Deontic Logic and Changing Preferences
Johan van Benthem, Fenrong Liu

Abstract:
This chapter generalizes the dynamic epistemic analy- sis of
information flow to deontic logic and normative reasoning, an area
where agents’ evaluation of worlds or outcomes is essential. The
relevant dynamics is taken from current logics of preference structure
and preference change. These logics are presented in two versions, one
with a primitive ‘betterness’ relation between worlds, and one with
criteria for preference given by explicit ‘priority graphs’. The
entan- glement of preference and informational attitudes like
knowledge and belief is then studied in the same style. With this
framework in place, we look at deontic issues again. In particular, we
can model changing obligations and norms. Finally, we discuss some
further issues that arise in our setting, including the role of
groups, longer-term proce- dures, and the need for more finely-grained
syntactic representations of information, evaluation, and deontic
deliberation.