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Emotional Common Sense As Constitutional Law, Terry A. Maroney
Emotional Common Sense As Constitutional Law, Terry A. Maroney
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In Gonzales v. Carhart the Supreme Court invoked post-abortion regret to justify a ban on a particular abortion procedure. The Court was proudly folk-psychological, representing its observations about women's emotional experiences as "self-evident." That such observations could drive critical legal determinations was, apparently, even more self-evident, as it received no mention at all. Far from being sui generis, Carhart reflects a previously unidentified norm permeating constitutional jurisprudence: reliance on what this Article coins "emotional common sense." Emotional common sense is what one unreflectively thinks she knows about the emotions. A species of common sense, it seems obvious and universal to …
Risk Realization, Emotion, And Policy Making, Chris Guthrie
Risk Realization, Emotion, And Policy Making, Chris Guthrie
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In their study of terrorism and SARS, Professor Feigenson and his colleagues report "significant positive correlations between people's risk perceptions and their negative affect." In their review of the judgment and decision-making literature, Professor Slovic and his colleagues document the interplay between reason and emotion in assessing risk. And in the context of a soldier's concerns for himself and his family, Professor Moran provides a powerful narrative of fear. But what happens when such threats are actually realized? Do we accurately predict the emotional impact of such events? Or are there meaningful and predictable differences between the feelings we forecast …
Better Settle Than Sorry: The Regret Aversion Theory Of Litigation Behavior, Chris Guthrie
Better Settle Than Sorry: The Regret Aversion Theory Of Litigation Behavior, Chris Guthrie
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Legal scholars have developed two dominant theories of litigation behavior: the Economic Theory of Suit and Settlement,which is based on expected utility theory, and the Framing Theory of Litigation, which is based on prospect theory. While Professor Guthrie acknowledges the explanatory power of these theories, he argues that they are flawed because they portray litigants solely as calculating creatures. These theories disregard any role emotion might play in litigation decision making. Guthrie proposes a mplementary theory-the Regret Aversion Theory of Litigation Behavior-that views litigants as both calculating and emotional creatures. With roots in economics, cognitive psychology, and social psychology, the …