=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2158/paper6
|storemode=property
|title=Formalising Taboo as a Prohibition on Informing
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2158/paper6.pdf
|volume=Vol-2158
|authors=Vytautas Čyras,Friedrich Lachmayer
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/balt/CyrasL18
}}
==Formalising Taboo as a Prohibition on Informing==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2158/paper6.pdf
Formalising Taboo as a Prohibition on Informing
Vytautas Čyras1[0000-0001-6722-8542] and Friedrich Lachmayer2
1
Vilnius University, Naugarduko 24, 03225 Vilnius, Lithuania
2
University of Innsbruck, Vienna, Austria
vytautas.cyras@mif.vu.lt, friedrich.lachmayer@gmx.at
Abstract. The authors formalise a taboo as a prohibition on speaking (in gen-
eral, on informing). Three levels of norms are distinguished. First are basic pro-
hibitions, Forbidden X. These are norms which prohibit basic actions,
Norm(¬X). Second-level norms comprise primary taboos which prohibit infor-
mation about facts or fakes, Norm(¬Inf(X)), but permit them to happen. Third-
level norms comprise meta-taboos, which prohibit information that a primary
taboo exists, Norm(¬Inf(Norm(¬Inf(X)))). The message also is that a taboo on
the essential causes A of an effect E can be officially camouflaged with a fake
relationship between certain facts B and E. The research in this paper is related
with the study of the concept of legal machines and regulatory compliance.
Here legal machine is defined as a machine in a system whose actions have le-
gal importance and legal consequences.
Keywords: Legal informatics, Legal visualization, Formalization, Belief,
Taboo, Metaphor, Fake, Camouflage, Pluralistic ignorance
1 Introduction
The word ‘taboo’ means “a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a par-
ticular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.”1 A
taboo is a vehement prohibition of an action based on the belief that such behaviour is
either too sacred or too accursed for ordinary individuals to undertake.2 In the fairy
tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, an example of a taboo is the prohibition on the
mention that the Emperor is naked.3
1
See The Oxford Dictionary, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/taboo.
2
See Encyclopædia Britannica Online, “Taboo”, and Wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo. Common taboos involve restrictions on or ritual regu-
lations for killing and hunting; sex and sexual relationships; reproduction; the dead and their
graves; and food and dining (primarily cannibalism). See also the term nefas in archaic Ro-
man law.
3
Danish author Hans Christian Andersen wrote about two weavers who promise an emperor a
new suit of clothes, which they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stu-
pid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no
Lupeikiene A., Matulevičius R., Vasilecas O. (eds.):
Baltic DB&IS 2018 Joint Proceedings of the Conference Forum and Doctoral Consortium.
Copyright © 2018 for this paper by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes.
In this paper, a taboo is treated as a prohibition on speaking (in general, inform-
ing). In this way, we narrow the broader meaning of a taboo, which is a prohibition on
an action. We restrict ourselves to the prohibition of a specific action, namely informing.
Specifically, a taboo is imposed on giving information about the essential causes of
an effect (which is typically evaluated negatively). We assume an effect E, and facts
A, B, C that are in a causal relationship with this effect, as denoted by A →c E,
B →c E, and C →c E. Suppose A is the main cause, and a taboo is imposed on it, that
is, a prohibition on speaking caused by A. We also suppose that the official informa-
tion is that B causes E, which is fake. This situation is depicted on the left-hand side
of Fig. 1. Taboos can have various meanings and social reasons, such as top-down
institutional repression, vertical authoritative power, odd morality, etc.
Fig. 1. The concept of taboo in context
The present research is carried out in the context of legal informatics and the study
of the concept of legal machines; see (Čyras, Lachmayer 2014). A legal machine can
be defined as a machine in a system whose actions have legal importance and legal
consequences. There are simple legal machines, such as traffic lights, barriers and
vending machines, and complex ones, such as the electronic forms in the Web that are
used for taxes and finance. Machines contribute to law enforcement, and their soft-
ware implements legal norms that have to be taken into account in the requirements
engineering phase. Legal taboos may also be embraced by the system of norms.
one dares to say that they don’t see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen
as “unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent”. Finally, a child cries out, “But he isn’t
wearing anything at all!” The story is about a situation where “no one believes, but everyone
believes that everyone else believes. Or alternatively, everyone is ignorant as to whether or
not the Emperor has clothes, but believes that everyone else is not ignorant.” (Hansen 2011)
See Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes.
54
2 Definition of Taboo
The concept of a taboo is briefly overviewed by Duschinsky (2014).4 He notes that
according to Freud, “The meaning of ‘taboo’, as we see it, diverges in two contrary
directions. To us it means, on the one hand, ‘sacred’ or ‘consecrated’, and on the other
‘uncanny’, ‘dangerous’, ‘forbidden’, ‘unclean’” (Freud [1913] 2001), p. 18. In his
book Taboo (1956), p. 22, Franz Steiner studies the subject from the perspective of
sociology (or, more precisely, social anthropology). Taboos refer to danger.5 Steiner
notes that to make a comparative category the definition of taboo is narrowed (ibid.,
p. 121). Next Steiner refers to Margaret Mead’s article “Tabu” in Encyclopaedia of
Social Sciences, 1937: “Tabu may be defined as a negative sanction, a prohibition
whose infringement results in an automatic penalty without human or superhuman
mediation.”
Taboos may be sensitive from several perspectives: morally, religiously, culturally,
socially, politically, and also legally. Taboo norms can be evaluated negatively, alt-
hough various positions can be explored. Broyde (2002) discusses three different
problems: informing a bandit, informing an abusive government, and informing a
(procedurally) just system of government. The view “No prohibition to inform when
government is just” has a place in a discussion (Broyde 2002). We further focus on
formalising statements about taboo; explorations of the function of taboos and social
reasons are set aside.6
3 Formalising Taboo as a Prohibition to Speak
Let us denote by Inf (X) that information about X exists (in reality or in a model such
as a database). For example, information that A causes E is denoted by Inf (A →c E).
Let us follow the notation in deontic logic and denote that it is forbidden that X by
F X or F(X). The obligatoriness of X is denoted by O X and the permissibility of X is
denoted by P X. The prohibition F X can be defined as O ¬X (obligatory to omit X,
i.e. it is obligatory to not do X) or ¬P X (no permission to do X).
We start by defining taboo as a prohibition to speak. Thus, a restriction is imposed
on a general prohibition F X of any action X. Taboo means that a phenomenon X may
be permitted, but informing about X is prohibited. An example is a taboo on genitals:
4
Duschinsky begins with the following definition: “‘Taboo’ is a Polynesian term, which has
come to refer in Western academic and public discourses to topics, spaces, or practices that
are consecrated as prohibited or to the process itself of marking them off” (Duschinsky
2014).
5
Steiner defines: “[T]aboo is an element of all those situations in which attitudes to values are
expressed in terms of danger behaviour…” (Steiner 1956) pp. 20–21.
6
Centola et al. write: “It is easy to explain why people comply with unpopular norms—they
fear social sanctions. And it is easy to explain why people pressure others to behave the way
they want them to behave. But why pressure others to do the opposite? Why would people
publicly enforce a norm that they secretly wish would go away?” (Centola at al. 2005).
55
“In our family, it is forbidden to speak about genitals”. However, it is not forbidden to
have genitals. This is represented as Taboo(genitals). Similarly, at a party, it is for-
bidden to speak about money. However, it is not forbidden to have money. This is
represented as Taboo(money).
A taboo can be expressed with a formula in modal logic T X = def F Inf (X), where
T is treated as a modal operator that is syntactically analogical to the deontic opera-
tors O, P and F. Formalisation of normativity implies a norm as an entity. A taboo on
X means a norm that prohibits informing about X:
Taboo(X) = def N(¬Inf (X)) (1)
In our formalisation, all the entities, including actions, facts and norms, exist as
truth (true or false) in the realm of science, i.e. in a model such as a database. Norms
N() correspond to the Ought realm or its representation in the model, while Inf corre-
sponds to the Is realm. The irreducible Is-Ought duality corresponds to a very old
mythical and religious duality between the Earth and Heaven. In the figures, Is is
coloured light green and Ought is coloured blue.
A norm N(A) must be assigned certain semantics. Consider N(A) as a command-
ment to do A and N(¬A) as a prohibition on doing A. The relation between a norm
(rule) and the normative status of the duty can be explored; see Lachmayer (1977),
pp. 75–76:
N(A) → O(A) – From a commandment, an obligatory duty arises
N(¬A) → O(¬A) – From a prohibition, a prohibitive duty arises.
Meta-taboo. Next we strengthen the above definition with a double prohibition called
a meta-taboo. A meta-taboo is a prohibition on informing that there is norm that pro-
hibits speaking about X:
Meta-taboo (X) = def N(¬Inf (N(¬Inf(X)))) (2)
In a literal sense, a meta-taboo can be linked with the expression “taboo on the
mention of taboo”, which is used in the literature; cf. Attridge (2014).7
4 Three Levels of Norms on Prohibition
A fact, its content and its institutional meaning are distinguished (Čyras, Lachmayer
2018; Čyras 2017). A fact (in a broad sense) is treated in this paper as an act, and
namely, as “a happening occurring at a certain time and in a certain place” and the
legal meaning of this act is “the meaning conferred upon the act by the law” (Kelsen
7
John Attridge (2014) writes about the depiction of Englishness in novels. He notes that it
was Archibald Lyall who “called the ‘taboo on the mention of taboo’, in his 1930 book ‘It
Isn't Done, or, the Future of Taboo Among the British Islanders’”.
56
1967), p. 2.8 Fakes can be formalised as facts (in a broad sense) whose content is
false. Further the facts (in a broad sense), whose content is true, are called facts in a
narrow sense (or facts, for short).
Consider a language L for expressing statements about facts, fakes and taboos. Its
basic entities can be Fact (denoted by FC) or Fake (denoted by FK). The reference
area of L sentences comprises more entities. Firstly there is Meaning (ME); then rela-
tions, such as Causality (→c), Telos (→te), Equality (→=), and Transformation (→tr);
see Fig. 2. The relations hold between the entities and express the semantics of L.
Fig. 2. Basic entities to which norms refer
Norms 1. The next entity within L is a norm (denoted by N). There are several levels
of norms. The first level (Norms 1) comprises norms about facts, N1(FC), and fakes,
N1(FK); see Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. Types of norms at the first level, Norms 1, and their references
The following are examples of cases which can be created:
1. N1(FC) means a commandment to establish a fact FC. For instance,
N(door_closed), represents a commandment to close the door. Closing the door is a
compliant action. This type of norm refers to Fact; see Fig. 3.
2. N1(¬FC) means a prohibition of a fact FC. For instance, N(¬door_closed), means
a prohibition on closing the door. Opening the door is a compliant action. This type
of norm also refers to Fact.
8
Kelsen writes: “The command of a gangster to turn over to him a certain amount of money
has the same subjective meaning as the command of an income-tax official, namely that the
individual at whom the command is directed ought to pay something. But only the command
of the official, not that of the gangster, has the meaning of a valid norm, binding upon the
addressed individual” (Kelsen 1967, p. 8).
57
3. N1(FK) means a commandment to establish a fake FK. As an example, imagine a
community of liars. This type of norm refers to Fake.
4. N1(¬FK) means a prohibition of a fake. This is a normal case. In general, fake facts
are prohibited. For instance, news with false content is prohibited; the use of coun-
terfeit money is also prohibited. This type of norm refers to Fake.
5. ¬N1(FC) means an absence of commandment to establish a fact FC. We hold that
an absence of a norm about a fact weakly implies a norm about a fake. As an ex-
ample, we suppose a world with one door, and suppose that the door is closed.
Hence, the proposition “‘The door is closed’ is a fact” is true. Suppose that
¬N1(door_closed) holds in this world. The latter means the absence of any com-
mandment to close the door. Next, suppose a fake news report of ‘The door is
opened’. However, nobody is obliged to react to this fake, because of the absence
of any commandment to close the door. In this sense, the fake is compliant in this
world. Therefore we hold that the type ¬N1(FC) refers to Fake.
We do not explore case 5. It is important only to focus on cases 1 and 2, which re-
fer to Fact, and cases 3 and 4, which refer to Fake.
Info 1 and Norms 2. Information is next entity in L to be explored. Information about
X is denoted by Inf(X). More precisely, the latter means the output of an act of inform-
ing about X. Information is primarily about facts, fakes and norms. The first-level
information, Info 1, firstly comprises informing that FC exists as a fact, denoted by
Inf 1(FC), or, secondly, informing that FK exists as a fake, denoted by Inf 1(FK); see
link (i) in Fig. 4. This can be treated as follows. Given a (news) statement X, the act of
informing Inf 1 produces a flag (or a tag) which means that X is either of true content
(thus assigning X to Facts) or false content (thus assigning X to Fakes).
Fig. 4. Primitive taboos (Norms 2) and Info 1 added to Fig. 3
58
Second-level norms, Norms 2, formalise primitive taboos; see Fig. 4. Here, norms
are of the type
N 2(¬Inf 1(FK)) (3)
This means a prohibition N 2 to inform that FK is a fake; see link (ii) in Fig. 4.
Hence, Norms 2 secure fakes. Note that Equation (3) above coincides with the right-
hand side of Equation (1) after substituting X with FK. Fakes flourish (on the basic
level) because they are secured by Norms 2. Recall “All that is necessary for the tri-
umph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
(https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke). Therefore Norms 2 can be evaluated
as evil.
Info 2 and Norms 3: Meta-taboo. The second level of information, Info 2, consists
of information about primitive taboos; see link (iii) in Fig. 5. Indeed, Inf 2(N 2(¬Inf
1
(FK)) means an act of informing that a prohibition N 2 exists against informing Inf 1
that a fake FK exists.
The third-level norms, Norms 3, formalise meta-taboos. Here the norms are of type
N 3(¬Inf 2()). This means a prohibition N 3 on informing Inf 2 about anything; see link
(iv) in Fig. 5. Specifically, Norms 3 comprise a prohibition N 3 to inform, Info 2, that a
prohibition N 2 exists to inform, Info 1, that a fake FK exists. Thus a meta-taboo se-
cures a primitive taboo; see the top-down path (iv)–(iii)–(ii)–(i) in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. Meta-taboos Norms 3 and Info 2 added to Fig. 4
59
Taboo on Fact. Taboo on fact and taboo on fake form a duality. A taboo on a fact
FC, denoted by Taboo(FC), means a prohibition on informing that FC holds as a fact.
The proof is based on the idea that FC being a fact implies that ¬FC is a fake. Indeed,
the content of FC being true implies that the content of ¬FC is false. Let us apply the
taboo on fakes, Equation (3), and substitute FK with ¬FC to obtain N 2(¬Inf 1(¬FC));
this reads ‘A prohibition to inform that ¬FC is a fake’. This is equivalent to reading
‘A prohibition to inform that FC is a fact’. This paragraph explains the definition (1).
Example. In the fairy tale, a fact is that the emperor is naked. A taboo is formally
imposed on this fact as a norm N 2(¬Inf 1(‘The emperor is naked’ is a fact)). Dually, a
fake is that the emperor is wearing new clothes. A taboo is formally imposed on this
fake as a norm N 2(¬Inf 1(‘The emperor is wearing new clothes’ is a fake)).
Taboo on Any Basic Entity. Above, we have explored the taboo on fakes and facts.
A taboo can also be imposed on other basic entities, such as the causal relation be-
tween facts, teleology of actions, equality of meaning of facts, transformation of
meaning, etc.
5 Taboo on a Combination of Three Elements of a Relation
A binary relation R between two sets S1 and S2 is defined as a subset of a Cartesian
product R S1×S2. For any xS1 and yS2 we write xRy to abbreviate (x,y)R. Ele-
ments of the set R are pairs (x,y).
Fig. 6. A taboo on a causal relationship A – →c E – is camouflaged in three steps, with a teleo-
logical relation →te between B + and a certain goal G +, which is evaluated positively: 1) in fact,
both A – and E – are evaluated negatively; 2) therefore, the official version is announced that a
certain cause B +, which is evaluated positively, causes E –; 3) a camouflage is that B + serves a
good goal G +, which outweighs E –
Several meanings can be assigned to a taboo on the causal relation A →c E between
a fact A and an effect E. The original meaning is a prohibition to inform that A causes
E. The second idea is a prohibition to inform about the fact A only, Taboo(A). The
60
third meaning is a prohibition to inform about the effect E, Taboo(E), and fourthly, a
prohibition to inform about the causality relationship →c (its intentional description),
Taboo(→c). The last meaning appears, for example, in the case of a fake official ver-
sion that the relation A →c E is accidental or a correlation, in other words, the causal-
ity →c is simply a mystery of faith (mysterium fidei).
The last taboo, Taboo(→c), can appear, for example, in a network of facts, effects
and other entities, such as actions, goals, teleological relations, etc. Suppose a taboo
exists on the relation A – →c E –. To camouflage this taboo, a teleological relation
B + →te G + can be introduced, where the goal G + is evaluated positively (Fig. 6). Ad-
ditionally, a fake official version can be introduced that the effect E – is caused by a
certain fact B +. Thus the principle “the end justifies the means” is followed.
6 Related Work on Pluralistic Ignorance
We have modelled the meaning of Andersen’s fable as a taboo on speaking that the
emperor is naked. This tale illustrates the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance, which
defined as a situation where “no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone else
believes” and is mainly studied in social psychology. Hansen (2011) describes plural-
istic ignorance as “the phenomenon where a group of people shares a false belief
about the beliefs, norms, actions or thoughts of the other group members” and formal-
ises it using epistemic/doxastic logic (based on plausibility models). Hansen focuses
on the question of what it takes to dissolve the phenomenon, and talks about the dy-
namics of knowledge and beliefs of a group of agents. Public announcements are the
simplest form of actions. In addition to Andersen’s fable, Hansen provides classical
examples including the “questions in a classroom”.9 Hansen formulates examples in
terms of beliefs, but notes that pluralistic ignorance is often defined in terms of
norms, e.g. “a situation where a majority of group members privately reject a norm,
but assume (incorrectly) that most others accept it”; see (Centola et al. 2005). The
latter also note that “It is not hard to find everyday examples of this fable in the aca-
demic kingdom. We can all think of prestigious scholars who are widely proclaimed
as having the most brilliant new ideas, yet privately, people find the work entirely
incomprehensible”. Centola et al. study the “willingness to feign support for a public
lie” and provide further examples.
We would model the classroom example with a primitive taboo on questions, i.e. a
norm that prohibits students from saying that they have questions. The fact is that
students do have questions.
9
“[T]he classroom example in which, after having presented the students with difficult mate-
rial, the teacher asks them whether they have any questions. Even though most students do
not understand the material they may not ask any questions. All the students interpret the
lack of questions from the other students as a sign that they understood the material, and to
avoid being publicly displayed as the stupid one, they dare not ask questions themselves. In
this case the students are ignorant with respect to some facts, but believe that the rest of the
students are not ignorant about the facts.” (Hansen 2011)
61
7 Conclusions and Future Work
The present research is carried out in the context of regulatory compliance as an ideal.
Legal machines are purposed at regulation by computer code. Here we confer to the
concept “[computer] code is law” (Lessig 2006). It is important to detect the noncom-
pliance of legal machines in the early stages of the software life cycle. It should be
noted that legal knowledge need not lean heavily on the sources of law that are tradi-
tionally considered in compliance frameworks. Legal machines are required to pro-
vide transparency concerning the legal rules they implement.
Modelling taboo in this paper gives rise to a terminological framework, which is
depicted in Fig. 5. Three levels of norms and two levels of information are singled
out. We introduce the terms ‘primitive taboo’ and ‘meta-taboo’, which secures the
former.
References
1. Attridge, J.: ‘A taboo on the mention of taboo’: taciturnity and Englishness in Parade’s
End and André Maurois’ Les Silences Du Colonel Bramble. International Ford Madox
Ford Studies 13, 23-35 (2014)
2. Broyde, M. J.: Informing on others for violating American law: a Jewish law view. Journal
of Halacha and Contemporary Society (2002). http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/
mesiralaw2.html
3. Centola, D., Willer, R., Macy, M.: The emperor’s dilemma: a computational model of self-
enforcing norms. American Journal of Sociology 110(4), 1009-1040 (2014).
https://doi.org/10.1086/427321
4. Čyras, V.: Different views on law determine the separate representations of legal meanings
in information systems. Informacijos mokslai 79, 58-70 (2017), DOI
https://doi.org/10.15388/Im.2017.79.11391
5. Čyras, V., Lachmayer, F.: Compliance and software transparency for the design of legal
machines. In: Haav, H.-M., Kalja, A., Robal, T. (eds.) Databases and Information Systems VIII,
pp. 275–288, http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-458-9-275. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2014)
6. Čyras, V., Lachmayer, F.: Meaning and metameaning as entities: content (Is) and institu-
tional meaning (Ought). Jusletter IT, 24 May (2018)
7. Duschinsky, R.: Taboo, overview. In: Teo, T. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology,
pp. 1921-1923. Springer, New York (2014)
8. Freud, S.: Totem and taboo, Routledge (2001) [1919] (Totem und Tabu, 1913)
9. Hansen J. U.: A logic-based approach to pluralistic ignorance. In: Academia.edu (2011),
http://www.academia.edu/1894486/A_Logic-Based_Approach_to_Pluralistic_Ignorance
10. Kelsen, H.: Pure theory of law, 2nd ed., Knight, M. (transl.) (Reine Rechtslehre,
2. Auflage. Deuticke, Wien 1960). University of California Press, Berkeley (1967)
11. Lessig, L.: Code version 2.0. Basic Books, New York (2006)
12. Lachmayer, F.: Grundzüge einer Normentheorie: Zur Struktur der Normen dargestellt am
Beispiel des Rechtes. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin (1977)
13. Prentice, D. A., Miller, D. T.: Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: Some con-
sequences of misperceiving the social norm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
64(2), 243-256 (1993)
14. Steiner, F.: Taboo. Cohen & West, London (1956)
62