Abstract argumentation with conditional preferences

Abstract

In this paper, we study conditional preferences in abstract argumentation by introducing a new generalization of Dung-style argumentation frameworks (AFs) called Conditional Preference-based AFs (CPAFs). Each subset of arguments in a CPAF can be associated with its own preference relation. This generalizes existing approaches for preference-handling in abstract argumentation, and allows us to reason about conditional preferences in a general way. We conduct a principle-based analysis of CPAFs and compare them to related generalizations of AFs. Specifically, we highlight similarities and differences to Modgil’s Extended AFs and show that our formalism can capture Value-based AFs. Moreover, we show that in some cases the introduction of conditional preferences leads to an increase in computational complexity.