#231 Carlton Patrick: From Disgust To Legal Systems
Dr. Carlton Patrick is Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the College of Community, Innovation and Education at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Patrick studies the psychology of legal decision-making, often from an evolutionary perspective. His research combines doctrinal legal analysis with the methodologies and perspectives of the behavioral sciences to examine the roots of human behavior in legally-relevant contexts. He is the coauthor, together with Debra Lieberman, of the book Objection: Disgust, Morality, and the Law.
This is the second episode where I talk about the book Objection: Disgust Morality, and the Law. The first one was with the other coauthor, Dr. Debra Lieberman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7KCXBPvRlg).
In this episode, we talk about the legal aspects of the book. First, Dr. Patrick tells us about his take of the evolved domains of disgust – pathogen, sexual, and moral. We then talk about how we formulate laws based on disgust, or how we go from “gross” to “wrong”. We also discuss the important distinction between laws and social norms. We get into the very contentious discussion about if legal systems are moral. Dr. Patrick gives a few examples of legal areas that are influenced by disgust, like obscenity and sexual relationships. We finally explore if disgust should be used as a criterion to create laws, and also if jurors and judges should be exposed to evidential material that triggers disgust.
Time Links:
The domains of disgust
Going from “gross” to “wrong”
The difference between laws, taboos and social norms
Are legal systems moral?
Obscenity, sexual relationships, and other areas where laws are influenced by disgust
Should we use disgust as a criteria to write laws?
What about other emotions?
The is-ought dichotomy
Should jurors and judges be exposed to disgusting evidential material?
Follow Dr. Patrick’s work!
Follow Dr. Patrick’s work:
Faculty page: http://bit.ly/32XZ9FK
SSRN profile: http://bit.ly/2YtrekJ
Objection: Disgust, Morality, and the Law: https://amzn.to/2GDMKgN
Interview w/ Dr. Debra Lieberman, “Disgust, Morality, and the Law”: http://bit.ly/2KftkzE