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When logic lays down the law

88 Citations2018
Bjørn Jespersen, Ana de Almeida Borges, Jorge del Castillo Tierz
ArXiv

This work analyzes so-called computable laws, i.e., laws that can be enforced by automatic procedures, and proposes desiderata to be fulfilled by computation, and provides a critical platform from which to assess existing laws and a guideline for composing future ones.

Abstract

We analyse so-called computable laws, i.e., laws that can be enforced by automatic procedures. These laws should be logically perfect and unambiguous, but sometimes they are not. We use a regulation on road transport to illustrate this issue, and show what some fragments of this regulation would look like if rewritten in the image of logic. We further propose desiderata to be fulfilled by computable laws, and provide a critical platform from which to assess existing laws and a guideline for composing future ones.