Moral Rebel Agents: Decision-Making Under Conflicting Obligations
Autonomous agents are typically obliged to follow user-assigned tasks. However, strict obedience may conflict with moral obligations that arise during execution. This paper investigates \textbf{moral rebellion}: the ability of an autonomous agent to deviate from a user-assigned task when morally justified. We formalize five agent architectures: an \textit{amoral agent} that pursues assigned tasks without considering moral obligations, and four forms of \textbf{moral rebel agency}: (1) \textit{utilitarian agents} that opportunistically maximize task outcomes; (2) \textit{deontic} agents that enforce normative constraints; (3) \textit{utilitarian-deontic} (UD) agents that combine deontic co...
| Authors | Hector Munoz-Avila, David W. Aha, Paola Rizzo |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 13 September 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 13 September 2026 |
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