A Ceteris Paribus Deontic Logic

We present a formal semantics for deontic logic based on the concept of ceteris paribus preferences. We introduce notions of uncon- ditional obligation and permission as well as conditional obligation and permission that are interpreted relative to this semantics. We show that these notions satisfy some intuitive properties and, at the same time, do not encounter some problems and paradoxes that have been exten- sively discussed in the deontic logic literature. Moreover, we show how obligations and permissions can be represented compactly using existing preference frameworks from the artificial intelligence area of computa- tional social choice.