A Structural Solution to Sequential Moral Dilemmas

Abstract

Social interactions are key in multi-agent systems. Social dilemmas have been widely studied to model specific problems in social interactions. However, state-of-the-art social dilemmas have disregarded specific ethical aspects affecting interactions. Here we propose a novel model for social dilemmas, the so-called Sequential Moral Dilemmas, that do capture the notion of moral value. First, we provide a formal definition of sequential moral dilemmas as Markov Games. Thereafter, we formally characterise the necessary and sufficient conditions for agents to learn to behave ethically, so that they are aligned with the moral value. Moreover, we exploit our theoretical characterisation to provide a structural solution to a sequential moral dilemma, namely how to configure the Markov game to solve the dilemma. Finally, we illustrate our proposal through the so-called public civility game, an example of a sequential moral dilemma considering the civility value. We show the social benefits obtained when the agents learn to adhere to the moral value.