Deontic Epistemic stit Logic Distinguishing Modes of `Mens Rea'
Jan Broersen · DROPS (Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics) · 2009
Most juridical systems contain the principle that an act is only unlaw- ful if the agent conducting the act has a `guilty mind' (`mens rea'). Dif- ferent law systems distinguish different modes of mens rea. For instance, American law distinguishes between `knowingly' performing a criminal act, `recklessness', `strict liability', etc. I will show we can formalize several of these categories. The formalism I use is a complete stit-logic featuring operators for stit-actions taking effect in `next' states, S5-knowledge op- erators and SDL-type obligation operators. The different modes of `mens rea' correspond to the violation conditions of different types of obligation definable in the logic.