by Van Doesburg et al. to capture and compare different interpretations of sources of norms (e.g. laws or regulations). The aim of this research is to investigate whether Flint is susceptible to paradoxes that are known to occur in normative systems. The example of library lending regulations -- first introduced by Sergot to argue for including deontic concepts in legal knowledge representation -- is central to this analysis. The hypothesis is that Flint is capable of expressing Sergot's library example without the occurrence of deontic paradoxes (most notably: the Chisholm paradox). This research is a first step towards a formal analysis of the expressive power of Flint as a language and furthers understanding of the relation between Flint and existing deontic logics.