Morality Appraisals in Consumer Responsibilization

Bibliographic Data

ID2237149
AuthorsMichelle Barnhart (corresponding author), Aimee Dinnín Huff (0000-0002-8261-3411), Inara Scott
EditorsLisa Leimar Price (0000-0002-1746-3066), Linda L Price, Markus Giesler, David Crockett (0000-0002-6681-7975)
Year2024
Volume50
Issue5
Pages1008-1030
Publication date2024-01-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Consumer Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0093-5301 • E-ISSN: 1537-5277
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jcr/ucad032
OpenAlexW4380318662
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited56

In recent decades, U.S. gun rights lobbying groups, politicians, courts, and market actors have sought to responsibilize U.S. consumers to use firearms to address the societal problem of crime. These efforts center an interpretation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment as an entitlement for individuals to practice armed self-defense. Using interview and online discussion data, this research investigates consumers' responses to responsibilization for this morally fraught set of behaviors, and the role of consumers' various understandings of the right to bear arms in these responses. Findings show that consumers consider multiple, specific armed protection scenarios and accept responsibilization in only a portion of these scenarios while rejecting it for the remainder. Acceptance is determined by their appraisals of the morality of consumer responsibilization subprocesses. Consumers' understanding of the constitutional right serves as a heuristic in these appraisals, with some understandings leading consumers to accept responsibilization across a much larger proportion of scenarios than others. Contributions include illustrating response to consumer responsibilization as a proportionality; illuminating consumers' active role in appraising responsibilizing efforts; and demonstrating how some consumers come to understand a responsibilized behavior as a moral entitlement

Consequentialism · Economics · Entitlement (fair division) · Law and economics · Morality · Political science · Set (abstract data type) · Sociology · Free Will and Agency · Gun Ownership and Violence Research · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses

Tools

Open DOI