Attributing Mental Attitudes to Social Entities: Constitutive Rules are Beliefs, Regulative Rules are Goals

In this paper, we propose a model of constitutive and regulative norms in a logical multiagent framework. We analyze the relationship between these two types of rules and explain similarities between them, using the metaphor of considering social entities like normative systems, groups and organizations as agents and of attributing them mental attitudes as well as an autonomous behavior. We argue that while constitutive norms expressing “counts-as” relations are modelled as the beliefs of social entities, regulative norms, like obligations, prohibitions and permissions, are modelled as their goals.