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    Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.


    Flanagan, Brian, de Almeida, Guilherme F. C. F., Struchiner, Noel and Hannikainen, Ivar R. (2023) Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations. Law and Human Behavior, 47 (2). pp. 367-383. ISSN 0147-7307

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    Abstract

    Objectives: We sought to understand how basic competencies in moral reasoning influence the application of private, institutional, and legal rules. Hypotheses: We predicted that moral appraisals, implicating both outcome-based and mental state reasoning, would shape participants’ interpretation of rules and statutes— and asked whether these effects arise differentially under intuitive and reflective reasoning conditions. Method: In six vignette-based experiments (total N = 2,473; 293 university law students [67% women; age bracket mode: 18–22 years] and 2,180 online workers [60% women; mean age = 31.9 years]), participants considered a wide range of written rules and laws and determined whether a protagonist had violated the rule in question. We manipulated morally relevant aspects of each incident—including the valence of the rule’s purpose (Study 1) and of the outcomes that ensued (Studies 2 and 3), as well as the protagonist’s accompanying mental state (Studies 5 and 6). In two studies, we simultaneously varied whether participants decided under time pressure or following a forced delay (Studies 4 and 6). Results: Moral appraisals of the rule’s purpose, the agent’s extraneous blameworthiness, and the agent’s epistemic state impacted legal determinations and helped to explain participants’ departure from rules’ literal interpretation. Counter-literal verdicts were stronger under time pressure and were weakened by the opportunity to reflect. Conclusions: Under intuitive reasoning conditions, legal determinations draw on core competencies in moral cognition, such as outcome-based and mental state reasoning. In turn, cognitive reflection dampens these effects on statutory interpretation, allowing text to play a more influential role.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: textualism; time pressure; moral reasoning; legal interpretation; theory of mind;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Law
    Item ID: 18870
    Identification Number: 10.1037/lhb0000527
    Depositing User: Brian Flanagan
    Date Deposited: 12 Sep 2024 13:28
    Journal or Publication Title: Law and Human Behavior
    Publisher: Educational Publishing Foundation
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mu.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/18870
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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