Objectifiability and Calling Rights Into Play: An Empirical Study

Abstract

This paper is an investigation of the relation between the difficulty actors have in demonstrating the "objectivity" of the wrongness of a putative offense and the inhibition that actors experience in attempting to make a moral reproach; that is, according to the theory tested, an individual needs to be able to make patent to himself and others that a concrete action of another is the sort of thing that "everyone would see as wrong" as a prerequisite to reproaching another. The notion of "objectivity" is a central element in a theory in which making a moral reproach is related to moral drift-the erosion of group norms. This theory, more fully reported elsewhere, is briefly sketched out. A laboratory experiment was carried out in which the "objectivity" of an offense was varied, and the rate of subjects' intervention against the offender was counted. The results support the analysis. Further analysis of the interventions as to whether they were or were not "moral reproaches" indicated that whether asubject took such an action was related to whether she took other moral action against the wrongdoer.