Regulative and Constitutive Norms in Normative Multiagent Systems

Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference (KR2004)

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Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference (KR2004)

Contents

In this paper we introduce a formal framework for the construction of normative multiagent systems, based on Searle’s notion of the construction of social reality. Within the structure of normative multiagent systems we distinguish between regulative norms that describe obligations, permissions and prohibitions, and constitutive norms that regulate the creation of institutional facts as well as the modification of the normative system itself. Using the metaphor of normative systems as agents, we attribute mental attitudes to the normative system. In particular, we formalize regulative norms as goals of the normative system, and constitutive norms as beliefs of the normative system. Agents reason about norm creation using recursive modelling.