A property-based approach for characterizing goals

Goals are an essential attitude of proactive agents described with mentalistic attitudes. Nonetheless, in the literature no well agreed-upon definition of the term goal has arisen so far. In this paper it is argued that a property-based view on goals can help understanding the nature of the goal concept. Therefore, the goal concept is discussed with respect to typical properties, which are associated with the representation and processing of goals. It is discussed, how the well-known PRS architecture and recent extensions deal with these characteristics. As a result, we argue that supporting also long-term goals, which may not (immediately or at all) lead to actions, would enrich the possibilities of the agent developer as also more strategic behavior is expressible.