Legal versus moral judgments by laymen with respect to human rights

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  • 人権に関する素人の法的判断と道徳的判断
  • ジンケン ニ カンスル シロウト ノ ホウテキ ハンダン ト ドウトクテキ ハンダン

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Abstract

This paper examined through questionnaire surveys, the judgments of undergraduate students (n=246) with respect to conflicts between various human rights and common welfare issues. None of the participants had majored in law. They were presented with four cases that contained conflicts between several human rights. The participants who were presented with the 'moral' version of the questionnaire (n=141) were asked for their opinion on the preferable course of action, while the others were presented with the 'legal' version (n=105) and were asked: 'If you were a citizen judge, what would your thoughts be on this matter?' The participants' judgments did not differ greatly by gender, current major, high school electives in the social sciences, knowledge of legal terminologies, and self-declared experience with respect to human rights. There were no clear differences between the results obtained from the responses to the legal and moral versions. Several heuristics of the 'disregard for due process', 'undue focus on personalities', 'unilateral respects of gains', and 'labelling possibilities without any proof' were observed.

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