Automating defeasible reasoning in law with answer set programming

• Main Authors: LIM, How Khang, MAHAJAR, Avishkar, STRECKER, Martin, WONG, Meng Weng
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: Knowledge representation and reasoning; Argumentation and law; Computational Law; Defeasible reasoning; Computer Law; Numerical Analysis and Computation; Rule of Law
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cclaw/1; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/cclaw/article/1000/viewcontent/Automating_Defeasible_Reasoning_in_Law.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The paper studies defeasible reasoning in rule-based systems, in particular about legal norms and contracts. We identify rule modifiers that specify how rules interact and how they can be overridden. We then define rule transformations that eliminate these modifiers, leading in the end to a translation of rules to formulas. For reasoning with and about rules, we contrast two approaches, one in a classical logic with SMT solvers, which is only briefly sketched, and one using non-monotonic logic with Answer Set Programming solvers, described in more detail.