Ezumezu Deontic Logic: An African–inspired formal framework for normative reasoning

Artificial intelligence systems increasingly operate in normative domains where ethical and legal obligations must be formally represented. Standard Deontic Logic (SDL), a central reference point in formal treatments of normative reasoning, presupposes bivalence and deontic necessitation, and its structural commitments make the simultaneous representation of conflicting obligations formally impermissible. These commitments limit SDL’s capacity to represent normative conflict, the source–relativity of normative claims, and ethical tensions in which every available resolution eliminates an obligation of genuine standing. This article proposes Ezumezu Deontic Logic (EDL), an African–inspired alternative grounded in Jonathan O. Chimakonam’s Ezumezu logic, a system that introduces a third truth value representing the stable coexistence of affirmation and denial within a single proposition. EDL evaluates deontic claims relative to world–context pairs that represent conflicting obligations without triggering logical explosion, and rejects global deontic necessitation. Its application to end-of-life medical ethics demonstrates that EDL can represent forms of normative plurality that standard bivalentframeworks structurally exclude.