In a great variety of cultures oaths, ordeals, or lie detectors are used to adjudicate in trials, even though they do not reliably discern liars from truth tellers. I suggest that these practices owe their cultural success to the triggering of cognitive mechanisms that make them more culturally attractive. Informal oaths would trigger mechanisms related to commitment in communication. Oaths used in judicial contexts, by invoking supernatural punishments, would trigger intuitions of immanent justice, linking misfortunes following an oath with perjury. These intuitions would justify the infliction of costs on oath takers in a way that appears morally justified. Ordeals reflect the same logic. Intuitions about immanent justice link a worse outcome following the ordeal with a guilty verdict. This link justifies the application of the ordeal, and the fixed costs involved (burning, poisoning). Lie detectors also rely on the creation of a link between a specified outcome and a guilty verdict. However, they do not rely on intuitions about immanent justice, but on a variety of intuitions ranging from the plausibly universal to the culturally idiosyncratic. As a result, lie detectors involve lower fixed costs than ordeals, and are less cross-culturally successful than oaths or ordeals.

在多种文化中，誓言，折磨或测谎仪都被用来审判审判，即使他们不能可靠地辨别撒谎者与真相讲述者。我认为，这些实践的文化成功归因于认知机制的触发，这些机制使它们在文化上更具吸引力。非正式宣誓会触发与沟通承诺相关的机制。在司法环境中使用的誓言，通过施加超自然的惩罚，将触发内在正义的直觉，将誓言后的不幸与伪证联系起来。这些直觉将以看来在道义上合理的方式证明对宣誓者施加成本是合理的。折磨反映了相同的逻辑。关于内在正义的直觉将痛苦之后的更坏结局与有罪判决相联系。此链接证明了折磨的合理性，以及涉及的固定成本（燃烧，中毒）。测谎者还依赖于在特定结果和有罪判决之间建立联系。但是，他们并不依赖于关于内在正义的直觉，而是依赖于从似是而非的普遍性到文化特质的各种直觉。结果，测谎仪的费用比折磨法的固定成本低，并且在跨文化方面的成功率不如宣誓或折磨法。