Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/229989 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods No. 2020/3
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn
Abstract: 
Frequently deciding legal cases requires an assessment in multiple, conceptually incompatible dimensions. Often one normative concern would call for one decision, and another normative concern for a different decision. The decision-maker must engage in balancing, with no help from overarching normative theory. A typical situation is torts. The decision must regularly balance concerns on behalf of the victim, the tort feasor and society at large, both on utilitarian and deontological grounds. In this paper we use eye tracking to investigate in which ways laypersons' thought processes react to normative conflict in a set of 16 torts vignettes. If normative conflict is present, participants are less likely to agree with the likely outcome if the case were tried in a German court; they take longer to decide, and they fixate longer on normative concerns presented on a decision screen. Eye movements show that participants indeed consider multiple normative concerns in competition.
Subjects: 
torts
fundamental normative relativity
compensation
deterrence
utilitarianand deontological concerns
balancing
eye tracking
machine learning
JEL: 
D01
D81
D91
K13
K40
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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