Moral Outrage and Betrayal Aversion: The Psychology of Punitive Damages

Abstract

AbstractPunitive damages have been predominantly studied from a one-sided perspective focusing on the wrongdoer. The role of the tort victim in bringing the punitive lawsuit has often been curtly described either as some sort of private attorney general moved by a desire to deter undesirable behavior (i. e., playing a contingent role) or as an agent exercising her legal power to exact a punitive sanction by virtue of what the defendant did to her and how it was done conceived in terms of just deserts (i. e., playing a necessary role). I argue, conversely, that the victim’s intrinsic response to deliberate wrongdoing involves much more than the mere imposition of punishment: it involves who we are and the meaning we construe from the circumstances of wrongdoing seen as a deliberate threat to our individual autonomy, dignity, physical integrity, or even life. A more meaningful understanding of punitive damages is thus available from considering the rich value-laden lay intuitions that drive people to punish certain behaviors. The mind sciences and in particular the social psychology and social cognition literature on human actors’ motivations for punishment offer valuable insight into moral outrage and betrayal aversion as rich retributive intuitions. Together, these intuitions comprise a significant element that is still missing from the predominant understanding of punitive damages, one we must not overlook.