Dischargeable Obligations in Abductive Logic Programming

Abductive Logic Programming (ALP) has been proven very effective for formalizing societies of agents, commitments and norms, in particular by mapping the most common deontic operators (obligation, prohibition, permission) to abductive expectations. In our previous works, we have shown that ALP is a suitable framework for representing norms. Normative reasoning and query answering were accommodated by the same abductive proof procedure, named SCIFF. In this work, we introduce a defeasible flavour in this framework, in order to possibly discharge obligations in some scenarios. Abductive expectations can also be qualified as dischargeable, in the new, extended syntax. Both declarative and operational semantics are improved accordingly, and proof of soundness is given under syntax allowedness conditions. The expressiveness and power of the extended framework, named SCIFFD, is shown by modeling and reasoning upon a fragment of the Japanese Civil Code. In particular, we consider a case study concerning manifestations of intention and their rescission (Sect. 2 of the Japanese Civil Code).