Combining Normative Ethics Principles to Learn Prosocial Behaviour

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Jessica Woodgate, Nirav Ajmeri

Published: 2025, Last Modified: 07 Oct 2025AAMAS 2025EveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY-SA 4.0
Abstract: Principles from normative ethics---the philosophical study of morality---can be operationalised in the decision-making capacities of agents to discern ethically acceptable actions and promote prosocial behaviour, defined as behaviours that support the well-being of others. Challenges exist in operationalising principles: (1) individual principles may be unintuitive; (2) while incorporating multiple principles mitigates issues with individual principles, conflicts may arise between them. We present PriENE, a method for combining multiple principles to encourage agents to learn prosocial behaviour.