Towards Reflective Normative Agents

An ‘Interdisciplinary Frontier’ of norm research has emerged within the social sciences, carrying forward a wave of new theories and evidence that describe the conditions required for norms to be measured, represented, spread, and changed. These have informed requirements for a normative agent with mental representations, able to reason about models of self, others, environment, and society. Recent Socio-Cognitive theories of reflection have highlighted the need for high-level reasoning processes to assess whether actions are congruent with prevailing norms, to evaluate beliefs, and to adjust behavior accordingly. Agents lacking these capacities merely engage in passive norm following or compliance. In contrast, we propose a framework encompassing the cognitive abilities necessary for learning, reasoning, and reflecting upon norms beyond mere adherence or compliance. Furthermore, we discuss the necessity for normative agents to be situated in complex, open-ended scenarios from which rich social interactions can emerge autonomously.