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Glossary

  • World state Description of the state of relevant elements of the world
  • Situation World state
  • Value A preference over states of the world
  • Personal value A value held by an individual
  • Group value A value common in a group
  • Organisational value A value promoted by a group
  • Collective value Organisational value
  • Value System A set of values with a dynamic preorder relationship
  • Personal value system A value system held by an individual
  • Group value system A value system common in a group
  • Organisational value system A value system promoted by a group
  • Collective value system Organisational value system
  • Event A modifier of world states
  • Action A modifier of world states produced by an agent
  • Behaviour An action, given a particular world state [when the context clearly identifies a world state we can use the word action instead of behaviour
  • Convention Common behaviour
  • Norm Prescriptive behaviour
  • Individual norm A norm of an individual
  • Group norm A norm common in a group
  • Organisational norm A norm promoted by a group
  • Collective norm Organisational norm
  • Regimented norm A norm that makes prohibited behaviour unfeasible
  • Non-regimented norm A norm that demotivates prohibited behaviour through rewards and/or sanctions
  • Normative system A set of norms with a dynamic preorder relationship
  • Individual normative system A normative system of an individual
  • Group normative system A normative system common in a group
  • Organisational normative system A normative system promoted by a group
  • Collective normative system Organisational normative system
  • Regimented normative system A normative system that is enforced
  • Non-regimented normative system A normative system that is not enforced, but incentivised through rewards and/or sanctions
  • Agent An entity capable of behaviour
  • Moral evaluation Assessment by an agent of whether a behaviour is right or wrong
  • Moral agent An agent capable of moral evaluation
  • Moral value A value is moral if it is used for moral evaluation
  • Moral norm A norm is moral if it is used for moral evaluation
  • Moral community A group of moral agents that share moral norms and/or moral values
  • Morality System of moral norms and/or moral values
  • Value-aligned behaviour A behaviour is aligned with a value if and only if the behaviour leads to a preferred world state according to that value
  • Value-aligned norm A norm is aligned with a value if and only if the behaviour prescribed by the norm leads to a preferred world state according to that value
  • Value-aligned normative system A normative system is aligned with a value if and only if the behaviour prescribed by its norms lead to preferred world states according to that value
  • Value engineering The design of value-aligned normative systems
  • Norm-aligned behaviour A behaviour is aligned with a norm if it is the prescribed behaviour of that norm
  • Moral decision-making Decision making that is based on moral evaluation
  • Ethics Discipline that studies morality
  • Descriptive ethics Discipline that studies morality as it is
  • Normative ethics Discipline that studies morality as it should be
  • Normative ethical theory Formal framework for moral evaluation
  • Awareness The ability to reflect upon knowledge
  • Value awareness The ability to reflect upon value systems
  • Reflection The ability to examine, reason about, and modify oneself