When jurors’ moral judgments result in jury nullification: moral outrage at the law as a mediator of euthanasia attitudes on verdicts

Peter-Hagene, Liana C.; Ratliff, Chasity L.

doi:10.1080/13218719.2020.1751741

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Numerous studies now confirm that this tendency is not confined to judicial contexts: Laypeople's judgments of whether a rule has been violated are routinely influenced by elements beyond the rule's literal meaning. This effect has been demonstrated in the context of household and institutional rules (Bregant et al, 2019;LaCosse & Quintanilla, 2021;Struchiner et al, 2020), minor legal rules (Garcia et al, 2014;Turri, 2019;Turri & Blouw, 2015), and criminal laws (Kahan, 2010;Peter-Hagene & Bottoms, 2017;Peter-Hagene & Ratliff, 2021).…”

mentioning

confidence: 90%

Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

Flanagan¹,

Almeida²,

Struchiner³

et al. 2023

Law and Human Behavior

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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.

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mentioning

confidence: 90%

Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

Flanagan¹,

Almeida²,

Struchiner³

et al. 2023

Law and Human Behavior

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“…It is a complex response, comprising behavioral (desire to punish), cognitive (blame attributions), and affective (anger, disgust) reactions to behaviors that people perceive to be moral transgressions (Skitka et al, 2004;Tetlock et al, 2000). In cases of crimes against humans, increased feelings of moral outrage motivate mock jurors to convict (Peter-Hagene & Ratliff, 2020;Salerno et al, 2010Salerno et al, , 2014Salerno et al, , 2015Salerno & Peter-Hagene, 2013, Wiley & Bottoms, 2009 and to favor more severe punishment (Carlsmith et al, 2002). Of particular relevance to the current study, people are particularly likely to experience moral outrage when vulnerable or innocent human victims are harmed (Darley & Pittman, 2003).…”

Section: The Present Research: Theoretical Rationale Hypotheses and S...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Harming cats and dogs: People are as morally outraged, but not as punitive, in animal versus human abuse cases.

Burke¹,

Peter-Hagene²,

Jones³

et al. 2023

The Humanistic Psychologist

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Little is known about the psychological factors that influence and explain public perceptions of animal abuse cases. We experimentally examined jury-eligible participants' reactions to scenarios involving animal (cat, dog) and, for comparison, human (baby, woman) victims. Our theoretical goal was understanding the potentially different role of moral outrage in punishment decisions for animal versus human victims. Results revealed that participants were morally outraged at the abuse of both humans and animals-equally for woman, cat, and dog victims, and especially so for a baby-yet the psychological antecedents differed. In human abuse cases, moral outrage was driven by participants' perception of the immorality of the abuse; in animal cases, moral outrage was driven by perceptions of victims' suffering. As predicted, the more morally outraged, the more participants favored a prison sentence for the perpetrator, but the relation differed somewhat by victim type. Of note, although participants were morally outraged by all instances of abuse, they were less likely to favor prison sentences for perpetrators of animal rather than human abuse. Legal and theoretical implications are discussed.

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“…Additionally, ethical attitudes influence juror verdicts (e.g. Peter-Hagene & Ratliff, 2020), juries are empowered to decide whether valid consent has been granted in legal cases (Kahan, 2010;Rerick, Livingston, & Davis, 2019).…”

Section: Demaree-cotton and Sommers 2021mentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomy and the Folk Concept of Valid Consent

Demaree-Cotton

Sommers

2021

SSRN Journal

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Consent governs innumerable everyday social interactions, including sex, medical exams, the use of property, and economic transactions. Yet little is known about how ordinary people reason about the validity of consent. Across the domains of sex, medicine, and police entry, Study 1 showed that when agents lack autonomous decision-making capacities, participants are less likely to view their consent as valid; however, failing to exercise this capacity and deciding in a nonautonomous way did not reduce consent judgments. Study 2 found that specific and concrete incapacities reduced judgments of valid consent, but failing to exercise these specific capacities did not, even when the consenter makes an irrational and inauthentic decision. Finally, Study 3 showed that the effect of autonomy on judgments of valid consent carries important downstream consequences for moral reasoning about the rights and obligations of third parties, even when the consented-to action is morally wrong. Overall, these findings suggest that laypeople embrace a normative, domain-general concept of valid consent that depends on the possession of autonomous capacities, but not the exercise of these capacities. Autonomous decisions and autonomous capacities thus play divergent roles in moral reasoning about consent interactions: while the former appears relevant for assessing the wrongfulness of consented-to acts, the latter plays a role in whether consent is regarded as authoritative and therefore as transforming moral rights.

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When jurors’ moral judgments result in jury nullification: moral outrage at the law as a mediator of euthanasia attitudes on verdicts

Cited by 5 publications

References 64 publications

Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations.

Harming cats and dogs: People are as morally outraged, but not as punitive, in animal versus human abuse cases.

Autonomy and the Folk Concept of Valid Consent

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