Tech Reports

ULCS-05-001

Failing to comply: on deviating from social conventions

Paul E. Dunne

Abstract

The analysis of how social conventions emerge and become established is rightly viewed as a significant study of great relevance to models of legal and social systems. Such conventions, however, do not operate in a monotonic fashion, i.e., the fact that a convention is recognised and complied with at some instant is no guarantee it will continue to be so indefinitely. In total rules and protocols may evolve, with or without the consent of individual members of the society, even to the extent that some cease to be observed or effective. In this paper we examine a framework for examining such changes in behavioural conventions that uses a proposed "taxonomy of social conventions" as the basis of a qualitative model deriving from value-based argumentation systems.

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