Slides presented at Recht und Logik, Munich, 25 August 2012, http://rechtundlogik2012.quantius.org/. PAPER: V. Čyras, F. Lachmayer (2013) Extended legal thesaurus: legal terms as a modally indifferent substrate. Online journal Jusletter IT 11 December 2013, 8 p. Editions Weblaw, Bern. ISSN 1664-848X. http://jusletter-eu.weblaw.ch/issues/2013/11-Dezember-2013.html. ABSTRACT: We hold that the two modes of obligation, in the same way as legal terms, constitute the subject matter of a legal thesaurus. Moreover, we propose to consider three more relations while developing a legal thesaurus and ontology. These are three types of weak relations: dialectical relations, context relations and metaphorical relations. They augment the five types of strong logical relations of synonymy, semi-synonymy, antonymy, hyperonymy/hyponymy and thematic relations. We begin with combinations of ought modes, which result in obligation, permission, liberty and vetum. Then we explore the types of norms by combining structural parts such as condition, ought, which includes subject, modus, action, and object, and also purpose (telos). Thus the types of norms To-Do and To-Be are distinguished. Consider the question “What is the smallest entity of a legal system?” This is similar to “What is the smallest particle of the world?” In ancient Greece, this question was asked by philosophers, and Democritus’ answer was “the atom” (‘indivisible’). Since then, physicists have discovered subatomic particles (chiefly electrons, protons and neutrons) and currently an answer to this question is “the meson”. In legal theory, the smallest entity question above can have different answers. Hans Kelsen answered “the norm”, whereas Hajime Yoshino offered “the legal sentence”. In legal documentation, different approaches exist, too. Some legal document systems take the entire document of a regulation (legal act, legal source) as the smallest entity, whereas others take the articles or paragraphs of a legal act, see e.g. RIS. However, others even distinguish between grammatical sentences. This granularity and the different ideas could be viewed in connection with the modally indifferent substrate (MIS). Kelsen considers the legal norm to be the decisive entity. According to Kelsen, Ought is a mode that comprises MISs. In contrast, we think that, in addition to legal norms, legal terms can be viewed as a separate layer of self-dependent entities of law. A paradigm shift in the granularity is that, in addition to norms, the core legal elements comprise legal terms. Suppose an act A is prescribed to the addressee of a norm. This can be expressed as Obligatory(A) or in other words O(A), which connects the Ought O with the intended action A. According to Kelsen, A is an MIS that is imbedded in the mode O. In our view, it is interesting that O as well as A appears in a logical context. Therefore, we can treat O, the mode of obligation (prescription),

1. Legal Terms as a
Modally Indifferent Substrate
Vytautas ČYRAS
Friedrich LACHMAYER
Vilnius University
Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics
Vilnius, Lithuania
Vytautas.Cyras@mif.vu.lt
University of Innsbruck
Faculty of Law
Innsbruck, Austria
Friedrich.Lachmayer@uibk.ac.at
Law and Logic, Munich, 25 August 2012

2. 1.
The Granularity Problem
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3. What the smallest entity is?
Physics
• Democritus: “the atom”
• Contemporary physics:
– “mesons”
– “bosons”
– etc.
3

4. Granularity in a legal system
Legal System
• Hans Kelsen: “the norm”
• Hajime Yoshino: “the legal sentence”
• ?
4

5. A model is the problem
• Physics:
– The atom model:
• Subparticles (electrons + protons + neutrons)
• e.g. hydrogen, oxygen and other elements
– The molecule model:
• e.g. H20, Na2O, H2SO4
– Etc.
• Legal system:
–?
• Different models because of different tasks
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6. Legal System
Legal Norm
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7. A model of a legal system
Legal System
Legal Norm
• Legal_system = {Norm1, Norm2, Norm3,…}
• No hierarchical structures
• Not productive approach to
– distinguish different models of legal systems
• One concept – “the norm” – serves to concern
– Is and Ought
– Causality and imputation
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8. Legal System
Legal Norm
MIS
MIS – modally indifferent substrate
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9. Ought-Modus
MIS
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10. Ought-Modus
A
O(A)
MIS
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11. Ought-Modus
C
A
O(A-B-C)
B
MIS
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12. 2.
Deontic Logic
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13. Deontic Logic
o(a)
O
P
o(a) o(a) o(a)
P
P
V
L
L
Obligation
Permission
Vetum
Liberty
Ought-Modus
C
A
O(A-B-C)
B
MIS
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14. Deontic Logic
o(a)
O
P
Legal Ontologies
o(a) o(a) o(a)
P
P
V
L
L
Ought-Modus
c
A
O(A-B-C)
B
MIS
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15. o(a)
O
P
o(a) o(a) o(a)
P
P
V
L
L
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16. Different tasks – different ontologies
• Different tasks [Valente 1995]
– Domains of legal information systems
– Branches of law
• The private law, the criminal law, etc.
– Functions of law
• Legislative, executive, judicial
• Different granularity “atoms”
– a law, article, sentence, phrase, word
• Different namespaces
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17. Conclusions
• The subject matter of our analysis:
– the modes of obligation
– the elements of MIS
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18. Thank you
Vytautas.Cyras@mif.vu.lt
Vytautas.Cyras@mif.vu.lt
Friedrich.Lachmayer@uibk.ac.at
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