Comparing arguments using preference orderings for argument-based reasoning

Argument-based reasoning is a promising approach to handle inconsistent belief bases. The basic idea is to justify each plausible conclusion by acceptable arguments. The purpose of this paper is to enforce the concept of acceptability by the integration of preference orderings. Pursuing previous work on preference-based argumentation, we focus here on the definition of preference relations for comparing conflicting arguments. We present a comparative study of several proposals. Then, we propose techniques for computing and comparing arguments, taking advantage of an Assumption-Based Truth Maintenance System (ATMS).