Coordination and expertise foster legal textualism

Abstract

A cross-cultural survey experiment revealed a dominant tendency to rely on a rule's letter over its spirit when deciding which behaviors violate the rule. This tendency varied markedly across (k = 15) countries, owing to variation in the impact of moral appraisals on judgments of rule violation. Compared with laypeople, legal experts were more inclined to disregard their moral evaluations of the acts altogether and consequently exhibited stronger textualist tendencies. Finally, we evaluated a plausible mechanism for the emergence of textualism: in a two-player coordination game, incentives to coordinate in the absence of communication reinforced participants' adherence to rules' literal meaning. Together, these studies (total n = 5,794) help clarify the origins and allure of textualism, especially in the law. Within heterogeneous communities in which members diverge in their moral appraisals involving a rule's purpose, the rule's literal meaning provides a clear focal point-an identifiable point of agreement enabling coordinated interpretation among citizens, lawmakers, and judges.

Keywords: coordination; cross-cultural research; legal decision making; moral judgment.

Fig. 1.

Textualism scores among laypeople and legal experts: A–C share a common y axis that displays textualism scores. Positive textualism scores represent the tendency to treat overinclusion cases as greater transgressions than underinclusion cases. Negative scores represent the tendency to treat underinclusion cases as greater transgressions than overinclusion cases. (A) Grouped density plot by expertise (laypeople vs. legal experts) and overlaid group means. (B) National textualism scores and 95% CIs. Countries are placed along the x axis, using two-letter country codes: US = United States, PL = Poland, FI = Finland, NL = The Netherlands, LT = Lithuania, DE = Germany, IT = Italy, CA = Canada, BR = Brazil, MX = Mexico, UK = United Kingdom, LV = Latvia, CO = Colombia, IN = India, and ES = Spain. (C) National textualism scores in the separate evaluation mode against the regression coefficients of literal meaning and moral blame in the joint evaluation mode. The x axes plot the multiple regression coefficients obtained by regressing transgression judgments simultaneously on literal meaning and moral blame ratings—separately for each country. Positive values represent an independent, positive effect of literal meaning (Left) or moral blame (Right) on transgression judgments—according to the multiple regression model. A value of zero on the x axis implies the absence of an effect of the predictor on transgression judgments.

Fig. 2.

Expertise effect on transgression judgments. A and B share a common y axis that displays transgression judgments on a seven-point Likert scale. Higher values represent greater agreement with a statement that the agent violated the rule (1 = “strongly disagree,” 7 = “strongly agree”). (A) Conditional effect plots of literal meaning (Left) and moral blame (Right) by expertise (laypeople vs. legal experts). The x axes span the scale range of literal meaning and moral blame ratings, with higher values reflecting agreement with statements that the agent violated the literal meaning of the rule (Left) and that their conduct was morally blameworthy (Right). The moral blame × expertise interaction was statistically significant (P = 0.002), whereas the literal meaning × expertise interaction was not (P = 0.34). LM = literal meaning; MB = moral blame. (B) Mean transgression judgments and 95% CIs by case type and expertise (laypeople vs. legal experts). Case type is placed on the x axis, with underinclusive cases on the Left (circles) and overinclusive cases on the Right (triangles).

Fig. 3.

Coordination effect on transgression judgments. A and B share a common y axis that displays the predicted probability of a transgression judgment. Higher values represent a greater probability of affirming that the agent violated the rule (1 = “yes,” 0 = “no”). (A) Conditional effect plots of case-level literal meaning (Left) and moral blame (Right) by condition (control vs. coordination). As in Fig. 2A, the x axes span the scale range of literal meaning and moral blame ratings, with higher values reflecting agreement with statements that the agent violated the literal meaning of the rule (Left) and that their conduct was morally blameworthy (Right). Condition interacted with both literal meaning (P = 0.037) and moral blame (P = 0.006), such that literal meaning had a stronger effect and moral blame had a weaker effect in the coordination condition (relative to the control condition). (B) Mean transgression judgments and 95% CIs by case type and condition. Case type is placed on the x axis, with underinclusive cases on the Left (circles) and overinclusive cases on the Right (triangles).