Class Hierarchy
- Thing
- ↳ entity (bfo)
- ↳ continuant (bfo)
- ↳ generically dependent continuant (bfo)
- ↳ information content entity (iao)
- ↳ directive information entity (iao)
- ↳ Principle
- ↳ Domain-Specific Principle (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Fundamental Ethical Principle (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Professional Virtue Principle (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Relational Principle (proethica-intermediate)
Definition
A directive information entity (IAO) that expresses an ethical value or standard of professional conduct, prescribing behavior with a world-to-word direction of fit. A principle is an abstract, open-textured value individuated by the value it expresses, not by any occasion of its invocation or by the code provision that states it; it gains concrete operational meaning extensionally, through the accumulated professional-code cases that instantiate it (McLaren 2003). This is the P component of the formal specification D=(R,P,O,S,Rs,A,E,Ca,Cs).
A directive information entity representing ethical values and guidelines for conduct, prescribing professional behavior; principles gain operational meaning extensionally through the accumulated cases that instantiate them (McLaren 2003); the P component of D=(R,P,O,S,Rs,A,E,Ca,Cs).
Scope note
The principle type is defined by the value it expresses alone, not by who invokes or balances it in a given case, nor by the code provision that states it; provision anchoring is carried by the curated nspeReference annotations and the commit-time citesProvision edges, and per-occasion facts (invocation, application target, balancing, resolution narrative) attach to the case individuals and edges, not to the class.
Editor note
Extraction framing: a principle is a reusable ethical value, not a duty or an action, and not an actor. It carries no actor (that is the invokedBy edge) and no application target or resolution narrative (those attach to the States and the per-application literals). An abstract, open-textured value (McLaren 2003), stated at a high level and free of specific context (Prem 2023), it gains concrete meaning extensionally through the NSPE Board of Ethical Review cases that instantiate it (McLaren 2003). Provision anchoring is carried by the curated-layer proeth:nspeReference annotations and the commit-time citesProvision edges, not by the individuation of the type. Whereas a principle expresses the value a norm serves, a prohibition or boundary statement is a Constraint, not a Principle. A case yields at most one principle individual per distinct value, and distinct values remain separate individuals. Each application of the value is recorded in the appliedTo and concreteExpression lists of that individual, and the balancing and tension narratives keep per-application entries.
Definition source
- McLaren (2003). Extensionally defining principles and cases in ethics: An AI model. Artificial Intelligence 150(1-2): 145-181.
- Frankel (1989). Professional Codes: Why, How, and with What Impact? Journal of Business Ethics 8(2-3): 109-115.
- Taddeo et al. (2024). From AI Ethics Principles to Practices: A Teleological Methodology to Apply AI Ethics Principles in the Defence Domain. Philosophy & Technology 37(1): 42 (doi:10.1007/s13347-024-00710-6).
- Prem (2023). From ethical AI frameworks to tools: a review of approaches. AI and Ethics 3(3): 699-716 (doi:10.1007/s43681-023-00258-9).
- Morley et al. (2021). Ethics as a Service: A Pragmatic Operationalisation of AI Ethics. Minds and Machines 31(2): 239-256 (doi:10.1007/s11023-021-09563-w).
Mappings & provenance
source
source
source
source
Properties
Relationships
Asserted object-property edges to other entities. Logical class axioms such as
owl:disjointWith are shown separately below.
componentOf
D Tuple Framework
Disjoint with
Action, Agent, Capability, Constraint, Event, Obligation, Resource, Role, State
From
owl:disjointWith and owl:AllDisjointClasses membership; the listed classes are pairwise disjoint with this one.Property Structure
1 · Object and Data Properties
rdfs:domain on this class or ancestor
| Property | Range | Description |
|---|---|---|
| establishedBy | CodeProvision | Indicates which code provision establishes this ethical concept. |
| invokedBy | Agent | Relates a Principle to the Agent(s) that invoke it in the case scenario (the parties who appeal to the principle to justify or evaluate conduct). May name several agents. |
2 · Definitional Attributes
SHACL definitional shape
| Attribute | Property (sh:path) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| principle kind | principleCategory | The controlled principle kind, which drives the four-kind subClassOf typing: FundamentalEthicalPrinciple, ProfessionalVirtuePrinciple, RelationalPrinciple, DomainSpecificPrinciple. The canonical leaf label becomes the rdf:type; the category is a routing input, not stored as a literal. |
| extensional cases | extensionalCases | Class-level prior cases that instantiate the principle (McLaren extensional grounding); an optional class-mint field. |
3 · Bearer Attributes
SHACL property shape
individual data
| Attribute | Property (sh:path) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| interpretation | interpretation | Per-case reading of what the principle requires in this situation (a defeasibility-pipeline source field). |
| concrete expression | concreteExpression | How the principle is concretely expressed in the case (a defeasibility-pipeline source field). |
| applied to | appliedTo | What the principle is applied to in the case (the situation or party it bears on). |
| balancing with | balancingWith | The competing principle or value this principle is balanced against in the case, recorded as a literal; extraction records the tension but asserts no defeat or precedence, and the defeasibility edges are materialized by a separate pass from this field. |
| tension resolution | tensionResolution | How the case resolves the tension involving this principle (a defeasibility-pipeline source field). |
| invoked by | invokedBy | The agent who invokes the principle, via the P->Agent invokedBy edge (resolved to a case Agent by embedding shortlist + LLM select; a Board-pattern invoking party resolves deterministically to the case-scoped NSPE Board of Ethical Review Agent). Range: Agent. |
4 · Referenced By
rdfs:range on this class or ancestor
| From | Property | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Action | guidedByPrinciple | Relates an action to a principle that directs it. The principle supplies the value the action is taken to serve. |
| Code Provision | establishes | Relates a code provision to the ethical concepts (principles, obligations, constraints) it establishes or defines. |
| Obligation | derivedFromPrinciple | Relates an obligation to the principle or principles it operationalizes. The obligation gives concrete directive force to the more abstract value the principle expresses (Dennis et al. 2016). |
| Role | adheresToPrinciple | Relates a role to principles that guide its conduct; the role-relative applicability edge of the R->P->O chain (the role determines which principles apply to conduct in that standing). |
Used in cases 119
Case ontologies that instantiate this class or one of its base-ontology descendants. Computed from each individual's type, so the list stays current as cases are extracted. The originating case is shown under Extraction details.
Case 4 Case 5 Case 6 Case 7 Case 8 Case 9 Case 10 Case 11 Case 12 Case 13 Case 14 Case 15 Case 16 Case 17 Case 18 Case 19 Case 20 Case 22 Case 56 Case 57 Case 58 Case 59 Case 60 Case 71 Case 72 Case 73 Case 74 Case 75 Case 76 Case 77 Case 78 Case 79 Case 82 Case 83 Case 84 Case 85 Case 86 Case 87 Case 88 Case 89 Case 90 Case 91 Case 92 Case 93 Case 94 Case 96 Case 97 Case 98 Case 99 Case 100 Case 102 Case 103 Case 104 Case 105 Case 106 Case 107 Case 108 Case 109 Case 110 Case 111 Case 112 Case 113 Case 114 Case 116 Case 117 Case 118 Case 120 Case 121 Case 123 Case 124 Case 125 Case 126 Case 127 Case 128 Case 129 Case 130 Case 131 Case 132 Case 133 Case 134 Case 135 Case 136 Case 137 Case 139 Case 140 Case 141 Case 142 Case 143 Case 144 Case 145 Case 146 Case 147 Case 148 Case 149 Case 150 Case 151 Case 157 Case 158 Case 160 Case 161 Case 162 Case 163 Case 164 Case 165 Case 166 Case 167 Case 168 Case 169 Case 170 Case 171 Case 172 Case 173 Case 174 Case 175 Case 176 Case 177 Case 178 Case 179 Case 181@prefix core: <http://proethica.org/ontology/core#> .
@prefix dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix iao: <http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/IAO_> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix pcsh: <http://proethica.org/shapes/core#> .
@prefix proeth: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix sh: <http://www.w3.org/ns/shacl#> .
@prefix skos: <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .
pcsh:CaseAnnotationShape a sh:NodeShape ;
rdfs:label "Shared per-case annotation schema (all nine components)"@en ;
rdfs:comment "The cross-component annotation fields on committed case individuals: proeth:confidence (extraction confidence, decimal; all components except Action, whose Step-3 contract carries no confidence field), proeth:textReferences (verbatim supporting quotes, universal), proeth-prov sourceText (the source snippet, on the Step-1/2 provenance layers; Step-3 A/E individuals ground via textReferences only), and the involvement gloss (proeth:caseInvolvement on role individuals, proeth:caseContext on obligation, capability, and constraint individuals). Values are per-individual; the fields do not individuate any type."@en ;
sh:property [ sh:description "Extraction confidence for this individual (0 to 1)." ;
sh:name "confidence" ;
sh:order 1 ;
sh:path proeth:confidence ],
[ sh:description "Verbatim case quotes supporting this individual." ;
sh:name "text references" ;
sh:order 2 ;
sh:path proeth:textReferences ],
[ sh:description "How this individual figures in the case narrative (role individuals; the same text is routed into rdfs:comment)." ;
sh:name "case involvement" ;
sh:order 3 ;
sh:path proeth:caseInvolvement ],
[ sh:description "Grounding context in this case (obligation, capability, and constraint individuals)." ;
sh:name "case context" ;
sh:order 4 ;
sh:path proeth:caseContext ] ;
sh:targetClass core:Action,
core:Capability,
core:Constraint,
core:Event,
core:Obligation,
core:Principle,
core:Resource,
core:Role,
core:State .
pcsh:PrincipleDefinitionShape a sh:NodeShape ;
rdfs:label "Principle definition schema (type-level, descriptive, field contract)"@en ;
rdfs:comment "What individuates a principle TYPE: its canonical kind (drives the four-kind subClassOf typing; the canonical leaf becomes the rdf:type) and the extensional cases that ground it (McLaren). The five per-case narrative literals and the invokedBy edge are per-individual and now declared on PrinciplePropertyShape, mirroring the RoleDefinitionShape/ProfessionalRolePropertyShape split so the {{ principle_schema }} prompt separates the type judgment from what the case supplies. Descriptive only (no validation result); principle_category is a routing input, not stored as a literal."@en ;
sh:property [ sh:description "The controlled principle kind, which drives the four-kind subClassOf typing: FundamentalEthicalPrinciple, ProfessionalVirtuePrinciple, RelationalPrinciple, DomainSpecificPrinciple. The canonical leaf label becomes the rdf:type; the category is a routing input, not stored as a literal." ;
sh:name "principle kind" ;
sh:order 1 ;
sh:path proeth:principleCategory ],
[ sh:description "Class-level prior cases that instantiate the principle (McLaren extensional grounding); an optional class-mint field." ;
sh:name "extensional cases" ;
sh:order 2 ;
sh:path proeth:extensionalCases ] ;
sh:targetClass core:Principle .
pcsh:PrinciplePropertyShape a sh:NodeShape ;
rdfs:label "Principle per-case schema (individual data, non-definitional)"@en ;
rdfs:comment "What a principle INDIVIDUAL is described by in a specific case: the five narrative literals the defeasibility pipeline consumes and the agent that invokes it. These do NOT individuate the principle TYPE (that is PrincipleDefinitionShape); their values are per-case, asserted on the individual. Descriptive only."@en ;
sh:property [ sh:description "Per-case reading of what the principle requires in this situation (a defeasibility-pipeline source field)." ;
sh:name "interpretation" ;
sh:order 1 ;
sh:path proeth:interpretation ],
[ sh:description "How the principle is concretely expressed in the case (a defeasibility-pipeline source field)." ;
sh:name "concrete expression" ;
sh:order 2 ;
sh:path proeth:concreteExpression ],
[ sh:description "What the principle is applied to in the case (the situation or party it bears on)." ;
sh:name "applied to" ;
sh:order 3 ;
sh:path proeth:appliedTo ],
[ sh:description "The competing principle or value this principle is balanced against in the case, recorded as a literal; extraction records the tension but asserts no defeat or precedence, and the defeasibility edges are materialized by a separate pass from this field." ;
sh:name "balancing with" ;
sh:order 4 ;
sh:path proeth:balancingWith ],
[ sh:description "How the case resolves the tension involving this principle (a defeasibility-pipeline source field)." ;
sh:name "tension resolution" ;
sh:order 5 ;
sh:path proeth:tensionResolution ],
[ sh:description "The agent who invokes the principle, via the P->Agent invokedBy edge (resolved to a case Agent by embedding shortlist + LLM select; a Board-pattern invoking party resolves deterministically to the case-scoped NSPE Board of Ethical Review Agent). Range: Agent." ;
sh:name "invoked by" ;
sh:order 6 ;
sh:path core:invokedBy ] ;
sh:targetClass core:Principle .
core:Principle a owl:Class ;
rdfs:label "Principle"@en ;
core:componentOf core:DTupleFramework ;
core:dtupleComponent "P" ;
iao:0000115 "A directive information entity (IAO) that expresses an ethical value or standard of professional conduct, prescribing behavior with a world-to-word direction of fit. A principle is an abstract, open-textured value individuated by the value it expresses, not by any occasion of its invocation or by the code provision that states it; it gains concrete operational meaning extensionally, through the accumulated professional-code cases that instantiate it (McLaren 2003). This is the P component of the formal specification D=(R,P,O,S,Rs,A,E,Ca,Cs)."@en ;
iao:0000116 "Extraction framing: a principle is a reusable ethical value, not a duty or an action, and not an actor. It carries no actor (that is the invokedBy edge) and no application target or resolution narrative (those attach to the States and the per-application literals). An abstract, open-textured value (McLaren 2003), stated at a high level and free of specific context (Prem 2023), it gains concrete meaning extensionally through the NSPE Board of Ethical Review cases that instantiate it (McLaren 2003). Provision anchoring is carried by the curated-layer proeth:nspeReference annotations and the commit-time citesProvision edges, not by the individuation of the type. Whereas a principle expresses the value a norm serves, a prohibition or boundary statement is a Constraint, not a Principle. A case yields at most one principle individual per distinct value, and distinct values remain separate individuals. Each application of the value is recorded in the appliedTo and concreteExpression lists of that individual, and the balancing and tension narratives keep per-application entries."@en ;
iao:0000119 "Frankel (1989). Professional Codes: Why, How, and with What Impact? Journal of Business Ethics 8(2-3): 109-115.",
"McLaren (2003). Extensionally defining principles and cases in ethics: An AI model. Artificial Intelligence 150(1-2): 145-181.",
"Morley et al. (2021). Ethics as a Service: A Pragmatic Operationalisation of AI Ethics. Minds and Machines 31(2): 239-256 (doi:10.1007/s11023-021-09563-w).",
"Prem (2023). From ethical AI frameworks to tools: a review of approaches. AI and Ethics 3(3): 699-716 (doi:10.1007/s43681-023-00258-9).",
"Taddeo et al. (2024). From AI Ethics Principles to Practices: A Teleological Methodology to Apply AI Ethics Principles in the Defence Domain. Philosophy & Technology 37(1): 42 (doi:10.1007/s13347-024-00710-6)." ;
dcterms:source <https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382575>,
<https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-021-09563-w>,
<https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-024-00710-6>,
<https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-023-00258-9>,
<https://doi.org/10.1016/S0004-3702(03)00135-8> ;
rdfs:comment "A directive information entity representing ethical values and guidelines for conduct, prescribing professional behavior; principles gain operational meaning extensionally through the accumulated cases that instantiate them (McLaren 2003); the P component of D=(R,P,O,S,Rs,A,E,Ca,Cs)."@en ;
rdfs:subClassOf iao:0000033 ;
skos:changeNote "v2.3.0: Refined from IAO:information content entity to IAO:directive information entity. Professional principles express the ideals stated by aspirational codes (Frankel 1989) and have been compared to constitutional principles, which provide a foundation and require interpretation in context (Morley et al. 2021; Taddeo et al. 2024). Their prescriptive character (world-to-word fit) distinguishes them from descriptive information content."@en,
"v2.9.0: iao:0000115 and skos:scopeNote softened so the principle type is individuated by the value it expresses alone; provision anchoring is described as the curated nspeReference layer and the commit-time citesProvision edge layer, not as type individuation. McLaren extensional grounding unchanged."@en ;
skos:scopeNote "The principle type is defined by the value it expresses alone, not by who invokes or balances it in a given case, nor by the code provision that states it; provision anchoring is carried by the curated nspeReference annotations and the commit-time citesProvision edges, and per-occasion facts (invocation, application target, balancing, resolution narrative) attach to the case individuals and edges, not to the class."@en .