Who is obliged when many are involved? Labelled transition system modelling of how obligation arises
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Who is obliged when many are involved? Labelled transition system modelling of how obligation arises Piotr Kulicki1
•
Robert Trypuz1
•
Marek Sergot2
Accepted: 5 November 2020 The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The paper tackles the problem of the relation between rights and obligations. Two examples of situations in which such a relation occurs are discussed. One concerns the abortion regulations in Polish law, the other one—a clash between freedom of expression and freedom of enterprise occurring in the context of discrimination. The examples are analysed and formalised using labelled transition systems in the nCþ framework. Rights are introduced to the system as procedures allowing for their fulfilment. Obligations are based on the requirement of cooperation in the realisation of the goals of the agent that has a right. If the right of an agent cannot be fulfilled without an action of another agent, then that action is obligatory for that agent. If there are many potential contributors who are individually allowed to refuse, then the last of them is obliged to help when all the others have already refused. By means of formalisation this account of the relation under consideration is precisely expressed and shown consistent. Keywords Deontic logic nCþ Rights Obligations Powers Deontic action logic
& Piotr Kulicki [email protected] Robert Trypuz [email protected] Marek Sergot [email protected] 1
Faculty of Philosophy, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Aleje Raclawickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
2
Department of Computing, Imperial College London, London, UK
123
P. Kulicki et al.
1 Introduction Among ‘fundamental legal conceptions’ proposed by Hohfeld (1913) right and duty form the first pair of several correlating notions.1 Hohfeldian right-duty relation encounters a situation in which one agent has a right correlated with another agent’s duty to realise that right. A dynamic aspect of normative positions, i.e. changes of rights and duties, is captured with the use of the notion of power.2 An agent that has power can create new rights and duties of other agents. Usually, it is clear who the proper addressee of power is and, consequently, who is bound by the new duty. However, sometimes it is not so. This problem occurs, for instance, when rights of a general nature are involved and are connected with the type or position of an agent rather than with the relation of the agent with another person. We shall start with two examples. The first one concerns abortion regulations in Polish law. Under certain circumstances abortion is permitted and should be carried on within a public healthcare system. However, there exists the conscience clause which allows doctors to refuse to provide such a service. In the paper we try to determine when a doctor is obliged to provide the abortion service. The other example concerns a clash between freedom of expression and freedom of enterprise. In particular, we analyse a situation where a print
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