Value Based Reasoning and the Actions of Others

Practical reasoning, reasoning about what actions should be chosen, is highly dependent both on the individual values of the agent concerned and on what others choose to do. We discuss how value based argumentation about what to do can be performed without making assumptions about the preferences of the other agents. We then show how expected utility calculations relate to the value-based argumentation approach, and express the reasoning as arguments and objections, so that they can be integrated value-based practical reasoning. We illustrate our discussion with examples of value based reasoning in public goods games as used in experimental economics and present an initial evaluation of the approach in terms of these experiments.