Disentangling deontic positions and abilities: A modal analysis

Computational systems are traditionally approached from control-oriented perspectives; however, as soon as we move from central- ized to decentralized computational infrastructures, direct control needs to be replaced by distributed coordination mechanisms that are on par with institutional constructs observable in human societies (contracts, agreements, enforcement mechanisms, etc.). This paper presents a for- malization of Hohfeld's framework building upon a logic whose language includes primitive operators of ability and parametric deontic operators. The proposal is meant to highlight the fundamental interaction between deontic and potestative concepts and contains proofs of soundness and completeness with respect to a class of relational models.