JSAN: A Framework to Implement Normative Agents

Norms have become a promising mechanism to ensure that open multi-agent systems (MASs) produce a desirable social outcome. MASs can be defined as societies in which autonomous agents work to achieve both societal and individual goals. Norms regulate the behavior of agents by defining permissions, obligations and prohibitions, as well as encouraging and discouraging the fulfillment of norms through rewards and punishments mechanisms. Once the priority of software agent is the satisfaction of its own desires and goals, each agent must evaluate the effects associated to the fulfillment or violation of one or more norms before choosing which one should be complied. This paper introduces a framework for normative MASs simulation that provides mechanisms for understanding the impact of norms on an agent and the society to which an agent belongs.