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Cited by 54Psychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentLaw, Economics, and Judicial SystemsDecision-Making and Behavioral Economics

The letter versus the spirit of the law: a lay perspective on culpability

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Garcia, Stephen M., Chen, Patricia, Gordon, Matthew T.·2014·Judgment and Decision Making
DOI 10.1017/s1930297500006835
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Abstract

Abstract The letter of the law is its literal meaning. Here, the spirit of the law is its perceived intention. We tested the hypothesis that violating the spirit of the law accounts for culpability above and beyond breaking the mere letter. We find that one can incur culpability even when the letter of the law is not technically broken. We examine this effect across various legal contexts and discuss the implications for future research directions.

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  • Recent research has shown that both text and purpose matter in rule violation judgments, even in different countries.

    “Recent research has shown that both of these elements do matter (Bregant et al., 2019;Garcia et al., 2014;LaCosse & Quintanilla, 2021;Struchiner et al., 2020), even in different countries (Hannikainen et al., 2022).”

    From Exploring the psychology of LLMs’ moral and legal reasoning (2024) · cites this paper as Garcia et al., 2014

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Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cogni- tion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 116-131.
  2. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Norm-generating structures. In K. S. Cook & M. Levi (Eds.), The limits of rationality (pp. 251-273). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
  3. Parker, C. (2006). The "compliance" trap: The moral mes- sage in responsive regulator enforcement. Law and So- ciety Review, 40, 591-622
  4. Pronin, E., Puccio, C. T., & Ross, L. (2002). Under- standing misunderstanding: Social psychological per- spectives. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intu- itive judgment, pp. 636-665. Cambridge, UK: Cam- bridge University Press.
  5. Renz, G. L., & Arvey, R. D. (2008). Law and motivation. In R. Kanfer, G. Chen, R. D. Pritchard (Eds.), Work mo- tivation: Past, present, and future (pp. 581-588). New York, NY US: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

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Authors
Garcia, S. M., Chen, P., & Gordon, M. T.
Affiliations
  • University of Michigan (US)
  • Northwestern University (US)
Corresponding author
Garcia, Stephen M.
ORCID
Garcia, Stephen M.
Venue
Judgment and Decision Making
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2014-09
Volume
9
Issue
5
Pages
479-490
ISSN
1930-2975 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1017/s1930297500006835
OpenAlex
W2105753451
Cited by
54
References
39
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1
FWCI
1.67
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Judgment and Decision Making (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
Keywords
culpability, letter of the law, spirit of the law, legal violations, moral judgment

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