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94This paper describes one way in which a precise reason model of precedent could be developed, based on Grant Lamond’s general idea that a later court is constrained to reach a decision that is consistent an earlier court’s assessment of the balance of reasons. The account provided here has the additional advantage of showing how this reason model can be reconciled with the traditional idea that precedential constraint involves rules, as long as these rules are taken to be defeasible
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85A factor-based definition of precedential constraintArtificial Intelligence and Law 20 (2): 181-214. 2012.This paper describes one way in which a precise reason model of precedent could be developed, based on the general idea that courts are constrained to reach a decision that is consistent with the assessment of the balance of reasons made in relevant earlier decisions. The account provided here has the additional advantage of showing how this reason model can be reconciled with the traditional idea that precedential constraint involves rules, as long as these rules are taken to be defeasible. The…Read more
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69An appreciation of John Pollock's work on the computational study of argumentArgument and Computation 3 (1). 2012.John Pollock (1940?2009) was an influential American philosopher who made important contributions to various fields, including epistemology and cognitive science. In the last 25 years of his life, he also contributed to the computational study of defeasible reasoning and practical cognition in artificial intelligence. He developed one of the first formal systems for argumentation-based inference and he put many issues on the research agenda that are still relevant for the argumentation community…Read more
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218Reasoning with moral conflictsNoûs 37 (4). 2003.Let us say that a normative conflict is a situation in which an agent ought to perform an action A, and also ought to perform an action B, but in which it is impossible for the agent to perform both A and B. Not all normative conflicts are moral conflicts, of course. It may be that the agent ought to perform the action A for reasons of personal generosity, but ought to perform the action B for reasons of prudence: perhaps A involves buying a lavish gift for a friend, while B involves depositing a c…Read more
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279Reasons as DefaultsPhilosophers' Imprint 7 1-28. 2007.The goal of this paper is to frame a theory of reasons--what they are, how they support actions or conclusions--using the tools of default logic. After sketching the basic account of reasons as provided by defaults, I show how it can be elaborated to deal with two more complicated issues: first, situations in which the priority relation among defaults, and so reasons as well, is itself established through default reasoning; second, the treatment of undercutting defeat and exclusionary reasons. F…Read more
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Double Time Reference in the Evaluation of ActionIn Henrik Lagerlund, Sten Lindström & Rysiek Sliwinski (eds.), Modality Matters: Twenty-Five Essays in Honour of Krister Segerberg, Uppsala Philosophical Studies 53. pp. 53--205. 2006.
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602The result model of precedentLegal Theory 10 (1): 19-31. 2004.The result model of precedent holds that a legal precedent controls a fortiori cases—those cases, that is, that are at least as strong for the winning side of the precedent as the precedent case itself. This paper defends the result model against some objections by Larry Alexander, drawing on ideas from the field of Artificial Intelligence and Law in order to define an appropriate strength ordering for cases
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145Rules and reasons in the theory of precedentLegal Theory 17 (1): 1-33. 2011.The doctrine of precedent, as it has evolved within the common law, has at its heart a form of reasoning—broadly speaking, alogic—according to which the decisions of earlier courts in particular cases somehow generalize to constrain the decisions of later courts facing different cases, while still allowing these later courts a degree of freedom in responding to fresh circumstances. Although the techniques for arguing on the basis of precedent are taught early on in law schools, mastered with rel…Read more
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117Moral dilemmas and nonmonotonic logicJournal of Philosophical Logic 23 (1). 1994.From a philosophical standpoint, the work presented here is based on van Fraassen [26]. The bulk of that paper is organized around a series of arguments against the assumption, built into standard deontic logic, that moral dilemmas are impossible; and van Fraassen only briefly sketches his alternative approach. His paper ends with the conclusion that “the problem of possibly irresolvable moral conflict reveals serious flaws in the philosophical and semantic foundations of ‘orthodox’ deontic logi…Read more
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13A skeptical theory of mixed inheritanceIn J. Dunn & A. Gupta (eds.), Truth or Consequences: Essays in Honor of Nuel Belnap, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 267--281. 1990.
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43Early attempts at combining multiple inheritance with nonmonotonic reasoning were based on straightforward extensions of tree-structured inheritance systems, and were theoretically unsound. In The Mathcmat~'cs of Inheritance Systcrns, or TMOIS, Touretzky described two problems these systems cannot handle: reasoning in the presence of true but redundant assertions, and coping with ambiguity. TMOIS provided a definition and analysis of a theoretically sound multiple inheritance system, accom-
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29The purpose of this paper is to explore a new deontic operator for representing what an agent ought to do; the operator is cast against the background of a modal treatment of action developed by Nuel Belnap and Michael Perlo, which itself relies on Arthur Prior's indeterministic tense logic. The analysis developed here of what an agent ought to do is based on a dominance ordering adapted from the decision theoretic study of choice under uncertainty to the present account of action. It is shown t…Read more
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30Reasons as DefaultsOup Usa. 2012.In this volume, John Horty brings to bear his work in logic to present a framework that allows for answers to key questions about reasons and reasoning, namely: What are reasons, and how do they support actions or conclusions?
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