Moral Appraisals Guide Intuitive Legal Determinations
44 Pages Posted: 26 Dec 2021 Last revised: 6 Apr 2022
Date Written: November 2, 2021
Abstract
Objectives: We sought to understand how basic competencies in moral reasoning influence the interpretation and application of private, legal, and institutional rules. Hypotheses: We predicted that moral appraisals, implicating both outcome-based and mental state reasoning, would shape participants’ application of various rules and statutes—and asked whether these effects arise differentially under intuitive versus reflective reasoning conditions. Methods: In six vignette-based experiments (total N = 2502), participants considered a wide range of written rules and laws and were asked to decide whether a protagonist had violated the statute in question. We manipulated morally relevant aspects of each incident—including the valence of the statute’s purpose (Experiment 1) and of the outcomes that ensued (Experiments 2 and 3), as well as the protagonist’s accompanying mental state (Experiment 5). In two studies, we simultaneously varied whether participants decided under time pressure or following a forced delay (Experiments 4 and 6). Results: Integrative moral appraisals of the rule’s purpose, the agent’s extraneous blameworthiness and their epistemic state impacted legal determinations, and helped to explain participants’ departure from rules’ literal interpretation. These counter- literal verdicts were stronger under time pressure and were weakened by the opportunity to reflect. Conclusions: Under intuitive reasoning conditions, legal determinations draw heavily on core competencies in moral cognition, such as outcome-based and mental state reasoning. In turn, cognitive reflection dampens these effects on statutory interpretation, giving rise to a broadly textualist response pattern.
Keywords: experimental jurisprudence, cognitive science, automatic processes, natural law, legal positivism
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