Situated legal systems and their operational semantics
Authored by Rocha Costa Antonio Carlos da
Date Published: 2015
DOI: 10.1007/s10506-015-9164-z
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Abstract
This work adopts H. Kelsen's concept of legal system, proposes a formal
definition for such notion, and introduces an operational semantical
framework for legal systems that are (structurally and operationally)
situated in agent societies. Agent societies are defined. Relevant
formal properties of situated legal systems (action-based dynamics;
orthogonality between the operational semantics and the processes of
legal reasoning and decision-making; validity of norms; and
completeness) are discussed; the way they are exposed in the operational
semantical framework is explained, and their truth formally proved.
Also, for the sake of a better understanding of the legal-theoretic
assumptions of the paper, recurring issues regarding Kelsen's theory of
law (namely, his ``positivism'', the attribution of a plain deductive
nature to legal reasoning and decision-making, and the notions of basic
norm, authorization, and discretion) are briefly reviewed. They are put
in confrontation with the points of view of R. Dworkin, H. Hart, and J.
Raz, and an attempt is made to clarify them from the perspective of the
provided formalization. A brief case study in agent-based modeling and
simulation of public policy processes is presented, as an illustration
of the way of using situated legal systems, and the proposed operational
semantical framework, in a practical application.
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