Legal decision-making and the abstract/concrete paradox

Cognition 205 (C):104421 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Higher courts sometimes assess the constitutionality of law by working through a concrete case, other times by reasoning about the underlying question in a more abstract way. Prior research has found that the degree of concreteness or abstraction with which an issue is formulated can influence people's prescriptive views: For instance, people often endorse punishment for concrete misdeeds that they would oppose if the circumstances were described abstractly. We sought to understand whether the so-called ‘abstract/concrete paradox’ also jeopardizes the consistency of judicial reasoning. In a series of experiments, both lay and professional judges sometimes reached opposite conclusions when reasoning about concrete cases versus the underlying issues formulated in abstract terms. This effect emerged whether participants reasoned with broad principles, such as human dignity, or narrow rules, and was largest among individuals high in trait empathy. Finally, to understand whether people reflectively endorse the discrepancy between abstract and concrete resolutions, we examined their reactions when evaluating both, either simultaneously or sequentially. These approaches revealed no single pattern across lay and expert populations, or exploratory and confirmatory studies. Taken together, our studies suggest that empathic concern plays a greater role in guiding the judicial resolution of concrete cases than in illuminating judges' professed standards—which may result in concrete decisions in violation of their own abstract principles.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 99,596

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Interpretative Importance of Legal Principles for the Understanding of Legal Texts.Marijan Pavčnik - 2015 - Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 101 (1):52-59.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-09-03

Downloads
72 (#271,151)

6 months
13 (#206,991)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Noel Struchiner
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Ivar Hannikainen
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro

References found in this work

No luck for moral luck.Markus Kneer & Edouard Machery - 2019 - Cognition 182 (C):331-348.

View all 20 references / Add more references