Formalising Motivational Attitudes of Agents

In this paper we present a formalisation of motivational attitudes, the attitudes that are the driving forces behind the actions of agents. We consider the statics of these attitudes both at the assertion level, i.e. ranging over propositions, and at the practition1 level, i.e. ranging over actions, as well as the dynamics of these attitudes, i.e. how they change over time. Starting from an agent's wishes, which form the primitive, most fundamental motivational attitude, we de ne its goals as induced by those wishes that do not yet hold, i.e. are unful lled, but are within the agent's practical possibility to bring about, i.e. are implementable for the agent. Among these unful lled, implementable wishes the agent selects those that qualify as its goals. Based on its knowledge on its goals and practical possibilities, an agent may make certain commitments. In particular, an agent may commit itself to actions that it knows to be correct and feasible to bring about some of its ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1995
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: Bernd van Linder, Wiebe van der Hoek, John-Jules Ch. Meyer
• Keywords: Agent's Practical Possibility, ATAL 1995, Intelligent Agents, Motivational Attitude, Undoing Commitments