意图信息在物权判断和道德判断中的作用

The Role of Intention in Property Right Judgments and Moral Judgments

意图会影响人们的道德判断,但尚不清楚意图在物权判断中的作用。本研究以266名非法学专业的大学生为被试,通过包含不同意图(恶意/善意/无意)的故事情境,考察了在损失求偿和获益分享情境中人们的物权判断和道德判断。结果发现,在损失求偿情境中,不管是出于善意、恶意还是无意,被试均判断行为者应当赔偿他人损失,但不认为无意的行为者应受谴责。在获益分享情境中,被试认为善意的行为者应分享给他人带来的收益且应受赞扬,但恶意的行为者不应分享收益和受赞扬。综合来看,物权判断比道德判断较少受意图信息的影响,反映人们的物权判断具有领域特异性。

Previous studies found that laypeople’s moral judgments and legal judgments are inconsistent in the events involving physical rights infringement and affected by intention.However,when it comes to the disputes of property damage or value increment of property,it is still unknown whether the same effect will occur.This study explored this issue through two property contexts,i.e.,compensating loss for property damage and sharing benefits for property appreciation.Totally,266 Chinese college students were recruited as subjects.We designed different versions of painting stories as experimental materials.In the case of compensating loss for property damage(Experiment 1),an artist was painting a picture in the final stage and did not know how to draw next.A man walked by with the paint with different intention,sprinkling it on the artist’s canvas,which led to the failure of the painting.In the bad intention condition,the man did not want the painter to finish the painting.In the good intention condition,the man wanted to help the painter finish the painting.In the neutral intention condition,the man carelessly sprinkled the paint on the canvas.Subjects were asked to answer(1)Property right judgment question:should the man compensate for the painting?(2)Moral judgment question:should the man be condemned?The results showed that subjects who answered"yes"were significantly more than subjects who answered"no"for the property right judgment question across all three conditions.In contrast,for the moral judgment question,subjects who answered"yes"were significantly more than subjects who answered"no”in the bad intention condition,however,no such differences were found in the good intention condition and in the neutral intention condition.In the context of sharing benefits for property appreciation(Experiment 2),the story was reedited such that the man sprinkled the paint on the artist’s canvas with the same intentions as Experiment 1 leading to the success and a high price of the painting.Subjects were asked to answer(1)Property right judgment question:should the man share the benefits from the sale of the painting?(2)Moral judgment question:should the man be praised?The results showed that subjects who answered"yes"were significantly more than subjects who answered"no"for the property right judgment question in the good intention condition,but they answered"no"significantly more than"yes"in the bad intention condition.For the moral judgment question,subjects who answered"yes"were significantly more than subjects who answered“no"in the good intention condition,but subjects who answered"no"were significantly more than subjects who answered"yes"in the bad intention condition and in the neutral intention condition.Comprehensively,the results showed that compared with moral judgments,people’s property right judgments were less likely to be affected by the intention valence.The results have some implications for the settlement of property disputes in reality,which warrants that when similar cases happen in court,we should consider common people’s psychological expectation to achieve a more acceptable verdict.