The threat of sanctions is often insufficient to ensure compliance with legal norms. Recently, much attention has been given to nudges – choice-preserving measures that take advantage of people’s automatic System 1 thinking – as a means of influencing behaviour without sanctions, but nudges are often ineffective and controversial. This article explores the provision of information about the reasons underlying legal norms, as a means to enhance compliance, primarily through deliberative System 2 thinking. While the idea that legal norms should be accompanied by explanatory preambles – to complement the law’s threat of sanctions with persuasion – goes back to Plato, this technique is not commonly used nowadays, and scholars have failed to systematically consider this possibility. The article argues that reason giving can enhance compliance and reduce the need for costly enforcement mechanisms. The theoretical part of the article comprises three parts. It first describes the mechanisms through which reasons may influence people’s behaviour. It then distinguishes between reason giving as a means to enhance compliance and as a means to attain other goals and between reason giving and related means to enhance compliance. Finally, it discusses various policy and pragmatic considerations that bear on the use of reason giving. Following the theoretical discussion, the empirical part of the article uses vignette studies to demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of the reason-giving technique. The results of these new studies show that providing good reasons for legal norms enhances people’s inclination to comply with them, in comparison to not providing the reasons underlying the norms. However, whereas persuasive reasons may promote compliance, questionable reasons might reduce it. We call on scholars and policy makers to pay more attention to this readily available measure of enhancing compliance with norms.

中文翻译：

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提供理由作为加强遵守法律规范的一种手段

制裁的威胁往往不足以确保遵守法律规范。最近，轻推（利用人们的自动系统 1 思维的选择保留措施）受到了很多关注，作为一种无需制裁即可影响行为的手段，但轻推通常无效且存在争议。本文探讨了提供有关法律规范背后原因的信息，作为增强合规性的一种手段，主要是通过审议系统 2 思考。虽然法律规范应附有解释性序言——以说服力补充法律对制裁的威胁——这一想法可以追溯到柏拉图，但这种技术在当今并不常用，学者们也未能系统地考虑这种可能性。文章认为，给出理由可以增强合规性并减少对昂贵的执行机制的需求。文章的理论部分包括三个部分。它首先描述了原因可能影响人们行为的机制。然后，它区分了作为增强顺从性的手段和作为实现其他目标的手段的理由给予，以及给予理由和增强顺从性的相关手段。最后，它讨论了与使用理由给予有关的各种政策和务实考虑。在理论讨论之后，文章的实证部分使用小插曲研究来证明推理技术的可行性和有效性。这些新研究的结果表明，为法律规范提供充分的理由会增强人们遵守它们的倾向，与不提供规范背后的原因相比。然而，尽管有说服力的理由可能会促进合规性，但可疑的理由可能会降低合规性。我们呼吁学者和政策制定者更多地关注这一现成的提高规范合规性的措施。