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Important insights concerning our intuitions about moral blameworthiness and punishment

By Douglas A. Berman

Thanks to this post by Larry Solum, I discovered this new paper on SSRN titled "Intermediation Reduces Punishment."  Here is the abstract: This research experimentally identifies the belief that an action is less blameworthy when separated from the outcome by another actor.  Contrary to current economic models of fairness, keeping money at the expense of a poorer player is punished less when done through an intermediary, even when the intermediary is not at all responsible.  Even subjects who believe intermediation leads to unfair outcomes and subjects who believe others intermediate to avoid punishment, punish intermediation less.  This suggests they are not confused or lacking thoughtfulness, but rather consciously believe intermediating is the less blameworthy thing to do...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 23, 2009 (boomark / email).