Apply the Laws, if They are Good: Moral Evaluations Linearly Predict Whether Judges Should Enforce the Law

IF 2.3 2区心理学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL

Cognitive Science Pub Date : 2024-10-23 DOI:10.1111/cogs.70001

Neele Engelmann, Guilherme da Franca Couto Fernandes de Almeida, Felipe Oliveira de Sousa, Karolina Prochownik, Ivar R. Hannikainen, Noel Struchiner, Stefan Magen

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Abstract

What should judges do when faced with immoral laws? Should they apply them without exception, since “the law is the law?” Or can exceptions be made for grossly immoral laws, such as historically, Nazi law? Surveying laypeople (N = 167) and people with some legal training (N = 141) on these matters, we find a surprisingly strong, monotonic relationship between people's subjective moral evaluation of laws and their judgments that these laws should be applied in concrete cases. This tendency is most pronounced among individuals who endorse natural law (i.e., the legal-philosophical view that immoral laws are not valid laws at all), and is attenuated when disagreement about the moral status of a law is considered reasonable. The relationship is equally strong for laypeople and for those with legal training. We situate our findings within the broader context of morality's influence on legal reasoning that experimental jurisprudence has uncovered in recent years, and consider normative implications.

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如果法律是好的，就去执行：道德评价线性预测法官是否应该执法。

面对不道德的法律，法官应该怎么办？既然 "法律就是法律"，他们是否应该毫无例外地适用这些法律？或者，对于严重不道德的法律，如历史上的纳粹法律，是否可以例外？我们就这些问题对非专业人士（167 人）和受过一定法律培训的人士（141 人）进行了调查，结果发现，在人们对法律的主观道德评价与他们对这些法律在具体案件中的适用性的判断之间，存在着令人惊讶的强烈单调关系。这种趋势在赞同自然法（即认为不道德的法律根本不是有效法律的法律哲学观点）的人中最为明显，而当对法律道德地位的分歧被认为是合理的时候，这种趋势就会减弱。这种关系对于非专业人士和受过法律培训的人来说同样强烈。我们将研究结果置于实验法学近年来发现的道德对法律推理的影响这一更广泛的背景中，并考虑其规范意义。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Cognitive Science PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL-

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

8.00%

发文量

139

期刊介绍： Cognitive Science publishes articles in all areas of cognitive science, covering such topics as knowledge representation, inference, memory processes, learning, problem solving, planning, perception, natural language understanding, connectionism, brain theory, motor control, intentional systems, and other areas of interdisciplinary concern. Highest priority is given to research reports that are specifically written for a multidisciplinary audience. The audience is primarily researchers in cognitive science and its associated fields, including anthropologists, education researchers, psychologists, philosophers, linguists, computer scientists, neuroscientists, and roboticists.