Hidden Uncertainty in the Logical Representation of Desires

Jérôme Lang, Leendert W. N. van der Torre, Emil Weydert

Abstract: In this paper we introduce and study a logic of desires. The semantics of our logic is defined by means of two ordering relations representing preference and normality as in Boutilier's logic QDT. However, the desires are interpreted in a different way: "in context A, I desire B" is interpreted as "the best among the most normal A Λ B worlds are preferred to the most normal A Λ ¬ B worlds". We study the formal properties of these desires, illustrate their expressive power on several classes of examples and position them with respect to previous work in qualitative decision theory.