A still more radical critique of the current system
could draw on our findings about the moral intuitions that are embodied in the outrage
model. Our results suggest that these intuitions have a backward-looking, retributive
focus; that they appear to neglect issues of deterrence; that they treat corporations as
persons; and that they require punitive damages to be sensitive to the financial status of
the defendant. From the normative standpoint, some people have questioned each of these
aspects of the outrage model. Many observers believe that the social function of punitive
damages should be deterrence, not retribution (Landes and Posner, 1993; Polinsky and
Shavell, 1997). The view of the corporation as a person is problematic, and perhaps less
than perfectly robust: would potential jurors be swayed by the information that the people
who ultimately pay the punitive damages are stockholders, employees, and customers,
most of them individually powerless to change the behavior of the corporation? Questions
have also been raised about the justification for the common intuition that punitive damages
should be adjusted to the size of the defendant