Limits on Legitimacy: Moral and Religious Convictions as Constraints onDeference to Authority

摘要

Various versions of legitimacy theory predict that a duty and obligation to obey legitimate authoritiesgenerally trumps people's personal moral and religious values. However, most research has assumedrather than measured the degree to which people have a moral or religious stake in the situations studied.This study tested compliance with and reactions to legitimate authorities in the context of a naturalexperiment that tracked public opinion before and after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case thatchallenged states' rights to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Results indicated that citizens' degree ofmoral conviction about the issue of physician-assisted suicide predicted post-ruling perceptions ofoutcome fairness, decision acceptance, and changes in perceptions of the Court's legitimacy from pre- topost-ruling. Other results revealed that the effects of religious conviction independently predictedoutcome fairness and decision acceptance but not perceptions of post-ruling legitimacy.