关键词: 意图, 物权, 道德判断

Abstract: Previous studies found that laypeople's moral judgment and legal judgment 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 occur in the property right judgments. This study explored this issue through two property cases, i.e., compensating loss for property damage and sharing benefits for property appreciation. Totally, 156 Chinese college students were recruited as subjects. We designed different version of painting stories as experimental materials. In the case of compensating loss for property damage (Experiment 1), an artist is painting a picture in the final stage and does not know how to draw next. A man walks by with the paint, with different intention, sprinkling it on the artist’s canvas, which leads to the failure of the painting. In the bad intention condition, the man does not want the painter to finish the painting. In the good intention condition, the man wants to help the painter finish the painting. In the neutral intention condition, the man carelessly sprinkles 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, but no significant differences were found in the good intention condition and in the neutral intention condition. In the case of sharing benefits for property appreciation (Experiment 2), the story was reedited such that the man sprinkles 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 no significant differences were found in the bad intention condition and in the neutral 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 intention plays an inconsistent role in property right judgments and in moral judgments. 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.

Key words: intention, property rights, moral judgments