Obligations and Permissions as Mental Entities How cognitive agents reason about what is permitted and what counts as a violation

Cognitive agents must have an explicit representation of their beliefs, desires and goals, and also a ‘theory of mind’ of the other agents. In this paper we propose a cognitive agent model where norms are based on three dimensions. First, we distinguish between agents whose behavior is governed by norms and autonomous normative systems; we call the latter normative agents. Second, we distinguish some of the usual mental attitudes for all agents. Third, we distinguish between behavior that counts as a violation, and sanctions that are applied. The decisions of agents are based on a qualitative decision theory extended with recursive modelling: an agent explicitly models the normative agent who monitors violations and applies sanctions. Our framework enables agents to reason also on what is permitted and on how permissions work as exceptions to behaviors which are considered violations and thus are punishable.