Abstract
Social commitments have long been recognized as an important concept for multiagent systems. We propose a rich formulation of social commitments that motivates an architecture for multiagent systems, which we dub spheres of commitment. We identify the key operations on commitments and multiagent systems. We distinguish between explicit and implicit commitments. Multiagent systems, viewed as spheres of commitment (SoComs), provide the context for the different operations on commitments. Armed with the above ideas, we can capture normative concepts such as obligations, taboos, conventions, and pledges as different kinds of commitments. In this manner, we synthesize ideas from multiagent systems, particularly the idea of social context, with ideas from ethics and legal reasoning, specifically that of directed obligations in the Hohfeldian tradition.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alchourrón, Carlos E. & Bulygin, Eugenio (1981). The expressive conception of norms. In: (Hilpinen, 1981). 95-124.
Asher, Nicholas M. (1993). Reference to Abstract Objects in Discourse. Kluwer, Dordrecht, Holland.
Austin, John L.; (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Barwise, Jon (1989a). On the model theory of common knowledge. In: (Barwise, 1989b). 201-220.
Barwise, Jon (1989b). The Situation in Logic. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford.
Boman, Magnus (1996). Implementing norms through normative advice. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Multiagent Systems (ICMAS) Workshop on Norms, Obligations, and Conventions.
Castañeda, Hector-Neri (1975). Thinking and Doing: The Philosophical Foundations of Institutions. D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland.
Castelfranchi, Cristiano (1995). Commitments: From individual intentions to groups and organizations. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Multiagent Systems. 41-48.
Chandy, K.M. & Misra, Jayadev (1986). How processes learn. Distributed Computing 1, 40-52.
Demazeau, Yves & Müller, Jean-Pierre (eds) (1991). Decentralized Artificial Intelligence, Volume 2. Elsevier/North-Holland, Amsterdam.
Dunin-Keplicz, Barbara & Verbrugge, Rineke (1996). Collective commitments. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Multiagent Systems. 56-63.
Edel, Abraham (1961). Science and the structure of ethics. In: Carnap, Rudolf, & Morris, Charles (eds.) (1970). Foundations of the Unity of Science: Toward an International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, volume II. (Neurath et al., 1970). University of Chicago Press. 273-377.
Fagin, Ronald, Halpern, Joseph Y., Moses, Yoram & Vardi, Moshe Y. (1995). Reasoning About Knowledge. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Føllesdal, Dagfinn & Hilpinen, Risto (1971). New foundations for ethical theory. In: (Hilpinen, 1971). 1-35.
Glaser, Norbert & Morignot, Philippe (1997). The reorganization of societies of autonomous agents. In: Proceedings of the 8th European Workshop on Modelling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World (MAAMAW). 98-111.
Goldman, Alvin I. (1970). A Theory of Human Action. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Herrestad, Henning & Krogh, Christen (1995). Obligations directed from bearers to counterparties. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law. 210-218.
Hilpinen, Risto (ed.) (1971). Deontic Logic: Introductory and Systematic Readings, volume 33 of Synthese Library. D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland.
Hilpinen, Risto (ed.) (1981). New Studies in Deontic Logic: Norms, Actions, and the Foundations of Ethics, volume 152 of Synthese Library. D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland.
Hohfeld, Wesley Newcomb (1919). Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning and other Legal Essays. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. A 1919 printing of articles from 1913.
Holmström, Ghita & Jones, Andrew J.I. (eds.) (1985). Action, Logic and Social Theory. Societas Philosophica Fennica, Helsinki.
Huhns, Michael N. & Singh, Munindar P. (eds.) (1998). Readings in Agents, Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco.
Jennings, N.R. (1993). Commitments and conventions: The foundation of coordination in multiagent systems. Knowledge Engineering Review 2(3), 223-250.
Kanger, Stig (1971). New foundations for ethical theory. In: (Hilpinen, 1971). 36-58.
Kanger, Stig (1985). On realization of human rights. In: Jones, Andrew J.I. (eds.) (1985). Action, Logic and Social Theory. Societas Philosophica Fennica, Helsinki (Holmström & Jones, 1985). 71-78.
Levesque, H.J., Cohen, P.R. & Nunes, J.T. (1990). On acting together. In: Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. 94-99.
Morse, H. Newcomb (1995a). Hohfeld. In: (Morse, 1995b). Chapter 10, 213-245.
Morse, H. Newcomb (1995b). The Thinkers. University Press of America, Lanham, MD.
Neurath, Otto, Carnap, Rudolf, & Morris, Charles (eds.) (1970). Foundations of the Unity of Science: Toward an International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, volume II. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London. Originally published as separate monographs.
Ross, William D. (1930). The Right and the Good. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Searle, John R. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Segerberg, Krister (1971). Some logics of commitment and obligation. In: (Hilpinen, 1971). 148-158.
Segerberg, Krister (1989). Bringing it about. Journal of Philosophical Logic 18, 327-347.
Sichman, Jaime Simão, Conte, Rosaria, Demazeau, Yves, & Castelfranchi, Cristiano (1994). A social reasoning mechanism based on dependence networks. In: Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence. 188-192. Reprinted in Huhns & Singh (1998).
Singh, Munindar P. (1991a). Group ability and structure. In: Müller, Jean-Pierre (eds) (1991). Decentralized Artificial Intelligence, Volume 2. Elsevier/North-Holland, Amsterdam (Demazeau & Müller, 1991). 127-145.
Singh, Munindar P. (1991b). Social and psychological commitments in multiagent systems. In: AAAI Fall Symposium on Knowledge and Action at Social and Organizational Levels. 104-106.
Singh, Munindar P. (1994). Multiagent Systems: A Theoretical Framework for Intentions, Know-How, and Communications. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg.
Singh, Munindar P. (1997). Commitments among autonomous agents in information-rich environments. In: Proceedings of the 8th European Workshop on Modelling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World (MAAMAW). 141-155.
von Wright, Georg Henrik (1963). Norm and Action. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
von Wright, Georg Henrik (1968). An Essay in Deontic Logic and the General Theory of Action, volume 21 of Acta Philosophica Fennica. North-Holland, Amsterdam.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Singh, M.P. An ontology for commitments in multiagent systems:. Artificial Intelligence and Law 7, 97–113 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008319631231
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008319631231