Abstract In this paper, we examine moral judgments about different entities including individuals, corporations, nonprofits, and governments following a transgression. Although there is some research examining inferences about groups, there is little work addressing attributions about institutional entities such as governments. Across six studies we found that moral character judgments are greater for governmental entities compared to other entities. This effect was driven by moral licensing and the values one shares with the government. The finding was not caused by intuitions about paternalism, the relative age of governments compared to other entities, and was also not explained by nationalism or system justification. Discussion centers on implications of the data for moral licensing theory and moral attribution.

中文翻译：

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与其他实体相比，政府获得了道德许可以进行违法行为

摘要 在本文中，我们研究了对不同实体（包括个人、公司、非营利组织和政府）在违规后的道德判断。尽管有一些研究检验了关于群体的推论，但很少有研究涉及政府等机构实体的归因问题。在六项研究中，我们发现与其他实体相比，政府实体的道德品质判断更大。这种影响是由道德许可和与政府共享的价值观驱动的。这一发现不是由对家长作风、政府与其他实体相比的相对年龄的直觉造成的，也不是由民族主义或制度理由来解释的。讨论集中在数据对道德许可理论和道德归因的影响上。