Call for Participation: Formal Ethics Week, September 7-10, 2010,
University of Groningen.

The application of formal tools from logic and rational choice theory to
the analysis of ethical concepts and theories is a rapidly growing field
of research. It has proved its mettle by shedding new light on a variety
of concepts that are central to ethical theory, such as freedom,
responsibility, values, norms, and conventions.

The Formal Ethics Week will be held at the University of Groningen (the
Netherlands) on September 7-10,  2010. A joint venture of the Faculty of
Philosophy of the University of Groningen and the Department of
Philosophy of Uppsala University, the workshop aims to bring together
researchers at the crossroads of ethical theory and formal methods.

The event will feature four tutorials by leading scholars:

Tutorial 1: Formal Methods and Philosophy of Public Policy, Luc Bovens
(London School of Economics)

Tutorial 2: Changes in Preferences, Sven Ove Hansson (Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm)

Tutorial 3: Evolutionary game theory, the replicator dynamics and the
social network approach, Jason M. Alexander (London School of Economics)

Tutorial 4: The Ethical Bases of Normative Economics, Prasanta K.
Pattanaik (UC Riverside)

Apart from the tutorials, there will be eight working sessions, where
researchers from Groningen and from Uppsala will present and discuss
each other’s work.

Attendance to the Formal Ethics Week is open to everyone, but
registration is required. For more information, and to register, please
visit the website of the workshop:

                    http://www.philos.rug.nl/FEW

A spectacular landscape and an at times unbereably hot weather could not stop deontic logicians to attend three days of both technical and interdisciplinary talks.

The conference was moreover connected to a multiplicity of ‘satellite workshops’ on Deontic Logic:

- iComply, the First Workshop on Law Compliancy Issues in Organisational Systems and Strategies;
- the “Norm Compliance” Workshop;
- the 10th Augustus De Morgan Workshop on Deontic Logic.

Remarkably the latter discussed, among the other subjects, the editing of a forthcoming “Handbook on deontic logic and normative systems”.

The purpose of the conference, in the editors’ intentions (Guido Governatori and Giovanni Sartor), was to “promote international cooperation amongst scholars interested in deontic logic and its use in computer science”.

Definitely I have heard talks ranging from artificial intelligence, philosophical logic, game theory, law. All probably holding a different view concerning what it should be, which is ultimately what DEON is about.

I believe the invited speakers where representative of the different areas constituting DEON community. Marek Sergot, from the Department of Computing of the Imperial College in London, discussed Norms, Action and Agency in Multi-Agent Systems; Leon van der Torre, from the Faculty of Sciences, Technology and Communication of University of Luxembourg, discussed the challenge of Deontic Redundancy, showing one more application for input-output logic; Michele Taruffo could not be there but was replaced, amazingly on the fly, by Jörg Hansen, who talked about defaults and priorities. Last but not least, Rosaria Conte, from the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies of the Italian National Research Council who presented a theory of norm adoption showing computer simulation results.

The talks where articulated into sections that more or less reflected the invited speakers topics.

- “Preferences and Contrary to Duties” where the problems related to Contrary to Duties structures and Preference priorities was discussed. Here the work by van Benthem, Grossi and Liu (University of Amsterdam the first two and of Tsinghua the last) on a correspondence between contrary to duty structures and preference orders over possible worlds raised interesting questions concerning the nature of contrary to duties structure. When there are plenty of contrary to duty obligations how is the preference order that they induce on worlds supposed to be represented?

- “Input-ouput logic and norm change” dealing with the dynamic aspects of normative system change. Dynamic logic type of formalisms turned out to be first choice of many deontic logicians interested in studying norm change.
Here Antonino Rotolo, University of Bologna, discussed the fascinating phenomenon of Retroactive Legal Changes by means of Theory Revision in Defeasible Logic. Reatroactive Legal Changes suggest the possibility of a legal branching past, usually ruled out by temporal accounts of action. Rotolo’s account instead incorporates this fact in a sophisticated model, involving the use of defeasible logic. What the best way could be of modelling the way a system at a certain time ‘sees itself’ in the past was one of the central questions following the talk.

- “Deontic logic and Argumentation” where the conflicting reasons for accepting a certain rule or to deal with conflicting rules were discussed.

Here the work by Phan Ming Dung and Giovanni Sartor (Asian Institute of Technology and University of Bologna) was presented. It is an integration of two seemingly disconnected disciplines: argumentation theory, born in computer science to account for conflicting pieces of information to be selected and the study Private International Law. The central idea is that pieces of Private International Laws among countries can be inconsistent if put together. Here the use of argumentation theory to provide feasible answers for lawyers.

- “Agents, Institutions and Deontic Logic” instead collected contributions interested in understanding the role of social interaction in determining norms.

In this section Rosja Mastop (University of Eindhoven) presented his contribution on collective responsibility, what he calls “the problem of many hands”. Given that a state of the world is brought about, who is accountable for it, if this state of the world is result of a collective choice? Apart from the inner interest of this question, a connection could be drawn with the “principle of absence of moral luck” discussed by Marek Sergot in his invited talk. There is no moral luck when agents are individually and not collectively responsible for a certain damage. I thought Mastop’s contribution as a natural exploration in the realm of moral luck.

Apart from the talks themselves, I found the discussion with the public to be most inspiring, especially when conflicting views were put forward, e.g. technical versus conceptual. I strongly believe DEON to be an instructive arena as long as different areas come together to discuss about what it should be.

Paolo Turrini

Formal models of norm change have been drawing attention since the seminal work of Alchourrón and Bulygin on normative systems, and that of Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson on the logic of theory change. Research trends in Artificial Intelligence have recently revived this attention emphasizing the importance of a formal analysis of the type(s) of dynamics involved in systems of norms, and norm change has become the topic of a dedicated international workshop: http://www.cs.uu.nl/events/normchange2/index.html

This special issue aims at providing an up to date account of this recent and lively research area at the interface of logic, philosophy, computer science
and legal theory.

We invite submissions on any topic in the following, not exclusive, list:
* Dynamic logic approaches to norm change
* AGM-like approaches to norm change
* Deontic logic and the dynamics of informational attitudes
* Deontic logic and game theory
* Formal analysis of legal procedures
* Norm change in legal theory
* Norm change and multi-agent systems

SUBMISSION
The papers can be submitted via email to Davide Grossi (d.grossi@uva.nl).
The paper must be unpublished and not submitted for publication elsewhere.
 Submissions will be refereed according to the usual high standards of JANCL.

Submissions exceeding 25 pages will require a specific justification and the
agreement of the editors.

The paper must be prepared in LaTeX. Typing instructions and style files can be obtained:
 - in .ZIP format from:  http://www.irit.fr/JANCL/Styles/Latex/Jancl_style_V2.1.6.zip
- in TAR.GZ format from:
 http://www.irit.fr/JANCL/Styles/Latex/Jancl_style_V2.1.6.tar.gz

Any further information about submission can be asked to Davide Grossi  (d.grossi@uva.nl).
PLANNED SCHEDULE
Deadline for submissions:               30 June 2010
First referee reports:                  15 August 2010
Submission revision (if necessary):     15 September 2010
Notification:                           30 September 2010
Final version:                          30 October 2010

GUEST EDITORS
Jan Broersen, Utrecht University (broersen@cs.uu.nl)
Davide Grossi, University of Amsterdam (d.grossi@uva.nl)
Leendert van der Torre, University of Luxembourg(leon.vandertorre@uni.lu)

URL of the CFP:
 http://staff.science.uva.nl/~grossi/SpecialIssue/NormChangeJANCL

Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logic
Final call for papers (deadline extended)
Special Issue on:
FORMAL MODELS OF NORM CHANGE

Formal models of norm change have been drawing attention since the seminal work of Alchourrón and Bulygin on normative systems, and that of Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson on the logic of theory change. Research trends in Artificial Intelligence have recently revived this attention emphasizing the importance of a formal analysis of the type(s) of dynamics involved in systems of norms, and norm change has become the topic of a dedicated international workshop: http://www.cs.uu.nl/events/normchange2/index.html

This special issue aims at providing an up to date account of this recent and lively research area at the interface of logic, philosophy, computer science and legal theory.

We invite submissions on any topic in the following, not exclusive, list:

Dynamic logic approaches to norm change
AGM-like approaches to norm change
Deontic logic and the dynamics of informational attitudes
Deontic logic and game theory>   * Formal analysis of legal procedures
Norm change in legal theory
Norm change and multi-agent systems

SUBMISSION
The papers can be submitted via email to Davide Grossi (d.grossi@uva.nl).
The paper must be unpublished and not submitted for publication elsewhere.
Submissions will be refereed according to the usual high standards of JANCL.

Submissions exceeding 25 pages will require a specific justification and the agreement of the editors.

The paper must be prepared in LaTeX. Typing instructions and style files can be obtained:
 -in .ZIP format from:  http://www.irit.fr/JANCL/Styles/Latex/Jancl_style_V2.1.6.zip

- in TAR.GZ format from:
 http://www.irit.fr/JANCL/Styles/Latex/Jancl_style_V2.1.6.tar.gz

Any further information about submission can be asked to Davide Grossi(d.grossi@uva.nl).

PLANNED SCHEDULE

Deadline for submissions:               30 June 2010
First referee reports:                  15 August 2010
Submission revision (if necessary):     15 September 2010
Notification:                           30 September 2010
Final version:                          30 October 2010

GUEST EDITORS

Jan Broersen, Utrecht University (broersen@cs.uu.nl)
Davide Grossi, University of Amsterdam (d.grossi@uva.nl)
Leendert van der Torre, University of Luxembourg (leon.vandertorre@uni.lu)

URL of the CFP:
http://staff.science.uva.nl/~grossi/SpecialIssue/NormChangeJANCL

Martin Mose Bentzen (CUID, RUC) will defend his Ph.D. thesis

Stit, Iit, and Deontic Logic for Action Types

on Wednesday, May 19, 13-16 at Aud. 45, Roskilde University.

All interested are welcome to both the defense and the following reception held at the philosophy department, Bld. 3.1.3. No registration is required.

The evaluation committee consists of
Lecturer Klaus Frovin Jørgensen, Roskilde University, chair
Professor Mark Brown, Syracuse University.
Professor Barteld Kooi, University of Groningen.

Supervisors:
Professor Stig Andur Pedersen, Roskilde University
Professor Frank Veltman, University of Amsterdam

The defense will be followed by a workshop on philosophical logic on May 20, 10-15, held in “the Cinema”, department of Philosophy, Bld. 3.1.4, Roskilde Univesity.

Invited speakers:
Professor Mark Brown, Syracuse University
Professor Barteld Kooi, University of Groningen
Senior Lecturer Torben Braüner, Roskilde Universitet

To register for the workshop, please contact Stig Andur Pedersen or Martin Mose Bentzen.

Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logic

Special Issue on:

FORMAL MODELS OF NORM CHANGE

Formal models of norm change have been drawing attention since the seminal work of Alchourrón and Bulygin on normative systems, and that of Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson on the logic of theory change. Research trends in Artificial Intelligence have recently revived this attention emphasizing the importance of a formal analysis of the type(s) of dynamics involved in systems of norms, and norm change has become the topic of a dedicated international workshop: http://www.cs.uu.nl/events/normchange2/index.html

This special issue aims at providing an up to date account of this recent and lively research area at the interface of logic, philosophy, computer science and legal theory.

We invite submissions on any topic in the following, not exclusive, list:

* Dynamic logic approaches to norm change
* AGM-like approaches to norm change
* Deontic logic and the dynamics of informational attitudes
* Deontic logic and game theory
* Formal analysis of legal procedures
* Norm change in legal theory
* Norm change and multi-agent systems

SUBMISSION

The papers can be submitted via email to Davide Grossi (d.grossi@uva.nl).

The paper must be unpublished and not submitted for publication elsewhere. Submissions will be refereed according to the usual high standards of JANCL.

Submissions exceeding 25 pages will require a specific justification and the agreement of the editors.

The paper must be prepared in LaTeX. Typing instructions and style files can be obtained:
- in .ZIP format from: http://www.irit.fr/JANCL/Styles/Latex/Jancl_style_V2.1.6.zip
- in TAR.GZ format from: http://www.irit.fr/JANCL/Styles/Latex/Jancl_style_V2.1.6.tar.gz

Any further information about submission can be asked to Davide Grossi (d.grossi@uva.nl).

PLANNED SCHEDULE

Deadline for submissions: 15 June 2010
First referee reports: 15 August 2010
Submission revision (if necessary): 15 September 2010
Notification: 30 September 2010
Final version: 30 October 2010

GUEST EDITORS

Jan Broersen, Utrecht University (broersen@cs.uu.nl)
Davide Grossi, University of Amsterdam (d.grossi@uva.nl)
Leendert van der Torre, University of Luxembourg (leon.vandertorre@uni.lu)

URL of the CFP: http://staff.science.uva.nl/~grossi/SpecialIssue/NormChangeJANCL

After the first successful edition held in 2007 at the University of Luxembourg, the workshop “Formal Modes of Norm Change” has been held this year at the University of Amsterdam, on 18th-19th January, in the distinguished location of the Doelenzaal of the University Library. This second edition of the workshop has brought together, for two days, several researchers interested in norms and active in neighboring research fields such as philosophy, computer science, artificial intelligence, theory of law. The aim of the workshop was to foster the interaction between these research fields on the common topic of norm change and, in general, on topics related to the dynamics of evaluative and deontic notions such as preferences, obligations, permissions, rights.

The program of the workshop has been structured in four groups of talks. The first group of talks have focused on a comparison, highlighting similarities as well as differences, between the dynamics of norms and the dynamic of mental attitudes such as belief and knowledge, this latter being a well-established object of research in the fields of belief revision and dynamic epistemic logic. So, after the first talk “What is Norm Change?” by Leon van der Torre (University of Luxembourg), Gabriella Pigozzi (University of Luxembourg) and Guido Boella (University of Turin), which set the stage for the workshop, Richard Booth (University of Luxembourg) has tested the application of the AGM postulate-based methodology to provide an abstract high-level framework for the analysis of norm change. Still in line with established research on the dynamics of knowledge and belief, Alexandru Baltag (University of Oxford) has provided a fascinating insight into norm change by looking at how agents change policies for interpreting incoming information when confronted with a belief-change process: “Dynamic-Doxastic Norms versus Doxastic-Norm Dynamics”.

The second group of talks has focused on issues relating norm change to argumentation and to the dynamics of legal codes. Henry Prakken (Universities of Utrecht and Groningen) has argued for the incorporation in the design of argumentation procedures of social-theoretic aspects of multi-agent procedures such as fairness and efficiency. Guido Boella (University of Turin) has looked at the interesting problem of the dynamics of the interpretation of legal rules. The interpretation of the law varies as it is confronted by new cases: e.g., (from a real legal case!) if it is forbidden to fish, does this mean that it is also forbidden to fish frogs? Finally, Antonino Rotolo (University of Bologna) has offered a thorough logical analysis (in the framework of defeasible logic) of the sort of subtleties involved in the dynamics of legal provisions, a dynamics dictated by changes concerning not only the validity and existence of the provisions themselves, but also of their scope and time of force, their efficacy, and their applicability.

The third group of talks has tackled issues related to deontic logic proper and to the logic of normative systems and institutions. Emiliano Lorini (Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse) has presented an extensive logical analysis of multi-agent institutions based on the notions of acceptance (roughly, what is true in the context of an institution is what all agents in that institution accept / agree to be true) and has formally captured a number of operations of “acceptance change”, accounting for a bottom-up perspective on institutional change. Dov Gabbay (King’s College) has provided an original new analysis of a traditional theme in deontic logic, the issue of contrary-to-duty norms, by means of reactive Kripke models. Remaining in the field of deontic logic, Davide Grossi (University of Amsterdam) has proposed an analysis of norm change by interfacing standard preference logics with dynamic context logic, pointing then at a number of open issues concerning the application of preference logics to deontics.

The last group of talks has focused on applications of modal logic techniques to the study of norm change. Paolo Turrini (University of Utrecht) has proposed an analysis, within coalition logic, of the standard deontic notions of permission, prohibition and obligation, in terms of a game-theoretic notion of optimality. Guillaume Aucher (University of Luxembourg) has presented a system of dynamic deontic epistemic logic in which issues of knowledge dynamics are put side by side with deontic notions, allowing for the formal analysis of concepts such as “being obliged to know”. The last talk was given by Johan van Benthem (Universities of Amsterdam and Stanford) who contoured the problem of norm change from the point of view of the general program of logical dynamics, giving to it a precise place concerned with the dynamics of agents’ preferences and evaluations: norms and, more generally, evaluations are essential ingredients of the decision-making of rational agents in social contexts.

All in all, the workshop has given a lively snapshot of the interests of a growing research community working at the interface of several disciplines, an sharing a common trust in logic-based methods.

For the abstract of the talks, as well as the slides, please visit the website at: http://www.cs.uu.nl/events/normchange2/index.html

Davide Grossi
Institute of Logic, Language and Computation
University of Amsterdam

5th International Workshop on Normative Multiagent Systems (NorMAS’10), Leicester, UK

A normative multi-agent system is a multi-agent system to which norms (e.g., obligations, permissions) are added, which specify the desired agents’ behavior within the system. Agents, on the other hand, can autonomously decide whether to follow or to violate such norms and, possibly, whether to change them.

The workshop brings together researchers at the interface of several disciplines such as multi-agent systems, deontic logic, sociology, legal theory.

The Programme Committee cordially invites all researchers to submit their papers for presentation. Submission deadline is 15 January 2009.

For more information, see
http://staff.science.uva.nl/~grossi/NorMAS10Site/home.html

Δeon 2010
10th Interational Conference on Deontic Logic in Computer Science
Florence, 7-9 July 2010

The biennial DEON conferences are designed to promote interdisciplinary cooperation amongst scholars interested in linking the formal-logical study of normative concepts and normative systems
with computer science, artificial intelligence, philosophy,
organisation theory and law.

In addition to these general themes, DEON2010 will encourage a special focus on the topics:

Deontic Logic and Legal Systems.

There have been nine previous DEON conferences: Amsterdam, December 1991; Oslo, January 1994; Sesimbra, January 1996; Bologna, January 1998; Toulouse, January 2000; London, May 2002; Madeira, May 2004; Utrecht, July 2006, Luxembourg, July 2008.

Selected papers from the conference will be published in special issues of Artificial Intelligence and Law and Journal of Applied Logic.

General Themes
The Program Committee invites papers concerned with the following topics:

• the logical study of normative reasoning, including formal systems of deontic logic, defeasible normative reasoning, the logic of action, and other related areas of logic
• the formal analysis of normative concepts and normative systems
• the formal representation of legal knowledge
• the formal specification of aspects of norm-governed multi-agent systems and autonomous agents, including (but not limited to) the representation of rights, authorisation, delegation, power, responsibility and liability
• the formal specification of normative systems for the management of bureaucratic processes in public or private administration
• applications of normative logic to the specification of database integrity constraints
• normative aspects of protocols for communication, negotiation and multi-agent decision making

Deontic Logic and Legal Systems
DEON2010 has a special focus on logical approaches to deontic notions in computer science in encompassing applications of the Deontic logic concepts and their role in the Legal Systems. Topics of interest in this special theme include, but are not limited to:

• Legal rights
• Completeness and indeterminacy in legal systems
• Kinds of legal norms
• Modelling norms and values
• Legal power and competences
• The dynamic of legal systems
• Compliance and enforcement of obligations
• Contracts and other constitutive acts

We welcome both theoretical work (formal models, representations, specifications, logics, verification) and implementation-oriented work (architectures, programming languages, design models, simulations, prototype systems) on these specific topics.

Submission Details
Authors are invited to submit an original, previously unpublished, research paper pertaining to any of these topics. The paper should be in English, and should be no longer than 15 pages when formatted according the LNCS specifications (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). The first page should contain the full name and contact information for at least one of the authors, and it should contain an abstract of no more than ten lines. Authors should submit their papers electronically using the submission system at

http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=deon2010

Each submitted paper will be carefully peer-reviewed by a panel of PC member based on originality, significance, technical soundness, and larity of exposition and relevance for the conference.

For each accepted paper, at least one author is required to register for the conference and should plan to present the paper.

Publication
The selected papers will be published in book form in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series (approval pending).
Copies of the conference proceedings, will be provided to all participants.

Important Dates
Paper Submission Deadline: February 20, 2010
Notification: April 2, 2010
Camera Ready: April 23, 2010

Program Committee
Program Chairs
Guido Governatori, NICTA, Queensland Research Laboratory
Giovanni Sartor, European University Institute, and CIRSFID, University of Bologna

Organising Committee Chairs
Daniela Tiscornia, Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques – ITTIG-CNR
Enrico Francesconi Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques – ITTIG-CNR

Confernce Secretary
Simona Binazzi Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques – ITTIG-CNR

Formal Models of Norm Change 2
Workshop, University of Amsterdam, 18-19 January 2010

Formal models of norm change have been drawing attention since the seminal work of Alchourrón and Bulygin on normative systems, and that of Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson on the logic of theory change. Recent research trends in Artificial Intelligence (e.g., virtual organizations, electronic institutions and e-government, multiagent systems, p2p networks) have also stressed the importance of a formal analysis of all kinds of dynamic aspects involved in systems of norms: from how norms influence and change the cognitive status of agents, to how norms regulate the dynamic interaction of rational agents, to how norms themselves can be changed by the agents of a society.

The symposium tackles such dynamic aspects involved in normative systems, by pursuing an interdisciplinary approach at the interface of (deontic) logic, artificial intelligence, and socio-economical disciplines. More specifically, topics of interest will be: norms and games, norms for the dynamics of interaction (procedures), the dynamics of normative systems, norm change and the dynamics of different cognitive attitudes (e.g. knowledge and preference).

A first edition of the symposium was held at the University of Luxembourg in 2007 (Formal Models of Norm Change 2007) and the theme of norm dynamics has regularly surfaced in recent editions of workshop and conferences in the same area: NorMAS’07, NorMAS’08 , DEON’08, NorMAS’09.

Participation

The workshop is open and participation is free. However, registration is required. In order to register please send an email to Davide Grossi by Monday 4th January.

Invited speakers

• Guillaume Aucher, University of Luxembourg
• Alexandru Baltag, Oxford University
• Johan van Benthem, University of Amsterdam and Stanford University
• Guido Boella, University of Turin
• Dov Gabbay, King’s College London and University of Luxembourg
• Davide Grossi, University of Amsterdam
• Emiliano Lorini, Universite’ Paul Sabatier
• Gabriella Pigozzi, University of Luxembourg
• Henry Prakken, Utrecht University and University of Groningen
• Antonino Rotolo, University of Bologna
• Paolo Turrini, Utrecht University
• Emil Weydert and Richard Booth, University of Luxembourg

For more information, please visit http://www.cs.uu.nl/events/normchange2/index.html