Some normal logic programs under the answer set (or stable model) semantics lack the
appealing property of ‘cautious monotonicity.’ That is, augmenting a program with one of
its consequences may cause it to lose another of its consequences. The syntactic condition of
‘order-consistency’ was shown by Fages to guarantee existence of an answer set. This note
establishes that order-consistent programs are not only consistent, but cautiously monotonic.
From this it follows that they are also ‘cumulative’. That is, augmenting an order-consistent
program with some of its consequences does not alter its consequences. In fact, as we show,
its answer sets remain unchanged.