Class Hierarchy
- Thing
- ↳ entity (bfo)
- ↳ continuant (bfo)
- ↳ specifically dependent continuant (bfo)
- ↳ State
- ↳ Certification Required State (engineering-ethics)
- ↳ Competence State (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Conflict Of Interest State (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Disclosure State (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Emergency State (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Epistemic State (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Non-Compliant State (engineering-ethics)
- ↳ Regulatory State (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Resource State (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Risk State (proethica-intermediate)
- ↳ Temporal State (proethica-intermediate)
Definition
A specifically dependent continuant (BFO) that inheres in one or more independent-continuant bearers (an agent, a project, or an affected system) and represents a condition that affects the ethical evaluation of professional conduct. The state is individuated by the condition it represents and its persistence type, an inertial fluent that holds until an event terminates it or a non-inertial fluent true at a single time point, not by whose condition it is or when it holds, nor by which obligations it activates in a given case. This is the S component of the formal specification D=(R,P,O,S,Rs,A,E,Ca,Cs).
A specifically dependent continuant representing conditions that affect ethical decisions and professional conduct. This is the S component of the formal specification D=(R,P,O,S,Rs,A,E,Ca,Cs).
Scope note
The state TYPE is defined by the condition it represents and its persistence type, an inertial fluent that holds until terminated or a non-inertial fluent true at a single time point (Event Calculus), not by whose condition it is or when it holds, nor by which obligations it activates in a given case; the bearer and the obligation-activation edges attach to the case individual, not to the class.
Editor note
Operationalizes the situational-context account of the Contextual Framework: a state captures the ethically relevant features of a situation (Anderson and Anderson 2018) that make otherwise identical professional actions carry different ethical weight. Each state class declares a persistence type implementing Berreby et al.'s (2017) Event Calculus distinction between inertial and non-inertial fluents, and records an urgency level carrying Jones's (1991) moral-intensity salience. The bearer subject and the activatesObligation and defeasibleUnder edges attach to the case individual, not to the class; state temporal boundaries are carried by the activatedByEvent and terminatedByEvent edges and the activePeriod literal. Reclassified from BFO quality to specifically dependent continuant (v2.3.0) because extracted states span the quality-disposition boundary, a placement that commits every state to inherence in an independent-continuant bearer. BFO provides no state-of-affairs or situation category, so situation-like conditions enter as bearer-dependent conditions rather than as freestanding situations. Stative-label rule: a state is named for the condition that holds (for example Sealed Draft Report), never for the happening that produced it. A case yields one state individual per distinct condition even when the condition is narrated in several passages. A happening-shaped candidate routes to the Event pass.
Definition source
- Berreby et al. (2017). A declarative modular framework for representing and applying ethical principles. Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS 2017): 96-104 (doi:10.65109/hhri9090).
- Jones (1991). Ethical Decision Making by Individuals in Organizations: An Issue-Contingent Model. The Academy of Management Review 16(2): 366-395 (doi:10.2307/258867).
- Anderson and Anderson (2018). GenEth: a general ethical dilemma analyzer. Paladyn, Journal of Behavioral Robotics 9(1): 337-357 (doi:10.1515/pjbr-2018-0024).
Mappings & provenance
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, Principle, Resource, Role
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 |
|---|---|---|
| activatedByEvent | Event | Event Calculus initiation: relates a State to the Event whose occurrence brings the State into being (the start boundary of the fluent). |
| activatesConstraint | Constraint | Relates a State to a Constraint that the obtaining of the State activates, bounding the actions available to the role-bearers the state concerns (the S->Cs linkage). |
| activatesObligation | Obligation | Relates a State to an Obligation that the obtaining of the State makes applicable. This is the forward, activating complement of defeasibleUnder (which records the State under which an obligation yields): a state such as hazard exposure or an undertaken commitment can bring an obligation into force for the role-bearers it concerns. |
| affects | Agent | Relates a State to the Agent(s) it bears on in the case scenario (the parties whose situation the state changes), distinct from the obligations/constraints the state activates (activatesObligation / activatesConstraint). |
| terminatedByEvent | Event | Event Calculus termination: relates a State to the Event whose occurrence ends the State (the end boundary of the fluent). |
2 · Definitional Attributes
SHACL definitional shape
| Attribute | Property (sh:path) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| state archetype | stateCategory | The content archetype, which drives the archetype subClassOf typing: EpistemicState, RiskState, CompetenceState, EmergencyState, ConflictOfInterestState, RegulatoryState, TemporalState, ResourceState, DisclosureState. A classification of the state content, explicitly NOT the activatesObligation relation. A routing input, not stored as a literal. |
| persistence type | persistenceType | Whether the state is an inertial fluent (holds until an event terminates it) or a non-inertial fluent (true at a single time point), the inertial versus non-inertial fluent distinction of Berreby et al. (2017) in the Event Calculus; a class-level datatype, a property of the fluent predicate itself. |
3 · Bearer Attributes
SHACL property shape
individual data
| Attribute | Property (sh:path) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| urgency level | urgencyLevel | The salience or acuteness of the state in this case (Jones 1991 moral-intensity salience; components include temporal immediacy, magnitude of consequences, and proximity). |
| activates obligation | activatesObligation | The obligation the state makes applicable, via the outgoing S->O activatesObligation edge; the incoming counterpart is defeasibleUnder (O->S), recording the obligation that yields when this state obtains. Range: Obligation. |
| activates constraint | activatesConstraint | The constraint the state activates, via the outgoing S->Cs activatesConstraint edge, bounding the actions available while the state holds. Range: Constraint. |
| affects | affects | The agent(s) the state bears on, via the S->Agent affects edge, resolved from the affected-parties text by embedding shortlist + LLM multi-select. Range: Agent. |
| subject | subject | The entity the state holds of (the bearer text); a kept literal that also feeds the defeasibility prompt as state context. |
| active period | activePeriod | The period over which the state holds, as extracted text. |
| triggering event | triggeringEvent | The event bringing the state into being; kept verbatim on the individual and also resolved to the activatedByEvent edge (the start boundary of the fluent). |
| terminated by | terminatedBy | What removes the state; kept verbatim on the individual and also resolved to the terminatedByEvent edge (the end boundary of the fluent). |
| activated by event | activatedByEvent | The Event whose occurrence initiates this state, via the outgoing activatedByEvent edge (the start boundary of the fluent). Range: Event. |
| terminated by event | terminatedByEvent | The Event whose occurrence ends this state, via the outgoing terminatedByEvent edge (the end boundary of the fluent). Range: Event. |
4 · Referenced By
rdfs:range on this class or ancestor
| From | Property | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Action | initiates | Event Calculus initiation: relates a happening (Action or Event) to a State (fluent) that begins to hold as a result and persists until terminated (inertial) or holds momentarily (non-inertial). |
| Action | terminates | Event Calculus termination: relates a happening (Action or Event) to a State (fluent) that ceases to hold as a result. |
| Event | initiates | Event Calculus initiation: relates a happening (Action or Event) to a State (fluent) that begins to hold as a result and persists until terminated (inertial) or holds momentarily (non-inertial). |
| Event | terminates | Event Calculus termination: relates a happening (Action or Event) to a State (fluent) that ceases to hold as a result. |
| Obligation | defeasibleUnder | Relates an obligation to a State whose obtaining renders the obligation defeasible, that is, subject to override by a competing obligation with stronger normative support. The State specifies the context in which the obligation yields. |
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 bfo: <http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_> .
@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:StateDefinitionShape a sh:NodeShape ;
rdfs:label "State definition schema (type-level, descriptive, field contract)"@en ;
rdfs:comment "What individuates a state TYPE: its content archetype (drives the archetype subClassOf typing) and its persistence type (inertial vs non-inertial fluent, a class-level datatype). Its per-case urgency and the activatesObligation edge are per-individual and declared on StatePropertyShape, mirroring the Role/Principle/Obligation Definition/Property split and the state scopeNote (which names the condition and its persistence type as type-defining). Descriptive only (no validation result); state_category is a routing input, not stored as a literal."@en ;
sh:property [ sh:description "The content archetype, which drives the archetype subClassOf typing: EpistemicState, RiskState, CompetenceState, EmergencyState, ConflictOfInterestState, RegulatoryState, TemporalState, ResourceState, DisclosureState. A classification of the state content, explicitly NOT the activatesObligation relation. A routing input, not stored as a literal." ;
sh:name "state archetype" ;
sh:order 1 ;
sh:path proeth:stateCategory ],
[ sh:description "Whether the state is an inertial fluent (holds until an event terminates it) or a non-inertial fluent (true at a single time point), the inertial versus non-inertial fluent distinction of Berreby et al. (2017) in the Event Calculus; a class-level datatype, a property of the fluent predicate itself." ;
sh:name "persistence type" ;
sh:order 2 ;
sh:path proeth:persistenceType ] ;
sh:targetClass core:State .
pcsh:StatePropertyShape a sh:NodeShape ;
rdfs:label "State per-case schema (individual data, non-definitional)"@en ;
rdfs:comment "What a given state INDIVIDUAL is described by in a specific case: its bearer and holding period, its urgency (per-case salience), the event boundaries of the fluent, and the obligations, constraints, and agents its obtaining engages via edges. These do NOT individuate the state TYPE (that is StateDefinitionShape); their values are per-case, asserted on the individual. The proeth:principleTransformation synthesis literal (the S->P->O grounding written onto the individual by the state-edge pass) is deliberately not part of the extraction field contract. Descriptive only."@en ;
sh:property [ sh:description "The salience or acuteness of the state in this case (Jones 1991 moral-intensity salience; components include temporal immediacy, magnitude of consequences, and proximity)." ;
sh:name "urgency level" ;
sh:order 1 ;
sh:path proeth:urgencyLevel ],
[ sh:description "The obligation the state makes applicable, via the outgoing S->O activatesObligation edge; the incoming counterpart is defeasibleUnder (O->S), recording the obligation that yields when this state obtains. Range: Obligation." ;
sh:name "activates obligation" ;
sh:order 2 ;
sh:path core:activatesObligation ],
[ sh:description "The constraint the state activates, via the outgoing S->Cs activatesConstraint edge, bounding the actions available while the state holds. Range: Constraint." ;
sh:name "activates constraint" ;
sh:order 3 ;
sh:path core:activatesConstraint ],
[ sh:description "The agent(s) the state bears on, via the S->Agent affects edge, resolved from the affected-parties text by embedding shortlist + LLM multi-select. Range: Agent." ;
sh:name "affects" ;
sh:order 4 ;
sh:path core:affects ],
[ sh:description "The entity the state holds of (the bearer text); a kept literal that also feeds the defeasibility prompt as state context." ;
sh:name "subject" ;
sh:order 5 ;
sh:path proeth:subject ],
[ sh:description "The period over which the state holds, as extracted text." ;
sh:name "active period" ;
sh:order 6 ;
sh:path proeth:activePeriod ],
[ sh:description "The event bringing the state into being; kept verbatim on the individual and also resolved to the activatedByEvent edge (the start boundary of the fluent)." ;
sh:name "triggering event" ;
sh:order 7 ;
sh:path proeth:triggeringEvent ],
[ sh:description "What removes the state; kept verbatim on the individual and also resolved to the terminatedByEvent edge (the end boundary of the fluent)." ;
sh:name "terminated by" ;
sh:order 8 ;
sh:path proeth:terminatedBy ],
[ sh:description "The Event whose occurrence initiates this state, via the outgoing activatedByEvent edge (the start boundary of the fluent). Range: Event." ;
sh:name "activated by event" ;
sh:order 9 ;
sh:path core:activatedByEvent ],
[ sh:description "The Event whose occurrence ends this state, via the outgoing terminatedByEvent edge (the end boundary of the fluent). Range: Event." ;
sh:name "terminated by event" ;
sh:order 10 ;
sh:path core:terminatedByEvent ] ;
sh:targetClass core:State .
core:State a owl:Class ;
rdfs:label "State"@en ;
core:componentOf core:DTupleFramework ;
core:dtupleComponent "S" ;
iao:0000115 "A specifically dependent continuant (BFO) that inheres in one or more independent-continuant bearers (an agent, a project, or an affected system) and represents a condition that affects the ethical evaluation of professional conduct. The state is individuated by the condition it represents and its persistence type, an inertial fluent that holds until an event terminates it or a non-inertial fluent true at a single time point, not by whose condition it is or when it holds, nor by which obligations it activates in a given case. This is the S component of the formal specification D=(R,P,O,S,Rs,A,E,Ca,Cs)."@en ;
iao:0000116 "Operationalizes the situational-context account of the Contextual Framework: a state captures the ethically relevant features of a situation (Anderson and Anderson 2018) that make otherwise identical professional actions carry different ethical weight. Each state class declares a persistence type implementing Berreby et al.'s (2017) Event Calculus distinction between inertial and non-inertial fluents, and records an urgency level carrying Jones's (1991) moral-intensity salience. The bearer subject and the activatesObligation and defeasibleUnder edges attach to the case individual, not to the class; state temporal boundaries are carried by the activatedByEvent and terminatedByEvent edges and the activePeriod literal. Reclassified from BFO quality to specifically dependent continuant (v2.3.0) because extracted states span the quality-disposition boundary, a placement that commits every state to inherence in an independent-continuant bearer. BFO provides no state-of-affairs or situation category, so situation-like conditions enter as bearer-dependent conditions rather than as freestanding situations. Stative-label rule: a state is named for the condition that holds (for example Sealed Draft Report), never for the happening that produced it. A case yields one state individual per distinct condition even when the condition is narrated in several passages. A happening-shaped candidate routes to the Event pass."@en ;
iao:0000119 "Anderson and Anderson (2018). GenEth: a general ethical dilemma analyzer. Paladyn, Journal of Behavioral Robotics 9(1): 337-357 (doi:10.1515/pjbr-2018-0024).",
"Berreby et al. (2017). A declarative modular framework for representing and applying ethical principles. Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS 2017): 96-104 (doi:10.65109/hhri9090).",
"Jones (1991). Ethical Decision Making by Individuals in Organizations: An Issue-Contingent Model. The Academy of Management Review 16(2): 366-395 (doi:10.2307/258867)." ;
dcterms:source <https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2018-0024>,
<https://doi.org/10.2307/258867>,
<https://doi.org/10.65109/hhri9090> ;
rdfs:comment "A specifically dependent continuant representing conditions that affect ethical decisions and professional conduct. This is the S component of the formal specification D=(R,P,O,S,Rs,A,E,Ca,Cs)."@en ;
rdfs:subClassOf bfo:0000020 ;
skos:changeNote "v2.3.0: Changed from BFO:quality to BFO:specifically dependent continuant. ProEthica States include relational and situational conditions that do not fit the strict BFO definition of quality (which requires inherence in a single bearer): states span the quality-disposition boundary, encompassing both monadic qualities of a single bearer and relational or situational conditions. SDC is the common parent of quality and realizable entity. v2.9.0: this typing rationale moved here from iao:0000115, which now carries only the genus-differentia definition."@en ;
skos:scopeNote "The state TYPE is defined by the condition it represents and its persistence type, an inertial fluent that holds until terminated or a non-inertial fluent true at a single time point (Event Calculus), not by whose condition it is or when it holds, nor by which obligations it activates in a given case; the bearer and the obligation-activation edges attach to the case individual, not to the class."@en .